Written by Rachel Stewart, Content Director and Co-Founder

Nichole Yamchuk is not your typical fundraiser. She stumbled into the sector through court-ordered community service and has become one of its fiercest advocates and sharpest critics. I sat down with Nichole to talk about Ukrainian resilience, the courage it takes to plant seeds, and how to build mission-driven businesses. Her philosophy? Don’t just think outside the box, wreck it entirely.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

You’re a proud Ukrainian Canadian from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. How has your background or community shaped you today?

It’s interesting, our Ukrainian culture was not really emphasized growing up, even though my dad is very Ukrainian and my mom was adopted by a Ukrainian newcomer family. I remember calling my grandma on my dad’s side “Baba” and learning about our connections to Ukrainian Canadian history. 

My family immigrated before the official first wave of Ukrainian newcomers. In 1887, my dad’s family settled in Saskatchewan about 45 minutes north of Saskatoon on their homestead. When they eventually moved off that land, my family built a small Ukrainian chapel there. We’re recognized by the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy in Saskatchewan for this, and over a hundred years later, we still take care of it. We do the maintenance, cut the grass, and care for it. This is our heritage. Being a part of this legacy is just amazing.

In 2014, two events occurred that shaped who I am today. My ex-sister-in-law, Courtney Breanna Johnstone, an Indigenous woman, went missing and was murdered. That inspired me to get involved with the missing and murdered Indigenous women’s movement. She went missing at the end of January, and in early February I found out that February 14th was Canada’s National Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s March Day. I knew I needed to be involved because her body hadn’t been found yet. On February 10th, I realised that nobody was organizing a march in Saskatoon, so I decided I was going to do it, with only 3 days to plan and prepare. After our gathering and prayers, her body was found the following day. I carry her with me in this work, always. I continued for three years. It was a turning point. All my work since then has focused on understanding that we’re different but we’re all human. I made it a celebration of Indigenous cultures, in my last year coordinating, we included a cultural Round Dance. Understanding and celebrating what makes us different through culture and heritage has been my focus since.

In early 2022, after the war on Ukraine began, we had gone back home to Saskatoon visiting friends and family and we stopped at my son’s best friend’s house. His mom is a great friend of mine, and she and her husband had come over from Ukraine about a decade prior. We were having tea, talking about the war. He asked why I, a Canadian who had never been to Ukraine, cared so much. I said, “You can take the Ukrainian girl out of the fight, but you can’t take the fight out of the Ukrainian girl.” Every Ukrainian who reads this is going to understand that. If you look at Ukraine right now, it’s much smaller than Russia, right? But the tenacity, the integrity, the resilience, the fight that Ukrainians have – where giving up is not an option – is something that is deeply embedded in Ukrainian culture. That’s the only way I can explain why I care so much. Culture plays a big part in who I am.

You’ve been working in fundraising since 2007, supporting causes in over 75 countries. What first drew you to this work? 

It’s a funny story, and not one that people expect. I got a speeding ticket, and in Saskatchewan, you can enroll in the Fine Option Program (a program allowing community service in lieu of fines). I was a young single mom and opted for community service. I was assigned to support a non-profit supporting people with kidney disease. I was drawn by not only the community and rapport of the organization, but how much bigger it was than me. Even though I didn’t have kidney issues or know anybody experiencing it, I saw the impact that not only the nonprofit sector was having but how important fundraising was. After my hours were completed, I was hired to work for the rest of the season. And I returned for two more!

I remember, it was my third year there and I was chatting with the team. One of them was leaving early to donate blood. I said, “Oh my gosh, I could never do that – I hate needles.” At the time, that was really the case! I’d want to pass out just thinking about going to the doctor. He just looked me dead in the eye and said, “What if it was for your son?” I was awestruck. I realized donating blood was so much bigger than me and whatever barriers I was facing. I’ve been a regular donor ever since. 

I also remember hearing so many stories of impact, of stories that illuminated what life is really like around the world. There was this one community in Kenya that didn’t have a well. A pregnant woman walked two hours to a river the day that she gave birth. She carried a big jug on her head, came home, delivered her baby, and two days later, she was back walking for water. It was clear that they needed a well, and it became my next advocacy project. My career in non-profits snowballed from there. 

How did you hear about these stories? And from so many countries! 

