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Nonprofit Radio for March 25, 2024: Living Our Values & Healing Over Everything

 

Amy Sample Ward: Living Our Values

The first of our 24NTC conversations is with our technology contributor and the CEO of NTEN, Amy Sample Ward. They give us the numbers around the conference, and remind us to walk the walk on our nonprofit’s values, including centering equity.

 

 

Beth Leigh: Healing Over Everything

Wellness in your workplace. Is that a value your nonprofit holds? Then take in this conversation packed with suggestions for mental health, creativity and unity in your office. Beth Leigh from Village of Wisdom, shares hers.

 

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Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the effects of Schwan mitosis if you unnerved me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s on our menu? Hey, Tony, I hope our listeners are hungry for the nonprofit technology conference coverage. We’re kicking off our coverage with these living our values. The first of our 24 NTC conversations is with our technology contributor and the CEO of N 10 Amy Sample ward. They give us the numbers around the conference and remind us to walk the walk on our nonprofits values including centering equity and healing over everything. Wellness in your workplace is that of value your nonprofit holds. Then take this conversation packed with suggestions for mental health, creativity and unity in your office. Beth Lee from Village of Wisdom shares hers on Tony’s take two. The NTC conversations were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms, blocking support generosity, donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous virtues gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow. Giving. Virtuous.org here is living our values. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC. You know what that is. You know, it’s the 2024 nonprofit technology conference, you know that it’s hosted by N 10. You know that we’re at the Oregon Convention Center. What you don’t know. Oh, you also know that we’re sponsored here by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Now, the reveal, what you don’t know is that I’m now with the N 10 CEO, the grand high exalted mystic ruler of NTC and our technology contributor at nonprofit Radio, Amy Sample Ward. Thanks for having me. It’s fun to get to do the interviews in person a year. We get to see each other while we do it. You know, in years past, your husband Max has been affiliated like stage managing. Is he with us this year? I didn’t, he hasn’t done it. And well, I guess we had a few years where the NTC wasn’t, wasn’t in person, but he hasn’t been helping with the main stage since maybe, maybe 2019 was the last year. Yeah, but um, he and Oren are gonna be here at the reception, so I’ll make sure you get to see them and say hi. Yeah, in the arcade staff or local, wherever the NTC is. Um we have staff in eight different states and you know, everybody has friends and family everywhere, so we’ll pick a reception and have that be where staff can bring their friends or their families so that it’s so it’s so rare to get to see what we do at N 10 since most of it is online. Right? And so it’s a fun way for friends and family of staff to get to see us in our element. The reception is this afternoon. That’s right. Ok. Awesome, awesome. Alright. Um So just acquaint us with some of the basics of uh 24 NTC. How many folks are here? How many folks are with us virtually? Yeah, we’ve got about 2000 attendees. Um Almost 400 of them are joining virtually. So they’re joining into the general sessions, the hybrid sessions and the virtual only sessions. Um and we have over 100 exhibitors here in the arcade. And I think it’s really interesting folks. We I heard some attendees talking about this yesterday, how diverse this group of exhibitors are? You know, I think sometimes folks think it’s, you know, 100 different Cr MS or, or, or 100 different payment processors or, you know, there’s so many different types of technology projects or service providers, even if they don’t have a technology product, you know, that they’ve made or that they sell so many different folks that are really invested in nonprofits being successful, you know, and um walking around here you go from agencies to communications firms, you know, to technology providers. There are Cr MS, there are payment processors, but there’s also like a safari fundraising team and like platforms that, you know, help you keep your board engaged. Like there’s just so there’s a video production booth, Bubu TV, they’re helping us with our live streaming and they’re recording. Yes. So there are, there is, there is a big diversity. You’re right. You’re right. Well, and the, the N the N 10 community is a diverse population and you, you are always very good about that. Um There’s a, there’s a, there’s a racial affinity room. There’s a quiet space for folks who might be neuro diverse and maybe just need quiet time alone. There’s like, I don’t know if it’s a silent room, but it’s a devoted quiet room. You’re always very intentional about that at N 10. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. And I think folks that haven’t been um, had the opportunity to be at the conference in person, don’t necessarily know all of those other pieces. You know, we want the conference. Yes. To have this big arcade, this place where you could connect with service providers, vendors, et cetera, connect with other community members, but also educational sessions where you can learn and then third places where you can just find other people like you a feather along with, along with the quiet room and the racial birds of a feather. There’s dozens of those folks just say I’m coming from Chicago. Anybody else from Chi Town want to get together? That’s it. That’s a birds of a feather. That’s all. I think. This is one of the first years in easily like 15 years of, of the conference that I’ve been at where there hasn’t been a West Wing birds of a feather table. I don’t know if West Wing fans now have something new that they’re holding on to. But for many years, there was a stronghold, there was always a West Wing Table. Um In addition to, you know, Chicago or Canada, whatever or the other, we need some more entertainment related. I’m Binging Blair said she’s gonna do Love is Blind Table. So there you go. That’s all it takes. Yeah, I’m doing this, come join. You want to join. We’re now birds of a Feather. And ultimately, the bigger lesson here is you’re never alone in this community. There are, there are other folks who want to talk about the same things or have experienced similar challenges or issues or favorite TV shows, whatever it might be. You’re not alone when you’re in this community. Uh Portland is an enormously, uh and justifiably proud uh food, food city, very justifiably so many rounds tonight. Oh my gosh, we have to keep expanding the Google. We’re now going out to like a 30 minute drive out across the river and then, maybe, and then you gotta go into that other suburb. And, yeah, they’re, they’re going out. I know there’s, there’s one that’s, I was invited to, it’s like a 30 minute drive. Um Yeah, we’ve taken over the immediate uh convention center, downtown Portland, downtown. Uh, but, you know, at the NT CS you’re always very good about the food. I mean, today’s breakfast, there was, it was a European breakfast, there was salmon, there was Brie, there was blue cheese, there was a quinoa, a quinoa like breakfast, parfait with fruit and nuts, um cheeses. Uh There’s an oatmeal station, steel cut oatmeal station. You’re all, you’re very sure want to have folks feel taken care of because we know that the vast majority of folks who attend our conference are allowed one conference per year or maybe one conference every other year and that only includes their registration sometimes includes part of their travel. We don’t, we know we know we get it. We’re a nonprofit too. You know, we really want folks to feel like while they’re here, we are not expecting you to go try and find some expensive breakfast next to the Convention Center, right? That if you’re here, if you’re at the conference, we are feeding you, you are taken care of, you are supported. Um because that’s what we all deserve. And also humans don’t learn when they’re hungry. We don’t have fun at the birds of a feather if we’re hungry. Right. So we really want folks to feel taken care of here. I believe lunch today is Indian. Ok. Um, coffee, there seems to have been an adequate supply of coffee. Coffee is always like, I don’t know, 8000 gallons or something. There’s a $8000 per gallon. We talked about this, a couple. You’re paying like $80.90 dollars a gallon or something. It was 200 for cold brew. Damn, for a gallon. Jeez. You know, if you’re looking for a money making business, go into convention coffee. Um Not to mention convention furnishings, which you and I have talked about offline. We we’ll leave that there. Can I can I make some sort of bridge or paint some picture from this into something bigger? We actually were talking about this as staff and as an illustration, I think of how, how there are challenges even when we have these, you know, empowering messages from the keynotes of we, we can do it, right? Like we can have our values and we can build what we want. And we say that, you know, I say that, oh my gosh, I say that all the time and yet we’re not saying that because it means everything is now easy, right? We can say we want you to be fed, we want you to be taken care of. We want um accessibility is huge for us. That’s is a dedicated line item in our budget, accessibility is so important to us, but we are not the entire system, right? We’ve said we, we know that there’s a lot of reasons you might not be able to travel, you can join the conference remotely, you also have scholarships, but then we are not the internet providers. And so when the internet providers don’t deliver the internet and so the live stream goes down, it looks like we are not invested in that accessibility, right? So N 10 can say we will spend the money, we will focus on it. We will plan with the community, we will do all these things, but we are still only our part of that process or that system. And I just wanted to name that because I think it’s, it’s helpful to remember that it’s not just, oh, say the right things and like you’re good, we can say we’re invested in these things. We talk to these vendors for months and months and months. We’ve set the expectations, we even have staff in the room. But when the internet is down, it’s down, it’s, you know, we can’t magically make it come back on our own or even necessarily with the vendor sitting there saying I’m also pressing the big green button, you know, I also who want the internet to work. So I, I think it’s important to know. It still takes us saying those things, making those commitments, putting the, the values into our budgets and accepting how much can we influence in the process in that whole system? Where can we say? Well, we couldn’t change that. The internet went down in the moment. But we can say for the next conference that comes along or maybe a smaller conference or a conference that isn’t as invested in accessibility. We can meet with the convention center and the vendors here after the conference and say this can’t happen again to somebody else. And here’s how we think you can mitigate it, right? We can still pass along those knowledge and expectation kind of lessons. Even if our part is over, you know, it’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations anywhere, any time, picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors, make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit donor box.org to learn more now back to living our values. That’s an enormous commitment because you want to convey your values even for the next convention. And, and I our conference and I I heard that uh from, you know, the, the uh, the, the, the exhibitors talk. We, I heard some exhibitors scuttle but that somebody had been told by, by someone who works here that, oh, this was an issue a couple of weeks ago, you know, so they know that there’s a dead zone here and, and, you know, it’s been weeks. So, you know, maybe those prior conferences hadn’t passed it on or maybe it’s the Convention Center not living up to values even though you had meetings with them. And they still, you know, they didn’t say, well, you know, in this area, we’re gonna be, I’m sure they didn’t relay to you, there’s gonna be a dead zone and for these uh eight or 10 booths. So, you know, because if they had, you would have told them to remediate it before the 12th of April 12th of March. Um So, yeah, but, but we each still have to be committed to our own values and we are, we’re, of course, we’re all players in a much bigger system. We just have to try to bring the others along. Right. And Sabrina’s message this morning of, you know, we do all have power and it’s not to say, ok, well, we really tried, we said that we’d have hybrid and virtual sessions and the stream went down like, you know, sad Trombone. So sorry, we can say, right. But so what is still in my sphere of influence? What is still in my power to do? It’s still in my power to say, hey, we did pay for this. We did expect this. We did talk about this. It didn’t work. So let’s document it. Let’s make it as public as need to be, you know, what, what else can we do here? Because I think that’s the piece where especially a nonprofit organizations where the list of things to do, the list of community members asking for support. It just feels long that we don’t always do the second part of it. We say, OK, well, we did try there, let’s move on to the next thing and, and spending a little bit of time just to do that final. OK. But what was the, what, what’s the last piece of influence I have here in instead of saying, OK, well, we did, we did do it, it’s resolved, it it isn’t resolved. Some of these things are never resolved. Um And feeling like we can take up the space inside our teams or, you know, with vendors in this case or with community members, whatever it might be with funders, whomever take up that little bit of extra space to say, actually, II, I have a little more influence I wanna put here. You know, this is why you’re a multiple book author, you see these, you, you make these connections and you see this bigger picture and it makes perfect sense. Uh Once you explain it when I have 250 pages to explain it. No, you did it in 13 minutes. Come on. All right. Um, no living your values and, and carrying them forward and even for the benefit of others, like you said, you know, for the next conference it’s admirable. It’s, and I know, I know N 10 lives its values. I see it in the conference. II, I see it in our, I hear it in our conversations. You know, you’re always, um you’re always putting, putting mission forward equity forwards, like centering equity. You know, it’s not a, it’s not an office on the side. You and I, you and I and Tristan and Justin Spell Haug from Microsoft just had a conversation about centering equity uh in uh in tech and artificial intelligence specifically. Um You know, so no, I admire it. I mean, I, I admire you the work you do and the organization you lead and the uh the pervasiveness of the, you know, just walking the, what did you say? Is it walking the talk or is it walking the walk? Like you talk the talk, don’t you walk the talk? I, I’m getting confused about this. I always used to say walk the talk, but I think you’re supposed to walk the walk because if you choose to talk, well, no talk to talk is in is insufficient. You know that. But walking the talk, you don’t want to walk the talk, you wanna walk the walk or is it or is it just, it’s it’s walk the walk, walk the walk, you don’t walk your talk to upgrade from talking your talk. No, you walk the walk. All right. I admire that intent is always walking. Always walking the walk. Alright. Thank you, Jason for your help. Jason is running our video and live stream as well. Hopefully, you know, uh communications guide correspondent colloquialism colloquialism king. Um Well, can I make another bridge to what you just said there? Something else that I think is coming up in conversations here? Um So many, so many sessions, not that they have to put equity in the title, right? But equity is the foundation from which they’re talking about technology in their session, regardless of the topic or, or whatever. And I can’t help but feel frustrated that we’ve been having these conversations, we’ve been successful in putting resources out like the equity guide that have helped folks create or find language around this for themselves and for their organizations and yet it’s 2024 and I look out at the tech sector and I’m like, yeah, OK. Yeah. Have we, what are we doing here? You know? Um And I’m really hopeful that other folks, you know, just as Sabrina said in the keynote, like part of solidarity is just saying, I also see that, you know, you, you’re, no, no, no, you didn’t lose it. I also see this and now we can be together. I see you, you know, we’re in this together, but I hope that we can not just find this language for ourselves or our organizations, but we can better use this language together to say more loudly because our voices are more united. Yeah, we see you tech sector, we really do have clear and different expectations than what you’re delivering. Um I’m hopeful that that 2024 especially with this continued just proliferation of A I tools marketed at us that we can be stronger in our voices around that I was encouraged by our conversation, you meet Tristan and Justin be Haug from Microsoft uh technology TSG technology for good for social impact T si, right. Thank you. Um I mean, he um you know, I like to think he’s not just um being condescending and the team and gratuitous when he was basically, you know, speaking truth to power because he does run he’s the global head and global Vice president or corporate vice president of uh of technology for social impact at Microsoft. So, you know, I think that was a valuable conversation and I think he said the right things, but you’re seeing evidence of it as well. Yes. And I think, you know, there’s there a piece of this, you know, we often talk about, we’ve talked about on the show accountability, but a part of that is helping make real and helping make visible incentives to be accountable to us, helping more technology companies that are not Microsoft, that do not have an entire tech for social impact division, right? Um these smaller tech developing or service related, developing uh entities to realize it isn’t to build whatever you want and then come market it to us as a vertical later, it is to build it with us from the beginning because there is real incentive to doing that with us in this community. There are users, there are clients, there are customers, there’s, there’s money to be made and also like impact to be made by, by doing that work in this sector and not just selling it to us later. Is this the, is this the proposal for your next book? Sounds like it. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t thought about another book but I feel like I hear the frustration, you know, but we have achieved but we, we’re but not to not to where we need to be, not to where we need to be. Because I think for me and I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think you, I think, I think this whole community, it isn’t just like a this hope, this optimism that maybe one day it will get better. I know it can be fucking better now, it can be better. So let’s do it. You know, it’s not about like, oh my gosh, we’ll build to one day like today is now and by the way, don’t blush because you said, fuck, you’re not the first one. Somebody said, fuck you. And somebody said as today, grab your ass with both hands or something. I never heard that before. So well, he said, but, but I encouraged him to say yes so that I can say whatever. But I think my point is like it doesn’t have to be a kind of grindstone where we say, OK, well, you know, it’s just worth it to have, have known in our hearts, we were doing the right thing, we actually can make it better. So what have been the obstacles then? Why aren’t we much closer? I mean, we, we, we both acknowledge the community acknowledges this is a journey. It was never gonna check it off and say, oh, we, we have a completely equitable tech community. I mean, I think some of the big, why aren’t we further in 20 24? I think some of the biggest challenges, at least specifically to this community to, to nonprofit organizations, especially as they think about technology and their work is access and uh kind of segmentation or separation. I think a lot of folks in organizations don’t consistently have access to technology knowledge, technology, leadership, technology decisions. And so those decisions become inequitable, they become not very strategic honestly, they, you know, so within our organizations, we are creating access issues to, to knowledge and power. And then as organizations, we are limited in our access to the service providers and the technology providers where it’s not clear. Oh, maybe three special clients that paid the most in our giant enterprise organizations got to be on their nonprofit advisory. Right. But as a sector, as, as everyday organizations, as you know, most organizations are under a million dollars, like these kind of regular organizations don’t feel that access to inform or influence the tools that they then adopt. So that’s, that’s an access piece at both levels within organizations and then between nonprofits and the service providers or vendors that they’re working with and the smaller or they just don’t, they don’t feel they have the agency and who would they would they would they ask for? Right? Like there, there it is uh systemic issue. The vendors are often set up in a way where there is no manager to ask for, right? And so they’re not creating an access point in um to allow for that influence. And then the segmentation issue I see this perpetuated so strongly by funders and technology providers, you know, this is a tool for arts organizations. We fund arts organizations. What is art in 2024? Like I think my definition is a little more broad than to consider myself an artist, any content creator, creating audio art, right? Um And what do we gain by pretending that we are fundamentally different because you work in the arts and I work in the environment, guess what? In an equitable world? We have to have the arts and we have to have an environment, right? We all of our missions are important and necessary. So pretending that we are so different that we aren’t sharing knowledge with each other. We’re not building that power together. We’re not both saying, hey, we both use this vendor. Let’s go together and ask for access and influence, right? So this segmentation and I think often it isn’t the nonprofit saying, oh no, we’re not like you, we don’t want to collaborate. It’s funders saying we only fund this city or this region or this topic or these three portfolio goals, you know, um and and technology providers who are also saying, oh, this is just for higher ed, really like really? So it isn’t, I I want to give people space that it’s not just your own making, you know, that that, that the segmentation exists, but it isn’t serving us and we need to do more to say, yeah, I have something to learn from this human rights organization and this housing organization and this environmental organization, right? That all of those groups, we are all trying to make this world better. So let’s do that learning and, and power building together. Let’s go. If it’s not a book, it’s a keynote. At least I’ll give you that. That’s just 45 minutes or so, you know, just listen back to this recording and you’ll have, you’ll have your keynote. Alright. Lots of good wishes for the rest of NTC. Let me ask about 25 NTC. Uh It’s on the website, but I, I in April of 2025 and we will be in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland at the Convention Center at the Convention Center. Not the, not the gaylord. No, that’s, that’s something different. That’s in Maryland. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. Baltimore Convention Center, right. So we’re going east coast, we’re going west coast to east coast. Um Do we know the dates? I don’t, I did not. That’s, it’s on the website because the 25 NTC is already like, it’ll be in the notes below the stream. You know, like one of those, I’ll try, I’ll try. It’s on the website. That’s reliable. N ten.org N ten.org. All right. Good wishes for the rest of the conference. Thanks so much and thanks for being part of the conference for another year. It’s really magic and it’s such a gift to put more speakers who don’t have access to microphones on a literal microphone. So, thank you. It’s my pleasure. And this is our 10th. Wow, congrats. Yeah. Amazing. They’re Amy Sample Ward. They’re the CEO of N 10, the grand high exalted mystic ruler of uh event 24 NTC. And they are, of course our technology contributor here at nonprofit radio. Thanks so much to the pod father. Oh, thank you. You did like that. You’re giving me this wild title. I’m gonna remember Pod Pod. And thank you. For being with Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks so much for being with us. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thanks very much, Kate. Great conversations from the 2024 nonprofit technology conference. I was there all last week in Portland, Oregon. We were in our booth sharing with the sponsors Heller consulting. Let me add my thanks to Heller. Very grateful to them for second year in a row, sponsoring nonprofit radio at the NTC. So these conversations that I got 24 captured 24 interviews, conversations. I like to call them conversations. The two today living your values healing over everything. I mean, you wouldn’t think of healing and, and wellness in the workplace as belonging in a tech conference. But that’s because this is not a, you know, you know, that this is not a tech conference for techies. It’s a conference for everybody who uses technology and wellness is essential for everybody using technology. So just starting with today’s. But then we uh uh we, we, we’ve got conversations coming up on artificial intelligence. There are a couple of those matching gifts, email deliverability, uh which is a big issue. The uh the email providers are tracking your recipient’s actions and they’re penalizing your emails when folks that you email to uh put you in the junk mail or mark you as spam or don’t interact with you. So, email deliverability, very topical, timely. Um redefining generosity. That’s a very good one, avoiding tech debt, designing good surveys. Switching to a four day work week. That’s an interesting provocative 14 day work week, 32 hours, not, not four day work week, 40 hours, four day work week work week, 32 hours, no reduction in pay. Very interesting conversation. And um, the last one I just, um just hitting a couple of highlights leaving your job. So another very interesting one, lots of good conversations coming up over the next several weeks from the nonprofit technology conference uh and happy to taking off our NTC coverage this very week. That’s Tony Stick too. Ok. Well, I hope you had fun in Oregon. But also I must say I’m excited to hear all these new conversations and stories and hearing about the people that you talk to. If you met anyone new, I want to hear about that too. Oh, lots of, lots of new folks. Yeah. Lots of folks who have not been on before. That’s awesome. Plus plus uh plus some repeats. Yes. Love them too. Well, we’ve got Buku but loads more time here is healing over everything. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC, the 2024 nonprofit technology conference in Portland, Oregon. Our coverage is sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. With me. Now is Beth Lee, director of development and stewardship at Village of Wisdom. Beth. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Thanks for having me, Tony, pleasure. And you are talking about a very interesting subject. We are gonna talk about you, your expert in it and I’m just learning your session topic is healing over everything. I’m just going to say, explain, explain the session, explain your title. Healing over everything is a mantra for me that I often say and it’s healing over everything, meaning any and everything that comes up, right? Because often if we center ourselves on healing and positivity, distractions come up, right? If you want to focus on being more financially stable, that’s often when an emergency shows up and takes all your money, right? And you’re like, oh, this is not what I should be doing, but in the world of nonprofits healing over everything, it’s more about healing over what your supervisors say or what the environment is telling you which is work 90 hours a week or pour all of yourself out despite feeling yourself back up. And so this is why the topic is important. There’s a couple of levels to it. Players healing over everything. I see. I was thinking of healing coming first over being supreme over everything else that’s going on in your life. But, but so that’s got different levels. That was, that was my, my take, which is a great take. You’ve been thinking about this for years, overcoming, overcoming everything over all. Love it Um So you, you thinking of this in three different, I don’t know, three different realms, three different ways, mental health, creativity and unity. How do these work together? How do these work together? Where’s this energy? So, for me, this all comes from research that I did for a small bit of people, 100 and 75 people from 2018 to 2020. For obvious reasons. The research stopped in 2020. right? And it was finding out what happens to people once they leave the nonprofit space, how do they feel what’s going on? 100% of the people mentioned having some sort of battle with PTSD. And so 100% 100% of the 175 people. And so that was to me pretty baffling that everyone felt in some way that they had been damaged by this space and they were damaged, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, they mentioned different areas of that damage. So this is why I focus on the different creativity, healing and unity. And so in giving that research and talking about it this week, it’s really like diving into the environment of nonprofits. Why are they toxic? And why don’t we talk about it? And also in that we found in the research that and these are all ages, ages 22 to 60 eight, I was going to ask you about your sample sample, what part of the country or geographically diverse? So we were geographically diverse. I’m going to pull out just some of the stats. It’s 100 and 75 people. 