Tag Archives: Nonprofit Technology Conference

Nonprofit Radio for May 29, 2023: Equitable Project Management & Make Time For Professional Development

 

Rubin Singh: Equitable Project Management

An automated soap dispenser. One of the most innocuous objects imaginable. Unless it doesn’t dispense soap to people with dark skin. How does bias find its way into technology projects and hurt outcomes? How can we implement technology through an equity lens? Rubin Singh, from One Tenth Consulting, returns to help us understand.

 

 

Kelenda Allen-JamesMake Time For Professional Development

Kalenda Allen-James explains the value of investing in professional development and shares a lot of free resources along the way. She’s with Commonpoint Queens.

These both continue our coverage of NTEN’s 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, #23NTC.

 

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[00:01:47.10] 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 be stricken with S A trope AEA if I had to see that you missed this week’s show. Equitable project management, an automated soap dispenser. One of the most innocuous objects imaginable unless it doesn’t dispense soap to people with dark skin. How does bias find its way into technology projects and hurt outcomes? How can we implement technology through an equity lens? Reuben Singh from 1/10 consulting returns to help us understand and make time for professional development. Kalinda Alan James explains the value of investing in professional development and shares a lot of free resources along the way. She’s with common point queens. These both continue our coverage of N Ten’s 2023 nonprofit technology conference on Tony’s take two. Sharing is caring. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is equitable project management.

[00:02:12.99] spk_1:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. We’re kicking off our day two coverage with Ruben Sing. We are sponsored at 23 N T C by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Reuben Singh. My guest now is founder and CEO of 1/10 consulting Reuben. Welcome back to non private radio. Thank

[00:02:21.10] spk_2:
you, tony second or third. This is our third time chatting to

[00:02:26.03] spk_1:
virtual. Yes.

[00:02:27.27] spk_2:
Good to meet you in person. Yes, for sure. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure to

[00:02:44.06] spk_1:
have you next to me, your session this year is managing projects with an equity lens. I think that’s pretty self explanatory. But why don’t you give us a 30,000 ft overview of why this is important for nonprofits?

[00:03:41.07] spk_2:
Yeah. You know, I, I feel like throughout my years of consulting, it’s been about 25 years of consulting. Now, I’ve, I’ve encountered some scenarios here and there that, you know, I, I’ve always thought were odd scenarios, you know, in the middle of the project, you know, working with consultants, working with our nonprofits where, you know, maybe something was borderline, discriminate, discriminatory or, you know, something just didn’t feel right. And, you know, I, when I was younger in the, in the consulting space, I didn’t really pay much mind to it. I said, hey, I’m just following, you know, my mentors and following best practices. Um you know, I’m learning the ropes. Um But, you know, as I got further in my career and I started talking to other technologists of color, other consultants. Um and uh and honestly, spaces like this at NTC where we have very frank and open discussion about race and technology and the intersection. It really um I realized a lot of these things, I was encountering these projects. We’re not, we’re not okay. They were problem at and in fact, we were allowing bias race um and uh to, to really seep its way into projects. Um And, and not only is that problematic in a, in a larger sense, but it also does not lead to good outcomes for the projects and the systems themselves. What,

[00:03:57.93] spk_1:
what does this look like? What, what kind of forms does the bias racism

[00:04:18.07] spk_2:
take? Um Well, let me give you an example if that’s OK. Yeah. So, um you know, I was working with one organization that uh you know, had really said that and actually, I was, I was very impressed with them that they had very, a very strong diversity statement, equity statement and they even extended it to their goals. They say, you know, what we’re, we have a lot of volunteers were a volunteer organization, but we um we realize that we don’t have a very diverse volunteer group. So this is going to be not only a statement of ours that we want to diversify our volunteer group, but we also want to, you know, we want to implement that in 20 you know, whatever the year was. Um, and just, what kind of work were they

[00:04:40.98] spk_1:
doing?

[00:04:42.87] spk_2:
Um, well, I mean, I don’t want to get

[00:04:45.46] spk_1:
to general

[00:05:57.20] spk_2:
social service. They, they were grassroots organizing, grassroots organizing. Let’s put it under that kind of, yeah, I mean, they’re great organization. So I’d hate to, um, I’m not asking you. Right. Right. But, but I think, um, the, uh, definitely in the, in the grassroots organizing and um you know, they kind of found that they are um uh you know, that they need to diversify their volunteer base. And I appreciated that not only was it a statement, but they had taken a step further to make it part of their goals for that particular year. But then, you know, statements aside, once we got into the project, we realized that um you know, there were certain, uh there were certain algorithms that were being that were implemented in their volunteer searches that actually filtered out a lot of criteria. So they said, oh, you know what, we, we have so many applicants, we can’t, we can’t screen everybody. So we implement these filters and the filters will, you know, the filter is kind of looking at them. I realize it’s really going to leave you with very privileged resource to people, you know, gets an education, family, education, household income, so on and so forth. And so, you know, we have this dialogue of, you know, if if these are really your goals that you want to diversify and you want different socioeconomic um groupings in your volunteer base, then you really need to reconsider this. And it was just a perfect example of how with all good intentions with great diversity statements. But even something as simple as an as an algorithm in their search um was was really letting bias find its way into the, into the implementation. And

[00:06:32.57] spk_1:
that’s an ideal example because it’s so buried. I mean, most people that may have been developed by a developer or it may have not even been developed in house, you know, some developer from like could been years ago may have created this algorithm unintentionally let’s assume biased and it just, it just perpetuates and nobody even knows that it’s there, it’s buried in code basically

[00:06:53.31] spk_2:
for sure for sure algorithms live. And if I’m a developer and someone comes to me and says we have too many applicants, we need to filter out X Y and Z to make it easier. Well, as a developer oftentimes, I’m thinking, oh how can I make this better? How can I make this more efficient? Um And they don’t really think about it. So, so this is where I think, you know, um I take it upon myself as a consultant to, to really and D I practitioner to, to raise these things because again, these organizations have great intentions. They’re just not always able to bridge the gaps unless it’s called out,

[00:07:16.45] spk_1:
unless it’s called out. Right. So, I mean, if you have something like this very deep, how would you ever discover

[00:08:06.07] spk_2:
it? Yeah, it, and that kind of goes to really the title of the session is, is managing projects with an equity lens. So the key point there is, is not really separating things. So it’s not about okay. Well, we have this diversity statement, let’s all celebrate it. And now let’s move on to our project. It’s really um taking every single part of the project anytime. In fact, when we start projects, now, I will ask for, let me see your diversity statement. Let me even if you know, chances are you may not be reflecting on it a lot. Let’s dust it off, you know, after 2020 and, and let’s take a look at it. Um And, and, and just like we review missions and visions of the organization before a project. I want to review your diversity statement that way I can make sure every step of the way I’m asking these questions because, hey, it’s your statement, it’s a priority for you. So as a, as a um a trusted partner of yours, I should make held you accountable to that.

[00:08:30.49] spk_1:
I’m just, I’m concerned, yeah, I understand we’re talking about managing projects. So from the outset concerned about organizations that have any kind of bias uh coded in somewhere that, that they just, they don’t know that. I know. I understand. We’re digressing from your topic. We got plenty of time. Yeah, we have plenty of time. You know, you’re, I’m forcing you asking you to digress, you know, but this is, this thing is buried somewhere or these things, these biases are buried. Uh, what’s our hope of ever uncovering

[00:09:23.13] spk_2:
them? Well, I mean, I think, um, you know, it’s interesting even in day one of the conference here at N T C I, I attended a couple sessions. Uh and, you know, the, the narratives are the points that I was bringing up was not just coming out of my session, but, you know, I attended a session that spoke about audience and campaigns and, you know, developing um content that’s, you know, that, that resonates with audiences um that are often overlooked. And, and, and so it was interesting because in their discussion, they were bringing up a lot of the same points that I was bringing up. So, um I’m most hopeful because of to be and I swear that intend to not put me to this. But I, I think like organizations like in 10 forums like NTC, um you know, we’re putting things out there and I think that’s what gives me hope more than anything. Um You know, we’re raising

[00:09:41.57] spk_1:
consciousness, 13,000 people are going

[00:09:43.61] spk_2:
to listen. Absolutely. So, so, I mean, if that’s, if that is, that alone gives me, it gives me a lot of hope Okay. Alright, we can

[00:10:10.60] spk_1:
circle back to your your specific topic about managing projects so that we have equity focus equity center from, from the outset. Okay. Um How are you? I’m just going to your like learning objectives, how bias finds its way into tech project? Well, I think we talked about that. It happens. I mean, I think probably do you think it’s usually innocuous?

[00:11:24.04] spk_2:
Yeah, I really do. Um and, and it finds its way and, and then I think it also finds its way through what we often refer to as best practices. Um, you know, if I can give you an example, um through most of my consulting career, we often use personas as a way of trying to understand our constituents. So, you know, Mary is a single mother of two and wants to attend the museum, but, you know, is unable to afford the, the, the, the, the entrance fee or the membership fee. Um And, you know, again, I kind of sat through a lot of these things with, you know, feeling uncomfortable but, you know, thinking it was just me. Um, but then I started doing a little research and I realized I’m definitely not the only problem with personas. Um And the idea of, you know, a group of mostly, you know, white folks are sitting in a room deciding, you know, what they’re black constituents think, um that, that makes me uncomfortable and, and, um to the point where I’ve, I’ve raised this and, and I think that although I think persona mapping is a good exercise and can and does have merit, it can be done without race, ethnicity, gender. Uh You can take a different approach to it. You can use archetypes, you can use different models, let’s say, hey, you know, so and so is a person who’s never been to the museum before? So and so is the person who is very interested in education, but not so much interested in the advocacy work that we do. There’s different ways that we can get at um persona mapping without having to get into race, ethnicity, gender. If, if I mean, personally, I don’t think it’s very useful, but um but at a minimum, it surely would make people uncomfortable.

[00:12:08.53] spk_1:
You know, I’m saying that these are these things maybe are embedded innocuously, but they come from the fact that so many software engineers, developers, coders are now middle aged white guys, right? I mean, so it’s, it’s, it’s their own inherent biases built into the code that we’re all living with

[00:12:31.70] spk_2:
and, and to be fair, tony, I also feel I’m guilty of it as well. I mean, because I went many, most of my career not speaking out against these things and um you know, incorporated into my own style. So I think, you know, while you’re right, I think like, you know, um it’s, it’s, it’s not, it’s also the onus on all folks, technologists of color as well. Um, to make sure we’re raising our hands when we’re seeing something like this. That, that, that feels, that feels wrong. Um, so, but yeah, I feel like I’ve, I’ve perpetuated this, I participated in this and, you know, starting my own company. It was, it was one thing that I felt like. Okay. Well, now that we’re, now that I understand now that I know now that I’ve seen it, you know, what can I do differently? What are some different, different things that we can do to, um, to kind of right the wrongs that, that we’ve seen in the space

[00:12:55.60] spk_1:
we’re gonna talk about how all this impacts outcomes. I do want you to remind folks why your company is called one

[00:13:53.63] spk_2:
10th. Yeah. You know, there’s a couple of plays on it. You know, we, um, uh, in the, in the sick tradition, which I’m from, we, uh, we have this concept of 1/10 of our, of our earnings that we give through either service or through funding to, um, to charity, back to the, back to the community, um, to help those in need to help humanity. And it was interesting that that’s a tradition that, you know, is, you know, I grew up with, but as I started delving into non profit work and, and consulting, I realized that we weren’t the only ones that, that, in fact, most religions actually have the same idea and the same, um, or faith traditions have this idea of this 10%. Exactly. So, so it was just one of those things I thought was, hey, this is a pretty cool thing about, you know, giving our money, investing our money in communities. Um And it’s something that, you know, so many different faith traditions and communities have in common. Um There’s another play on it also that nonprofits are really working with 1/10 of the resources that they, that they need. So, so it, it has sort of a couple different meanings. So let’s,

[00:14:03.69] spk_1:
let’s talk about the outcomes of these biases, impact outcome.

[00:15:22.60] spk_2:
Yeah. Um Well, you know, I was given an example yesterday in the presentation that one of the, the sort of suggestions I had about, you know, seven or eight different suggestions on how we can address these issues of bias and projects. And one of the ones I brought up was making sure that, you know, as you walk into as you day one or kick off of the, of the project implementation that you have the right team that’s ready for you. Um And when I say right, team oftentimes with I T projects I walk in and they’re like, okay, here’s our team, it’s the I T director, it’s super users and it’s all technical folks and, and okay, you know, I see the merit to that. But if this system is really meant to be for everyone that I’d like to see people, they’re of different age, of different technical proficiency, different ethnicities, different race. Um because we all sort of process things a little bit different based on our upbringing and our experiences are shared experiences. Um So make sure your team is more diverse. Um And, you know, I start thinking about where that has not happened. Um You know, and, and you, you’ve probably heard the stories of, you know, where facial recognition and AI can go wrong. But, you know, it’s still to this day where sometimes in a restroom that has automatic soap dispensers, I can put the back of my hand underneath it and it won’t, it won’t dispense soap until I, you know, put the palm of my hand up and it will, um, you know, I think back about when the COVID vaccine was first rolled out, it’s a real thing, are

[00:15:31.80] spk_1:
biased towards white.

[00:16:36.17] spk_2:
It’s a real thing. Yeah. And one thing to think about it. Yeah, but there’s, there’s so many examples of this and a slightly different one and probably something many people can relate to is when the COVID COVID vaccine was, was rolled out. Um You know, I was, I called my parents. I said, hey, did you sign up for it? Did you register for it? I said, oh no, we can’t fill out this form. And I was like wondering what’s going on. So I looked at the form and sure enough, I mean, and granted, this was in the early stages and perhaps it was just where I lived but it was multiple pages, four pages long. Uh, you couldn’t save throughout, it was medical history. It was health insurance. It was, um, all kinds of information that people may not have readily available when they’re signing up for a vaccine. Um, and then the entire time there’s this timer going where in 10 minutes if you don’t finish, you have to start over like you’re buying tickets. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Maybe this is okay for, for, for lots of people, but for the immigrant community or for my parents are in their eighties, it was not working for them. And then sure enough, you go on the news and they say, you know, older folks and, and immigrant communities are not not signing up for the vaccine. So, you know, here me and my friends are calling all our relatives and, you know, signing them up. Um So it was just yet another example where, um you know, and there’s many examples of this but of just how, you know, perhaps if there was different folks involved in the process of testing this out, um you know, different ages of different ethnicities and different communities, maybe there would have been a better response.

[00:17:48.12] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Stop the drop with donor box. Over 50,000 nonprofits in 96 countries use their online donation platform. It’s no wonder, four times faster. Checkout easy payment processing, setup fees, monthly fees, pasha contract. How many punitive donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your website? You can stop the drop donor box helping you help others at donor box dot org. Now back to equitable project management with Reuben

[00:17:55.13] spk_1:
Singh. Anything else about outcomes before we move to to some, some methodology about being better?

[00:18:05.52] spk_2:
Yeah, outcomes. I mean, I think, um I think that’s, that’s a key one.

[00:18:07.49] spk_1:
Don’t hold out on non proper radio. Did your session. So you want to hear everything you shared yesterday?

[00:19:54.50] spk_2:
Yeah, I, I think um you know, another point we brought out was and I think it is tied to outcomes is uh iterative development. And you know, you may think that’s sort of a deep project management, you know, concept what does it have to do with equity. Um But I, I do believe that iterative project management is key because if you do bring together a diverse set of folks for you as your project team, they’re not all gonna be CRM experts or digital communication experts. So you cannot just um hand the project group 350 requirements and say, okay, approve them by the end of the week or disappear for two months and say okay, here’s the system test in a week and let us know if it’s done, it’s just not gonna work it if you want to do things with equity in mind. Um and you’re trying to get a diverse audience. You need very iterative development. You need multiple proof of concepts. You need uh several demos because they may just not understand all the terminology. They may not understand all the nuances until they see things. Um because that’s what’s most related to their day to day job when they can actually see the systems in place. So I can’t tell you, Tony how many times I’ve finished a project, you know, early in my career and, you know, someone will finally come to me and say, you know, I’ve, we finished the project. We’re on budget, we’re on time, we checked all the boxes, we’re all celebrating, but I have no idea how this is gonna work. I have no idea if this is gonna be successful or not and I don’t want anybody to feel that way. So, so that’s something that, you know, I, I believe we need to consult differently. We need to keep equity in mind and we need to, uh you know, really take them along for the ride and if the ride is not working, we, we change paths. Um And I surely do. I’m doing that right now for a project um where it’s like, you know, things are not sticking the way because, you know, this is not what the project team does day to day to design systems. So let’s step back, let’s figure out what’s gonna work for you and then we, we’ll adjust our, our project accordingly.

[00:19:57.37] spk_1:
Our listeners are not tech folks. Um, they’re C E O S fundraisers, board members. What can they on the, essentially your, your clients, the users, what, what can they and some of the main leadership positions, what, what can they do to make a difference around the projects that they’re hiring, they’re hiring other folks like you to

[00:20:21.33] spk_2:
do? Yeah. Well, I think, I think definitely, you know, going back to the assembling the right team and having a diverse uh team that’s there. So the

[00:20:28.18] spk_1:
project contributing match exactly what the

[00:22:15.36] spk_2:
users group. Exactly. Exactly. Um And you know, and the key thing is if you don’t have the expertise in house, it’s okay there, there’s, there’s, you know, uh consultants that can help you with accessibility, there’s consultants that can help you with Human Centered design. I’ve met several of the folks here, you know, over the last couple of days. So if you don’t have that expertise in house, this is where I think management leadership can, can bring in those appropriate people. Um And also, um I was working with one organization that said, well, you know, we don’t know how are, how are local community feels about our museum? Let’s say we’ll go ask them, you know, and it’s a different, it’s a different way of thinking. And so this is where leadership really comes into play to say, okay, well, you know, can we do something externally, can we do surveys? Can we do focus groups? Can we bring the community and understand why they’re not attending? Um But I think a key thing also and this may not be something that folks always think about is requesting the right team from the vendor that you bring in. So just as you want a diverse thoughtful team internally, you want your consultants or vendors that’s coming in to also represent that. Um you know, I was facilitating some vendor selections for a particular implementation on behalf of the client. And then towards the end of the selection process, they said to me, um well, you know, the last two that we met, they were pretty much neck and neck. I, you know, they seem to have the same delivery model, their prices are about the same, but I did notice that only one of them had any people of color or any women on their team that they brought to us to demo, this is the solution and to talk to us about the approach. And that right there shows us they’re more aligned with our values than the other one is. And so this is something I tell my, my peer organizations all the time, like if, if you don’t care about equity university in your projects, your clients will and that’s gonna affect your bottom line. So if nothing else, you know, look at it from that perspective. So, so that’s, that’s something I think leadership management can do is bring the right people internally, bring the right people in externally if need be and, and, and feeling comfortable enough to um to uh to ask for, for the right team. Another element of that is in leadership as you’re bringing in partners, incredibly valuable, excellent.

[00:22:36.37] spk_1:
This is what I mean, this is what the listeners need. They’re not the developers, so more of it, I appreciate it.

[00:22:42.86] spk_2:
Yeah, I’m trying get all riled up when I talk about. This is something I’m so passionate about. Feel free to

[00:22:46.88] spk_1:
use your hands. We’re not, we’re not, you can even be obscene gestures were

[00:24:15.56] spk_2:
not recording video, definitely walking around in yesterday’s session. There’s a lot, a lot of hand movement going on. Um But, you know, one of the points I mentioned yesterday also was his partner in vendor diversity. And, you know, this is something I feel strongly about I happen to serve on the Salesforce partner equality uh committee. Um And this is something I’ve been advocating for for a while that, you know, you have um these great tools that allow you to search for different partners. But why can’t we have filters on that to say I’m looking for a system implementer that is run by a person of color or someone from the L G B T Q I A community or from the indigenous community or whatever. Um And we should we know the information. So why we’ve been taking surveys for decades and we’ve identified that there’s a problem with diversity. Well, why not give the customers a choice, why not allow them to apply some filters to say, you know what, this is part of our goals to, to bring in more vendors of color, um or, or owned by, by vendors of color. So, so let’s uh so let’s uh make that a priority, but we have to give them the information. Um So this is something I encourage folks even when I’m asked. Um Okay, Ruben, you know, you’re, you focus on this particular area, but, you know, for digital communications, can you recommend someone? I will make sure in any 23 people that I recommend that one of them will represent a community that is often overlooked in this nonprofit technology space and give them the choice and tell them that and give them the choice. Um Yeah, you can work with this person that we’ve, we’ve worked with for a long time or here’s the advantages of working with, with, with this organization. And I think, you know, by us taking that initiative, you know, um and by leadership asking for it, we’re going to slowly start, you know, adjusting that, that, that power dynamic and creating more balance in the space

[00:24:59.02] spk_1:
so much of it. I think it’s just, it’s consciousness thinking about your software development projects, your, your, your new CRM, your new HR system, you know, whatever it is uh thinking about being thoughtful about the vendors that you talked to, perhaps the consultants that you hired to help you select a vendor. Because that um that’s, that’s an important step in the process of actually implementing, you know, choosing, choosing one is who’s helping you to choose.

