Tag Archives: nonprofit technology

Nonprofit Radio for September 5, 2023: A Post-Fellowship Conversation With Amy Sample Ward

 

Amy Sample WardA Post-Fellowship Conversation With Amy Sample Ward

Amy Sample Ward, NTEN CEO

What did they do over their Bosch Foundation Fellowship, who did they meet and what did they talk about for three months abroad? For a tease: How tech could save an island nation, and the future of the internet. Trivial topics like that. Amy is our technology contributor and the CEO of NTEN.

 

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[00:00:36.69] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti Nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite Heb Domin podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be thrown into toxicosis if you poisoned me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, Kate. Give us the highlights, please.

[00:01:10.66] spk_1:
Ok, tony, we have a post fellowship conversation with Amy Sample Ward. What did they do over their Bosch Foundation fellowship? Who did they meet? And what did they talk about for three months abroad for a tease, how tech could save an island nation and the future of the internet. Trivial topics like that. Amy is our technology contributor and the CEO of N 10 on Tony’s take two

[00:01:12.85] spk_0:
fair share. That’s fair.

[00:01:48.04] spk_1:
We sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor Boxx dot org. And Bikila grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraiser CRM visit Kila dot co to join the thousands of fundraisers using Kila to exceed their goals. Here is a post fellowship conversation with Amy Sample Ward.

[00:02:20.21] spk_0:
It is a pleasure to welcome back Amy Sample Ward to nonprofit radio. They are the CEO of N 10 and our technology and social media contributor, their most recent co-authored book. And frankly, I think another one is due shortly uh is the tech that comes next about equity and inclusiveness in technology development. They’re at Amy Sample Ward dot org and at Amy Rs Ward. Welcome back, Amy.

[00:02:27.59] spk_2:
Thanks for having me. I’m excited to chat about so many things today. Yeah,

[00:02:56.76] spk_0:
it’s a genuine pleasure because it’s been several months because you were on this uh highfalutin fellowship, Bosch, the Bosch Fellowship, the Dishwasher Company Fellowship, which is so much more than uh dishwashers, of course, and vacuum cleaners. So you were in the Bosch Foundation Fellowship abroad based in Berlin, catch us up from there. What is sure. So look like for a summer.

[00:06:43.60] spk_2:
Totally, the Bosch Foundation is the shareholders of the Bosch Company. So I think fewer foundations and companies have this model in the US, but be more common in, in Europe where there is a commercial company and instead of having lots of shareholders and publicly traded stocks, the foundation is the owner and the foundation is a grantmaking organization. They provide grants for all kinds of, you know, nonprofits, um all around the world actually. And one of their programs is called the Bosch Academy where they have uh for nine years now, um a fellowship program that brings folks from truly all different industries and sectors to Berlin for a period of time. I was only there for three months but other folks are there for 69 plus months. Uh to really, I mean, I couldn’t believe it even up until the last day I was waiting for them to say, and here’s what you have to deliver, there was nothing you’re really there to pursue opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise have kind of the mental space to do in your day to day, you know, work. Um So I was there for three months and all the fellows are on their own timeline. So, uh it was a little bit confusing because I think maybe at least in the US when I think of a fellowship, I think it’s like a cohort of people. We’re all doing like a program together that it, it’s much more of what we would call a residency. So people are on their own timelines. There’s no overarching programming. Uh Everyone is and I think it would be hard to do that because people really are from very diverse um backgrounds. So, while I was there as a fellow, some of my other, other fellow fellows, um you know, there was a GP from England who works in the NHS and had been leading their um digital health work. There was a former president um of Costa Rica. There was um someone from the State Department that now works at Brookings. Um researching industrialization that, you know, so there were people from all, all different backgrounds and interest areas and specialties and I would say the main kind of anchor that, that we did have together was twice a week. We all have lunch together, which feels like, ok, you just have, you know, lunch together, but really opportunities to sit at a, you know, a table that’s small enough, you really could have a conversation with everyone, you know, 10 or fewer people over lunch to talk about things with people who are working all different industries. It’s just not something we normally have the privilege and opportunity to do. Nor do I think we actively create those opportunities very much for ourselves. You know, and the, the kind of twice a week getting to sit together, share a meal talk about what is interesting to us. Um they often brought in speakers. So, um, you know, maybe it’s a journalist from one of the newspapers who’s coming in and sharing, you know, trends they’re seeing um in certain whatever they, you know, in the political section or, or whatever topic, maybe it’s um folks from Eu or German policy, uh houses sharing visa policies. We’re recommending, you know, all different opportunities just to learn and like sit together in conversation. So it was really powerful,

[00:06:51.00] spk_0:
former president of Costa Rica WW. What is he or she looking into?

[00:08:04.78] spk_2:
So, the fellow um that was there with me, that’s the former uh President of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado was um pursuing now um is a teacher at the Fletcher School. And his fellowship was focused on uh designing a new framework for diplomacy that would support folks entering into this world of, of policy and politics with a mindset on collective wins and kind of personal integrity and that each of our stories do matter and influence how we can build relationship to make more inclusive and hopefully better for our planet and our people policies. Um So really thinking about, you know, how do we teach people to, to be in this, in, in politics in ways that don’t just recycle and repurpose the same kind of oppressive systems that, that got us to today. Very lofty.

[00:08:06.25] spk_0:
Of course, we’re gonna talk about what Amy sample ward was thinking about investigating, talking to people. This all sounds, it, it all sounds very

[00:08:48.22] spk_2:
freeing. It was incredibly freeing and honestly, because it was in Berlin and I normally live out in Portland, Oregon ha, having nine hours difference. Uh also was freeing in my calendar. I went from having, you know, my days are 8 to 4 scheduled meetings to there’s a lunch and then, you know, maybe I’ve got an early morning pacific time check in with a staff person and that was it for what was scheduled, you know, really being able to have the, the freedom in your scheduled day to, to think and do work and do work and think in the ways that you want to was a huge gift.

[00:09:00.67] spk_0:
Uh And you, you took time off from work, right? You, you reduced to 15.

[00:09:06.21] spk_2:
Yeah, I reduced my hours but I didn’t fully step out so that there wasn’t also like an administrative burden to change all of our processes or, you know, I could still run payroll like, you know, those types of things.

[00:09:19.97] spk_0:
And uh is this fellowship a paying gig? Do they?

[00:09:50.26] spk_2:
No, they don’t. Um They don’t give you the place. I mean, they give you the stipend so that you can cover the cost of having somewhere and they can help you find a place. But um you know, there were folks there who are single and don’t have Children and then we were there as a whole family with a child, you know, so everybody has such different needs with their housing that they, they just support you finding what works for you? Ok.

[00:09:54.44] spk_0:
Ok. Uh And you and your husband Max, uh daughter Oren, did you? You traveled? I’m sure you’re in Europe

[00:10:00.92] spk_2:
must have traveled. Yeah, we actually, we, well, I

[00:10:06.61] spk_0:
know you were in, I know you were in Warsaw, Poland. Yeah, because we got you for the 650th show from Warsaw.