100% of nonprofit employees that had left. They’re all former. Their time in the nonprofits range from one year to 33 years. Um Gender 128 women, 35 men, four, non binary, eight prefer not to identify their gender race. 40% identified as black indigenous or person of color. 30% Caucasian, 10% 2 or more races, 12% Asian and 8% prefer not to answer. And then ages ranged from 22 years to 68 years and I can tell you just off the bat we had probably more than 50% are from the east coast. Um And then 20% about the Midwest and the rest are coming from the west coast. Ok? I mean, I I presume you, you were you were trying to trying to achieve a representative sample of nonprofit employees, ok. Trust that you’ve done that. I mean you’re the expert, but thank you for the details. Um Alright, so mental health, mental health, you’re talking about mindfulness, but there’s so much more to it, help us. I’ll help you all through it. Yeah. So given that data and talking to everyone and then aggregating the data and talking to people about what they wanted out of this. If you could redo your journey again, what would you do? And each person, you know, in their positions were management to entry level positions were saying I wanted someone to tell me it was ok to take a break. And so when we talk about nonprofit spaces and mental health, where’s the mindfulness? Where are we saying? Ok, mental health has a place here on our day to day, 9 to 5 work. Right? And often I don’t see it even when I’m consulting or working with other nonprofits, we say it a lot. We want our employees to be healthy. But what are we doing? Where’s the walk? Exactly? Where’s the walk? And so we’re not seeing it. So, where do we put that in? For me? It’s a very simple 12 to 1 that’s a lunch break. But I also ensure that I also make it my mindfulness break. So I break it up for myself. But when I do these consultations, Tony, no one is going, oh, and maybe I can put that in my calendar. Yes, you can put lunch in your calendar. Yeah. So people are just like, oh, this is mind boggling. I’m not quite sure I could take a break. You can time for me. CEO S do it. Executive time. The president of the United States has executive time that nobody knows it’s some black box. But CEO S CEO s too trickle down closed door time or whatever they call it. It’s time that they don’t want to be interrupted. I have my time that I don’t need to be, I don’t want to be interrupted as well. So be conscious, conscious about time for yourself. There’s gotta be more to it conscious about time for yourself. And in that time, what am I doing? Right. So, is that, and I’m, is it breathing exercises? Is it journaling? Is it that you’re taking time for your spirituality? What is it that you need to do for you? So this is where we talk about emotional assessments and assessing that. What do you need to be your best self as you do this work in the nonprofit field? Right? Often in the nonprofit field, we’re seeing people at their worst because whatever our mission and vision is, it’s to help someone get out of something, I mean, very, very, very curt way of saying that, right? And if that’s the case, then you’re expelling a lot of energy you’re pouring from your cup often. So now I’m telling you take a break, maybe an hour a day in this hour, a day after assessing what you need to do to make yourself and keep yourself whole as you’re doing your work. That’s how you program your one hour, right? So for me, I’m going to program my hour to have breath work because that works for me. And that’s just taking time to, you know, do some deep breathing. But there’s also probably going to be movement yoga, walking just outside, being with nature or that’s going to be journaling. And that journaling is normally for me where I pull in my spirituality. So it might be writing prayers or it might be reading the Bible, anything like that, whatever feels good to you and your spirit and whatever you’re practicing. But that comes after you have assessed what you need in your environment. I’m going to presume that we’re going to discourage, you know, I want to be on Facebook for half of my one hour. This is not social media, it’s not social media, catch up time, it’s not social media, catch up time or text, catch up time, right? You know, and this is barring the normal checking in with your family type of stuff, obviously, right? But yeah, this is the time for you. Ok? I I’ve said for years that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others and we’re all taking care of. Well, if we’re not, if we’re not explicitly others, you know, humans or animals, we’re taking care of the environment, we’re taking care of forests, we’re taking care of uh churches, whatever it is, you know, we’re expanding. You said it, I’m just I’m reinforcing and I believed it for years, whatever it is, whatever you’re engaged in, it takes energy, it, it takes some of you, it takes some of your heart and you have to take care of yourself before you can do this other work. For other agencies, people, entities, whatever, however you define your work. Because so that, that’s what caught me about this, you know, because people are not, you know, we’re not, we’re just not taking care of ourselves and we’re seeing it in rates of, I think depression, obesity, high blood pressure, suicide, right. These, these bad behaviors that we’re only increasing inflicting on ourselves are showing up in very bad ways. I mean, fatal ways sometimes. Absolutely just take care of yourself. And that’s why we’re talking about how, how to do it be purposeful, purposeful. I’m your cheerleader. I’m here for this, Tony. I’m here cheering you on. I appreciate this. This is work that I want to cheer on. Alright. Suppose, I suppose we have uh some leadership objections like, well, you know, yeah, you do get an hour but uh or you don’t even get a full hour or well, but we still need you to be on email during, during your lunch break. Uh You know, this, this your time is, it’s, it’s not working for me or us. How do we, how do we push back? We get some allies. I mean, how do we, how do we make the case for our own healing time? I’m glad you asked during the work in the workday hours. Yeah. So my biggest supporter has been hr right? And I know that sometimes hr isn’t always the best supporter because they’re there for the company. They work they work for the company. And I say that in the sense of using research to work for them and what I’ll do is say, well, I’m more productive when I have this hour, I’m less productive when you don’t give me the hour and then I actually back it up. You know, like when I don’t have this one hour, you can see that my work starts to dwindle, you can see the excitement in the work that I’m doing or the ability for me to do this work or now I’m frazzled and I’m not even bringing my best self to the office any longer. That has always worked for me with working with other supervisors who may not say I don’t want you to take this hour. I need you to still be on call. I also have learned to push back just personally. Are you adverse to me being my best self? Is that what you’re saying you’re opposed to that? Are you opposed to this? You don’t want my best self at work, work and often that stumps them and you’re like, take the hour, just take the hour. Ok. Those are very good. Anything else? Those are the two that have worked really well for me. And even though I’ve helped other people, those have worked really well. So those are two. I lean on now. You do consulting on an individual basis as well as the organizational level. Anything else you want to say about mental health before we move to creativity. So one thing I’ll say here on mental health too is leaning on allies, as you mentioned earlier and outside resources. I have a great therapist and I just, that’s my personal therapy. Yeah, I love my therapist and she’s a huge cheerleader and proponent of writing up breaks for me. If I need them at work to say, you know, Beth, if you need a week or you need a couple of days, let’s make sure we actually write that out and I’m just going to write you out. Your therapist writes to your employer to give you a break, a mental break, like a surgeon would say she needs two weeks for, you know, whatever surgery, mental health, mental health, she needs this. How do you fight with that? That’s medical back understanding. She’s got to go and there is no justification of, well, she’s out and she could still check email, she’s out and she can still do text message. No, she’s out and it’s a mental break and it’s medically recorded and given to hr and there’s no more questions about it. And I think we need to lean on our therapy resources more often for things like that because we don’t, I think we also, as we were talking about all these bad behaviors, we have an understanding and if someone were shot that they’re bleeding, they need immediate assistance. And we talk about those bad behaviors or negative behaviors, I should say of, you know, bad eating habits or mental health decline. That’s often because we don’t understand how emergent it is for us to get help. Someone says I’m exhausted at work. Those words, I’m exhausted are often not, I’m just tired. It’s, it’s everything, it’s work, it’s home life, everything is compounding. And they’re telling you I really need a break. So when they need that break, let’s give it to them. And if we can’t give it to them, let’s lean on outside resources to make sure you get it. So, tapping into your therapy network will help you with that as well. I think that’s brilliant. I mean, any, any hr department or CEO is gonna take a doctor’s note, an MD note. So this is the therapist note. This is mental health instead of physical health practitioner that brilliant. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity, virtuous beliefs that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys. The response to the needs of each individual virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact, virtuous.org now back to healing over everything you want to move to creativity. Yeah, we can go to creativity. Let’s do it. Yeah. Creative spaces, creating creative spaces in the workplace that used to come up like 1020 years ago about, oh, we have a creative workspace. And what that meant was that your office looked like Google’s office and that you all had couches somewhere pong table. Exactly. Were you productive? No, you weren’t really that productive. You just had moments to play, which there is research that suggests that play is necessary for your brain to have a break, right? So I’m not doubting that. But what I am saying is let’s be intentional about creative spaces. And for me, when I’m working with individuals, I love to take pauses whenever we’re meeting or we begin meeting to do something creative together. And that may be, we’re going to just literally have a paint session, paint parties or, you know, we’re all building something together here. There’s a painting kiosks painting here. There is, there’s painting here and I love to see that type of stuff because what that shows you is that there’s an understanding for health, our abilities to tap into our creativity are so important. It’s important to just our daily lives. It helps us move forward, it helps us think of things that we’ve never thought of before. And again, we’re more productive when I’m tapping into my creativity, I’m thinking I go back to that problem and now I see it in a different lens because I’ve spent so much time on it. So, you know, introducing that in the workspace is really brilliant as well. And I think that the way we do that, at least that’s worked for me. The way that has worked for me is, you know, back to the arts, really bringing in the arts. I’ve worked at a place where we had an art table and it was really the old school kindergarten table which is paint and paper you squeeze and it’s just like a good jump in, just go for it, just go for it. And even if you were stressed out, just go for it and have a good time on those tables. And that was an environment that felt really good. It was an environment that when we had conflict, we took it to the table, like I’m still upset with you, but I’m going to go to this table for a little bit and then we’re going to come back and have a conversation. Those conversations were a lot more pleasant than if we just sat there and tried to bicker with one another and get to some kind of plausible solution that really didn’t work in the end because someone felt like they weren’t heard. And So introducing creativity truly in that way, there are rooms and spaces here that have little fidget spinners and things on them, right? Small creativity. But it’s for the introvert that wants to be alone, but still have an opportunity to color things like that. And then they can come back to the space when they need to. And so introducing that creativity in the workspace and your work flow in your scope of work even with at Village of Wisdom, one of the things that one of my colleagues is always saying, you always champion rest. They’ll give us these huge scopes of work which are amazing scopes of research and understanding. And then I’m like, well, where’s the rest built in? Did you build in the rest? Did you do that? Did you build in the creativity? No. OK. Well, let’s go back and do that, you know, and I think that’s just an amazing thing to do. But I love the environment of Village of Wisdom because they accept it because it’s one of those, you know, I can say let’s rest and we rest, we collectively rest. And I think that’s the thing is that you need an environment and space that will offer you the opportunity to rest. There’s something about the tactile, we’re talking about creativity, finger painting. I’m thinking of Legos clay, clay. I used to love clay. Uh I, there’s something about the, yeah, the tactile, you know, now all we touch is our phones and hopefully our families in loving ways. But aside from that, I mean, in the creativity side there’s, there’s nothing we don’t unless we’re, unless we’re devoted to the arts, you know, or it’s a big part of our life. Maybe as a hobby, maybe not a profession. But aside from that and that’s not, that’s not very many folks. We don’t have the touch. Right. And it’s so important, Tony coming out of the pandemic when you were shut off from touch, stay 6 ft away. I couldn’t touch a person for a while. We thought we couldn’t touch our groceries. We were wiping our groceries down for a while until we realized we’ve learned through science that it’s not on your grocery. The device is not on your groceries. But, uh, doorknobs, we installed the, uh, those things on the bottom of the door, open your shoes. You couldn’t even touch a doorknob. So we lost, yeah, the pandemic was enormous for isolation and loss of tech time. The sensation. So what else, what other kind of creative space you talking about? Painting? You talked about the clay, which is great, silly putty. And even I found that making those things together, you can make clay, you can make silly putty. You know, I have the benefit of living in North Carolina. So we actually sit on clay in Durham. I live in Emerald Isle on the beach and then I have a place in Pinehurst too. Even closer to down there in Pamlico. Yeah, you’re right there. You do in Durham. Durham is close to Pinehurst is, it’s right there next time I’m in Pinehurst. That’s not the one I don’t live there. But you go visit that one. Yeah. No, Durham is a very nice town. Great college town. Great food. That’s another good food town. Durham culture, universities. That’s a great place to live. I didn’t know that. So creative spaces in the workplace, what else can we do? What works for you? I say get involved in your community that way. What’s creative happening around you? Right? There’s some great exhibitions. There are great little opportunities to go visit different shows. I know that seems like a strange thing to do. Me and my group are going to go visit a show. We are and we’re going to talk about it afterwards. How did that make you feel? It’s really bringing field trips back into the workspace. You know, that’s one way to do that. The other way is, you know, like you mentioned Lego, Lego is great because it has so many different things. Now I introduce my best friend to it. I do it. I build cars. That’s my secret. I build cars. She got into the plants, they now have plants and so her home has all these little plants all around it, plant, decorate it that way. And so bringing that in where each person can maybe bring in a little tiny box. These are small boxes and build something together and talk about it. But you learn about each other video games. Another thing, right? Card games, old school uno we did that and that brought out some things but fun is another one. Yeah. And I mean, it’s just a matter of bringing play and creativity. And I say creativity because in the workspace, anything that’s counter to just sitting at a computer oftentimes is creative. At this point, journal prompts writing time, you know, working with your colleagues. OK. Well, together, we’re going to set aside an hour and that’s our meeting time. But in this meeting time we’re going to write, you know, I’ve seen that multiple times that’s been introduced into village of Wisdom as well, not by me, by another colleague. And so I think it’s great. You have something you haven’t mentioned that. I think it would be counterproductive. But I want your opinion. Uh We, we’re all gonna play for an hour together between 11 and 12. We’re gonna do it all together, we’re gonna do the same thing is that, is there value in that or is that counterproductive? There’s value in that like it’s mandated, we’re all going, we’re all going to do something. So if we’re all going to, there’s value in that the word mandate often is what takes the value off of it, right? Because I’m a big proponent of choosing, you know, just for that person during the day, you might not have the energy for it. If we’re talking about healing, it’s acknowledging your cup that day. So that day you might not really want to do it, but do it for those who want to, for those who don’t, you can take your personal hours and use it as you like those who want to. We’re going to, I don’t know, go to an escape room or Durham has something I love called a rage room. A room filled with things you can break and lots of different weapons. So there’s a baseball bat, sledge hammers and then there’s a whole bunch of glass plates and cups and you can just throw them against the wall. They suit you up and put on all the protective gear. So you don’t get injured and you just have an hour in there to smash things. They turn the music up and you just have a good time throwing beer bottles, all that Rage room. They also have a paint room where you can throw paint on each other in the same room. So it’s getting messy. It’s reactivating the piece of your brain that people tell you you’re too old to activate. Are you, are you too young to know Tinker toys? You know, Tinker toy. That was another Lincoln Logs were good too. I can remember the package that the Lincoln Logs came in. There was like a round thing. Lincoln Log. Blocks. Yeah. Those are the big ones that the toddlers have. They’re LEGO, but they’re real big. Ok. Again, there’s our sense of touch. It’s all on a smooth screen now. It’s important. And, yeah, I mean, even for your own health of feeling different things, right. You know, sometimes you can correlate touch to an emotion. Something smooth, reminds you of Xy and Z something crunchy. Feels like this and just reigniting those emotions helps you with just getting through your day. Should we move to unity? Creativity. We’ve given that adequate. I think. So, hopefully for whoever’s listening, you know, they can go, I can do this, you know, healing spaces, unity. You talk about fertile soil for all people. That’s what’s engaged here. Yeah. What’s engaged here? That becomes the um the evaluation of the space. That’s the part that people don’t often like and it’s the evaluation of self. And so in these spaces, we’re asking you to evaluate yourself and say, OK, do I have emotionally what I need to go through this? And so some of those questions are, you know, where am I today? Is my home life? OK. Is my work life? OK? Is my spiritual life. OK? And if everything is in balance is my physical life, OK? Can I move forward and expelling some more energy? Right? Only you know the answer to that. But then I flip this back onto the organization and the environment and say now do this for the environment. Does the environment have enough soil, fertile soil? That if this person says I’m not OK as an employee that you can hold them and if the answer is no, then what resources do you have for that person? And you say none, now we need to go find those resources because I don’t believe that everyone’s job should do everything for them. But I do believe that they should have the opportunity to provide resources. And that’s why there’s unity in that. Because I think in order to do that, you are looking at people as humans and you’re seeing their humanity, you’re not looking at them and saying, well, I don’t want to do this because I don’t like you or I don’t want to go down this path of helping you because you may be mad a little weird too. You know, it’s esoteric getting a little personal. I don’t really want to know you should deal with that on your own day. Exactly. But what I’m saying is that especially in the nonprofit space when we’ve had, like I said, the small sample size who told you 100% of them felt that they were damaged. Then we need to probably look at where we can actually provide you some fertile soil. What kinds of resources? What should we do even internally without external resources internally? So that’s where the other two, right? We talked about giving you that hour, things like that, but it is check ins and what I mean by check in, it’s meeting with your team to say, how are you feeling in the culture? And then based on that conversation, you need to have a plan for this person. Um And, you know, in my session, I’ll be talking about different ways that people can have these plans because they’re pretty extensive. We have a lot of time here but the planning is, is looking at this person and saying, all right, you don’t like the following things, recurring meetings. You know, you don’t feel like you’re heard, you don’t feel as though your work is being showcased in a way that other people’s work is being showcased. You don’t feel like you’re getting the credit, whatever it is that’s wearing on you, like diving deep into this, like why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling and then we’re gonna create a plan. What is this plan? And it’s not the same as a work plan. It’s more of what’s your feel good plan. So you can actually feel good in this space. And in that, if we need to increase some flexibility in your hours, you’re starting at 10 o’clock instead of nine o’clock and ending at six instead of five, you know, is it that you’re doing a four day week? Because some people are more productive with four days than five. Is it that these meetings, you only need to show up to every other week instead of every week, you know, what is the plan for you? Um And that’s why I was saying it creates unity because each person feels seen and held and as long as each person feels seen and held, then everyone is OK. What I’ve found is that if one person is getting more attention than the other, it’s not going to work. This is applied inequitably disparately, then this is just going to be breed resentment. Exactly. Some of the folks will be very content and feel better and heard and the rest will be pissed off. Ok? So it’s got to be done equitably. And then all the thing too for me has been Tony talking to management to have them learn different management styles. And what I mean by that is we’ve gone through a pandemic and people have changed. We all change coming out of the pandemic. My work style going into the 2020 is not the same. Now, the way I communicate is not the same, how I interact with people is not the same. And so understanding that we need to be able to say, ok, what do we need to come back? I don’t want to say come back to self to just nurture this new person that’s come out. Um You know, I talked to the executive director at V once before and we laughed about it because I said, listen, your executive director. Yeah, right now and I said, hey, you built a team in the dark because the organization grew in 2020 from 4 to 15 people in the pandemic year. And I was like, over the pandemic over the course of two years. And I said so in doing that, I was like, people don’t know each other. We know each other on screens, we don’t know each other and we don’t even know ourselves. And so now we’re doing amazing work. I call it root work in the sense of bringing in people to talk to us about the environment and the workspace because it’s not negative, but just learning to learn each other, learn each other’s work styles and things like that. And so that intention behind it has been great and I’m always excited from him and the rest of the leadership team of just diving in, it wasn’t a, oh, we’re going to just let this thing just be infertile. We’re going to actually dive in. So they brought in people strategic planners to actually focus on doing strategic planning in a holistic way. They brought in, you know, a therapist who’s doing, you know, culture planning in a holistic way and it’s done in a way that everyone has a voice and it allows us to move as a team saying, OK, this works for me, but this might not work for you. But how can we work together and show up in our whole selves? Yeah. So why don’t you bring this all three together again? The mental health and creativity and unity, uh, you know, leave us. Uh, well, I think we’re already inspired but, you know, just, just pull it all back together. Pull it all together. Yeah. Club, the benediction and the sermon. Right. For me, if I were to put a bow on it, it’s the understanding that every last one of us working in the nonprofit space is fostering humanity in some form, shape or fashion, right? And we need to take the time to love on ourselves in a way that not only replenishes ourselves but honors our own humanity so we can give our best selves in the workspace. And we do that by honoring our mental health. We do that by honoring our creativity and we do that by knowing that in a unified approach, we will always be our best selves. I bet you’re very good at the stewardship, part of, of Director of Development and stewardship because you, you hear people, actually, I think I would recommend you for promotion to like Chief Humanity Officer Cho Cho. I I I’ll speak to your uh now you’re a better advocate than I will be. She’s Beth Lee, Director of Development. My pleasure, Director of Development and stewardship at Village of Wisdom. Thank you again, Beth. Thank you Tony and thank you for being with Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Next week, the generational divide, Tony, am I fired? Maybe so, as I said last week, if the generational divide didn’t come this week, there was gonna be a shake up. Uh but I’m taking responsibility uh for this. There, there could be other issues. So that’s why, you know, that’s why it’s a maybe uh around you. The generational divide. I have it, I have it, it’s recorded. It’s in the can, the digital can, but I wanted to really wanted to kick off our 24 NTC coverage this week the week after NTC. So the generational divide will come. Uh I, we’re not gonna keep promising it well, the next time you hear it, uh it’ll be for sure the next week. Uh And in terms of Kate, we’ll see about week to week. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Let me say a quick thank you very much to Donor Box. They are ending their sponsorship with this show. It’s been a terrific year. I’ve just been uh grateful to have you as sponsors. So we thank you very much Donor Box and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer for now, Kate Martignetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez, Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty. You’re with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for December 12, 2022: Take Heart, Take Action

