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Nonprofit Radio for December 5, 2022: 6 Steps Before You Hire

 

Andrea Hoffer6 Steps Before You Hire

Hiring is rampant because turnover is rampant. You have work to do internally, before you go public with your job posting. Andrea Hoffer, from AHA! Recruiting Experts, talks you through her 6 steps. You can download the first chapter of Andrea’s book, “Hire Higher.” We recorded on a bus in the Israeli desert.

 

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[00:01:10.11] spk_0:
And welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me, I’d suffer the effects of para fia if you touched me with the idea that you missed this week’s show six steps before you hire, hiring is rampant because turnover is rampant, you have work to do internally before you go public with your job posting. Andrea Hoffer from ah ha recruiting experts talks you through her six steps On Tony’s take two lots of opportunities for growth. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Here is six steps before you hire.

[00:01:57.34] spk_1:
It’s a pleasure to welcome to non profit radio Andrea Hoffer, Andrea is a businesswoman over three decades of experience. She’s managed hundreds of employees and knows firsthand the everyday challenges, motivating a team, exceeding customer expectations and meeting business and revenue goals now Andrea is using her experience to help companies recruit hire and onboard new team members successfully without wasting time or money on those poor hires that don’t work out. Her company is a hot recruiting a AJ they are at aha underscore recruiting and at aha recruiting experts dot com Andrea welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:02:09.12] spk_2:
hi, Tony, I’m really happy to be here. This is, this is pretty cool,

[00:03:41.33] spk_1:
You’re happy in your surprise surprise Andrea and I are on a bus in Israel, we are headed to the dead sea, we met at this course called Israel innovation that she and I are both taking along, with I don’t know seems to be maybe 60 or 70 other people most are not from the US most are from latin America brazil chile Argentina. Uh, but there are also folks from central America Panama, Colombia costa rica. Uh, there’s a woman from Ireland should make sure that we know Ireland is in the house every time we have a meeting. So we’re spending a week together traveling through Israel. Uh, we’ve been in tel Aviv together. Um, today we left tell Aviv came to the negative desert, the desert we visited kibbutz and now we’re on a bus from the kibbutz to the Dead sea where we’re gonna stay overnight in hotels and we are stealing some time on the bus so that Andrea and I can record and I can record because we’re not sure if we’re gonna have time any other time. There might be occasional interruptions, bus noises. And we’re on the bus. Welcome! Welcome. We are talking about the process of discovery, which is the earliest phase, right? This is the earliest phase of

[00:03:50.55] spk_2:
Yes, but what you do before you even put a job ad out there, things you need to think about. So that when you do start recruiting, you’re looking for the for the right person.

[00:04:04.69] spk_1:
Okay, so we’re in introspective exercise in house were strictly in house Discovery and you call this phase Discovery?

[00:04:10.96] spk_2:
Yes.

[00:04:11.69] spk_1:
Why is that?

[00:04:27.93] spk_2:
Because a lot of it you actually know, but you haven’t thought about it, You haven’t asked yourself those questions that you’re discovering this about yourself, about your organization, about the people that work for you and what you want your work culture to look like, what you want your team to look like.

[00:04:34.23] spk_1:
Okay, okay, now one thing I didn’t say in your bio, you are founder and what you what do you call yourself at, recruiting founder and Ceo

[00:04:44.99] spk_2:
founder and Ceo

[00:04:46.08] spk_1:
founder and Ceo

[00:04:47.36] spk_2:
recruiting experts,

[00:04:53.26] spk_1:
recruiting experts. Okay, excellent. Alright, so you have a discovery process, You have a process for this discovery?

[00:04:57.61] spk_2:
Yes. So we have six questions. Um six overall questions that we typically take our clients through and um and then there are lots of questions underneath it to go to go deeper, but I can

[00:05:11.15] spk_1:
to talk to

[00:05:11.99] spk_2:
You about the six,

[00:05:13.17] spk_1:
the six most important and maybe some of my questions will evoke some of your sub questions etcetera. So, okay, so

[00:06:34.06] spk_2:
the first question is really, you know, why does this position exist? What is the main purpose of it? Every position has some reason it exists and it typically in some way will contribute to the bottom line and will contribute to the mission of the company. So it either in some way is gonna save your company money or in some way is going to make the company more money, but it’s usually even bigger than that. And I and I have an example I can share to you. Um, so one example I like to share is an account manager and the job we like to break it into job title, job purpose and then organizational mission. And so the job title of account manager could be the job purpose to ensure client’s expectations are exceeded. Very, you know, it’s very simple. There’s no very high level, no getting this wrong. You know, we tell people don’t worry about getting it right. You’re gonna start, you’re going to tweak it over over time, but just put some thought into it. So you have direction. Um, so the whole purpose of this account manager’s job is to make sure the client’s expectations are exceeded. And then as we go through some of these other questions of these six questions will go a little bit deeper of what that looks like.

[00:06:51.07] spk_1:
Let’s let’s reassure folks that this certainly applies to non profits because your work is, your work is mostly you’ve done some work with nonprofits and you have a background in nonprofits.

[00:07:07.38] spk_2:
Yes. I started working in higher ed. And so in an arts organization that was all non profit. And then when I started the company, I did a lot of consulting with nonprofits in addition to small business,

[00:07:21.93] spk_1:
everything we’re talking about transfers

[00:07:23.44] spk_2:
of course,

[00:07:25.56] spk_1:
Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. And I’m sure you all know

[00:07:32.11] spk_2:
that in many ways, a lot of these questions of why a position exists or what the mission is of an organization. In some ways, it’s even easier for the nonprofits to answer because they talk about their mission so much more than business students often. So it there’s a good connection there

[00:08:07.52] spk_1:
and before we go further with, because we’re still at the very high level, why does the position exist? Who should be well, yeah, who should be answering these questions? What’s the structure do we send around a survey to all the employees? Is it only the employees who are going to work with the person whose whose position were filling is leadership involved? Who’s answering this? What are the logistics of getting?

[00:08:36.48] spk_2:
A lot of it depends on how large the organization is. We have done this process with just the Ceo or just the leader of if it’s a non profit organization, but typically would recommend getting at least the leadership involved. But if you’re thinking, if you can get more people involved in answering these questions and discussing these questions and get as many people as possible, the better outcomes better you’re going to answer these questions,

[00:08:49.58] spk_1:
you like the idea of maybe circulating the questions in advance and then meeting everybody writing their answers that

[00:09:55.98] spk_2:
we actually have. Sometimes what we do if the organization agrees and they can get more people involved is we do a sort of sort of what you just said, like a questionnaire like a survey of different than have each person fill it out separately without talking to each other. Even if it’s a small organization, we’re just sitting at the four or five people and then we get them all together and we talk about, well, okay, here are the patterns we saw here, here’s what everybody’s saying and usually about 70 to 80% is going to be similar but then hear the differences and why do you, why do you think this person answered this and this and that person into that? And we talk about the gaps and then a lot of times we’re able to bring it together and and really come to a, I don’t want to say a compromise, but something that is behind a consensus.

[00:10:00.90] spk_1:
Um, Alright, so we’re at the level, why does this position even exist?

[00:10:22.73] spk_2:
So the next one is, it’s about the outcomes you’re looking for and this drills it down. Um, often two metrics, you know, how do you qualify this and the, and you know, I know you’re doing a planned giving and if you talk about a fundraising, which is kind of an offshoot bringing money in there could be the amount of money, the level of money that this position is responsible for bringing in. It could be how much money you want to bring in for different events or for different milestones or deadlines.

[00:10:45.58] spk_1:
What if it’s a program

[00:10:47.02] spk_2:
position

[00:10:48.14] spk_1:
and they’re gonna be doing service

[00:10:50.00] spk_2:
to

[00:10:51.61] spk_1:
beneficiary humans in some in some capacity and then would it be like your monthly throughput or a number of client hours you spend? It

[00:11:02.97] spk_2:
could be, it could be retention, It could be

[00:11:07.06] spk_1:
keeping people in

[00:11:13.36] spk_2:
keeping volunteers or keeping how many people attend and and come back each time. You know, anything that shows growth that shows that it’s a contribution to the, to the mission overall.

[00:11:22.54] spk_1:
Okay, Alright. Again, that’s why mission can be so

[00:11:25.01] spk_2:
valuable. Exactly.

[00:11:34.97] spk_1:
Because your, as you said, you know, we’re talking about mission often it’s the core, it’s the reason we exist. It’s protecting the homeless, It’s protecting animals. It’s feeding the hungry education

[00:12:01.45] spk_2:
and this is what’s going to attract people. All of this is what is going to attract people to join your team to join your organization and money of course is important to most people they have to be able to live. But and to many people this mission knowing how they contribute to the mission of the organization, whether it’s a business or a non profit is just as important, sometimes more important than than the money factor. And so if you can get this part right and and show that connection, you’re gonna attract more skilled people and more pass.

[00:12:24.15] spk_1:
And I see why you say we’re jumping ahead because now we’re kind of bleeding into promoting the promoting position and organization to the, to the and the mission to the right people, but we’re still in the discovery phase, but, but it all into relates of course. Um And so these are, these are valuable introspection questions. Okay. Anything else that you want to say about that? That second one before we?

[00:12:47.77] spk_2:
No, I think I think

[00:12:49.03] spk_1:
you’ve

[00:15:53.09] spk_2:
pretty much got the gist of it there. Um and then the next one is I like to refer to it as success traits. But what are the characteristics? And this is yeah, this is specific to the position because we’re going to talk about the organizational culture in a moment. But you know, what are the specific characteristics, specific traits that you have seen of successful people in this position or similar position in the past? And this takes some thought and and we usually, the way we pull it out of people is by stories. I’m a big fan of thinking back and writing down stories stories of um when you had team members that were successful and lots of different successes. Big successes. But I’m always encouraging people to to track those things to write them down. And then also stories of when people weren’t successful and you start to see patterns of the different traits of of what would make somebody successful in this particular position. Um and I’ll give you an example. We um, you know, we often will recruit for executive assistants and we had a couple of years ago we had a ceo and just can apply non profit for profit. But this this happened to be a for profit company. Um, and she needed an executive assistant and she had already gone through several, nobody was successful with. Um, and one of the things, one of the reasons why she was having trouble finding the right person was her company, um, was very fast pace. It, everybody in the company traveled a lot and the Ceo was absolutely brilliant. She needed somebody who could organize her and be like a million steps ahead of her. And, and used to that chaos and be able to thrive in that chaos. So we knew we were recruiting that those were some of the traits we were looking for. So we had lots of amazing executive assistant candidates who had great skills. But as soon as we talked to them and learned, you know, that they’ve been an executive system, say in a large organization for yes, a very busy, you know, senior executive, but it was still structured, they were still useful. A lot of structure. We knew they weren’t going to be a good fit. So we knew what types of success traits to, to look for and, and then, you know, we take that and we drill it down to a couple of sentences so that it really jumps out at the right person when we’re going to look for someone. And so that it’s very clear to us for more interview, was

[00:15:53.54] spk_1:
there any chance that you should have been recruiting for a new Ceo, in that, in that company?

[00:16:18.50] spk_2:
Actually there are lots of businesses and even non profit organizations that do function in that way. There’s still some structure, there’s still productivity. But because of the nature of what they do there is this daily chaos. You just have to find the right way to say. And and it was also where they were in their history as a, as a company to with the growth.

[00:18:29.44] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications their e newsletter this week. What a year in review can do for you. And they talk about the value of a year in review article or blog post that you write. They say that it usually only requires a light lift because you just need to spend time summarizing stuff that you’ve been writing all year long and of course you’re gonna file focus on milestones, you know, main achievements, accomplishments. But they also suggest including challenges, especially if you overcame them successfully. Because that adds some authenticity. Right? And they suggest that a year in review can help you, of course, you know, showcase your results. You just talked about, you know, accomplishments, achievements, you can acknowledge your key audiences, supporters, loyal customers, donors, your, your beneficiaries, any any parts of your year in review that you can work these folks in all the better boost morale. Uh, it’s often easy to forget all the things that you did achieve over the year at the end of the, at the end of the year because it’s so busy. So this can help refresh recollections about the good things that that happened through the year. Um, so those are some ideas that they have around your year in review piece. You can get their e newsletter, which is on message at turn hyphen two dot c o turn to communications. Your story is their mission Now back to six steps before you hire. We

[00:18:29.70] spk_1:
Have Questions 4, 5 and six.

[00:18:31.19] spk_2:
Yes. I’m trying to make sure. I don’t forget any

[00:18:33.98] spk_1:
here. You

[00:20:15.83] spk_2:
know, I think this is good and let me just go back to my thing here. So the, so we talked about success trades which are specific to the position, but then you have your core values that are specific to the overall organ. So everyone in the organization, no matter what position they have lived by. These core values and I call them, um, kind of your default zone, your guiding principles. And if you’re done right, if they’re really alive in your organization, then you know that no matter what decisions being made by anybody in the organization that there they’ll be making a decision the way you around those values, the way they act. And so for example, one of our core values at aha is think like a detective. So we’re often kind of putting our detective hat on and often the core values do start to come from what’s important to the ceo to the person who’s running the company or restart the company but you want to make sure that they’re also important to everybody in the organization that they like. It they they’re successful by it there it’s natural for them. So when when we’re recruiting for our company we’re looking for people who are curious Think outside the box who put their detective hat on and don’t just accept, you know you have to do things 123 but there’s gotta be another way to do it better. Um And so it comes up in our meetings a lot. You know when somebody says they have a challenge, did you put your detective hat on? How you know how else can we? So that’s one of our core values

[00:20:28.18] spk_1:
since we’re in the middle here were three out of six I want to mention. Andrew you don’t have in your Andrea you don’t have in your bio that you’re the author of. Higher.

[00:20:38.84] spk_2:
Higher.

[00:21:01.30] spk_1:
Unless I I don’t I don’t I didn’t deliberately cut it out of your cut it out of your bio. No look there’s I’m showing her the bio bio on her phone which does not mention that she is the author of the book. It says about the author it’s a piece of a larger pr alright still. Okay well she’s she’s the author of the book. Higher. Higher. H. I. R. E. H. I. G. H. T. R. Which you can get on amazon. Higher.

[00:21:10.17] spk_2:
Higher and and in the book it’s a very practical guide and it does walk through these six questions and a lot more but it goes into more detail about it and

[00:21:29.55] spk_1:
we can’t do everything the surface, we can’t dive deep. Just you know, if this intrigues you, you got to get the book, that’s the only way to get the full depth. Alright. Number four question four discovery process.

[00:22:21.29] spk_2:
So this is what everybody already thinks they know right when when you’re thinking about, I got to fill a job. I always say employers say okay they have to have this many years of experience in this particular industry and they’ve had to have You know, no this specific software and have this education and all of these skills and when I go online and I look at job as it’s usually pages and pages of the experience and skills that they want as can be a really big mistake. So what I recommend in this area is just narrow it down to the 4-6 skills or experience that you absolutely need for the job and think about

[00:22:27.56] spk_1:
Like 13 Bullets one

[00:22:33.38] spk_2:
job. I just

[00:22:36.65] spk_1:
I get bored.

[00:22:40.48] spk_2:
Most candidates look at it. I

[00:22:44.63] spk_1:
can’t possibly sometimes I wonder if there’s anybody who could really creating such an ideal that I think there may be scaring candidates away. They’re intimidated by the prospect of the requirements of the

[00:23:10.31] spk_2:
job. And the interesting thing is there have been studies done between men and women and men typically, Even if they can only do three out of the 15 bullets on the list will apply, but women, if they can do 14 out of 15 on average will not apply. So you end up

[00:23:22.81] spk_1:
cutting out, you

[00:24:05.01] spk_2:
know, a big part of the population. Um, so you know, we typically recommend between four and six of the most important, think about what you’re set up to train for. So you know, if you can bring someone on who has the right attitude, you know, they’re trainable, make sure you can train them or you have something, some resources to train them. Um, and then that opens the field for you and, and people love training and professional development. That’s one of the big things. Again, it’s are always asking about what, how am I gonna get growth from this? How is this going to take me to the next level? So that’s an amazing thing to offer somebody

[00:24:08.81] spk_1:
training. Professional development is important even more. So maybe now in the post pandemic economy, they want candidates want to know that the company, the organization is going to invest in their growth,

[00:24:24.07] spk_2:
that they’re going to invest in the growth, that there’s opportunity to move up. But even if there is an opportunity to move up because sometimes certain organizations just, it just doesn’t have, that is their opportunity to learn something new. There are lots of ways to keep people happen about what they’re doing and wanting to stick, stick around even if it’s not a huge bump in pay and a huge title. That’s not always what’s most important to

[00:24:54.78] spk_1:
people? What do we have next?

[00:26:14.38] spk_2:
Okay, let’s see. Did we go? We went through five already, Right. But we went through four. Okay. We talked about results. So what, why do people stay at your organization and why do they leave that often? We don’t even ask ourselves that. And that was probably a question for, for your current team. You know, what, what is it that they really enjoy about working there? Is it the mission, is it that you’re, you do a lot of things together as a team. Is it the pay, is it the professional development? There could be lots of different things sometimes, which is very big. Now it’s the flexibility, you know, if they’re they can come in at different hours, um, or you know, is there a work from home? Is there a hybrid? That’s of course very big right now. What is it that keeps them and what is it that drives them away? And that often could be like, you know, you you made a comment when I I talked about that example of this Ceo and the kind of the chaos, some people thrive in that by your comment. It sounds like that would probably drive you away. Um, so be very clear about what your environments like and put it all out there sometimes. Um People will ask me, well shouldn’t I make it sound really great? Only if it’s true, Be authentic and find out what is true.

[00:26:23.97] spk_1:
Otherwise you’re misleading the candidates.

[00:26:25.53] spk_2:
Exactly. It’s

[00:26:26.39] spk_1:
a chaotic environment and a lot of flexibility is needed and it’s hard to work through a weekly plan that you might

[00:26:34.83] spk_2:
put put

[00:27:13.69] spk_1:
together on monday or the friday before. Uh then then reveal that because the person is gonna leave in a couple of months when they realize that it’s not, it’s not the predictable week after week pattern that you made it sound like that. You just told me out explicitly that it is all right. So if we’re at why do people, why do people stay and why do people leave? Uh look people could be leaving because of leadership, difficult leadership, but now we’re having leadership. Answer the answer the survey uh here’s where the leaders answers the C suite answers. They diverge from the and who in the C suite is gonna be willing to admit that they are the reason or contributing to the reason that people leave.

[00:28:39.25] spk_2:
You would be surprised that I have met a lot of leaders over the years, both in non profit and for profit. And I have met leaders who who recognize where their challenges are. And sometimes they’ll say I need to hire somebody to fill that gap for me. Actually met with a later a couple weeks ago who said that, he said you know what I know I’m not good at managing people like keeping the team motivated that it um checking in with them and making sure they’re supported so I need to hire somebody to help me with that or that order kind of fill that gap. So a lot of them will especially now because more important because we as a society after the pandemic are demanding more of that you know to be recognized to be respected too leaders who are going to contribute to our growth. So I think that more and more leaders are even if they have to be banged on the head a little bit with it um I think they’re recognizing the importance of that and that they need to do that they want to retain,

[00:28:42.12] spk_1:
okay you’re finding that people are realistic

[00:28:46.70] spk_2:
about it couldn’t be

[00:29:06.07] spk_1:
careful, you should watch your hair on your left side too. So that was Andrea Andrea I’ve been calling you for half a week now and recording and I keep saying Andrea Andrea touching her mike but we’re on the fly here that’s what that’s what that noise in the middle of anything else went through everything. That’s a very good one why why people stay and why people

[00:30:42.21] spk_2:
leave, you could spend a lot of time on that. It was so funny I actually I met with often I will run masterminds or be in masterminds with other organizational leaders and there was one woman who um her business is growing very quickly and she said I’m so overwhelmed and like what are you overwhelmed with? She said I’m overwhelmed with the employee and gauge. I feel like there’s so much I need to do to show my employees I care and to keep them happy and successful and I’ve been told like you know there’s so much out there and it’s just there’s so much more because that we’re hearing now. So I was like you don’t have to do everything right away. Just check in with your team regularly. That’s probably the most important thing is checking in, see how you can help them and make sure they know you’re being authentic. You’re being sincere. You truly want to hear if there’s a challenge which this leader is naturally empathetic. So I said really you just need to be you. She had a counseling background but I told her to just start with three things that

[00:30:47.38] spk_3:
we are

[00:30:48.36] spk_1:
now we’re gonna pause while we have an introduction explanation.

[00:31:27.55] spk_3:
Maybe we should include this. People have problems with breathing. They come to because the air here is very very dry and it’s very good for people who have problems breathing and lungs problems. Now the dead sea is also part of I would say medical tourism and now that we are starting to go down to the dead sea A lot is like 4, 500 m above sea level. The dead sea is 425 m below sea level. So we’re going out 800 m down.

[00:31:39.92] spk_1:
Alright. So there’s a little bit about the dead sea and how far below sea level it is courtesy of our guide for the week. Is Michael from Denmark.

[00:33:07.18] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. We are at the beginning of december which of course is most likely a very important month for you regardless of how you perform, how your organization comes out tomorrow is another opportunity to grow. So I’m urging you to shed Let go how it goes today. This week you have another day tomorrow, you have another week and you have the one after. So regardless of how you and your nonprofit do even this year 2023 is another opportunity Full of 365 days. If you do great this year. 2022, fantastic. If you don’t, 2023 is another new full year. Your past doesn’t define your future and you have many opportunities to grow each day, week, month year. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for six steps before you hire with Andrea hoffer.

[00:33:26.29] spk_1:
We were talking about the reasons why people leave the reasons why people stay and I was saying that I think that’s valuable introspection. Even apart from a hiring process, this is valuable, valuable to think about these things. Is there anything more that you want to add on?

[00:35:51.46] spk_2:
No, not onto that. And you know I agree it is it is very important and you know sometimes we do all this work with clients and to find them the best candidate or what we think is the best candidate. And what we have learned over the years is that we also need to do work with the employers on how to set the new higher up for success and and keep them happy and help them with success on ongoing because we’re seeing, we started doing a survey of our people. We placed last year in 2021 we placed 100 and 65 people and we have been reaching out to them At different points like 30 days in 60 days and 90 a year to find out. Did they feel like the recruitment process was professional? Was it a good representation of where they were going? And then what was, you know, what is it like at the company And what we’re hearing? A lot of is I wasn’t really, I’m generalizing here but I wasn’t really set up for success. I wasn’t given the resources I needed to be successful or sometimes it wasn’t as described, which means we we didn’t get the correct information from from the employer because what what also seems to happen sometimes is the employer things change quickly in organizations and sometimes they change the position so they might not change position title, but then they changed the expectations around the position and that’s not what was quote sold to the candidates. So if and sometimes it happens and it’s nobody’s fault, it’s just how the organization, the direction is moving. And I always recommend just just be up with with your new hire and talk to them and figure out is this the right fit for you? And how can we work with you? So that it can be the right fit and maybe there’s somebody else in the organization where it’s a better fit and you can put this person in a position that will work for them,

[00:35:53.34] spk_1:
but at least be upfront and talking about these things. So we kind of melded a couple of these together. So why don’t you just read through one through six? So it’s clear that we’ve covered everything.