[00:25:14.68] spk_2:
And I think that um you know, I get a lot of pushback when I bring this up, they say, oh, well, you know, uh you know, account execs, they have their relationships with people so they, they bring in their, their, their person, you know, they bring in their vendor, they bring in their partner, they bring in the person and there’s no real regulation over that. Um, and, um, you know, you take these larger software companies and they kind of leave it to the discretion of the account executive to make their decisions on, you know, what partners they bring in and frankly, you know, I, I, I work with organizations but this is where the client can say, client can

[00:25:43.46] spk_1:
say something. I’d like some choices, not just your, your preferred. Yeah, I’d like some choices and I want at least one to be a woman owned business or

[00:26:12.63] spk_2:
100% 100% because these preferred partners are not always the best and I speak firsthand. I’ve had undo a lot of messes from these preferred partners and I’d say that, um, and when I sit and talk to other partners, um, you know, uh, where that our partner organizations that are women owned or owned by people of color, they say, yeah, you know, we feel left out of this mix because we all know that if you just leave it to discretion, um that is as we’ve seen, you know, throughout history, that’s where privilege, race and racism and bias, you know, end up being the default.

[00:26:21.68] spk_1:
The cynic in me questions questions, why are these folks are preferred partners? What kind of preferences are they giving? Uh Okay,

[00:26:30.17] spk_2:
I’m, I’m

[00:26:39.84] spk_1:
purely speculating, but you know, the way you’re describing it, the preference seems to not be based on uh talent and, and positive

[00:27:29.55] spk_2:
outcome, not, not from what I’ve seen. And I think, you know, our company is an example of that, you know, we, we are often left out of the, you know, the big marketing efforts. Um you know, and, and um but, you know, when we work with organizations, um our business has been 100% referral after that. Um And, and because we, we are mindful of all these things, we, you know, we have a decent success rate. And so, um and so our business has been 100% referral based after that. We’ve stopped advertising, stop marketing, stop all of that. And, and we often find ourselves um uh being connected with other nonprofits that serve communities of color um because they’re like, hey, you know, just the fact that you’re thinking about these things, uh we are, our experiences are different and the fact that you can even recognize that, you know, we want to work with you. Um So, so, and we’ve been very grateful for that and, and, and, you know, take that very seriously when organizations come to us with that kind of approach,

[00:27:37.40] spk_1:
is there anything else you can recommend for our listeners on the, on the client side that, that they can do, You

[00:29:49.46] spk_2:
know, there’s, there’s probably a couple other things that, that I think are important, things like a project charter, which may seem um, well, everyone has a project charter or that’s really just a very, what’s the charter? It’s um it’s kind of like at the very beginning of the project, it outlines kind of who’s who, what the goals are, um how decisions will be made, um you know, the frequency of meetings who are the stakeholders. So it’s kind of like defines bylaws. That’s great. That’s a great way. Exactly. Exactly. And it’s, it’s always recommended that, you know, the project Management Institute recommends project charters has all kinds of templates for it. But I will say that, you know, practitioners don’t always invest a lot of time in it. It feels like an unnecessary step. Um I in the past have not spent a ton of time with it. But when I started looking at things through an equity lens, I said, you know what, this is really important. If nothing else, um definitely the stakeholders part in the decision making process because if we leave, um unless we have very clear ways where decisions are made, oftentimes, it can end up being the most influential person in the room, the loudest male voice in the room is going to sway the decision one way or another or, you know, a lot of sort of um uh you know, nice talk is happening in the larger meeting and then the executives go on a separate meeting to make it, you know, the real decision. Um And so like, you know, a good charter can help avoid these things and say, hey, look, you know, as a project team, we trust each other. So if there’s a executive decision it needs to be made, we’re gonna make it in the group, you know, at least everyone should be listening to it, everyone should be here for it. Um So I think a clear project charter, something very tangible that folks can do. I think having very clear meeting norms. Um and, you know, meeting norms are very common thing, you know, how we start the meeting, how we end the meeting, you know, who takes notes on and so forth. But I think looking at that from an equity lens, um uh is very important also. So making sure that, you know, the person who is leading the meeting or taking the notes or advising that those roles rotate. Um So again, we’re not leaving, we’re not letting decisions be made strictly through the power dynamic. We’re, we’re allowing everybody to participate equally. So if we allow people to participate equally, the outcomes are likely to be more equitable. Um So even something as simple that, you know, many project managers do charters and norms, you know, it’s just about looking at it through an equity lens uh and tweaking those charters and norms accordingly. Okay.

[00:30:03.00] spk_1:
Have we exhausted that? I think

[00:30:04.47] spk_2:
so. I think so. I think so. Yeah, very good.

[00:30:07.33] spk_1:
All valuable. Um What kind of questions did you get? Anything? Uh stick with you from your, from your session,

[00:32:11.78] spk_2:
you know. Um Yes. Uh There was a couple of questions that um one of the questions which I really had to think about was, well, you know, our organization um does projects with an agile approach and that is our, you know, that is our methodology and that is what we promote that as part of our marketing. That’s what we do. And um and then, you know, they said to me, you know, to the group that we’re also finding it’s not working for nonprofits. And I think there’s an equity, you know, foundation to this as well. And, you know, a lot of nodding heads in the, in the audience. And um and this is where I kind of said, well, you’re right, you know, and, and this is where we need to meet the nonprofits where they are. Um, and this is where the extension models or some of the more popular consulting models are just not, not going to fit nonprofits, organizations that may have a light I T staff or no I T staff or you have an event coordinator who’s gonna be your project manager, um, or, you know, a program manager who is going to be your primary contact. You can’t just use the same models as you would with an organization that had 20 people in I T um or an organization, you know, like I work with that, you know, um we’re midway through an implementation and then they said, you know, the governor of Texas just dropped off, you know, 200 people to our, um to our community center and we don’t, we have no plan for them right now. So, okay, we have to take a couple weeks off or, you know, this gala, you know, was, was, um was in person and now we’re gonna have to go virtual. Okay, we’re gonna take a couple weeks off. So most consulting models and especially agile methodologies can’t support this. But this is the reality of nonprofits in 2023. So it was a great question. A lot of nodding heads. In fact, someone came up to me afterwards and said, this is the third time I’ve heard someone say, you know, model X does not work for nonprofits. So, so I think, um that question was great. And it really, um you know, highlighted the point of, you know, kind of how important these forums are um to start realizing that, you know, the tried and true methods, the models that have worked for other corporations. That’s great. We can learn from it. But um nonprofits are a different entity and we have to take that into account and that’s for the

[00:32:23.72] spk_1:
vendor consultant uh community to be.

[00:33:25.96] spk_2:
Right. Right. And, and also sure and also for the client to, to speak up when, when they feel like things are not going, you know, you know, things are going awry or things are not feeling comfortable. So I think it’s, it’s, it’s on both. Yeah. Um There were other questions that I, I really didn’t have an answer for like, okay, but, but they were excellent questions nonetheless. It was, it was like, um okay. So let’s say that you do approach things with an equity lens. How do you, once the project is over? It was an excellent question. How do you know you succeeded? How do you know that, you know, you, you, how do you measure this? And I didn’t have a great answer for that. And in fact said, you know, I want to think about this and because I think there can be a rubric that can be put together to say, you know, even just the things that we’ve talked about today. Um Did we assemble a team that is diverse. Did we rotate the roles in the meeting norms? Did we make clear decision making details in our project charter? So I think there is a rubric that could be put together. In fact, I’m gonna talk to some of my friends here in the, in the intent community to see if that’s something we can, uh you know, we can draft because, because it feels like something that, that this forum can really add value to

[00:33:31.91] spk_1:
it. And what about comparison of outcomes, maybe a year after implementation versus the year before implementation?

[00:33:38.21] spk_2:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I mean, I think all these things can be measured. You know, it’s, it’s just a matter of just coming up with the right rubric or the right scorecard, we measure everything else. Why not measure this? Yeah,

[00:34:01.15] spk_1:
sounds good. You know, it, if you ever are at a loss for an example of where bias and discrimination have entered our culture for folks of color, think of that freaking soap. That’s, it’s, you know, it’s so insidious and so deep rooted yet it’s a soap dispenser. It’s on its face, it’s so innocuous, it just pushes out.

[00:34:19.72] spk_0:
But the

[00:34:21.50] spk_1:
bias built into that technology, that’s

[00:34:31.16] spk_2:
a striking one for me. And there’s so many of this. And if I, if I may highlight the work of Benjamin who um who does has an excellent book called Race After Technology and many books on the same topic that just kind of talks about the intersection of race and technology and so many more examples of this that are, that are so shocking when, when you, when you read about this, about the bias that encourage the technology that we use every single day,

[00:35:03.44] spk_1:
Reuben Singh, he’s founder and CEO at 1/10. Consulting Rubin. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me, tony. Thanks for your honesty. Thanks for sharing. Thank you, appreciate it. And thank you for being with tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 20. Uh where are we? 2023 2023 the nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks so much for being with me.

[00:36:22.72] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two to sharing is caring. Who can you share non profit radio with friends, colleagues, people you used to be friends with, well know people used to be colleagues with. Yeah, uh your social channels possible for you to post on the show there. Certainly, if you tag me, I will give you a shout out. Might even make you listen over the week. I’d be grateful if you would think about who should be listening to non profit radio, who can benefit from our smart guests. That’s what it’s all about. It’s spreading the words, the wisdom of our savvy guests so that more nonprofits go out and be great. If you can share non profit radio, I’d be grateful. Thank you. That is tony Stick to, we’ve got Boo koo but loads more time, the boo koo is back here is make time for professional development.

[00:36:58.30] spk_1:
Welcome to our continuing coverage of 23 N T C the 2023 nonprofit technology conference. We’re at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits with me now is Kalinda Alan James. She is assistant vice President, Information Technology at a common point. Queens Kalinda, welcome.

[00:37:05.39] spk_3:
Thank you for having me. And I

[00:37:07.33] spk_1:
should have asked you, what are your pronouns? She

[00:37:10.46] spk_3:
her? Okay.

[00:37:30.01] spk_1:
She was good. I got, I got lucky. But I, I got to ask in the beginning, this was, this worked out perfectly because I have such a smart social manager who was organizing all these appointments and someone couldn’t make it. And Kalinda was on the wait list and it worked out perfectly that she’s available. So thank you. It’s kind of last minute, but it is last minute, but it’s perfect. Glad you glad it worked out

[00:37:33.04] spk_3:
with technology we worked with last

[00:37:46.76] spk_1:
minute. Yes. As long as the people are, the people are they’re ready for us to. Um So your session topic is making time for professional development. Do you feel like we are short changing ourselves and others around professional development in the nonprofit space? Yes,

[00:37:56.07] spk_3:
we are tasked with learning new things all the time, but we’re not always given the time or the resources to learn those things.

[00:38:06.72] spk_1:
So we need, it sounds like something from the top, from the top down, leadership down needs to be committed.

[00:38:35.02] spk_3:
So you can top down leadership will make it a much faster process. But from the ground level up also works. Um for example, pre pandemic, I was working in middle school technology three years before the pandemic, I became a Google, certified educator and trainer. When I put this information in the file cabinet at hr they were like, that’s nice to know. But once the pandemic came upon us and we had to move all our students online in three days. Having that information in the file cabinet allowed me to become a linchpin for my company.

[00:38:54.23] spk_1:
So let’s not, let’s not take this learning and stick it on a shelf in a file cabinet,

[00:39:23.54] spk_3:
right? And so this is where when you do get the learning, you have to advertise it. If you’re doing it from the ground up and going into the break room during staff meetings, letting people know that I’m a Google certified trainer allowed me to pick up two or three teachers on the staff who didn’t necessarily have leadership support but were interested and I was able to do internal training. And so this groundwork movement that I started three years before pandemic really prepared my environment to be ready when the time was upon us. Alright, love

[00:39:43.67] spk_1:
it ground up as well. Alright. It’ll but it’ll be easier if it’s top down. Yes. Okay. But not to, not to be discouraged if your leadership is uh I don’t know, reluctant. Yes.

[00:40:05.65] spk_3:
And even at the mid level, you know, with my staff, I have a lot of all my staff members to put two hours of professional development on their weekly work calendar to let them know that, hey, we’re giving you resources during the workday. So we’re not adding a burden to your home life. I also have the same two hours on my work calendar. So they know I have focused time. So I am leading by example. And also now that I am a leader in my organization, I am providing the resource of at least the two hours on the weekly calendar for professional development, which

[00:40:52.82] spk_1:
is a perfect lead into your first takeaway, which is we have time for professional development. Yes. So make the time. I mean, a lot of times, you know, you hear is an excuse of what could be for anything, not only professional development, you know, I can’t find the time and I always try to push back that you’re never gonna find the time you’re going to have to make it. So that’s exactly consistent with what you’re saying, two hours a week on your own schedule, as well as two hours a week on, on the schedule for everyone who works for you devoted to professional development.

[00:41:21.41] spk_3:
And that time is flexible like some of my workers are reading leadership books. Some of my workers are doing independent trailheads on sales force. Other people are like reinforcing things that they’ve been practicing on the job. Other people are collaborating with other people on the team who now have time on their calendar for collaboration. So, but just making the time, let the desired outcome have a place to flourish.

[00:41:29.11] spk_1:
What if we get um pushback from above? I mean, maybe they’re just not, not just reluctant but unwilling to let someone devote an hour a week or two hours a week to professional development. What are, what are like? I don’t know. Are there some talking points? We

[00:42:04.88] spk_3:
can? Yes, so we can start with the economics. Okay. If we have to send somebody to away training with airplanes and hotel rooms for one person to go or we can use the built in salary time to keep people in house and learning as a cost savings. It’s thousands of dollars.

[00:42:14.76] spk_1:
Okay. Very good. Right. Travel, accommodations, conference fees, etcetera. Okay. Okay. Um, anything else any other way to push back against our unwilling? See, sweet person

[00:42:45.26] spk_3:
also when we are doing in house development, we are more likely to align our training with what’s happening on the ground with our company. When we’re on the ground floor, we’re literally looking at improvements that we’re seeing every day in the company. Sometimes when we go away for the conferences, we get the big ideas and try to have to retrofit them to what our culture is. And so this way, if we start with the training internally, the learning is built around our culture. That

[00:43:30.47] spk_1:
makes perfect sense. Yeah. And it’s also going to be built around what we’re engaged in because we’re doing it weekly. So I guess we’re more likely to look for development that is consistent with what we’re maybe challenged with, you know, this month, this week or this month or this quarter. Versus as you said, putting the putting the broad strokes from a conference, you know, trying to squeeze your work into it. Okay, perfect. So um anything else you want to share about having, having time making time? So

[00:44:25.19] spk_3:
even in our personal life, because not all professional development is going to the job, sometimes that professional development is going for you to improve your confidence, to improve your skill level, to make you more dynamic for the dynamic job market. You know, and with that case, when we look at our entertainment time, let’s make sure that our entertainment is actually filling us up, there’s a lot of negative television. And so if your entertainment is not filled and you up maybe take one of those one hours from Netflix and chill and put into some professional development um during the pandemic with all the turmoil, one of the things I did when I couldn’t sleep at night was going to Microsoft Learn and just the raw technical documentation. Calm my mind. Let me know things were okay and I learned so much afterwards.

[00:45:00.73] spk_1:
Okay. Use your time wisely. Uh listeners. You may hear the nonprofit technology conference. It’s the opening keynote. There’s a lot of, a lot of audience raucousness in the background. But uh non profit radio perseveres nonetheless, just letting you know what you’re hearing in the background, we’re all on the exhibit floor together along with the uh the, the keynote audience this morning. Um Kalinda, let’s talk about um free resources. I love having free resources for listeners.

[00:45:34.94] spk_3:
Yes. So when I was getting my master’s degree in my small New York family apartment, I didn’t have a desk. So I used the ironing board and I got a whole master’s degree with a four point oh G P A from an ironing board. We must not be discouraged if we don’t have the latest greatest resources, what we have can get us very far. When my arning board was up, my family knew I was in study time and they left me alone when the iron board was down. It was family time resources that I got was

[00:45:43.14] spk_1:
able to. Were you able to fit a chair into your ironing board or you did your studying standing?

[00:46:37.46] spk_3:
So it was a standing desk at times and I did have a folding chair from the card table. And um free resources I used, I Lincoln learning is being offered by a lot of public libraries with your local library card. Once you register with your library card, you get the full breath of Lincoln learning and with the registration, your certificates for completion will have your name on it, which can be used as continuing education at your job. Another free resource is the library. My local library is the children’s library, but they do take book orders so I can look at the full library catalog and have technical books shipped to my children’s library for me to pick them up. Other free resources are um

[00:46:41.70] spk_1:
that’s a great one. By the way, I think, I think a lot of folks have forgotten about their local library.

[00:47:16.00] spk_3:
Yes. And many libraries have a complete schedule on their website, offering different hands on trainings for computer skills, resume writing and you can go to many of these free things and all is needed is your library membership. Other free resources that I have used is many of the major manufacturers like salesforce linkedin Google have a very robust free training for their technology on their website. Many of those websites do have a badge system. So if you would like to do metrics for your employees as a recommendation, you could do like oh in this time period, I want you to have 500 badges or 500 points. So there is still a way to track the free learning.

[00:47:33.90] spk_1:
Okay. Any other free resources,

[00:47:48.09] spk_3:
other free resources is when you’re on your manufacturer website for different skills. Um Places like Microsoft Google Salesforce, they offer challenges. If you can do a certain amount of self paced learning in a certain time, you will receive a free voucher to take their certification exam. And during the pandemic, I was able to become Salesforce certified for a grand total of $45 by using one of these challenges.

[00:48:09.94] spk_1:
What about the linkedin learning? What kind of topics can folks find their around professional development?

[00:49:03.14] spk_3:
So linkedin Learning has an amazing breath of information. They have products like learn Adobe Photoshop, they do have professional management skills like time management um leading from the top, they have different introductory course work on cloud computing and you get interesting information on the breath of the subject to see if you’re interested in the topic before you invest. So linkedin Learning is a great way to get um uh 11 distinct skill or to learn the breath of a topic to see if you would like to go for a more formalized information in that topic. So this way you can go and do five training videos on cloud computing before you sign up for a graduate certificate.

[00:49:12.11] spk_1:
Okay? And all free, all free. So when you said invest, invest time, yes,

[00:49:43.58] spk_3:
we’re investing time. So the first thing we can do that’s available to everybody is we invest the time and then we’ll invest the minimum resources. You can become a Google certified educator for $15 you know. And so there are entryways into technology and other industries that do have a low cost entry point. And these are the places where we explore and a lot of times when you can show commitment and self initiative and you can present how this is going to grow your position at your company. It’s then easier to come back and get funding from your job placement. All

[00:50:00.37] spk_1:
valuable. Okay. Yeah, you make the right. You can make the case so much stronger. Alright. Um Anything else about free resources before we move on?

[00:50:28.27] spk_3:
Um free resources change at all times, so always be on the lookout. Um I have a podcast um study hall with Kalinda the tech and I also have sorry, my podcast to study hall with Kalinda the Tech. And I also have an Instagram at Kalinda the Tech and on there, I post some of the free resources as I come by them. So follow technology leaders who are offering you these tips and always be on the lookout in your free newspaper and your local library for resources as they come by.

[00:50:47.72] spk_1:
And let’s move to um sharing. We have a responsibility you believe, to share what we learn.

[00:51:33.44] spk_3:
Yes. The first thing to do is if you learn something, let your job. No, you know, most hr departments are putting together in internal repository, what type of knowledge they have in their company like I said in the beginning, nobody was interested in my Google certification pre pandemic. But because it was on file with, hr they knew they had internal learning that they could tap when the time was right. Also letting people know what you’re studying because there’s people who are studying in silos and you can become a study buddy. Another thing is when you share what you’re learning, it encourages people around you. Um every day somebody is watching your life, a child, a neighbor, uh business partner, you have a community person that you shop with and when you show growth and change, it gives them hope that they can also have growth and change.