[00:11:35.21] spk_2:
Yes, we did spend some time in Warsaw um doing some project collaboration work there. Um And then they got to experience Warsaw where I’d been before but they hadn’t. And then, uh the other trip that we took was to take Oren back to England where we used to live and show her around London. Um go, you know, she got to see some proper castles. That’s really what she wanted. Um And all the fellows, uh and Max non went on a trip down to Stuttgart, which is the, the home of Bosch uh as a company and uh history. And that’s also where the Bosch affiliated hospital is. And, um got to see so many other parts. It’s certainly the first factory floor that I’ve walked, uh and got to see, you know, this mix of, of kind of classic industry, you know, building these things in a, in a building altogether, mixed in with more of the recent tech innovations of, you know, a little robot that delivered you the parts that you needed to inspect. Um And if you got in the way the robot would stop, but then get very frustrated that you were never getting out of the robot’s way for it to go deliver its parts, you know, um things like that. So it was a really cool experience in getting to see really so many other sides to the world that, you know, II I get stuck in my nonprofit space and, and think about our work. Um So it was really cool. That’s

[00:11:53.75] spk_0:
the free, the free, uh a luxury for three months, you said? Yeah, you there three months, right? So uh what, what were you uh investigating thinking about? I’m sure you had meetings, you were talking to people.

[00:13:15.62] spk_2:
Yes. So many meetings, so many conversations. But my focus really. And though, you know, of course, I’m just interested in general meeting with folks who are trying to make the world better and, you know, I had lots of conversations or questions with folks to say, you know, what are you trying and what’s working? What did you try that didn’t work? Like, how do we, how do we get traction? How do we succeed in making the world better? Of course. But the start of all of my conversations and my meetings with folks was this kind of one I know you’re gonna say lofty. But one big question, which was what does an internet that is actually built on safety and freedom and sovereignty look like? And can we build that? And there were a lot of people who, you know, didn’t think it is possible. Um That, that, that, that those, you know, true freedom and true safety and true sovereignty couldn’t all be achieved like they, they couldn’t all three be at the same time or that a better internet wasn’t possible. Um But there also were people who were like, yes, it is possible and we can build it and please can we start yesterday? You know. Um

[00:13:49.21] spk_0:
So I, I got my first interruption. So the uh the, the folks who say No, it, it, it can’t be done. Do they feel that we missed the, the opportunity to have built the internet that you described or is it more that it was never achievable? Not that we not that we went about it or allowed it to develop on its own in i in the wrong way or unobstructed? I

[00:16:49.31] spk_2:
think that honestly, the folks who had the most pushback um in my conversations were folks who were honestly pushing back on my view of the internet now, you know, saying, 00, it already is safe. It already is free, right? Um And so it was less that internet isn’t possible and more like discrediting the place from which the conversate the question is being asked, you know, um and that we can, we can make a few policies and like, we’re, we’re good, you know, the internet’s good as it is. Um And there were also a lot of folks who felt that my focus on those three aspects was maybe the issue for them that, that safety, everybody agreed. Yes, the internet should be safe. Um Not as many people agreed. It should be free. And no, I don’t mean free by cost to access it, but like, what does freedom for each of us look like online? And I think that’s where folks had a little bit of like, but what does that mean? And, and can it be safe if it’s free? Right. Which are important conversations, but I, I think yes, it can be. Um But a lot of folks felt like sovereignty and these conversations about how do we acknowledge and establish sovereignty as communities was me saying it’s all anarchy, nothing matters. You know, there, there are no rules which is really honestly the opposite of sovereignty. Sovereignty is saying I want you to acknowledge that I have rules because my community has said this is what keeps us free and safe, right? Or, or whatever. Um And that the view is, that’s the role of government. But I think honestly, and I’m not trying to like, take this down a, a deep rabbit hole, but I really don’t think that a structure for something like a global system of the internet where we are all interacting all over the world, you know, regardless of which country’s government we we may live under isn’t enough to say that the internet could be free and safe and supportive and, you know, successful in all these ways because all these governments have issues with each other. And like the, you know, there’s communities within a country that are different from each other. Um And they’re there, I think should be passed to be able to say this is what this is, what’s right for our community. Um And again, I’m not trying to like devolve everything down into, into chaos, but I also don’t think I could accept the notion that what we have today. Is working. Um So I’m, I’m mostly saying it has to be something else and not that I have all the answers. Oh my gosh. If I had all the answers, what am I doing? Sitting over here holding on to them, you know, like, but, but we need to have the open space to find those answers or create those answers together and say, what could it be like versus saying this is good enough. Let’s put a policy that says, you know, don’t, don’t take it or something and, and that’s it.

[00:17:47.60] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Donor box, quote donor box text to give led one of our more successful fundraising events, a concert sharing the keyword short code and scannable QR code made giving easy for our supporters and they did give that’s from Josh Young, Executive director of Hydrating Humanity Donor Boxx, helping you help others. Donor Boxx dot org. Now back to a post fellowship conversation with Amy Sample Ward

[00:17:54.86] spk_0:
who were some of the folks that you were talking to?

[00:18:47.33] spk_2:
Yeah, good question. Um It was really a why I felt really interested in making sure I was talking to a lot of different folks because as you know, even the N 10 community has, you know, all different kinds of nonprofits missions, of course, people of all different departments in an organization, but also consultants and tech companies and foundations and you know, all these different folks. So I was meeting with of course, nonprofits um themselves, folks who see themselves in kind of a nonprofit technology vein, but also folks who are focused on um supporting refugees and connecting them with jobs and they kind of see that technology has to be part of that, right? Um But then I was also meeting with think tanks and foundations and folks who are, you know, kind of advocating or, or resourcing the movement around the internet and on other sides, you know, whether that’s giving money or, or talking to policymakers and government. Um So really talk to folks all across that spectrum and folks in Berlin, folks in Germany and folks more broadly in the EU,

[00:19:18.65] spk_0:
all right. Um I, I think before we, we talk about some of the folks who said, you know, let’s achieve this ideal internet and, you know, you said, let’s start yesterday, what you, you, I, I think it’s valuable for you to summarize where you’re coming from. What’s, what’s your sense of uh of our internet, our technology space and, and you know, it’s uh it’s utility for, for nonprofits.