[00:36:20.94] spk_2:
Okay, So the first one is why does the position exist next? Or what are the results or outcomes needed from this position? And I think we just grazed over that one. And one of the things I do want to mention that I didn’t mention earlier related to that question is I’m a big fan of,

[00:36:31.86] spk_1:
I even asked you if there were more

[00:37:51.80] spk_2:
my brain. Okay, so I’m a big fan of result oriented job descriptions and and that means, you know, writing the job description for the results that you’re looking for. So I think this question is really important and sometimes you can get a really great candidate from a different industry who has accomplished something very close to what you’re looking to accomplish from this position. So, so the more clear on what you’re looking for, what, you know what we always ask, what will give this person a great performance evaluation in 90 days, What would they have accomplished for you to say A plus for them in the 1st 90 days and, and and then different segments of, you know, the next time line, so that I just wanted to make sure I cover that. So the next question is, um what skills and experience are needed to do this job successfully? What is specific traits, we call them success traits or attributes that make a person successful in this position. What are the specific you’re set fit in your organizational culture? We’re talking about core values. And then lastly, um why did team members stay with you? And why did they leave

[00:38:34.50] spk_1:
question. What about um salary? Now we’re now we’re jumping outside of discovery. But you and I talked earlier when we were getting to know each other about salary range disclosures, job descriptions, which is becoming so much more important. New york state just passed a law that requires it. Um I thought I had seen that in Oregon too. I might be mistaken about that. You hadn’t heard of that one, but at least we know new york state has, has passed that law and other states are considering it. And just it’s just, it’s a movement apart from whether it’s legal or not legally required

[00:38:39.84] spk_2:
or not right

[00:38:41.58] spk_1:
share your opinion on disclosing salary or arrange a description.

[00:39:28.85] spk_2:
It’s always been a best practice. And now in many states, like you mentioned tony it’s a law. Um, and I think at some point it will probably be a law and in just about all states. The reason for it, there’s, there’s several reasons, but one of the main reasons that’s become a law in a lot of states is because in the past, um, there’s been a lot of bias and discrimination when it comes to pay. When you think about how women have been paid or different cultural groups or background? Exactly. And so if you are not transparent about your salary and you then, because I hear this a lot from employers, well, I don’t, I don’t know what I’m going to pay. We’ll see what the person made before. Well, all that’s doing is contributing to the bad uneven inequitable from the perpetuating. Thank

[00:39:49.71] spk_1:
you.

[00:40:38.04] spk_2:
Right. So what you need to do is think about What can you pay, what do you think the return is for this position that your organization can afford. Um, and what is it worth to the value that’s going to be contributed and and create a range there and don’t make the range 100,000. I usually recommend. I see sometimes do. Exactly. I usually recommend, you know maybe a $10,000 range, maybe a $20,000 range. Um not much more than that. And and you can decide based on what what that person you’re hiring is going to bring, how much training you need to give them. I’m up to speed. Um The other thing is it just waste your time if you’re not transparent

[00:40:43.08] spk_1:
upfront,

[00:40:43.84] spk_2:
it wastes the jobseeker’s time and it wastes your time because everybody

[00:40:49.11] spk_1:
well

[00:40:57.37] spk_2:
look at the job and have different thoughts on what it’s going to pay. So I may apply for the job Thinking that it’s going to pay 100,000 and you’re only planning to pay 40,000. And if we don’t get to that until the third interview, well we’ve wasted so much time and it just frustrates both of us so that no

[00:41:13.74] spk_1:
candidate is going to ask about salary in the first interview. Maybe not even in a second if they know there’s another coming

[00:41:24.16] spk_2:
and less candidates are going to apply for your job if they don’t know what because they’re afraid they’re gonna waste their time. And they often feel like

[00:41:31.35] spk_1:
because

[00:41:31.87] spk_2:
you’re not being transparent with that you might not be transparent with other things as well, so you might not be the right employer for

[00:41:51.70] spk_1:
them. Um And just let’s let’s kind of wrap up with what you are seeing in our sort of trend one or two things that you, you want folks to know about, you know, in this post pandemic hiring environment that we find ourselves,

[00:42:19.05] spk_2:
People are looking for their passion, their looking for, not just the passion connected to the mission that the company that that is a big part of it, but they’re looking for a place they can call home, they’re looking for flexibility. They’re looking for an environment that they’re happy to go to work and it doesn’t matter the

[00:42:26.12] spk_1:
level of

[00:44:01.07] spk_2:
the position. Um Pay is also important. They want to be paid what they feel their worth. And because pay, we’re seeing a big trend and increase of pay. Um uh you know, jobs that have paid one amount for decades are now have, have, we’ve seen large jumps in them. Um but then I’ve seen where candidates have been willing to take a pay cut if it means they could work from home or they could have more flexibility or it’s something that they truly believe in. And I have seen a great trend of candidates of job seekers who have left or actually even gotten laid off during the pandemic from high paying, high pressure jobs that are now saying they want a job in a nonprofit in something that they truly believe in. And they usually have a specific type of nonprofit or type of mission that they have in mind because it’s something important to them specifically. And I’m not saying that there isn’t anyone, but for them individually. And I think the pandemic has really, it’s created this thing in all of us where life short, right? Like it. I want to just do something I want to be contributing in a way that that works for me on both my time and what, what’s important to me. And I think that’s important as you go out and recruit people and as you work with people as well to keep that in mind,

[00:44:10.04] spk_1:
a lot of us have heard from

[00:44:11.95] spk_2:
people who want

[00:44:50.27] spk_1:
to want to now give back. That was even pre pandemic. But I think the pandemic accelerated it being more reflective about their career because of the pandemic people question their own mortality. And in the early days of the pandemic, we didn’t know if, if you were 30 if they could kill you or if you were 75 if it could kill you or or if one was a greater risk than the other. We didn’t know, People were really questioning a lot of things in life and obviously career is enormous. So, um, you know, we, we see so much about nomads, digital nomads traveling the US traveling the world and moving and working from a completely different time zones and completely different atmospheres because they want to have a richer life, but they still need to make some money. So they’re happy to work from wherever, if you’ll allow

[00:45:37.45] spk_2:
it. And if the type of position you have available, if you’re able to think maybe a little outside the box and make it either a hybrid or remove or add some of that flexibility in that is so important to people now and and they because of the pandemic where they saw companies and organizations, they will take,

[00:45:39.73] spk_1:
oh

[00:45:40.02] spk_2:
no, we don’t do that here as an answer. Then there’s then there’s, you know, then that’s not for me. Plus

[00:45:45.80] spk_1:
as

[00:45:59.01] spk_2:
things started to let up just a little bit during the pandemic was still pretty early on. The question I got over and over again from candidates was what will happen um with this position if if we end up having to shut down again, if we have another pandemic and I haven’t been hearing as much of the past year, but that first year or heard a lot because they do not want to be laid off again, you know, they wanted. So you might want to think about that as well. It’s not just because they want the flexibility. They also want that security that they know if a pandemic hits again, they’ll still be able to make a living.

[00:46:28.27] spk_1:
Okay? We’re in the we’re in the Israeli desert Negev were descending as you

[00:47:00.14] spk_3:
heard going 425 m down underneath the most the worst place on earth, that’s a dead sea. Now the lights that you see on the other side, this is already another country, this is George. The border between Israel and Jordan is exactly in the middle of the day,

[00:47:32.52] spk_1:
I should have said that Michael is originally from Denmark but lives in Israel and as a tour guide here, so with Andrea Hoffer, founder and ceo of Aha recruiting experts, ha underscore recruiting and Aha recruiting experts dot com. Andrea, thank you so much. Real pleasure. Thank you for doing this on a bus in the Israel desert.

[00:47:41.47] spk_2:
It was fun. Thank you in different.

[00:48:02.57] spk_0:
Thank you for hanging in with the weird sound this week. I know it’s up and down and it’s crackly. I really wanted to capture the conversation with Andrea, we’re sitting side by side. And how many shows do I get to record in the Israeli desert and and plus you got to learn about the desert from Michael. So thank you. I know it’s

[00:48:14.13] spk_1:
weird, it’s weird

[00:49:07.45] spk_0:
this week. Thanks very much. Next week. Traven Heckman with his book. Take Heart, Take action. I know last week I said he’d be this week I need an intern if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Our creative producer is claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation, scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for October 3, 2022: Your Dismantling Racism Journey

 

Pratichi ShahYour Dismantling Racism Journey

Starting with your people, your culture and your leadership, how do you identify, talk about and begin to break down inequitable structures in your nonprofit? My guest is Pratichi Shah, founder & CEO at Flourish Talent Management Solutions. (Originally aired 7/8/20)

 

 

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[00:01:58.44] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast and oh, I’m glad you’re with me, I’d be thrown into necro psychosis if you killed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. You’re dismantling racism journey starting with your people, your culture and your leadership. How do you identify? Talk about and begin to break down inequitable structures in your nonprofit. My guest is pretty itchy Shah founder and Ceo at flourished Talent management Solutions. This originally aired july 8th 2020 on Tony’s take two, let’s debunk plan to giving myths. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by fourth dimension technologies I tion for in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D just like three D but they go one dimension deeper here is your dismantling racism journey. It’s a real pleasure to welcome welcome. I’m not welcoming. I’m welcoming, I’m welcoming, she’s an HR strategist and thought leader with 25 years experience in all aspects of talent management. She’s making her face when I say 25 years human resources equity and inclusion and organizational development in the nonprofit and for profit arenas. She’s founder and Ceo of flourish Talent management Solutions. The company is at flourish tMS dot com. Welcome to the show.

[00:02:10.09] spk_1:
Thank you so much tony I appreciate being here.

[00:02:14.25] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure pleasure to have you um and I’d like to Jump right in if you’re, if you’re ready. Um,

[00:02:20.35] spk_1:
absolutely.

[00:02:48.05] spk_0:
You know, racism and white privilege most often look very benign on their face. Um, I had a guest explain why use of the word professional in a job description is racist. I had a more recently, I had a guest explain how not listing a salary range in a job description was felt racist to them. So how do we begin to uncover what is inequitable and right under our noses yet not visible on its face?

[00:03:34.85] spk_1:
Yeah. You know what it often it starts with listening. I mean to state state a bit of the obvious. It really does start with listening. It’s understanding for organizations. It’s understanding where we are. Um, so it’s listening to the voices that may not have been centered. We’ve become better as organizations and being responsive to staff. I hear that a lot kind of, hey, this is what my staff is telling me. This is what we need to do. But the question is is are you responding to the voices that have possibly been marginalized? Likely been marginalized or oppressed in the past joe. General responsiveness is not the same as centering the voices that really need to be heard. So it’s first off just understanding where you are as an organization and listening to the people who may have experienced organization in a way that is different than you think.

[00:03:50.19] spk_0:
So when you say general responsiveness is not what not adequate, not what we’re looking for. What do you mean by that?

[00:04:45.05] spk_1:
So a lot of time the voices that are saying, hey something’s wrong or we need to do this or we need to do that are not the voices of those that have been marginalized and oppressed. They tend to be maybe the loudest voices. They’re speaking maybe from a place of privilege and that needs to be taken into account. So being responsive, for instance, if the I call it kind of the the almond milk issue being responsive to a staff that says in addition to dairy milk for coffee. This is back when we were in fiscal offices, um, we need almond milk too. But the question is is are we listening to the voices of those that weren’t able to consume the dairy milk? It’s not a perfect metaphor. It’s not a perfect analogy because that one ignores actual pain and it just talks about preference. But are we list listen to the voices of people that have been oppressed who have, who have been, who have heard the word professional or professionalism wielded against them as a, as an obstacle in their path to success in their path to career advancement. Those are the voices that we need to listen to not the ones who have a preference for one thing or another.

[00:05:08.34] spk_0:
Um let’s be explicit about how we identify who, who holds these voices, who are these people?

[00:06:03.47] spk_1:
It’s people that have have come from. It’s particularly right now when we talk about anti black racism, we need to center the voices of those from the black community. And that means those who have either maybe not joined, not just not joined our organization for particular reasons, but maybe they have not joined our board. Maybe they have not participated in our programs, Maybe they haven’t had the chance to. So it’s really from an organizational perspective, think of it as understanding what our current state is. So how does your organization move people up? Move people in move people out if we don’t have the voices in the first place? Because maybe we’re not as welcoming as we should be, then what does the data tell us about? Who’s coming into our organization? Who’s leaving our organization, Who’s able to move up into our organization, what our leadership looks like, what our board looks like. So at times the fact that there is an absence of voice is telling in and of itself and our data needs to be able to explain what is going on. So that data needs to be looked at as well.

[00:06:52.58] spk_0:
Alright, so we need to very well, good chance we need to look outside our organization. You’re talking about people that we’ve turned down for board board positions turned down for employment? Um, I’m not even gonna say turn down for promotion because that would presume that they’re still that that presumes are still in the organization, But I’m talking about very likely going outside the organization. People who don’t work with us, who aren’t volunteering, who aren’t supporting us in any way, but we’ve marginalized them. We’ve cast them out before they even had a chance to get in

[00:07:10.44] spk_1:
potentially. Yeah. And then actually probably probably there is something that they have not found palatable or appealing about working with us or being a sensor or being uh to your point of volunteer. So so we need we need to look at why that’s happening.

[00:07:36.46] spk_0:
Okay. I’ve gotta I gotta drill down even further. How are we gonna identify these people within within our organization as it is? How are we gonna figure out which people these are that we’ve marginalize these voices of color over the let’s just like in the past five years, what have we if we’ve done this? How do we identify the people we’ve done it to?

[00:08:33.53] spk_1:
Yeah. It’s a really it’s a complicated question. It will differ by organization, right? It differs by what your subsector is, how things flow within a subsector. The size of the organization. A really good place to start is understanding who has turned us down, why have people left? So take a look at exit interviews. Even if you’re not doing exit interviews, we know that there is not always uh an HR presence in a lot of our organizations. If there aren’t formal exit interviews, first of all, let’s make time for those because we need to understand why people are leaving. Um but if if there isn’t a formal HR presence, what do we know about the circumstances under which someone left organization or said no to a job offer or said no to a board position or a volunteer. It’s also important to ask, expanding our definition of stakeholder groups, engaging with all of our stakeholder groups as as broadly defined as possible. And within those groups, understanding are we reaching out to a diverse audience to say why would you engage with us? Why would you not engage with us in any of those roles? So, yeah, it’s gonna be a little bit harder to understand the people who are not there because they’re not there.

[00:09:02.40] spk_0:
Yeah. Okay, Alright, so, alright, um we go through this exercise and and we identify we’ve identified a dozen people, um they’re not they’re not currently connected to us and uh it may be that they have had a bad experience with us, that they may have turned us down for employment because they got offered more money somewhere else. That could that in itself could be, let’s

[00:09:18.28] spk_1:
say that

[00:10:08.31] spk_0:
in itself could be uh not something other than benign, um but let’s say they moved out of the state, you know, they were they were thinking about, so, so in some cases they may not have a bad have had a bad experience with us, but in but in lots of cases they may have, they may have turned down that board position because they saw the current composition of the board and they didn’t feel they felt like uh maybe being an offer, you know, a token slot or whatever, whatever it might be. I’m just, I’m just suggesting that some of the, some of the feelings toward the organization might not be negative, but some might very well be negative of these dozen people we’ve identified in all these different stakeholder or potential stakeholder roles that they could have had. Um what do we reach out to them and say, how do we, how do we get them to join a conversation with an organization that they may feel unwelcome him?

[00:11:21.79] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s a great question. And and I think right now, especially we tread carefully. Um we tried carefully and we honored the fact that they in fact might be getting that same question from many other other organizations, friends, colleagues, family members, in which people want to understand something. What we’re seeking to do is not be educated on the overall picture of white privilege, white supremacy of dominant narrative and dominant culture. That’s on us. That’s on all of us individually to understand that, that is not the member that is not up to. The member is of oppressed societies to have to tell us that, Right? So what they, what we want to understand is kind of, what did you experience with our organization? What was the good? What was bad? And first of all, do you even want to engage with us. Is this not a good time to do that because they’re already exhausted. I said to a colleague recently, you know, we can’t even understand the reality of what it’s like to live there to live that reality and for many to lead the charge, right? Because they’re also showing leadership in the movement. So to we can’t even understand what those layers of existence are like. So I think it’s treading very carefully and should we have the ability to engage with someone because they have the space, the energy, the desire. Then I think it’s understanding and asking kind of what’s going on for us? What where did you find us either not appealing or where did you? Why did you not want to work with us in whatever capacity we were asking? And it’s asking that question.

[00:11:50.37] spk_0:
Okay, well that’s further down. I’m just trying to get to like what’s the initial email invitation look like?

[00:11:55.10] spk_1:
It depends on the organization. It depends on the organization. It depends on the relationship. I wouldn’t presume to give words to that to be honest with you because because I think it also depends on the person that you’re asking. I don’t want to offer kind of a blanket response and inadvertently tokenized people by saying, oh, of course you’re gonna want to engage with us. So I really think it’s dependent on the situation.

[00:13:35.19] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They had a very smart newsletter this week. We often can’t predict news outcomes, but we often do know news is coming, for instance, hurricanes during hurricane season, the Duffy decision on abortion and the november midterm elections. We know in advance that there’s going to be this news. The smart nonprofits turn to communication says prepare talking points for all the possible outcomes in advance and they’re the ones that get the day one quotes and the op EDS and they own the issue on social media. So prepare your messaging in advance, then launch when the news breaks. It’s brilliant turn to communications. Your story is their mission. You can get their newsletter which is on message at turn hyphen two dot c o. Brilliant. Now, back to your dismantling racism journey. What are you inviting them to do with you have a conversation, share your experience with us, is it?

[00:14:42.37] spk_1:
Yeah, essentially. I mean, that’s what it boils down to. But again, it really depends on where the organization is. Right. So this is your data collection moment. This is information collection. Where else are you collecting information? What what else do you know? What other steps have you taken to begin that educational process because there’s there’s kind of a dual purpose here, right? It’s understanding who we are in, where we have contributed to structural racism, to pretend to a culture of that does not support differing viewpoints, differing populations, that is in some ways upholding white supremacy or is completely holding upholding white supremacy and its culture, there’s that general education of understanding all of that and then there’s understanding what our organization’s role is, right? So it’s both. And um so it’s really highly dependent upon where is the organization uh case for us, who you’ve talked to? The head of Equity in the center describes a cycle that is brilliant um around awake too, woke to work. Where are you in that cycle? Are you, where are you on? Um where are you and being pluralistic? Where are you and being inclusive? All of those things depend on what you’ll ask and how you’ll reach out and if you even should reach out there maybe work that has to be done internally before that reach out can happen again, just being considerate and sensitive of those who are willing to talk to.

[00:15:09.48] spk_0:
Yeah. Kay was our guest for the last most recent special episode on this exact same subject. Thank you.

[00:15:16.71] spk_1:
Yeah. The the organization is doing and has been since its inception has been doing incredible work. K is leading that work. Um and and both her words always contain wisdom and the products that they’ve put out are extraordinary.

[00:15:48.30] spk_0:
How about in your work are you facilitating the kinds of conversations in your practice that you and I are talking about right now, Do you you bring these outside folks in sometimes too to to have these conversations

[00:16:16.58] spk_1:
sometimes. Yeah, sometimes again being highly respectful of if they didn’t want to engage with us, do they even want to talk to us right now? My work really is around um, having an organization understand where it is right now. So what is its current state? What is the desired future state? Right. So we know that we want to be a racially inclusive, racially equitable organization likely that’s already been defined. But what does that mean for us as an organization if it means solely in numbers piece right? Like we want to be more divorces aboard. Okay, that’s fine. But beyond that, how will we make ourselves have a board culture that is appealing to those people that we want to bring in to work with us? So it’s kind of defining both current state and understanding current state to finding future state and then developing the strategy to get there.

[00:17:00.63] spk_0:
Okay. And now you and I are talking about, you said you know, we’re still data gathering, so we’re still defining the current culture as it exists. Right. Okay. Okay. And your work, you you centered around people, culture and leadership. Can we focus on leadership? I feel like everything trickles down from

[00:17:05.04] spk_1:
there.

[00:17:27.69] spk_0:
I don’t know. Are we okay. Are you okay, Starting with a leadership conversation or you’d rather start somewhere else? Okay. Um, so what what is it we’re looking for leaders of our listeners of small and midsize nonprofits to, to commit to you.

[00:17:30.41] spk_1:
I think it’s first of all committing to their own

[00:17:32.40] spk_0:
learning

[00:17:33.56] spk_1:
and, and not relying on communities of color to provide that learning. Right? Again, Going back to what we said earlier, it’s not relying on those who have been harmed or oppressed to provide the learning. So first of all, it’s an individual journey that’s a given. Okay. Um,

[00:18:32.11] spk_0:
can I, can I like to like things like people, I like action steps. Okay. So we’re talking about our individual journey, our own learning. I mean, I’ve been doing some of this recently by watching Youtube, watching, um, folks on Youtube of course. Now I now I can’t remember the names of people, but no Eddie Glaude. Um, so Eddie Glaude is a commentator on MSNBC. He’s just written a just released this last week, uh, biography, well, not so much a biography of James baldwin, but, but an explanation of baldwin’s journey around racism. Um, so that’s one example of, you know, who I’ve been listening to. So we were talking about educating like learning from thought leaders around yeah, privilege structures, whether reading books listening to podcasts.

[00:19:00.76] spk_1:
Absolutely. It’s around, it’s around structures, but it’s also understanding things that we do all the time in organizations and how I as a leader might perpetuate those, right? So it’s sometimes the use of language to your point about the use of the word professional. Um, language tends to create our reality. So, and and it either language will build a bridge or not. So how do we use our language? How do we use our descriptors? How do I show up as a leader? Um, as in my own kind of inclusion or not? So, I think it is absolutely that it is looking at thought leaders around things like structural racism, around the use of language around people’s individual experiences to get that insight and depth, because it’s not just an intellectual exercise. This is emotional, too, and therefore has to have emotional resonance.

[00:20:10.42] spk_0:
Okay, thank you for letting me dive deeper into what about personal, you know, your own personal journey, your own personal education, uh, fact finding and introspection. You’re talking about something, you know, and it’s no, no revelation. This is it’s difficult. It’s painful. You know, you you’re very likely uncovering how you offended someone, uh, how you offended a group. Um, if you were, you know, speaking in public and something comes to mind or how you offended someone in meetings or, you know, multiplied. I don’t know how many times. I mean, this introspection is likely painful,

[00:20:12.44] spk_1:
likely likely. Yeah, more often. More often than not, I can’t I can’t really envision it. Not at some level being painful.

[00:20:21.92] spk_0:
Yeah. But you’ve caused pain. You know, that there’s a recognition there. Yeah,

[00:20:27.16] spk_1:
exactly,

[00:20:27.62] spk_0:
painful for you. But let’s consider the pain of the person or the group that you.