[00:52:01.13] spk_1:
Yes. All right. Um What about mentoring is that is that related to professional development? Having a mentor, mentoring? If you are more senior like you are, yes, you see a role in around mentoring for professional

[00:53:03.64] spk_3:
development. Yes, mentoring does um definitely help and have a place in professional development. But what mentees need to know is they’re going to have to do the work to drive the relationship. So when you show up for your mentor session, you need to come with direct questions, you need to come with focused thought. And if you are given task tools or recommendations, make sure you follow through and report back. Um Mentors generally are at a place in their life where their time is being called in different directions. So entering a mentee relationship thinking that you’re speaking to an oracle that’s going to give you all the answers with a magic wand is the wrong approach. So, entering the mentee, mentor relationship as a mentee, come prepared, come focus and be prepared to work.

[00:53:13.35] spk_1:
What do you see as the mentors responsibilities?

[00:53:42.46] spk_3:
The mentors responsibility is to let them know that they have to be their first advocate that you have to have a direction. And I’m here as a guide and that my blueprint as a mentor came in a distinct time and place in history. So what worked for me might not actually work for you if you’re looking at my life as an exact blueprint, but I do have guiding principles that can help you in any time and place. It sounds like

[00:54:01.19] spk_1:
you’ve done mentoring, formal mentoring. Um any story you can you care to share about mentoring, maybe, maybe something you learned as a mentor or of course a great outcome for a mentee. And

[00:55:24.99] spk_3:
so the thing is we have stories. So the thing is when I started my career way back in 2001 black women in technology, technology leadership was not what I saw. There was nobody like looking like me in the corner office. So my first mentors were black women in the secretary pool. And what they offered me was a deep dive lesson in the company culture, letting me know who the movers and players were explaining the fiscal calendar to me knowing when would be the appropriate time to ask for a raise when people would be having money discussions. And so when we’re looking for mentorship, we have to realize there’s a lot of breath of life experience as well as technical experience that can be shared in these relationships. One of my mentors that was invaluable was a professional woman who had a um personal tragedy in her life. And like what she shared with me was how to grieve on your lunch break, fix your makeup and go back into a board meeting. You know,

[00:55:25.92] spk_1:
that’s, that’s touching and sweet and also enormously practical and

[00:56:39.75] spk_3:
valuable because people are introducing the bring your whole self to work mantra, but not all companies are there. So having mentorship like that about how to read a room, how to understand my company culture is great. I recently had a summer intern that I was mentoring with my company. We offer internships for many of the people in New York City through the summer youth employment program. And so we’re working with young people all the time at the first steps of their careers through internship. And one of the things I remind my intern was when looking for a job, please understand you cannot work for a company without participating in their culture. And he had a secondary internship for the fall and he relayed back to me. Thank you so much for the advice, all the interns who skipped the social gatherings over the summer were not offered full time jobs for after graduation. Um Because at these social gatherings, they were able to meet people throughout the whole company and different departments hire at different times versus being at your internship in one department, not realizing what’s going on with the rest of the company.

[00:57:19.89] spk_1:
Also, the social time is just an opportunity to get to know somebody in a, in a wider breath. You know, I think a lot of hiring is, is this somebody I’d like to have lunch with, you know, that I could socialize with there may or may not be that opportunity once you’re hired. But is it somebody, you know, basically like somebody I like and they’ll get to figure out that they like you if they can see more of you than just your work self.

[00:57:44.89] spk_3:
Yes. And this is the great time to bring up the professional development you’ve been doing that is outside the scope of your every day, you know, this is where, oh, we’re talking about this over the pool table. Oh, I just was taking a geology class online, you know, this fits in so well with that, it just gives you more organic conversations to talk about the things you’re interested in, the things you’re pursuing?

[00:57:53.84] spk_1:
Alright, Kalinda, anything else that you want to share about professional development that we haven’t talked about yet? And you’re gonna, I don’t, I don’t want to shortchange non profit radio listeners. So anything you’re going to cover in the session tomorrow that we haven’t talked about.

[00:58:22.01] spk_3:
So I would also like you to remember that all professional development doesn’t have to be formalized. You know, even taking time to listen to a book on tape that gives you three new ideas or changes your mindset. So you walk into work happier, more fulfilled is also valuable. So not all professional development is going to take a semester long. It could just be a nice beach read in the summer one that includes a professional leadership book

[00:58:57.15] spk_1:
and you know, you should, you should share your professional development formally. Also, I’m sure you said this earlier, but I’m just kind of reinforcing for myself. You want your supervisors to know how you’re spending your professional development time. Yes. What you’ve achieved certificates or even just learning, just learning that maybe not doesn’t come with a certificate. Yes.

[01:00:19.78] spk_3:
And you definitely, it’s always great to let people know what you’re working on, what ideas you’re like, brainstorming that you can bring to the company. And these are like at the water cooler during your official Super Vision’s setting your goal sets for the year. These are all great times to talk about it and self promotion could be self advocacy. So we are not being Braggarts, we’re sharing the information we have so we can be a resource. That’s why I’m telling you that I have a master’s degree that’s why I’m telling you what I’m certified in. So I can be a resource. Like my whole goal is to learn and give back and change my community. Like when I learned that we can do free cover letters in Google and they have a whole online training, teaching you the Google products based on a cover letter. This is going to totally help my neighbor who can’t invest in a $2000 employment coach being advertised on linkedin.

[01:00:50.37] spk_1:
You make a very good point too about self promotion. So many folks are, you know, fearful of that, they feel they are bragging like you said, and it’s not you, you position it very well to say, you know, you’re positioning yourself as a resource to the, to the organization, to your superiors, to your peers, to not only your supervisors, but, um, it’s unfortunate that so many folks are hesitant to talk themselves

[01:00:56.16] spk_3:
up. Yes. And this is where like a good leadership book can help you to help you refine that mindset. You know, in the classroom, we’re not supposed to talk about grades, you know, we’re supposed to keep them secret. We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. But like that mindset doesn’t necessarily work in the work force.

[01:01:43.20] spk_1:
There’s a session here at N T C and I’m interviewing the woman who’s running it about having a powerful voice. What is like, what is voice for power, something like that? I’m talking to her later today. That’s just 11 instance of uh I guess building confidence, you know, sounding confident exudes confidence may be trembling inside, but can you at least sound confident? Yes.

[01:01:45.57] spk_3:
And the thing is it’s much easier to access your confidence when you understand your purpose.

[01:01:53.91] spk_1:
Oh, very good. Spell that out a little. That’s excellent.

[01:02:41.13] spk_3:
So for me, I am a messenger and it is my job to get the message out. Public speaking wasn’t my first choice but public speaking and doing panels at places like N T C allows me to get this much needed information out. There are so many people in these current times who just can’t invest a $10,000 cash payment into a boot camp to change their life. But there are entry point for the free level, the linkedin learning level, the $15 cert certificate level that can get you on the path of change. And those are the messages that I have to get out because my purpose is being a messenger. It’s not being a know it all. It’s not being a brag ID. It’s being a messenger to change people’s lives. And when I know this is my purpose, it’s so much easier to get up and talk on this radio show, to do these panels, to get on the plane and go across the country to have these conversations. Because I know my message is so valuable to my community.

[01:03:26.56] spk_1:
I feel like it’s a perfect place to stop. It’s beautiful. Thank you, Kalinda Alan James, assistant vice president for Information Technology at a common point queens. And she did come across the country. She came from New York to Denver, Colorado and her podcast is study hall with Kalinda the Tech. Alright, thank you very much, Kalinda. Thanks for sharing. Loved it. And thank you for being with our coverage of 23 N T C the nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us

[01:04:44.77] spk_0:
next week, Artificial Intelligence for nonprofits with an esteemed panel, Beth Kanter Allison. Fine, a few Bruce and George Whiner. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box. I’m grateful to Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for May 22, 2023: Multigenerational Technology Teaching & Goals Aligned With Technology

 

Lauren HopkinsMultigenerational Technology Teaching

If you have folks spanning the generations working or volunteering for your nonprofit, you may have noticed they learn technology differently. Lauren Hopkins shares the strategies for teaching tech across the generations. She’s from Prepared To Impact, LLC.

 

 

Jett WindersGoals Aligned With Technology

Step back from your technology decisions before you buy the shiny, new apps. What are your goals for the tech? And how does the tech support your overall goals? Jett Winders from Heller Consulting helps you think through it all.

These both continue our coverage of NTEN’s 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, #23NTC.

 

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Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.


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[00:02:07.29] 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. And this is number 641 which means we are just nine weeks away from the 650th show. 13th anniversary coming in July. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of dextrose gas tria if you upset my stomach with the idea that you missed this week’s show multigenerational technology teaching. If you have folks spanning the generations, working or volunteering for your non profit, you may have noticed they learned technology differently. Lauren Hopkins shares the strategies for teaching tech across the generations. She’s from prepared to impact LLC and goals aligned with technology. Step back from your technology decisions before you buy the shiny new apps. What are your goals for the tech? And how does the tech support your overall goals? Jet Winders from Heller Consulting helps you think through it. All these both continue our coverage of N tens 2023 nonprofit technology conference on Tony’s take to share, share. That’s fair. We’re sponsored by Donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is multigenerational technology teaching.

[00:02:29.17] spk_1:
Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. The nonprofit technology conference we are at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation

[00:02:31.98] spk_0:
for nonprofits. With

[00:02:34.41] spk_1:
me. In this meeting is Lauren Hopkins. She is social impact consultant at prepared to impact LLC Lauren Hopkins. Welcome to

[00:02:46.00] spk_2:
Nonprofit radio. Oh, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Pleasure.

[00:02:53.09] spk_1:
I love your topic. We’re talking about teaching to technology skills in a multigenerational workplace on the baby boomer. You’re a millennial. I am and we will try to bring in a couple of other Jen’s as well. We don’t want to exclude Gen X and sometimes it does sometimes feel a little left out or

[00:03:09.88] spk_2:
they don’t think they feel left out. I don’t think so. As long as we provide the tools, I don’t think so. Okay.

[00:03:17.34] spk_1:
Um And Gen Z, of course. Yes, we’re not going any younger than that. Now.

[00:03:21.41] spk_2:
We do have the traditionalist um younger or I’m sorry, older than the baby boomers. And we discussed that in myself. Okay, traditionalists, traditionalists. Yes.

[00:03:33.10] spk_1:
Okay. Because I’m a young boomer at 61 where traditionalists, I

[00:03:38.33] spk_2:
believe the traditionalists if I recall about 78.

[00:03:57.48] spk_1:
Okay. Well, there still are some 78 year olds in the workplace, especially returning to returning to work, perhaps second career. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I don’t want to leave out and I don’t want anybody traditionalists. So uh just give us, give us like overview. Why did you, why do you feel we’re not doing as well as we could training across the generations?

[00:04:45.23] spk_2:
Yeah. Well, you know, so I really enjoy teaching technology skills. I started as a social worker and I started to um teach technology skills in various sectors. And so Department of Social Services, teaching software implementation. And then I went to Aflac teaching the same thing and in the nonprofit field, and I really feel as though we have individuals within, within the various generations that still have a lot to learn and depending on the learning styles, their learning needs are very different. And so the strategies that we use to teach the technology could vary based upon the generations.

[00:04:52.04] spk_1:
So when you say their learning needs you there starting in different places, starting

[00:04:56.47] spk_2:
in different places and their learning styles as well,

[00:04:59.84] spk_1:
comfort

[00:05:01.18] spk_2:
their comfort and um and the tools and strategies that we will use to reinforce some of that learning some of the activities and such may be different based upon the generation.

[00:05:15.15] spk_1:
One of your takeaways is learning how people value training differently, they value it differently. That was interesting what I’m not, I don’t think of valuing training. So I’m obviously not in the mainstream. So that’s why I’m talking to you because I need help. So how do people value it differently

[00:06:12.37] spk_2:
across the ages if you think about it? Um with some of the, with the baby boomers and we the traditional list, they genuinely want to learn. Um They just may need some, some help along the way where we think of millennials and the Gen Zs. It’s sort of as if um they’re just expecting for the information um to be provided to them. And so we just want to make sure that we’re providing the information that they need to be, to be successful. So it really, it depends on how the information is provided that their values may change.

[00:06:20.18] spk_1:
You have some techniques to talk about. Yes, for training across.

[00:06:26.30] spk_2:
Absolutely.

[00:06:28.01] spk_1:
Let’s, let’s dive in. Okay. Don’t sell short now. And nonprofit radio listeners don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t hold out okay. But what’s, what’s the technique? Which, which one, what should we start with?

[00:07:08.68] spk_2:
Let’s start off with the traditionalists. Okay. Yes. So with the traditionalist one, one thing that we do well with the traditionalists and the baby boomers, we want to make sure that we are providing step by step tools and strategies for them to be successful. So if you are training on some technology skills, make sure that you do have the step by steps with screenshots available and really encourage them to, to go ahead and print that out. So within the training, if your training is virtual or if it’s in person, they can follow along really well. Also, we want to make sure to the best of your ability if we do have someone of a younger generation that maybe we can partner them together with someone of the older generation and they can, they can assist in the learning process.

[00:07:31.30] spk_1:
Students.

[00:07:57.50] spk_2:
Yes. Yes, both are learning because we’re talking about a multigenerational workplace. Um And so, um and also with the baby boomers and the traditionalists, they both prefer to learn within a traditional in person classroom setting. But we know that that’s not always possible. And so we want to make sure that we are um making some accommodations to ensure that they are getting the information in the best way that they receive it the best way that we can. Okay.

[00:08:06.56] spk_1:
So in person is better for the older folks

[00:08:11.28] spk_2:
better and well, let me say preferred is preferred for them. Um Research shows

[00:08:19.45] spk_1:
preferred their prey, but it may not be

[00:08:21.23] spk_2:
possible. How do you, how do you like to learn? Do you prefer virtual as a baby? You say your baby? Right. So do you prefer to learn virtually or in person as far as if you’re learning new technology skills? Yeah,

[00:09:01.32] spk_1:
I have a two part answer to that first is I generally don’t like it when guests turn the tables and put me on the spot. That’s the first, that’s the first answer. But the second answer I will go along with you. Is, uh, no, I prefer, I’d much rather be in person. Yeah. I also prefer speaking to in person audiences. Um, I prefer in person into like this. I mean, I have to do most of them over Zoom because the guests are from all over the country and I live in North Carolina. But, um, are you in

[00:09:10.28] spk_2:
North Carolina? I am from, I’m from North Carolina originally. I now live in South Carolina. Where are you, where are you from? I’m from Hickory and then I went to undergrad in high point and I also lived in Wilmington’s.

[00:09:21.44] spk_1:
Okay of those three. I’m the closest to Wilmington’s. I live in Emerald Isle. You know, the little beach town about an hour and a half above Wilmington’s. Yes,

[00:09:30.36] spk_2:
I do love it. Small world. Where’s hickory hickory hickory? It is at the foothills and so it is about an hour from Charlotte and about an hour and a half from Asheville.

[00:09:44.83] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Foothills. Alright. Alright. I’m originally from New Jersey. Okay. Okay, cool. And you’re in South

[00:09:49.70] spk_2:
Carolina? I do live in South Carolina now Columbia, South Carolina settled down there. So

[00:10:30.84] spk_1:
that’s the capital of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. Don’t think I don’t know why. Yeah. Okay. So, um, yes, so I prefer in person, everything, audiences, learning interviews, um, meetings with, I do plan giving, consulting, fundraising. So I much prefer to meet donors in person, but a lot of times phone has to suffice. And for the older folks that I’m working with, they’re usually not interested in being on Zoom, they’ll do it for their grandchildren, but they’re not gonna do it for me, which is fine. So I pick up the phone, I got you. But I’d rather be in person whenever I can whenever I can.

[00:10:36.81] spk_2:
May I ask something? Then

[00:10:38.82] spk_1:
after my first answer to the last question you’re still gonna ask again?

[00:11:18.05] spk_2:
It’s not a question. It’s not a question. But as far as far as baby boomers and the traditionalist, I also recommend providing an option for them to call. That’s what reminded me uh providing them an option for them to call the, the training consultant, whoever’s doing the training in case they have questions. Um If there’s a phone available phone number, because oftentimes with technology, you know, we want them to email if they have questions or send a message. But with those two generations, they prefer to pick up the phone or if there’s an option to meet in person, not sure if that is possible. But um at least the phone option will be great better

[00:11:42.12] spk_1:
than email or text. Makes perfect sense. It’s what they grew up with. Exactly. And an email and text or what the other generations grew up with. Exactly. So follow up phone offer, phone, follow up anything else for dealing with Boomers, traditionalists? Not right now. Okay. What if maybe we’re gonna get to this. What? Yeah. Alright. So you are we gonna be talking about having multiple generations like in the same class? Yes, like you said, pair off somebody younger with somebody older. Okay.

[00:11:57.72] spk_2:
Okay. Yeah. So one of my suggestions is to um in your training plan, look at the learning styles of all these generations, figure out what is best or how each of them learn best and just implement various little nuggets that meet the needs of all of the generations. That is my suggestion instead

[00:12:16.66] spk_1:
of like what give me some sample nuggets.

[00:13:30.31] spk_2:
Sure. Yeah. And so for the, let’s start, let’s start at the top. So for the um for the traditionalist and for the baby boomers, like I said earlier, you may want to have a um a print out of the step by step guides for the Gen Xers. They love independent work. So for the activities to reinforce that learning, if you have some independent work that would be helpful um for the millennials, they also enjoy group work. And so after the session, if we have some group work, that would be great. And um we can reinforce their learning to by pairing them up with someone who’s a bit older and helping to strengthen both groups. And then for the Gen Z’s, they love videos, training videos. 3 to 6 minutes is the sweet spot videos of 3 to 6 minutes. Because remember this is the generation that goes to youtube for answers to almost anything. And so videos will be great. And so um if we can have trainings and then implement just little pieces that are catering to the various generations inside of the learning plan or the training plan, that would be ideal.

[00:13:37.53] spk_1:
Okay. So take a hybrid

[00:13:39.11] spk_2:
approach. Exactly. Touch

[00:13:45.58] spk_1:
everybody with what they need and this is all research based. We know Gen Z does much better. Exactly. Two

[00:14:01.32] spk_2:
six minute video. Yes. Yes. And for those who have attended the conference this year, the learning materials and my slides with the references are online. Okay, so they can pull that

[00:14:03.12] spk_1:
up, walking your talk. Alright. Yeah. Um what else other, other techniques across the generations? We got plenty of time

[00:14:22.38] spk_2:
together. Okay. So let’s go with the Gen Xers. They really enjoy being active and so their activities, if they can be active, that would the ideal um any type of gaming that would be great too. So um in their activities, if they can get up and move, if it’s in person or if it’s virtual, let’s set up a way that the activities can help them to just be active and implement what they are learning. That’s key.

[00:14:43.66] spk_1:
So active, meaning they get up out of their

[00:15:35.85] spk_2:
seats. Oh yeah, that’s good. Let me clarify, let me clarify. Yeah. So for active you could get out of your seat. But an activity. So what I like to do is say for instance, you have a, um, an activity plan for them to, let’s say I used to work at our local United Way, United Way of the Midlands in Columbia, South Carolina. And I taught the homeless management information system to about two huh 100 users. Right. And so what I like to do is after their New Year’s or trainings, I would email them a task sheet for them to complete their tasks. And once they finish that task sheet, go ahead and send me their work and I’ll look over it. So that is a way for them to be active. Now, depending on the resources that your agency have, you may have um some gaming um strategies or tools. My agencies did not have that. So we work with what we have. Um But that is a way just for them to be um to be actively doing something and to reinforce the learning that has taken place.

[00:16:40.97] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Stop the drop with donor box. It’s the online donation platform used by over 100,000 nonprofits in 96 countries. It’s no wonder it’s four times faster. Checkout, easy payment processing, no setup fees, no monthly fees, no contract. How many potential donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your website? You can stop the drop donor box helping you help others donor box dot org. Now back to multigenerational technology teaching with Lauren Hopkins.

[00:16:48.01] spk_1:
What about Gen Z. Anything? Anything further further for Gen Z besides the video?

[00:17:05.26] spk_2:
Yeah, just for, for Gen Zs and for millennials, one thing to note is that they love learning management systems or LMS as most people. Um Well,

[00:17:06.23] spk_1:
I have Jargon Jail on non profit radio. So I’m glad you opened with learning management system. LMS would have to call you out. What the hell is an LMS?