[00:20:08.89] spk_2:
Yeah, I think that I believe all technology, including the internet should be something that every person, regardless of where they live or whether or not they have a job or how much money they have or, you know, what their interests are, can find AAA way um to be included there, whether they want to help create part of the internet or watch cat videos, you know, whatever they want that this is really a, uh this is really something that is for everyone. And I think a big challenge with that today is um, lack the lack of certain policies that make it accessible and affordable and available, you know, you know,

[00:20:28.82] spk_0:
let’s just start with accessibility. Right. There are pockets of the world and certainly of the United States where the internet is not taken for granted,

[00:23:08.24] spk_2:
right? I mean, there’s more than 45 million people in the US who couldn’t even have sufficient broadband internet to like be on a zoom call with us right now. You know, so the idea that, um, and I’m not saying this is your idea, but I, I do see out in the media, this perception that it’s like other far away places that don’t have the internet, we don’t have the internet all over the US too, you know. Um, and even the pandemic has not accelerated real work to address that, you know. Um, but there’s also the piece of commercialization around the internet. I think that has, of course, come from a lack of policies that, that made it so that, that couldn’t be the case. And the fact that of course commercial companies are the largest lobbyists and so they are able to make sure that the policies continue to work for them. But, you know, the number of folks who think the internet is Facebook and don’t leave Facebook and that because that’s all that they know that means again, they don’t really see how they are part of shaping or making or engaging in, in this global resource we have but also are a victim of, of what that commercialization means. The bubble that Facebook has created all of the, you know, algorithmic bias and hate that comes from that. Um So finding ways where both from the actual access point like communities could own their own networks and have the, the jobs and the profits from managing that all the way up to lots more people creating those apps or those tools, you know, I, I don’t think we need to build an internet where every single person in the world would ever use the same app because not every single person in the world needs the same app. Not everyone has the same phone, not everyone has the same computer, you know, like we don’t need to say that success in technology is when every single person is using it. It’s just when every person that it’s right for is using it, you know, and um building tools or online resources or websites or whatever else that, that aren’t viewed as like scale to the X forever and just, oh great. We succeeded. Everyone that needs this tool is using it, you know, and, and that’s good. Um But that’s really not again because of the commercialization of so much of the web. That’s not how it’s how it works right now. That’s not the incentive. Yeah.

[00:23:41.94] spk_0:
The commercialization, the access issues, the, the cost issues. Yes. Uh, there, I, I think probably, uh, a lot of, or all of nonprofit radios listeners, you know, we, we, we probably take the internet for granted. You wake up in the morning, you click in and it’s there. Um, and your technology is at your, at your bedside when you wake up. Although Beth Cantor would tell you that it should not be. You should

[00:23:44.03] spk_2:
not have to not be, not

[00:24:24.50] spk_0:
be, but the reality is, it’s, it’s, if it’s not at your bedside, it’s uh it’s in the, just the next room over, it’s very close and, you know, so, and it, it works 99.999% of the time. Uh I had someone in uh my, my plan giving Accelerator course he is uh is in based in Malawi. He didn’t even have stable electricity every night. For him. Our meetings were at night time. Um Three o’clock Eastern was nine or 10 o’clock. I think it was nine o’clock, nine pm for him in Africa. Standard time. He didn’t even have reliable electricity each night, let alone reliable internet though, right?

[00:25:24.65] spk_2:
And I think sometimes there’s this misperception again, not saying that this is your misperception, but um more broadly that folks that aren’t online don’t, don’t know things right. There’s so much that um we assume about folks who are not online and it isn’t that they don’t still know the news or that they still don’t, you know, or that, or that they don’t want to be online. It’s just that there are so many other barriers in the way, um, that are structural, not, you know, they’ve never heard of the internet and they don’t know what it is. Um, and so access isn’t just saying like, oh, yeah. Well, there was a, you know, we saw this in the pandemic um in the first, you know, year especially like, oh, well, we know all these kids aren’t in school and all these people need the internet. So we put up a, a wifi signal in this field. You can just drive over. Oh, and we’re just gonna sit in our car for four hours and work and try to do school. Like, what are you, what, how is this a solution? You know? Um So there’s, there’s so much that goes into that and always remembering that folks who aren’t online aren’t unaware, they’re just experiencing a bunch of barriers that they didn’t create

[00:26:16.81] spk_0:
it. It creates frustration. Yeah. Frustration and anxiety because they’re left behind. They know they’re left behind. They can’t access what uh what they know is available to lots of other people. All right, let’s, let’s bring it back to uh uh Germany Berlin. So you met with lots of folks who said, you know, yes, we can achieve this, this uh more equitable, more accessible, um, safer uh uh internet. Um What, what do they, uh, I don’t know, what, what do they want to do? Are you gonna, are you coming back with a bunch of partners that you’re gonna start lobbying and, and policy

[00:29:07.54] spk_2:
paper? Yeah, I think, I think we definitely were able to, um, build stronger relationships with organizations. We maybe new or even tangentially new. Um, because antenna is an, a global organization, there are folks from all over the world that are already in the community, but just the value of actually showing up at their office and sitting down for an hour, you know, really goes a long way and in building trust and relationship. Um But I think the other piece was having the energy that comes from conversations where people are not disagreeing with the premise of which we’re even trying to talk about but saying like, yeah, we are. No, we already agree like, let’s get to this part and really validating for folks. No, you’re not the only one like I’m from this community that you’re welcome to be part of or maybe you are, you know, know about, but there’s this whole n 10 community of people who also think an internet like this is possible and also want to build it, you know, you are not alone trying to like work in your tinyt corner and, and find a way, right? And whatever corner you’re in is needed. We don’t all have to do the same thing. We shouldn’t all do the same thing, right? Like you, if, if policy is your thing, go, go work on that. If, you know, supporting refugees, transitioning into jobs is your thing, go do that, you know, like wherever you are in the work is the right place to be. Um And so those were really, I think validating and generative conversations, especially for folks who felt like they were being told there was only one way to do this work. Um And you know, the only policy recommendations we want are policies that, you know, address A I, for example, lots of A I conversation in the summer in the US and, and everywhere else in the world, you know, and I kept saying, but there might be applications of technology that are specific to what they think A I is today. But wouldn’t it be better to write policy about any way that data was being used from, you know, a, a person or uh where, what, what accountability looks like for when there is harm. I don’t care if they used it in an A I garbage machine or they used it in my health records. I I should get to have the control, right? So helping folks reframe that it doesn’t have to only be a single issue or a single topic like that, that it’s all connected, it is all related, all of this technology work. Is connected and whatever piece you can work on, please go do it as well as you can. You know,

[00:30:07.82] spk_1:
it’s time for a break, increase donations and foster collaborative team work with Kila. The fundraisers. CRM maximize your team’s productivity and spend more time building strong connections with donors through features that were built specifically for fundraisers. A fundraiser. CRM goes beyond a data management platform. It’s designed with the unique needs of fundraisers in mind and aims to unify fundraising, communications and donor management tools into one single source of truth. Visit, Kila dot co to sign up for a coming group demo and explore how to exceed your fundraising goals. Like never before. It’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:31:40.87] spk_0:
Thank you, Kate. Share share. That’s fair. Who can you share nonprofit radio with? I’d be grateful if you would give it some thought. Maybe it’s someone you work with somebody, a, a colleague, a peer, somebody, you work for your vice president, your CEO perhaps your board, I have gotten, I’ve gotten uh emails through the years that we stimulated a board conversation or I shared this show with my board and we were gonna talk about it at the next meeting, you know, friends and nonprofits people you used to work with assuming you don’t hate them still, you know, if, if they, if they fired you, you’re probably not gonna share this fabulous show with them. So, all right. So that’s out if they fired you let that go. Uh, maybe the job before that, the, the job you didn’t get fired from. I hope that you haven’t been fired. You know, you haven’t been fired that much. Um, nonprofit radios, exemplary listeners. So, never fired. Right. But if in the off chance, all right. So you’re not gonna share it with those folks who let you go. But everybody else you used to work with folks you used to work with. Perhaps I’d be grateful if we could expand the audience a bit. If you could share this show, I believe it’s helping you otherwise you wouldn’t be listening. Who else can it help? Who else ought to be listening to nonprofit radio? Please share with them. And that’s Tony’s take too,

[00:31:49.06] spk_1:
Kate. We’ve got, but loads more time. Let’s go back to a post fellowship conversation with Amy Sample Ward.