 

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[00:00:36.06] 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 need counter pulsation if you broke my heart with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Take heart, take action. That’s Trafton Hickman’s book. He urges you to find and live your inspiration through reverence, ripples and relationships which will lead you to resilience. He talks us through his thinking

[00:00:50.79] spk_1:
on

[00:01:17.30] spk_0:
Tony’s take two. I’m cheering for you. 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 Trevathan Heckman to the show. He is an award winning nonprofit leader with over 20 years experience cultivating grassroots groups and community networks. He’s founder and director of Daily Acts organization, which specializes in unleashing the power of community to address the climate crisis.

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He

[00:01:44.62] spk_0:
lives in the Petaluma River watershed where he grows food medicine and wonder while working to compost apathy and lack daily attacks is at daily attacks dot org. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:46.60] spk_1:
Thanks so much. tony it’s great to be here.

[00:01:50.74] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure to have you. Big pleasure. I love your

[00:01:51.93] spk_1:
book. Very

[00:01:53.51] spk_0:
inspirational. I’m glad we get, I’m glad we got a chance to talk for a good amount of time. And this is no no 15 or 20 minute run through nonprofit radio We we uh, we go deeper,

[00:02:06.71] spk_1:
but there’s

[00:02:12.65] spk_0:
all again, there’s always so much we can do folks you’ve just got to buy this very good book. You’re encouraging. Well, first of all, let’s make sure everybody knows where the Petaluma river watershed is. Where are you

[00:02:20.01] spk_1:
were in Sonoma county, which is in northern California?

[00:02:24.40] spk_0:
I think most people know Sonoma for, for lush wine country. Are you, are you a fan of wine connoisseur of wine or not at all? You drink soda? What

[00:02:36.14] spk_1:
do you

[00:02:37.23] spk_0:
have any relationship

[00:02:38.59] spk_1:
Since I’m a gardener, we’ve made a bunch of honey wine over the year beers. I have good friends who are winemakers and so tend to enjoy all the fermented beverages.

[00:03:08.10] spk_0:
Okay, thank you for reminding us that wine is indeed fermented along with, along with chocolate and coffee. All right. I did a show once. It was, it was not a successful show. Long time listeners will remember this many years ago because we were doing the podcast for 12 years, I had a show on fermentation with someone named Sandor

[00:03:11.37] spk_1:
katz

[00:03:12.73] spk_0:
katz, but he goes by Sandor crowd because sauerkraut is fermented, you know Sandor,

[00:03:29.61] spk_1:
I know who he is, he’s pretty famous for his work in a couple of spots. Actually does have a little mention of him in the book. Um, making the connection between sort of homegrown gardens fermentation and agents of fermentation agents of transformation, how you apply that to community organizing things.

[00:04:01.36] spk_0:
I, I had Sander on when, when I was it was early years of the podcast and I thought, you know, let’s just do random shows about completely the things that are completely off topic for nonprofits, let’s do a show on fermentation. So I think I had seen an article where he was quoted or something and uh I had sand or on and then I, you

[00:04:03.15] spk_1:
know

[00:04:28.17] spk_0:
like 10% into the show, I realized this was a mistake but I wasn’t gonna, I wasn’t gonna un invite him or anything. So we, we talked about wine and chocolate and his beloved sauerkraut and the value and medicinal, the therapeutics of fermentation and we, we did a full show on fermentation. But uh then I I was going to continue that Until I was about 10% into this show. The next show off the topic was going to be um

[00:04:34.98] spk_1:
I was gonna

[00:05:26.56] spk_0:
have a paid santa claus so, but I I bagged the idea of going off topic and and and now of course in 2023 everybody knows, you know, podcasts or niche. You stick to your niche. If somebody wants to learn about fermentation, they’ll go to the fermentation podcast if they want to know about being a paid santa claus, there’s probably half a dozen podcasts about that career path if you want to take it. So, but there was early days, I didn’t really know what I was doing in podcasting. So we had a show on fermentation and Sandor was Sandor Sandor Kraut was the guest. But um back to, let’s go back to now, sorry, take heart take action a little digression about fermentation, you’re encouraging us to to find and live our inspiration and I find the I find the book inspirational, but in the opening pages it might even be the introduction or so talk about find and live your inspiration,

[00:05:35.54] spk_1:
help

[00:05:36.09] spk_0:
us ground that a little bit. What do you mean there?

[00:07:13.39] spk_1:
Sure, you know, some of the deepest intrinsic motivators as human beings are around learning new things and finding your passion. And then if you could turn your passion is something that has a larger sense of purpose that does something good, then that’s incredibly powerful. And then if you have agency to continue to do that, that is incredibly motivating as well as um sort of building mastery getting better at something. And so, you know, this idea that the world is so there’s so many overwhelming problems, it’s easy for people to get overwhelmed by the scale of the problems, it’s easy for nonprofit leaders to get overwhelmed by, you know, how big our mission is. Um and it’s easy to lose sight of our deeper purpose, why we started, why we do the work we do. And so it’s important to continue to lean into um you know, this idea of inspiration as a divine wind that moves through you or something that connects you to something larger where you feel a sense of passion and a purpose and doing something good. Um so, you know, as far as sustaining and difficult work day after day, year after year in some small way, staying connected to your joy and your inspiration and how you’re part of this bigger thing is incredibly important and not easy to do. You know, growing organizations, raising families dealing with multiple confluence in crises at the same time, there’s a lot to deal with. Um and so I always love that we use internally in our organizations quote from Gandhi of, I’m so busy today, I’m gonna meditate twice as long what we tend to do when things get difficult is we threw out good habits, good rest exercise, whatever it is. And we just kind of burrow in. And so it’s important to remember when we’re doing really challenging work and we’re in challenging times. We have to double down on the things that help us take heart and take action that help connect us to that source of joy and inspiration and power that we get agency from

[00:07:38.14] spk_0:
and you encourage us to do this through daily actions. I love, I love the idea of just daily actions like you say, reclaim the power in your daily actions.

[00:09:09.55] spk_1:
What’s the only power that any of us have? We, you know, individual actions alone will not solve the climate crisis and address systemic racism and these big issues, but it’s our only power. And so we have to use our power to, you know, as has been said, be the change and affect collective action. Um and then, you know like classic Stephen Covey and other people of have a big circle of concern. We could doom scroll all day and be aware of all the problems, but focus on your circle of influence, focus on your actions and the things you can influence. When you focus on your influence your influence and power to affect positive change grows, you could build momentum, you could build trust and relationship with others to where then you could start to affect bigger change together. So each of us, whether you’re an individual or a nonprofit leader or a board member or a volunteer, um re centering in our own power, our own agency, our own ability to be proactive and move things forward then enables us to do the more difficult work of shared path finding of of finding our collective voice and collective action and then, you know, for nonprofits to then be larger forces for good. We have to work with a lot of diverse agencies and organizations at different players to try and drive bigger change. And each layer you get out gets more complicated and more difficult from the individual scale to the organizational scale to then stay an organization working in a lot of partnerships to them, building coalitions and so centering in ourselves our own power and building those skills and practices and then bringing that up to each new scale is really important.

[00:09:27.34] spk_0:
And running through the book is gardening

[00:09:30.95] spk_1:
garden

[00:09:45.35] spk_0:
your garden metaphors throughout you have you’ve replaced lawns with with more sustainable gardens through the organization, through daily acts organization. Um talk about

[00:09:46.35] spk_1:
how

[00:09:47.16] spk_0:
gardening fits fits like in your life too in your life and through the, you know, in the message of the book

[00:11:57.97] spk_1:
sure there’s a couple of layers, well a lot a third of americans garden and so being exposed to, you know, so gardening is a big impact on me and daily access built a lot of its core strategy around landscape transformations and things that enable people to practically take action where you live to to do landscape solutions that are low cost, low tech nature source and people powered. And so there’s a lot of specifics for for us as our organization around these small, accessible actions and literally regenerating nature right where you live, it could be on a balcony, could be in a rental unit, could be in your front yard. But then whether you garden or not Understanding the underlying ecological principles of an ecological garden helps you understand how our planet works and you can apply that to a lot of things. So whether you’re a gardener or not, the lessons you learn in a garden in the metaphor by learning about how nature functions in a practical, accessible garden are really powerful for me. You know, I was waking up about 30 years ago, just what even then felt like an overwhelming state of our people on our planet and I started get exposed to these people who are regenerating farms and forests and they were aware of all the hurt but they were just, I didn’t understand words like presence and purpose back then, but they were connected to something deeper and richer and I was like, I don’t know what the hell’s in their wheaties, but whatever it is, I want some of it. And so I started going to these places where these people like pioneers, annual conference in different herb conferences and things where people were doing this really powerful regenerative work. And that led me to walking through a gate in west marin County into this what was formerly a water thirsty chemical intensive lawn and had been transformed into this lush taken forest of food and medicine and habitat and it was incorporating billions of years of nature’s wisdom right in the backyard. And it was then that I realized that my life and our world are really deficient in this kind of vitality but that we could regenerate nature. We can regenerate communication community. We can regenerate our core connections to ourself right in the backyard. And that not only do we grow a lot of gardens, but we can apply the lessons you learn in the garden to organizing neighbors, to organizing and transforming our communities.

[00:12:16.45] spk_0:
Your garden is important to you for in your own daily actions.

[00:13:09.13] spk_1:
It is, it’s literally I step out the door and its nature connection. There’s a light drizzle yesterday and it’s filling up the rain tank and it’s causing the soil to uh you know, get re moisturize which help sequester carbon, which dresses are climate emissions. We have a ton of different food, medicine and habitat growing half a dozen different plants at any one time. We give away food the neighbors. Um it’s a source of incredible community connection. People stop by and they want to talk so so for us it’s definitely, and at some level to address our crises, we need more people growing local food and we need to sequester carbon and we need to address drought and desertification in these major issues and a lot of people can address that into their daily lives. But again, even if you don’t garden, understanding the lessons that we can learn about how nature operates, which you can learn and garden are really powerful to apply to our organizations and our other change making work,

[00:13:18.40] spk_0:
understanding the ecosystem.

[00:13:25.42] spk_1:
And there’s this idea, there’s a great book called leading from the emerging future by auto Sharma and Catrine coffer. And it’s around emergent leadership and it’s this idea of moving from ego ecosystem to ecosystem, the ecosystem of being self focused to understanding at an individual scale, at an organizational scale, at a community scale. How do we fit with others? How do we work as a part of a larger hole to affect positive change in our communities.

[00:13:51.71] spk_0:
You tell us that reverence plus ripples plus relationships will equal resilience.

[00:13:59.40] spk_1:
So

[00:13:59.71] spk_0:
I’d like to that’s a great uh great organizing principle. I’d like to talk about these, these are s plus, I happen to love alliteration. So I was very, very appreciative. I have another one somewhere in my notes, I want to point out that I loved. Um but reverence, what what is you sort of say, sit skillfully, you know, in the present moment. But you

[00:14:52.95] spk_1:
Sure. And one piece of context before is a lot of people have asked me over the years like how has such a small organization as daily acts affect so much community scale change. And then how have I stayed sustained in this difficult work for two decades plus. And so the four R’s reverence, ripples, relationships and resilience are also daily X organizations for core values and operating principles. And so the structure of the book has a sequential flow that you can apply to yourself as an individual or you can apply it as an organizational scale. And even if your values are different kind of our point is especially covid difficult times of now for all of us, I think we have to re center on who we are and why do we exist and what’s our mission and what our core truths. So that’s kind of, you know represented throughout the book that this is the secret sauce of how we do things. And

[00:15:22.63] spk_0:
as you mentioned earlier, best to start with what we have the most control over ourselves.

[00:15:28.00] spk_1:
Exactly.

[00:15:29.01] spk_0:
And then scale.

[00:16:49.85] spk_1:
Yeah. So so the, the idea of the four R’s is you know, first start with your heart, there is a lot that is heartbreaking in our lives in our world and nonprofits are working to address really important missions and difficult work. And so for for an individual and organization or an organization or beyond re centering on what’s the intersection of where you know, the thing that breaks your heart, the issues you want to address, meet your, your heart’s greatest inspiration. And so if you find that inspiration of what breaks your heart and what deeply inspires you again as a person as an organization, that’s an incredible source of power. And then there’s this also, you know, sort of like a driving intent. There’s a definition I cite in the book from author Deng Ming DAO, that said, reverence is the stately determination to make something worthy of the materials in the moment. Um and so as leaders, you’re working with this, this moment right here on this call and this fall seasonal pulling in moment and this big crazy climate, economic political moment. There’s a lot of layers to the, to the moment and kind of our job is to make sense of how those things fit together and then bring it down in actual ways that help us achieve our mission and sustain our work and our people. Um so starting with your heart and that intersection is the first piece and then once you you’re aware of like what breaks your heart and what inspires you to action, then it goes to action and that’s ripples and that’s this idea be the change you wish to see. It’s about taking action in your life. It’s about taking action to find and use your voice and then honing your compass as a person. What’s the purpose? Vision values? What are all the things that help show you true north?

[00:17:16.97] spk_0:
And I want to I want to take these in in pieces

[00:17:19.77] spk_1:
because

[00:17:37.88] spk_0:
we have the full, you know, we have a full hour together. So I’d like to yeah. Um you know part of what you talk about in in reverence is is you know, be willingness to to make changes and changes a very difficult thing for a lot of people it made. I mean it could be something as simple as a change in a daily routine which you advocate and urge or it could be something as big as a change in a marriage or or a career or a job

[00:17:52.53] spk_1:
help

[00:17:52.89] spk_0:
us through. You know, the the difficulty the fears that a lot of people have around even you know, sort of simple change,

[00:19:38.10] spk_1:
there’s there’s so much to that, but just simple version is most people have incredibly hard time will change at any scale as you note. And so knowing that if we’re trying to change our say it selves to make the world a better place and help inspire others to change. How do we address those barriers? The fears, the insecurities? The resistance is that come with that change. And and again, starting with what inspires and empowers you is a great way to go. Go to what you’re drawn towards changes easier when there’s something really compelling and you’re learning and you’re focusing on things your pay passionate about and things you could have agency and that you could affect and you feel a sense of control and you can start to build a lot of little wins in that way. Um and having, you know, having mindfulness or movement practices are really valuable things that help us get present and recognize when the fear comes up. Um, you know, victor, franko survived. Nazi concentration camp, you know, family spoke about, you know, our true power. Is this an instant in this instance between sort of something happens in the world. And how do we react? He says it much more eloquently, as I quote in the book, but in that instant is the source of our true power. Do we respond? Out of fear, out of lack, out of anger, those things? Or can we take a breath and recenter and choose our response. So doing things that help us get present, help us act from our heart that help us focus on what we feel inspired and empowered and connected to are all great tools to remove some of those barriers.