[00:18:48.07] spk_2:
Um So the LMS for learning management system that have a feel of social media. All right. So if we have a discussion board, if we um have some sections that just feel like social media, that you can put together a poster or um share a tidbit or tip of the day that just feels like social media that would be helpful. Now, if your agency does not have those type of resources, that is okay. Another thing that is helpful, especially for the millennials is if there is a blog for um this generation really enjoyed blogs. And so if there’s a blog where you as a trainer can introduce some tips, so say for instance, every week or two, you do a tips Thursday or tips Tuesday or whatnot and introduce or post a tip for them to be utilizing the system. That would be, that would be great also. And another thing as well, remember remember that with these videos, we have to have somewhere to store them, right? And so one thing that I do a couple things that I suggest finding a mutual place where we can store the videos via your, the L M s or maybe it’s a site that is open where you can store those, those videos, a screen share videos that could be helpful as well. Um And also I’m not sure if it’s possible, but depending on your agency, if your company has a, a, a, a company, youtube, see if it’s possible where you can record the screen of some trainings, just making sure that it’s not any confidential information on the screen. But see if we can store it on there. And remember too that the videos should be between 3 to 6 minutes if that’s not possible. 20 minutes or less, but the sweet spot is 3 to 6 minutes.

[00:19:19.53] spk_1:
Yes. Um What kinds of you already had your session? I did. What kinds of, what kinds of questions were you

[00:20:21.73] spk_2:
getting? Yeah. So I got a couple questions. One question that we got was for the baby boomers and for the um traditionalists if they are in this um in the classroom and um we cannot implement in person trainings, how do we teach them? What’s the best way? And so one thing that I really enjoy doing, especially with training software is for those generations, I really like to do one on one training. I love to do one on one training. And so what I offer them is let’s meet one on one now in my um in my work experience, we always use teams. And so, and I’ve also um I use some others too, but mainly teams, but let’s go ahead and share your screen. And what I like for them to do also is for them to drive the training. So I don’t, I always prefer if the learners, no matter what the generation is, if the learners will share their screen and, and drive and I will teach them as they practice. Dr

[00:20:32.68] spk_1:
meaning what they decide what the topics

[00:21:54.58] spk_2:
are, training, training agenda. Yes, we have a training agenda. Exactly. So let’s say for instance, I am teaching um a staff member at a local shelter how to check a client into a bed using a particular software. What I’m going to do as the trainer, if this is their first day, I’m going to ask them to log into the system. Be it the live system or a training system somewhere? They can mess up in and practice or whatnot and share their screen. I’ll give them a login, share their screen and I will teach them. All right. This is where you go to enter in the client’s name. Okay, go ahead and do that. Alright. Next, we’re going to click on such and such. Okay, go ahead and do that. Um And so that’s what I mean by driving. So letting them um letting them navigate and, and play around and see what it feels like also I do enjoy and I do suggest rather having step by step guides like I’ve mentioned before. But if your agency does not have that or you don’t have time to create it or whatnot, because we do know that a lot of nonprofits, they have a smaller staff and such or, you know, smaller department. So that’s okay. Make sure you give your learners no matter what the generation time to write notes, um write notes during the trainings. And so make sure that, you know, you’re taking your time and and can write, allowing them to write some notes that that is a huge tip.

[00:22:06.64] spk_1:
Any other valuable questions you got? Oh,

[00:23:01.81] spk_2:
yeah, let’s see here. I did have a question about um oh, confidential information. Um Someone asked me a question about um confidential information and sharing, not sharing the confidential information. But what if it is a part of the new software? Let’s say that it is an electronic health health record that your agency is in implementing. And so one of my suggestions is to just ensure that the company that, you know, the company’s policies and what can be shared during training and what should be only shared, you know, in, in the real world. And so that, that is um that is huge. Someone said that oftentimes that is the question, should we be sharing this or whatnot? So that’s my suggestion that just look at your company’s policies as far as the training or if y’all don’t have that, um, go ahead and implement something, what should be shared during these trainings, what can be shared or if we need to go ahead and make up some dummy data

[00:23:09.39] spk_1:
beforehand, dummy database.

[00:23:12.76] spk_2:
Exactly. And then sometimes with some databases, um if there’s not a dummy database, maybe that we can make up some data in the live one and just delete it. It just depends

[00:23:25.57] spk_1:
or something. Exactly.

[00:23:29.61] spk_2:
Exactly. Yeah. So that’s part of the pre planning process.

[00:23:34.53] spk_1:
You were going to have folks practice designing strategies. Now, how did you, we can’t practice here but how did you set folks up to? It was

[00:24:37.91] spk_2:
great. Yeah. So what I went ahead and did, I created five different scenarios of agency that are implementing a training, a tech training. And so what we did is we went around the room and we split up the individuals and um they went ahead and I created a pre created objectives for the scenarios for the, for the training plan and they put in place some activities for them. And then also that could be um that could be used to teach the information and then a skills check activity. So how can we ensure that the learner has um understands the information? And so it went really well. And then after that, after um after the groups, we probably spent 15, 18 minutes or so and then the various groups went around and shared with the entire um and with the entire class, their ideas one or two minutes, but they gave us some um some fresh ideas that they have utilized in the past. And then, um as they, as they were working in the team, how they brainstormed then went really well. Now

[00:24:57.73] spk_1:
skills check. Sounds to me like a euphemism for test.

[00:25:26.15] spk_2:
Yeah. Well, it doesn’t have to be though. It does not have to be a quiz. It could be say that that task sheet that I was telling you about earlier, do this, do this and then once you finish these tasks, send me say the client number or the client I D and I will check it out. I’ll check it out before you get access to the life site. I really like to do that or it could be um just do this worksheet and go ahead and write down the responses oftentimes to with these skills checks. They don’t need to turn them into, you know, if you want them to and that could be an evaluation part or evaluation strategy for you as a trainer to make sure, okay, our folks really learning what they need to learn but sometimes it’s a way for them to just practice. Mm hmm.

[00:25:47.36] spk_1:
What did you learn in your session? You know?

[00:25:51.06] spk_2:
Yeah. That’s a good question.

[00:25:52.91] spk_1:
I finally 23 minutes in decent question comes out of this guy. I

[00:28:21.56] spk_2:
love it. No. Um So what did you take away? Yeah, my takeaway was that I really through that activity of the scenarios and then creating a training plan. I actually came, came away and walked away with some good ideas, um, that I could actually use in the workplace or share with others. And, yeah. So, um, let’s see here. Oh, one particular group they stated that they would have a hybrid training, so to meet the needs of all of the generations, they would introduce a hybrid training instead. So virtual for some and then in person for others um that’ll be really helpful. Also making sure that we have a step by step guides um available. That is really good. Um I did have if I could go back to the one question that you stated about um about the questions that some folks asked. So one thing that someone came up to me afterwards, they stated that they work for um they work for Salesforce and they train um the Salesforce Salesforce software with different agencies and because sales force can be so customizable, she was wanting to know what are some suggestions or what is a suggestion that you have for the step by step guide piece, especially for some of the older generations or even the video piece also because sometimes you don’t want to create too many videos because the screens may change because it is customizable. And so um and I did ask her, I said, okay, Well, do you have relationships with these individuals? And she said, yeah, so, so she’s not just going in one day and then just leaving. So over time, I did encourage her to just get to know the learners, um try to figure out what their needs are and to create a video for that agency specifically for that agency that may be helpful. And then as the software changes, she may need to um recreate a video, but hopefully that will last a little bit for, you know, once they’ve been, you know, customize their screens have been customized a bit, but that is one suggestion. She said that was very helpful. Um So, you know, she may not, she said she didn’t have time to do the step by step right now guides. So that’s okay. Um But let’s see if we could do some videos and because the video should be 3 to 6 minutes. She said that maybe, oh, maybe I could do some short videos depending on the topic and go ahead and create those and share them with the agency. All

[00:28:50.26] spk_1:
right, Lauren. Um You want to leave us with some uplifting thoughts about, you know, why it’s important to be all inclusive in your training.

[00:29:29.53] spk_2:
It really is. Well, thank you and thank you for the opportunity. So this subject matter is very close to my heart. I really enjoy training and especially those of the older generation. Um No offense but baby Boomers and the traditionalists. Yeah, they’re actually my favorite generation to teach. And I think oftentimes as we’re thinking about technology, we sometimes leave out um, Gen Xers, baby boomers and the traditionalists and we sort of forget about those learning needs. Now. Um I did not share this and you might not, you might know, but I actually have a doctorate in curriculum and instruction and,

[00:29:37.18] spk_1:
yeah,

[00:29:57.86] spk_2:
that’s okay. And so, um so training and learning is just very close to my heart. So just remember that no matter what the generation is, um just please keep in mind their learning needs and that if they’re in the classroom, they might be forced to be in the classroom depending on their jobs. But they all have various learning needs and they have um they have value at the agency and we need to equip them with the tools to be successful. We really do. And so um so it’s just been, it’s been very, very good, it’s been a good experience and I really hope that folks can take some of this information and use it at their workplaces and in their communities, at

[00:30:53.57] spk_1:
the very, very least rages consciousness. You need to be aware, sensitive to the different values, the different learning styles, learning needs of everybody who’s in your workplace. Not just the folks who are new to the organization or not just the folks who are of a certain age of a certain age, of course, So raising the very bad, I mean, you’re going way beyond just consciousness raising, you have a lot of very good ideas too. But greater consciousness is

[00:31:14.33] spk_2:
absolutely. And one other thing if you don’t mind, the you brought up a good point in saying beyond the new user training, the initial training, remember that just because the users of any generation has completed, the new user training does not mean that they don’t need on going training. So we want to remember that and make that a part of the overall training plan for ongoing training.

[00:31:21.49] spk_1:
Our staff, absolutely, internal professional development. People want to feel supported otherwise, quite quick. Yes.

[00:31:29.61] spk_2:
Yes, absolutely.

[00:31:35.61] spk_1:
I would like to put something on the record that I am a very young 61 born, born in 1962. So very among the youngest of all the baby Boomers is me on the record. I love it. Dr Lauren Hopkins, Dr Lauren Hopkins. Thank you very

[00:31:48.43] spk_2:
much. Thank you. I appreciate it, tony. Thanks for having me. My

[00:32:03.59] spk_1:
pleasure. She is social impact consultant at prepared to impact LLC. And thank you for being with me for our 20 our 2023 nonprofit technology conference coverage where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits.

[00:33:23.25] spk_0:
Mhm. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Hello, who can you share non profit radio with? Maybe it’s among your friends, your colleagues who on your board should listen at least who on your board. Would you like to have? Listen, first step is you gotta share the show with them or who did you used to work with that you’re still willing to talk to. Could you by chance mention non profit radio on your linkedin or Twitter Mastodon? I’d be grateful if you tag me. I will certainly give you a shout out. And I thank you very much for thinking about who you could share non profit radio with and then sharing non profit radio. Thanks very much. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got just about a butt load. More time here is goals aligned with technology.

[00:33:54.88] spk_1:
Welcome to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. You know what that is? You know, it’s the 2023 nonprofit technology conference that is hosted by N 10 and that we are in Denver, Colorado. We are hosted by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. And from Heller with me now is Jet Winders, Director of Sales at Heller Consulting Jet. Welcome to non profit

[00:34:00.76] spk_3:
radio. Thank you for having me, tony. Pleasure.

[00:34:04.57] spk_1:
Absolutely. Your session topic is how to align your nonprofit’s goals with technology. That’s right. Why is this an important session? Why do we need this?

[00:34:24.12] spk_3:
Yeah. You know, for so many organizations and certainly for tech enthusiasts at a conference like this, sometimes we geek out on the and want to jump straight to what system or what tool are we going to use? And it’s really important to step back and think about what is the goal of using that tool. So what is your nonprofits goals to even start with and then align that with the technology? Because the technology is always advancing something the organization is trying to do,

[00:34:52.20] spk_1:
right? The technology is advancing, presumably your mission certainly is stable. Your goals are going to evolve to achieve achieving that mission. But we need to align these moving parts basically.

[00:34:57.38] spk_3:
That’s right. You know, non profits, they spend a lot of time building strategic plans and they’ll outline, you know, what those North Star goals are and then what those specific levers they’re gonna pull, you know, whether that’s increasing fundraising or awareness or patient outcomes. Those are the goals that the technology is driving towards the goal is never let’s adopt a new tool just for the sake of doing it.

[00:35:22.22] spk_1:
So I’m taking from your, from your learning objectives, identifying technology strategies and how those affect software solution. So what kind of technology strategies are we talking

[00:36:13.40] spk_3:
about? Yeah, you know, sometimes we talk about uh organizations, you know, approach to technology, how do they adopt it? What type of relationship do they want to have with it? So for some organizations that might mean we want to be the most innovative in the field were okay taking risks if it’s going to allow us to be a first mover or advanced something or show the sector something they haven’t done before while others might be, you know, we have to be conservative with our dollars. We want to do something that’s tried and true. We want to do what is proven in the space already. And so we want to do what our peers are doing. That’s a totally different relationship with how you might approach technology and the tools you might adopt. And, and that is just, you know, sort of a philosophy that different organizations adopt that can have an impact on what technology they ultimately select.

[00:36:26.61] spk_1:
Okay. Have you done your session

[00:36:28.41] spk_3:
yet? No, it’s to, it’s on Thursday. Okay.

[00:36:31.23] spk_1:
So walk us through, how are you going through it with your in your session? How are you approaching this?

[00:37:30.18] spk_3:
Yeah. So for first, what I like to get organizations to imagine is that changing technology is actually part of a broader operational change within the organization. And whenever you change technology, uh your business processes also have to change along with that. And your people also have to change whether that’s simply training to use the new tools or it could be new roles and responsibilities based on those tools. And so you want to put in contact context, a technology change with the broader impact that it’s going to have to try to make that change. The other way. I like to get organizations to think about it is that, you know, the technology is always advancing those broader goals within the organization. And so we want you to think through the impact that you’re trying to make first and always be. So starting with that impact messaging rather than, you know, again, getting into the nitty gritty of what tools we’re gonna change in systems we’re gonna change. We need to be centering the impact that it’s going to have at the organization for us to actually sell and make that plan for what we’re gonna adopt and what tools we’re gonna move forward. Okay. So

[00:37:58.19] spk_1:
yeah, centering the impact, right? Not centering the tools we’re not focusing on, not focusing on the tools. Um What is there a method of you? I think you have a method of um assessing different options, information systems options. You say what, what’s, what’s that assessment part

[00:39:15.54] spk_3:
about? Yeah, we take folks through a roadmap methodology that starts with, you know, real strategic discovery to understand what organizations are trying to accomplish. Uh you know, get those specific requirements of what do these tools need to do? It’s not about tool functionality. It’s about what do staff actually need to be able to accomplish in their day to day rolls and then from those types of requirements, build out what you need these systems to accomplish for you. So what role will those technology systems play within the organization? And then only then start to put specific names to what those tools are and that’s where you might actually go out to the vendors at the conference to start to fill in. You know, we need a tool that’s going to do this for our organization. Well, let’s find what tool that is. And you know, the way technology has changed over the years, there’s so many options out there. You know, whether you’re going to take an approach that’s based on a platform and build and customize it to meet all those requirements, or if you’re going to try to find more highly special tools and uh take on the sort of integration requirements of using, you know, tools from different vendors. So there’s not one size fits all anymore of, I just need a tool that does X. You really have to think through that broader approach and put the pieces together and make sure it’s all gonna add up to, you know, those, those goals and outcomes you described at the very beginning.

[00:40:14.31] spk_1:
What about the difference between the like sort of the all inclusive, like like a black box solution or Salesforce versus smaller apps that do different things like accounts payable or there’s an accounts payable vendor behind me. Um Behind us, we’re in the same boat behind us. Um or something else does. You know, it is a fundraising CRM is if you’re, if you’re trying to center the goals, there’s, there’s, there’s one, there’s a one, one size fits all system like that really makes sense. Yeah. Well, one can it, I’m, yeah, that’s such a neophyte question. I don’t know.

[00:41:11.54] spk_3:
It’s, it’s a great question because you are centering the goals and then you also want to look at your organization’s relationship with technology. So that is that example I I shared about whether you’re an innovator or you want to do best practices. You know, these are sort of guiding principles on what your relationship is with technology. Another example might be, um we want to build up our own internal capacity to manage tools and systems with a strong I T and operations department where another organization might say we’re first and foremost fundraisers and program managers, and we’re going to leverage experts outside of our organization to manage our technology. So that’s two totally different relationships with technology. So when you start to decide on your own guiding principles at the organization on what your relationship with technology will be that can then help you answer that question of whether it makes sense to use a platform where you’re going to be responsible for maintaining the integrations and maintaining the customization, or we’re gonna look to a single vendor who’s gonna provide multiple tools in the ecosystem because we’re going to use them as our experts and, and not keep that internal expertise.

[00:41:40.23] spk_1:
Is there a case study or story that you can share?

[00:42:06.58] spk_3:
Yeah, tomorrow, I’ll be highlighting, you know, three different examples of organizations that we worked with and, and took them through this process. And so you know, for one organization, uh they were really focusing on having tools that were easy for their users to use. They needed to look across the organization to a platform that could support five different departments within the organization. Um And they were prepared to take on managing that platform but didn’t want to build it all out from scratch. And so that organization chose salesforce as a solution that had built some of the purpose built mission tools that they needed on their platform already working with another organization on the

[00:42:42.44] spk_1:
salesforce. Absolutely. What kind of outcomes did they see that? You think they would not have, they would not have gained if they had done is the way it’s typically done or, you know, focused on focusing on the technology instead of their mission and goals.

[00:43:06.24] spk_3:
Yeah, I think the approach that they might have taken that I, in my opinion would have been a mistake would be to look at each of these departments in the organization individually. So they’d be looking at uh you know, their programs and uh mission support separately from fun raising separately from finance. They might have each submitted an RFP focused on what are the requirements for each of that department? And they might have chosen different systems based on in a vacuum, what looked best for that department and then none of it would work together and I T would never be able to support it. They never get any good analysis of how information is actually flowing within the organization?

[00:43:30.24] spk_1:
Alright, I kept you from another

[00:43:59.59] spk_3:
story. Well, yeah. Well, in uh in contrast, another organization really was looking at efficiency, you know, they were in that state of having different systems within each of the departments and their I T department recognized that they couldn’t support the different systems that had been chosen independently by different departments. And so they really focused on having a centralized I T structure that could manage and develop solutions on behalf of all of these different departments. They chose Microsoft as a platform because it was an extension of expertise that they already had already using Microsoft in some areas of the organization and then building on that. So they have a core competency now as an organization on Microsoft and are able to hire for those roles and maintain solutions across the organization that are sharing from that platform.

[00:44:49.16] spk_1:
If you’re centering your goals, there’s a lot of organizational introspection that’s got to happen first. So are you, are you looking to your strategic plan? I guess if, if you’ve got one that’s current, I mean, how does this, how does this exercise take place before you start talking about technology

[00:44:49.81] spk_3:
solutions? That’s right. You know, when and where

[00:44:52.24] spk_1:
also it’s c suite conversations. Is it down at the user level? You know, so please wear also. Yeah,

[00:45:30.76] spk_3:
absolutely. You know, when we start working with clients, it’s amazing how much work has usually already been put into defining those types of broader organizational, you know, goals, you know what those strategic plans are, those are often already, you know, their year three of a 10 year strategic plan and they may or may not be on track to achieve some of those lofty goals that got put out there. So, you know, technology is really downstream to support those goals. And we’re often, you know, when we’re working with somebody in operations or an I T kind of forcing them to dig up that, that document and, and confirm like this is still the path the organization is, is on, that’s what we’re trying to accomplish so that we can put our recommendations in context of what the whole organization is doing.

[00:45:52.09] spk_1:
Okay. Um And you had a third story.

[00:46:31.72] spk_3:
Yeah. Well, you know, I I shared uh an example of a Salesforce platform and Microsoft platform. We worked with another organization that actually left Salesforce, um really recognized that managing that platform was too much for the organization. They did not want to keep the in house staff to manage that. Uh They wanted to focus on fundraising, but, you know, didn’t really have the internal capacity to, you know, select apps or integrate with, you know, other online tools. And so they actually went to a purpose built solution, they went to virtuous that happened to have a lot of, you know, features and functionality out of the box for them with an easy on boarding process and a lot less ongoing maintenance and cost for them in the long run. And so, uh, there’s no, you know, perfect solution for everybody out there. It’s really about aligning what you need, you know, to work with and the tool and, and finding what’s going to be the right fit for you.

[00:46:57.27] spk_1:
You have some recommendations about evaluating different uh solutions that you might have, you might identify. Okay, they fit your, your, your stated goals. How do we make the, make the decision?

[00:47:28.65] spk_3:
Yeah. Well, one thing I discourage folks from doing is focusing on the old demo with organizations. You know, when we talk with folks, that’s almost the first things that they go to, you know, they wanna see demos of a bunch of different products and the demos only offer a limited insight into some of the usability, you know, how user friendly something might be. Uh people are flying through the

[00:47:33.69] spk_1:
screen, they could never replicate it, you could never replicate it five minutes after it was shown to you.