[00:32:12.84] spk_0:
This is all very interesting because you can correct me if my perception is wrong. Please do my perception is that Europe is much further ahead of North America. Forget the continent, the United States in terms of data security. Uh There’s the, there’s the GDPR in terms of holding uh holding the large tech companies accountable, you know, suing I see more lawsuits and, and, and successful either settlements or legal out other legal outcomes against uh uh meta Google. I see more of those. I see.

[00:33:15.13] spk_2:
Yeah, I think that I think that there are, I think there are far more um pieces in place in Europe, in the eu than there are in the U SI. Don’t think that they are adequate or, you know, fully functional to the needs of communities. Um And people, and there’s still a lot of them that are in flux, you know, the EU A I policies are, are still being shaped even though they’ve been discussed as if like here’s what they’ll do and it’s great that they’re actually not done, you know. So yes, GDPR is in place. But um there’s, there’s still a lot to be shaped, there’s even more to be shaped in the US. Um But yes,

[00:34:31.76] spk_0:
all right. That, that, that’s why I mean, I’m, I’m not hearing from you that there’s an attitude of complacency, you know, we’ve, we, we’ve achieved and I not, not that I, not that I expected you to say that, but just recognizing that they are further along, they’re, they’re, they hold companies, especially that I’m particularly interested in the company accountability uh around data usage algorithms uh forced, you know, uh forced uh usage like the way threads you have to be on Instagram to use threads. You, if you drop one, you lose the other. You know, I don’t, that, that rubs me that, that to me is it’s just unfair but they uh not, not to that particular degree that, that the eu has figured that out, but generally they seem to be more demanding accountability of, of the of the big tech companies, right? But, but not, but there’s a lot more work to do. I understand. OK. OK. Uh Is there a, is there a story you can tell about some NGO or other, other organization or person that feels like?

[00:34:36.94] spk_2:
I mean, I think we

[00:34:39.70] spk_0:
got something really good. Let me tell you about it. Yeah,

[00:34:48.26] spk_2:
that there’s no resolution that I have to offer. But I think, you know, this, I want to acknowledge that this is, these are the questions I sit with all the time. This is what my work is around and I’m not expecting every listener to be like, oh yeah, of course, like nodding along with me, like if this is your first time thinking about this because you spend your day on a different topic, that’s totally fine, you know. Um Welcome, welcome,

[00:35:11.63] spk_0:
welcome to a new conversation. Yeah, welcome to join or just take

[00:35:58.77] spk_2:
away them. Yeah. So I was, I wanted to offer this because I think it’s a, a way to root these ideas around sovereignty and freedom and safety in a real example. So we’re not just thinking of like some future world and trying to root it there, but, but a way to think about it now. And um we had the opportunity because another fellow um while I was who ended just maybe two weeks after I arrived. Um Kamal, he had created this um big event and, and number of meetings and brought a delegation of folks from Tuba uh Island Nation in the Pacific. Um And it was incredible to hear from them and to meet them. Um But, but really what’s happening there and why they came is um you know, island nations are, of course on the front lines of climate change and the impacts of climate change. Um As you are, we’re recording this as you’re hunkering down for, for a tropical storm, you know,

[00:36:19.11] spk_0:
medal on my beach. Yes,

[00:40:25.63] spk_2:
yes. And what uh what came out while we were, while, while the delegation from Tuvalu was actually in Berlin was they were um climate scientists have previously said their home, their land will be on uh uh unsustainable for living um for their community in this century. And that has been updated because of the impacts of climate change and the acceleration of, you know, the world. Um And they’re now saying within potentially 20 years and what does that mean for these people? Right? These are, these are real people, these are people who are having babies and having jobs and having lives, right? Um To not just have your world change because of climate change, but literally have your homeland underwater, completely, go away, the entire island could be underwater. Um So, uh part of the conversations um with them have been freedom, safety, sovereignty in the internet for a community that cannot say here is our geographic home um in the in this where that we can live at least in that geographic home. Um And so how do we create a digital nation state? How do we digitize place based culture and artifacts and customs and dances and you know, everything else that comes from who you are as, as, as a community. Um How do we digitize it when we can now? And what does navigating social services? What does you know, traveling the world and getting a passport look like digitally through digital governance uh delivery when you don’t have, you know, an address in that country anymore. Um And it’s kind of heartbreaking to, of course, think Tuvalu is not the only uh island nation that will be facing this, this um circumstance. But, but if you think of this happening in a, in a matter of years, it is everyone’s lifetime, it’s not, you know, a century from now. And you kind of like, oh let it go. It won’t be me, right? This, this is us, we 20 years. Well, we are the ones that have to find the path for this, right? And so, um I think those conversations were really um illuminating and I found it challenging to here and witness uh you know, folks responding to say, to kind of think of all of the many pieces of this and say, well, where do you wanna go live? But that’s not the que we’re not, that’s not the, that’s not the top of my question. List, right? Um It is, how are you the the community members in Tuvalu? What things would you need? How would you support the digitization of your own culture, of your own community? What what can we do to build the internet that you need then? How do we build it now so that we can, you know, like you wanna, you wanna build your new database before you migrate your data in, right? You don’t just get rid of the old one and then figure out what to do with the database. It’s this saying we need to build that safe and free and sovereign internet now so that we can support the citizens of Tuvalu existing in that internet before the before they, you know, don’t have the the land of their home. Um And yeah, I just want to offer that as a example, maybe a reminder that climate change is having immediate and real impacts on folks all around the world, but mostly as an illustration of what it means to think about the future of the internet and the need for, for the internet to work differently on a faster scale than like maybe would Microsoft and Google want it to be different, you know,

[00:41:42.29] spk_0:
and, and so many of the nations, people’s communities that are suffering most from climate change are contributing nothing to contributing dely to, to climate change. They’re not, they’re not responsible at all. The the industrial nations are, which are more hardened and more capable and have greater infrastructure and what are we doing to these other folks and how can we help them to help themselves? I mean, yeah, you make me think of just like how they get a driver’s license. How do I, how do I vote in the next election when I don’t, there’s no polling place because there’s no physical location anymore. Jeez. Yeah. All right. Well, I, that’s a, that’s a provocative, that, that’s a provocative case. Thank you. Thank you. Um What else, what else do you want us to know about?