[00:20:33.80] spk_1:
Exactly, right. I

[00:20:34.78] spk_0:
don’t know, offended, stereotyped, mean to put off, you know, whatever it is, you’re

[00:20:40.73] spk_1:
that’s right. And that that’s why the work as much as I know, you know, to some degree, people want this to be work that can be kind of project managed if you will or it can be put into a process or a series of best practices or benchmarks

[00:20:53.94] spk_0:
to

[00:21:05.75] spk_1:
some degree, not very much, but to some degree. Yes, absolutely. The some a little bit of that can happen, but that in and of itself is a bit of a dominant narrative, right? That in and of itself is kind that that centering white culture. So I think what we need to understand is this is not just going to be again to sorry to be redundant, but it’s not just gonna be intellectual. The fact that pain has been caused dictates that this be emotionally owned as well. It can’t be arms length. It can’t be just intellectually owned with a project plan that I keep over here on a chalkboard or something like that.

[00:21:41.49] spk_0:
Emotionally owned. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Um All right. So I made you digress and deeper. What else, what else you wanna tell us about leadership’s commitment and and and the importance of leadership commitment.

[00:23:23.38] spk_1:
Yeah. So, so it needs to be explicit. It needs to be authentic. It needs to be baked into the leadership. Whatever leadership structure of the organization has, it needs to be an ongoing piece of that leadership. So it’s not a, hey, let’s touch base on our quote inclusion initiative. If it’s an initiative first of all, that’s not really doing the work anyway. Um but it’s not something that lives separately from ourselves. Let’s have HR kind of check in on this or let’s have the operations person check in on this, that that’s not what this is about. It’s really, it’s authentically being owned by leadership to say, yeah, I know it’s gonna be painful. And in looking at our organization, we’re gonna need to understand why our leadership is remarkably homogeneous. Which in the case of many nonprofits, it is if you take a look at Building movement project and the unbelievably great work that they’ve done twice now, they just put out an update to their leadership work around how people move through the sector or don’t and how people communities of color and people of color are represented in our leadership. We can begin to understand that by and large, they’re they’re not. Um though i that is an oversimplification in some ways. So I would encourage people to go to building movement Project’s website and check out their work. Um but you know what, why are we so homogeneous? Why is our board? So homogeneous? It’s it’s also unpacking and uncovering that. So to your point earlier about, you know, how do we look at people and how they move through the organization. This is where you look at Who is present, right? Not just who’s not with us, but who is with us? How do people get promoted? How does that system work? Does any does everyone have the same information? Is it a case of unwritten rules? Is it a case of some people move up because they’re similar or they have 10 years of experience, which is something that we like to say.

[00:23:45.71] spk_0:
How

[00:24:08.90] spk_1:
Do you get 10 years of experience if you’ve not been given those chances to begin with? So is there life experience that we can that we can begin to integrate in our conversations? Because life experience is equally valuable. Are we putting too much of a premium on higher education, education and its formal kind of traditional form. Are we putting too much of a of an emphasis on pedigree of other kinds of those, those are the things that ultimately keep people out. So taking a look at leadership and and having leadership commitment ultimately means looking at all of those things, there’s an overlap and how we look at leadership or people and or organizational culture.

[00:24:24.52] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, of course, this is a it’s a continuum or

[00:24:27.44] spk_1:
Absolutely, absolutely. And the areas bleed into each other.

[00:24:38.31] spk_0:
Yeah, of course, yeah. Um, you know, subsumed in all this, I guess. I mean, it’s okay for leaders to say, I don’t know where the where the journey is going. I don’t know what we’re going to uncover, but I’m committed to having this journey and leading it and and right. I mean, supporting it, but I don’t know what we’re going to find.

[00:24:54.28] spk_1:
Uh

[00:24:55.50] spk_0:
Right,

[00:24:56.39] spk_1:
right. And that in and of itself can be uncomfortable for a lot of people. And that’s the that’s the kind of discomfort we need to get okay with.

[00:25:03.34] spk_0:
Yeah. Alright. Yeah. This, you know, I had I had a guest explained that this is not as you were alluding to, uh it’s not the kind of thing that, you know, we’re gonna have a weekly meeting and will be these outcomes at the end of every meeting, then we’ll have this list of activities and, you know, that then, you know, it’s how come it’s not like that. How come we can’t do it like that

[00:25:26.67] spk_1:
because we’re dealing with hundreds and hundreds of years of history, and it’s because we haven’t been inclusive in the ways that we do things and we haven’t allowed whole selves to show up that it is um It’s complicated and it’s messy because it’s human.

[00:25:44.56] spk_0:
Alright. So it’s not gonna be as simple as our budget meetings.

[00:25:48.62] spk_1:
Absolutely different. Different kind of hard.

[00:25:52.76] spk_0:
Alright. And we’re gonna have an outcome at every at every juncture at every step or every week or every month or something. That’s

[00:25:58.65] spk_1:
right. That’s right. And if we expect it to go that way. Um We are likely going to give ourselves excuses not to press on

[00:26:56.36] spk_0:
it’s time for a break, fourth dimension technologies. Are you seeing technology as an investment, an investment in your people, the people you’re helping, the people who work for you, the people who support you, an investment in your sustainability and investment in your programs four D. Can help you make better tech investment decisions. Check them out on the listener landing page at Just like three D. But you know, they go one dimension deeper. Let’s return shall we to your dismantling racism journey. Alright, so that’s what it’s not. What, what does it look like?

[00:27:59.80] spk_1:
It absolutely looks different for every organization. It absolutely looks different for every organization and that’s why it’s so critical to understand kind of where are we right now? Um where are we? As far as all of the components of our organization? Right. So volatile. Again, volunteers board staff culture. You said, you know, we were talking about people organization and leadership, which is obviously a lot of my work. Um, it is getting underneath all of those kinds of things to say. So who experiences our culture? How um so we do engagement surveys, Right. A lot of times we do engagement employee surveys, that kind of thing. Are we looking at those disagree in a disaggregated way? Are we asking different populations to identify themselves? And are we looking at what the experiences are by population? Are we asking explicit questions around whether or not you feel like you can be yourself in this organization, Whether you can provide dissenting opinions, whether you feel comfortable approaching your boss with feedback, um

[00:28:01.00] spk_0:
whether

[00:28:01.73] spk_1:
you feel comfortable volunteering for particular work, whether you feel like you understand what a promotion or performance management processes, whether you get the support that you need or to what extent you get support that you need either from colleagues, boss, leadership etcetera. So it’s looking at all of those things and then understanding are they being experienced differently by different communities within our organization?

[00:28:26.10] spk_0:
You mentioned disaggregate ng. That that’s where the data is not helpful, right?

[00:28:31.94] spk_1:
That is where we look at the data in terms of populations.

[00:28:35.58] spk_0:
Oh, of course. Aggregating. I’m sorry.

[00:28:39.09] spk_1:
Oh, that’s okay.

[00:28:40.34] spk_0:
You’re stuck with a lackluster host? No, of course, yes. Aggregating

[00:28:44.36] spk_1:
early in the week.

[00:29:00.70] spk_0:
Thank you. You couldn’t say early in the day, but thank you for being gracious. Okay. Yes. We we we want to disaggregate of course. Um and look by population and I guess cut a different way. I mean depending on the size of the organization, um age, race, uh

[00:29:25.54] spk_1:
race, ethnicity, um of physical ability, orientation. All of those need to be in the mix. Um gender as well. Including gender fluidity. So really looking at all of our populations and then understanding, you know, for these particular questions, is there a difference in how people experience our organization? We we know then what we do know is that if there is a difference that there is a difference, we don’t know that there is causality unless they’re unless you’ve asked questions that might begin to illuminate that. Right? But there’s there’s always that difference between correlation and causality and then what you want to do is get underneath that to understand why the experience might be different and why it might change along lines of gender or race or ethnicity or orientation or physical ability.

[00:29:57.07] spk_0:
We we we wandered, you know, but that’s that’s fine. I

[00:30:03.50] spk_1:
people

[00:30:09.82] spk_0:
culture and um and leadership all coming together. Um where where where do you want to go? Uh I mean, I would like to talk about people, culture and leadership. What’s a good, what’s a good next one?

[00:32:27.52] spk_1:
Yes. Well, so, so this is what you’re doing, right? As you’re you’re collecting information and all of those three areas. Right? And one so a couple of things that I would add to that is when you look at people, you’re looking at their experiences, when you look at the leadership, you’re looking at commitment, makeup, structure, access all of those kinds of things. When you’re looking at culture, you’re looking at how people experience the culture, Right? And so what, what is happening? What’s not happening? What’s stated out loud? What’s not stated out loud? What are the unwritten rules? There is also the piece that that forms all of these things, which is operational systems. Right? So things like performance management, things like um where people may sit back when we were in physical offices having access to technology, all of those kinds of things, particularly important now that we’re not in physical offices, so does everyone have access to the technology and information necessary to do their job, to do their jobs to do their work? So it is looking also at your operator side and saying, how do we live our operational life? How do how do people experience it, who do we engage with to provide services for our operations? How do we provide services if you will, for lack of better term to our employees? So it’s also looking at that because operations ultimately permeates organizational culture, people and leadership, Right? Because it kind of sustains all of that. So taking a look at that too. And finally, I would suggest again as part of this and as a wraparound is what is the internal external alignment? Right? So I often hear people say, hey, you know what, this is the subsector we work in, people would think that we’re really equitable, but internally we are living a different life than what we are putting out to our stakeholders and our constituencies externally. So what is what is our external life? And how does that need to inform our internal world? It’s not unusual for me to hear that the external life, the way we engage with stakeholders or the way we put out program Programmatic work is actually may be further along to the extent that this is considered to be a contain, it’s further along than the way that we’re living our life internally. So

[00:32:31.20] spk_0:
there’s dishonesty there disconnect that

[00:32:34.70] spk_1:
there’s a disconnect

[00:32:36.18] spk_0:
disconnect

[00:32:36.88] spk_1:
for sure and possibly yeah, dishonesty and hip hop maybe even hypocrisy.

[00:32:47.12] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. Alright. But again, all right. So that now we’re looking like this is organizational introspection. Exactly. There’s individual learning and introspection. Now we’re at the organizational level right? Being honest with our with our culture and our messaging.

[00:33:05.70] spk_1:
Right. Right. And and so what I try to do is to help organizations kind of look at those things and decide how we might evolve give in the future that we’ve set our sights on and given some of the principles that we’ve laid out. How do we kind of get there? How do we, how do we evolve our systems? How do we evolve our people practices? How do we evolve our culture. So hence the need to look at all of these things that centered around people, culture and leadership.

[00:35:27.37] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take to debunk the top five myths of planned giving. I hate these insidious, pernicious myths like the one that planned giving will hurt your other fundraising and the one that you need a lawyer because plan giving is so complicated. I will debunk the top five myths in a webinar on Tuesday october 18th at 10 a.m. Pacific time, one p.m. Eastern time. but the time doesn’t matter because if you grab your spot for the webinar, you’ll get the video. This is 2022 you don’t need to be there. We’d love to have you live, but you don’t need to be there. I will be debunking these insidious myths in plain simple language and I’m gonna weave in my stand up comedy. The host is NP Solutions. They’re hosting, you are hosting me, they’re hosting us. That’s what hosts do they host their hosting? You go to N. P solutions dot org and click on workshops. What could be simpler. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got the boo koo but loads more time for your dismantling racism journey with Gene Takagi. No, no, it’s with who writes this copy? I need an intern so badly, desperately. So I have somebody to blame. Please. You’re dismantling racism journey with pretty itchy Shah and intern resumes are welcome. What about the use of a professional facilitator? Because well, first of all, there’s a body of expertise that someone like you brings uh but also help with these difficult conversations. Talk about the value of having an expert facilitator. Yeah,

[00:36:50.97] spk_1:
absolutely. So, so, you know, I think I think there’s always a level of objectivity and and and kind of an in inside look by an outsider that you that you benefit from. We go to experts for everything from, you know, our health to the extent that we have access to those experts, which is a whole different conversation on race and oppression. Um, we we want that external voice. What I would say is it’s likely not going to be the same expert or the same facilitator and I say expert in quotes um, for everything. So for instance, I am not the voice to be centered on educating an organization around structural racism. I don’t think I’m the right voice to be centered. I would rather center voices like those at um, At race forward at equity in the center at those who have lived the results of 400 years of oppression. So you might want to call in someone for that discussion for that education. There are people that are better and more steeped in that and whose voices should absolutely be centered for that. Um, you might want to call in a voice for White Ally ship because there is some specifics around that that we need to talk about without kind of centering white voices. I’m

[00:36:51.22] spk_0:
sorry that white Ally ship. Yeah. What is that?

[00:38:01.95] spk_1:
So if we think about the or the organization, right, and are kind of culture and our people um, who who on staff sees themselves as an ally. And how can they be good? How can how can white people be good allies? Right. And how do how do we further and embed that in the culture. Um, and then finally, so keeping that in mind that there are gonna be different experts or different facilitators for different things, you know, who is going to be the person in my case, this actually might be me is to help us evolve our culture and our systems so that we can be more equitable and take a look at that, who’s gonna provide the training because there are skills necessary right to have these com conversations. There are foundational communication skills, there is the ability to give feedback. Um, there is the ability to communicate across cultures, across genders, across across groups. There is ability to be collaborative. So so also strengthening those skills while we continue to look at those things. But to think that all of this help is going to come from? One source is not ideal and unlikely it’s even inappropriate because everyone can’t be everything. I don’t try to be the voices that I can’t be, it’s inappropriate for me to do that.

[00:38:26.14] spk_0:
What what else do you wanna, what do you want to talk about? You know, given the level where that we’re at, we’re trying to help small and midsize nonprofits inaugurate a journey around racism and white privilege.

[00:39:44.81] spk_1:
Yeah, I think, I mean, look, first of all I hear a lot of organizations say like what what is the access point, like what do I get started doing? We put out a statement um in some cases we are experiencing some dissonance between the statement that we put out or the programmatic work that we do and the way that we’re living internally. So it is really understanding kind of why where are we now through all of the ways that that we’ve been talking about over the last several minutes. Where are we now? What is it that we’re not doing that we should be doing, What is it that we need to be doing? How do we define for us if we have an equitable culture, if we are living racial equity, what does that look like for us? Um how does that affect our programmatic work? How does that affect our operations? Everything from our finances to our people processes to when we are back in an office, even our physical setup. How how does that affect us and how would we define that future state? So it’s understanding what is my current state, what is my future state and then understanding how we get there and it’s likely gonna be along all of the areas that we said. Right? So individual journeys, some group and individual skill building, um some evolution of our systems and some understanding of kind of how we can support each other and support ourselves for those that are that affiliate with a particular group. Um and then kind of moving us along to that place of where we want to be. So it is it is understanding where you are that determines what your access point is. But I would say if you if you have done the work of putting out this statement then there then look for look for where you’re not living that statement internally.

[00:40:22.11] spk_0:
That sounds like a very good place to Yeah, to start your search for for an access point because it’s so recent, your organization has probably said something in the past 56 weeks.

[00:40:23.77] spk_1:
Absolutely

[00:40:26.78] spk_0:
to that, to that statement.

[00:40:43.46] spk_1:
Exactly. And and we are incredibly, I would say and pardon the use of the term, but almost fortunate that so many thought leaders have been kind and generous enough to share with us their thoughts on this moment, so not just within the sector, but all the way across our society. So many people have taken the time and the patients and the generosity amidst everything else that they’re living through, they have agreed to share their thoughts, their leadership, their expertise with us. So there is a ton of knowledge out there right at our fingertips and that’s a that’s another really great place to start and to center the voices that most need to be heard

[00:41:15.89] spk_0:
at the same time. You know, we are seeing beginnings of change uh institutions from Princeton University to the state of Mississippi

[00:41:37.59] spk_1:
right? Absolutely. To hopefully, you know, the unnamed Washington football team and to Nascar and places where we, I didn’t know that change necessarily was possible, but we we are same change and and the important thing is is to not be complacent about that change,

[00:42:41.88] spk_0:
right and not and also recognize that it’s just a beginning. You know, removing confederate statues, um taking old glory off the Mississippi flag. These are just beginnings. But I think worth worth noting. I mean worth recognizing and celebrating because The state of Mississippi is a big institution and it’s been wrestling with this for, I don’t know if they’ve been wrestling for centuries, but that flag has been there for that just that long 18. Some things I think is when that flag was developed. So it’s been a long, it’s been a long time coming. So recognizing it for what it is and celebrating it, you know, to the extent that yeah, to the extent that represents the change, the beginning of the beginning of change. All right. Um well, you know, what else, what else, what else do you want to share with folks at this? You know, at this stage?

[00:43:50.39] spk_1:
You know, I think, I think the main thing is um dig in, We need to dig in on this. We need to dig in on this because in the same way that that we have been living this society societally for so long. Our organizations many times are microcosms of society. So if we think as an organization that were exempt or that were already there, we’ve arrived at like a post racial culture, that’s not the case, that’s just not the case. Um, so where do you want to dig in? Where do you want to dig in, chances are good you are doing some version of looking at issues within your organization, whether it’s your annual survey, if you do it annually or whatever in which you can use that information to begin this journey. So dig in from where you are. It’s one of those things that if you’re waiting, if you’re waiting for kind of the exact right time or further analysis to begin the journey again, it’s not it’s not based solely on analysis. There is a p there is certainly information. There’s data that needs to be understood. But if we’re waiting for endless analysis to happen or to kind of point us to the right time, that’s not going to happen. The intellectualism needs to be there. But again, as we said in the path, as we’ve said a few times during the course of our conversation, this is about emotional resonance and an emotional ownership and a moral obligation. So, dig in, dig in wherever you are right now,

[00:44:38.44] spk_0:
what if I’m trying within my organization and I’m not the leader, I’m not even second or third tier management or something, You know, how do I elevate the conversation? I presume it helps to have allies. What if what if I’m meeting a resistance from the people who, who are in leadership?

[00:45:11.35] spk_1:
I think look for the places where there may not be resistance, right? So look within the organization. Um, if there is resistance at a particular level, then you know, who do you have access to in the organization where there isn’t that? And I think, I think starting out not assuming that you have solutions if you have expertise in this area, if you have lived through the oppression as a member of a community that has lived through the impression, particularly in the black community, I think you’re coming from one place if you are, if you are not in that community and saying that you have expertise, I think you have to be a little bit more circumspect about that and introspective about what you can offer in this vein. Um, and I think, I think we want to look for the places where there is some traction, I think in most organizations, it’s not unusual to be getting the question right now,

[00:45:47.45] spk_0:
and what is the, I don’t want to call it outcome. What, what, what what can the future look like for our organization if we do embark on this long journey,

[00:46:18.02] spk_1:
uh, cultures that are equitable in which people can show up as their whole selves, um, in which there is not only one right way to do things which tends to be a very kind of white dominant Western culture, linear sequential way of, of managing work of managing communications, etcetera, but that in fact work can be approached in a number of different ways and that solutions can be approached in a number of different ways. People get to show up and give their all to these missions that we all hold very near and dear. And so they are able they’re empowered. They are able they are celebrated without sticking to a set of preconceived guidelines or preconceived unwritten or written rules that don’t serve us anymore. Anyway,

[00:46:44.78] spk_0:
when you started to answer that, I saw your face lighten up your I don’t know, it was a smile, it just looks like your face untended. Not that you’re nervous,

[00:46:55.65] spk_1:
Your face changed,

[00:47:06.37] spk_0:
started to answer the where we could be. Uh yeah, it was, it was palpable. Alright, alright. Are you comfortable leaving it there?

[00:47:09.88] spk_1:
I think so. I think so what have we not covered that? We need to cover for your listeners,

[00:47:15.60] spk_0:
you know that better than I getting started. That’s

[00:47:34.18] spk_1:
fair. Look, you know what, this is, this is the future that is written with many voices and and while I think I can be helpful, I don’t presume to be the voice that has all the answers. I definitively don’t. I definitively don’t. And so what we have not covered is actually probably not known to me, but I dare say someone, someone out there does know that and and they will likely be putting their voice up, which is exactly what we want.

[00:47:47.19] spk_0:
Yes, we will be bringing other voices as well. Alright,

[00:47:50.25] spk_1:
no doubt. Yeah,

[00:48:02.94] spk_0:
she’s founder and Ceo of flourished Talent management Solutions and the company is at flourish tMS dot com. Thank you so much. Thank you very very much.

[00:48:05.97] spk_1:
Thank you. Thank you for opening up this space and having the conversation

[00:49:10.60] spk_0:
a pleasure. Uh it’s a responsibility and happy to live up to it. Try trying next week Beth Canter and Alison fine on their new book the smart non profit if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by fourth dimension technologies their I. T. Infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein, Thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for February 28, 2022: Founder Syndrome

Heidi Johnson: Founder Syndrome

It can severely hold back a nonprofit’s work when the organization becomes the founder. What are the symptoms and treatments? Heidi Johnson is a founder, took over leadership from a founder, and has been studying founders and their orgs for many years. She hosts the blog and podcast, Charity Matters.

 

 

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[00:00:10.24] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to

[00:01:43.04] spk_1:
tony-martignetti non profit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with parallel alia if I had to speak the words you missed this week’s show founder syndrome, it can severely hold back a nonprofits work when the organization becomes the founder, what are the symptoms? What are the treatments? Heidi johnson is a founder, took over leadership from a founder and has been studying founders and their organs for many years. tony steak too. Spring is in the air. We’re sponsored by turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s a pleasure to welcome for her debut on nonprofit radio Heidi johnson, she’s a co founder of Spiritual care guild, providing 24 7 chaplain support to Children’s hospital Los Angeles where she serves on the board of trustees. She’s the creator and founder of Charity Matters, a weekly blog and podcast that for over a decade has told the stories of nonprofit founders and their entrepreneurial journeys. It’s at charity hyphen Matters dot com and at charity matters Heidi johnson, Welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:01:48.34] spk_2:
Thank you, Tony. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:01:59.34] spk_1:
I’m glad. Thank you. My pleasure as well. So you’ve been a founder. You took over from a founder. I presume that in the organization that you founded, you didn’t leave things as bad as you found them when you took over from the founder?

[00:02:07.84] spk_2:
Well,

[00:02:09.33] spk_1:
well,

[00:02:10.24] spk_2:
I’ve gone through it all. I’ve been through it all. Let’s just put it that way. I’ve walked the walk, have walked the walk and I’m happy to share it. Let’s start

[00:02:26.34] spk_1:
the part of the journey with taking over from the founder. Uh, because that’s what we want to avoid folks having to deal with. You know, what, what did it look like? What did you have to go through? Tell us that, you know, it

[00:03:32.54] spk_2:
is, um, I refer to myself as the, the, the second life, the step mom. Um, everybody loves their mom and the step mom, you know, the person who comes in second is usually not as popular and um, and the founder is a beloved person. The founder is is so many great things and I have to say that I do think founders are some of the best humans on this planet. I mean they are, they are the charisma for the organization. They are the why they have the spark, they have the fire, they do beautiful things. The entrepreneurs like I, I have just the utmost respect for every founder I’ve ever talked to. I, I love these people. However, however, I think most founders don’t have a transition plan, a succession plan and I found myself in the predicament of having walked away from the nonprofit that I co founded with a group of people and inheriting one that was 32 years old at the time and had been founded by, um, a nun. So she was super beloved, Oh

[00:03:44.11] spk_1:
yeah,

[00:03:45.12] spk_2:
Oh yeah,

[00:03:46.64] spk_1:
nobody ever wants to cross, nobody wants to cross a nun. No, you can’t, they’re gonna get their knuckles

[00:03:51.33] spk_2:
slapped with the rules, you’re going to hell,

[00:03:52.98] spk_1:
right? I mean never crossing, it’s worse than crossing a priest.