It was through the organizations that I was working for. I listened to stories of impact. As I learned why each program existed, my worldview shifted. Once I stopped thinking of people and countries as separate pillars and truly understood that we all bleed the same colour, it no longer felt strange to care deeply about people I had never met. Within five years, I had supported programs and projects in more than 60 countries — not because I had travelled to them all, but because I listened, researched, and learned from the stories shared by partners on the ground.

These weren’t isolated stories. Over the years, the relationships I built reshaped how I understood impact entirely. One of the most formative relationships was with a colleague who had been born in Uganda and grew up in a refugee camp in South Sudan. As a child, his family walked for weeks to safety. He told me about food rations that never lasted, about searching camp garbage for peanuts, and about burning old bicycle tires for light when there was no electricity. Years later, he was sponsored through a program similar to the one we were representing, studied abroad, and eventually came to Canada.

Learning from people like him reshaped my understanding of impact. It taught me that fundraising isn’t just about raising dollars, it’s advocacy in action. It’s about listening deeply, honouring lived experience, and using resources to amplify voices that are too often unheard.

On your website, you describe fundraising as “an act of advocacy”, a way to amplify unheard voices. Can you share an example of how this philosophy has shaped your work?

When I say fundraising is an act of advocacy, I mean that literally.  “Fundraising outside the box” is about more than raising money, it’s about challenging systems that silence people, exhaust them, or force them to operate in ways that don’t reflect who they actually are.

When people look at me, they see someone who appears able-bodied. I’m hearing impaired. I have a hearing aid, I also live with tinnitus, and am neurodivergent. Growing up in the 90’s, these conditions weren’t well understood or talked about, but my report card always said, “has trouble focusing”, “talks too much”, and “distracts the kids around her.” I was that kid. Because the school “system” failed me, I actually couldn’t read comprehensively until I decided to go to college, where I taught myself to read. It’s ironic how I now read and write for a living! 

When I entered the nonprofit sector, I assumed as an adult I would finally be able to ask for what I needed. Instead, I encountered many of the same barriers. Over time, I realized first-hand just how much challenging the system needed. In two separate workspaces in disability-focused nonprofits, I have been denied accessibility accommodations and dismissed with statements like, “oh, you’ll be fine” or “we can’t change the agenda just for you – it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.” I soon moved workplaces after each of those incidents and eventually started Advocate Fundraising. 

Those experiences fundamentally shaped how I practice fundraising. I see firsthand how the nonprofit sector relies on outdated models that normalize burnout, unpaid labour, and the expectation that if you truly care, you’ll sacrifice yourself. This disproportionately affects women, minorities, and people with disabilities. In this context, advocacy, to me, means refusing to replicate harm inside systems that exist to do good.

At Advocate Fundraising, this philosophy shows up through storytelling. Every avenue of fundraising, whether it’s grant writing, donor engagement, peer-to-peer campaigns, or leadership training, is rooted in story. Storytelling is how impact is made visible, how trust is built, and how people are inspired to give, lead, or act differently. I help organizations articulate their story in a way that honours lived experience, challenges assumptions, and connects values to action.

Organizations often come to me thinking they need help writing grants or raising funds. What they discover along the way is that they also need space to question systems, rethink leadership practices, advance equity, and redesign structures that aren’t serving their people or their mission. They don’t hire me to check a box, they hire me to wreck the box and help build something more intentional, ethical, and meaningful, even if they don’t realize that’s what they’re ready for at first. 

Ethics and transparency are core values at Advocate Fundraising. In a space where there can be intense pressure to meet deadlines and targets, how do you help organizations stay true to their values while still achieving their goals?

I see everything through an ethical lens. When I look at an organization, I always start with the people. People shape program delivery, which impacts program outcomes, which impacts the final report. From my nearly two decades in the sector, I truly understand how different every organization is, so I meet them where they’re at. My role is to help create systems and strategies to meet their specific organization.

This approach requires collaboration, but it also requires boundaries. I am responsible for my integrity, and I take that responsibility seriously. If something about an organization doesn’t feel right, I won’t continue working with them. And that’s okay! People are allowed to change their minds, especially when new information comes to the table. Ethical fundraising depends on that flexibility.