[00:43:13.50] spk_2:
Well, one thing I thought would be interesting to you and, and interested in maybe your take or observations, like I’ll offer a little reflection and interested in your, in your hot take. But I, you know, met with foundations while I was there and, and asked about, you know, what’s a big priority in philanthropy here? What are the conversations and folks named a challenge that I think we all have some feelings about in the US as well, which is um minimum spend out by foundations in Germany. There’s, there is no minimum spend out. Um So there’s many foundations that didn’t spend any money that did not give any grants in a, in a certain year. And that organizations really feel the challenge of that because they don’t, what, what do we even do? Like, are we even, you know, working with you? Are we trying to get money from you. Um So that was a big issue and the other big conversation that felt and people named, you know, I think the US is more ahead of us on this. But um found some foundations starting to have conversations of, of general operating support instead of project specific, you know, funding. Um and what that requires of them, you know, there was a lot of folks saying like, but then what do we put in the grant agreement? What do, what do we expect for the reporting? And I was like, you know, me, I was like, why do they have to report, you know, um but they weren’t asking the questions of, you know, why don’t we trust our grantees or um why have we never done this until now? You know, they were asking very procedural questions like, well, what, what’s the form say? You know?

[00:45:47.23] spk_0:
Uh Yeah, the minimum spend. Um iii I like it uh here in the US. Uh Unfortunately, a lot of foundations consider the, the floor to be the ceiling. So they’ll spend their, they’ll spend their 5% and they met, they met the burden, the regulation and, and so they consider themselves completed and, you know, I don’t know, you know, I see a lot of them, I see a lot of conversations on linkedin about how things ought to be different and, and uh you know, occasionally I’ll, I’ll attend webinars where uh some, you know, foundation CEO panel, you know, they’re talking about what they’re doing anecdotally to, to overcome um the, the, the minimum spend being a ceiling and funding, funding tech as just I, it just, it belongs in everything. I mean, if, if the people are using Word and Excel, they’re using technology in their work. And II, I hope, I hope, I hope there aren’t many nonprofits that are still using uh index cards and, you know, dog eared, uh you know, written pencil spreadsheets like II, I used to do social research on Carnegie Mellon in the, in the late 19 eighties or early, early 19 eighties, 1984. I graduated. So, uh you know, so, but, you know, that’s all anecdotal. I mean, somebody writes a lofty linkedin post, you know, I don’t know, I don’t know whether it really hits home with the, the majority of big, you know, the, the, the biggest foundations that we could all name off the top of our heads that, that control, you know, access to probably 80% of the, the, the foundation capital or something. You know, there’s probably 20% of the cap, 20% of the nonprofit, the foundations are holding 80% if you follow that 28 80 20 rule, uh you know, is, is that, are those linkedin posts and those webinars, you know, are they trickling to the, to those kinds of folks? And are they actually, you know, are these real conversa uh are these heartfelt sentiments a lot of times or, you know, is this um placating, you know, platitudes, lofty, lofty uh academic type conversations that, that don’t result in real change. So you, you can sense my cynicism. Uh Well,

[00:46:36.50] spk_2:
and I, I wanna name also the piece that you said in there about technology. You know, I did ask funders, how are you funding technology? Do you have a, you know, tech capacity building portfolio? Is that something that you fund directly? Do you give every grant, you know, a line item for technology? You know, what, what are you doing? And I didn’t, there weren’t many foundations that had a technology, you know, portfolio or focus or, or, or um grantmaking space. A lot of what I heard was, oh well, you know, it’s 2023 technology is in everything. So we just know that it’s in all of our grants said. Oh, ok. So it must be, you have like a technology budget and every grant to support the tech and they’re like, well, no, because it’s just, you know, part of doing their work, we know they’re using technology. But right, and I said, right, so if technology is part of everything, then it’s nowhere. If it’s everywhere, it’s nowhere to you, you know, and we, you actually need to be providing the support for these organizations to give you this massive report on all of their data. You know, like

[00:47:04.00] spk_0:
you’re saying, you, you you’re saying, you know, that they use it, it’s, it’s ubiquitous. That doesn’t mean it’s free.

[00:47:20.60] spk_2:
Right. Right. And the train just have to use it. Well, is certainly not free, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So, I felt just as, you know, head against the wall as I, as I normally do.

[00:48:38.43] spk_0:
Yeah. You didn’t have to go to, you have to go to the Bosch Fellowship for that degree of frustration. It saved the boss a lot of money there. Um No. All right. You know. So, yeah, I don’t have an answer. I just have, I have cynicism. I, I have a lot of questions, you know, is real change happening. Uh Is it better now in 2023 than it was in 2000? Yeah, I, I think we’ve progressed but, but not far enough and, and new issues are emerging, you know, now there’s on the, we’re, we’re in the midst of just scratching the surface of artificial intelligence. And, um you know, your, your coauthor of a was on a panel with George Weiner and Beth Beth Canter and Alison. Fine. And, you know, we talked for 60 or 70 minutes about the implications, the risks, the opportunities too, you know, but the inequities, uh you know, so that, that, that’s emerging now. So how are foundations reacting to that? What are, are they reacting? You know, it’s, it’s a lot of times it, it feels like the, the, the, the parallel or the analogy is that, you know, how slow government is to react to changes in, in the culture, in society. You know, equivalently foundations feel to me slow to react to what’s on the ground among their grantees.

[00:51:19.43] spk_2:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, maybe as a closing thought, want a name that I don’t think that even in an equitable world, it’s a, it’s a world where nobody gets upset where harm doesn’t exist, but it’s a world where there’s a path for accountability for that harm, right? It’s not that that perfect isn’t real perfect doesn’t exist. We’re not gonna go to some future equitable world where, where nothing bad happens, you still fall or you still, you know, get in a car accident maybe or, you know, whatever it might be. But, but there’s places to get care and reconciliation and support and restitution and all of these other pieces, right? There’s, there’s ways for us to be in relationship and work through things together. And I think there’s, it came up in some of my conversations, you know, folks thinking like I’m just so rosy eyed, I’m gonna get, oh we’re just gonna have some perfect world, you know, and I think the way that, you know, you are free is when you have not been free, right? The way you know, you are safe is because you have been unsafe. The way that you know, that you are sovereign is because you had to say hey, there’s some accountability that needs to happen because you were not honoring the sovereignty, right? So, conflict is always gonna exist as soon as there are two humans, you know, there will always be conflict. It’s just finding a world where we, we have the infrastructure and the mechanisms for us to manage that and, and be safe and free and sovereign to together in the world. So as we think about, how do we, how do we fund for that world? How do we build an internet for that world? How do we pursue our nonprofit missions for that world? I think it’s the same. It’s both saying there will always be some needs and how many of them can we eliminate so that we are able to really be happy and fulfilled and, and uh supported. Um So I think, yeah, I just wanted to name that. I, I don’t, I’m not looking for some perfect utopia that doesn’t exist but, but a place where, I mean, how many communities today feel like something horrible happened because of content on Facebook and they have a way to do anything about that. I don’t think a lot of communities feel like they have anything they can do about that, you know, um or, or, you know, they experience threats or hate speech online. Do they feel like they have any way to, to do something because they experience that? I don’t, I don’t know many communities who feel like they have a way to do that. You know,