[00:21:45.94] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. If you want to be a thought leader in your field, you need to have relationships with people who publish thoughts because they’re the ones who will get you heard journalists, op ed editors, bloggers, podcasters and other content publishers. These are the folks you want to get to know before you want to be heard so that when you want to be heard, they already know who you are. They’re more likely to take your call, reply to your email. Turn to can help you set up these relationships, anything guaranteed you guaranteed to get hurt and get press. No, no. But do you greatly increase the odds if you’re calling on someone who you already know you already have a relationship with when you want to be heard? Yeah. Yeah. Turn to has the relationships and they are former journalists. So they know how to help you set up relationships with people like journalists and bloggers and podcasters. Turn to communications. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Now, back to take heart. Take action. Say a little more about the value of a daily movement practice. And you even have a page in the book which uh as I had told you before we started recording, I need a hard copy of books. That’s, that’s the way I work. One of the reasons is because I tear pages out. So I, you have, you have a daily movement practice called. Well that happens to uh let’s

[00:21:48.01] spk_1:
see what

[00:21:48.89] spk_0:
happens to be page 71 because I tore it out of the book because I, I wanna, so it’s no longer no longer in my copy. I can’t pass it. Maybe I’ll pass it on, but I’ll have to make a photocopy and stick it back in for whoever I give the book to. Um, but it’s an example of a simple daily uh daily movement practice this towel qigong, but generally why, why you’re such an advocate of daily daily movement practice.

[00:24:33.02] spk_1:
You know, there’s, I found over the last 20 or more years, habits and practices in general, there’s a whole huge section of the second section of the book on ripples which just digs into habits and practices and developing what’s called a keystone of core practice of hundreds of practices. I apply every day from a core morning routine where I ground and I practice gratitude and I go over my vision of my purpose and my values and things that recenter, my compass to journaling to Recenter when I take a shower, a range of meditation practices. And so I think the most important habit of practices, the habit or practice of acquiring new have and practices and refining existing ones because they’re, you know, there’s a quote in the book, I said, I’m not gonna remember the quotes offhand but Aristotle said something to the effect of we are what we do repeatedly excellence then is not an act but a habit. There’s a lot of great quotes that have talked about, there’s this idea of, but wherever you go there you are of of the regular practice of shaping ourselves and it’s true and organizations of shaping cultures. Um and so to me and I read a bunch of years ago and you know, Stephen Covey book of famous leadership author, this idea about spending one hour in the morning, the core Four of his seven habits, the seventh habit sharpening the saw is about honing your your compass in a daily practice about how one hour a day will improve your sleep and every aspect of your life. And I was like Wow, that’s kind of a big statement. But for 20 plus years of having a core practice, I firmly believe in those words and I found them to be true myself. Um so I think you know, don’t get overwhelmed by trying to do it all, you just start small if it’s, it could be like if you want to pick up a meditation practice, remove the barrier that saying that I’m gonna, I’m gonna meditate one minute a day or I’m just gonna write down three pieces of gratitude each day, do something that just gets you started and then you often find once you get going, you have inspiration, momentum to go a little longer and you just keep on building from there and then when you fall off the habit, you just put yourself back on, you don’t make a big deal of it, but developing from movement practices to rituals to start and close your day to good habits when you get really emotionally triggered or thrown off, how do you re center? Um I think developing good habits and practice is just one of the most important things we could do to be fulfilled human beings and then effectively want, especially if you want to be effective humans and leaders in our work,

[00:25:13.99] spk_0:
you say that we only care for and respect what we understand and feel connected to, so talk about permaculture and Mark Cohen and bark the organization in Belize share some of that with us.

[00:27:35.11] spk_1:
Sure, so and I frame up in the book of you know and sharing how we’ve been able to do what we’ve done effectively and how to stay sustained, kind of like I said the book sequentially lays out in a framework anyone could apply, but then a lot of more personal stories and experience in the first couple of sections that how I became who I am and lead to helping create daily ax and so permaculture, Mark Cohen the bellies Agroforestry Research Center, you mentioned are these some of these key reference points that kind of cracked open my mind and paradigm that there’s a different way to be and I didn’t know what any of it was, I’m like wow, what that is this idea chip and dan heath right about called bright spots, you know, when there’s a lot of gloominess out there, you look for the bright spots of who’s doing something different and that creates a roadmap of success. And so the belly’s Agra Forrester Research Center is this incredible jungle farm in southern Belize that I got to spend a good amount of time at over a decade. And part of why I start going there was I met this guy Mark Cohen, who’s a permaculture teacher at a conference and I was just like what is this guy doing? I just need to spend more time with him, he has a level of awareness and brightness, I just want to spend more time with and and use a permaculture teacher and for folks who are new to permaculture, it’s this ecological design science that’s rooted in the core ethics of caring for the earth and caring for people and ensuring a fair share and it’s this accessible, you know, you can apply it to your home to your life, to your neighborhood, to your organization to regenerate the world around you, it’s it’s really accessible, practical um toolkit, it’s really good stuff and so permaculture is most generally known for being applied to farms and landscapes and that and so seeing it applied at the scale of you know, an Agra Forrester Research Center is really powerful and then going to the permaculture into the northern California, I mentioned that backyard garden where I saw all these permaculture principles applied um was incredibly powerful. And so in essence though like the take home message is for for mark and other reference points of mine and then places like bark and the permaculture garden is exposure to transform people and transformed play cases has an incredibly transformative effect on us. And and so that impacted me personally and then we use those core strategies to grow daily acts over the years because when people get exposed to people in places that are operating in a different way, it’s a very inspiring and infectious and you want to figure out what that is and how can you do it,

[00:28:02.70] spk_0:
you encourage us to take heartbreak and use it as a catalyst for positive action.

[00:28:06.60] spk_1:
So

[00:28:06.84] spk_0:
tell, tell us, you know, tell us the story of your heartbreak that you’re telling the story in the book and and how you how you transform that to to positive action.

[00:29:32.06] spk_1:
Yeah, I started daily attacks shortly after the intersection of 9 11, you know, big national tragedy, huge loss of life and then my mother suddenly died about a month later and there was this confluence of sort of national and personal heartbreak um unfortunately I have been in these recent years, been exposed to all these positive solutions and models. And so when the heartbreak did hit me, it, you know, it kind of really catalyzed me as tragedy often does, it makes people step up and say, hey, we need to do something different, we need to be different. A lot of good comes out of heartbreak consistently. You look at all the great organizing efforts that come out of all the tragedies of recent years. Um and so it’s a vital catalyst which is why having those inspiring reference points to pull from, to go, okay, what am I going to do differently? And you look to what are the things that people and the things that really inspire you? And so, you know, those were the initial heartbreaks that got me going and anybody who knows who does this work through time is staying awake to the state of our world. There’s a lot of heartbreak out there. Um and so this, this idea that Joanna Macy speak about of the heart that breaks many times is big enough to contain the whole world. And so heartbreak doesn’t feel good and we often want to go away from those things. But it’s sort of, that’s where the idea of reverence of finding the intersection of what breaks your heart and what inspires your heart to start to remove that barrier of avoiding what hurts us and leaning into it with some good support. It’s a powerful vehicle to affect positive change and to transform our lives in our communities.

[00:30:02.40] spk_0:
That section of the book. You have a quote from paris a Pinkola estes

[00:30:08.24] spk_1:
s

[00:30:49.86] spk_0:
and I’m gonna read it. Ours is not the task to fix the entire world at once, but to mend the part that is within our reach. One of the most calming and powerful things you can do in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. Struggling souls catch light from others who are fully lit and willing to show it. I love the idea that it’s, you know, you can you can empower others by, you know, shining your own light.

[00:30:53.68] spk_1:
And it

[00:31:06.60] spk_0:
goes back to, you know, living, you’re finding and living your inspiration. You know, you’re unique. And if you can show your light to the two others struggling souls, you can you can help others

[00:31:37.03] spk_1:
exactly well, and that’s what I found personally. Um, and then within that too, there’s some other good operating instructions it talks about. You don’t have to fix the entire little once. Focus on the part within your reach. That’s the same thing as that Stephen Covey idea of your circle of influence. Have the daily calendar. One of our volunteers produces on my wall and has a great quote, I’m looking at for this month from the Talmud that says, do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. And so how do we find our part to lean in of B with the heartbreak and then

[00:31:48.55] spk_0:
re

[00:31:49.05] spk_1:
center on, Okay, what, what’s, what’s my part of that work?

[00:32:09.47] spk_0:
This is also the uh, part of the book where we talk about reverence, where you have the uh alliteration that I appreciate because I appreciate them generally regularly remembering to reverently recenter. So, you know, we sort of to me that speaks to self care, re centering yourself,

[00:32:16.73] spk_1:
taking

[00:32:17.25] spk_0:
time to do

[00:32:18.41] spk_1:
that regularly

[00:32:19.98] spk_0:
and reverently

[00:33:32.28] spk_1:
and and doing it more than you would think again that Gandhi quote of, I’m so busy to meditate twice as long. I think a lot of us with our responsibilities for families, community, our organizations, we say, oh, I don’t have time to deal with that. That’s self indulgent. But for us to be able to show up at our best and, and and be really present to skillfully path fine with others in difficult situations. We really need to double down on our self care in practice self compassion as well as we’re practicing compassion for others in the world. It’s just really important. And it’s great to see in recent years we call it an organization, personal ecology or mind body medicine practice, but this increase self care, especially for change agents in the world. Um, I think I think most of us could use more of it and you look at the difficulty of recent years, like everybody, nonprofits, leaders, communities are going through so much. It’s really important. And now, you know, december, we’re in this moment where the seasons and the earth are pulling in. Yet our schedules usually continue to go full force for fundraising for the end of the year. We’re planning for next year, all of that. So there’s a lot of forces that, you know, we need to step up to. But it is important. It’s an important belief shift. I think that taking care of yourself is is a powerful step. Like they say, on a plane, put your own oxygen mask on first before assisting others. Right?

[00:33:48.81] spk_0:
While I was preparing, reading the book and thinking about our our conversation, It occurred to me that

[00:33:56.39] spk_1:
in

[00:35:07.03] spk_0:
the past six or eight weeks I’ve I’ve had more shows about self care team care. Uh, there was one guest is uh, as a researcher in building relationships, you know, being good to your friends, finding friends that are supportive and then being good to your friends. Um, had someone talking about living in wonder. Um, you know, I just, This was not intentional. You might think, you know, the guy should be planning out the shows for the year or so, at least for like three months or the quarter. You know, it’s it’s not intentional, but it occurred to me while I was thinking about our conversation that, that I have done this and I think I’m I’m sort of unconsciously responding to what I think a lot of people are feeling now, the end of 2022, the waning days of the pandemic. Hopefully they continue, but you know, between recession and pandemic and political turmoil, uh world turmoil, war in europe, you know? Yeah, I just I think I’ve I’ve unconsciously found myself gravitating to these topics of self care and team care and and friends and relationships.

[00:35:14.42] spk_1:
It’s a lot to be with. It’s important to call out, it sounds like that that divine wind of inspiration speaking through you for what’s the moment called for?

[00:35:58.07] spk_0:
I’d like to move to the ripples if we can you break it down. And of course, you know, listen, this is a, this really is an inspirational book. I encourage you to get this and and as as truth and I said, you know, work for work for yourself first and then think about scaling to to your organization, but trough and you break it down and like take action, find and use your voice and then developing and maintaining your personal compass around ripples. But what ripples. You started to say it earlier, then I cut you off because I wanted to, I wanted to spend a lot of time with reverence and then ripples and then relationship etcetera. So so if you can you’re welcome to repeat what you were starting to get into with with ripples earlier.

[00:39:41.02] spk_1:
Sure the I think, and especially for people who are engaged in trying to affect change in the world, it could be so disheartening to, you know, recognize how little impact we can have on our political system or climate or these sort of things. And so the importance again, individual action alone isn’t going to solve our problems, but for us to embody our values in a practical way. For me, it’s things that regenerate the earth in the garden and meet neighbors in that. But you’re also when you’re doing these small acts, you’re connecting to these larger intrinsic forces that are at the core of our planet’s function. So, so as far as the mindless of consciousness, like yes, be aware, you know, small actions aren’t going to, you know, save the world completely. But when you could recognize and acknowledge that you’re acting from your values, when you do that small thing and you get a little dopamine hit and you feel good and it gives a little motivation. And then you connect that to recycling isn’t just recycling life on our planet flourishes because of cycles. The hydrologic cycle, nutrient cycles, all these big cycles. And so you’re literally connecting into these larger intrinsic planetary forces. So you get to connect with something much bigger and that’s the beauty like permaculture as you’re tapping into the operating instructions for our planet and so taking action in whatever way you can. And in particular if you could get out and get your fingers dirty and connect to the earth and connect to the air and the water and the people around you. But taking action is the first level. And as you’re taking action it could be imperfect, but start to find and express your voice. Whether you’re an extrovert and introvert, it doesn’t matter. It could be using a lot of words or not. But what is the voice that wants to speak through you that ties to your passion and your purpose and why you’re here on the planet in this moment? Um and so for each of us to connect to to our voice, that’s our ultimate sense of agency. And then how do we bring that to work with others? So so I think taking the time. Journaling is a great tool. There’s a lot of practice is paying attention to the people and the things that inspire you again. That is where you feel a sense of inspiration and juice and you know just really pay attention to to what what lights you up so to speak. And then through time, um you know the compass is a really important thing like finding what your true north is. There’s so much destabilizing change in the world and so developing a compass which is you know different for each person. But around what your purpose, your vision, your values, your strength sort of, your your core coordinates. Who are your key reference points. Is it a famous leader? Is your grandmother and so Bundling those things up? It could be in a folder. Could be internalized. But so what are those core reference points for your compass? And then what are the sets of habits and practices that help you work? That I recommend having some sort of daily practice to start the day. But really it’s developing on my wall. I have kind of quotes and mantra and images. I listen to music each day, have tons of practice and I keep on adding more. And you know, like I read in a book, um, there’s a book on habits. I come from atomic habits or another one, but it talked about how Michael Phelps the, you know, all time Olympian, his coma, The swimmer. Yeah, helped him develop these habits where by the time he got to the pool, he had had success like 50 times or 100 times that day. And so how can you get lots and lots of little winds that build momentum and motivation and confidence. Um, so developing a compass is, there’s a pretty big section in the second section on ripples, on developing your compass. I think it’s one of the most important things any of us could do in whatever form you do it in.

[00:40:10.09] spk_0:
I love this idea of, of so many wins before you even sit down to your desk at, you know, 8 30 in the morning. You’ve already had a dozen wins or something

[00:40:37.21] spk_1:
versus the opposite effect. What happens when you look at your email or you have an emotionally charged conversation or you feel besieged if you start the day with your cup already empty and if you’re a leader and you’re dealing with a lot of things coming at you, um, it’s important for all of us down to in um, trying to think in the power of habit. The author talks about a keystone practice and the simple act of making your bed and how studies have shown it has this cascade of positive influences relative to, you know, better exercise, managing your finance better. A whole range of unexpected things of just getting little winds and building on them. So

[00:41:01.57] spk_0:
your mother was right when she told you to make your bed

[00:41:04.19] spk_1:
when

[00:41:05.25] spk_0:
you were five years old, your mother was teaching you about your intrinsic worth

[00:41:25.16] spk_1:
and making it easier to to have good habits, put your shoes by the door, that encourages you to go for a walk, put a little note on your computer, what are the little things you could do to remove barriers and encourage the positive practices and habits you want to develop, you know, And then, well anyway, so positive. But then, you know, how do we apply that stuff at an organizational scale is where it goes?

[00:43:26.28] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two, I’m cheering you on this time of year because it’s the last month. I know you, you may very well have weekly production goals maybe even every couple of weeks every a couple times a week. You’re checking your, where you stand against last year, I’m in your corner. I know it’s, it’s high stress. Um, something like 45% or 47% of gifts come in after December 25. Uh, end of year gifts. Sorry, that’s not of the whole year. That’s the end of year gifts, which I think is defined as last quarter, almost half come after December 25. So whatever the numbers are, I know it’s high pressure. I’m thinking about you. I’m wishing you well. Also remember from last week that regardless of how you perform, how your, you individually and as your organization performs today, there is a tomorrow, regardless of how you do this week. You have next week and the week after. And that goes for this year too. I hope you do very well this year if you do less well than you want. If you don’t do well this year you have next year lots of opportunities to grow. Remember your past does not define your future either as a person or as a nonprofit. That is Tony’s take two, we’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for, take heart, Take action with Trevathan Heckman.

[00:43:33.22] spk_1:
You have a

[00:43:44.76] spk_0:
quote from Martha Graham that, that goes to the point you made about. You know what we each bring individually and uh a little longer, but I’m gonna read it. There is a vitality, a life force and energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all of time,

[00:43:57.20] spk_1:
this

[00:44:08.99] spk_0:
expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions.

[00:44:17.95] spk_1:
It

[00:44:18.17] spk_0:
is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly to keep the channel open,

[00:44:25.08] spk_1:
Keep

[00:45:27.91] spk_0:
yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Uh Martha Graham, you know, renowned professional dancer choreographer, identifying that we each bring something unique and we’re impinging on the world if we don’t share it. You uh well you’ve you’ve said you’ve said a couple of times uh stressed the importance of journaling and and and and you you also make the point in the book that, you know, this is not, you know, there will be uh like a school journal. You know, you you use a journal that doesn’t even have lines on it. You know, it’s just it’s thoughts and your your underlining and circling and you know, so you know what people may think of as a stereotypical journal is is not at all necessarily what your journal needs to look like. Um and meditation, but then also, you know, you talk about breathing and stretching, connecting these these these physical practices as well.

[00:45:59.12] spk_1:
Yeah, my originally, what I was fortunate to come across of was I started studying tai chi nei gong and the internal chinese martial arts and so that kind of early on really grounded me in body based practices which are really important for healing and re centering and increasing awareness and that. Um, so so that’s long been a core piece to me and then through time layering and other habits in practice, this is and layering in mantra Xas and integrating and clarifying one’s values. Um, you know, things like developing a purpose statement. So those sort of pieces which hone your compass but rooting that in a physical practice that gets you in your body and your breath is really important personally. And then collectively we do these practices organizationally as well and through a leadership institute.

[00:46:25.73] spk_0:
Oh you do in the organization. Yeah,

[00:47:28.54] spk_1:
well and you know, the on that point you mentioned a self care piece, we also advocate for this from a climate policy perspective of the if if if we don’t deal with this sort of mind body aspect of of of the existential traumas that people are facing and the traumas that are getting unearthed by dealing with things like historic oppression and racism in that we have to, that has to be a part of our climate work to we can’t just assume everybody, he’s gonna figure out how to reduce all the emissions and and sequester the carbon and do all that. There’s this human component which involves sort of like personal and collective self care. So we’re advocating for this, this kind of stuff should be in our climate policies as well. It’s not just at the personal organizational scale. If we don’t support people to address and move through these traumas, we’re gonna have a hard time facing reality and changing. Let’s

[00:47:37.38] spk_0:
move to relationships. And you urge us to invest in the power of small groups, flush this out for us. The value of relationships and what small groups can do.

[00:49:27.34] spk_1:
Sure, I think probably I’m sure a number of people on this have heard what always stuck with me is that that famous Margaret Mead quote about never doubt the ability of a thoughtful committed group of people to change the world that that it’s all that it’s ever been. And so that always just resonated really powerfully. And then through time, you know, in growing daily Acts organizations as a small committee based organization and then serving on a number of boards at the regional state and national scale for for grassroots networks. I got to see again and again the power of these small groups and through coalitions and that. And so I think what’s interesting about in recent years is a deeper sort of understanding and analysis of how small groups affect change. And so there’s a great book called Forces for Good, which assesses a lot of different nonprofits based upon Jim Collins Leadership authors leadership framework and then um emergent leadership and books like that. And so how small groups affect change is in through networks and through shared leadership and through inspiring evangelism and by working as, you know, what we call ecosystem catalysts. And so how you could go from one garden to doing 600 gardens in a weekend is not by yourself with two or three staff or volunteers, it’s by engaging 2030 40 organizations, agencies, businesses and other partners towards a larger collective goal. Um when, you know, these organizations, these small groups of people, that that’s when they’re working towards a collective impact with others. Then when you start to build coalitions and work with government, you know, it’s really how can the small groups um work together and leverage collective power in a bigger community. And so for us that that’s really which is sort of this ecosystem approach, it’s not about any one tree in the garden or organization in the community. It’s how does the whole thing function as an ecosystem?