[00:48:15.84] spk_3:
That’s right. It doesn’t give you the full perspective. And so, you know, what we really encourage folks to think through, you know, once you’ve done that sort of identifying your goals, understanding what types of tools might be appropriate based on how you want to approach and use technology, then, you know, actually identify systems and platforms that could meet those goals. Sometimes there’s only one or maybe sometimes there’s one or two with big contrasts between them. You can actually do a lot more groundwork and understanding whether those are going to be a fit for you or not before you actually see the product, seeing the product is just that kind of final confirmation to see how it works and get a little more familiar. So how do you do

[00:48:22.87] spk_1:
this groundwork in your evaluation? How do you, yeah, what do you do before the

[00:49:07.82] spk_3:
demo? Yeah. So from, from your discovery effort and developing the requirements, the critical step is prioritizing those requirements against the goal. So you know, when you ask people what they need or what they want to be able to do, you’ll hear tons and tons of different things. And so the real critical period is prioritization of what is going to be mission critical for that fundraising strategy. That’s gonna get you double fundraising in three years or what’s that critical requirement? That’s gonna allow you to analyze whether, you know, multiple, you know, whether one of your program participants is actually participating in three programs so that you can actually see, see that rather than it being siloed data in separate program databases. So prioritizing what’s critical for you allows you to then look at different technology approaches and systems and narrow them down before you ever get to the demos. What

[00:49:24.98] spk_1:
else do you have planned for your audience tomorrow that we haven’t talked about yet.

[00:49:59.80] spk_3:
Yeah. You know, the last exercise I’ll talk folks through um is one way to, to map out your systems in sort of a pre work to any technology selection is to track what data is coming in to the organization where that data is stored, how it’s being used by different individuals and what other data folks would want and need. You know, sometimes a mistake that we see organizations make is they just think all data is good. We want to capture as much of it as possible, but that’s actually not the case. You really want to understand what data you’re already getting and where it is, but also what data you need to make critical decisions and who needs to use it. And when, because having that kind of map of where your data is, how you’re going to use it and what you need is really a lens that we can use to look at these technology systems of whether it’s going to support that or not.

[00:50:25.97] spk_1:
Okay. Anything else planned for tomorrow? I don’t know what you’re holding out on nonprofit radio listeners. I think we’re

[00:50:33.15] spk_3:
gonna talk about tomorrow. I think you’ve got the highlights for sure.

[00:50:47.12] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. These Jet Winders, Director of Sales the hell are consulting, which is our 23 N T C sponsor technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Jet. Thank you

[00:50:52.14] spk_3:
very much. Thank you, Tony Blair. My

[00:50:54.11] spk_1:
pleasure and thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C 2023 nonprofit technology conference

[00:51:38.77] spk_0:
next week, equitable project management and make time for professional development. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Check out donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff.

[00:51:41.05] spk_1:
The shows social media is by Susan Chavez

[00:51:43.71] spk_0:
Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by

[00:51:49.46] spk_1:
Scott Stein. Thank you for that

[00:52:00.34] spk_0:
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 April 24, 2023: Technology Governance

 

Maureen WallbeoffTechnology Governance

Maureen Wallbeoff

Sounds boring. In anyone else’s hands, it might be. But Maureen Wallbeoff brings her energy and lightness to help us understand the symptoms of unmanaged tech; the value of a technology governance group; and strategies for easing common technology pain points. Maureen is The Nonprofit Accidental Techie. (This continues our coverage of NTEN’s 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, #23NTC.)

 

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

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

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[00:01:28.31] 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 come down with Trigon Itis. If you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Technology governance sounds boring in anyone else’s hands. It might be, but Maureen will be off, brings her energy and lightness to help us understand the symptoms of unmanaged tech, the value of a technology governance group and strategies for easing common technology pain points. Maureen is the nonprofit Accidental Techie. This continues our coverage of N tens, 2023 nonprofit technology conference on tony Steak to a great non profit podcast. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from Donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is technology governance.

[00:02:18.51] spk_1:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. You know what it is. You know, it’s the 2023 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10. You know that we’re in Denver, Colorado at the Colorado Convention Center what you don’t know is that now I’m with Maureen will be off. We are sponsored at 23 NTC by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits and very grateful for their sponsorship. Maureen will be off is nonprofit digital strategist and technology coach at the nonprofit Accidental Techie with Maureen will be off. So she’s also aptly named and

[00:02:20.58] spk_2:
I say hello right back to

[00:02:23.13] spk_1:
our last interview.

[00:02:24.52] spk_2:
Wonderful. You worked with her where she Firefly partners hired her a million years ago. I, I was, I was one of the owners and a partner for 10 years staying in my hotel room this week. So

[00:02:43.12] spk_1:
I’m going to the Firefly.

[00:02:44.59] spk_2:
So am I will see you?

[00:02:47.30] spk_1:
There were a founder, founder and

[00:03:10.66] spk_2:
another 2008, some silent business partners came together and gave us an opportunity to start an agency. They gave us a little money and we were fully remote from day one when all we had was a O L instant messenger to chat with each other. That will tell you how long ago that was 2000

[00:03:18.04] spk_1:
and

[00:03:36.88] spk_2:
2018. So stayed for 10 years. And then I felt like I was so far away from the organizations themselves to actually lend a hand because we had people like Corley who were working directly with our clients. So I sold my shares and left the organization and started my own solo consultancy. At that point. I’ve

[00:03:43.04] spk_1:
known Jen Frazier. For just a few years. But I didn’t know that I’ve known you since you were on non profit radio last year. I didn’t, I just didn’t know about the connection.

[00:03:52.40] spk_2:
You know, we’re all connected here.

[00:03:55.08] spk_1:
So we’ll see, I’ll see you at the pizza party tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,

[00:03:58.82] spk_2:
tomorrow night.

[00:04:01.13] spk_1:
All right, Maureen. We’re talking about technology governance for accidental techies. Why did you feel that this was important enough that it merited a session at 23 NTC?

[00:04:52.55] spk_2:
Because most organizations, whether they’re large or small have simple technology or very sophisticated technology really struggle with managing it as a holistic ecos system. So the fundraising folks handle their tools, the communications folks handle their tools. But, but you know, when we bring these products, software CRM into our organizations, it’s really tricky to get it all, to talk to each other, to work well, to make decisions for the best interests of the organization as opposed to just the users of that system. So often when I work with nonprofit clients, it’s the first time, the right group of people, like a cross functional, collaborative group of people have sat down and made decisions about technology together with everybody’s interests and needs in mind and it makes your systems work better and it helps you get a return on investment.

[00:05:19.44] spk_1:
So we’re envisioning a nonprofit where there are disparate systems, like there’s an accounts payable there, maybe there’s a treasury system, maybe there’s another bookkeeping system or something. There’s, of course, a fundraising system, there’s an hr

[00:05:34.57] spk_2:
email marketing, peer to peer fundraising volunteers, etcetera.

[00:05:45.78] spk_1:
Now, what about the companies that endeavor to put all these under one, um, mass name? Like, like, I don’t know, the salesforce or Blackball. Do those actually help small and mid size? Our listeners are in small and midsize shops. There’s, there’s no, um, I don’t know, there’s no 1000 employees, uh non profit listening, most likely. So do those big, do those big names work for small and midsize?

[00:07:43.13] spk_2:
They can, they can if they’re governed, if someone is paying attention to them, if the right people are talking about what’s working, what’s not working. Usually what happens in the small to mid size shops is the stuff as a whole is not cutting it, you know, or you’ve got redundancy, you’ve got two platforms that do the same thing or more or even something as simple as multiple canvas accounts, you know, like let’s talk about what you have, bring it all together. Um Make sure that users are supported, make sure that you know what you’re spending on this stuff and that the data is moving around between the systems instead of um data silos because that’s really where the power of all these tools comes in is, yeah, you can pay your staff. Yeah, you can collect online donations. But if different people have different needs and they’re not sitting together collaboratively making decisions, it causes friction and frustration. Often folks feel like they need to be a technology expert in order to govern their technology. So they don’t do it or they feel like, hey, I’m paying for this thing. It should just do what it’s supposed to do. It’s like if you hired a new staff person and never on boarded them, they’re professional, they know what they’re doing. They’ll just come in here, we’ll give them a computer and they’ll go not going to perform as well as a person who is managed, overseen and kind of guided to be the best that they can be. Alright,

[00:08:07.30] spk_1:
let’s talk about some of these symptoms of unmanaged technology bundle stack stack like a pro totally pro tech stack. Yeah. What does this look like that? We know we’ve got an ungoverned stack surrounding us, engulfing us. Maybe it’s engulfing us like it’s an Amoeba were a little Amoeba also were something smaller than an Amoeba. Amoeba have to eat two and it’s being engulfed by this Amoeba tech stack.

[00:09:53.73] spk_2:
What some of the symptoms are, are things like I just mentioned, you’ve got multiple of the same function, three email tools. Why, you know, probably just one would be better that way you can get really good at that. In addition to only paying for one thing, staff are due doing a lot of manual work that could be automated. So I’ve worked with an organization, small organization where everything was people powered even though they were paying a lot of money for the technology that they had in house. So change management, user adoption, none of that stuff was actually being taken care of. Um Your technology budget can grow dramatically year over year and no one really knows what you’re paying for everything, waste of money, waste of time. Uh You can also have turnover on your team if they feel like they’re um their pain points or their ideas for improvement are not being heard, they will leave and then you’ll need to start all over again. So it usually hits, there’s a, there’s a plan problem. You don’t have a plan for how you’re going to use all this stuff together. There’s a people problem, your folks are not trained properly or don’t have the right skills to be successful using this stuff, platforms, maybe you’re not in the right system or there’s a big gap or a business process problem. So a governance group small and scrappy meet once a month and kind of do updates with each other. Hey, here’s what we’re working on in our area of the text. We’re

[00:10:04.66] spk_1:
gonna, we’re gonna get to the technology, to your T G technology, technology Governance group, but I just want to see any more, any more symptoms of malfunctioning

[00:10:50.44] spk_2:
large frustration and you might not, you might be confusing your supporters because if they have one platform that they’re using, that looks and feels very different from another platform like I’m a volunteer and donor and the rules are different. Um Depending on which system I’m using. Um You probably are not giving your supporters the seamless experience that all of this stuff that we say we have to have inside our organizations to engage our supporters effectively. Um You’re failing on that promise, you know, you’re paying a lot for something that feels clunky, frustrating lots of manual workarounds. So

[00:11:00.80] spk_1:
a solution is the technology governance can be who should be a part of our T G.

[00:11:32.53] spk_2:
The T G G is an interesting little animal because when you think about another meeting, like I have to be part of another group, I have to go to another meeting. It pre fatigues most of us, right? Like I’m not, not into that so much. But if you pick the main system owners or users, like the person who’s your database manager on the fundraising, somebody from marketing and communications, somebody from finance, you made the point

[00:11:36.59] spk_1:
earlier. This does not have to be a technology

[00:11:38.57] spk_2:
person. No, no, no, no.

[00:11:41.38] spk_1:
You may not even have a tech

[00:11:42.35] spk_2:
person. You probably don’t.

[00:11:44.44] spk_1:
Your, your I T support may be

[00:11:46.35] spk_2:
outsourced or your kid. You know, in some cases, depending on the organization. No, we’re not, we’re not, we’re not past

[00:11:57.47] spk_1:
the server in the dripping, dripping mop closet. Let’s hope.

[00:13:45.46] spk_2:
Let’s hope everybody’s in the cloud and they’re paying attention to security and password management and all that good stuff. But the technology Governance group meets once a month for four months, for an hour a month. And you’ve got to appoint somebody to come up with an agenda so that it’s a real meeting. It’s not just everybody sitting and complaint. I hate this. I’ve asked six times to get a new whatever, what, that’s not the point of this meeting point of this meeting is to talk about what you’re doing in your systems, maybe make some business process decisions. I’m working with an organization right now who is starting to make plans to text their supporters. They’ve got the platform in place, but they don’t have any business rules around it. So the data guy, the communications person and um a couple of other folks are part of this T G G and we just had our April meeting a couple days ago on Monday and the everybody shared updates for a few minutes, got the mic for about 10 minutes and then we spent the second half an hour hammering out what the communication policy was going to be for collecting text cell phone numbers and using them across the organization. So they were really able to say we want to provide the same experience to everybody, whether they’re filling out a survey or making a donation. And here’s how we’re going to set up our system so that they align with our business rules. They had never had a policy before. Never thought about texting organizations. So rather than having that happen in a silo just in communications, you need your data person who is going to make the change that says, you know, here’s my cell phone number and the check box that says, yep, I’m opting in you. Folks can text me that would have probably taken six months to pull off if we had not sat down and talked about it for 25 minutes. As a group,

[00:14:57.76] spk_0:
it’s time for a break. Stop the drop with donor box, the online donation platform. How many possible donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your website? That is tragic. You can stop the drop and break that cycle with donor boxes. Ultimate donation form added to your website in minutes. It’s freaking easy. So easy. When you stop to drop the possible donors become donors four times faster. Checkout easy payment processing, no setup fees, no monthly fees, no contract. You’ll be joining over 40,000 U S nonprofits donor box helping you help others donor box dot org. Now back to technology governance.

[00:15:02.65] spk_1:
Why did you say the group only needs for

[00:15:53.22] spk_2:
four months? Because when you’re first starting out, it feels like a big deal to say we’re going to be every month for the rest of our lives as long as we’re working here. So we’re taking a four month increments, four month increments. Um The other thing is these groups take a little while to gel. Right. You’ve never really talked about this stuff is a group before. Um, what, what gets raised in here, what needs to be, uh, turned into its own initiative with an owner like, hey, Kathy, you’re going to go work with whoever on this texting thing and then report back to the group next month. Um We’ve even had conversations like, um, what do we need from each other on these, um, codependent technology initiative improvements, problem solving stuff like that.

[00:15:56.26] spk_1:
All right, this is all fodder for the agenda, an agenda

[00:16:26.82] spk_2:
has to be an agenda. And you know, my, if I’m running the group for an organization, which I do often in these first couple of months to just like set it up and run it, facilitate these meetings, then I just hand it over to somebody at the organization and they keep running it. Um Do you know the four stages of group dynamics? Four stages of group formation? Okay. So you have forming storming, which is where the second meeting happens and people are like, you’re not letting me do what I wanted to. Then there’s nor ming where you start to settle in. That’s month three performing, you hit at month four where people know what to expect at these meetings. You often

[00:16:46.14] spk_1:
you’ve governed

[00:16:46.93] spk_2:
your technology, you are all done, then

[00:16:49.81] spk_1:
you have to start again with form.

[00:17:49.03] spk_2:
Every time somebody new hits the team, you go through these stages. But that’s another, another interview for something else. But the first four months you’re sort of figuring it out. Your jelling, you’re developing your group rules and the things that are important enough to talk about at these meetings and then send notes around. Somebody takes notes or you record the meeting and send the recordings around and everybody’s responsible for following up on their stuff. So at the end of every T G G meeting, you’ve got a little five minutes where you say, all right, here’s the action items coming out of this meeting. You’re going to do that, you volunteered to do this, you two are going to work together on that. And then the life of the meeting extends outside the meeting and between meetings and kind of gets people rowing the boat in the same direction instead of in a circle, which is what it feels like sometimes,

[00:17:52.03] spk_1:
right? So there’s work between the meetings collaborative like you expect of your committee’s on your, on your board should be right. You know, hopefully your board is not only working one quarter, two hours every quarter. That’s a, that’s a,

[00:18:07.17] spk_2:
that is a low performing board,

[00:18:10.24] spk_1:
right? Yes, that’s exactly responsibility, accountability, of course.

[00:18:16.58] spk_2:
And you’re working together in the in service of helping this technology meet your mission instead of individual teams, you know, kind of elbowing each other out of the way to

[00:18:32.69] spk_1:
anything else about our technology governance group. We

[00:18:35.64] spk_2:
should know it should go longer than four months. So I’ll just say most of the time you

[00:18:40.45] spk_1:
keep wrap it up,

[00:18:47.86] spk_2:
the other benefit to these meetings can be helping you with at budget time because tech is often spread, tech funding is often spread between different business units or cost centers at an organization. And so coming together and talking about what’s going to be in my budget, what’s going to be in your budget. So we need to work on something that benefits both of us whose budget should that go in? Um helps you earmark those funds for when it’s time to work on those projects.

[00:19:16.50] spk_1:
Let’s let’s move to um problem solving methods for for common pain points. So we identified the pain points that they’re more. Don’t hold out on non pop radio listeners like redundancy turnover,

[00:19:32.59] spk_2:
frustration out of control

[00:19:40.71] spk_1:
budget doing the same thing. What is there more? I think

[00:19:46.55] spk_2:
the other one that I think is poor business relationships with your technology vendors. Very

[00:19:53.70] spk_1:
good one. Alright. Frustration talking to

[00:19:57.99] spk_2:
them. Yeah. Not getting good service or not getting your solutions. Would

[00:20:22.51] spk_1:
we, we would probably default and say it’s the vendors problem. It could be, it could be our own, could be our own internal problems because we’re, we’re feeding the vendor six times a day with disparate number one priorities. No hr who told you fundraising was number one hr is number one and who told you that it was accounts payable that person is whacked. It’s hr, so you’re on the phone with me now.

[00:20:29.58] spk_2:
I’m number one now. Yeah. Um, the other way to think about that problem may not be the vendors problem and it might not even be a technology problem. Tony

[00:20:40.77] spk_1:
person. Right.

[00:21:17.03] spk_2:
Because we blame the technology 1st, 2nd and 3rd, the stupid XXX, whatever it is because we don’t have to interact with that thing. I don’t have to go to lunch with that CRM or whatever it happens to be its inanimate. So it’s easy to complain about the whatever but often you peel that back and that’s not the root cause. So if you fix what you think the technology problem is, you have the same problem later and it starts to become this unsolvable problem at your organization. You don’t have the app to take another run at it after the first couple and you just start living with it, which is never a good idea because it’s always going to get accommodation

[00:21:27.35] spk_1:
in your personal life in your technology boundaries, accommodation. These things are

[00:21:32.99] spk_2:
important, the right root cause. That’s right. Alright. So

[00:21:36.12] spk_1:
some, some you have some methods.

[00:21:44.30] spk_2:
Yeah. Yeah. So one of them is the five wise, have you heard

[00:21:46.86] spk_1:
the four stages of group dynamics? I know the seven colors of the rainbow, yellow, green, blue indigo

[00:21:55.21] spk_2:
violet.

[00:22:11.71] spk_1:
Those five crime families in New York? Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino Genovese crime families in New York. I do not know the wise. Okay.

[00:22:15.85] spk_2:
So the five wise are someone makes a statement like a problem.

[00:22:20.73] spk_1:
The three Wise Men Balthazar Melchior and the other

[00:22:25.68] spk_2:
one. Oh, gold Frankincense. And, but I don’t know who brought what

[00:22:34.06] spk_1:
Balthazar Melchior. See, I don’t even know the three Wise Men. Ebenezer. No, that’s, no, that’s the, that’s the Christmas story. Caspar Caspar Balthazar and Melchior. I think I’m pretty sure that

[00:22:46.85] spk_2:
I

[00:22:56.27] spk_1:
interrupted, rudely interrupt the guests. I know something else. I think of something else. I know so few things that I know. I have to shout them out whenever I get an opportunity. Alright, I’m sorry, the five wives,

[00:24:06.79] spk_2:
five wives of root problem identification. So somebody might say this email tool is terrible. I can’t segment my audiences like I can’t send to donors and non donors. It’s a pain in the neck to do that. Can’t do with stupid email tool. Why can’t you do? That is the first way and someone might answer that question. Well, um I can’t do it because we’re collect, we’re getting data from other places and putting it into the email tool. And so we’re not collecting that information over here. All right. So it’s not an email problem. It’s actually a data problem and it’s tagging, right? Like donor Tony’s donor, Maureen’s a non donor. There’s no easy way in your database to pull those audiences out and make sure that they get the right message. So that is probably a business process problem, not necessarily a technology problem. So that was a simple little example of one of those problem solving techniques

[00:24:09.43] spk_1:
that why was, why can’t you, why can’t we do this?

[00:24:12.69] spk_2:
Why can’t we do this? Well, I don’t get the data in the way that I need. Why don’t you get the data in the way that you need because we collected over here. Well, why do you collected over there? So yes, five wise people get annoyed. First two wives are easy as you go through wise 34 and five people get annoyed because they really have to dig deep and think about it.

[00:24:38.20] spk_1:
Okay. We can have the we could have the play on the five wise, the wise, wise, wise, wise, wise, wise, wise guys or the five wise

[00:24:53.50] spk_2:
problem solving. Another problem solving method

[00:24:57.75] spk_1:
method. You’re asking these questions internally, you’re asking these five questions. Okay.