[00:53:00.86] spk_0:
there’s a lot, there’s a lot wrapped up in that. There’s obviously, um, you know, a, a lot of that comes from the, just the inequities of, of capital, you know, uh, if we bring it back to foundations and fund and grantees, as long as the foundations, 20% of the foundations control, 80% of the, of the capital that’s available through private foundation funding to, to nonprofits. The nonprofits are always gonna be at the, at the beck and call of the, of the, of the gran tours. And if the grant tours are slow to change, then, then the redress is slow. It’s slow in coming. It’s, it’s inherent in the inequities of the, the, the financial, the capitalization. Um, you know, in, in terms of communities, you know, there’s always, I mean, there’s a legal redress but a lot of these things that you just talked about, you know, the bullying and, and um just a, a AAA oppression from technology companies. I mean, there’s no, there’s no real legal redress to that. There’s, there’s only, there’s redress to specific wrongs, you know, they breach their contract. Uh, this person committed, uh uh uh I don’t know the, the a digital assault. I’m, I’m calling that that’s not the legal term but committed a digital assault. So, all right. So I have a cause of action, either criminal or civil but, but those causes of action are, are narrow and we’re, we’re talking about bigger issues that there aren’t mechanisms for redress. Right.

[00:53:12.87] spk_2:
All right. Thanks for having that conversation. So, unlike our usual ones, I appreciate this space to get to cover lots of things.

[00:53:50.37] spk_0:
Absolutely. I mean, it’s not always, you know, tactical about what to, you know, how to use. Uh, uh GP four plus in, in, in your, in your next fundraising campaign. Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s not all about that. So I, I think it’s uh it’s refreshing. Yeah, actually, just talk about some things that are resolvable, but for which resolution is slow in coming, uh difficult to achieve. But nonetheless, nevertheless, a lofty pursuit, a needed pursuit, we never give up never. And

[00:53:56.41] spk_2:
maybe some questions or ideas that, you know, folks listening could go apply to their own work. That is about a different topic too. I would love to hear if folks do that. You know,

[00:55:04.41] spk_0:
the little feedback I get from listeners, uh which I’m not complaining about, I understand podcast listening is, is, is an animal that isn’t given much to feedback. At least at the level I’m on Joe Rogan may get a lot of feedback. But, uh you know, and, and uh the daily he made, but in any case, uh is that, you know, IIII I took this and uh brought it to my CEO or I brought it to my board, you know, we opened a conversation. Uh I asked people to listen. I sent the link to the board so that, yeah, those conversations happen. Yeah. Yeah. Good. All right. Yes. Uh, a lot of space for a, a different, uh, a different kind of conversation. Amy Sample Ward. They’re the CEO of N 10. They’re our technology and social media contributor. If you want to be in touch with them, they’re at Amy sample ward dot org. Uh, and Amy at Amy RS Ward. And uh maybe we should add the Bosch fellowship to your, to your bio officially for

[00:55:08.34] spk_2:
next year. Exactly. Thank you so much for having me, tony. My pleasure.

[00:55:12.44] spk_0:
Good to talk to you, Amy. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

[00:55:23.06] spk_1:
Next week. Donor retention with Boomerang, Ceo Dennis Foa. If you missed any part of this week’s show,

[00:55:26.04] spk_0:
I beseech you find it at Tomm martignetti dot com

[00:55:44.34] spk_1:
were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms can say I can’t say I can’t do it. You

[00:55:47.42] spk_0:
can fundraising forms. See it’s a fabulous alliteration, but it’s uh it’s a little tough to say. I know. All right,

[00:56:12.81] spk_1:
fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor Boxx dot org. And by Kila grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraiser, Crm Vila dot code joined the thousands of fundraisers using Kila to exceed their goals.

[00:56:18.15] spk_0:
Yes, fundraisers, not fundraisers. Ok. Sorry.

[00:56:23.98] spk_1:
Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate martignetti. The show Social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

[00:56:51.30] spk_0:
Thank you for that affirmation. Scottie be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Please 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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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 March 20, 2023: #23NTC & Is A Social Enterprise For You?

 

Amy Sample Ward: #23NTC

The 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference is in April, hosted by NTEN. Come in-person or join virtually. Nonprofit Radio will be there. Amy Sample Ward, NTEN’s CEO and our technology contributor, tells us what’s in store.

 

 

Tamra Ryan: Is A Social Enterprise For You?

What are these and how do you decide whether to take one on—or even consider it—at your nonprofit? What kinds of businesses lend themselves to social enterprise and how do you structure the relationship? Tamra Ryan makes sense of it all. She’s CEO of Women’s Bean Project. (Originally aired December 13, 2021)

 

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[00:01:57.78] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your Aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with Orrico my Adonia if you paint me with the idea that you missed this week’s show 23 NTC. The 2023 nonprofit technology conference is in April hosted by N 10, come in person or join virtually non profit radio will be there, Amy Sample Ward N Ten’s CEO and our technology contributor tells us what’s in store And is a social enterprise for you. What are these? And how do you decide whether to take one on or even consider it at your nonprofit? What kinds of businesses lend themselves to social enterprise and how do you structure the relationship? Tamara Ryan makes sense of it all. She’s ceo of women’s being project. This originally aired 13 December 2021 on tony state to get in people’s faces again. Again, Here is 23 NTC. What a pleasure to welcome back, Amy Sample Ward as it always is, you know who she is. But she deserves a proper introduction. CEO of N 10 and our technology and social media contributor. Their most recent co authored book is the tech that comes next about equity and inclusiveness in technology development. They’re at Amy sample ward dot org and at Amy R S ward. So good to welcome you back. Good

[00:02:04.79] spk_1:
to have you. Thanks for having me. I’m excited that in a few short weeks, we will not be over Zoom.

[00:02:13.64] spk_0:
That’s indeed true. We will, we will, we will be hugging. So let’s talk about what’s coming up, this little thing. 23 NTC, the nonprofit technology conference in Denver.

[00:02:26.74] spk_1:
Yes. This little thing

[00:02:27.68] spk_0:
that you’ve been uh just occupying a couple, a couple hours a week, I suppose,

[00:03:14.81] spk_1:
Right? Couple of concurrent hours in my mind at all time. Yeah. Yeah, I’m excited. This is, this is the first nonprofit technology conference that’s happening back in person since 2019. However, it is also our first hybrid NTC. So people are going to be participating in Denver. People are going to be participating, you know, from their homes or offices virtually and a number of sessions where both of those people are in the same session at the same time. So we’re really trying to push, you know, push the limits of our own planning to push the A V team’s abilities, all of those pieces, see what Zoom can do all of that and make a conference that feels really great and dynamic and has different options for different people, regardless of how you’re joining or where you are or what comfort level or care needs you might have right now.