[00:05:42.04] spk_2:
Exactly. So, so I, I come in and this organization has been a youth leadership organization where these, you know, 17,000 alumni have spent their summers with this woman who was like their mother and she is beloved by all and she was ill and not well and just said to the board, I’m gonna just close the organization and the board said, oh, no, no, no, no, you don’t just shut a nonprofit because you’re leaving. Um, that’s not how that works. And so it was, it was not a smooth exit strategy because there was no succession plan. Um, there was a lot of her feelings from obviously what I would call her kids are alumni who loved her and felt like she was sick and being shoved up by the board. It was, it was a big mess and I knew none of this when I was hired, right? I knew none of them. You didn’t know the history even, I knew that she was ill and was leaving. That’s what I was told. So of course I uncovered this pretty early on into my, yeah. And um, and it, it seriously, I, I’ve never been a second wife, I think, you know, knock on wood, but I felt that, um, that disconnect from our core base. Um, the board was supportive of me, but yet the board was still made up of people that were kind of on her team and wanted to talk about what we always do it this way. This is the way we do it because this is the way we do it, not because it’s the right way because this is what we do. And, and so just the battle started from the beginning. You know, it was just, that was just, that was like, you know, the first month

[00:05:57.34] spk_1:
was their staff to or was it just the executive?

[00:06:05.54] spk_2:
Yes. So they’re very small staff couple staff, a lot of volunteers. Um, some volunteers said just point blank, I won’t even speak to you. Like I don’t want to know you. I don’t want to work with you because that harsh.

[00:06:15.24] spk_1:
I don’t want, I don’t want, no, I don’t want

[00:06:35.74] spk_2:
to know you at all. And that was kind of my, um, and mind you, I had been interviewing nonprofit founders um, already for probably four years, three or four years at this point. So I’ve been interviewing nonprofit founders for charity matters. And um, and loving nonprofit founders and find myself in this situation. So it was so interesting having Ben a founder, having interviewed founders and now I am the second wife and I’m trying to navigate through this muddled transition. Um,

[00:07:00.44] spk_1:
very interesting. I thought I assumed that it was joining this organization that kicked off your interest in in talking to founders and your research. And yeah, you had already been doing it. And then unknowingly you find yourself as the, as the step wife the

[00:08:15.34] spk_2:
second, the second after starting a non profit as a volunteer with a group of friends I just became fascinated with. Who are these people that do this work? This work is incredibly Hard and and why would you do this work? I really, it was just fascinated with that. I knew that I had like a backstory and a catalyst and a moment that triggered me to want to do this work. But I was like, who are these other 1.6 million people and what’s their story? And by the way, why isn’t the world talking about them? And at that time, CNN Heroes wasn’t on People magazine Heroes amongst us. There was, there was nothing 10 years ago, there was really nothing about these people that truly are my heroes. So I just started my own personal quest. Um, as I walked away from spiritual care after running it for five years, I was like, who are these people? I need to find my, my people, my tribe. And I went in search of them and started charity matters, um, to start talking to founders. And so that so midway through my journey with charity matters, you know, this other nonprofit came to me and said, will you, will you take over what

[00:08:20.47] spk_1:
was the work of that nonprofit that you took over? Was it wasn’t the camp?

[00:08:33.54] spk_2:
So it’s yeah, so it’s called Task We are a youth leadership organization, a catholic youth leadership organization. And it used to just be a summer program to teach leadership um, in catholic schools. And um, we were serving 300 kids when I took over. Um, and now we’re serving 3000 and you know, we have a staff of were small, were small nonprofit organization. Again, task Ta CSC, it’s horrible acronym. Okay,

[00:08:54.14] spk_1:
all right. So were there people who, it doesn’t matter board members, volunteers may be among the small employee staff. Were there folks that recognized that the previous leader had been holding the organization back or was there just so much love for her that there was no, everybody was blind.

[00:09:54.94] spk_2:
There was, there was mixed, there was a mixed bag, I think our biggest donor, um, who had supported the organization for a long time and was also on the board, uh, realized that the organization to be more and, and he’s an incredible leader and visionary and he, he was really the one and because he had the deep pockets too, said we need to hire someone and, and our foundation will, will support this role and he kind of lead that, um, that task pun intended. um, that task to find a new executive director. And uh, and there was people that were very non supportive of that. But since she couldn’t run it, who was going to do it? And, and, and I think people don’t think about, they just think that these founders are gonna go on forever and it doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t work that way.

[00:11:29.34] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Have you thought about thought leadership, would you like yourself or your nonprofit to be a thought leader around your work in your community? It takes time to achieve that kind of credibility, but turn to can get you there, get you to the point where your opinion is sought after, where people come to you for advice, where you’re the leader for your cause and in your community around your cause, turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o now back to founder syndrome. And and, and so the organization, right? So the organization was not sophisticated and here’s the biggest donor or one of the biggest donors saying, you know, my foundation will pay for it. You need to do this. So, you know, they’d be more apt to follow his lead than maybe a more sophisticated organization, but a more sophisticated organization would have had a succession plan and would have recognized years earlier that the organization was being held back, etcetera. So maybe, you know, in some respects, it helped the organization. Well, that he stepped forward and that they, well, it’s hard to say that helped them by not being more sophisticated because they could have been a lot further along than they were when you, when you joined. If

[00:11:43.24] spk_2:
you’re right. And I think just because you’re a small organization also doesn’t always mean you’re now, it’s fair to say that you’re probably not as sophisticated and you are correct in this situation. We were not that sophisticated.

[00:11:54.94] spk_1:
The try to be as light as possible. You

[00:11:57.46] spk_2:
know, the fact that the

[00:12:00.97] spk_1:
was thinking like stultifying of, you know, your fact that the founder had on the organization. That’s what I mean. I don’t mean very savvy. There are very savvy to person organizations

[00:12:17.54] spk_2:
100% well. And I think that what happens and we see this not just in nonprofits, we see this in small businesses is when the entrepreneur, which nonprofit founders at their core entrepreneurs, um, that they, they, they in the business become one, the brand becomes one and there is a blurred line. And I mean, you could use something, you know, as simple as Martha Stewart or Oprah magazine. I mean, obviously they are the brand, right? But in nonprofits, it happens. It’s the same thing happens. And where do you separate the person, the founder and the mission and it’s critical, I think for people to be aware of that in their own organizations.

[00:12:59.64] spk_1:
Yeah. So let’s talk a little more about, let’s flush out some of the symptoms sure of, you know, you’ve, you’ve mentioned, you know, the organization becomes the person, the person becomes the organization. But what does that, you know, a little more detail, what, what does that look like?

[00:14:53.44] spk_2:
Well, there’s, I think there’s a lot, a lot of things that can happen. I think, um, when 11 aboard starts, um, becoming just so dependent on the founder and so worried that the founder is everything that could be, you know, a little sign right there. I think when an organization becomes flat, I think when you don’t see a lot of growth, a lot of new work members coming, a lot of new, different people coming from different areas joining your, cause it’s kind of the same old, maybe cronies club. Um, or things get a little stagnant. There could be a sign there that we haven’t seen like new new people coming in. Oftentimes also, I think people rely on the founder as, because they bring the passion and they bring kind of the purpose and the, why people think of the founder as their, their best fundraiser. And, and it’s lots of cases they are. Um, and there the community builder, but it doesn’t mean that they’re the only person that can do that. And I think, um, it’s easy for people to kind of put all that on the founders shoulders because the founders innately exude that passion for their organization. And so I think that, that, that becomes a problem. Um, and I think that, that basically what happens is that people just start all of a sudden thinking that the founder and the organization is one and the same and they lose sight of the mission and the mission is whatever you’re setting out to do isn’t that person, you’re there as a community to serve that purpose, to serve people. And if it all becomes about that person, decisions are being made based mainly by that person, every decision has to go through that person. These are red flag warnings. Yeah,

[00:15:06.84] spk_1:
everything right. Everything has to go through them all the marketing, any language ng messaging, right, Right. Major decisions like the board is just rolling over all the time. You know, you’re not seeing ever robust discussions,

[00:15:34.64] spk_2:
right? I mean there and boards should always have, um, not healthy conflict, healthy conversation, healthy dialogue. You know, you always want that board member that kind of pushes back that kind of pushes back and says, Hey, what about this or why is this? I mean, we kind of love and hate that board member, but we need that board member, but it’s, it’s so important that you don’t become placated by just making sure everybody’s happy that that, that doesn’t make for a healthy organization necessarily.

[00:16:07.14] spk_1:
So we ought to have a succession plan. All right. So let’s let’s, let’s talk a little bit about the value of a succession plan and then, you know, what, what to do if you don’t have one. Uh, and you’re, you know, and you feel like you’re in this stultifying era with your organization and a founder, you know, how, what, what can you do? But let’s, let’s talk about the value of a succession plan. You know, what some motivation for for spending the time and money to, to create one.

[00:16:54.54] spk_2:
Absolutely. Well, I mean, every healthy organization should have a succession plan. And um, I kind of like my marriage to an entrepreneur and he says to me and his, his words are wise. He said everything you enter, but a marriage should have an exit strategy, Everything, but a marriage should have an exit strategy. So every time he starts a business or goes into business, he knows when he’s going to leave, before he starts, he knows when he’s going to leave and, and he is a consummate entrepreneur. And, and I think that that’s really sage advice now for many of these founders, it’s a little too late for that. They’re too far down the path there listening to this saying, oh my gosh, wow, I should have, I should have thought about that, but we may have boarded, but

[00:17:02.34] spk_1:
we have board members listeners to who may say, you know, we, we ought to have a succession plan because you could get ill

[00:17:52.84] spk_2:
can happen. Yeah, yeah. Anything can happen, right. Anything can happen. So every healthy organization should have a succession plan. And it minimum. I think that if people are starting to, even in the organization bring someone up underneath them, someone that they can, you know, train from within that they could promote that is even there in case of emergency that you have at least a net a person that’s a slight net underneath you in your org chart. It’s critical. It’s critical that you have that at minimum in addition to a formal succession plan, obviously. But I think that people get short sighted and founders especially get so busy wearing all the hats and doing all their things. But the last thing you’re thinking about is their own succession plan. That’s like looking at your own mortality, right? And and that’s and that’s why so many of them don’t have them because they don’t want to face the fact that there’s going to be a moment that they’re going to have to separate themselves from something that they don’t know how to separate from.

[00:18:41.94] spk_1:
Alright, what if someone is a board member or maybe even a a senior part of a staff and that, you know, there isn’t a succession plan. I mean, ideally there should be succession plans, not only for the Ceo, but for all the sea level now, you know, now we’re envisioning a bigger organization, but let’s just start with a, you know, a small, small organization, we’re talking about a succession plan for the ceo. They’re a founder. We’re a board member or a staff member. How do we raise this with? We have to start with the founder. Do we start there? Do we, do we have a coup and go to a board member,

[00:19:40.54] spk_2:
which is really not the way to? Well, I think it really, I think it really depends. I think, I think it’s always nice for, I think it’s there’s a combo between the coup and the conversation with the founder and it depends on the dynamics of your board, an organization. I think if you have a board member that has a close relationship with the founder, it’s really great to kind of tap them on the shoulder and say, hey, we talked to so and so, you know, Freddy founder about their their retirement or their plans for the future. Have they ever expressed to you how long they want to be here and start kind of getting those little seeds planted? I think that would be a really smart, delicate, healthy way to navigate and begin that conversation. Meanwhile, I think it’s important that board members on the side are saying we need our responsibility, Our responsibility as a board member is, is for the success of this organization. We have taken, you know, in lots of cases signed a legal document saying that we are going to support this organization and, and well,

[00:19:59.04] spk_1:
and even if they, even if they haven’t signed a document under under state law, they’re fiduciaries to the organization duties of loyalty.

[00:20:01.24] spk_2:
Absolutely

[00:20:02.38] spk_1:
loyalty obedience, which sounds bad, but it’s not

[00:20:06.35] spk_2:
Bad, but 100% there and all of our jobs,

[00:20:10.49] spk_1:
the loyalty of the organization, not to the person,

[00:20:29.14] spk_2:
it is all about the organization, is all about the organization and getting your board to row in the same direction and realize that it is all about the organization going in the same way in the same path is critical. So that might mean a a cool conversation and whatever you want to call it, a healthy dialogue with, with board members about talking about if they see these symptoms, even if they don’t see them, they should have that plan ready to go. They should have that plan at all times ready. And what does that look like? And, and and how do we do that?

[00:21:20.94] spk_1:
All right. And, and with the, with the understanding that this applies really to all organizations, whether whether you’re you’re still have the you have the founder and the ceo or not, a succession plan is worth the time that it takes. Um, it can be empowering to the folks who now know that they’re part of a leadership succession plan. So you’re more likely to retain your good talent because they know that that there is a plan for them to advance in the organization. So that’s empowering and reassuring to to people in your organization. Um, and it’s just, you know, part of the duty of care and loyalty to the organization. The organization’s future.

[00:21:34.64] spk_2:
And, and, and the irony of the whole thing is that as a founder, you know, because there is ego that is tied with it and I speak as a founder as well. I know that there’s a little piece of ego. You do want your legacy to go on. You think about your nonprofit as your child and you want that to go on and on without you. So part of you is saying, this has to go on and this is what I’m leaving behind. This is my good work on this planet that I have left behind and I have, I have started something beautiful that helps people. And then the other part of you is like, wait a minute who’s taking my child? Who am I giving my child to? That’s my child. And and so there’s, it’s, it’s complex, right? It just is complex. There’s, there’s two sides of this and you want the best for your child, but you don’t want to let your child go.

[00:25:35.94] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. Ah Spring. The days are getting longer. In just a couple of weeks, Sunday, March 13. The days are going to get even longer. We turn the clocks forward A week from that on March 20 is the first day of spring. It’s looking like after three years, we’re going to be emerging to something pretty normal. That’s the way it looks today. The last day of february when I’m releasing this, That’s the way it looks so on the most basic and practical level. Or maybe even base level. Think about your summer. There’s gonna be a lot of, a lot of people getting out this summer that have not been able to for three years. Make your plans, get yourself sink, tup, get your reservations. It may already. It’s kind of late, I think. But you certainly got to do it now, if you haven’t already for your for your summer plans, A lot of people are gonna be out spring for me. It means more time outside. Of course, more time on the beach. I found a poem. I’m gonna try this. May I favor you with this code? It’s Emily Dickinson a light exists in spring. A light exists in spring, not present on the year at any other period when marches scarcely here, a color stands abroad on solitary fields that science cannot overtake. But human nature feels it waits upon the lawn. It shows the furthest tree upon the furthest slope. You know, it almost speaks to you then as Horizons Step or Nunes report away without the formula of sound, it passes and we stay a quality of loss affecting our content as trade had suddenly encroached upon a sacrament. I hope that’s OK. Emily Dickinson a light exists in spring. Ah spring, rejoice go out enjoy. It’s nearly here. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for founder syndrome with Heidi johnson from the loftiness of Emily Dickinson to the baseness of cheap alliteration, boo koo. But loads. My goodness. So let’s shift a little. Now now we’re were in your situation at at task. You know, how do you start to win over some folks? I don’t know. Do you leverage your couple of allies or your one ally or you know, what’s what’s your advice for starting the movement beyond the sweet nun? I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine about.

[00:27:07.04] spk_2:
She’s lovely. She’s wonderful. She’s wonderful. She there’s nothing, there’s nothing bad about our founder except that she left, right? And she abandoned her Children, right? And she got sick. She there’s no she’s a wonderful woman. Um but the but how you start that transition when you come in as a second wife. Um and and mom is left and you have, you know, kids that are missing mom and don’t really know who you are. Uh for me it was the board, the board was was made up of um a group of alumni that um that in a way really. I’m the mother of three sons. Um and there were some of these board um members gentlemen who who are fantastic. But as a group, they were like a pack of of kids. They had they were alumni. They’d been to camp together. They were a little gang and they behaved like a little gang and as a mother of sons. Um, my first board meeting was a call before zoom and I listened to them beating up on this one person and I was, I was just a board member of each board member beating up verbally on one. They all picked on one board member. And I couldn’t believe what I was listening to and I remember

[00:27:11.85] spk_1:
was that board member

[00:27:57.54] spk_2:
present on the call? Yeah, everyone was still the call. And I listened to the victim was on the call, I was on the call and I um got off that call and I called each board member and said, you know and I also sit on a number of boards myself. So I do know how bored when you should be run not to mention that we teach that at task and we teach kids how to run a meeting. And um and I called each board member and I said, I don’t know what that was but that behavior is completely unacceptable. And I am not going to be part of any organization that treats its members like this. So if you don’t call that that person that you picked on in that meeting right now and apologize, I won’t be back. This is just unacceptable. And I called, oh I called for men and I told them all the same thing and they all called this person and um, and I was like, oh my gosh, I can’t even believe I had to do this. I felt like I was holding my Children right? And then, and then

[00:28:10.55] spk_1:
you have to apologize to, you

[00:30:02.14] spk_2:
have to apologize, but, but you know, you know, privately shamed publicly praised, right? So I then called um a priest who was a friend of mine who had been their principle of all of their high schools and I served on his board and I called him and I said, you know, so Father Bill, I need a little bit of help. I said, payback is a bit much. And uh, and I’ve, you know, coach here at your board for five years and I need you on my mind right now because I need to open a can of pass on this board and I need someone who’s, who’s gonna scare them and you’re the only guy I can think of that’s gonna really scare them. And so he joined the board, Principal, 50 year old boys, but principal right, put them right back in their place. And yeah, right back in their place. And then his first call, which was my second board meeting, he said, oh, Heidi, you have your work cut out for you. I said, why do you think you’re here? And so little by little, it was also try turning over the board and there was no board. Um, they had, there was no, no timeline on board commitments. We board members have been there for 12 years. Like what? So I had to create term limits bylaws had to be updated. Term limits had to be created turning over the board and getting, so the first thing I would tell a new E. D. Or who’s taking over from a founder is create a board that supports you. And at least if nothing else bringing a couple champions on your in your corner, you can’t, you can’t start that battle alone. You’ll never, you’ll never make it. Yeah,

[00:30:03.83] spk_1:
I have to ask, how do you get board members to vote for their own term limits?

[00:30:09.24] spk_2:
Well, we had the violence

[00:30:11.26] spk_1:
brand new. This is a brand new concept to them. What someday we have to leave the board.

[00:30:16.45] spk_2:
You’re, you’re, you’re

[00:30:18.57] spk_1:
as radical as, as

[00:30:27.34] spk_2:
everybody said. Yeah. Let me tell you a troublemaker. As we thought you were, there was some very unhappy people. There were some very unhappy people, but the people that had sat on other boards and that had a lot of board experience. Um, you know, I woke up and said, this is the right thing for the organization. Father Bill.

[00:30:42.36] spk_1:
Alright. Allies. You gotta, you have to have some allies.

[00:31:05.04] spk_2:
You have to have allies. You absolutely have to and anyone who does a nonprofit work. It’s all about your team and a community, right? And that’s what we do is we build community and build connection. And if you can’t do that and build that then you’re not supposed to be in this line of work. Right, That’s okay. So that’s I think that’s I think that’s number one, that would be my first.

[00:31:12.54] spk_1:
Alright. And how long did that process take in uh in sort of evolving these folks off the board. I mean did they have to remain for their term

[00:32:55.74] spk_2:
limits? So they took a little minute, it took a little minute I would say we are board was our board was functioning in a and and I do I do like healthy conflict but it was functioning within a year. Um it was not a well oiled machine. I also said to my board um early on I set really clear goals. You know, there’s there’s a lot of great books on turning organizations over and every, most of them will say it takes about five years to you know, turn an organization around two to flip an organization to get it running. And so I kind of said to the board, don’t Rome was not built in a day and I need you to know this is going to take time and you know I inherited a database with 17,000 handwritten three by five recipe cards. That was my database really, you can’t make this up index cards and beautiful non penmanship gorgeous. But yeah, her penmanship was exquisite. Beautiful, 34,000 still have them in the storage unit. Uh huh. So, so Rome was not built in a day and I inherited a heart without a skeleton without structure, a huge beating heart with people passionate for this work. Um with zero structure. And so I just said, you know, it’s going to take, it’s going to take five years and like roll up your sleeves and this is going to be, This is gonna be hard, it’s gonna be bumpy, but we’re gonna do this and um, and you know, we’re now eight years, I’m eight years in and we’re celebrating our 40th anniversary, um, this year. And, and we have just had a border treat last weekend, phenomenal, the most amazing group of people, fantastic. And, and all of our board members who sit on a lot of other boards are like, this is the best run meetings, the best run board. Like it’s just, you know, makes me feel really excited when I look back and I have these conversations with you remember where we were and, and, and where we are. So there is hope for anyone listening.

[00:33:46.24] spk_1:
So you want to die, I guess some, some advice to would be, you know, keep that, keep that goal in sight as you’re, as you’re going through these five transitional years. Absolutely. You know, I mean, you know, it’s easy for us to talk about, but you know, you lived it day after day through the board transition. There were probably employee there, there had to be an employee changes. Yeah. You know, that’s a that’s a tough haul for five years. You have to get, you gotta keep your goal in mind. And

[00:34:53.74] spk_2:
and I think setting that timeline for for me and the board, it was it me, it kept me in the race to write, because I said, I’m going to do this in five years and take five years to get this, you know, completely just, you know, running at full speed. And it’s exactly what it was exactly about, right. I mean, certainly things got better and better and better, but um, but I didn’t I think it would be easy to also quit as a new e. D. You know, if I hadn’t said that goal for myself as well, because I said to them, if this is what it’s gonna take. And I knew like, you know, and at five years I got to say, I thought, should I just put a ribbon on, it should put a big bow. But but I’ve just, you know, I I’ve loved it, but I’ve been very, very cognizant, very cognizant. And I almost, um, I don’t want to say I’m aloof um, with my with the kids, but I’m very clear that their job is to love this organization. And and it is not to love me, they it is about loving each other and this work that we do teaching leadership. Um it is not about me, it is not about me, it’s all about the organization.