Where organizations often get stuck is fear — fear that they’ll look inconsistent or untrustworthy when they change their thinking, and this fear can become toxic. Ultimately, it’s about being OK with change and being open to new ideas. When I work with an organization, often the mission and vision stay the same, but the strategy to achieve it shifts and it should. I do every type of fundraising, from grant writing and donor campaigns and peer-to-peer, third party, events, and everything in between. But this work also needs support like leadership training and strategic planning, because organizations can get too comfortable. I like to describe it like this. I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. When you feed a cow, they walk the same path to where they’re being fed. No matter where they are standing in relation to the foot, a cow will take the same path it always takes to get to the food. After weeks of cows walking the same path, the path becomes a rut. The deeper the rut becomes, the harder it is for the cow to get out of it. The only way to get the cow to stop taking the rut, is to move the food. My role is to help move the food, to shift the structures, timelines, or assumptions so organizations can move forward ethically, effectively, and with intention.

How do you respond when an organization is curious about what’s outside the box but they’re not feeling ready to go beyond it?  

My tried-and-true approach? Plant seeds. That’s it. 

A few years back, I was working at a fundraising table trying to get children sponsored in developing communities, and a bystander came up to me saying some truly awful things about the population the organization was supporting and that we should be helping people in our own backyard. He went off for a solid two minutes of just the most generic, toxic vitriol. I said, “You’re right, we should be, and we are! But we’re also helping as many people as we can that are in need… Sir, I listened to you for two minutes. If you have an extra two minutes, I’d like to tell you about what we’re actually doing.” I told stories about our impact – of how I wanted children to go to school and I didn’t want a mother to walk two hours to get dirty water for her family, how these donations can build economies. I watched his face shift from anger to sorrow. After my two minutes, he thanked me for my time and shook my hand. He didn’t donate, but I know I planted a seed. Who knows what that’s grown into today?

Sometimes, our work is not about the donation or the sale or win. Sometimes it is about that seed, and that is enough! Because what happens to seeds in real life? Seeds are not buried, they’re planted — and grow into amazing things!

That took courage. I can easily create a mental picture of that man. I can also easily imagine how important of a gesture that handshake was for him. 

You never know what people are going through. I’ve learned not to take it personal, because it’s not about me. No matter the scenario, I want to work through it with curiosity and care. I’m not scared to call out the elephant in the room that might be shaping people’s perceptions and experiences, that is often where real understanding begins.  

From your website, it’s clear that you bring so much of yourself to your work. What advice would you give others, particularly women, when building mission-driven businesses?

It’s like a puzzle, and over time, the pieces come together. The business plan I started Advocate Fundraising with is nothing like what it is today. I believe it’s important to be true to yourself. Growth requires iteration. My advice is to allow your work to evolve as you do, rather than forcing yourself to fit a version of success that no longer feels true.

Being authentic matters. For me, that means acknowledging that I’m a Christian woman, and I don’t make big life decisions without prayer. I’ve moved provinces without a place to live or a job lined up because I believed it was the right step. While that kind of leap isn’t for everyone, what matters is listening closely to your inner compass, whatever form that takes. Discernment, reflection, and trust are just as important as strategy.

I believe we must celebrate the intersections within us, whether it’s our culture, our family, our faith, abilities, or lived experiences… Those intersections aren’t distractions from leadership; they’re sources of strength. Harness them! I believe women are insanely powerful – you just need to discover who you are in your core and build from there. 

You’re writing an article for ROSE’s inaugural issue in May! Without giving too much away, what themes or ideas are you exploring?

I want to explore the intersection of women’s leadership, burnout, and funding — and how self-advocacy is often the missing link. This piece is about helping women see themselves as worthy of investment and resourcing their ideas with intention and ethics.

After our conversation, I kept thinking about Nichole’s conviction that we need to wreck the box entirely, not just think outside it. Whether she’s organizing marches for missing and murdered Indigenous women, maintaining her family’s century-old chapel, or helping nonprofits challenge outdated systems, she’s proving that real change comes from refusing to walk the same rut. She refuses to compartmentalize herself, instead weaving her identity into a practice that honors culture, challenges ableism, and demands better systems for everyone. 

Readers curious about ethical fundraising, advocacy-driven leadership, or systems change can learn more about Nichole’s work at advocatefundraising.ca