[00:03:37.84] spk_0:
So the in person people will be eligible for hybrid or for, for virtual presentations. And the virtual audience is is welcome to join in person presentations, work, working,

[00:04:45.58] spk_1:
not all of them but so at any given session block, there are sessions that are only happening in Denver. You have to physically be in the room presentation or the presenters are all in the room. Then there are sessions that are only happening online if you’re in Denver and you really want to see that session, you can also go online and, and watch it. Um And, and there will be spaces where you could do that as a group to um and there are hybrid sessions which mean there’s a room in Denver, there will likely be presenters in Denver, but there’s also maybe a co presenter online and an online audience. And so we have session hosts and facilitators in both places to make sure that the speakers are confident and comfortable managing all of that and they’re not trying to, you know, watch the chat or see what’s going on in the room. So, yeah, I think it’ll be an experience. I’m sure we will learn a lot. We are open to learning a lot but like, you know, true intent fashion, we will learn out loud with everyone else along with us, you know,

[00:05:07.68] spk_0:
you’re making all the permutations available across, across in person and hybrid. Alright. Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, like how many sessions are we looking forward

[00:06:19.31] spk_1:
to? Oh, my gosh. 100 and 50 some, I forget the, The, the single digit number there, but over 150 and really incredible keynotes which of course, you know, will be in both places that will be a hybrid. Um and I’m not sure if you’ve never been to the NDC what your uh experience with conferences or sessions are, but we also have different types of sessions. So we have 30 minute sessions which we try to plan during the day for when folks are in the you know, you couldn’t take more than 25 minutes of talking before your brain shuts down. So there’s short kind of tactical sessions. That’s where we see a lot of great um content, like do these five things to your website tomorrow, right? Like really clear to the point and then we have longer 60 minute sessions and workshops um and lots of diverse options in the longer session. Um It’s not just, you know, some conferences are very panel heavy. We do have co presenters so that there’s multiple perspectives and opinions that are being shared, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that a session with two or three presenters is going to be a panel in its presentation, right? It might just be three people facilitating it together.

[00:06:41.88] spk_0:
Uh, the dates, let’s make sure everybody knows when we’re talking

[00:07:06.77] spk_1:
About. Yeah, April 12 through 14th, which is a Wednesday through Friday. Um, we totally know and can just say up front, we know that it conflicts with passover and Ramadan and we welcome the millions in legal fees that we would have had to pay to get out of it. Yeah. Well, it was a product of the pandemic rescheduling where we did have a contract before it felt like people could really come back. And so it got pushed to 2023 and, and we didn’t really have a choice of what that was. So

[00:07:26.09] spk_0:
When was Denver supposed to have been, was it supposed to be 2020?

[00:08:51.96] spk_1:
It was supposed to be 20, early, 2022. Yeah. But we pulled the community and folks just weren’t ready for a big conference yet, you know, which is totally understandable. Lots of folks still aren’t, which is why we have the hybrid and the virtual options. But um at least moving it to 23 meant all communities could have access to vaccines. You know, we have people coming from lots of different countries to the conference traditionally. So I really wanted to make sure that it felt like folks were at a place where they could be ready if they wanted to be to come to the conference. Um, and we have various options in place for folks who may either be feeling like this is their first conference. Um And the pandemic is still happening and it feels really stressful or overwhelming there. You know, we’re asking folks to wear masks, we will have masks available. I have already ordered them to the advanced warehouse, you know, but we also have um more lounges than we’ve ever had so that people can go to a smaller space um and relax or we’ve talked to the Convention Center about having different ways that people can eat, even smaller areas, eat outside, take their food wherever they want to go. So we really are trying to think both of impacts for folks who maybe are trying to um you know, they have observances for whether Ramadan Passover etcetera and we can support how they engage through that or COVID concerns and how we can help them, you know, navigate a big conference with those as well.

[00:09:07.74] spk_0:
I intend never afraid of filling up their

[00:09:09.65] spk_1:
plate. I know technology

[00:09:12.71] spk_0:
wise, accommodation, wise, equity, etcetera. It’s all you take it all on. Yeah, I always admired, I admire it, not admired passively like somebody admires it, I admire it. I

[00:09:57.83] spk_1:
appreciate you saying that. I think, you know, it feels to us like we want to do the work to honor all the wholeness of the community so that everyone in the community feels like they are welcome. It also is the kind of thing where you don’t even realize like how much work it is to make thoughtful accommodations until you really open that door, step through it. You’re like, oh, this is a whole room. This is not like a closet, right? I wasn’t just grabbing a coat. I just went into a whole walk in clause opposite of, of options. So I really just shout out to the accessibility committee which is all community members and they work year round with staff to think about ways that we can make the conference even more accessible and support more community members.

[00:10:47.18] spk_0:
All these are the reasons why I always bring non profit radio to the two N T C. This, this is my eighth or ninth or something like that. Um And so we’ll be on the exhibit floor sharing a booth with our sponsors Heller Consulting. So come see us at 4 20 for 4 20 for a, I’m the A non profit But yeah, so come see team Heller. Very grateful, grateful for their sponsorship of us at NTC. And I’ll be capturing Oh a dozen or 15, roughly interviews that will be on non profit radio in the coming months after April 12-14 and Amy, of course, we’ll get you, we’ll get you in the schedule.

[00:11:00.46] spk_1:
I’ll stop by the booth. Well, yes, I gotta get, I

[00:11:06.95] spk_0:
gotta get you on the schedule because you’re the, you know, you’re all over. So I gotta get, you gotta get you nailed down for for an interview. Yes. Um Why don’t you share with folks? Awesome, awesome keynotes.

[00:11:17.81] spk_2:
Yeah.

[00:12:16.22] spk_1:
Yeah. So on the first day we have Sophia Noble who just launched a new race and gender and technology program, which is so awesome. She’s at U C L A and on day two, we have Messiah Burciaga Hamid who has been a staff and is now the board chair of native land, a tool that folks have hopefully and likely already used when you are looking up whose land you are on. Um And then on day three on Friday, we’ll have what I can only imagine is going to be the most high energy exciting keynote at nine in the morning from Evan Greer. Um She’s the director at Fight For the Future. Um an organization and 10 has partnered with on some of our um advocacy on save dot org, et cetera. So action packed keynotes, lots of great ideas. It’s going to be really good action

[00:12:43.56] spk_0:
packed centering diversity, admire it, admire it. I want to remind folks that N 10 is also known for wonderful food. They spend a lot of time thinking about what the menus are gonna be. The food is always excellent. So if you’re a foodie, you might say, you know, it’s a conference. All right, we’ll get some, we’ll get some rubber chicken, you know, but we’ll tolerate it. No, it’s not. It’s not gonna be the case. That’s not gonna be if there’s chicken. There will be chicken cordon bleu also be vegan options. There will be vegetarian options. There will be

[00:13:29.63] spk_1:
only have 11 day or at least one full lunch menu that is all plant based. Um, and then we have, you know, lots of options. Everything is labeled the full menu in every ingredient is in the conference app. So you can see whatever dietary needs you might have how those are or are not met. Um, and we actually just met yesterday with the catering rep. Um, and slowly watched his eyes kind of glaze over as we were saying, you know, not just, oh, could we have a sandwich instead of this salad? We were saying inside the menu, we see that you’re using this ingredient and we’re changing this specific ingredient and we would like, you know, we don’t need brisket at nine in the morning for our attendees. What’s a plant based option? And every time he said Tofu and 10 staff were like, we’re going to challenge the chef to come up with something better.