[00:35:35.84] spk_1:
Alright. Um, the founders, I guess we’re taking a little step back. You know, you talked about founders having a spark, you know, or passion, just make it explicit how spark and passion aren’t sufficient, they’re necessary, but not sufficient for launching a successful company. I mean, a successful business. It’s a nonprofit corporation, but it runs like a business. It’s

[00:36:49.83] spk_2:
a business, it’s a business, why is passion? It’s a business with a horrible business models. We all know, right. A business model that relies on the kindness of others is a hard business model. It’s not the easiest business model, but it works for, You know, 1.6 million of us, we make it work every day, we get up and we do this work. So, um, so it works. I think that, um, what’s fascinating about the hundreds of nonprofit founders I’ve interviewed with charity matters in the past 10 years, is that not one of them, not one of them woke up as a child or said, I’m going to be a nonprofit founder. Not one of them intended for this work to happen. Every single one of them had a moment and something happened. They were on a very different course, every single one of them and something happened. Something dramatic, a catalyst. A really big moment happened to them or someone they loved that forever changed the trajectory of their life and, and in such a big way that they had to stop their career or whatever they were doing and knew they had to do this. And I think that that’s so um admirable and, and so, and that’s where that passion comes from because something happened to

[00:36:55.03] spk_1:
these people would give up their jobs,

[00:38:07.22] spk_2:
give up their job, give up their life, their income, everything. I mean these people are extraordinary. And when you think about it like that, just think about everyone right now as their job, they’re working, they’re paying their bills, they’re feeding their Children and something happens to someone you love something horrible or to you. And and you say, I got to walk away from everything because I need to dedicate my life to this. I mean that’s, that’s pretty remarkable when you think about it. And so to me that’s what makes these people so special and, and and their spark and passion comes from that because almost all of them um are determined if they just help one person who doesn’t have to go through what they went through. If one person doesn’t get breast cancer. If one person isn’t raped, If one person isn’t hungry, if one person isn’t homeless, they all start out with a very pure intention, they just want to make sure that they’re helping one person and before they know it, they have an organization and they’re driving and there’s a lot that goes into being an entrepreneur that a lot of them weren’t prepared for. It didn’t have the skill set and they didn’t and, and they have passion and as you say, that isn’t always enough.

[00:38:18.02] spk_1:
So there’s a big spiking activity, maybe the first six months or year, right? You get family involved, you get friends involved

[00:38:21.36] spk_2:
and

[00:38:26.42] spk_1:
you know, now where do we go? You know, I’ve exhausted my friends and my family, you know, how do I grow this business? And

[00:39:07.42] spk_2:
exactly, and there’s that and there’s usually, if it’s something that happened to someone in their family, their community, the community usually knows about whatever this moment was in the community wants to help, right? Which is the best thing about our country. And as americans, we, we are innate helpers and we always want to help our neighbor. So everyone’s rattling around in those early days because they’re like, I’ll do whatever I can to help. But as that, as that memory lingers, as that moment is behind people, as the passion lingers in the reality of, oh my God, I’ve quit my job and I started this business and I don’t even know what to do. So it’s in, it becomes, It becomes a lot more challenging for these small nonprofit founders. 100%.

[00:39:13.02] spk_1:
And that’s what you hear from the hundreds of people you’ve interviewed

[00:39:16.44] spk_2:
that all of them

[00:39:17.21] spk_1:
are, they are a lot of them in sort of stagnating organizations leading, leading stagnating organizations?

[00:40:19.81] spk_2:
Well, I think I always ask the question I ask every single person I talked to was, you know, what is your biggest challenge? And, and I would say, you know, 85 90% of them would say fundraising, right? Which I know, you know from this is what you talk about every day with, with your guests. Um, but but they don’t have the, they don’t have the skills. They they’re just, they don’t come in with any of this, right? And so it’s, it’s the learning curve is steep. And then there’s just so many control pieces because they’re trying to do everything as all entrepreneurs do try to do everything. They’re wearing too many hats. Um, you know, you think about it there, there’s, they have so many things stacked against them. And the fact that um, that they persevere is, is remarkable because they’re the toughest group. They are not giving up, they’re not gonna give up. They are, they are going to push on, they are going to push on.

[00:40:23.91] spk_1:
Let’s talk some about the service as a leader, a leader in service to the organization.

[00:42:41.50] spk_2:
Well, I think for me, you know, uh, running a leadership organization, which is, which is what I do. We teach. We teach our kids and I think it’s important for all nonprofits to think about this as leaders and every human to think about this as a leader, we teach our kids for things um, that are important in order for you to lead. one. If you’re gonna lead, you have to have a plan and a goal. We talked about that earlier, like mine was that five year goal, you have to have a plan and a goal. You have to be able to communicate that plan on that goal. You know, what’s your mission? What’s your message? How do you communicate to donors to people to friends and neighbors to get them involved? You have to be a mentor. You have to be a lifelong mentor. And I think in nonprofit, bringing your volunteers along, bringing potentially someone in a succession plan that you’re mentoring and underneath you, being a lifelong mentor is critical in leadership because real leaders grow more leaders. Real leaders definitely grow more leaders. So mentoring is a huge part of leadership and a huge part of success for your non profit as well. And then the most important thing we teach our kids and I think that it’s a reminder for all of us is you cannot lead unless you serve and why did we get into this work in the first place? We got into this work in the first place to serve to help people, Something happened. And we wanted to help them, you know, in my case of spiritual care, we had one chaplain for 300,000 Children at Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles and we wanted to provide more chaplains and we were there to serve to make that happen. And that was our mission to provide chaplains of all faiths to this hospital and, and every single day, that’s what we did. And I get up every day knowing that I’m serving thousands of kids that have potential to be the next generation of leaders and and that’s something that I carry on my back every day. I don’t go to bed thinking I didn’t make enough pencils, I go to bed thinking I have thousands of kids and I have a lot of kids that have been, you know, locked up with mask and homeschooled and you know, alienated and disconnected and suffering for mental health and they need to be connected and they need to be connected and learn to lead these kids are going to lead our future. And I go to bed at night thinking about the kids that that need to be able to have this experience. So when we’re running a nonprofit, we need to think about those that were serving every single day because that’s why we do this work, it’s not about us as the founder, it’s not about us and our ego and our brand and our name, it is about the people that we serve. That is why we do this.

[00:43:17.70] spk_1:
Howdy johnson, she’s the creator and founder of Charity Matters, the weekly blog and podcast, which is that talking about founders and their entrepreneurial journeys. It’s at charity hyphen Matters dot com and at charity underscore matters Heidi. Thank you very much. What a pleasure. Thanks for sharing. Thank

[00:43:20.77] spk_2:
you. tony

[00:43:21.47] spk_1:
especially for sharing your own story. Thank you.

[00:43:24.24] spk_2:
You are so welcome

[00:43:48.00] spk_1:
next week. Get off the recruitment merry go round. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Our creative producer is Claire

[00:44:05.00] spk_0:
Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty, you’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the The other 95

[00:44:07.47] spk_1:
go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for January 24, 2022: Tribute To Michael Davidson

Michael Davidson & Brian Saber: Tribute To Michael Davidson

Michael Davidson died last week. The show is a replay of his last guest appearance, from October 18, 2021. Michael was on with his co-author, Brian Saber, and we talked about their book, “Engaged Boards Will Fundraise.”

If you’d like to make a contribution in his memory, Michael has asked that all memorial gifts go to SAJ, his beloved synagogue in NYC.

If you’d like to share your thoughts about Michael, you can email them to tributestomike@briansaber.com. Brian will send them to Michael’s family.

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:02:44.84] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Yeah, this is a tribute show. Michael Davidson died last week. He’ll be remembered as a smart, funny, humble giving gentleman. His decades working with boards and his time as chair of governance matters gave him clarity around building healthy, efficient fundraising nonprofit boards. Michael shared his wisdom so generously including with non profit radio listeners. My tribute to Michael is a replay of his last time as a guest he was on with his co author and colleague brian Saber. If you’d like to make a contribution in his memory, Michael has asked that memorial gifts go to S A. J. His beloved synagogue in new york city. They’re at the S AJ dot org. If you’d like to share your thoughts about Michael, you can email them to tributes to mike at brian saber dot com, brian will send them to Michael’s family From October 18, 2021 here is engaged boards will fundraise. Okay, it’s my pleasure to welcome back Michael Davidson and brian Saber, Michael is a consultant specializing in nonprofit board, development management, support, leadership, transition and executive coaching for nonprofit managers. He has over 30 years experience in nonprofit board and managerial leadership. Michael’s at board coach dot com brian Saber is a co founder of asking matters and one of the field’s preeminent experts on the art and science of asking for charitable gifts face to face. He’s been working with boards for more than 35 years to help unlock their fundraising potential. Brian’s company is at asking matters dot com and he’s at brian Saber together, Michael and bryan co authored the book, engaged boards will fundraise how good governance inspires them. Their book brings both of them and back to nonprofit radio Michael and BRian welcome back to the show. What a

[00:02:48.14] spk_1:
pleasure. Great to be back. Great to be back.

[00:02:50.00] spk_2:
Very happy to be here.

[00:02:51.16] spk_0:
Glad to have you. Yes, congratulations on the book.

[00:02:54.35] spk_1:
Thank you

[00:03:00.04] spk_0:
Michael, Your book title is emphatic, there’s no hedging, no

[00:03:01.25] spk_1:
qualifications. How can

[00:03:04.52] spk_0:
you be so sure, engaged boards will fundraise?

[00:04:17.44] spk_1:
Well, it’s a, it’s a great, great question, tony and it really is the answer to that is in the title If if you’ve got a board that really does care about what the mission and the vision is of the organization, that’s why they’re there. If they have that personal motivation to be involved in your organization and to care about the impact that you’re having in the, in the world and are engaged in the ownership of that impact in managing it, they care enough to do this. Where are our whole premises? We can teach board members how to fundraise, brian has been doing that forever. Our job is to figure out how do we make board members want to fundraise and making them want to fundraise is engaging them, engaging them with their fellow board members, connecting them with their fellow board members and deeply connecting them with the vision and the passion that brought them to your board in the first place. That’s the simple, really, the simple answer for this. If they’re engaged, they’re gonna want to, they’re gonna want to make this organization happen, which includes raising the money for it.

[00:04:32.74] spk_0:
And much of the book is getting that engagement doing it properly. We go from details like the board meeting, which we’re going to talk about two to broader engagement you want? Yes. In fact, you say fundraising must be fully integrated with the active engagement of the board in its fiduciary and leadership

[00:04:55.14] spk_1:
roles. Ryan

[00:04:55.92] spk_0:
Ryan flush that out for us a little bit, uh, we, you know, we got plenty of time together. We don’t have to, you don’t have to pack it all into one answer, but why are we starting to get into their fiduciary and leadership roles and, and they’re that relationship with fundraising?

[00:05:51.34] spk_2:
Well, let’s look at the budget for example, and often a budget is presented to the board. The staff puts together a budget and if it seems like it adds up, the board approves it often, it’s maybe just slightly incremental from the last one, not a lot of explanation, sometimes a lot of detail without higher level explanation. And so the board is basically just, I hate to say rubber stamping it and that, that’s just, that’s very passive if the board is involved in developing the budget and is really given a sense of what can be accomplished with a larger budget

[00:06:01.54] spk_1:
and gets to choose

[00:07:03.64] spk_2:
and say yes, we’d like to do more. And we understand our role in that, that we can’t just tell the staff to raise more. Here’s where the money comes from. Here is our roll. This is how we develop larger donors. It does take the board unless wear a university with a big major gift staff were it for most organizations, the board is the major gift staff. We get that. We want our organization to do more. We’re going to agree to this budget knowing all of that, then they’re in it together. Everyone around the table is a knowing a willing participant that’s very different and we don’t see a lot of that happening. And yes, it’s hard on, especially smaller organizations to get all of this done, but it’s critical. It’s critical not to shortchange the process. If we short change the process, we can’t expect the board to enthusiastically go out and fundraise.

[00:07:31.24] spk_0:
This reminds me of the old conventional wisdom, you know, ask for if you want money, asked for an opinion your if you want to, if you want an opinion to ask for money, you’re you’re you’re saying you’re getting the board’s opinion, you’re you’re calling an engagement. But it’s it’s it’s bringing in the board’s opinions about what the organization should be doing, what should be paring back where it should be heading, is that is that, is that essentially what you’re doing is getting bored getting bored opinions

[00:09:27.04] spk_1:
and ownership because it’s not just their opinion on the budget. They put their opinion into this budget, they work with staff on developing it, but at the end of the day they raise their hand and they say, I approve this budget with these particular fundraising goals included in it. I agree to this, they make that decision. You know, one of the things that’s interesting in connection with this, this puts a lot more work on staff. They got to spend more time on the budget. And very often staff said, oh my God, leave the board, we’ll do the budget. Don’t bother them. It’s going to take too much time to explain all of this to them. They may disagree with us on our priorities. They may think other things are important. I don’t want to get involved in that. Let’s just give him a budget a quick five minute vote and done, right? So it requires staff executive director to say, you know, if you want a board that’s going to fundraise, you’ve got to spend the time listening to them explaining to them, engaging with them and they may come out somewhat differently than you do, you gotta live with that. You gotta live with that. It’s not your organization, it’s your joint organization. That’s, you know, that’s a lot of work. So, you know what we’re saying may sound simple, you know, as for advice, you get money, but the reality is, there’s a commitment involved, Both on the part of board members and on the part of staff to make this, you know, staff comes to us all the time. But Brian, and I hear this 10 times a day, my board won’t fundraise, oh, well, what are you doing to get them to do that?

[00:09:29.74] spk_2:
Right. Another piece of it, which we’ll get to is having them do the right fundraising. So that’s the other half of the equation, which didn’t cover because it is a double edged sword there. Okay,

[00:10:00.14] spk_0:
Michael, can we at at points then push back when, when it comes time for, for board commitments around fundraising and say, you know, you all agreed to the, to this budget, you took ownership of the budget, You held your hands up and voted well, now it’s time to fund what you all agreed to. Can you, can you sort of give it back to them that

[00:10:11.74] spk_1:
way? Absolute. And it requires one on 1 work with each board member. And for me, that’s the role of the resource development committee. So let’s talk about it. We’ll get to brian’s magic number of floor, you know, what are you going to do? And

[00:10:25.14] spk_0:
uh, yeah, well, before we get to the fundraising part, I wanna, I wanna spend time on the engagement

[00:10:28.84] spk_1:
part. Let’s

[00:10:44.14] spk_0:
not go anarchy economy. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna get this, you talk about a, a culture that creates full engagement, uh who, who’s best for, I don’t know who to call on, you know, I’m a Socratic method from law school, I don’t know, but I don’t want to go like ping pong either, brian Michael, brian Michael, that’s that’s too monotonous. So, you know, who’s who’s best for talking about creating this culture of engagement at on

[00:10:59.10] spk_2:
the board. We’ll let Michael

[00:12:51.14] spk_1:
okay for me, you know, this came out of, I did a workshop with a number of consultants on helping them learn how to do what I do, and one of the consultants whose brilliant, actually, we’ve got a quote from her and what Catherine devoid. Catherine said, you know what you’re talking about, Michael is aboard culture and Peter Drucker, the management guru says, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. What we want to do when I talk about a culture is a culture, is a team for me aboard, culture is a team, We see ourselves as a team, we understand, we know each other, we’ve spent time with each other and we jointly want to do something, we jointly believe in this in this mission, okay, And we encourage and support one another. So the culture at base has a system where board members know each other and work together on various kinds of things. Then you have the motivation and then board members can encourage and hold one another accountable for what they’re doing. So the culture starts with, making sure that board members know one another personally, personally know who they are, who they are and from that you can begin to build a sense of a team. We’re in this together, we’re not separate. It’s a very, it’s a very different notion of what the board is. You know, you and I tony were lawyers. Right? So we start, okay, this is the fiduciary responsibility. This is the board, this is what they’re supposed to do brian and I are asking the question yes, we know what they’re supposed to do. How do we make them want to do it? And part of it is the mission, but part of it is their sense of responsibility to each other. Think about a sports team, right? What makes a good sports team? Not a collection of stars, right? It’s a collection of individuals who don’t want to let one another down. I want to do my best because I’m with you, we’re doing this together. And if you get the matter,

[00:13:16.84] spk_0:
you used to use the metaphor Michael of the rowing because you’re a rower and you had the coach boat and rowers have to be working in unison,

[00:14:17.94] spk_1:
right? In in unison. And there’s a great quote which I used in the book from the boys in the boat, in which the coach tells this row, right? You know, you’re a good rower. But let me tell you what you need to do to be a great rower to be a great rower. You need to trust every other guy in the boat when you trust everybody else, you will be great. That’s an interesting notion, right? Because I know if I know Tony, I know you’re pulling as hard as you can, I’m gonna pull as hard as I can. If I’m not so sure about you, why do I kill myself? Right? But I know you tony you’re gonna pull with everything you’ve got. And so I’m gonna pull with everything I got. It’s a very simple kind of notion, but to us, it’s very, very important. It’s creating the board as a group, not as a collection of separate individuals as a team and they hold one another accountable and they don’t want to let one another down. It’s the experience we’ve all had.

[00:14:20.94] spk_0:
Right? How do we start building this trust among board members?

[00:16:33.84] spk_2:
Well, first we look at the time we, they spend together and how we’re using it. So I always say to people, it’s amazing the percentage of a board member’s time that is spent in board meetings and the percentage of the board meeting time that is not spent. Well, so if you’re going to have A two hour meeting every other month, Uh that’s 12 hours and and maybe there in the committee meeting once every two months or once every month or something. But almost all the time is spent together in these meetings. And the meetings have so much, uh, um, reporting, There’s so much happening there. That doesn’t have to happen, uh, there. And, and, and so the meetings don’t allow for this team building where the, where the board members are grappling with the big issues and wrestling with the future of the organization, uh, how the organization is presented, where it fits in a big, big, important issues. And they should be wrestling with those because they’re the board and they have the responsibility for moving this organization ahead, keeping it safe, making sure it’s doing the right thing. And uh, so many board meetings have very little discussion of program presentation of program reporting back from board members of what they’ve seen in the program. And lots of board members rarely even see the program in action. So the board meetings are very report central centric, no one wants to give up their their chairman’s report, their executive director’s report, this report, that report. And we try to move people towards these consent agendas where all the reports go out in advance and are simply approved and you have to read them. You have to read them in advance because you can’t just come to the meeting and expect to have a conversation about them even and even the action steps should be discussed.

[00:17:02.64] spk_0:
You even suggest in the book that questions about what’s in the consent agenda have to be submitted in advance of the meeting? You can’t come to the meeting with your questions about the previous, the previous minutes or or everything or the reports that are in the consent agenda, you got to submit your questions in advance. So we know you’ve read them, How many of us have been in board meetings where people, you can see, you see people for the first time, they get there 10 minutes early and they’re pouring over their board notebook and you’re just sure that that’s the first time they cracked it open 10 minutes before the meeting and what’s really they’re wasting their time at that point.

[00:17:47.24] spk_2:
And then you get one or two board members who hijacked the meeting with questions and they shouldn’t be allowed to. No one gets to hijack a meeting. And if you have this, this structure in place which is much more about discussion and moving the organization forward, building the team and such, then there isn’t that time for these small questions. I mean, I I get driven crazy when budgets are presented and someone goes to one small line item and ask the question, it’s it’s it’s it’s so bad in many ways, we’re trying to move people away from that.

[00:19:07.14] spk_1:
But tony there’s another side to this and that’s the role of the executive director in this Because what we’re urging is that there’ll be substantive questions, for example, on such and such a program. What is the impact of that program and how do we measure that impact? Right. That’s an important engaged board discussion. Executive directors many say, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don’t want them getting into program. That’s my job. If they start talking about programs, it means they’re trying to manage how I do my my implementation work. Right? And we say we want we want boards to be faced with the real issues, as we say in the book, the good, the bad and the ugly. Well, executive directors don’t like to do that. They just want to give the board good news, put out their report and go home and hope that they don’t bother them. So this partnership takes too right. You’ve got to have an executive director who is willing to engage with the board in these substantive discussions about the future of the organization, about the problems that the organization is having about its challenges, not just the good news. So it takes, it’s two sided. You can’t do

[00:19:08.11] spk_0:
this. What is the appropriate role for a board member, board members around program, Michael,

[00:21:23.84] spk_1:
for me, it’s about impact. It’s not about how you do your program, it’s about what your program is designed to accomplish. And how do you measure? What’s the vision? What are you trying to do? How do you measure that impact? I’ve got, you know, I’m on the selection committee for the Awards of Excellence and nonprofit management. And one of the things that we look at is program impact. So let me give you one of my favorite examples. And this is the board involved, an impact, Right? Um you know, I’m a roller. So this is, it’s a rolling story. Okay, So wonderful organization in new york city called Rome new york. No new york works with local high school kids, makes them into competitive rowers, which is really good for their college applications. Works with them on college prep stuff and stuff. They were off the wall about the results of their program, 98% of their kids were getting into college. Fantastic. Right. Fantastic. Well, but they had also been collecting data on their kids. And one of the things that they saw in their data is that their kids were not doing so great in college. And so the executive director and the board started to look at this data and said, you know, we’re we’re focusing on the wrong input. Our endpoint should not be college acceptance. Our endpoint. Our impact point should be college graduation. So now what do we have to do programmatically to reach that. And we have to put resources into different kinds of programs that the programs to keep track of the kids once they’re in school, bring them back. So and it’s over. But it was the board and the executive director looking at the data and looking at the question, what is our goal, what is the impact we’re trying to make? And by doing that, they jointly changed where they were directing resources, some of the staff that they were doing and stuff like that. So that’s an example for me of the board being involved in programs, but at the right level at the level of impact and the level of data, not how do you teach? And that’s what executive directors tend to be afraid of. Once you start talking about program, then they’re gonna start talking about how do I teach and how do I run my classroom and so on and so forth. And that’s the board job

[00:22:06.14] spk_0:
brian, let’s talk a little more about nuts and bolts of meetings. If the, if this is the primary time that the board is spending together, whether it’s committee meetings or bored or full board meetings. Um, in fact I’m imagining you two would advocate for social time for the board as well. But so we can, you know, we’ll get to the social part. Let’s let’s talk more about some nuts and bolts meetings. Were trying to build a team, we’re trying to build trust. We want to focus on the right things. What, what more advice you have around meeting structure.

[00:24:04.24] spk_2:
Well, first of all, the agenda needs to be developed jointly by the executive director and board leadership. Sometimes that’s just the chair, sometimes that’s the entire executive committee and it needs to be developed in advance and everyone needs to know their role and be prepared, not just wing it. Uh so that’s that’s the first piece. I often hear boards talking about one hour meetings. Now. This idea of making meetings very efficient and it reminds me of this issue with government and people want small government, it’s really better government that you want, right? You don’t want to waste the time. It’s not that you’ve got to make it smaller, but it needs to work, right? And I think an hour is not enough time. I think an hour and a half to two hours gives you uh, the flexibility to dig into a topic. Uh you have to have some sort of program presentation every time. There’s there’s no substitute for that. The more we connect board members program and give them an opportunity to ask questions about it to learn about it, the stronger their connection will be. So there needs to be programmed presentation, Michael and I prefer that board members are out there, uh seeing program and are bringing back their own recollections and sharing those with the board. Um, so those those are important. Uh the, you know, we should not have a long Executive Director’s report. We should be asking the executive director just as we ask all the committee chairs to submit their reports in advance. Uh the the chair’s report should be very short at the very beginning, very high level Michael, Would you add to that?