[00:49:50.88] spk_0:
Why don’t you share one of the stories from the book? I should have asked you to share stories earlier, but I your host is lackluster. I’m sorry. You got the book is teeming with with lots of stories share, share one of the so the relationship network networking scaling stories.

[00:53:12.48] spk_1:
Yeah, well kind of maybe like a meta story of how they fit together. We went from this idea of like sharing inspiring gardens on a tour. So then mobilizing 150 people in a weekend and working with our city and transforming a landscape in this ecological garden. That blew everybody away and addressed multiple the city’s needs vs. One department focused on water. It addressed food and community engagement and stormwater by taking this holistic approach. It addressed a lot of issues. And so then we went from one garden to a bigger garden, transforming a city hall landscape in a day with 250 volunteers and multi Partners. And then we went for a while what if we didn’t just do one big garden, but we did lots of gardens. And so we had this crazy idea of planting 350 gardens in a weekend. And by mobilizing dozens of community partners, we registered over 600 gardens in a single weekend and that kept on doubling and doubling and doubling through time and reached about 100,000 actions and projects and so going from education to action to transformation. It’s a more collective transformation. Then we started moving into coalition building and so in response to record drought and record fire and the climate crisis and the pandemic, we then started launching numerous coalitions in different aspects of health equity, environment, watershed protection. Um and so so kind of this is where moving to that more bigger collective space at a coalition scale. And and recently, you know, to give one example a few years ago, when the climate crisis was really feeling extreme and there was a lack of political action. We helped form a coalition with a handful of other commune members called Climate Action Petaluma, and we rallied our people and showed up at the city’s policy setting session and got about 400 people to sign a petition and maybe 50 organizations and businesses sign on. And we asked our city declare climate emergency and to create a new Climate Commission, an appointed body and to take action. And based upon this effort, the city became the first city in the Sonoma County to declare climate emergency. This led to the other municipal jurisdictions doing so on becoming the first county in the whole country to do this. This quickly led to helping the city form a new Climate Commission and then City pedal became the first city in the country to ban new gas stations. And now that’s rippling throughout the county and other places. And it’s led to this effort where then more people are running for council and you have new community voices or on city council and they’re running for commissions and new groups are forming to get behind this 2030 0 mission mission, you know, uh to achieve zero emissions by 2030 which is a big daunting goal. Um but it’s just creating all kinds of transformations and new groups are forming in the city and the community are working together in new and exciting ways. And this all came from this small group taking a collective impact effort and working with our agency in a we are in this together way versus a pointing fingers and then encouraging other people to step up and grab their parts and it started to grow the garden or the ecosystem of players where now you have really wide buy in in our community, it’s rippling out on, on achieving these goals in different ways by working together. Um, and there’s a dozen or more examples that that’s a good one, but throughout the book that shows these sort of different efforts of working collaboratively to solve problems and all kind of crises.

[00:53:45.22] spk_0:
You mentioned something as you’re talking about building these small groups and getting getting things started, that it’s not so

[00:53:50.31] spk_1:
much the

[00:53:57.18] spk_0:
fool, but it’s the fools. First followers. The fool being the guy who’s got the person who’s got the idea, uh he he or she there all by themselves. But but when you get the first, like three or four people, there’s, you know, that you’re pioneers, I guess before the early adopters, you get your pioneers to join the join the

[00:54:14.59] spk_1:
fool. Say,

[00:54:14.91] spk_0:
say more about that. I like it’s a small thing you mentioned in the book, but I I liked it.

[00:55:44.89] spk_1:
It’s a great if anybody who hasn’t seen it, a number of people haven’t been viewed by millions and millions of people, but there’s a great video called leadership lessons from a dancing fool and it just shows this guy dancing all crazy and then one person comes in and eventually creates a tipping point and the core ideas, it’s not about the lone nut, but will the lone nut encourage someone who first tries to join him and the second follower and the third follower kind of really the key people that translate what the nut is doing to make it more socially acceptable and move on. And so you need your your founders and your loan nuts creating something, but then you need those first few people are like, okay, I can contribute to this, I can help make sense of this. And it’s just kind of paying attention. Are you the lone nut called to create something new or are you a first follower or you know, do you just need to be ready to jump in when the effort starts to grow when the movement starts to build? Um and that’s true for for affecting change at scales to to affect systemic change. There’s these different core lessons we need to apply around developing shared leadership around creating community and nurturing networks around facilitating but giving up the idea, we can control change being adaptive and responsive of knowing change could take a long time, but be ready to jump in. Um these are some of these systems change strategies that you know, you can apply to your organization and community change work.

[00:56:02.69] spk_0:
So the reverence plus the ripples plus relationships are going to give you resilience. What’s that?

[00:56:25.21] spk_1:
Just the work and the practices of you know, personal organizational scale continually starting with our heart. What breaks our heart. Re centering on our inspiration and then centering on our action. What’s the best we could do in ourselves and our family and our community and our organization. And when we are working at starting with our heart and focus and proactively on what’s in our our power shining our light and sharing it and we do that in a way that’s in right relation with our planet with our people doing those three things. The first three hours is how we build resilience, how we build resilience in our lives and our homes and our organizations in our communities.

[00:56:44.89] spk_0:
So so say more about resilience, what what what what do we have to look forward to

[00:57:18.50] spk_1:
resilience in the book, Really just kind of shows how when you’re doing these things for a long time all the pieces could come together from the individual scale to the household garden scale to the organizational scale to the committee scale and sort of create a pop where the elements start to synergize and function together and that we could affect much larger change than we often think, you know and so not getting overwhelmed by the scale of the problems centering the power of small but the power of small can affect really, really big change. Um, and so that’s kind of the take home and then just pulling back into our places of power and re centering and taking care of ourselves and our communities are organizations to just to put our oxygen mask on first as we, as we sustain in the long work.

[00:57:41.41] spk_0:
That’s what I wanted folks to hear the pop. It’s

[00:58:06.40] spk_1:
a great metaphor. It comes from a book, it’s a longer thing. Um a permaculture book by a friend who passed some years ago Toby Hemenway called Gaia’s Garden and he talks about how when all the core elements of the garden come into come into concert, there’s this pop of the whole ecosystem surgeon with vitality and you could able harvest any drop of rainy scrap of carbon or sunshine into this lush thriving ecosystem. And so that’s a metaphor. How do you apply that to creating a pop in your personal life at your organizational scale. How do we create the pop at the neighborhood and community scale and our movements.

[00:58:43.26] spk_0:
Jason Heckman outstanding. Thank you. The book is take heart take action. The transformative power of small acts groups and gardens. It’s 2022 Trenton. Thank you very much. Real pleasure. Thanks

[00:58:46.39] spk_1:
so much for having me tony it’s been great to be here.

[00:58:48.39] spk_0:
Thank you tell folks where they can find, take heart take action

[00:58:54.02] spk_1:
Sure. If you go to our website, Daily Acts dot org, a C T s dot org, then you’ll you’ll see a link that clicks to our crowdfunding campaign for the book and we just ordered 1000 sustainable, sustainably printed copies, which will be arriving next week. Um, and then we’re also hiring for a number of positions. So since this is out to the field of nonprofit leaders, please check our website for the positions we’re hiring for as well.

[00:59:29.10] spk_0:
The book and the jobs, they’re all at daily Acts dot org. Tristan. Thank you again Next week, Alex Counts returns with his new book, small loans, Big dreams.

[00:59:36.90] spk_1:
If

[01:00:13.60] spk_0:
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 shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark 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 31, 2022: Team Care

 

Susan Comfort: Team Care

Susan Comfort wants you to go beyond self care, which we’ve covered over the last two weeks, to team care. Yes, take care of yourself and your friends, then look after your team. She’s founder of Nonprofit Wellness, and this was part of our coverage of the 2021 Nonprofit Technology Conference. This week’s show is intentionally short, so you can spend more time taking care of self and team.

 

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[00:02:08.01] 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. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d come down with Arsene Asus if you poisoned me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, Team Care. Susan comfort wants you to go beyond self care, which we’ve covered over the last two weeks to Team Care. Yes, take care of yourself and your friends then look after your team. She’s founder of nonprofit wellness and this was part of our coverage of the 2021 nonprofit technology conference this week’s show is intentionally short so you can spend more time taking care of self and team Antonis Take two. Endowment Panel Takeaways sounds fascinating. Were sponsored by turn to communications. I just can’t wait for that. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o I can’t wait for endowment panel takeaways 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 Team Care. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 N. T. C. You know what it is? It’s the 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by turn to communications Turn hyphen two dot c. O with me now is Susan comfort Founder of nonprofit wellness Susan Welcome back to nonprofit radio Thanks

[00:02:10.57] spk_1:
great to be here

[00:02:11.52] spk_0:
it was roughly a year ago last aPril when 2020 20 N. T. C. Was not in person. And we talked with uh mo abdullah about coronavirus and team care.

[00:02:24.53] spk_1:
Indeed. And here we are a year later and we’re facing the same issues except worse.

[00:02:30.79] spk_0:
Yes because it’s multiplied by because we’ve been in this for over a year.

[00:02:36.05] spk_1:
Exactly.

[00:02:36.99] spk_0:
Okay. And so your topic is very very similar. Team care. Not self care building resiliency in an era of burnout should be resilience should have been resilience. Not resiliency

[00:02:50.69] spk_1:
building resilience building resiliency. I think they both work.

[00:03:08.64] spk_0:
You do all right. I think one works better than the other. All right. I have to I’m not I’m not strictly I’m only a curmudgeon. I’m not a grammarian or uh Entomology. I’m not an entomologist. I’m just curmudgeonly. Got it for some reason. I see. Billion resilience. Alright.

[00:03:12.81] spk_1:
Hey as long as you build it. I don’t care what you call

[00:03:22.79] spk_0:
we’ll get. We’ll be resilient. We’ll be resilient. All right. So uh yeah we need to keep taking care of ourselves and our teams through this and and beyond right Beyond the pandemic. We still gotta be thinking about Team care.

[00:03:27.81] spk_1:
Well let me ask you this. What does self care mean to you? tony

[00:03:31.34] spk_0:
I can give examples. Is that what you is that what you

[00:03:33.58] spk_1:
mean? Like it

[00:04:17.89] spk_0:
means uh not so occasional daytime naps. It means um a glass of wine. Maybe. No not every night but several nights a week. Glass of wine after work. It means ending work at a decent time even know, Well, even before the pandemic, my home has always been in my office has been my home for about 15 years, maybe 20 years. So, uh, but you know, so I don’t have trouble closing the door. So there’s that boundaries around time, in terms, in other words, um, there’s some examples. Walk on the beach. I live across the street from the beach and the ocean. So walks on the beach. Examples. And why do I think it’s important because I can’t, I can’t be good to other people if I’m not good to myself first. And I, I take that to heart. And I think I take good care. I mean I exercise, I eat right? I’m cautious about too much meat and processed foods and things, you know, so there’s a lot, there’s a lot that goes into it for me

[00:05:19.36] spk_1:
and we all have the same human body. And so we’re feeding it, we’re resting it, we’re hydrating it and we’re moving it. Those are physical kind of self care impetus is right that you just gave some great examples of, and we know that we’re in charge of self care, right? There’s nobody else in charge of our body. And we’re told that we’re in charge of self care. Hey, don’t forget to self care, take time for self care. Set your boundaries. Well, guess what in the nonprofit world. And in the education world where we’re increasingly working people aren’t so great at self care naturally on their own remind me of self care, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it or do it well. And

[00:05:20.01] spk_0:
particularly we’re working in our homes, it’s so easy to, to lose the boundaries between work and personal. That’s where you’re not allowed in, you’re not allowed in after six PM or you know, but, but if you’re not accustomed to that, you got thrown into it in an instant, there was no, there was no teachings going on in, in, in february and early March about how to do this. You got, you got slammed with it.

[00:07:25.73] spk_1:
And at first we saw it maybe as a benefit like, hey, no commute. But then we thought, ah, that commute was the one hour a day I had to myself or to listen to the radio or to listen to my book or to detach and create that boundary from work to home. Now. You’ve been working from home for a while, you’ve kind of gotten practice at this, but you’re right. Everyone else is kind of new to it. Not so good at it. And being told in a time of unprecedented stress and pandemic. Hey, don’t forget about self care when you know what, we probably weren’t good at it to begin with. And so that’s why, well that’s one reason why we focus on team care because we’re just not good at self care. And the second reason is especially in a world where we’re serving others were educating others were giving to others in the nonprofit world, we are usually, but it’s also because we’re in this unprecedented time, self care won’t cut it going back to the regular old normal we used to have isn’t gonna work, it wasn’t working then we weren’t caring for ourselves particularly well then. And it’s not getting any better with bad solutions on a new framework. So we have to take this new framework, a pandemic informed world and say, well, how are we going to do things differently next time when we return to the office is what’s going to be different when we return to our teams, how we’re gonna manage differently. How are we going to work from home differently? How are we going to communicate differently? All of these things are opportunities to reset our culture. So we, we coached teams, nonprofit schools, etcetera, how to take that world changing energy and reset your culture. So we’re actually turning our superpowers on each other, taking care of each other, which were really good at doing so that we can take care of ourselves better because having longevity in this career is crucial turnover is a silent epidemic facing the nonprofit and education worlds, some of its measured often it’s not, but if we don’t keep people in these jobs longer term, keep the relationships, keep the commitment, keep the knowledge, then we’re not going to do a very good job at educating Children are changing the world.

[00:07:49.90] spk_0:
All right. You have some resources for for us taking care of ourselves. You have a personal stress prescription and a stressor scorecard.

[00:07:59.84] spk_1:
Yeah,

[00:08:00.29] spk_0:
we can. We first of all, can listeners get these somewhere or is it something you create on your own? You don’t need a template?

[00:09:55.01] spk_1:
Well, both. You don’t need a template. We created it for you to use as a discussion tool or a self care tool, but you don’t need our form what we did and you can download it at non profit wellness dot org slash resources. What we did was put together a list of about two dozen evidence based stress relief solutions. The these are things that have been studied that are proven to both either lower your cortisol, the stress hormone is released when we’re stressed or to reset our bodily systems or to relax. S and there’s good and bad things on the list. Or quote good, quote bad, right? Like friendships you might think of as good, but some friendships are toxic right intoxication you might think of as bad. But actually you have a glass of wine some nights it’s good, you mentioned it as part of yourself care, right? But for some people it might be a challenge. Um I stopped drinking three years ago for me it was more of a challenge than a benefit. And so I cut it out because that was easiest, but everybody has to make their own decisions. Is it a glass of wine? Is it? None at all. Is that? Hey, I need to go out for happy hour more because I’m a little uptight. Like you get to make your decision on the personal stress prescription what works for you and I guarantee there’s stuff on the list. You’re already doing great, celebrate that. Do it more because that’s low barrier to entry if you’re already doing it. And then there’s stuff on that list that maybe you should pick up something new, something different, new world new strategies. And then there’s stuff on that list that you could really be doing with a team doing with somebody else and that’s going to help you actually do it have more fun, go longer. And those are the things that we need in our wellness, right? When we actually do it, when we have fun and when we go longer and harder, right? That’s what having a buddy or having a team and accountability aspect to our care. That’s what it does for us. And the research shows it. So we need team care, not self care. I mean not just self care, we need team care and self care, but we like to be a little bit polemic and say team care, not self care because we want to differentiate ourselves from everybody deciding self care, don’t forget.

[00:10:20.55] spk_0:
Alright. Alright, but we need both. Right, so these are at nonprofit wellness dot org slash resources? I did not. Now I’m bringing out my curmudgeon again that I did not, I didn’t I didn’t uh I didn’t miss that. You snuck in template, It’s template template. How do you get template Maryland? You marylanders born and raised in Maryland. I was in New Jersey weren’t that far away, but it’s template, not

[00:10:38.82] spk_1:
C

[00:10:44.06] spk_0:
U R M U D G E O N. Well, because I hustled you about resiliency being wrong if

[00:11:02.27] spk_1:
I want to talk real ball Marie’s I say would er and I say you can go down the ocean and you can walk on the beach all you want hon but you don’t have to invite me or you can have your own self. You want me to do a Maryland accent the whole time? tony I’ll do it. That

[00:11:03.51] spk_0:
sounds annoying. Um So yeah, I

[00:11:06.56] spk_1:
worked at a crab house five summers. I’ve got the Baltimore accent down pat.

[00:11:10.16] spk_0:
You worked at a crab house.

[00:11:12.14] spk_1:
Indeed a

[00:11:13.25] spk_0:
serving, serving.

[00:11:14.65] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah. Even after I was a vegetarian, I served recently killed esteemed crabs right onto your table. Dismember.

[00:11:22.07] spk_0:
Alright, so as a vegetarian, is it inappropriate for me to ask you what what what type of crab meat you believe is best for crab cakes is the lump is the jumbo lump?

[00:11:32.81] spk_1:
I’m a lacto ovo crab. Oh vegetarian so I’m authorized to speak on this matter. Of course it’s back fin

[00:11:39.37] spk_0:
back. You

[00:11:43.66] spk_1:
can put anything in the crab cake. But you want jumbo lump and very few breadcrumbs.

[00:11:45.52] spk_0:
Wait wait, wait, wait. You’re saying it’s back then and jumbo lump.

[00:11:49.37] spk_1:
Well, they’re the same thing. Jumbo lump is just the bigger chunks of back fin.

[00:11:57.51] spk_0:
Right, well, right, the lump or jumbo lump, you get a mixture back then and some lumps usually in the top of the container in the bottom of the container.

[00:12:02.47] spk_1:
If you say so, I pick my own crabs. tony If you say that’s what you get. That’s what you get. Just get the best crab meat you can buy in the biggest chunks you can. And if you’re like me, you can pick your own make your own crab suit, make your own crab cakes. Just not too much bread. Okay, it ruins the crab cake.

[00:12:26.03] spk_0:
Right? Not too much. I agree. I just made a batch with very low gluten free plank. Oh, but it was £2 of crab meat. And I think A third, maybe I guess it was 2/3 of a cup. I think of

[00:12:30.07] spk_1:
if we’re gonna be It’s Panko not plank. Oh, tony

[00:12:34.46] spk_0:
Did I say plank. Oh did I say plank.

[00:12:37.17] spk_1:
Oh, I’m

[00:12:38.66] spk_0:
gonna play this back. No, Did I say plank. Oh that’s embarrassing. I know it’s Panko.

[00:12:42.98] spk_1:
It sounded like it. You can edit that part out.

[00:13:00.00] spk_0:
Alright, I’m not gonna edit it. No, no. I called you out twice template, I’m not gonna not gonna cheat and edit out. But that’s embarrassing. I know it’s Panko. Of course, it’s Panko. Thank you for correcting me. Alright. It’s very important to know what kind of crab meat is best. All

[00:13:02.31] spk_1:
right.

[00:13:04.65] spk_0:
So, All right. So, we take so we get these resources or we just develop our own

[00:13:09.97] spk_1:
personal

[00:13:11.17] spk_0:
prescription and stressor. And a scorecard. Scorecard works with the prescription. Is that how they work together?

