Longtime local nonprofit leader Phil Hough aims to share his expertise

Hough Consulting & Coaching offers decades of experience to help organizations succeed

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Even if people in the community don’t know Phil Hough personally, it’s more than likely they’re familiar with his work — specifically through Friends of the Scotchman Peaks Wilderness, the nonprofit he served as founding board member and executive director for 21 years.

In that time, Hough took the conservation-focused organization from an all-volunteer project to one that today has three endowment funds, a blend of full- and part-time stuff, and boasts a high profile throughout the region — and nationally — with initiatives and programs that extend far beyond its central mission of securing federal wilderness designation for the Scotchman Peaks area on the Idaho-Montana border.

Hough retired from FSPW and handed over the reins in late 2025, but that doesn’t mean his involvement with nonprofits has ended. Rather, he’s now offering his long experience with building and sustaining successful organizations through Hough Consulting & Coaching, which provides executive coaching and a suite of other services to nonprofits throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

“The work I see myself doing is focused on building strong nonprofit leaders, strong organizations, so that our community can thrive,” Hough told the Reader. “There is a need and value for this across all sectors of the nonprofit world. If there is a more specific niche I see myself filling, it’s with the new or smaller nonprofits who are looking to grow and/or find a pathway to sustainability, to transition beyond a small founding group into an organization with the solid structure to be sustainable.” 

Though he envisions mostly local and regional clients, Hough is open to working remotely or traveling to those farther afield, especially for shorter-term projects like strategic planning.

“I’ve been involved with helping to found and grow a number of nonprofits: the American Long Distance Hiking Association West, Idaho Trails Association, the Kinnikinnick Native Plant Society and the Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness,” he said. “Along the way, my firsthand experiences, personal growth, skills and lessons learned can be applied to nonprofit work across all sectors.”

Those experiences have run the gamut — from hard economic times to the global COVID-19 pandemic to navigating shifting political climates. All three affected his work with FSPW, whose “future was not always ensured.” 

“Our economy tanked in 2008 and 2009, creating instability in the nonprofit world. In the Pacific Northwest, foundations lost on average 20% of their market value. Cuts were made to nonprofits. The COVID pandemic brought systemic changes to the workplace — and the world — for both for-profit and nonprofit businesses. The increasing political polarization of the last 26 years has presented extreme challenges to all advocacy groups,” he said.

Just in the past 20 months, political upheaval at the federal level has resulted in “an austere landscape for the nonprofit world,” Hough said, citing a diminished and shifting federal workforce creating uncertainties about support for nonprofit partners and the loss of funding across the nonprofit sector from government grants — compounded by the ripple effects on foundations shifting support.

On top of all that, continued inflation and changing tax laws have constrained individual giving. 

“Keeping a nonprofit moving forward is harder than ever,” Hough said. “Finding ways to not only overcome these obstacles but thrive amid the chaos is something I’m proud of.”

Beyond his nonprofit career, Hough also spent two decades in leadership positions at four- and five-star hotels, during which time he planned and delivered thousands of events for Fortune 100 companies, national associations and executive leadership retreats. 

Taken together, those years spent in both the private and nonprofit sectors give Hough the insights and ability to offer practical services focused on strategic planning, executive coaching,  leadership development, board development and governance, organizational development and interim executive director services.

“Nonprofit leaders are being asked to do more than ever before. My goal is to equip leaders and organizations with the strategies, tools and confidence they need to thrive and create lasting community impact,” Hough said. 

“At the end of the day, this work isn’t about strategic plans or organizational charts. It’s about helping the people who make communities stronger,” he added. “When nonprofit leaders succeed, entire communities benefit.”

For more information, email [email protected] or go to philiphough.com.