[00:24:06.32] spk_1:
Yes, I didn’t do that. Exactly one is I love to time my agenda’s

[00:24:13.14] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:24:35.44] spk_1:
I lay out, you know, we we lay out what’s gonna be and then I put this is gonna be five minutes, 15 minutes, whatever it is and that does a couple of things. No one, it focuses the board, it makes us think about where we want big discussion and where we don’t want big discussion and it also gives the chair of the power to cut things off. So if someone’s going off on a on a rabbit or you know, at the meeting, no, no, no, no. We’ve only got five minutes for this. We have to end discussion now because otherwise we’re not going to get to the other. So timing the agenda is a big deal. You know, Michael, I’ve

[00:24:58.64] spk_0:
even seen where uh aboard and I’ve seen this in other meetings as well outside the board setting, where there’s a timekeeper appointed. So so the chair can keep the conversation flowing and relevant. And the timekeeper is the one who says, we only have three minutes left for this topic. You know, like mr mr and mrs board chair, there are only three minutes left on this topic. You know, it’s up to you to decide what you want to do, but I’m the timekeeper and I’m letting you know there’s only three minutes left. But just another,

[00:26:41.64] spk_1:
it’s an interesting notion I actually kinda like it goes back to as you know, I spent a good part of my legal career as a prosecutor and you know, and the notion of good cop, bad cop, right? So so the board chair is a good cop. No, no, I’m not controlling this, right? Someone else is telling us we have to stop, but I’d love to let you talk forever. Right? Yeah, good. You know, so it’s a good thing. The other thing too is there’s a framework for board discussions which rob Acton is used in in in his in his writings and he’s, you know, and he says there are three kinds of questions that boards need to be looking at generative strategic and fiduciary, okay, generative is where are we going, why are we doing this? What’s our purpose? Right? Strategic is how do we do it? And fiduciary other details and you know, and part of what happens is so much of board meetings tend to be taken up with fiduciary matters and not enough time on generative and strategic matters. So again, as the, as the leadership team is thinking about the agenda, they should be asking, you know, are there questions of that nature, generative and strategic that we need to be thinking about, you know, so it’s good paradigm.

[00:26:43.44] spk_0:
Yeah, brian’s got his hand

[00:27:34.14] spk_2:
out and I want to add to that, that when we talk about developing these board meetings, a lot of boards meet if not every month every other month and I’ve always felt the more often you meet and it’s not something we talked talked about in the book, but it’s something I Michael and I have talked about, the more often you meet, the, the more likely it is you’re going to get into more details because less has happened in the two months you get out of the meeting. Everyone has one committee meeting perhaps than your back. And, and I don’t think boards have to meet as a board every two months. I think if they meet quarterly as a board, there’s, it’s easier to see the big picture. It gives more time for committee work in between and and that alone could help lessen the focus on minutia.

[00:27:43.54] spk_1:
It’s an interesting question. Um, I, I go both ways depending upon the organization and, and the size of the board. But one of the things that’s interesting about another question about board meetings is how do we use board meetings to connect board members with one another?

[00:27:58.64] spk_0:
I was gonna get to this. I wanted to get to the social side of this too.

[00:28:01.73] spk_1:
Great. Okay. Okay.

[00:28:03.09] spk_0:
Yeah. So how do we,

[00:29:40.14] spk_1:
Well, it’s very, it’s really interesting because I think, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot as we emerge from Covid, hopefully emerge from Covid. Right? And, you know, very often would say, okay, you know, what we’ll do is we’ll have a cocktail party before the board meeting, have some wine and cheese, maybe after the board meeting. It’s interesting, but it’s a pretty it’s problematic because what’s likely to happen, what’s likely to happen is that board members will talk to people that they know the people that they usually talk to, right? And they’re going to talk with them about the things that they usually talk about, right? Your your your golf game, your your your your your other involvements, whatever things that they have in common, they talk about. And what I’ve been trying to think about it, we mentioned in the book is how do we create a how do we structure the interpersonal connection so that it’s deeper. Um I just did this yesterday. So whatever the most recent thing in my mind always helps, right? So I retreated. I facilitated a board retreat yesterday, which actually was in person. Um and but what we did was before the, before the meeting, and this can be done. We assigned pairs of board members. Everybody was in a pair of two and they had an assignment. What they had to do was to interview the other person, find out about them, what they like, what they do, what their passions are, what they care about, what they read, what kind of music they’re kids, they’re this, they’re not find out about who they are as a person, and then each one had to then introduce the other at the board meeting. Okay, so this is something that takes some time and you can’t do it all the time, but it’s a very interesting way. And I asked him, I said, what was this like? You said, this was great. These are really interesting people. I want to work with these people

[00:29:58.64] spk_0:
going back to your team, Team building.

[00:30:12.14] spk_1:
Team, go back, yep. So if, if we’re, if we’re going to try to create opportunity, social opportunities, we need to think about what’s the best way to do that to achieve our goals.

[00:30:14.44] spk_0:
I’m skeptical. I’m a little concerned about wine. Before the

[00:30:18.04] spk_2:
meeting, you were getting a little too uh,

[00:30:21.86] spk_0:
a little too loose lipped maybe. But but but I love the idea of the introducing, introducing someone you don’t know, you get to talk to somebody that’s outside your comfort zone, but ought not be because their fellow board member. Right. Right. Right.

[00:31:13.94] spk_2:
Yeah. I had a program at one organization where I was where we, we had board members go out after the meeting together and we assigned the groups so that we had a good mix and people would, would meet each other and and they were, the goal was for them to do that twice a year. It’s all about time. Right? But we thought that was important time to spend so that they’d at least go out to dinner with half the board and some of it depends on the size of your board, what you can accomplish, Right? But we didn’t want groups of more than six because we wanted people to be able to talk with each other. So, but we might send two groups of six out in different directions.

[00:32:13.34] spk_1:
Yeah. You know, and it’s interesting, I’ve seen people do very simple things at the beginning of a board meeting, a consultant I’ve worked with, she always starts out every board meeting with a question. So, tell me about the kind of music you like. Alright, two seconds. Tell me about the most interesting book you’ve read recently and why? It was interesting to you. Right? I mean, two seconds we can do that at a board meeting. It loosens everybody up. It enables people who are introverts to have to say something to get out there and talk. It puts a limit for the extroverts on how much they can talk. Right. But it’s a, you know, so you can do devices like this recognizing because it’s important, it’s important to recognize the importance of the board culture that unless we have that sense of connection between people, none of this stuff is gonna work.

[00:32:19.84] spk_2:
Okay. And now let’s bring it

[00:32:21.11] spk_0:
to the to the book title.

[00:32:22.62] spk_1:
Okay. Will

[00:32:24.45] spk_0:
will fundraise Shall shall engage board shall fundraise.

[00:32:28.32] spk_1:
How is No, no, no, no, no. We didn’t use the word shall. Now I I added shall because that’s pretty that’s pretty perspective prescriptive, prescriptive. I

[00:32:58.54] spk_0:
know, yes, contract, contract, your shall versus will um no. The book title is engaged. Boards will fundraise. So how does having better board meetings and board members knowing each other better through these simple social devices? Social methods improve our fundraising

[00:35:18.54] spk_2:
Right. Well, as Michael has talked about a fair amount, it creates a team and a sense of joint responsibility. You’d think that it exists just because they have all joined this same organization. But you can’t just accept that as fact, you have to work on it. So by building this team, this camaraderie by, by helping people understand each other. Uh, there is a shared sense of, of, of responsibility. Second, by really engaging the board in these discussions and having the board understand the organization at a more nuanced and important level. It is easier for them to talk about the organization to feel comfortable doing it to represent it properly and to do it passionately, which is key to fundraising right? Being an ambassador for the organization. So many board members uh, say I, I don’t know enough about the organization to go out and talk about it. I’m afraid I’m gonna say the wrong thing. I don’t know the organization like the executive director does. And one of the steps here is to get board members more comfortable as ambassadors talking about it. Uh, and it’s funny because I always say to board members, you don’t need to know all the details. You don’t have to know every little thing and all the numbers and such. You just have to be passionate and authentic to tell a good story and get people excited about the organization and its incense goes hand in hand with the board meetings. Right? And if we’re concentrating on Mnuchin the board meetings, then the board members think they need to know the minutia. If we stay out of the minutia in the board meetings, then the board members can feel okay, this bigger picture is what’s important. So, so we build a sense of responsibility and we build, uh, more of a comfort in talking about the organization. We also build an understanding of why the funds are needed and what they will do, right? It’s not just we need money. Uh, will you give me money? I love this charity, but this is the impact we’re going to, how they can talk about that. So, okay, so that gives them a basis for going on fundraising.

[00:36:05.03] spk_0:
And that’s sort of a perfect transition to getting now to the discussion of engaging the board in the right kind of funding in fundraising. So, you know, listeners, you just get, you gotta get the book to, to learn more about how to engage your board. Um, they talk about the different duties of care and loyalty and obedience that board members have than governance. There’s, there’s good talk about governance, uh, that, you know, belonging in in one place and management, belonging by the other managements, by staff, governance, by the board. You gotta, you know, you got to read the book to get more of that detail about engaging. So now let’s talk about engaging the boards, you know, specifically in fundraising. You to have, Well, I think six different six things, you know, like make the case identify the resistance. Is that the best way to talk through the engaging the boarding fundraising? Or is there a better

[00:39:01.82] spk_1:
way for me? There’s, there’s another way to start it. And that is what brian has been talking about right now is giving the board members the basic tools, right? Thank you. They know how to tell a story, but they’ve got a story to tell. But one of the things that we look at is the fact that there is discomfort, resistance about fundraising. It is not something we do in our normal lives, right? We we do our jobs, we’re professionals, we don’t go out trying to engage other people in the things that we’re engaged in, Right? So they need help doing that as part of the team. Thing is they want to feel I want them to feel responsible to one another. But in addition, there has to be some guidance from, even from fellow board members or from staff into how to do this. So board member says, okay, I, I know I know these, I know these people, I, you know, I’m comfortable with them, I’m willing to talk about it. I’m a little, I’m uncomfortable asking them for something. They were gonna tell me, no, it’s going to harm the relationship and stuff like that. So time needs to be spent. Either one on one with board members and within a member of the Resource Development Committee or as they remember to go through, Okay, let’s figure out how you do this one with respect to the resistance that you have about it. How do you overcome that resistance? You know, what do you do? So for example, one of the techniques I told board members is you never want the first conversation you have with somebody about your organization to be a conversation. We’re asking for money. That’s the kiss of death. So what you’ve got to get to do is, okay, here’s what you gotta do over the next two weeks. You’re gonna are you gonna talk to any friends? Yes, I’m gonna talk to some friends. Okay. Here’s what I want you to do in those conversations. Find something that they’re interested in that allows you to bring up your experience with this organization. You’re not asking for money. You’re not asking to do anything. You’re just bringing this organization into the conversation. That’s your job. Alright, okay. Now, after you do this, let’s come back and talk about it and tell us what your experience is. Now you can do this with the entire board, right? We’re at a board meeting. Okay, everybody next week or between now and the next board meeting has to have one of these conversations with a friend come back and report at the next board meeting. Let’s see what we learned? What was difficult? What worked did they ask you questions? What would be the next steps? So they’ve got to birth, feel responsible for one another. But it also at the same time gets support from one another for doing this incrementally, because this is new to all of us. It’s new to us. You

[00:39:17.32] spk_0:
have an exercise in the book. Seems ideal for a board meeting where you you asked for board members to list their objections to fundraising and then list their personal experience of either having asked or being asked in the past. And the two don’t do don’t align like, the reality canceled out the objections. Like, whose idea is that, is that yours, Michael,

[00:40:53.31] spk_1:
or that’s that’s me. Yeah, Okay. It’s a very simple exercise. You know, I I like to draw upon personal personal experience. I believe that board members got the answers to all these things I’m concerned about. They just haven’t talked about it. My job is to get him to talk about it. So yeah, they’re gonna tell me about I don’t want to fundraise, that’s going to be this is gonna be that they’re gonna hate me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fine. Okay, now, let’s talk about what actually happened in your life? Have you ever given money? Did anybody why? What was there about that circumstance that made you comfortable and want to do that? So we take their experience and bring it back. I just, I’m gonna intercept here and you can cut this out if you want. One of my later readings is I’ve gone back to the Socratic dialogues, Plato’s writings about Socrates because what Socrates believed was that everybody had the answers to all these important questions in their head and his job was just a problem and ask the questions to get it out. And I believe, I believe this about boards, our job is to use their experience, not tell them what they’re doing wrong, take what they’ve done and learn from it and help them learn from it.

[00:40:59.51] spk_0:
You’re right. That that’s worthless. I’m gonna cut that

[00:41:01.53] spk_1:
out.

[00:41:04.13] spk_0:
Um, yeah, brian,

[00:42:07.90] spk_2:
but yeah, so you know, adding to what Michael said, one of the, one of the kickers here is board members having to ask all their friends only to be asked to give gifts in return to the other organizations that you know, with pro quo. And I’ve been talking about this for a decade at nauseam because it is horrible short term, a transactional fundraising. And it’s gotten really bad in our field to our detriment. And everyone gets sort of, uh, the organizations get stuck on this. It’s like a Like cocaine, right? And, and, and, and can’t move away from it. Well, we need the $50,000. The board raises and it’s like, Okay, well your board is going to hate doing this type of fundraising. They’re not going to be inspired when they leave, all those gifts are going to leave with them and so forth. So you’ve got a short term gain, you’re getting some money in the door. But everything else is wrong. We don’t, I always have people

[00:42:10.40] spk_0:
good point about just the last one you said, I want to just amplify when the board members leave. Those gifts are going with that. When I just, I just wanted to amplify that.

[00:43:21.30] spk_2:
When I say that to board, the lightbulb goes off, I say who I’m not? If I’m on the board and I leave the board, I’m not going to keep asking just if I could give gifts to all my friends and what what happens when you have me as a board member, uh, do this is I end up giving money away two organizations I don’t care about just to be nice. And whereas it would be better if I gave all that money into my organization that I love and tell people you give it where you love where, where you where you’re excited because then I’ve made a bigger investment in my own organization, have a bigger stake. I’m more of an investor. And if if I think I first wrote about this 10 years ago that if I had one wish in the nonprofit world, it would be to stop the quid pro quo fundraising today because it’s a sisyphean task. It’s just not getting anyone anywhere. It’s keeping them from anything strategic and it and it is burning out the board members. And when board members come to the board, often they’re on their first board. They assume that this is the type of fundraising we’re going to ask them to do, which is why they have such resistance.

[00:43:32.80] spk_0:
What do you want to see in in its place?

[00:44:19.29] spk_2:
What I want to see is the board members to serve as ambassadors and what I call many major gift officers. So let’s look, people look at the big shots, they look at the hospitals and the universities and these massive organizations because they raise so much money and they’re very visible and they all have what we call major gift staffs. They have, Uh, staff whose sole responsibility is to take 150 200 prospects donors and cultivate and solicit them and steward them along. Right. And, and those staff for year after year have these people have this portfolio if we want to call it that. Yeah. And that’s great. But most organizations have a budget under $1 million. Most organizations are lucky if they have one development officer who’s doing everything. Special events, direct mail, grant writing,

[00:44:34.29] spk_1:
crowdfunding

[00:46:35.38] spk_2:
You name it and maybe has 5% of their time to actually go out and talk to significant individual donors. So what I want rather than this transactional fundraising is for every board member To be a mini major gift officer with four prospects slash donors on their radar screen, who they stick with And those may or may not be their own contacts. Many organizations have people who need more attention than they’re getting and they don’t get it because the executive director and our director of development don’t have the time. I’d sooner see the board members taking donors out to coffee, calling them and thanking them for gifts, attending cultivation events with them and asking them what they think than being worried about soliciting the gift. I’m much less concerned about board members asking for a gift. They don’t have to ask for a gift as a matter of fact, and I only was thinking of this this past week. Major gift officers don’t always ask for the gift. So I was a major gift officer from my alma mater. I was in charge of solicitations in the midwest big gifts. And you know, there were times I asked many and there were times when someone else asked the president, the senior vice president, um, volunteer this idea that just because you’re cultivating and stewarding someone means you’re the Askar. It actually doesn’t even add up with professionals. So I want the board concentrated on this other work, which most of them are willing to do. Oh, I’ll happily call for people and thank them for their gifts. So I’d be happy to take people out and thank them and get to know them better. Ask them if they’ll come with me or or send them a personalized update. And this is incredibly important work. If we’re going to build relationships. And the other point I put out the three of us know the numbers that most, Most of the money, most of the charitable gifts come from individuals, 85, everything you had

[00:46:42.59] spk_0:
When you had requests. It’s like 88 or so. But yesterday that request is 77 or something like

[00:48:00.07] spk_2:
that. The largest gifts come from people. We know if you look at your own giving right and where the and individuals are really loyal. I ask people all the time on boards. This is part of breaking down that resistance. What’s the longest number of consecutive years you’ve contributed to an organization Now for many, it’s our alma mater, right? So I graduated in 84. I’ve been giving to them for 37 years and I’ll give them till I die. And many people do. That could be your church there. We give for decades. So we don’t, it’s not about the short term win. It’s about what I call an annuity of gifts over what could be decades. If you bring someone in and they get excited most of our organizations or institutions that are going going to be doing our work forever. Some are meant to put themselves out of business and result some problems. But most nonprofits will be here for 100 200 years assuming the planet is and you know helping people with medical needs, helping seniors, helping kids get educated, whatever it is, building community. And we want people to have a state for a long time. So let’s have board members help build that state with these individuals

[00:48:24.87] spk_0:
and that that also relieves board members of the, the fear and anxiety of having to be the solicitor. You know, some board members will step up to that, some will with training, but it’s not necessary. You’re saying board members can be building the relationships in all these different ways. Maybe hosting something in your home with four or six couples or something, all these different ways. You know that you mentioned the thank you, notes the acting as the ambassador all these ways and then maybe you’re you’re cultivating them for someone else to do the solicitation, maybe maybe the board member is involved in it or maybe not, you know, it doesn’t have to be

[00:49:04.17] spk_2:
right. It goes back to the good cop bad cop, you know, the board members, the good cop and then brings the Executive Director and Director of Development and to ask for the gift that’s perfectly legit perfectly legitimate. I played that role many times as an Executive Director Director of Development where I asked um, yeah, where the board member cued it up right

[00:49:27.37] spk_0:
and you’re collaborating in the relationship, the board members reporting back, letting the ceo no. You know, this is this is how it went with her. But you know, the ceo is asking, you know, do you feel like it’s maybe it’s the right time for me to ask or for us to ask or is it still too early? Or look, she expressed interest in this particular program. And you know, the board was just talking about expanding that, putting putting more resources to that. This could be a very timely topic for me to bring up at a, at a meeting with her or the or the three of us. You know, you’re you’re you’re collaborating around the relationship, you’re strategizing about when the best time is to actually do the

[00:50:19.96] spk_1:
solicitation, right? And going back to board meetings for a second. One of the things you want to do with the board meeting is acknowledge the people that have done this. You know, wow, let me, let me tell you, the executive director said, let me tell you that. You know brian and I brian introduced me to so and so and we had a meeting and you know, we walked away with a check for $5000. Thank you brian. That’s what you gotta do, right, celebrate. It builds it celebrate the winds and it builds it into the culture. You don’t want to be the only one who never gets it. Thank you. Right? Let’s

[00:50:30.36] spk_0:
talk about the expectations, establishing expectations around giving and fundraising for

[00:50:32.75] spk_2:
board members. Yes.

[00:50:34.60] spk_0:
Who wants to kick that off? Let’s spend a little time with that. Yeah, brian,

[00:53:22.35] spk_2:
can I? Because I’m, I have, I’m rabbit about this one actually to, um, I cannot stand minimums and given gaps, give or gets excuse me. I believe that everyone should do their best on both. Besides everyone should give a personally significant gift as an investor in this organization and do their best at fundraising. And, uh, without going into great detail. What I see time and again as a minimum gift ends up being a ceiling, not the floor. You think everyone’s gonna, okay, everyone’s gonna give at least this. But most people then give that, it feels like do is you set the, the amount low so that most people can reach it. You still have some who can’t. And, and it’s been proven again and again, that that minimum gifts do not generate the largest gifts, minimum gift requirements don’t help. And people say, well, how do board members know what to do? And I said, well from the very beginning, and we talk about a job prospectus in the job description, You tell prospective board members, here’s the range of gifts we have. Board members giving anywhere from $500 to $5000 depending on their capacity. We ask people to do something very significant, given the who they are and what they can do generally, right, we want everyone to feel that they’ve made a gift. They thought about that’s important to them. Some people said ask for that. One of the top three gifts you give anywhere, which is a very concrete way to put it and, and, and works. So on the gift front, you give people guidelines. And here’s, here’s an interesting thing. You actually asked board members for a gift. I’m amazed. We’ve never in good best fundraising or best practice fundraising. We ask our major gift donors for an exact amount, you know, Tony. Would you consider a gift of $10,000 etcetera? And yet we let our board members just give whatever they want to give. Why would we do that? I really push asking every board member for a specific amount that, that, that is personally significant to them, makes them think about what’s significant And on the get side, I really believe it should be the best of your ability because if we say you’ve got to give or get 5000, a board member with a lot of capacity can just give the whole thing and not do any work or swap gifts with friends. And, and yet, and the board member with less capacity is left, um, doing the hard work and that doesn’t make for a team. Everyone needs to do the hard work together.

[00:54:44.54] spk_1:
There’s a couple of, I mean, I, I’ve learned this from brian and that’s my become my mantra with working with, working with boards about personally significant gifts. And there’s a couple of there’s another consideration now, especially with with our desire to diversify our boards, don’t, we may be reaching into populations that don’t have access to resource, but they’re important in terms of perspectives that they bring to our deliberations. And so having this as the standard personally significant gift for everybody. It’s equal, we’re all equal. We’re all giving the best we can. Another part of that. And I really like what brian says about, you know, asking our board members, it’s a negotiation, Right? It’s not a no, I need $1,000 from you and that’s what you gotta do because you’re a board member. It’s what I, you know, let let me let me tell you what I give. Okay. And now here’s what I think might be reasonable for you. Let’s talk about it. Okay. Is it really is is that a reasonable gift for you? It’s not demanding its opening a conversation as as the possibilities. So, you know, I mean, I’ve done some capital fundraising and very often we ended up in a negotiation. You know, I asked, I went in asking for a certain amount which I thought that person could give or we thought that that person could give when I put that number on the table and kept my mouth shut for a few minutes, you know, so they came back and they said, well, you know, that’s a little okay, let’s talk about it then,

[00:55:06.14] spk_0:
Support support training? It could be training, could be staff, support for the, for the, the board that the, that the, the, the employees, the staff are, are obligated to give either their own or through a consultant. What kind of, what kind of board, what kind of support do we need to give? Our board members around fundraising?