[00:25:22.96] spk_2:
And literally sitting with it um in your technology governance, in your governance group or in a little spin off. Yeah, everybody’s got technology gripes and pain points and wishes that it was different or easier. They want the easy just today the Q R code to open my hotel room door did not work on my phone. So yes, I am right there with

[00:25:30.96] spk_1:
you. I still go for the, I still go for the cards. You so you go this

[00:25:35.82] spk_2:
time. But guess what? I had to go to the desk and get a card.

[00:25:40.32] spk_1:
I haven’t, I’ve never, I’ve never tried opening the, just give me a card, boarding

[00:25:46.67] spk_2:
passes, print the boarding pass and have it on my phone

[00:25:50.90] spk_1:
for the,

[00:25:52.50] spk_2:
everybody’s got their lines that they

[00:25:55.11] spk_1:
won’t do the hotel room because I don’t want to be tired

[00:25:57.83] spk_2:
and not able to get in and, you

[00:26:10.63] spk_1:
know, looking for my nap and then I gotta go downstairs again. Talk about first world problems. I have to go down to the lobby again. You’re more trusting on the hotel front.

[00:26:15.34] spk_2:
This time. I tried it. That would be the Hyatt Regency across.

[00:26:26.05] spk_1:
Can you stay on track?

[00:26:32.03] spk_2:
Apparently not. Apparently not. So that was one problem solving technique. What’s the problem and why are we having the problem so that you’re fixing the right thing,

[00:26:43.75] spk_1:
fixing the right past

[00:27:57.30] spk_2:
that one. So another um another common situation is uh people get frustrated because the technology doesn’t work. I don’t know how to do this or it’s too hard to do a thing. Um That’s usually a training issue, right? Like someone got hired, they gotta log in and thoughts and prayers. Here you go, you’re young, you can figure it out. You gotta people. If you take nothing away from this interview, please, please, please budget for training and support. Um Everybody needs it. Some of us are more naturally agile when it comes to technology. Others, not so much but the way you get a return on your investment of the state stuff that you’re buying and using is if your team is empowered to use it well, efficiently, effectively. And when we figure it out on our own, we usually don’t figure out the easy and effective way to do it. We sort of stab our way through it. I made it work that’s fine. So empowering your staff to be competent and confident in the systems that they’re using to do their jobs. Um, staff morale goes up. You’re spending way less time fighting the technology and more time using it. So, a common problem is this thing isn’t working for me or I can’t figure it out. So pay for some training. That would be. So,

[00:28:12.46] spk_1:
which is, which, why, why is this? Why can’t I do this?

[00:28:17.40] spk_2:
Why does, why is this so

[00:28:19.15] spk_1:
hard? Why doesn’t it work? Why doesn’t this work for me?

[00:30:06.95] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two non profit radio is listed on nonprofit news feeds. List of the great non profit podcasts. And if they numbered the list, we’d be number one, we’re top of their list. In fact, I believe their list is misnamed. It ought to be the great non profit podcast plus a couple others, but very great. Right. We’re at the top of the list. Very thankful, very grateful to non profit news feed. Thank you very much for the recognition and I would be remiss if I didn’t. Thank you, our listeners. You help us get the recognition. You keep the show. You know, it’s not always. Number one nonprofit radio has been on lots of lists where it’s like number 14 out of 12. Um, you know, we’ve been down, we’ve been down on some list but doesn’t matter, you know, the ranking doesn’t really matter. Although if I was gonna do one I would do it. Alphabetical. I think I’d do alphabetical with nonprofit radio at the top. Of course, because the alphabet is going to start with the end and then, and then it reverts back to a etcetera. The boring way. That would be, that would be my list. So thankful to non profit news feed and I’m thankful to you are dear listeners. Thank you very much for helping us get the recognition. It really is gratifying to be on any list of non profit podcasts. But, but I mean, if you could be at the top of the great one, you know, you may as well and that is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for technology governance with the very un boring Maureen will be off

[00:31:37.87] spk_2:
another problem solving technique that is uh really easy is to map your ecosystem, like use power point or video or Miro or some white boarding tool. Zoom has a white board tool and literally make bubbles of all of the things that you have make a circle. My website is purple over here and my day databases over there and lay out what you have. Like most of the time, collectively, nobody really knows all the stuff that you have and the stuff that you’re using and what’s working and what isn’t. So figuring that piece out and having that map, that changes when we swap email tools or we change our volunteer system or a finance system, um, making that map be accurate will also help you pinpoint where the problems are really coming from. Uh blah, blah, blah. I hate our website but whatever, like it doesn’t work on a phone. Maybe that’s a problem who should be working together on fixing that problem? Is it really a problem or is it just a problem for somebody who’s using a Windows phone, you know, from 2015. So taking the time to have those collaborative conversations is also really, really helpful once you’ve got it all written out. Um And you can then, you know, we do have six email tools or three people have canvas accounts. We should probably consolidate that stuff. And

[00:31:56.98] spk_1:
what is this uh consolidated under what? Why, which, what, why are we

[00:32:06.51] spk_2:
talking? It’s uh it’s have as small a footprint as you can get away with. Just, just because you think you need something, people can sneak tools in without telling anybody, you know, like somebody inside a fundraising team goes a little rogue and says we’re going to add something new. Nobody else knows about it and you’re not getting the benefit of having that thing used to its fullest extent because tech is expensive and it’s kind of frustrating.

[00:32:31.66] spk_1:
Doesn’t have to start with. No,

[00:32:35.14] spk_2:
no. The five wise we was one of the problem solving techniques. The five wise is one of the problems solving

[00:32:39.88] spk_1:
techniques. So aren’t we on the five wise, we only did two of

[00:33:04.70] spk_2:
the five wise is a thing all unto itself. So the five wise helps you identify the root cause of your problems so you can fix the right thing. These are other symptoms with problem solving ideas for teams to use. If they’ve got people who say this is too hard for me to use. Why is this so hard? Not everything maps back to why you need to Google the five wise after this.

[00:33:15.49] spk_1:
In other words, you don’t

[00:33:16.50] spk_2:
know. I do know, but I think we’ve mixed them up a little bit. We’ve mixed our metaphor slightly.

[00:33:23.11] spk_1:
I guess you want to blame it on a lackluster host. No,

[00:33:25.66] spk_2:
never, never the

[00:33:27.58] spk_1:
most lust, lust, lust,

[00:33:32.81] spk_2:
lust.

[00:33:34.67] spk_1:
Alright. So, alright, so don’t look for everything to start with A Y like I was all right. We are on number four though now. So we finished mapping, we finished mapping looking where we have redundancies. People snuck shit in should not have your technology governance group advised you not to do that correct. We told you now your rogue rogue and do we boot you off or do we try to keep you in the group and remediate, you always

[00:34:04.63] spk_2:
get you to come along to the group dynamics. Please stick around and be one of us.

[00:34:14.92] spk_1:
Yeah, you’re better off on the inside.

[00:34:34.95] spk_2:
That’s right. That’s right. And then the last technique for the second to last is what I call a no filter, pain point activity. And what that means is you grab your team and if it’s virtual there, if you come to the session tomorrow, I do have in the collaborative document because it’s not possible. So if you want to make an Excel spreadsheet, it’s a no filter pain point worksheet

[00:34:55.07] spk_1:
and not on the website. It is.

[00:34:59.04] spk_2:
Yes, it’s under free resources.

[00:35:00.91] spk_1:
So, what’s your site?

[00:35:03.22] spk_2:
Meet Maureen dot com? Oh,

[00:35:05.17] spk_1:
that’s clever. I liked it from last year. I remember that Maureen dot com. Click free resources,

[00:35:10.61] spk_2:
resources in the top navigation. You will find this worksheet

[00:35:14.04] spk_1:
there. Okay. Now, let us know what the worksheet

[00:35:17.06] spk_2:
is.

[00:35:18.89] spk_1:
So much stuff, so

[00:35:35.09] spk_2:
much stuff. Um The no filter pain point worksheet is a place. It’s sort of a meeting and a worksheet all in one. So you grab your team and you dedicate 90 minutes and everybody is allowed and encouraged to list everything about your technology that bugs them

[00:35:44.20] spk_1:
even

[00:36:39.15] spk_2:
if, even if they’ve mentioned it 60 times and nobody did a damn thing about it. Even if um it’s from a new staff person who has fresh eyes and is looking at some wacky thing that you’re doing to work around some technology problem. And they’re like, is there a better way to do this? So everybody gets a chance to list out their stuff and then you organize it into those four P categories. Is this a plan problem? Is it a platform problem? A people problem or a business process problem? So that also helps you get to the root cause these meetings are super helpful. They’re cathartic number one, because people can unburden themselves of like I really hate this X Y or Z thing. You also start to talk about things like maybe tony hates this product, but Amy loves it. You might want to match up Amy and tony so that Amy can help tony figure out, you know, to get beyond the things that are frustrating or friction for you. So it’s a good way to kind of get allies there. If everybody’s like we hate this thing, then you can make plans to replace

[00:37:03.24] spk_1:
it from the bottom up. Yeah. Uh I’m thinking of a verb for change. We can advocate for change. Advocate. Advocate is the noun advocated. So from the bottom up to try to

[00:37:22.15] spk_2:
make change, that’s right because often the leaders that your organization to have allies. Yeah, often the leaders of your organization sort of, you know, that things are a problem but they don’t use these systems every day or even often at all. They’ve got an assistant who’s pulling reports or, you know, giving them the information,

[00:37:32.31] spk_1:
especially if it’s the God fly, the perennial tech whiner coming, you know, that that person needs, needs allies.

[00:38:20.97] spk_2:
They do and they need to feel heard and then you sort of prioritize stuff, you’re not going to get to all of it. Another way to break the pain point. Worksheet results down is what are issues, things that are problems and what our opportunities we want to grow. Our monthly giving program. Our current system makes us manually run our supporter credit cards every single month. I don’t want to grow my monthly giving program. If it means I’m going to have to hire somebody else to start to run these credit cards. So what are we going to do about our technology so that we can grow without it turning into a problem for our team? Yeah, issues and opportunities another way and you just pick, you keep that list as a parking lot. You can add new stuff as it bubbles up or appears and you just methodically work your way through those things. Instead of being an individual experience of a problem, you’ve kind of made it an organizational list of things that need to be addressed.

[00:38:44.22] spk_1:
I always bristled at the parking lot metaphor. It’s childish. It’s Q, it’s Q, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a wait list. You know, we’re gonna put your, your ideas. Plus I heard it said one

[00:38:58.84] spk_0:
since

[00:39:23.47] spk_1:
some training, I think I may have to go back to when I, when I was a miserable employee years ago, decades ago. And yeah, we were in some training and some, some facilitated. Well, that’s not quite on point. Let’s put your very good idea into the parking lot. And he was talking, he was talking to, what was a guy talking to a woman? Like he should have patted her on the head. It was so condescending, so condescending. He may as well have patted her on the head. I didn’t mean he should have, he may as well have just. The parking lot

[00:39:36.17] spk_2:
was supposed

[00:39:36.46] spk_1:
to be so proud. Look. I made the sticky, that’s over the window that nobody can see because the light’s coming

[00:39:43.46] spk_2:
through.

[00:39:44.00] spk_1:
Yeah. In the closet. I made the sticky on the back side of the closet door. My parking lot,

[00:39:49.78] spk_2:
a lower priority list.

[00:39:52.88] spk_1:
It’s just, it’s a, it’s a list of priorities.

[00:39:55.70] spk_2:
I’m gonna start using Q or waitlist. You’ve changed my mind.

[00:40:01.70] spk_1:
I don’t know. It seems like a very pedantic

[00:40:04.57] spk_2:
metaphor. It is. People get it. But I understand that the connotation that it can have. I told you,

[00:40:11.87] spk_1:
I don’t know. It seems like a child’s game.

[00:40:16.55] spk_2:
All right, you’re playing candy land and you kind of get stuck in the parking,

[00:40:25.53] spk_1:
remember? Candy land? Yeah. Right. Exactly. A parking lot. Or, or, or, yeah, or, or it’s like being in jail for monopoly

[00:40:28.84] spk_2:
or in the sand trap. If you

[00:40:30.42] spk_1:
golf golfer. Let’s not go too far with sports,

[00:40:34.20] spk_2:
not my

[00:40:35.19] spk_1:
metaphors sand trap is golf. Golf, golf, golf. I think we have one more. Y one more of the five wise which don’t all start with a

[00:40:46.46] spk_2:
complete misnomer. Yeah, I

[00:40:48.89] spk_1:
wouldn’t put it in the parking lot, but it’s just misnamed. We have one more,

[00:40:54.76] spk_2:
one more which is decided you’re going to focus on internal problems or external technology problems, things that affect your supporters, your subscribers, your volunteers, your donors or your internal process

[00:41:08.38] spk_1:
accounts, payable sources.

[00:41:23.99] spk_2:
Right. Right. So that’s the other way to kind of tackle these things. Usually, it’s a little of both. It’s a little of both. It’s very tempting to do either or it’s very tempting to be internally focused or completely externally focused at the expense of

[00:41:29.03] spk_1:
your ignore us. We need to help our supporters, our fundraisers, fundraisers are volunteers or donors

[00:41:37.77] spk_2:
on my back

[00:41:40.85] spk_1:
in the parking lot and

[00:42:22.45] spk_2:
we don’t want to lose value people. So a bit of a balance is good and, and take small bites. That would be my, my other guidance here is when you’ve laid it all out there and you can see it like in all its gross glory, all the things that you’re struggling with, you can either feel very pre fatigued like we’re never going to work our way through these things or we got to do them all. Like right now now that we know what they are just take small bites, be realistic. Figure out how much time your tech governance team, your T G G can spend on this stuff. Be realistic in your deadlines and expectations if people can go fast and it’s possible to go fast, let them but always be honest with yourselves about what you have capacity to do. Otherwise this will just be another governance group or another initiative that is too frustrating and

[00:42:37.86] spk_1:
nothing ever happens. Talk about another example, very big on preventing fatigue. I am not keeping track.

[00:43:50.14] spk_2:
Yeah, I think our nonprofits and generally people are at capacity, kind of tired running on fumes. A lot asked to do more with less um in our small to mid sized nonprofits, that’s really hard. You know, like they don’t have the budgetary shock absorbers that a larger organization might have to toss another consultant added or by another thing or throw money at a problem to fix it. Small to midsize guys got to be scrappy. They’re all spread really thin. Um And so I just want to make sure that people are not using magical thinking when they’re trying to fix their technology. It’s very tempting to do that. Um If you think you’ve got a technology problem and your first impulse is to switch it with something else, stop do those five wise, find out what’s really going on because you might move, spent all that time and money moving into something new and you still have the same problem and that’s, that’s not great. That’s not a good thing. I like people to be happy and optimistic at work. I feel like they’re set up for success to the best extent possible and that they are going to work together to solve problems. That’s kind of what nonprofits do and

[00:44:12.91] spk_1:
technology’s role is to support that,

[00:44:16.23] spk_2:
make it easier.

[00:44:17.24] spk_1:
Yet another support.

[00:44:19.63] spk_2:
Often it is something that is, does not provide good feelings. Yeah. Like my key card, like my Q R code this morning.

[00:44:47.86] spk_1:
Exactly. Right. I would love to get your, we only have a couple minutes left. I’m going to ask you to be brief on this. I can Artificial intelligence, chatbots, chat, GPT there. The, here they, I see. I’m not, I’m not stopping it, but I, I see more, I see more risks than then benefits. I don’t know, maybe it’s maybe at 61. This is the technology that I’m going to be the Luddite around. But what’s your, what’s your take? I don’t, I don’t want to prejudice your, your strong, strong willed person. You’re not gonna be prejudiced by my opinion.

[00:45:11.86] spk_2:
Um, I think that it’s not going away. So I think, uh, people like us who are, you know, hesitant, worried, um, concerned should get to know it and then decide for ourselves where it is beneficial and where it is not in our own work lives, our personal lives because it’s common is here now.

[00:45:27.94] spk_1:
Talking about boundaries, then get acquainted with it. Yeah,

[00:45:34.17] spk_2:
I know thy enemy, you know what I mean? Or know what I’m worried from the outside. Let me find out what I really should be worried about by playing with this thing or interacting with it. Um, I can tell you that I’ve got some organizations who are using it to write fundraising appeals in 30 seconds.

[00:45:50.44] spk_1:
Right. They use it as the first draft and then they modify, they put their own tone to

[00:45:56.35] spk_2:
it. So it can’t, you know, we’ve all been faced with that blank piece of paper. I know

[00:46:24.34] spk_1:
my concern is what my concern is. That that’s the most creative thing that a fundraiser that you take your example can do is be faced with a blank screen and create from that blankness versus seeding that most creative task to the artificial intelligence and then you reducing yourself to copy

[00:46:25.04] spk_2:
editor,

[00:46:53.10] spk_1:
copy editor. I’m not diminishing copy editors in the audience, the two or three of you and that may be listening, but it’s not as creative a task as working from, from nothing and creating something. So and then so that leads to my concern. Do we become less creative? Does that mean we become dumber on an individual level? On a community level? On a on a world level? Is it a dumbing down because it’s a seeding of the most creative work that I think we can produce?

[00:47:22.12] spk_2:
I hear you and I do agree with you to a certain extent. I also think if your Annual Giving manager is spending hours writing appeals when they could be stewarding a major donor prospect or doing some relationship building or mentoring a new staff person. If they don’t have time to do all that stuff, it might make sense to offload some things. Not that you’re going to use them just as is, but give yourself a bit of a starting point

[00:47:33.92] spk_1:
or use them sometimes

[00:47:36.01] spk_2:
but not rely on them all the time. Right?

[00:47:40.30] spk_1:
We’ve got to leave it there. Maureen. Brilliant.

[00:47:42.05] spk_2:
Always wonderful

[00:47:46.01] spk_1:
in Portland, Oregon

[00:47:50.01] spk_2:
24 24. Tony. Thank you.

[00:48:07.59] spk_1:
My pleasure, Maureen will be off non profit digital strategist and technology coach at the nonprofit Accidental Techie with Maureen will be off meet Maureen dot com. So smart. I love that meet Maureen dot com. Thank you for, thank, thank you,

[00:48:11.05] spk_2:
my

[00:48:11.57] spk_1:
pleasure to and thank you for being with our coverage of 23 N T C the nonprofit technology conference 2023 where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits

[00:49:17.65] spk_0:
next week. Best and worst of non profit newsletters and digital self care and healing. If you missed any part of this week’s show, you know what I beseech, you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for April 17, 2023: #23NTC & Building An Inclusive Board Culture

 

Amy Sample Ward#23NTC!

Amy Sample Ward, NTEN CEO

Amy Sample Ward kicks off our coverage of the 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by NTEN. They cover the Conference details, and delve into weighing the benefits and risks of the fast-moving technology, artificial intelligence. They are the CEO of NTEN and our technology and social media contributor.

 

 

Renee Rubin RossBuilding An Inclusive Board Culture

Let us explore the signs and symptoms of your board’s current culture, and strategies to be more inclusive and equitable, if that’s something your nonprofit needs to pursue. Let us also dive into how to manage toxic people on your board. Renee Rubin Ross is founder and CEO of The Ross Collective.

 

 

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[00:00:11.08] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti

[00:00:13.08] spk_1:
non profit radio.

[00:02:02.99] spk_0:
Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. We’re beginning our 23 N TC coverage this week. And, oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d have to undergo counter immuno electrophoresis if you opposed me because you missed this week’s show. 23 N T C Amy Sample Ward kicks off our coverage of the 2023 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10. They cover the conference details and delve into weighing the benefits and risks of the fast moving technology, artificial intelligence. They are the C E O of N 10 and our technology and social media contributor also building an inclusive board culture. Let us explore the signs and symptoms of your board’s current culture and strategies to be more inclusive and equitable. If that’s something you’re non profit needs to pursue. Let us also dive into how to manage toxic people on your board. Renee Reuben Ross is founder and CEO of the Ross Collective on Tony’s take 2 23 N T C. Thanks. We’re sponsored by Donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box, your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. And I’m sorry, my voice is a little horse because I did spend so much time capturing interviews at 23 N T C. Here is 23 T C with Amy Sample Ward.

[00:03:08.83] spk_1:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. You know that it’s the nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10. This is not our first interview today, but I’m sure that this is going to be the kickoff of nonprofit radio’s coverage of 23 N T C where we and you’ll find out why very shortly where we are sponsored by Heller consulting to technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. The reason that we’re going to do this interview first of the many 20 to be exact interviews from 23 NTC is because with me now is Amy Sample Ward. You know who they are, the CEO of N 10 and our technology and social media contributor, which makes them the grand imperial wizard and Grand Poobah of the 2023 nonprofit technology conference. Amy Sample Ward. It’s a real pleasure to see you in person. It

[00:03:25.91] spk_2:
is wild to get to see you in person after all this time. I know I, I am touching you and I think I need to update my, my business card. The uh I have a whole string of titles now, I guess

[00:03:28.75] spk_1:
well, to the extent you’re willing to put on your business card.