[00:14:11.59] spk_1:
Now? The scorecards under revision. So by the time your listeners here this, there might be a new one. We took the stressor. Scorecard which was based on the ace score card stands for adverse childhood experiences. And it’s actually a measure of childhood trauma. It’s quite triggering. But we took the a scorecard and we said, well, what’s the measurement of adult stress? There wasn’t one. So, we made one and we kept revising it and we’ve undergone another revision. Or instead of just ranking your stressors. And these are societal stressors, not work stressors. So, it might be identity related to who you are in society. It might be a circumstance related to what you’re facing right now in your life. So, a circumstance could be like a divorce or a food allergy that causes you stress an identity might be your gender, your race or your sexual orientation. That may or may not given where you are in society. May or may not cause you stress. So, if you know the score when you walk in the door, if you know your stress score from sin Society, then technically we should know who gets the most wellness resources. That would be wellness equity. If we knew who got the most stressed, then they would get the most wellness resources. But the way it is now is we give the corporate wellness resources because it’s a $7 billion dollar industry in the corporate workplace.

[00:14:29.40] spk_0:
But the

[00:14:48.96] spk_1:
nonprofit world and the education world don’t really get sort of wellness benefits or like extra help. Yet I would say that we are probably among the most stressed in society. Not only do we face a lot of stressors because of who we are and what we face in our lower incomes, but also we have really stressful jobs that are, that depend on us to literally change the world or change people’s minds and that is not the same as a bank job. Sorry. It’s just not. So we have more stress and we should get more resources than we do.

[00:16:16.89] spk_0:
We should get more resources than we do right? We, we definitely should. Yes. And at least as much as if you’re gonna write, if you’re gonna do it equitably at least as much as you see in the, in the corporate side, it’s time for a break turn to communications, the relationships, the media relationships that you want to have so that you can be heard when you need to be heard when the news merits attention on your work, your opinion of what’s happened. You need the relationships turn to can help you build them. They are themselves former journalists. So they have built relationships on the journalist’s side so they know how to do it and they know what not to do so that you don’t defeat your attempt at creating these these donor relationships. These media relationships right turn to can help you build up the relationships. So when you need to be heard you can be turn to communications. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Now back to team care. Work

[00:17:12.30] spk_1:
hard. I didn’t go into those which is under revision is the strength the growth and the joy that we achieve from these identities and circumstances. So we actually put two scores on the new one where you can rank your stress but you can also rank your growth and joy. So for example, I’m a woman and I identify as queer being a woman and a white woman at that in society has not caused me a lot of stress but I would say some maybe a low amount of stress being queer in society has not caused me very much stress. But when I look at both of those and I think of how much growth enjoy being a woman has brought me and how much growth enjoy being bisexual has brought me as a part of the queer community that’s off the charts. I I rank much higher my growth and joy than I do my stress. And so in that way I go, hey, what a bonus that I have had this stress in my life. What an opportunity for growth and joy that this stressful thing brought me. And that puts it in a whole new frame for me I think, yeah, I face a lot of stress in my job and in my life. But look at how much I’ve grown and how much joy I get out of life. And so that’s our stressor, Scorecard revision. It’s now called the stressor and resilience scorecard because again, building resilience or resiliency is super important in a time of constant change and stress,

[00:17:47.69] spk_0:
Thank you for saying resilience first and then or or resiliency as the second alternative. Alright, so how do we then bring, I’m relentless If nothing else, I don’t let go. So how do we bring this now to a team level because it’s his team care and not self care. I’ve been wagging my finger, listeners can’t see, but I’m telling you, I’m wagging my finger. We’re distinguishing ourselves from all the all the nannies who say take care of yourself, how we convey this now to team care.

[00:18:31.65] spk_1:
Well, I’m glad your listeners can’t see us because there’s nothing better than nonprofit types wagging their fingers at other people telling them what they should do, right? Um it’s tony It’s really simple. All we have to do is talk about it. So bring a brown has many best selling books about vulnerability and shame and courage and she opines I mean the research show shows that when you are vulnerable, you inspire empathy and it’s really the height of courageousness to be vulnerable, it’s not opposites, they’re two sides of the same.

[00:18:39.93] spk_0:
Absolutely,

[00:20:15.22] spk_1:
yeah. And so if you tony are a vulnerable leader and you’re courageous enough to say, hey, I’ve been struggling with my physical health in this way. So I’m going to take walks on the beach every morning and I’m going to have a glass of wine every night because that’s my plan for self care and I want you all to support me in that by not scheduling meetings during my walk time and not making fun of my wine selection or whatever it is, right? But by talking about it, people go, oh, tony is being vulnerable with me. That means I can be a little vulnerable with him and say, well, tony I’m struggling with some things in my physical health and I would like your support on this. Whatever it is, it doesn’t mean somebody has to go on the beach with you. It just means that they have to support and know that that’s something that you need for your mental or physical health. And when we talk about ourselves, we, we become a little vulnerable, but we keep ourselves safe usually. And then other people have empathy for us because we made ourselves vulnerable and that builds trust and trust is the elusive element that so many teams are missing. And so if wellness can be kind of a shortcut to that great, But it just means we have to talk about it. That’s why we create discussion tools. We want you to be able to talk about this with your team openly vulnerably and honestly, but also like have, you know, have something to get out of it. Maybe you all could support a new direction with your team care based on your discussions. Maybe instead of, you know, pastries in the kitchen, you’re gonna have nuts in the kitchen because it’s healthy or maybe you’re gonna go for group walks or, you know, measure your steps together. Those are all physical things. But where we really get into the interesting stuff is when we talk about mental health things, which is a little less accepted at work. But that’s the most important thing of of what we’re doing

[00:20:33.61] spk_0:
okay before we get to mental health? Let’s let’s keep a little simpler. A little safer. How do we just Open these conversations just like are we are we having a meeting for this purpose or is this 10 minutes? Uh, at the beginning of a one hour meeting all

[00:22:18.09] spk_1:
of the above. So, you know, if you have a meeting about it, then that sounds like a wellness committee and that would be great because a wellness committee could definitely, you know, be a diverse group of voices that pushes the agenda forward rather than like one yoga nut in the office, which is who I used to be, right. But if you don’t have time for a wellness committee or you’re not ready for a wellness committee yet. No problem. Just at the beginning of every meeting, maybe you ask a checking question that has to do with health. So like what did you do already today to support your mental or physical health? That’s a quick check in question. And people will think about, what did I do today? What does walking my dog count? Maybe walking my dog counts as physical and mental health. Yeah. Walking my dog. I’m gonna walk my dog more because that’s really good for health, right? It makes them think about things in a different way and it makes them share. Maybe people didn’t know you had a dog. Maybe somebody would like to go for a dog walk with you. Maybe somebody, you know, would like to bring their dog into the office and they know that since you have a dog, you’re going to be more open. And I mean there’s many directions these conversations can go, but you just have to open it up. So it’s usually like a checking question or maybe a lunch and learn or a brown bag lunch where everybody could talk about these things, but I would say set and set a topic. Um maybe it’s nutrition. Maybe it’s some specific aspect of nutrition. Maybe it’s movement. You know, these are things that are safe and yet they affect our mental health. So if we start talking about physical things that affect our physical health, then we’re going to start to get into, well, you know what, when I take, when I exercise, I feel happier. Well, that’s mental health. And so you’re gonna start talking about mental health, even though you’re talking about how you’re feeding, moving and resting your body, which is physical.

[00:22:29.57] spk_0:
Mm Okay, by the way, if you were the yoga nut, then I guess you would have been pushing up against me the curmudgeon if we would have been in the same workplace.

[00:22:39.23] spk_1:
But

[00:23:13.65] spk_0:
I’m not, you know, this is a recent, a recent um, revelation for me that I’m a little curmudgeonly. I see it in my neighborhood. Like, you know, my, my neighbor across the street has has a big piece of construction waste in a role that that, that the garbage people are not gonna pick up because it’s been there for over a week. You have to put your garbage in a can. It’s gotta be, it’s gotta be an authorized can with wheels and it’s got to face the right way, but they’re not gonna pick up this guy’s big tarp, but he leaves it out there, you know, that that bothers me looking at it right now. It’s annoying. It

[00:23:15.46] spk_1:
sounds like it causes stress. Well

[00:23:17.71] spk_0:
it shouldn’t be there. It’s not part of it is the injustice of it because he knows it’s not gonna get picked up. It’s been there over a week and we have garbage pickups every monday and friday. So it’s not going if it didn’t go the first day, it’s not going the next or the next after after that. So it’s the injustice of it. I I follow the rules he should do.

[00:23:36.19] spk_1:
I think neighborhood,

[00:23:54.70] spk_0:
neighborhood beautification, you know, put that tarp out there on a big role, may be the next neighbor will put a little load of concrete after he after he takes his grill out of the concrete slab that has been in and he leaves a little two ft chunk pile of broken concrete there

[00:23:56.26] spk_1:
goes the neighborhood

[00:23:57.32] spk_0:
liberties and then the next and the next next thing I have to sell my home

[00:24:13.58] spk_1:
that would be terrible. Hey, get a big piece of chalk and create some sort of art out of that rolled up tarp. Maybe it’s a caterpillar, maybe you write a note on the street in chalk like I don’t know, I can’t think of a

[00:24:16.68] spk_0:
that

[00:24:17.43] spk_1:
that would be curmudgeonly. You

[00:24:18.68] spk_0:
want that kind of

[00:24:25.57] spk_1:
hilarious. You used to be a comedian. Be hilarious. tony something funny, make them laugh, you

[00:24:57.43] spk_0:
know what I was laughing about recently. I learned. David Sedaris has a home in my town and a lot of people in town have pretentious names on their homes. Like when I moved here it was seven seas. I had that the first thing I had a contractor to rip that stupid seven seat. First of all, it’s the atlantic ocean, it’s not a C. So it’s misnamed and second of all these names are pretentious David Sedaris has his house name is C Section. How good is that? How brilliant is that? Go right to the heart of the pretense. And I, so if I had thought of C section, I would have had a contract and make those letters but he took that one. But yeah, you’re right. I could put something in chalk. I have chalk too because I have uh

[00:25:14.12] spk_1:
Laughter out loud is one of our top 12 immune boosters. We

[00:25:19.16] spk_0:
just

[00:25:38.70] spk_1:
topic because laughter laughing out loud actually is one of the 12 immune boosters that are masters of public health interns research to find the cheap easy, Absolutely. Scientific based immune boosters and laughing out loud is at the top of the list. So you will boost your immune system and everybody on the street if you can figure out something funny to do with that rolled up tarp, I will follow up with you tony to figure out what it

[00:25:47.00] spk_0:
was. Okay, the caterpillar is a good idea. I’ll keep, I could make it a big turd but that’s kind of

[00:25:54.04] spk_1:
yeah,

[00:25:55.24] spk_0:
you know like

[00:25:56.21] spk_1:
dinosaur turd, you know like make up north Carolina dinosaur breed and say like this is the ancient, you know,

[00:26:03.79] spk_0:
it’s a fossilized brontosaurus turd.

[00:26:06.87] spk_1:
Exactly.

[00:26:08.24] spk_0:
You’re

[00:26:09.41] spk_1:
getting there. You’re getting there.

[00:26:10.45] spk_0:
I’m amusing myself not. You know, I’m sorry. But that’s the wellness. Alright.

[00:26:15.17] spk_1:
Just did it did it for yourself. Right then. It makes you laugh rather than making you stressed out.

[00:26:20.09] spk_0:
Okay. But I’d like something for the community to be able to chuckle at two.

[00:26:23.98] spk_1:
So

[00:26:24.43] spk_0:
All right, this is not

[00:26:27.35] spk_1:
or anything but your tony-martignetti and that’s not

[00:26:48.79] spk_0:
right. Okay. I write I know my place. I know my place. All right. So this has turned into an individual mental health exercise which is not supposed to be so But this curmudgeon thing is just evolving in my mind about how I’m you know, traditions, there’s importance around laws and tradition and you know, so human. I might have clashed. Uh But I wasn’t curmudgeonly when we would have been in the same workplace. This is only within the past few weeks. I’ve come to this revelation

[00:26:57.95] spk_1:
blame it on the pandemic. That’s what we’re all doing

[00:27:01.28] spk_0:
many

[00:27:02.07] spk_1:
bad personality traits on your lifetime

[00:27:05.77] spk_0:
practice. It’s a lifetime practice, right? It is

[00:27:09.41] spk_1:
absolutely.

[00:29:41.20] spk_0:
So, you know in this phase I have curmudgeonly maybe in six months or six years. I’ll be out of it. It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. I. T. Infra in a box. It’s the I. T. Buffet. You go through the line. you take what looks appealing to you what fits within your budget, what fits within where you are technology wise like help desk security assessment, planned planning and budgeting, moving to the cloud and there is more on the buffet line. You choose what works for your nonprofit, leave the rest behind. You needn’t buy it, you needn’t pay for it. That’s for D’s I. T. Infra in a box. Fourth dimension technologies tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant as you know It’s time for Tony to take two. The long awaited endowment panel takeaways. Yes I was part of an endowment panel about a month ago or so graciously hosted by an ex unite uh part of nexus marketing. And this panel was called endowment excitement, fundraising and management. I was the fundraising part. And the other three folks were the management part. Either the fundraising part is very shallow because only 1 to 3 ratio or it takes three of them to equal the uh prowess of the fundraising Panelist. Well I’ll leave that to you for you to decide. And the way you can decide is to read the takeaways that I have on the blog. The panel takeaways you will find at plant giving accelerator dot com plan Giving accelerator dot com And you click blog and the takeaways are right there That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got just about a butt load more time for team care with Susan comfort because this week’s show is shorter so that you can do the care that Susan is talking about, you have some skills like you your your workshop identified but you have some like skills we can practice. Yes, you’re stressed for our teams and ourselves. Yes,

[00:29:51.99] spk_1:
I think this is a really good one. This is a really good one. Okay, so what I want you to do is look out the window and anyone listening, just look out the window right now, Tony is going to be looking at a giant tyrannosaurus turd across the

[00:30:01.49] spk_0:
alright.

[00:30:02.98] spk_1:
And uh you want to name five things you see out the window besides the brontosaurus turd, tony go

[00:30:17.91] spk_0:
the ocean, the walkway, the the little wooden walkway to the ocean. My neighbor’s homes who I don’t know too well I’m a little curmudgeonly and there’s my, my front yard landscaping which I’m very proud of.

[00:30:26.27] spk_1:
Excellent. What’s one of the parts of the landscaping? That’s number five.

[00:30:31.73] spk_0:
Oh the mexican petunias, They’re just starting to bloom

[00:30:34.90] spk_1:
awesome.

[00:30:35.70] spk_0:
Well grow, they’re not blooming yet but they’re growing out of the ground green.

[00:31:08.58] spk_1:
You can see that their roots have taken hold. So that’s, that’s part of a mindfulness exercise where you name five things, you can see four things you can touch three things you can hear two things you can smell and one thing you can taste and it’s a, it’s an anxiety arresting exercise where if you’re feeling anxious, you’re worried about stuff you’re thinking into the future. You’re worried about the past. You come back to the present moment and how do you do that? Five things you see four things you can touch name them. Touch them. See them, say it out loud. That will bring you back to the present moment forces you because you’re engaging all five of your senses.

[00:31:21.19] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:32:15.28] spk_1:
And that’s the best thing we can do for our mental health is be mindful. The second best thing is to move our bodies because moving our bodies trains our brain and so being mindful, being more mindful, being better mindful. These are all things we can do are things we can all do, being more movement, having better movement. Being movement oriented. These are things we can all do no matter how much we move, no matter how much we’re meditating or mindful. But mindfulness is just being aware of the present moment, but it takes us out of that worrying cycle, it takes us out of that rumination, prefrontal cortex and actually forces us to be in the present moment, which is a huge skill. I practice it every day for seconds per day. I’m I’m aspiring to get up two minutes. You know, just being mindful, Being present. That is a huge skill that I have been practicing a ton and that is a relief that I don’t have to become a meditator. I can just be a mindful person. What a relief. I don’t have to sit and meditate. I can just be mindful.

[00:32:24.14] spk_0:
Would you count down the five again please. Five things. You can

[00:32:27.19] spk_1:
see more things.

[00:32:30.60] spk_0:
You can touch, three

[00:32:35.80] spk_1:
things you can hear. Two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.

[00:32:40.65] spk_0:
Okay,

[00:32:42.18] spk_1:
so

[00:32:42.58] spk_0:
you

[00:32:44.90] spk_1:
just start in the moment like, oh I have a, you know old coffee taste in my

[00:32:50.77] spk_0:
mouth. It’s

[00:32:51.76] spk_1:
just that moment. That’s what I’m experiencing in this moment right now, you know?

[00:32:56.86] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:33:12.79] spk_1:
So the skill that I would ask everyone to practice is just being present, just taking a present mindful breath several times a day. We take 20,000 breaths in a day. So try and make like three of the mindful ones, maybe 10. You know those are skills we can always practice and always improve and they’re actually good for your brain. It’s not just like woo, yoga teacher stuff.

[00:33:21.51] spk_0:
I like being mindful around food that I’m actually tasting it. I’m enjoying the texture smell. I like to I can smell the food before I taste it so that I get an extra sense of taste because the the aromas wafting over my palate.

[00:33:39.45] spk_1:
Yeah, like food. Like I’m going to have some sort of chickpea thing for dinner and I’m anticipating those chickpeas, you can cook the food mindfully and like be in the moment while you’re cooking and appreciating those textures before they get soft in the oven or you know, just all of the moments of food. It’s not just smelling it and eating it. It’s the anticipation, the preparation, the cleaning up the discussion about it, the laughs that you had over the meal. Like if you could be present for all of that, amazing.

[00:34:10.57] spk_0:
If we spend a little more time, I’ll give you your own your own show on non profit radio you don’t have to be. We’ve already been like a half an hour because I went on a diatribe about homogeneous and third and we turned it into a personal thing for me. Well, I’m the center of the universe. So I think that’s appropriate. We

[00:34:27.41] spk_1:
all are the center of the universe. In fact, we all are of our own little universe. Amazing.

[00:34:34.31] spk_0:
Oh, so that’s not so that’s not.

[00:34:38.97] spk_1:
But that’s why people love talking about themselves because they’re the center of the universe. And if you ask me a question of myself about myself. Well, thank God, somebody noticed that I’m the center of the universe. I would love to tell you about my food or my exercise or when I am most present. Yes, I would like to tell you about that because I love talking about myself. We all love talking about ourselves in some way.

[00:34:59.04] spk_0:
We do some, some of us more than others,

[00:35:01.26] spk_1:
some more than others. You know, you could just go on clubhouse and do your show their tony Have you thought about that,

[00:35:06.57] spk_0:
know what is clubhouse?

[00:35:08.70] spk_1:
Well, that’s a that’s a topic for another day. It’s an infant only iphone only app that is sort of taking over the social media world.

[00:35:30.37] spk_0:
We live obviously dated myself. I’m 59, so I’m not hiding. So I’m not familiar with clubhouse. Um, let’s see. Well, Alright, where can we spend a little more time? Susan comfort. Um, I don’t know. You tell me you’re the, you’re the person who thinks about this all the time. I only,

[00:35:35.50] spk_1:
I think everybody should stop listening and go outside and take a walk there listening while at

[00:35:41.30] spk_0:
the end of it. Don’t stop now. Keep listening until the end.

[00:35:44.53] spk_1:
No, you should stop. Stop now. There’s nothing of value coming later. Stop now. Turn it off. They won’t really tell me

[00:35:51.26] spk_0:
you’re killing my show. They’re not going to

[00:35:53.46] spk_1:
turn it off. They’re addicted to you.

[00:35:56.81] spk_0:
I

[00:35:57.00] spk_1:
can’t wait to see what curmudgeonly thing you’re gonna say next.