[00:58:29.12] spk_2:
There are 22 pieces here. The first gets back to something, Michael said a long time ago about staff and the need for staff support in terms of the board meetings and the board members being involved, board members will only help with the fundraising to the extent they have staff support. They’re always gonna need staff guidance materials, someone to bounce ideas off of and and such staff need to be managing this, reminding board members of their next action step with a certain donor, um, providing materials and so forth. So staff have to keep the tracker, as I call it this, even if it’s an Excel spreadsheet with a list of everyone and who does what and, and, and, and constantly move the process forward. But probably the most important thing is training because, as Michael noted, board members come with very little experience and a lot of trepidation and the more training they can get, the more comfortable, they will be the more comfortable and effective. I always ask when I do a training, how many of you have ever been asked for a gift the way we’re talking about it. How many times has someone said, Michael, would you consider sitting down with me so I can ask you for a special gift to our organization. The truth of the matter is with all the asking out there with all the fundraising in every form. Very few people end up in these conversations. It’s the big, big, big, big donors, Right? And, and so many board members have never been on the other side of the equation and really have no idea what one of these meetings about. They assume you just go in and you ask for money, you just say, you know, will you give this? They don’t, there’s no way for them to know because they haven’t experienced it themselves. So we need to teach them what it is. Uh, and, and that it’s all about the relationship, which definitely takes some of the pressure off. It’s always about the relationship and it is never about the gift to me. That is the number one rule in fundraising. And I will leave money on the table time and again, I just, I just coach someone an hour before this conversation who’s the head fundraiser for a program within the school because a donor um, offered up an amount before being asked for an amount and it’s a significant amount and a big step forward. And the question becomes, do I go back, do I negotiate? And some of this is happening by email and I said in knowing the stoner, I said, you take the win. It’s about the relationship, This is much, this is big for you. There’s always next year, the year after and so forth. So teaching board members, it’s about the relationship, not the gift, whatever happens this year, that’s okay. We’re building the relationship helps them feel more comfortable because they think they’ve got to go in and come out with whatever you all were hoping for. You know, it’s a, it’s a it’s um, and we’re guilty of building this mindset. We as a culture.

[01:00:50.81] spk_1:
The other side of it is that there are some very for me very simple things that boards can learn how to do to build a relationship. For example, one of one of the things I very often do with a board retreat, simple exercise or on fundraising. I tell people, look, you’re now going to somebody, you’re sitting in somebody else’s fundraising dinner and there’s somebody sitting next to you. Okay, So you want to have a conversation with the person sitting next to you, get to know them. So here’s your job. You’ve got to ask that person questions about what they’re interested in their lives and zones of fourth and you’re looking for someplace in them that connects with your organization. Then when you find that place, then you can introduce your organization, but that’s your job and we, you know, we pair up and people around, you know, around the room, sit down and try to have these conversations and realize that they can because these the way in which we want to build relationships is a technique and it’s something we need to practice and become comfortable with. You know, people are not used to really interestingly asking questions. We all tell people things about ourselves, but we don’t ask them questions about themselves. So, I mean that’s one of the pieces of support, right? Doing those kinds of things, telling stories quick. You all went to visit the program, tell me something that happened in that program that you saw that really was important to you. That inspired you. That made you think about the value of this organization. Tell me the story. Well, people don’t know how to tell stories. They have to learn how to tell stories. It’s it’s but it’s a very simple, you know, these are not complicated techniques, but it’s all part of becoming comfortable in what brian is talking about in this ambassador role relationship relationship relationship.

[01:01:14.41] spk_0:
I love the relationship, not the gift like that brian. All right, we’re gonna leave it. We’re gonna leave it there with the with the support idea. You gotta support your board members, Michael Davidson, consultant and coach. He’s at board coach dot com. Ryan Saber asking matters, asking matters dot com and he’s at brian Saber, Michael brian thanks very much. Terrific.

[01:01:18.66] spk_1:
Thank you. It was a pleasure tony great questions. Thank you. My pleasure.

[01:01:31.31] spk_0:
I’m just, I’m just trying to keep things going. Look book and the book the book, it’s Michael and bryan, who cares about Michael and bryan is the book you want? The book is, the

[01:01:33.13] spk_1:
book is

[01:01:35.71] spk_0:
the book is engaged, boards will fundraise how good governance inspires them. It comes out this week, this week of october

[01:01:44.63] spk_1:
18th yes,

[01:02:17.91] spk_0:
it’s not a long book, but it is long on value as you can tell from this outstanding conversation, lots of value in the book. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great

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It’s a common challenge. The strategic plan is ambitious, but there’s not enough revenue to fund all the future excitement. Sherry Quam Taylor returns to get to the root problems that are holding your nonprofit back from full revenue potential. She’s CEO of Quam Taylor, LLC.

 

 

 

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[00:00:02.84] spk_2:
Hello

[00:01:43.74] spk_1:
and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of tinnitus if I had to hear that you missed this week’s show. Strategic plan done now pay for it. It’s a common challenge. The strategic plan is ambitious, but there’s not enough revenue to fund all the future excitement. Sherry, Kwame Taylor returns to get to the root problems that are holding your nonprofit back from full revenue potential. She’s Ceo of KWAme Taylor LLC. I’m Tony’s take to holiday time off. We’re sponsored by turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o What a pleasure to welcome Sherri Kwame Taylor back to nonprofit radio She’s Ceo of KWAme Taylor LLC. She works with nonprofit ceos and boards are struggling to secure the unrestricted revenue needed to fulfill the dreams in their strategic plans. Sure. He helps them reimagine their entire approach to revenue generation and reveals how they can break free from the limitations of traditional fundraising. Our consulting practice is at KWAme taylor dot com Sherry. Welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:01:46.14] spk_0:
tony How are you? I’m well, good. Thanks for having Yeah, Thanks for having me. I was excited to see this pop up on my calendar today.

[00:01:54.80] spk_1:
You weren’t planning for

[00:01:56.77] spk_0:
it for a week. I mean, yeah. As I worked all weekend long for my, for my content. Yes.

[00:02:01.75] spk_1:
You’ve been struggling at it, not struggling but you’ve been working on for weeks. Right?

[00:02:05.64] spk_0:
Yes, I’m so nervous.

[00:02:21.44] spk_1:
All right. So, so I outlined the problem in the introduction. But before we get to those root problems shouldn’t funding be a part of the strategic plan? So that the plan and its financing are considered together and not separately, ideally.

[00:03:27.14] spk_0:
You’re speaking my language already tony Yeah, it really should. But the problem is so many organizations come to me with a strategic plan that has all these amazing ideas, amazing next steps, you know, growing their programs and mission. But the strategic initiative kind of says we need more money or more major gifts or we should do more of these things. And so it actually, I find that it’s addressing more of the symptoms of an organization’s, who’s funding has maybe plateaus or maybe they just kind of raised the same amount of money every year. But oftentimes the funding problem and more times than not, it’s actually fixed at the root. And so yes, it should be included in there. And yes, it always is. But so often, uh, you know, I have a client now who, who’s brought me their strategic plan, it’s like we had this big growth, uh, initiative and like we just aren’t hitting it. And so the how do we do that is usually missing in the strategic plan.

[00:03:59.54] spk_1:
Okay, so all right. So if it’s addressed, it’s addressed little superficially. We’re not, we’re not we’re not getting to the root cause it’s kind of glossed over, we’ll increase our fundraising. Well, maybe maybe they identify a couple of initiatives, but you’re saying right, they’re not getting to the root problem. And so they’ve got this wonderful plan and a lot of excitement around it for the next 3-5 years but they’re not hitting their revenue targets, that they need to realize the true excitement of the, of the, of the outcomes.

[00:05:43.14] spk_0:
Absolutely. And so it’s a lot of, you know, more and more corporate sponsorships, more grants, more events, more appeals. Some of those are good things like don’t hear me say they aren’t, but we have to remember also, typically the board or leadership whose having a great amount of input in the strategic plan. They’re usually expert to something else. You know, they aren’t strategic fundraisers. Um, so, so they’re doing their absolute best. So sometimes we have to get the voice of outsiders. I know you would agree with me to come in and say, actually that’s not how that problem gets fixed. And so I so it’s a this is really, you know, the strategic plan, which is what we’re talking about today is is one part of it. And the kind of the cousin comment I would say coming to me and it’s really ties to this is um, you know, we have this budget, we want to grow the budget, but we’re always in the red were never raising enough. And so there’s this disconnect that, you know, frankly, I study and watched so closely in my practice and I’ve just really been able to see quickly, you know, what is the sticking point? Why is your funding platt Toad? Why is it another year in the red? And so we’re going to talk about these, these symptoms versus root cause because, uh, you know, my strongest clients these last few years have been the ones who said We’re kind of not going back to doing what we were doing pre 2020. We’re actually going to push ahead and, and, and do things differently. Run our businesses differently, solve the problem at the root so that we actually can have greater impact, which, gosh, I’m so thankful they’re doing that because there’s never been a time we’ve needed them more.

[00:06:20.94] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s always right. It’s always, it’s always the truth. I mean, it’s always the case. You know, always the case, especially with the pandemic, but beyond the pandemic, nonprofits take on causes and missions and goals that, that individuals can’t do that. Government isn’t suited for that. The corporate sector isn’t going to take on. In fact, a lot of times the corporate sector is antithetical to the, to the goals. Um, but non profits, you know, our, our, that sector is ideally suited for work of all different types and, and raising money to do it, but they’re not raising sufficient money. Um, so essentially, you know, you’re saying, you know, you can’t keep doing the same things and expect different outcomes.

[00:06:37.16] spk_0:
Yeah, I guess that’s

[00:06:40.04] spk_1:
it. I can get real problems.

[00:08:22.14] spk_0:
Yeah, I think that’s a great way to phrase that it’s, you know, in some of these symptoms of, of perhaps we’ve been kind of trying to do the same thing or, or trying to do more unless, right. Um, you know, a lot of these symptoms are our cash flows too tight because maybe our strategy is, yeah, we need more money, but it’s too restricted. Or maybe then if we’re not bringing in enough restrictive cash, were unable to grow the reserve, were unable to grand grow our endowment. Um, you know, the other thing we’re gonna talk a little bit about today is that never being able to justify overhead spend, Right? Like if I hear that, it’s like, I know fundraising situation that we need to fix so I want here, here’s what I’ll tell you. I asked on a weapon or I think it was last mid last week, I started with a question and frankly it probably sounded like a bit of a silly question on the webinar and what I asked was, do you need more money, does your nonprofit need more money now? I knew the answer to that, right? But typically it’s like, yeah, we need more money. That’s what our strategic plan says, but rarely does an organization just need more money. They need flexible money. They need unrestricted money to accomplish the things the initiatives that growth in their strategic plan. You’ve got to have money for overhead. And I find that that’s why a lot of times we can never fund the strategic plan is stated because we aren’t fundraising for unrestricted cash from a single source says you’re makers, meaning I can pick up the phone and talk to chris he crested sherry from, you know, and and those gifts are not from people who truly understand the need and actually want to give to every year. And that’s a very specific types of type of fundraising. We’ll unpack that today. But, but so often I’m finding that we’re not doing the fundraising things that are actually attracting those donors.

[00:09:02.04] spk_1:
All right. So let’s get to some of these root root problems. What, what, what, what can we talk about? What you just mentioned? We’re not attracting the right donors. You know, you’re concerned about attracting the right people. Talking to them about the right things about the true needs for overhead for endowment for growth. I should ask you where do you want to start with these root causes?

[00:10:15.84] spk_0:
Let’s start here. I’m going to address that once. Third, because here’s the thing. We always start with the fundraising issues, right? But that’s that’s actually like step three or four over here. So the biggest thing I want to talk about one of the most fun things, I guess I should say that I love talking about is this concept and frankly tony I wish I coined the phrase, but I didn’t, but it’s irrational frugality. I love that phrase, you know, I suffer from it rational frugality. And, and what I mean by that is, um, we have to start being comfortable if we’re gonna solve frankly some of the world’s and nations and states and communities most pressing issues we have to really ask ourselves, are we making $1,000 decisions and expecting giant results? Or are we making $10,000 decisions? $100,000 decisions? And so it costs money to raise money. We need to be spending more on overhead so that we can put more gasoline in the engine to raise more money for programs. And so often I see the handcuffs on organizations when we’re trying to make these big growth initiatives, but we haven’t taken the time to actually look at what does the spend need to be for us to actually reach those initiatives.

[00:10:29.84] spk_1:
Well, let’s let’s let’s let’s dispel the myth that overhead is bad because you’re talking about overhead, like investing in people you want to do more. Absolutely want to do more fundraising. You might very well need more fundraisers. Absolutely. That’s salary and benefits and other forms of compensation. So let’s get rid of this concern that overhead is bad,

[00:12:16.74] spk_0:
right? And so I hear you, you know, I kind of sometimes make these statements like, I’m not talking about scarcity anymore. We’re beyond that, you know, are sectors beyond that. But I gotta tell you it’s, it’s kind of playing out. I think in a different version or a greater version and this is what, you know, all size organizations. Uh, I think we’re seeing part of that in this great resignation. I know we could have a whole whole discussion today about that. But um, the, if you saw my actually, if you saw my screen right now on my computer, you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s an ORC chart looking five years out and it’s saying what is the spend we have to make, you know, parole to actually be raising the money. That’s in your strategic plan. What is the true math? And so it’s so often you’re so right comes in the, in the package of I’m expecting my one development director to be all, all of revenue, all of marketing, all of communications. Oh, and because you also do, you know, social media and so so often, I mean, I’m gonna be really frank here. So often the reason our strategic plans are not being funded or not, we’re not able to fund them is because that person is wearing, you know, the hats of four staff people. And so I know it feels like an investment. I know that spend feels scary, but when you run the numbers and then you have the right person on the bus. You make so much more money if you have to be comfortable with spending and investing in your organization to actually make those leaps and bounds that you want to.

[00:12:25.24] spk_1:
Alright, right person on the bus. You’re talking about the ceo are you talking about donors?

[00:13:44.04] spk_0:
Uh, in that context, I was talking about staff members, I was talking about, um, you know, oftentimes what we find and this is also why I love, you know, the sector that we work in. Maybe it’s a program person who, you know, was really great with the foundations when they were coming in. So now they found themselves over on the fundraising side and they’re awesome. It foundation grant request proposals, reporting maybe they’re good at planning an event, you know, good at telling the story of those that are impacted. But oftentimes they don’t have matric gift experience. They don’t know how to sit across the table with an investment level donor and lead them to an ASC secure their best gift. And so it’s the spend on the staff tony But I’d also say this great resignation, you know, buzz, we’re all talking about is also that, um, it’s the skills to equip the staff to do the things that actually attract the overhead monies that attract the flexible funding that attract unrestricted gifts that allow you to put gas in the engine. So there’s a disconnect on the skill set so often of who’s on the bus and, the types of fundraising an organization needs to be doing.

[00:15:29.04] spk_1:
All right. So, you know, we need to be honest with ourselves. Our boards are donors about what, what are true need is fund this ambitious strategic plan. And we’re deceiving ourselves if we’re thinking that the person that’s doing the, the marketing communications can now take on fundraising when we have, when we have an increased revenue plan because of the strategic plan. It’s just not, it’s not fair to the person. It’s not fair to the organization. It’s not fair to the cause that you’re, that you’re working toward your just not being honest with any of those things or any of those, any of those entities, people or, or the, or the cause itself, it’s time for a break. Turned to communications content creation. Do you need something written for you? Have you been thinking about a project that is gonna take hours? You just haven’t gotten to it. But it’s going to be valuable when it gets done. Turn to can help you. Like, I’m thinking white papers, research, case studies, They can write that stuff for you. They can learn about what it is you want to say, get to understand your work, your mission, even your values and incorporate that into the piece or the series that they do for you. So if you’ve got this big backburner project has been on your to do list and it involves writing turn to, can help you turn to communications because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o

[00:16:01.54] spk_0:
the second underlying root cause which you’ve so so nicely led me right into um, frankly would be this budget element, right? Like, uh, like you said, we have to be honest with ourselves of what the true need is and and not, well, let’s, let’s just budget and squeak by neck If we make more money, it’s gonna be great. But we actually need to have a plan of how would you fully finance your organization?

[00:16:02.67] spk_1:
Right. What does full financing look

[00:16:04.27] spk_0:
like? What it actually

[00:16:27.64] spk_1:
doesn’t look like? You know, a five or 8% increase in fundraising from, from the previous year that you could reasonably expect that one person to get. You know, it probably looks like something much much larger than that, which that one person just isn’t capable of doing so take off the shackles. Stop being, stop deceiving yourself and all those other entities that I named and the cause itself and and right. All

[00:16:32.03] spk_0:
right. Look, I love that you’re up on on my soapbox with you Tony to the funding. Well, because

[00:16:37.81] spk_1:
it’s deception. You know, you’re you’re you’re lying to yourself and and everybody else was important around you and to the cause that you’re that you’re working time self

[00:18:53.14] spk_0:
can I say something about this budgeting thing. I can’t because I love talking budgeting, which always surprises people when it’s like wait, I thought she was the fundraising person Like I am, but we gotta, that’s over here until you’re honest with yourself and you’ve actually created a true need space budget Not this week by right where you can sit down with someone and say, can I share with you? What are $3.6 million dollars need? Looks like this year. Honestly, even though maybe the board approved is a 3.4, but you know, you need a little bit more in reserve and you know, cash flow is tight. And you know, you know, you, you have some growth initiatives coming down the pipeline until you can honestly sit and say and explain to them. I’m talking top of the pyramid, right? The top, top level donors until you can explain to them what the true need is then and only then can your team, your fundraising team actually put a plan in place to hit that 3.6 in my, in my example. So so often people come to me, I mean I’d say more than not with their budgets. I always ask for the profit loss statement and it will say, well, yeah, we have a $5 million need In the income on that same budget will say 4.2. I don’t, I don’t know how we’re going to do it. Right. So you we have to have the plan to fully finance to fully balance The expense and the revenue. And I find that we spend 90% of our time and I’m going to talk on board a little bit here too. We’re spending 90% of our time approving the expenses and nit picking all the stamps and that we couldn’t ever do that. You know, our percentages scary, scary, scary. We’re not spending enough time on literally understanding what we need to be doing month by month. That actually reaches that number and then all of us leadership staff board aligning every hour. We do spend fundraising on those activities that gets you off the spin cycle that gets you onto the things that you need to start doing. So you can start securing more unrestricted cash and invest as flexibly as you need to into your strategic plan.

[00:19:06.44] spk_1:
Investment level. Yeah.

[00:19:08.32] spk_0:
Investment level.

[00:19:19.54] spk_1:
Let’s talk about another root issue, which is you, you, you just started to scratch at it not having investment level conversations with donors. Yeah, let’s let’s let’s let’s let’s just shout out what is one of those conversations look like? Who are we talking to?

[00:22:59.44] spk_0:
Sure, sure. So, you know, this is all about, I suppose the easiest way to say this is, this is about donor segmentation, right? And, and we’re busy. You know, we just said, we’re wearing, you know, 62 hats when we shouldn’t be. But so often I find that we are still approaching donors as a one size fits all. You know, the, my, my methodology, you’ve heard me say this many times tony when you had me on a number of different opportunities to to chat with you, I want everybody giving their best gift to the organization and I want them giving that gift every year. And so if $25 is that person’s best gift, that is remarkable and amazing and I want to serve them as such. But if someone’s giving you $25 and you see their name, you know, on an annual report or you’ve done some sleuth Google searching, it’s like, Oh my gosh, they’re giving $25,000 down the road. Well, we have some work to do. And so, so much of my work is helping teams understand what that investment level conversation looks like. And so I find so many people avoiding it because they’re so worried are we going to do it wrong? Um, you know, I don’t want to be that pushy salesperson, right? I don’t want to be begging or B B that used car salesman. But here’s the thing, you have to be able to sit down and share your plans, your strategic plan. You have to be able to share how you’re going to achieve those initiatives. And most of all you have to be able to articulate the financial need the organization has and way too often the development staff, maybe they don’t have access to it. Or perhaps they don’t understand it. They are not privy to All the numbers, we just walked through. And so I want my fundraisers if somebody has the ability to write 25 500K. I want them sitting down. Of course we’re telling stories. Of course we’re doing all the traditional, you know, helping them understand the crisis, all those things. But the one thing that major donors are dying to hear is about that, what I asked earlier, do you need the money? So I want you sitting down saying, can I share with you our our $3.6 million dollars need this year. Can you share with you? How we’re growing? But I share with you how we’re funded. Uh you know, I can share with you what your gift has done in the last few years and to sit at that table and know the answers to the financial questions that we really, really, really hope that they don’t ask in that meeting. What am I asking? Because those questions are actually indicators of what’s going to keep them from giving their best gift to your mission. And so when I see investment level conversation, I want one on one. You know, that looks like a lot like zoom still these days. Right? I want exclusive information. I want stakeholder language because why? These are people who have also probably business owners and entrepreneurs in the community. These are people who have also had to sit down and ask for investments. They had to sit down and answer the tough questions. So sit down and have that businessperson to businessperson conversation with them so that they really understand what a gift to your mission can do. And so often we default to, well let’s just send them the appeal. Let’s have the event. And I gotta tell you they’re not giving their best gift in those reaction, all types of ways.

[00:23:02.64] spk_1:
Let’s talk a little about a little bit of a tangent or something you just

[00:23:05.68] spk_0:
mentioned. Love a tangent.

[00:23:15.74] spk_1:
Uh, peer to peer soliciting. So maybe this doesn’t, this may not. This is a tangent from the root issues. We’ll get back to the root issues, but you want fundraisers to be talking to the, to their donors as peers say, say, say more about what we shouldn’t be doing and what we

[00:25:14.94] spk_0:
should. Yeah. This, this concept was taught to me by, by my coach and she, she had heard it from a Deborah Tannin who’s a researcher. And so it’s really this concept of um, knowing that the best version of yourself showing up in that donor meeting, it’s just you, you know what I mean by that is not some version of you who thinks they need to show up slick and I’m the fundraising sherry, not that person. It’s just, it’s just you. So when I say peer to peer mindset, I’m doing this on, on equal playing grounds here. Um, it’s really staying in that like, you know, tony Like when we have a conversation like, hey Tony, how’s it going? How’s your weekend really staying in that zone? Um, of course you’re being professional about it, but not turning into the, like I’ve got to get through all my stuff and I’ve got to get them to understand why they should give us the money. And you know, kind of, it almost turns into that, that pushy feeling, right? And that comes out of our mouth. The flip side of that is that, oh gosh, I don’t want to, I don’t know. I think it’s been too soon. I don’t want to appear like I’m begging. And so then our tone turns to, well, I don’t know if you could do it or I don’t know if you would do it. But I wondered if none of those tones that you heard give that donor confidence, you know exactly what you’re gonna do with that gift. And you can’t wait to come back and tell them how their gift has impacted lives and you are offering an amazing opportunity to them today. And so when we stay in this more neutral zone, uh, and I try to do with my own business too, right? Um, that’s when we build the best relationships and that’s when we have trusted relationships and we actually deeply know our donors, We haven’t forced it. That’s when you’re going to secure the best gifts for your organization’s because there’s a deep, deep relationship that’s been built. But too often tony we get in the way of that in our mindset and our, you know, all these, all these crazy things that come to play and in sales and fundraising often get get in the way. So there’s tons of mindset work.