[00:03:33.04] spk_2:
This was all a

[00:03:43.27] spk_1:
joke. But nobody uses business cards anymore. So I’m not offended. Although there’s this little stack of cards, I’m trying to get rid of. Still some people take them. Yeah, there are some, maybe,

[00:03:45.35] spk_2:
maybe they’re really helpful. Maybe

[00:03:47.33] spk_1:
they’re all boomers. I don’t know. But somebody, somebody’s, there are people who would rather not just scan a code, would rather take a physical card. So I have

[00:03:57.10] spk_2:
actually don’t even have business cards. You don’t, I don’t have business cards no longer if I wanted to

[00:04:06.11] spk_1:
no longer. Okay. That’s fine. Well, then don’t add it to your business card. Um We’re at 23 NTC. Congratulations.

[00:04:11.57] spk_2:
Congratulations happening. We are looking around at a big old hall. There are booths, there are people, there are snacks.

[00:04:21.96] spk_1:
How many people, how many people are here with us in Denver? We

[00:04:30.14] spk_2:
have 1600 people here in Denver. 400. That’s a lot of people online. Four

[00:04:33.31] spk_1:
104 100 virtual 1600 in person. Yes, we’re feeding 1600 people toilet ng for 1600 people. Yes, we have, we

[00:04:43.17] spk_2:
have lounges, we have many parks. We have everything.

[00:04:47.19] spk_1:
Yes, there’s, there’s a quiet room, there’s birds of a feather rooms. There’s yoga. There’s,

[00:05:18.21] spk_2:
did you see the, the everybody yoga out downstairs earlier? It was beautiful. It was like 50 people and it was yoga. You don’t need to have ever done. Yoga before you don’t need experience for everybody. You know, there were folks who were in chairs versus sitting on the floor, you know, and everybody was just doing it all together out in that big foyer downstairs. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was beautiful

[00:05:23.26] spk_1:
wall of windows.

[00:05:42.24] spk_2:
Yeah. I mean, we can be at a technology conference but I think, you know, we’ve talked about this lots of times whether it’s the NTC or, or just how we think about technology in general. It’s actually not about the technology, right? It’s about people and people being able to meet the needs they have and honoring that those needs are different for different people. You know, like there have to be a lot of different lounges because you maybe want a different lounge that I want, right? Like somebody wants to not be talking. Tony-martignetti wants to be talking, you know, like to

[00:06:08.22] spk_1:
talk. Yes, indeed. Right. So you, yeah, you take care of the whole person, you the NTC collective, the collective. Yes, the collective. Absolutely. Um Today’s keynote. Yeah, I don’t know which of the three I was interviewing

[00:06:13.50] spk_2:
this morning was no ball.

[00:06:15.34] spk_1:
Okay. What was, what was their message?

[00:07:16.99] spk_2:
She had so many different things to talk about. And one thing that I want to call out and that encourage people to maybe think about themselves and go follow, go find she’s written books. She has lots of ways that you can follow her content. But this morning, we talked a lot about technology as a social economic and political practice. It is it is happening, you know, it’s not static, it isn’t just there. These are, these are ways that certain economic issues, classes dynamics are, are, are actively being managed. These tech through technology power, social dynamics are being managed, right? Like those things have been baked in from the beginning. So when we think of and we’ve certainly talked about this before, like bias that gets built into a tool. It isn’t just I like orange and you like blue or something, right? It’s biased that some people will forever be able to better use that tool. It’s bias that some people maybe never access that tool. That um the, the idea that we are in surveillance systems all of the time and we are kind of being told these are utilities, we must all use these tools right there. Their convenience, they’re making our lives better

[00:07:45.95] spk_1:
safety and security are often uh just justifications. Yes.

[00:08:51.14] spk_2:
Yes. And even if, even if it does feel this is this is the point that made this morning, maybe it does feel kind of casually better that the ads you’re getting are things maybe that you actually would consider buying versus something that’s totally unrelated to you that is not worth you. Your data being sold, used, misused and deciding who you are, right? Some of some of our data being sold um and being used by other, other. Well, anyone that isn’t us is deciding, can you get alone? Right? Can you do? Are we even gonna, like, actually believe that you can graduate from college? Are we gonna let you in? Are we gonna hire you for this job? Right. Um, so it isn’t just this like, I think we kind of, um, anim eyes it or make it, make it so generic that it loses a little bit of its harsh reality when we think, oh, the data is out there but whatever, it’s like my purchase history and I like that they recommended a good product, right.

[00:09:05.44] spk_1:
Right.

[00:09:56.03] spk_2:
But, but that same data set is determining if you know, like Sophia said in the UK, banks are looking at social media to decide if they’re going to give you a loan. Does it look like all the people that you’re connected to our, like historically separated from any access to wealth? Well, we’re not going to give you a loan. Well, then that means we’re not using, we’re not predicting anything we are deciding with that technology, right? This isn’t predictive analytics, this is restrictive analytics, right? We’re using this to gate keep and to continue to oppress people. Um And I think a really big part of that conversation too was we everybody here at the NTC and folks that are listening to non profit radio are folks who are both the users impacted by that and organizations in a position to maybe not realize they’re playing a part in that, you know, like, maybe you’re sending all of your users into those tools because it was easier. Or you thought they were already on Facebook or even if it’s not social media, you’re using a certain product and you didn’t realize that

[00:10:23.67] spk_1:
because you didn’t do your due diligence around exactly their privacy rules. Jeez. You gave me chills. I’m getting my synesthesia kicked in and I’m sure it’s not the air conditioning, that’s it. We need to show about this remarkable

[00:10:34.23] spk_2:
this,

[00:10:34.53] spk_1:
right? We could be contributing ourselves, right? Uh innocuous, unknowingly

[00:12:18.15] spk_2:
unknowingly, right? Um And she works um and as a faculty and leading a department at U C L A and brought up an example from the academic world of years ago when there was the tool that was being sold marketed to professors and universities that you could upload all of your students papers into it. And then it would tell you if they had plagiarized from the internet, you know, oh, that’s something else that already exists. And she and her colleagues immediately said, oh, this is not good. This is actually not good. And a lot of other folks like, what do you mean this means like we’re catching the students who were trying to plagiarize. Of course, we all know that means that small successful company got bought by a bigger company who knew what they could do with a big old data set. Right. So what just think if you wrote a paper in college when you’re still trying to, like, figure out your ideas and you’re still learning, like, the paper is meant to be a learning practice. It’s, it’s not meant to be published for the world. And now 15 years later you’re applying for a job and that shows up, you know, as part of your data record. Right. And maybe it has ideas that you fundamentally don’t believe now or even ever, but didn’t really know what you were saying and now you can’t get a job because people see this and say, oh, you wrote this paper. So as organizations, when we think we’re saving time or we think that we’re doing something by, by letting the robots do it so that we ourselves are not subjectively making decisions, right? We might actually be making even harder subjective decisions down the line for those people, right? We might be setting them up into systems where their data and their issues are.

[00:14:14.62] spk_1:
This is so enormously timely with, with all the talk about artificial intelligence, chat, chat GPT. The other ones I can’t name off the top of my head and, and our use our use of them. Look, there was a guest on maybe an hour and a half ago. He said we’re not going to know it was Maureen will be off. I think we’re not, we can’t stop this. It’s like trying to stop the the, the innovation around automobiles, you know, or the phone or trying to stop airlines, airplane, airplane flight, it’s not possible but are smart use of it and, you know, are constrained use of it. So I shared with this another thing you and I, you and Gene and I need to talk about this, the three of us together, informed, informed and, and thoughtful and, you know, I’m concerned about the, the more the likely less the due diligence, but just the thought that goes into it. My concern is that I shared this with Maureen and um the advice, a lot of the advice that I see is use artificial intelligence as a first draft. And then so you’re not, you’re no longer facing the blank page, put a pin, I’ll come back to that in a second and then you put your own tone to it, your own language. That’s exactly my concern. You’re reducing yourself from creative thinker working from a blank blank screen to, to relegate it to copy editor. And I don’t mean to insult any copy editors

[00:14:21.63] spk_2:
very valuable

[00:14:22.73] spk_1:
but not nearly as creative process as looking at a blank screen working from

[00:15:28.53] spk_2:
nothing. I think the really big piece of that is we have seen plenty of evidence. We do not need more evidence to know that what these artificial intelligence tools are providing to us is misinformation. The tool is not only giving us quote unquote facts, right? So it isn’t even that you need to add a copy editing layer. If you were to do that, you would need to go back and actually say, is any of this real like Sophia Sophia said this morning, they had received um you know, that other people in academia are making this point of, you know, oh, this is leveling the playing field, right? Because now folks who maybe aren’t naturally confident or comfortable writing and they communicate better in other ways. Now they could use artificial intelligence to help them get a jump start on the paper and then they edited and you know, whatever, but they have reviewed papers written in this way. All of the footnotes are not real articles, they’re not real books, right? Because artificial intelligence made up a book to reference. So

[00:15:38.17] spk_1:
the footnotes are not

[00:16:02.10] spk_2:
real, right? Because artificial intelligence was told to make a footnote. So it notated words in the format that it learned online is what a footnote looks like, right? So the idea that it is there, I like I like you’re saying, you know, the idea that gets us started and then we go in and like we judge it up. No, I mean, unless you’re using it for the outline structure of, I want an intro paragraph and then I want, you know, but what, what then is left that is viable. We are not helping people get a jump start. We are actively creating more in misinformation in in content.

[00:17:14.98] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Stop the drop with donor box there. The online donation platform. How many possible donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your website? You can stop that drop and break that cycle with donor boxes. Ultimate donation form you added to your website in minutes. There’s no coding required when you stop the drop, the possible donors become donors. It’s four times faster. Checkout easier payment processing, no setup fees, no monthly fees, no contract required. You’ll be joining over 40,000 us non profits that use donor box, donor box helping you help others at donor box dot org. Now back to 23 N T C.

[00:17:24.69] spk_1:
There’s another layer on top of that because you mentioned the footnote specifically uh linkedin Post someone I I follow a lot on linkedin. He follows me. Um I think I can George Weiner at the whole whale whole whale. Um

[00:17:33.94] spk_2:
Who’s maybe here

[00:17:35.73] spk_1:
is George here, George,

[00:17:37.74] spk_2:
I don’t want to be part of this information, but I think that George might be

[00:18:11.92] spk_1:
here. His concern was he did a search of something that whole whale is very well known for. I guess it was, I think it was S C O basic seo basically. And um he did a search in artificial intelligence. He was using an AI tool for search and it came up with a top result that was taken from Whole Whales resource page or something. And it credited Hole, it did credit Whole Whale. His concern was that the next step would be, it would take from Whole Whales resource page and not credit Whole Whale, right? There was no requirement for it. So in this case, it was a legitimate footnote, but his concern is that it’s gonna be stealing his intellectual property and not crediting him in whole

[00:19:24.95] spk_2:
Whale. Because if you think about what artificial intelligence is doing is like at scale able to read all of the internet, right? We’re not able to read all the internet. It’s reading, not technically all of it, but like, you know, so much more of it than we could read without the kind of human context that we’re able to put on something. I know that on the nonprofit radio website, there are pieces of content where you’ve said, Amy said, quote blah, de blah, de blah, right? I work at N 10. My name is Amy Sample Ward. The idea that artificial intelligence would know to read the next sentence to know that I said the thing when that thing is all that mattered because it was relevant to what it was trying to create. And even if it did create a footnote, it would likely be non profit radio, right? But the radio show doesn’t talk, right? It wouldn’t be crediting you. So it’s already set up to fail.

[00:19:35.14] spk_1:
But even the greater likelihood is that it’s not going to credit anyone. It’s just going to take the it’s going to take the intellectual property,

[00:20:08.19] spk_2:
right? Of course. And so, you know, I think we’re over estimating what it could do and putting human expectations onto artificial intelligence that it can’t and shouldn’t, it doesn’t need to be human, right? But we are we are blurring the lines of what is best for humans to do and what is best for a data crunching tool to do, right? We did talk about things I

[00:20:26.90] spk_1:
feel like I’m drowning, drowning in the ocean that I live across the street from. Look. Um Alright, so we know we need to talk about this again, but I mean, I guess you know what we’re talking about is thoughtful use, but I’m not, I’m not convinced that humans are thoughtful enough to to to to thoughtfully use this wave. That’s the tsunami that that’s gathering such speed that even Elon Musk said, signed something that said, let’s take a six month pause, which

[00:20:45.04] spk_2:
which, which is ridiculous. Well,

[00:20:48.70] spk_1:
but, but the idea that there be a pause and artificial pause in in technological growth is absurd.

[00:20:56.52] spk_2:
So this thing, what we know of is not actually accurate to what has currently been developed that just hasn’t been released.

[00:21:02.62] spk_1:
I don’t know it’s happening nefariously and, and the Washington Post will uncover it in, in six months or something when it’s already too late.

[00:21:13.26] spk_2:
And I think

[00:21:14.47] spk_1:
the point is it’s not stopping and no, we need to be thoughtful, but I’m not, I don’t have a lot of confidence that were thoughtful enough beings to not take advantage of this

[00:23:18.18] spk_2:
about necessarily that were not thoughtful and we need to be more thoughtful. I think what, what I see at least, and here in the community is that folks feel like there wasn’t a choice. This was the only tool that was available and we’re sitting in the middle of a giant exhibit hall, right? With like 100 and 20 people. And there are people in here that do the same things as each other. You know, there’s no other nonprofit radio in here. But, but there are people, you know who do the same thing and the the illusion that we don’t have a choice as individual nonprofit organizations or as individual users of technology is a myth that is being over and over and over told to us so that we don’t go looking right? That we don’t unsubscribe that we don’t opt out that we don’t say no, you cannot have my data, right? Because that’s the say it’s the same story of you need this, this is useful to you. This is improving your life is also and don’t look behind the curtain. There’s nowhere else to go. There’s no one else, you know, because that’s, that’s the power that is the that is that political, social, economic practice that’s happening by technology to keep us as we are, right? And so breaking out of that is not okay. Everybody here has to go make their own tools. That’s not what I’m saying either. Even just knowing that there are options, pushes you into thoughtfulness because now you’re saying, oh, well, how would I decide between these? Let me ask some questions, right? And when we think there’s no choice, we don’t bother asking the questions. We don’t know what they’re gonna do when we sign up for their product. Right? So even just thinking, well, let me like, shop around already sets us up to be so much more mindful of what we’re doing with technology, the decision, the investments we’re making, you know, what products were putting our communities data into, you know,

[00:23:22.21] spk_1:
your consciousness, right?

[00:23:40.59] spk_2:
So I don’t think it’s hard to like turn that to go over that hump. And it’s not like we’re asking everyone to become enlightened on a topic that they’ve never heard about were saying just ask questions. I know that there is more than one option, right? Um And that already gets you moving the power back on to your side, right? They are answering to you now versus you feeling like, well, I just signed up and now now we’re using this tool, you know, you have

[00:24:08.84] spk_1:
options, you have options. NTC is one place to find out what those options are. 10 is thoughtful use of technology and 10 the courses and you can do them for certification for God’s sake. If you need certification diploma, they have them. Uh 24. Yes,

[00:25:07.14] spk_2:
Portland, Oregon. We really thought when we had the NTC in Portland in 2019. Um and we thought, oh, everybody loved it. We just got so much great feedback from the community that the city was fun and accessible, that restaurants were good, you know. Um People had a great time and we’re like, okay, well, we can come back to Portland. Let’s really put this a long time from now and now it will be, you know, we just had Denver and then we’re back in Portland because we had three years of not being on offline. So, yes, back in Portland, everyone on the team is super excited just to be back in a place we’ve been before and it makes all the decisions easier. Um We already have ideas for making it better. So, and, you know, we’re in Denver here, but we’re also online and there are sessions that are only in Denver, their sessions that are only online and then there are sessions that are simultaneously in both places. And let me tell you, we are learning a lot.

[00:25:20.41] spk_1:
There’s a lot of that takes a lot of technology support, especially the, the ones that are here and virtual.

[00:25:31.86] spk_2:
Yes, I would say in person stuff, you know, fine under control, you know, regular snap,

[00:25:36.15] spk_1:
totally

[00:25:54.20] spk_2:
online stuff also totally fine, you know, every once in a while somebody logs in the wrong zoom or, you know, whatever, but that’s fine. It’s the hybrid sessions where we have really asked a lot of technology and technology seems to still be deciding how it feels about us. What does it

[00:25:59.14] spk_1:
look like in those rooms? Can camera, can we see the the audience members who are virtual screen with all of them?

[00:26:35.76] spk_2:
Both places can see, you know, back between and we have and 10 staff person or one of our trained volunteers is a host on both sides so that there’s somebody who’s not the speakers or the attendees themselves trying to say somebody has a question or the questions over here or you know, like those two hosts can talk 1 to 1 and like own their side, right? So we have those two house, we have the actual like zoom and then we have all of the technology that needs to be in the Denver room to make sure that the microphones are sinking in real time to the stream to the video, to everything else.

[00:26:55.46] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:27:59.56] spk_2:
And honestly, so far, knock on wood, I think we had a snafu this morning where, you know, and it’s like the perfect worst thing to happen. You know, the bad thing that happened was volunteers wanted to make sure that their sessions were great and tried to log in early to set them up early. And so they booted the session that was already happening. So it wasn’t like nobody came or nothing ever happened. You know, the caption ear’s have all been there and it’s the normal caption team we work with who are just so great and consistent. All the volunteers have been early, if not on time, you know. So the pro and then we realized, oh, the problem is that, that volunteer logged in? Oh, that’s why we all got booted. Oh, they were able to figure it out. Send a message to everyone and say if your shift starts at 9 15, we mean 9 15, we do not mean 9 13. Yes. So it wasn’t easy to fix challenge,

[00:28:02.27] spk_1:
conscientious volunteers. Not

[00:28:20.38] spk_2:
so we’re learning a lot about like what prep do the folks on both sides really need to pull that off. Like maybe maybe, you know, Ash and Jeremy and Drew have a session with you in the summer and talk about doing hybrid virtual events and how to make them really successful. You know, people are still doing. I mean so many folks fundraising gala have kept the hybrid piece where they’re like, oh, we could have 100 people at home donating that we didn’t buy food for. Yes, please, you know. Um so I think I think we’re really gonna see hybrid stay around. People are gonna want to keep doing that. Um and you know us, we’re happy to share all of our mistakes so that you can learn from them. Yes.

[00:29:30.55] spk_1:
Alright. Alright. So 24. So I would expect 24 NTC is also going to be a hybrid. It sounds you wouldn’t abandon that. All the learnings. Yeah, all the, all the problems next year, it’ll be 800 virtual. Alright, thank you. All right, we’re looking forward to 20 well, we’re loving 23 NTC here in Denver. Looking forward to next year. You and Gene and I, I think we just picked, identified probably three different subjects that the three of us could spend an hour talking about. I’m glad, you know, I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s concerned, even George wegner kinda, you know, he was more leaning towards, well, the risks aren’t, you know, I don’t, I don’t think that, that, that had great. Yeah, but I, I need George to be more and more thoughtful before he comes down on one side or the other.

[00:29:42.55] spk_2:
And I think that from, from any position

[00:29:44.61] spk_1:
Georges, let me just not put it on George wegner. I need the Georges Georges to be more

[00:30:56.77] spk_2:
thoughtful. I think it’s important to also remember that when we’re thinking of what are those risks, we’re filtering that through. What do I think those risks are? And, and I, or you and who you as the listener, whoever the one asking that question cannot be the one assessing risk for everyone. You have not experienced the same harm that everyone has experienced from tech in Ology. You maybe don’t have the same view of what you need that technology to do so, the idea that any one of us could say, oh, the risks aren’t that bad or these are the definitive list of risks. We just can’t, you know, it’s too dynamic of a constantly changing situation to say that the risks, the risk list stops or that it is or is not too much to care about, right? Because for some folks, there are people who are not online because of these risks, right? They are choosing to not even have access to some of the utilities that we all can benefit from working remotely, having access to education remotely because these risks are too harmful, right? So I just want to caution any of us from saying this is it or this is the view, right? The view is changing every day when all the people in this room release a new version of their product, right? Or by each other and decide to do different things and it’s

[00:31:12.82] spk_1:
also very personal. Yes, it has to be personal, organizational

[00:31:37.77] spk_2:
and that’s the that’s the place from which I want everybody here to take their duty, right? Is that it is personal and you have a duty as an organization to honor that personal level of choice and risk for every community member that you are expecting to give you their data, right? That you’re expecting to trust you. And that that’s kind of an entry point to to that mindfulness around technology is like it’s not yours. It is theirs. And are you allowing them to have choice? Are you allowing folks to decide how much data to give you a knot or what you can do with their data? Like it just opens up a whole five more shows of what we talk about, right?