[00:36:01.61] spk_0:
Alright, so what do you want people to do? Stop,

[00:36:13.42] spk_1:
I want, I want to stop the interview. I want people to go actually take care of themselves, but in a team because that’s what I’m talking about? Team care, not health care. No, we usually end our trainings 10 minutes before the hour because we don’t want people to be back to back to back with meetings all day because then guess what? You don’t have any time to take care of yourself? So if anybody ever asks me if they like, do I have any other questions or what else should we do? I say we should stop doing this thing and go take care of ourselves. Go outside and take a walk on the beach. tony

[00:36:35.98] spk_0:
Okay, I’m gonna end the show which you so put together with the little sponsor message I have to put in and my tony take two and a blah blah blah. This is gonna be about a 36 or 37 minute show and usually they’re more like 45

[00:36:52.88] spk_1:
40

[00:36:55.62] spk_0:
five. I’m cutting myself short. No, they’re more like 50 to 50 to 60 minutes is 5050 50

[00:37:00.94] spk_1:
I have to say I can talk about this stuff for hours.

[00:37:04.31] spk_0:
No, no, no, we’re taking your advice now.

[00:37:15.97] spk_1:
No, I’m just saying have me back people can go listen to me on youtube, whatever, but you don’t need me. People need to go take care of themselves tony you’re keeping them from it. You

[00:37:17.91] spk_0:
were just teasing You were just teasing saying I can talk about this forever. I’m saying no,

[00:37:22.30] spk_1:
he said shut

[00:37:22.83] spk_0:
it off. So we’re shutting it off. Alright, we’re building this show around your advice. Alright, great. Susan comfort. Your pronouns, what are your pronouns

[00:37:33.64] spk_1:
she her and

[00:37:46.22] spk_0:
next time. Okay, I understood some of that. Susan comfort founder. non profit wellness, you can get the resources that you talked about the personal stress prescription and the new updated stressor and something else? Scorecard,

[00:37:57.54] spk_1:
resilience,

[00:38:00.66] spk_0:
stressor and resilience not resiliency score card at nonprofit wellness dot org slash resources. All right, Susan, thank you very

[00:38:08.42] spk_1:
much. Hope to talk to you soon again on the beach.

[00:39:13.61] spk_0:
I’m sure you will. I’m sure you will. Thank you. And thanks to each of you for listening to nonprofit radio coverage of 21 NTC, the 2021 nonprofit technology conference next week. It will not be a replay of the fermentation show. I give you my word 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 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 you know, 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 his 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 July 17, 2020: Mindfulness, Happiness, Well-Being Apps & Apps, Tools, Tactics

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My Guests:

Beth Kanter & Meico Whitlock: Mindfulness, Happiness, Well-Being Apps
From 20NTC, a survey of apps to help you increase resilience, work-life balance and calmness. My guests are Beth Kanter, master trainer, and Meico Whitlock, The Mindful Techie.

 

 

 

 

Meico Whitlock & Jason Shim: Apps, Tools, Tactics
More 20NTC panelists share their favorite resources for efficiency, raising more money and building stronger relationships. They’re Meico Whitlock, The Mindful Techie, and Jason Shim from Pathways to Education Canada.

 

 

 

 

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[00:01:08.14] spk_0:
hello and welcome tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with UV itis if I saw that you missed today’s show. Mindfulness Happiness Well being APS from 20 and D. C. A survey of APS to help you increase resilience, work, life, balance and calmness. My guests are Beth Kanter, master trainer, and Miko Whitlock, the mindful techie. Also APS, tools, tactics Mawr 20 NTC Panelists share Their favorite resource is for efficiency. Raising more money and building stronger relationships. They’re Mico Whitlock again, the mindful techie and Jason Shim, from pathways to Education on Tony’s Take

[00:01:08.96] spk_2:
two.

[00:02:39.41] spk_0:
You’re Dismantling Racism Journey were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers. Wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Martin for a free 60 day trial and, by turn, to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Here is mindfulness happiness well being APs. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC. That’s the 2020 non profit technology conference. Regrettably, the conference had to be canceled, but we are forging ahead virtually. We are sponsored at 20 NTC by Cougar Mountain Software. The Nolly Fund is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for ah free 60 day trial. My guests now are Beth Kanter and Miko Whitlock. Beth is master trainer, speaker and author. Her latest book is The Happy Healthy, non profit co authored with Liza Sherman and Miko Whitlock, trainer on mindfulness work, Life balance and tech Distraction. And both are intend board members. Beth Miko for each of you. Welcome back. You’ve both been on multiple times. Welcome back.

[00:02:45.04] spk_1:
Thank you, tony. Happy to be here?

[00:02:46.70] spk_2:
Yeah. Thank you, tony. Thank for Fort. Thank you for fortune. Non.

[00:03:21.05] spk_0:
Absolutely. I’m glad to do it. I’m glad we could get the three of us together. And good to know that you are each well and safe mico in Maryland and Beth in California, but continue to be safe. You’re 20. NTC Workshop is mindfulness, happiness and well being. There’s an app for that, Miko, Uh, technology is a double edged sword. You’re the mindful techie. Um, this thing can be enormously frustrating, distracting, But there’s another side to it.

[00:03:59.97] spk_1:
Absolutely. So I think of technology as a tool. So you think of a hammer? Ah, hammer could be something that could be used to destroy. We can also be something to use. Teoh build something to create something. And technology, particularly APS that we’re talking about are very similar. So APs and technology are necessarily a replacement for social interaction of some of the things that we do in person. But it certainly goes a long way toward facilitating those things, particularly in context. You might have, um, some kind of disability, for example. We talk about long distance relationships. All of those are ways in which technology can be an asset, not a deficit for us.

[00:04:05.44] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. So we’re looking at the positive side today. Um, do you want to just start getting up? Do we have different categories of APS for mindfulness happiness and well being? Or we didn’t have glommed together. What?

[00:04:31.46] spk_1:
So I will start with just what I think is sort of the primary of the foundation. And I’m sure Bath will agree that maybe Beth can sort of rattle off some of the other categories as I’m going through this. But we start with the internal apse. So often times we have this discussion. It’s all about the external APS meeting, the things that you can download from an apple store or things. You’re going down from a website. But we have an internal app in the form of my opponents. For example, the breath meditation. All those are things that don’t require us to pay for anything. Things that don’t require us to pay an extra luggage fee when we travel because we have those things within us internally. And so we start with help people to understand what are your internal applications and how do you actually access those?

[00:05:08.24] spk_0:
Okay, Internal apse?

[00:05:10.54] spk_2:
Yes. And I think toe at building what Miko was saying. I think the most important one is how is your positive out outlook on things and trying? I mean, it’s unimaginable what were going on. But you can also you’re in control of your thoughts so you can try to think about positive things. Um, like, Ah, what? Where’s the blessing in this? Uh, take a look at some of the creativity that’s happening. Um, think about what? You’re grateful for, um, for me. I just adopted this in your dog. I probably would have done that, so I’m very grateful for that.

[00:05:59.84] spk_1:
Absolutely. And the one of the single most important things. People looking for a way to start with the internal apse. It’s just taking one deep breath. You know, when you find yourself rattled, you find yourself overwhelmed taking an opportunity to cause and to just take one deep breath that is actually mindfulness. Oftentimes, we think that we have to engage in Oklahoma session. That’s 30 minutes longer. You have to have a yoga mat. Have to have the right pants. None of those things are necessary for you to actually put yourself in that unmindful state in a more holistic and healthy state.

[00:06:15.79] spk_0:
Okay, just a single breath.

[00:06:17.65] spk_1:
A single breath

[00:06:18.84] spk_0:
doesn’t get any simpler. Start there. Yeah, because you want to share something that you’re grateful for. Please.

[00:07:22.55] spk_1:
I’m actually grateful for my mindfulness practice has been one of the things that actually help me to stay center during this time. That we’re in is one of the things that I used to make sure that when I’m using technology, you know, social media email, etcetera, that I’m actually using it in a way that actually advances my intentions for my work and how I want to show up on. And it allows me to actually be able to support people who are legitimately experiencing fear and anxiety and anxiousness during times like these. So I’m actually grateful to have the mindfulness practice in the half APs, for example, Like the inside timer, which I use this morning. It’s a timer app that allows you to, um, set a timer for your meditation or for the type of mindless practice their courses you’re able to connect with community of folks who are also engaged in similar practices on gives you a little time, different options at the end, what your practice has concluded. So that’s the way that I’m marrying. Um, what I’m grateful for in this moment with actually a positive use of technology.

[00:07:30.02] spk_0:
Yeah. What’s the name of that again? Fight timer in sight timer. Okay.

[00:07:48.04] spk_2:
And it can also I’ve been doing with a lot of my teams. We’ve been actually using that to start our meetings with a moment of silence. Just so everyone gets censured and we can focus on you know, the work at hand versus what’s going on outside are locked down areas.

[00:07:53.74] spk_0:
If you have an app that Oh, are we ready? Should we do it? I don’t want I don’t want to rush through the internal personal.

[00:08:00.72] spk_2:
Let’s let’s go, Teoh Weight

[00:08:03.58] spk_1:
categories. I can just ride out the categories and they may be back in China. What? She has it. That’s OK.

[00:08:30.24] spk_2:
Sure. I was just gonna go with our presentation, like health, health and fitness. And I’m Sam, uh, this happen, which is Fitbit. It’s also in your phone measures your steps, get you walking. And I’m really grateful that we can still go outside walk and I’ve been doing actually virtual walks with face time with folks and even zoom like we’re on now. Having walking for years.

[00:08:45.07] spk_0:
You’ve been doing walking meetings for a long time. Seven years? Yeah. You doing meetings? Walking view? Was that? Do you tell me you demand? Do you insist on walking meetings? Well, you still you’re

[00:08:45.84] spk_2:
never, never, never demanded because we also I call them strolling meetings now because not everybody you know is come walk. Some people stroll, and now some people Canada walk. So it’s, It’s it’s Ah, optional. But one fun thing is to actually get get Zoom on your phone and dio have everyone walk around the neighborhood. You’ll do that. Walk. Do that walking meeting. Get that exercise. The exercise and fresh air is important.

[00:09:51.78] spk_0:
It’s time for a break wegner-C.P.As paycheck protection program. Loan forgiveness has settled down. There haven’t been changes for several weeks now. Wegner has the info. Their latest free webinar explains the state of forgiveness. What’s forgivable? What documentation do you need? How to work with your lender? Goto wegner-C.P.As dot com Click Resource is and recorded events Now back to mindfulness happiness Well being apse with Beth Kanter and Mico Whitlock Best. I think the dog you just adopted was in the window. He no longer. But

[00:09:57.75] spk_2:
you saw

[00:09:58.65] spk_0:
it was in the night. He was looked like he was sitting on the window frame. He was looking out at the right. The bright sunshine outside.

[00:10:03.87] spk_2:
Yeah, there’s lots of squirrels in our backyards.

[00:10:07.76] spk_0:
You gotta give us another one before we go back to Mico, please.

[00:10:32.07] spk_2:
You Okay, So another one that’s important with health and fitness is to get enough sleep. I don’t. You know, some I’ve had plague induced insomnia. Ah, but you know, getting sleep helps your immune system and helps you focus. It helps you with your fuse. You know, you can have kids in the background. I have a college dormitory here whenever you

[00:10:33.04] spk_0:
have a life while you have

[00:10:34.98] spk_2:
a life. Yes. Right. So night shift. Um, it helps you adjust the light on your phones.

[00:10:39.27] spk_0:
Night shift on a phone. That’s a key. Yes. Yes.

[00:10:41.60] spk_2:
And don’t use your phone as an alarm clock and shut off the phone and electronics two hours before Ben. That’ll helplessly.

[00:10:48.24] spk_0:
Uh, okay. Why not? Why not use the phone as an alarm clock?

[00:10:52.81] spk_2:
Well, because you’re then looking at it. You’re looking at that bright light, and that’s what goes into your brain. And that’s what disrupt your circadian rhythms in your melatonin and the onset of sleep. And you don’t get his good night’s sleep. And we need to have we need to arrest for immune systems and for our own. Well, me?

[00:11:08.72] spk_0:
Yeah, definitely. Sleep is critical for health. Right? But if I have night shift on, does that not protect me when I set my alarm on my phone.

[00:11:33.68] spk_2:
Well, what it does, is it It makes the light on your phone warmer or less Kelvin’s, that a sunny day. It’s not scientifically proven that it doesn’t disrupt. There’s no science behind that. They say it does they? It’s a hypothesis, but I think it’s, you know, it’s a great app if you have to. Maybe a couple hours before bedtime and you’re working making a warmer light,

[00:11:40.88] spk_0:
right? Oh, night shift. Yeah, I was talking about the using of the alarm with night shift done, but

[00:11:52.54] spk_2:
well that if you use your alarm before bed, then you might be tempted to go and look at other things on your phone. You know, some people like me had poor impulse control, so I think the iPhone out of my bedroom. And I just heard I don’t get a look at stuff at least two hours before bed.

[00:12:27.54] spk_1:
And for me, it’s the impulse control has done it issues. So I actually do use my phone as an alarm clock. And so I used the feature called Do Not Disturb where essentially between nine and 9 a.m. Nine p. M. And 10 a.m. my notifications air silenced so that I’m my sleep in my morning routine aren’t disrupted by what’s happening. Now, if you’re like Beth and you have an impulse control issue and it’s getting in the way of your sleep getting the

[00:12:31.76] spk_2:
way label that you

[00:12:35.51] spk_1:
want to get a real alarm clock and charge it outside of your room or get some get the

[00:12:39.95] spk_2:
smart. You know, I have that. I have the moonlight won that wakes you up to moon beings, and I also used Do not disturb, but I still keep the phone in another room.

[00:12:47.34] spk_0:
Yeah, okay. All right. Uh, all right, we’ve established that Beth has issues.

[00:12:52.37] spk_2:
No, no, I’ve overcome them

[00:12:55.94] spk_1:
aps mindfully in order to help her with that.

[00:12:59.91] spk_0:
You used to tell me about, uh, you were obsessive with checking email. I think this was a couple of years ago. A couple interviews ago. You’re obsessed about checking email assumes you woke up.

[00:13:09.24] spk_2:
Yeah, I got over. That was a member of that, But that was part of, like, my own bad behaviors. And what I was seeing other people kind of led to the writing of the book.

[00:13:19.24] spk_0:
Okay, You’re undisciplined at the time. But you’ve recovered.

[00:13:22.74] spk_2:
Yes, because I felt the impact of being undisciplined, which was, you know, distraction, crankiness. And, you know, I didn’t get stuff done as much as I could. I would never have been able to write for books if I hadn’t started to, you know, use some of these techniques over the last seven years or so. OK?

[00:13:57.35] spk_1:
And I think the interesting thing about what I said is that the fact that many of us many more of us are actually forced to work virtually now we’re gonna have to contend with exactly what Beth is talking about. And I think it’s a beautiful thing that we have. Um we were able to put the other this session where we’ve actually, you know, going out and found these different Absolutely help you with that. And then, of course, you have the best book which provides Resource is so, um you know, fortunately for the folks now, they actually have a resource, whereas back, you know and her colleague had to figure this out on their own.

[00:14:11.64] spk_0:
Happy, healthy

[00:14:59.24] spk_2:
people say I will say though I would be totally transparent and honest. I’m a human and sometimes you know, you fall off the wagon and I must say we’ve been on in the house for a month because we started getting messaging about all the tech companies closed down. They did it before the government told them to. And there’s a lot of messaging going around here in the hot spot. You know, dunk a wild if you’re over a certain age or if you have immune issues. So so that did increase my anxiety bit. Um, and I And when my anxiety increases, I start to fall back into some of these bad habits that start to perpetuate anxiety. And I did that for a couple of days. And then I said, Get the pause button, stop and see what you’re doing stuff. Pull out all your tools and, you know, get yourself together.

[00:15:06.22] spk_0:
Alright. Self awareness. Self awareness is key. Yes, it’s an important point. Yeah. Bet they also see, uh, container of wipes in your background to just

[00:15:10.49] spk_2:
ugo you see,

[00:15:23.34] spk_0:
There it is. Yeah. Um, I’ve been looking at a lot of backgrounds recently. Doing 20 years, some of these, um there. This is interesting. What? What people choose for their background. You have Japanese.

[00:15:27.94] spk_2:
You see my pain collection, right? Next wipes are my fountain pen collection

[00:15:30.91] spk_0:
collection. I see them in a dark, dark wood

[00:15:39.44] spk_2:
k on my writing box. But that’s part of my morning routine is to write inspirational quotes and calligraphy. Alright. What? And I won’t be able to do that if I have my If I hadn’t turned my alerts off and and use Do not disturb

[00:15:45.44] spk_0:
and someone plays the cello. Is that a cello or bass?

[00:15:50.21] spk_2:
Yes, that’s my husband. And you could probably see Casey the piano. No, you can’t, but yeah, it’s a musical family to that helps to music. Even if you just use your phone, Just listen to, like, classical music or jazz, whatever. Whatever you can to

[00:16:03.88] spk_0:
Mikko, you don’t want to see your home.

[00:16:19.59] spk_1:
Well, this is my home. This is I call it the Sanctuary. And so this is one of the ways that I mentally make a shift and actually prepare for my day. And so, um, I actually started you mature coming on the virtual background that I have actually started to use that as a way to having conversations like this. People who are feeling anxious or overwhelmed to say like Hey, like, let’s have something fun to sort of take you out of your immediate state of panic or in gaiety and once ready, let’s do that. Let’s figure out how we can move forward together with this product that we have that or that we’re talking about. Um, it’s a good ice breaker. It’s a great conversation starter. And, like Beth said about starting your meeting with the moment of silence. This is not really a moment of science, but it’s a good way to sort of break the tension in the room to get the meeting started,

[00:16:50.64] spk_2:
you know, and also looking at me coz unloved what you had yesterday your beach. But this one in the mountains, it’s making me think of one of the apse that we were recommending called calm, which actually takes you into a place of nature. And you hear the birds, you hear the ocean and you know, and it can help you do, Ah, three minute technique that can help reduce anxiety, which is just a mental vacation. And, you know, more and more we’re going to be working at home, ever gonna have back to back virtual meetings, and I think we’re gonna have, like, meeting virtual meeting fatigue. And so I think, between meetings, if you could take that three minute vacation like open up calm the calm app, it’s also a webpage. And just like, listen, you know, pretend you’re walking outside the national parks now are live streaming hikes or even go for Mitt. You know, a quick virtual Nate nature walk between innings

[00:17:38.14] spk_0:
Beth is the app spelled like the word CLM? Yes, Yes. Okay, okay. We just have a couple minutes left. Let’s Is there another category of ah of app? Mico?

[00:19:52.54] spk_1:
Yes, eso. Let’s talk about something we haven’t talked about yet. So it’s like about connectivity and relationships. Eso there two things that I want to talk about here in terms of maintaining a sustaining connections, particularly since we’re spending so much time at a distance. Right? So the 1st 1 is called fabric spelled f A B R I Q. And this is an app for the iPhone for your android device that allows you to intentionally prioritize your most important relationships. So, for me, the way I will use this app is since I don’t live near my family. I live in a different state. I want to make sure that I’m maintaining those close connections. And so this app allows me to identify who those folks are. And then it gives me were periodic reminders about Have you checked in with this person? Gives me an option toe, take notes to collect my reflections. And so it’s a really good way to prompt yourself. Admit all the things that are happening to make sure that you’re checking in on the folks that are most important to you. Um, another app that similar to this is called the Five Love Languages at is called Love Nudge and is available for Apple and Enjoy. And it’s based on the five love languages framework developed by Gareth Happen. The most folks know this framework in the context of romantic relationships, but it actually applies to just any type of relationship in general, in terms of how we communicate, how we like to receive and give love, how I like to Rio receive and give I’m communication, so this particular app allows you to identify your love language, identify the love language of your partner or your colleague or whoever that might be in connection with. And then it gives you nudges throughout the week on how you actually can connect with that person using their love language. So, for example, if, um, if my partner likes to receive words of affirmation, I might be prompted toe leave a post that saying I love you on the refrigerator, for example, in a way that I’m connecting with that person. Does the weights toe really help you toe? Um, really make sure you’re nurturing the the most important relationships for you so that Greek and the five love languages app would be to that. I would recommend from this category around sustaining and nurturing and strengthening connectivity and relationships.