[00:26:05.04] spk_1:
Alright, good. Thank you for that. I wanted I want to focus to understand what you’re thinking is there because there is there’s too much humility and uh huh um, confidence. So all right, let’s go. All right. So let’s go back to our, our root issues. So like we talked about, you know, being honest in investment level, growth planning, being invested. Being honest about what that looks like having these investment level conversations with your, your major donors. What’s another root issue to our failure to be able to fund our strategic

[00:27:03.84] spk_0:
plan, Good time. Right onto that. So then it’s that financing plan and I’ve alluded to this. But what I really mean by that is is everybody on the team aligning their hours with dollars. Right? And so I don’t, I don’t want to miss that because that is a huge part of what I do, helping organizations see what they need to stop doing So they can start doing more strategic fundraising. So in that, what do I mean by that? Well, um, in my, in my world, uh, I want your top 30 donors yielding between 50 and 75% of your overall revenue. And I want those gifts to be unrestricted, that’s where we’re pointing the compass compass. And so our time and our budget must be aligned with that on there, on the expense side, on the revenue side. Okay. And so therefore when,

[00:27:12.74] spk_1:
but I love even when you define what our goal is. Okay, so top 30 donors Funding 50-70% of annual revenue on an unrestricted basis,

[00:27:18.10] spk_0:
50-75%. And I,

[00:27:20.35] spk_1:
Oh yeah, you’re good, you’re good 70%. So now we’ve got something to focus on. So now you’re gonna help us align our time with that goal,

[00:27:52.94] spk_0:
right? And that number feels really scary for some people. You know, it’s like, wait, we don’t we don’t have those people, we don’t have major donors. But it’s equally, it’s equally a math equation as opposed to a random mindset I should say because then we say, well we need to be then spending our time on attracting those donors tony A lot of people come to me and say, how do I find major donors? How do I find people who would, who would give us larger

[00:27:59.73] spk_1:
gifts?

[00:30:26.14] spk_0:
I’m of the school of Are you doing the things that attract them? Are you having strategic level conversations with others who are among those donors? And saying this is what I’m looking for. We’re looking for people who are interested in this who have a passion for this and really are wanting to invest to changing X, Y and Z. Are you attracting donors? This shift from like finding to attract as it has been a game changer for a lot of my clients who, um, you know, there’s a lot of times that donors don’t understand you need the money. This is crazy because you’re like, well, we’re nonprofit. Who doesn’t understand we don’t need the money. But so often how we’re talking keeps donors from understanding we need the money. Right? And it might be, um, you know, it might be, oh gosh, I saw you. Uh, you know, wow, I’m on the Today Show or I saw that you got this giant, uh, you know, gift, I saw the press release or, or, um, it looks like you’re killing it over there, right? Because because maybe they’re seeing the results of maybe a government contract or, um, you know, all sorts of different things, but that’s why we have to be sitting and presenting the true need, um, and kind of making up that difference. But what I bring up the pyramid in the top 30 concept because so often when we, when we say, okay, Well this is our year strategic plans in place. We’re ready to grow. We default to a lot of the activities there in the bottom part of that pyramid, that bottom 25 percent. And again, I’ve been accused of saying like, you don’t like events and appeals and grant proposals. That’s not the truth. I love those things. But I don’t want them taking 100% of your team’s time? And I also don’t want them taking the board’s time. If your board member, if anyone is hearing this and has written a thing down, this is your thing to write down your, if your board member can give you one hour a month outside of the meetings on something, fashion it better be activities that are attracting the donors and the top part of the pyramid versus the bottom part. Right? Because we’ve got one hour of their time that’s extremely valuable information or it’s an asset to the organization. So we have to make sure we’re doing the things, um, that are leading our investment level donors to a deep understanding of our need. Then we got to ask him for the money. Sit and ask him for the money.

[00:31:13.84] spk_1:
I like this distinction finding versus attracting donors because finding sounds like you’re gonna walk up, you’re gonna stumble on them. Like I might find a beautiful shell on the, on the beach. I’ll find one. Uh, but, but what, what are you doing to attract these folks so that you don’t just stumble on them a couple of year, but you’re, you’re bringing them to the, to the organization. What more a little more about what the board can be doing in finding versus attracting or having these investment level conversations. Maybe some of the board members are the folks you’re having the conversations with aside from, aside from The board members who might be among your top 30 donors? What more can the board be doing to help with finding versus attracting and having these conversations with the right folks

[00:34:08.04] spk_0:
tony I kind of dialed up this conversation of, of roots and symptoms when I was preparing for a board training actually because who better on the team can have an influence on the organization’s comfort level with investing with spending with, with budgeting, uh, with fiduciary responsibility, who better than the board. Right? And so we have to, we have to make sure that they understand what the path is to the money and what the spend is to the money. And so so often I say, you know, I’ll ask the client or if we start working together, I’ll say, what’s the board’s involvement in budgeting as well. They, you kind of get it and approve it. And you know, I, I do reports every month, but that really means they’re looking at the expense and they actually don’t know how they will fully finance the organization, you know, hit a balanced budget or plus plus your reserve. You know, I always want to be cushioned with the reserve. They don’t know how we would fully finance organization and be, do not know what the team should be doing. And if they don’t know if the team should be doing, They don’t know what they should be doing. And so I want the board to deeply deeply understand that you just don’t need more money, but you need flexible money and then what are the things the board members should be doing that actually attracts those donors. And so often, I mean, you know, as you can imagine every, every board training I head into, it’s like don’t make me ask for money. So don’t make me, don’t make me sit and ask for money. I gotta tell you, I rarely have board members asked for money rarely for me. Board members. It’s introducing its networking. It’s educating, it’s connecting. It’s being open to saying, hey, I have been serving on the board of this amazing organization. They’re doing these, you know, before school literacy programs in our community. Are you ever interested in hearing about that? I mean, I’ve been astounded what that looks like. The bds. A rockstar. Could, could we set up a 15 minute coffee one of these mornings? You see, I stayed peer to peer right there. Do you see how it was? It’s not a script. Um, I would rather have all my board members doing that and then letting the equipped team lead that donor and serve that donor create a great donor experience for them. You know, of course the board member is going to be popping in maybe in thanking or popping in when, um, you know, there’s an opportunity to, to really cultivate, but, but we have to make sure that the board members are not spending all of our time on transactional fundraising events, appeals send me the name. Can you post this on facebook? I don’t want my board touching facebook like they can if they want, but I want them doing strategic activities that align their hours with dollars.

[00:37:07.93] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two holiday time off. Colin Powell died on October 18 and I saw on twitter someone I follow Glenn Kirshner, I was telling a story about what Colin Powell said to his employees at the state department when he was newly inaugurated because Glenn Kirshner used to repeat this to his team. So the story is that general Powell said If I come to your office at 6:30 PM and you are not at your desk I will consider you to be a wise person. Indeed. So thank you Glenn Kirshner, what’s Colin Powell saying he’s talking about work life balance. He doesn’t want folks in the office late all the more so holidays are coming up, take time, take time. I’m sure you’re gonna be with with folks right? But take time for yourself. Also take that holiday time to be with others and for yourself. Please don’t, don’t feel like I got to work that friday after. Thanksgiving how much is not going to get done if I don’t, if I don’t work that day, nobody’s gonna know two weeks later, it’s not going to matter. So please take take adequate time off. We’ve been under a lot of stress challenges For the past 18, 20 months, take time, please take time and, and nonprofit radio I’m going to do my part. No podcasts. You know, I don’t do shows between christmas and New Year’s. So plenty of time for holiday time off. Don’t even listen to podcasts. If they’re related to work at least you won’t have to listen to nonprofit radio I’m doing that much. I feel like I’m walking the walk however you do it. Please do it. Take sufficient time off around these holidays. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for strategic plan done now pay for it. When you say this, this alignment, does that mean? So if if we want 50-75% of our revenue to come from those top 30 donors, does that mean we should be spending 50 to 75% of the ceo Time on cultivating and soliciting these top 30 donors. Is that, is that the alignment you’re talking

[00:38:22.42] spk_0:
about? Somebody has to Tony. And I find that because the grant application, the event, the holiday appeal, those all have deadlines. We got to get the newsletter at the first month. Those all have deadlines. So I find that those way more than not take precedence over. You know, I really should be making, you know, doing some moves, management management on my top 30, top 50, top 100 donors. So if you’re not staffed accordingly, that time always gets pushed down. Right? Well, I’ll get to that tomorrow. I’ll get to it. And so it’s, it’s a discipline. I, you know, I always say if I, if I sold t shirts that say fundraising is discipline, it’s who is waking up in the morning and saying, what, what donors am I touching today? How am I serving them? Not in a slimy way. How are we getting? How we, how we educating them? How are we connecting them to the heart of our mission? How am I answering their questions for your men and major level donors? That is not accomplished through newsletter blasts through appeals through an annual report. They get in the mail through events.

[00:38:26.02] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s the one on 1.

[00:38:27.22] spk_0:
It’s the one on one. Yeah. And we’re avoiding that.

[00:39:06.62] spk_1:
I see that. I see that short shrift so often in planned giving because all those things you mentioned have they either have deadlines. If, if it’s, if it’s anything related to grants, uh, not only in terms of applying, but then reporting back when grants are successfully received and then, but, but everything else has a shorter, a shorter time span. You know, we gotta get the annual gifts in the fourth quarter. All right. So that we got, we got to get these, the major giving has to be, we gotta get these major gift conversations done. Everything is a is a quicker, a quicker, more, more imminent, more urgent need or deadline than planned giving you always get short

[00:39:14.59] spk_0:
shrift here. That to

[00:39:46.32] spk_1:
analogous to what you’re saying about having these donors, the strategic donor conversations. It’s easy to put them off because they’re not deadline oriented. Oh, I got, I got, you know, if you, if you want to be, if you wanna be a little cynical about it, I’ve got the excuse of this grant, this, this grant report to do by thursday. Well, alright, today’s monday. There’s my next four days putting that report together and then next, next Tuesday I’ve got, uh, an event. So we got to do the last minute planning for that Tuesday event, you know, and it’s that constant, you call it the spin cycle. I’m using your own,

[00:39:48.82] spk_0:
you can use it, take it

[00:40:05.91] spk_1:
around that constant spin cycle. It was like, uh, deadline oriented activities and you’re not doing the strategic longer term. But that’s where you want 53 quarters of percent after three quarters of a percent of, uh, half to three quarters of your revenue to come from.

[00:42:31.20] spk_0:
Yeah. And that, that totally, and that’s the stuff that takes time. It takes way longer than I wanted to. I’m the first to admit that. But when we’re looking out and going, why don’t I ever have the money? Well, we did it, we did another three year strategic plan. We’ll see if we have the money for this one too, that you have to make that fundamental shift in your model and your, in your mindset and your approach to revenue generation. Um this, I will tell you when I was on your radio show, Gosh, time is so weird right now. I couldn’t even tell you when it was last time. Um, but uh, you know, he wasn’t a client at the time, but when my, my, you know, one of my favorite clients, Jonathan heard me on your show and contacted me and, and I remember him saying, you know, I really am concerned our donors are not giving their best gifts. Like I said that on your show and what it really came down to was, you know, he had a great team who was great at what we talked about. Like these transactional approach is that they were, you know, most of their giving was coming from events from appeals from corporate sponsorships, from event from grant proposals, but their individual giving was really stagnant and you know, we all know that’s where the unrestricted investment level gifts are going to come from. And so could he have, you know, ramped up the events and appeals I suppose he could have, but he didn’t, he fixed the underlying root cause he’s fixed the financing, he’s aligned his whole team to the money. They are their high performing revenue generators And they’ve grown by seven figures here in the last 18 months because they shifted, you know, I talked about that single source decision maker. They shifted individuals from the, we’re having an event to actually segmenting and figuring out who do we need to sit with? Who doesn’t understand how we’re funded, Who doesn’t understand our need family foundations. Um, corporate sponsors, Oh my gosh. Uh, you know, his corporate sponsors who used to come and be $50,000 gala sponsors. He shifted those into $100,000, unrestricted gifts because he started having investment level conversations with them. He took the transaction out of it. He had the financing plan. He could, he could very clearly articulate the organization’s plan to spend money to make more money. So he’s become, yeah,

[00:42:39.20] spk_1:
we’ll see what he’s become and then,

[00:42:52.80] spk_0:
yeah, he’s become a master at these investment level conversations and you know what donors say, wow, nobody else ever talks like this to me. Thank you. I never, I never understand this.

[00:43:59.80] spk_1:
You give a terrific example of converting something transactional, a $50,000 corporate sponsorship to, uh, to a gala or something into a gift twice that that becomes unrestricted. We don’t have to put it toward the audiovisual budget at the gala. Now it’s unrestricted and it’s, and it’s double because he’s having different kinds of, he’s not having a transactional conversation with the ceo of that company anymore. Having an investment level conversation. How do we overcome the fear of having these honest conversations. It’s a lot easier to say our annual gala is coming up? You did $50,000 last year because you know, even I’ll even make it a little more ambitious. Could you do $65,000 this year? That’s a lot easier conversation to have than here’s what our plan is. Here’s what our need is over the next three years. How do you see yourself fitting in or maybe even more strategic? You know, I see you fitting in here. How do you overcome the fear of having these more, more down to earth, more honest investment level conversations that the transactional that everybody is very comfortable with?

[00:46:02.18] spk_0:
I hear you, I think it’s kind of a simple answer though. You gotta know your numbers because we’re going to think you’re going to be fearful of that conversation if you don’t know what you’re selling. Okay, right? Like you’ve got to know, you know, this is why my hands are in spreadsheets all day long and looking at what that looks like. You got to be able to sit down and tell a donor what their investment is going to do over the next few years. You’ve got to move into knowing your numbers in a greater way what that impact makes. And again, I’m not saying don’t share stories and the crisis and the problem in your model. I’m not saying don’t show that, but too often I’m seeing people avoid that and yes, I agree with you, Tony. It’s a lot easier even if I was a board member, it’s like, oh, when’s the event coming back? Because like that’s way easier for me to fill a table. I’m gonna be a little friend care. You’re letting your board off the hook. Their job is a balanced budget and helping you co pilot that to a balanced budget. And so we have to just be starting at the top of the pyramid. Starting in the mindset of, it looks different to attract those donors. And so we must be giving different presentations I guess. I’ll say we must be having different conversations. And so whatever they value, it’s very different from your $25 a month. You know, with that donor values. So you need to be serving what they value. And so that means you need to be able to fundraiser ceo board member, Sit down with them and answer the tough questions. Answing Why your program%ages, 90%. And so why you’ve invested, you know, 20% and fundraising in the last three years. Why did you do it? And so why your revenue maybe went down for a year, answer the tough questions. Be honest, be transparent. They will value you and that they will be attracted to that because I’m telling you nobody else does it.

[00:46:28.68] spk_1:
You mentioned a couple of times the benefit of having a a strategic fund or an endowment. Um, let’s let’s just shut out. I mean I, you know, I, you know how I feel about it because I do plan to giving fundraising. But let’s let’s flush out the value of that long term sort of investment fund that lets you take some risks from time to time.

[00:46:51.48] spk_0:
Yeah. So I think we’re probably talking about two things, but I think we can we can weave them together. You know, when I say reserve off the cuff, I really mean, um, you know, unrestricted cash in the bank that you have full access to,

[00:46:55.68] spk_1:
you know, operating

[00:47:18.38] spk_0:
Reserve, totally. And so I can’t, you know, I have multiple $10 million dollar organizations come to me who struggled doing payroll because there’s not enough unrestricted cash and reserve. And so I want to make sure that we are, we know it, that needs to be too. And and if you have that much, if you have, you know, a year’s worth of money in the bank, sit and tell the donor why you do own it, don’t be afraid. You know, that sort of thing, you know,

[00:47:22.42] spk_1:
be ashamed

[00:47:23.29] spk_0:
of. That’s something right.

[00:47:25.09] spk_1:
Because when the next pandemic comes, or the next economic crisis comes, or the next bad year in fundraising comes or the next whatever comes. You know, we’re prepared. And and mr mr or MS donor, you probably do the exact same thing for your business

[00:47:38.98] spk_0:
totally. You

[00:47:39.18] spk_1:
don’t have trouble making payroll for your business each week. Do

[00:47:41.80] spk_0:
you have to have just have that conversation

[00:47:44.57] spk_1:
problem here either.

[00:49:48.57] spk_0:
Yeah, totally. So, so that’s that’s part of that. Half the businessperson to businessperson conversation, you know, and if you’re afraid, if you go into that meeting and you’re afraid they’re going to bring that up, well then you bring it up, put that elephant out on the table because because I’m always listening for what, what questions are in their mind is going to keep them from giving their best gift, you know. Now on the, on the plan giving sight tony you know, you’re my go to expert on this. But you know, I reach out when I have questions and everything. Um, but what a wonderful opportunity for you to present or to offer your longtime donors your, you know, talk to your donors to be able to be making a lifelong legacy in the community, in the state, in the, you know, what, wherever people are serving. And so you’ve taught me this, you’ve taught me that when people have given gifts by will or when they have committed to that, um, that their affinity to the organization is strengthened when they see themselves as a greater stakeholder and partner with you and actually their annual fund giving increases. And so what a wonderful opportunity to show somebody that their impact can have even greater results on the mission through your organization than a plan giving scenario. And so I totally agree with you. I told you recently, you know, I’ve never had more people ask me about planned giving, which is really interesting. That’s not my expertise. That’s yours. But I think people are thinking you no longer term. But I’m also seeing the desire to be in deeper relationship with our donors. And it’s not an uncomfortable conversation when we do know our donors so intimately. And we’re in that period of a relationship where it’s very easy to bring up that topic. And so I just see all the annual fund, You’re, you’re kind of your general ops reserve and your plan giving all of those working together in such strength. Um, but you’ve got to lead the donor to the understanding on all three of those

[00:49:57.57] spk_1:
and having those investment level conversations with, Right? Uh, including with your plan giving potential donors. Right? So I didn’t mean for you to repeat back stuff that you and I have talked about.

[00:50:09.59] spk_0:
You know, I love it. But

[00:50:16.36] spk_1:
what I want you to, uh, I want to make explicit that planned giving is a part of the types of investment level conversations you want folks to have

[00:50:44.66] spk_0:
absolutely their daughters. Absolutely. I would just say like if you’re wondering like, should I be sharing that with donors? I mean, I’m not saying open up the back back into the kitchen and sort of the grease pants, but usually the answer is yes, right? Like everything is on your 9 90. Like at a minimum, you should be able to articulate the route Elements of that in a donor facing away, not, not, not by just emailing the 990, but you know, at, at a minimum, that should be those. That should be the conversations that we’re having.

[00:51:24.96] spk_1:
Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. You wanna, I hope you will share a story, share a story of uh, I guess a client story that, you know, maybe Jonathan’s or someone else’s. But you know, they, you saw the symptoms, they weren’t addressing root problems. They had a strategic plan with terrific excitement and ambition. They didn’t have the money to fund it. And then with, with some coaching, they were able to realize what, what they, what they really needed.

[00:51:47.06] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. So I have a client who um have been working with them actually for for quite a few years and they’re on a great revenue trajectory. Um, but you know, it was kind of one of those things where they did continue to struggle to always get ahead. Um, you know, and the other kind of whammy, Uh, what would that be called double we I mean, I should say um, was that they had actually lost a large funder. Um they had lost somebody who was contributing almost 20% of their budget. And I actually actually was no fault of their own. It was kind of a weird silly deal. And it was actually an international funder.

[00:52:26.15] spk_1:
Just just let me let me make a parenthetical. That’s another reason to have that strategic or that reserve fund because donors may depart, large donors may, you may do something to upset them, they may die. They may find other interests. They, you know, so that’s yet another reason that can happen institutionally. It can also happen to individual donors. Another have that reserve fund. We talked about a few minutes

[00:55:46.44] spk_0:
ago, reserve Fund and you know, back to my little pyramid. I’ve been talking about, you know, in that top 30 you know, I don’t want those top 10 donors to be more than, you know, 25 40% of your revenue. So in their case, yikes right. That that was so, you know, yes, you can imagine for a couple of years that that stung and, and and it really came, you know, and so they came to me and we’re really struggling to make that up right in small gifts or in mid level gifts, major gifts. Uh, and I remember the lead fundraiser saying to me, um, you know, this is not like I didn’t go to school for this. I kind of, I know enough to be dangerous, but I, I kind of don’t know what, I don’t know. And so he really did feel, which a lot of people come to me feeling that we have great relationships. We have an amazing mission. Um we know our mission is worthy of being supported, but like, I think I’m leaving money on the table because I simply don’t know how to lead that donor to their best gift. And so like we’ve talked about today, you know, instead of saying, well, you know, let’s let’s make our golf outing this or let’s make our, let’s add the appeals, let’s, you know, do all the things that are important, but they’re not going to get, you know, for example, this organization on that stronger trajectory. And um, and really to the point where they are doing what they had outlined in their strategic plan. So long story short, that’s what we did. We put a realistic budget in place that they can articulate the true financial need. And it wasn’t, well, we’d love to, you know, make that money back because we still want to serve those Children in this case. Um, you know, it was like, here’s our plan to do it. Here’s how you fit into this plan. Um, and then we put their, their financing plan in place. What do they need to stop doing? What do they need to start to me? How would we truly balance back to that, that number we were hitting and how would we grow beyond that. Um, and then how do we actually start leading donors who maybe we’re giving, you know, a monthly gift or a one off gift or a, you know, very generously at a golf outing, but we knew those weren’t their best gifts. How do we start leading them through these conversations. And so the specific client I’m speaking to tray. He’s an amazing relational guy. He’s a great relationship builder. And so, but donors literally responded so immediately of, oh my gosh, we, we didn’t know you needed this. We had no idea this was the need of the organization. Um, and sure does he have solicitation tools now and you know, some prompts that really lead him through that conversation. Yeah, that’s part of it. Um, but he’s got multi six figure gifts as a result, organization is out of the red back in the black because now he doesn’t have to guess anymore. He actually knows the exact steps to fund the organization annually and then to lead those donors to give their best gift annually. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a dual combo. Um, but I see people make the shift all the time, But it starts with investing in change and being open to it.

[00:55:56.44] spk_1:
That’s awesome. Sherry. We’re gonna leave it right there investing in change. Having these investment level conversations planning be ambitious. You know, don’t be, uh, I don’t want to wrap up. I want you to wrap up, but don’t be humble because

[00:56:02.20] spk_0:
I like, I like the ambitious that, that’s my, my motto. Let’s let’s do this.

[00:56:49.03] spk_1:
That’s where we’ll leave it right there. Thank you very much want Taylor Ceo of KWAme. Taylor LLC at Kwame Taylor dot com again, Sherry. Thanks so much for sharing. To appreciate it. My pleasure Next week. Bitcoin and the future of fundraising with the co authors of that book and Connolly and Jason shim if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff

[00:57:06.33] spk_2:
shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty. You’re with me next week for nonprofit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95

[00:57:22.43] spk_1:
1%. Go out and be great. Mm hmm. Yeah.