[00:32:02.44] spk_1:
Alright, good. This is not, this is not there, this is not their last appearance.

[00:32:06.97] spk_2:
Let’s talk about Jean about the legal piece of that too, right? Because there’s a social conscience of what you do with your community members, data and there’s actual legal.

[00:32:46.00] spk_1:
We will, we will. All right, Amy Sample Ward, the C E O of N 10 grand high exalted mystic ruler of 23 NTC. Um I was surprised to see them walking on the street today. I thought I’d see them in a chauffeured limousine. You bring 1600 people in the city of Denver. I thought you get the penthouse suite concierge Bellman. Okay. Thank you very much. So. Good to see you. Thank you and thank you for being with our 23 NTC coverage where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, sharing the booth with us doing technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thank you.

[00:33:04.34] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two first. I need to thank Heller consulting. So thank you Heller consulting for your sponsorship of tony-martignetti non profit radio at the 2023 nonprofit technology conference.

[00:33:21.78] spk_1:
Very

[00:34:52.37] spk_0:
grateful that we shared a large booth together that I was able to make lots of interviews to Heller after each interview, bringing folks over to meet the Heller team that was Kaya and Paige and Jet. And I also met the CEO Keith Heller. Uh Thank you. Thank you. Hello, consulting for partnering with me, sponsoring nonprofit radio at the 23 N T C. Thanks so much. Thanks to the listeners who came by, but a bunch of folks come over say, oh, you’re the, you that radio got, you know, the nonprofit radio guy, one guy said in the bathroom. But in any case, I got a chance to meet lots of listeners. So that’s very gratifying. Thank you to those folks came over. I’m not gonna name who came over in the men’s room. We’ll just leave that uh to lay right there. But thanks listeners who, who joined us at 23 N T C and thank U N 10 N 10 supporting nonprofit radio. I’m grateful for our partnership. Thank you to the team at N 10. Congratulations to the staff for a successful fun valuable conference. My thanks, my congratulations out to end 10. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time here is building an inclusive board culture.

[00:35:28.60] spk_1:
Welcome to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. The 2023 nonprofit technology conference were at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy. And implementation for nonprofits with me now is Renee Reuben Ross. She is founder and CEO of the Ross Collective. Renee Reuben Ross. Welcome to nonprofit radio.

[00:35:35.60] spk_3:
Thanks so much. Great to be here.

[00:35:39.78] spk_1:
Absolute pleasure to have you. Your topic is building an inclusive culture on nonprofit boards. Right. Right. I think I have some sense, but I’m gonna let you articulate because you’ll do it better. Why we need this session?

[00:36:51.10] spk_3:
Oh, wow. Well, so many things. But, um, I think that I do a lot of different things. I do strategic planning and board development facilitation. And I also teach board development at Cal State University, East Bay. And so I’ve had so many, I identify as a white person and consultant. I’ve had so many people come up to me who are on board saying, wow, we are really struggling to build a positive culture and what do we need to do? How can we make things different? And I mean, I would say people of all different racial backgrounds, people who are, you know, people who might just be joining the board, who don’t know what’s going on. And so in, in, in having these conversations, I’ve developed a way of thinking about all right, what are some practices that support boards to do better work? Because I think that many of us, you probably know someone who’s joy. You know, it seems like everybody else knows what’s going on here and I’m trying to catch up, but I just don’t feel like I’m part of this and that might be around information. It might be around the culture in terms of racial equity, it might be around relationships. So, really thinking about what are some great practices that boards can keep in mind gender equity as well

[00:37:18.08] spk_1:
as a board. And there are two women and one’s a woman of color and, and we, you know, we feel minimized. Yes, I’ve heard things like, you know, we feel patronized, minimized. All the power is in the middle aged white guys.

[00:37:45.07] spk_3:
I start with the assumption that we all that we each have something to contribute. And going back to this idea of equity that the people who are closest to the problem should be weighing in on the solutions so that we really need to do consciously design boards and organizations in a way where all voices are heard and affirmed. And that that’s a good thing. That’s not, that’s not anybody losing anything that’s actually all of us getting to do better work that supports everybody. Yeah,

[00:38:01.01] spk_1:
the zero sum game where, well, if, if she has a voice than I’m losing that much of mine. But it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s

[00:38:12.05] spk_3:
ludicrous. Right. Right.

[00:38:12.78] spk_1:
Power is, power is infinite. Power, infinite. So you’ve got some signs and symptoms, indicators of, of what your current culture

[00:39:55.78] spk_3:
is. Right. Well, I am going to have a story that I’m going to share stories. So I was on a board and I had a colleague who came and joined that board. And at the beginning, she was pretty quiet. But then over time, what happened, which I had not expected was she started to come to the board meetings and there was always something bothering her and she was really angry and she, she became sadly this, this angry person in our meetings. And I didn’t expect this. She was someone that I knew she had some good things to contribute. But I started to think about what can I do? And I know that many of my students, many of the clients that I work with have the same issue which we’re going to talk about tomorrow in my session, which is what do you do about somebody who, who has, what do you do about somebody who has become a toxic board member? And so I suggested this kind of, this is really what happens. This is not like, oh, we’ve never met this person before. Usually people who come on board, somebody knows them ahead of time. But what ended up happening was I did my, I did my checklist, which is our, the board procedures. Good. Yes. Are we generally building positive relationships? Yes. Are we honoring equity and listening to all voices? Yes. And then it was like, what I ended up doing was counseling Micah colleague off the board. And I just said to her, you know what I’ve noticed is, it doesn’t seem like it makes you happy to be on this

[00:40:03.54] spk_1:
board. She probably realized it herself.

[00:40:21.46] spk_3:
She realized it herself. I’m somebody who’s not afraid to have the tough conversations. I wasn’t, I wasn’t angry with her. I was stating the truth in a courageous way and it got her to reflect on her participation and to leave the board. What

[00:40:23.47] spk_1:
do you think? Was, was there anything having to do with the, with the organization? Was it was, it was, it was some

[00:40:47.30] spk_3:
other things that were going on. And so many of us have a lot of things that are happening in our homes and with our families that maybe we are bringing to board meetings, right? So it’s really a matter of how can board members act courageous and proactively so that the board so that everybody feels, everybody feels like, wow, when I come to this meeting, things are going in a positive direction because what I’ve heard about boards these days is people really need to feel like their time is worthwhile and if they don’t, they want to do something else, especially now in this post pandemic time, my time is really valuable.

[00:41:13.58] spk_1:
Take off your three little three questions that you ask.

[00:41:16.68] spk_3:
Right. So, so I, so I have this framework that I share with my students, with my clients and my blog. It’s all about, are you utilizing formal practices? So that the first one is formal practices, goals agendas, agreements, term limits. We could just have a

[00:41:34.43] spk_1:
whole bylaws,

[00:41:39.98] spk_3:
bylaws, right? And, and I have, I have encountered or that will say, oh, no, we don’t have term limits. We have people on our board have been here for 20 years. You need to tighten that up. That is not responsible.

[00:41:51.17] spk_1:
You’re saying, I notice you’re saying not just have procedures. Are you following the bylaws may have two consecutive three year terms as the max and you’ve got this 20 year board member. So great,

[00:43:25.55] spk_3:
you got to enforce this and have a way of being in conversation. So first of all, for good, good meeting agendas that are aligned with the goals of the organization. Second of all informal procedures and this is really the relationship building peace. And I think that in these days, if anything, people want more than ever to feel that they feel connected to other board members, they feel a sense of belonging on the board that there’s compassion understanding that, you know, that it isn’t just get the work done, but they’re really that there’s some sort of positive team feeling. And I will say that I share this on a podcast on a webinar and someone said, well, how much does it cost to build? It doesn’t we’re talking a Starbucks coffee. Yes, presence, right? So, so first, so formal practices, informal practice and informal practices given attention, given, given attention really accounting for the fact that people process information differently, learn differently. That’s another informal practice that can really support good, good culture and good

[00:43:33.49] spk_1:
meetings on this, on this one before we move to the third, can other social events for the board which don’t have to be expensive. The person who’s concerned about spending too much money, you can, you can bring everybody into witness, witness some of the work you’re doing if you have that type of work.

[00:45:15.15] spk_3:
But you know what you just is, there was a board that I was invited to join and they said we want to have, we want to have, we’re having all of our meetings at seven a.m. And I was like, I know that I’m a working parent that’s seven a.m. is a horrible time for me. And, and so it is also a matter of being aware of how are, how, how can these practices of, of the board be as inclusive as possible. Um So, so then, and then going on to equity and the reason that so, and I define equity as being committed to shifting systems and sharing power as we talked about before. And the reason that I mentioned equity is that sometimes and I do some work as part of a cross race team where I’m leading along with my colleague, Crystal Cherry. We lead conversations for, for mostly historically white boards around racial equity. Sometimes there is the one person who one person who may be black or who may have something really, really important to say. And that person, even if it’s one person, that person needs to be hurt. Uh And so there’s some, some stepping back that needs to happen on behalf of, you know, by white people sometimes and some real perspective taking to focus more on equity

[00:45:16.30] spk_1:
sharing, power sharing. Uh

[00:45:32.37] spk_3:
And, and this is, we’re all on a learning journey, but it’s like start the journey, the train is going and, and again, if you, when we leave these conversations, we talk a lot about how does this align with the mission of the organization? So we had an arts organization that had their location in a primarily white neighborhood. Um Alright, how do you, what are you going to do in terms of outreach? Given that 45% of your city are people of color. You are not serving the mission to serve the whole community

[00:45:53.92] spk_1:
perceived in the community as a white elitist organization. So you’re not, you’re not attracting new supporters of any type volunteers, donors, board members, whatever is really

[00:46:04.04] spk_3:
about how does this work of um shifting systems of listening to more perspectives, deepen and strengthen the work of the organization?

[00:46:16.29] spk_1:
Anything else on the on the culture? Before we talk about dealing with your toxic person personages?

[00:46:26.56] spk_3:
I think that what I would say is I when I do this work, I encourage, I’m sure you do the same kind of thing. The first step is really assessment. How are you doing right now? And so as people are listening, I would say, put your podcast on pause for a second.

[00:46:52.19] spk_1:
Okay, come back. So, so,

[00:47:17.83] spk_3:
so, and, and these are questions for, for not just for one person, for the whole board. Um I will say that, that we had, we did one conversation with a potential client and it was this man, white man. And we said to him, well, are you building belonging on your board? And, and he said, of course, I am so and we said, well, how do you know? He’s like, well, I’ve asked my three best friends and they all feel a sense of belonging, you know, it’s like, okay, you got to go beyond beyond who you hear from. And maybe that means you survey your whole board or do you have a consultant come in and do interviews, whatever the way that you’re, you’re gathering data, you need to be more comprehensive in, in your learning and perspective taking.

[00:47:44.26] spk_1:
Can we go to toxic, toxic folks had to deal with? I mean, you had a good sample of a good story about your friend, your friend did the board experience.

[00:48:50.06] spk_3:
She’s still my friend because I spoke in a caring way. I wasn’t angry with her. I can see I do that. This is how I approach any kind of service or work, you know, and the same thing that I um that I would suggest for clients, positive or negative. In her case, there was she was having more of a negative experience. So it wasn’t the right fit for her. Other times, sometimes the situation comes up where somebody is on the board, they had a really strong relationship with the previous executive director with the previous staff. And then those people have left, the organization is going in a new direction and this person’s really frustrated. That is a pretty common scenario, right? And so what do you do? It’s up to the new leadership to say yes, we affirm the direction that we’re taking. We’re, we’re sorry that you, that you are not with us, but we are going forward. That’s okay. Again, it’s sometimes leaders, some of the leaders that I meet need just more courage to take this kind of action.

[00:49:10.61] spk_1:
Yeah, other other advice about approaching someone who’s, who’s toxic on a board.

[00:49:17.22] spk_3:
I think that’s just

[00:49:27.99] spk_1:
straightforward factual, you know, conversation. What about, what about in the moment in the, in the, in the heat of a meeting? Someone is dominating the conversation or, or just belittling someone else’s idea? That’s a good, that’s a better example, belittling someone else’s ideas were in the board meeting right now. Thank you for

[00:49:56.99] spk_3:
that. So, some of the practices that I do. So, one of the things that I do when I lead a meeting, I always use meeting agreements and meeting agreements are how it takes a minute or two. How do we want to be together? I have a list of meeting agreements around listening to one another. Curiosity respect

[00:50:03.32] spk_1:
before you joined the board meeting, at

[00:50:06.02] spk_3:
the beginning of each meeting for a minute. And then, and then it’s a matter of depending on how the meeting that helps frame

[00:50:14.81] spk_1:
things. How do we,

[00:50:55.00] spk_3:
is there anything you need to add? Um But I do think that this is where this is where some of this goes back to the framework that I’m a before. Because if, if there is, you want to start with a good agenda and you want, and it is possible to say, all right, well, we’ve been talking about this for 30 minutes. We said we would talk about it for 15. We’re going to cut it off here because we have other things that we need to accomplish and we’re gonna need to talk about this in committee. But so two different things. So one is if somebody is sort of going off, you can use some of those kinds of moves. But then the next part of it is is if someone is belittling somebody, I think that goes back to how do we want to be together and

[00:51:03.86] spk_1:
remind them of what we all agree half an hour

[00:51:06.90] spk_3:
ago and, and have maybe it’s the board president, maybe it’s executive director again, going back to that person. It should be the

[00:51:13.84] spk_1:
board chair in the, in the heat. Of the men in the heat of the meeting. It should be the board chair. It’s their job to run the job to run the meeting.

[00:51:24.00] spk_3:
But it may be that, that person, you want to talk to that person offline, find out what’s

[00:51:27.98] spk_1:
going on. But I’m putting you right in the, in the battle right now. We got to defuse the situation right now because someone is feeling someone has been hurt and, and minimized and someone else’s trotting over them. I think I would like, what do we all agree at the beginning of the meeting? This is not appropriate

[00:51:53.00] spk_3:
and I would go and what I would do would be to go back to them. Like I went back to my colleague and just said, you seem really angry in these meetings were all trying. We’re all working to get more meals to seniors what’s going on. You know, this is really a little bit beyond hear what they have to say and then see what the next step for them is. But, but really, but really again, courage, directness and, and I want to say, protecting everybody in the meeting by, by keeping a safe and caring environment.

[00:52:23.02] spk_1:
It’s also gonna depend on how the person reacts. I think in that moment with apology, you know, I’m I’m sorry, I got carried away versus

[00:52:34.27] spk_3:
okay. Fine. Yeah, that’s true. You’re right, you’re right.

[00:52:36.24] spk_1:
But this possible responses in between those but you know, apology a public apology in the moment goes a long way.

[00:54:03.20] spk_3:
Right. I had, I had another person who reached out to me and said, you know, we have one person who’s hijacking our meetings and he just won’t stop. And so then that was where I went back to my framework. And all right, do you have term limits? Do you have a structured agenda? Do you know what the purpose of these meetings is? I’ll use your checklist to have that structure. Have you talked with other board members to get clarity on what you want and how, how you want to be together and once you can get that, oh and adding the equity piece, are you, can you confirm that this person doesn’t have a perspective that are you sure that this person doesn’t have a perspective that needs to be listened to because I don’t want to, I don’t want to take that off the table. It may be that, that they do. In this case, the person did not. And when, when I talked to this client, it gave her the permission to say, alright, we understand that you want to do blah, blah, blah, but the nine of us don’t. And so we’re going forward over here and it seems like maybe this board isn’t right for you anymore. That’s okay. And that actually kept, it’s that it’s that 2020% of the people or 5% of the people taking up, you know, so much of your time and, and then the board got back on track through that. Okay.

[00:54:05.24] spk_1:
Um What else? What else? We’ve only spent like 20 minutes together? What else are you going to share with folks tomorrow that we haven’t talked

[00:54:12.14] spk_3:
about yet? Yeah, I think that. So I just, this is my first NTC to see how it is. I would say that, that, that

[00:54:23.47] spk_1:
congratulations on being selected as a speaker community, the community voted and chose you.

[00:55:55.14] spk_3:
It’s exciting. Um What I’m trying to do now is create a lot of spaciousness in the meetings that I lead in these presentations. And by spaciousness, I mean, spaciousness, interactivity you’re really giving because people more than ever want to talk, want to have the opportunity to talk. So how I’m, how I lead this conversation, so how I recommend board members should lead these conversations really to say we want to hear from you, we want time for us to talk it through and sometimes there may not be enough time in um in the meetings themselves that may mean that you need to go off and you know, have committee meetings so that you can be more expansive in exploring a certain topic. But really understanding that with everything going on in the world, people are holding a lot and there is a need for more processing of all of this and that needs to go into the design and to just come into you don’t want to come into a room and say, let’s, we’re just getting down to work. It’s really the opposite of that. It’s really what’s here in the room right now. Um, I, I have, there’s a book called Permission To Feel by Marc Brackett. Don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. And there’s an app to that and it’s really about how you’re feeling right now and it’s such a simple question, but just to say as a check in with your board members, how are you feeling right now? And again, it doesn’t cost very much, but it’s a way to say we’re all here together. But what do you need to leave behind? So you can be here in the room and that creates a lot better work.

[00:56:25.24] spk_1:
You’re promising the folks who attend tomorrow that you’ll, you’ll leave them with a take away the next the next step, next step for building a healthier board. How do you help them identify that next step?

[00:57:33.26] spk_3:
So my, my theory of learning is what you care about. What you embrace. What you notice is what you’re going to start working on. So the reason that I am handing them my hand out with the Venn diagram of these three areas and sorry, I’m being technical, formal practices, informal practices, equity is because I, I don’t, I want each person in the room to reflect on what is working and, and what they want to do next. And to commit to something, right? Something that they want to change in the organization. And it might just be, um, I’m gonna go back to my board and I’m gonna share this with them and we’re gonna have, uh, you know, group conversation about this understanding that we are doing really well in terms of informal practices because we all get along really well. But we actually, we don’t have term limits and that’s hurting us because we’re not getting new people involved with our organization. So a

[00:57:39.50] spk_1:
lot of his internalized what you believe should be a next step where you believe you should work first.

[00:58:17.40] spk_3:
I have a longtime background in education, doctorate in education and studied adult education. Truly believe that we are building our own knowledge and motivation from what we care about and boards are too. What are you giving your attention to? So give my goal for the session is that people give their attention to these three different areas and think. Okay, I’m going to share many practices, but which ones do you need to pay more attention to? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Can we leave it there? What do you think? Sure. Feel good.

[00:58:20.02] spk_1:
Yeah. Alright. You know, feeling like there’s something else we didn’t talk about. He didn’t ask me.

[00:58:46.44] spk_3:
Um I think we’re, I think we’re good. It’s really exciting to, you know, it’s really, I’m very curious about who’s going to come to this session and the challenges they’re bringing and I was, it’s very energizing to see okay room full of people, most of them I haven’t met before. And what will they, you know, what questions do they have about this and what, what’s working for them most? And where do they find, where do they feel like they need to do more fine tuning? What are you excited

[00:58:57.59] spk_1:
about that? What drew you to the nonprofit technology conference? This is your first one, but you’ve obviously been working with nonprofits a long time. What brought you to an NTC?

[00:59:07.30] spk_3:
I was, I was interested in, you know, in meeting all kinds of people and connecting and, you know, learning about some of the ideas that are out there and how this conference works. You

[00:59:17.40] spk_1:
just have never heard of it

[00:59:34.55] spk_3:
before. I have heard of it before. Yeah. And I mean, what I’ve noticed in my work is I have a lot of referral partners who are fundraising consultants who are sending me work and I’m sending them work and I’m guessing that I’ll connect with some new people, you know, who could be potential referral partners. So, yeah, you know, it’s funny because I did have a friend who said, wait, your, your facilitator, why are you going to the technology conference? But I was like, well, there’s a leadership track and so it’s not

[00:59:48.62] spk_1:
only for technical techies I T directors, we all know

[00:59:52.41] spk_3:
that. Right. Right. Right.

[01:00:02.14] spk_1:
Great, Renee Ruben. My pleasure. Thanks for Thanks for sharing a Reuben Ross founder and CEO at the Ross Collective. Thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being my pleasure, Renee. Thank you. You’re welcome. And thank you

[01:01:16.37] spk_0:
next week. Technology Governance for Accidental Taxis as as accidental taxis, technology governance for accidental techies. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. I’m not sure you’d want to do that though. Actually, this week were sponsored by Donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. I’m sure my voice will sound better. Next week, our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.