[00:20:50.69] spk_2:
And I would build on what Miko was saying on and talk about it from the perspective of the workplace. Well, being in the workplace is important to have this connective it Ian. Good relationships. It’s gonna be harder at a distance to do that. Um, so so one app is called Know your team, and it helps you build trust and relationships with your team. There’s assessments. There’s lots of tips for one on one check ins icebreakers and check ins for meetings. So you can. And I think I’ve seen a lot of these used over. You know, I’ve been working virtually from, like, 30 years. So a lot of these techniques really can work to help us maintain that human connection and relationship and trust in the workplace. And I think we’re gonna need that as we move forward to rebuild and move on.

[00:20:57.15] spk_1:
No more. The doughnut about is another one. That’s really interesting in this regard. So what?

[00:20:58.76] spk_0:
They again? What’s the name?

[00:21:15.83] spk_1:
Don’t at the pot. We’re going it specifically for slack. And so it’s about that randomly Paris people up for coffee dates. And so obviously, we’re sort of limiting the number in person interactions now. But we could do that to prompt people to have virtual, um, coffee dates or virtual doughnuts or virtual happy

[00:21:22.76] spk_0:
hours. Okay. Beth showing her coffee mug.

[00:21:25.99] spk_2:
Yeah, it’s Stuart. It’s too early for happy hour.

[00:21:36.84] spk_0:
All right, Beth, I’m gonna let you take us out because Miko, give us the intro. We just have a minute or so on the inspiration.

[00:22:51.49] spk_2:
Sure. Some inspiration, cause my good colleague John Heightened whose whose past, but wrote the book Donor Care Here. He did interview with Me about self care, but he also wrote about his self care techniques while he was facing his horrible battle with cancer. And one question he asked himself every day was, What rainbow am I gonna eat? And, of course, if you Google that it refers to eating healthy vegetables, a rainbow of fruits and vegetables in terms of colors. Chris, of course, having cast radio, eat healthy foods. But I thought thinking of it, There’s lots of rain bows out there in our neighborhood. Parents with the kids are drawing pictures of rainbows with colored chalk on the sidewalk. So when other families passed by there trying to find the rainbows, so we all need to look at the Rainbow’s at the end of this, it’s going to be the most horrible thing in the that we’ve ever experienced. That’s probably coming, but after that I see lots of signaling around some of the creativity and the kindness and the mutual aid and the dismantling of oppressive symptom systems in our lives that are happening, and I truly believe we won’t come back the same. But we’re gonna come back better and different and better. So we have to keep every day. Look for a blessing. Look for a rainbow. Look for gratitude. Um and dont adult well, in the darkness.

[00:25:24.34] spk_0:
Yeah, we will. We will. We will emerge. All right, I like that. Thank you very much. Beth. That’s Beth Kanter, Master trainer, speaker and author. Her latest book, The Happy Healthy non profit and Miko Whitlock, trainer on mindfulness work about work, life balance and tech Distraction. He’s ah, is the mindful techie. Thank you very much. Thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC. Thanks so much. We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain software, Their accounting product Denali is built for non profits from the ground up. So you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and that exemplary support that understands you. They have a free 60 day trial on the listener landing page at slash Cougar Mountain. Now time for Tony’s Take two. You’re dismantling racism journey. That’s our newest special episode, and it’s now out on video. You will have a long journey. So start with this single step. My guest is pretty itchy Shaw, president and CEO of Flourished Talent Management Solutions. Starting where you are with your people, your culture and your leadership. How do you gather data about racist structures right under your nose? Who do you invite to the conversation? She helps you see the way forward. The video is on my YouTube channel in the racism and White privilege playlist. Check it out. That is Tony’s Take two. Now it’s time for APS Tools tactics with Mikko Whitlock again and Jason Shim. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC 2020. Non profit Technology Conference. We’re sponsored at 20 NTC by Cougar Mountain Software. My guests now are Mico Whitlock and Jason Shim. Miko is trainer on mindfulness work, Life balance and tech Distraction at mindful Techie. He’s also a member of the Intend Board, and Jason Shim is director of digital strategy at Pathways to Education Canada. Jason is the chair of the and 10 board of directors. Miko Jason, Welcome very much. Welcome to the show.

[00:25:27.74] spk_1:
Thank you for having us.

[00:25:28.91] spk_3:
Thanks for having us.

[00:25:41.44] spk_0:
Pleasure. Yes. Pleasure. And I’m glad to know that you reach well and safe. Jason in Toronto and Miko in Maryland outside d. C. Good to know that everybody’s well shut out. Jason’s background for those who cannot are not seeing the video. Jason is on the bridge of the Enterprise. But not the classic, not the one I know. I mean, I know the movies. I know the TV best because that’s what I grew up with. But which version of the enterprise are you? Bridge. Are you on, Jason?

[00:25:59.57] spk_3:
This would be the one from the next generation. So, uh uh, 1701 D

[00:26:36.64] spk_0:
last image of it. He knows the ship designation. Excellent. Alright. And Nico is where I saw him last week. Uh, beautiful of forest mountains and a lake in the valley. Yes. The Blue Lake? Yes, my backyard. Your backyard just outside Washington. He’s got private lake. Um, okay, you’re 20. NTC Topic is APS, tools and tactics to be a non profit Olympian. Amico, let’s start with you. What? Uh, you just you guys have Ah, You do have some basic resources that are accessible and easy to use and are gonna increase productivity.

[00:26:53.96] spk_1:
Exactly. So it’s actually based on an idea that Jason had around the Olympics. And I know Jason. You want Explain the idea and Tyler connects.

[00:26:59.18] spk_0:
Okay, Jason?

[00:27:28.64] spk_3:
Yeah. So the Olympic motto is Ah, faster, higher, stronger. And, you know, there’s always ah, ton of tools that were always coming across. And I think one of the challenges is trying to make it really easy to categorize them. And so the Olympic model came to mind. So things that will help you and organization go faster, things that will help you raise higher revenues and things that will help you build stronger relationships. So generally, if any of the tools conf it and to any of those three buckets, then that also fits very well for non profit usage.

[00:27:34.74] spk_0:
Okay, so why don’t you Don’t you start us off. You want toe, start with faster, and you’ve got Ah, a couple of laps or resource is for us.

[00:28:00.54] spk_3:
Yeah, So I I know. Kick it off with, you know, just talking a bit about some of the automation tools eso speaking to faster. You know, I’m a big fan of Ah, uh, piece of software called Toby eso. Toby is, uh, a chrome extension that you can install that will make your bookmarks very easy to access. So, you know, if you go about your day to day, you may open the same pages every morning. But instead of having to open them all manually or taking them into the oil buyer Toby will live each a group of Marx together. Second, press one button and open your five news pages that you open every morning. It’ll load it all in the background. You just browse the tabs very quickly.

[00:28:24.46] spk_0:
Okay? Is that t o B y

[00:28:27.04] spk_3:
yet? That’s T O B Y.

[00:28:28.59] spk_0:
Okay. Cool for a for, uh, grouping your bookmarks, OK? Yeah. You got another one for us?

[00:29:24.35] spk_3:
Yeah. Another tool that all share is around automation. So I’m a big fan of automation. Is that anything that you can clearly defined in a step by step kind of way you can probably out of me. So my my favorite right now is the Xabier eso. Is that a p i e r ah? And we use it quite extensively. It has over 1500 different types of integrations so specifically Well, how we use it in our organization is for revealing information into slack. So Let’s say if a donation comes in, um, that it will really a notification immediately into shared slack channel for letter staff. Know that one has come in. So you don’t have to wait for a report to be generated every week or every day that you know, the moment that comes in that you know, people are notified and you can respond quickly to folks to let them know that. Hey, you know, thank you so much for making a contribution. We really value it. And we’ve seen some great results. So, you know, the moment that someone donates, you know, weaken within five minutes, be emailing them to give him a very personal thank you.

[00:29:38.24] spk_0:
Justin isn’t, say Pierre very robust to him. You can define your own tasks. Yeah, I think you should code your own, but you want to be a coder to do it.

[00:29:47.24] spk_3:
Now you can You can drag and drop in remix everything and it’s ah, it’s a great for folks who may not have, you know, it kind of coding background or even to maybe too technical. But if you are technical, there is a lot of capability that you can integrate into it. So it’s It’s great for people of all backgrounds.

[00:30:06.84] spk_0:
We go if you got anything in ah, in working faster before we before we go to revenue generators.

[00:30:56.01] spk_1:
Well, in terms of the fast Buck and I would focus more on productivity. And so there are two things that I want to set. Some tools I recommend. The first is around calendar ring and meetings. We recognize that when we look in the aggregate at hour work weeks, we spend so much time in meetings. But one of these we don’t account for the amount of time you actually spend scheduling meetings. So for folks that have spent a lot of time scheduling one on one meetings, and now a lot of us are working virtually using things like Zoom. One of my favorite plug ins is for Google Calendar and for Outlook calendar. So it essentially allows you with the click of one button to schedule a zoom meeting and to invite people to it. So right now, if you’re not using this plug in and you want to schedule a zoom meeting, you have to create the zoo meeting. Forgot what time is gonna be have to give the link copy and paste it, then send it to the people that are going to be a part of the meeting with this plug in. Essentially, create a calendar invite like you would for a normal meeting. And you you press the, you know, turn us into a zoo meeting. But most unplugging is installed, and then the Zumwinkel automatically generated. You just pop in the folks who want to invite and you send off the invite and that saves you a tremendous amount of time. If you’re scheduling a lot of zoom meetings,

[00:31:32.24] spk_0:
is there any is there not a plugging for I, Cal, those of us in the apple using the apple calendar? Now

[00:31:43.76] spk_1:
perhaps there is. But I’m only familiar with Google and and four for Outlook. So for the aikau folks, you about this research to see if there’s anything for them, but definitely for Google and for for outlook.

[00:31:48.29] spk_0:
Okay, and what’s it? What’s it called? That we look for?

[00:31:50.90] spk_1:
Just called the zoom calendar plug

[00:31:53.53] spk_0:
in. Okay. Yes, And the three of us had enough trouble, uh, be creating meetings. But one of you would get the invitation that came from my Cal After you create a after you create a creative meeting and then zoom then answered the aikau, one of you would get the invitation, the other would not. And then I Then I just ended up copying and pasting another standard email, and it worked. But yes, I have my own frustrations around. Ah, Zoom and Aikau working together. Guys, you got another one for for calendar ring.

[00:32:36.34] spk_1:
I do. So if you schedule a lot of one on one meetings, there’s two sets of souls that competitors and you can use either one if use both. One is called acuity scheduling. So a C u I t. Y scheduling. And the 2nd 1 is called commonly, um, c l E N D. Why, captain,

[00:32:45.00] spk_0:
tellingly right? E N d l Y

[00:32:55.39] spk_1:
el y yes. Yeah. So acuity scheduling and Calvin Lee. And what both of these tools allow you to do is to save the time, save yourself time, going back and forth, and I figure out when they get time to meet, right? So how many times do you spend time trying to figure out when to meet with someone, and especially just a brief meeting you could actually spend more time trying to schedule a meeting. Then you actually you actually talking to the person, right?

[00:33:10.00] spk_0:
That can be so. These

[00:33:51.91] spk_1:
tools both of these tools allow you to with Google Calendar, Uh, and with outlook to share your calendar in your availability and allow the person to essentially you send Emily, they see your counter. They could select the time the invite goes on your calendar. It goes on their calendar. And if you have a plug in like resume install forgot by your security scheduling with zoom, a zoom link is automatically generated. It goes in your calendar goes on their calendar. And if you want to set up reminders to automatically go out for yourself for them, those things were set up. But you essentially save yourself that back and forth. It just takes you five seconds to send in the link and then you’re done is in their court. It takes, um, you know what, five minutes or less to pick a time and get on your calendar and you’ve gotten back. Um, you know that time that you feel otherwise spent going back fourth, the e mail or by phone kind of figure out when works for you.

[00:34:44.24] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. You have to think about the time. The aggregate time you spend setting up meetings. I mean, I don’t It can’t be done in fewer than two emails each. And that’s I think that’s an outlier that’s at the low end, you know? And then a minute the meeting cancels, then your back to it again, uh, again, at least another four, but more likely six or six or eight between the two people and then and then And then, uh, maybe it doesn’t. It certainly doesn’t increase exponentially, but it increases considerably when you bring in 1/3 or fourth people. Fourth person trying trying to flight four people trying to schedule together. Yes, I think that’s at least partly at least 10 emails. Uh, you know, between everybody 10 and again, I’m not 10. Could be low, depending on, you know. And now we’re scheduling so many more meetings. So,

[00:34:53.79] spk_1:
yes. So So both of those sets of fools, I recommend to the streamline the process and get back a little bit of time.

[00:35:44.19] spk_0:
Talk about being mindful. Rightful of the time you spend scheduling meetings. Yes, a start time for our last break turn to communications relationships. The world runs on them. We know this turn to is led by former journalists so that you get help building relationships with journalists. Those relationships will help you when you need to be heard so that people know you’re a thought leader in your field and they specialize in working with nonprofits. They’re at turn hyphen two dot ceo, we’ve got but loads more time for APS tools tactics from 20 NTC. Okay, you got one for revenue. And before we go back to Jason, you want kickoff revenue?

[00:36:42.94] spk_1:
Yeah, so I’ll shift over to texting. And so one of my one of the tools I use is called text awful on t e t e x t i f u l text. Awful. And essentially, what it allows you to do is it allows you to, um, do email opt ins via text message. So say, for example, this were presentation and you want to give people access to the recording After this prison condition, you could say OK, text, you know, non profit Olympians should this number, and we’re gonna add you to the list and When the videos ready, we’re gonna send it to you. That is one efficient way to capture email addresses for large events. Large gatherings. I do it at my workshops. So if you want the slides, text this number. If you want to stay in contact text, you know little on purpose toe this number and you’ll be added to the list on the next message on update you’ll work. You received that. And so if you tie that into your fundraising efforts, you could see how that could be a great way to identify prospects and then be able to follow with them about actually working with the donating to your organization.

[00:36:54.93] spk_0:
Awesome. Okay, thank you. Text if all Jason, how about you on the revenue side?

[00:38:32.32] spk_3:
Yeah. So one of my favorite tools is ah, the judge. So that’s the I. D. Why a r d dot com and what it is this ah chrome extension that you can install that allows you to easily record videos s so they could be videos of yourself as an individual. Or you can record your desktop or your desktop with a little circle in the corner with you can in a reading. Ah, and how organization has used it is more around the stewardship side to show people the impact of their donations. Eso because I work with an organization that serves youth believing a low income communities across the country but we’re able to do is they were able to record very personalized thank you, um, to our donors using this software. So what we’ll actually do is, you know, to get folks attention because everyone’s getting tons of email in their inbox that the thumbnail will actually be an animation of someone holding up a sign that says the person’s name. So you would get something like the sign would actually say, Thank you, tony. And it’s actually written. It’s not automated, and then you click play, and then you know, the recipient would Here, you know, high tony, thank you so much for making a donation to pathways. Education Canada. You’re making an impact in the lives of people like myself in achieving our dreams, And the impact that it’s had is that this goes into the higher revenues. But you know it. It spills over a bit into the stronger relationships part as well, because it’s um, it’s very much. Ah ah. An individualized, personalized message that cuts through. You know, you’re the general kind of stuff that people normally get in their day to day inbox, and it really helps connect our supporters of more directly with with, uh, with the cause.

[00:38:57.62] spk_0:
Okay. Cool video. All right, eyes there. Another one around the revenue side. Anything else? No.

[00:38:58.52] spk_1:
You want to mention Bun bun Juro, which is similar to video

[00:39:07.87] spk_3:
Bob on joyless. Quelle is another video platform. That is Ah. Ah, quite helpful. Similar. That is also that you can easily create a video. So as be oh, and J o r o b for banjo.

[00:39:22.12] spk_0:
Okay. Thank you. Um, all right. So, uh, our third category was stronger relationships. You got something there, Jason?

[00:40:16.39] spk_3:
So ah, flipping back onto the texting side. Twilio has many different kind of tools, their offers, and so near twilio studio is something that has helped us connect with folks in that it allows us Teoh quite easily create. And, um, whether you want to create your own, like, interactive voice response, um, or if you want to create a more complex tree for you know, someone texts into a number that you can also take them through various paths. Where to learn more about your organization. The other way that we’ve used 12 you as well is for sending out text messages generally without with updates. Eso We’ve used the TWILIO platform to send out text messages to our students directly in order to remind them that events are going on S o. You know, that’s super helpful in terms of just being there. And you know, those kind of nudges. It’s similar to what we do in person, but it’s also using the tool to extend that reach and being like, Hey, just nudge, um, that this event is going on tomorrow on that really helps improve our attendance treats at events A ZX Well,

[00:40:42.67] spk_0:
because you have something in the relationship side.

[00:41:41.55] spk_1:
Yes, I have two sets of tools that are related to how we use social media, so we know that now more than ever, our social connections are really important and social media, you know, while it has some of this downsize, it also could be a powerful way toe keep us connected, particularly if we’re at a distance right. But one of things that we find that happens is we can go down the rabbit hole of sort of losing focus on why we’re on the platforms to begin with. And so the first floor wegner recommended For folks who are using Facebook on the best top, there’s a plug in called, um Facebook news feed. Eradicate ER that you can install for your browser. And essentially, what that allows you to do is to replace the news feet when you log into Facebook with the quote. And so what’s the reason behind us? Well, many of us have had this challenge will be Log into Facebook. You wanna wish someone Happy birthday? You want response a message. You want to comment in a group? Or do some of the activities actually connected to you to someone and you find yourself 45 minutes later in this rabbit hole of watching cat videos, a cute puppies running around or watching the you know, whatever the latest news thing is right on. One of the reasons for that is that you get caught up in the sort of the newness of with in your news feed, so this particular plug in allows you to replace the new seat with a quote, and it makes it more likely that you will be able to remember to pause to reflect and actually remember what your primary intention was when you log into Facebook to begin with. So again, that one is Facebook news feed eradicate er specifically for the desktop version of Facebook and for folks who are using Facebook to the browser way.

[00:42:18.14] spk_0:
Just, uh, we just have about a minute left. So this last one you’re gonna do, um, do it concisely, please.

[00:42:26.00] spk_1:
All right, so for Instagram, YouTube and Facebook for the mobile versions, essentially, what we have are each of these has settings that allows you to monitor your usage to set Ah, a timer or just that reminders on how much you’re using. You’re using those particular applications so that you want spending all your time on those, but you’re actually able toe sustained connections. You know, uh, get worked on and live your life. So check out the settings for those If you’re using those on the mobile version, if you want to get a better handle on how you spend your time on this for us,

[00:43:14.02] spk_0:
okay? We’re gonna leave there by my count will be ticked off. You You ticked off. 10 10 Different resource is in, like, under 20 minutes. So thank you. Very efficient. Very mindful. Very efficient. Very productive. Enormously als three. So thank you that they are. Ah Mika Whitlock, trainer on mindfulness work, Life balance and tech Distractions at Mindful Techie and Jason Shim, director of digital strategy at Pathways to Education Canada thanks to each of you Very much. Thank you, Nico. Thank you, Jason. Thank you.

[00:43:33.30] spk_3:
Thanks for having us

[00:44:41.18] spk_0:
pleasure. Next week, Gene Takagi returns with joining forces M o use to mergers. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial And by turn, to communications, PR and content for non profits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Our creative producer is clear. Meyerhoff Sam Liebowitz managed stream shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our rep guy on this music is by Scott Stein Way next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great