[00:13:53.71] spk_0:
Yes, you pay attention to the food. It’s

[00:14:40.73] spk_1:
exactly. And if you’re spending your time in a session, feeling kind of anarchy because you didn’t like what you ate or feeling hungry because there wasn’t food for you. It takes away from your opportunity to learn. So we want folks to really feel taken care of so that however whatever big needs they have and sometimes they’re not learning needs. We know, sometimes come to the conference just to like, find those two other people who have done the thing that they’ve done and feel like they could hear somebody say to them like, yeah, it’s really horrible, you know, but you can get through this project or you can find a new vendor or, you know, whatever it might be. Like, you also have the, the emotional capacity to go take on finding those conversations because again, you’re not spending all your time worrying about. Are you gonna have food or where is a bathroom in this giant convention center or whatever else? You know,

[00:14:54.99] spk_0:
you take care of the, you take care of the whole person, you do the whole people. There’s more than one person attending. Yes,

[00:15:22.68] spk_1:
There is more than one person, which is part of why it feels a little overwhelming because we’ve spent, you know, of course, in 2020, there was no conference and then in 21 and 22, it was a virtual conference, and and there were lots of people registered, which was great, but you never had to necessarily feel the Kind of um feel the size of that many people registered right? The way you do when you see everybody from the stage and you look out at a big room. But we’re, I mean, we’re on track to have close to 2000 registrants. Of course, some of those are virtual. But um that’s a really big number, you know, so we probably have 1500 in Denver um and 500 online.

[00:15:50.85] spk_0:
A lot of people. Yeah, but you’re, you’re, you’re curating us, you’re taking care of

[00:15:54.82] spk_1:
your, we’re gonna take care of.

[00:16:20.92] spk_0:
And finally, I want to remind listeners that this is called the nonprofit technology conference hashtag 23 T C. But it is not a conference that is exclusively for technology folks that, that are, you know, C T O s and technology majors and computer science. It is not, it’s for anyone who uses technology in their social change work. And isn’t that all of us? I mean, unless you’re still on index cards and legal pad and

[00:16:38.18] spk_1:
we welcome you. If you’re still on index cards, don’t be overwhelmed. Come to the NTC. Someone will sit down with you and they will get all those cards into a database for you probably for, for free with like the first month of the CRM for free. Like we just need to get you off those cards.

[00:16:43.23] spk_0:
Alright, hopefully not. But yeah, it’s, it’s not only for technologists for anybody who uses technology. That’s why I love to capture a ton of tons of interviews to share, to share with listeners. All right,

[00:16:56.01] spk_1:
thanks so much, tony I can’t wait to see you in Denver. It’s gonna be so fun.

[00:16:59.82] spk_0:
Absolutely. My pleasure. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Good luck with the conference planning and we’ll see you in about a month

[00:17:08.64] spk_1:
so soon. Thank you,

[00:22:19.99] spk_0:
Amy. Folks. You’re suffering a lackluster host. 15 minutes talking to the CEO of N 10 about the conference that they’re hosting. And I forgot to ask, where’s all the information? Where do folks go to register? You go to N 10 dot org, N 10 dot org gives you all the information. Of course, it’s very prominent on their site. Sheesh. Now it’s time for Tony’s take two last week. I was listening back and I talked about being in person with people again and, you know, I gave you a bunch of superficialities and generalizations. But why I think where’s the detail? Why, why is it joyful and pleasurable and so much better and authentic and real? You know. So I’m listening, I was like, Okay. Yeah, but why, but why I’m asking myself as I’m listening. It’s a good thing I have guests because otherwise the show would, would crash guests who provide substance and detail. Uh otherwise you’d have 45 minutes or an hour of superficiality. Okay. So why this is why a bunch of reasons as a, as a the guy, you know, um the presenter at a webinar, I don’t have to scroll. If it’s a big, big audience, you have to scroll and zoom to see everyone. Not so they’re all there. They’re all right there in front of you. It’s a beautiful watch, the generality that beautiful, watch the generalities trying to give detail and also when I’m sharing my screen, you know, Power point, everybody gets reduced into a little like a 1.5 by 1.5 box. And you can see even fewer people then when I’m not screen sharing. So no tiny boxes, everybody’s visible. I can, I can see the screen, my slide up on the screen, the nice big screen and I can see the people there you are. It’s wonderful. Watch the generalities, conversations, of course, conversations so much easier. Not once. Did anybody have to say? Okay. Well, you go first uh to parse out the delegate out the conversation we’re face to face. It’s just, it’s natural, the natural ness of it. Natural. Nous, the word, the hands, you see the hands immediately, you don’t have to scan the, scan the screen to see a little uh one dimensional hand going up real hands right there in your face. It’s fantastic. We’re generalities. Watch that, watch that the laughter, the groans. You can hear them. People aren’t muted feedback, live live and in person so much easier for the audience to cross talk. It’s, it’s doesn’t work in, in zoom, especially if it’s particularly large. People can’t talk at all. Everybody’s the questions are in chat. There’s another, there’s another reason you can the questions dynamic back and forth. Well, I don’t quite understand, you know, this chat, chat typing and, and audience members were talking to each other. This was I’m going back to uh conference. I did in a Long Island. Yeah, people could talk to each other and, and help each other. I, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. So those are all my reasons. That’s the detail. That’s what you, that’s what you listen to. Non profit radio for detail, not superficiality and generalizations. So if you can, if you get the opportunity and then of course, the lunches, I didn’t even mention just two face to face lunches and of course, natural conversation, not, not delayed. You know, it’s, it’s not no problem if you interrupt somebody’s talking. Well, you know, somebody jumps in, it’s not an issue, everybody can be heard natural, natural. So if you get the opportunity face to face, please take it. Don’t make virtual your default. Don’t go there. That’s Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the uninterrupted is a social enterprise for you. Sit back and get comfy. It’s a pleasure to welcome Tamra Ryan to non profit radio She is CEO of women’s bean project, a social enterprise that provides transitional employment to women attempting to break the cycle of chronic unemployment and poverty while operating a food manufacturing business. She’s a former partner and board member for social venture partners, Denver and currently serves as part time interim CEO for the Social Enterprise Alliance. She’s at Tamara Ryan and the enterprise is at women’s bean project dot com. Tamara, welcome to non profit radio

[00:22:29.12] spk_2:
It’s great to be here.

[00:22:33.07] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure, pleasure to have you. Why don’t you first explain what women’s being project is all about? Because it’s an example of what you and I are going to talk about for a while.

[00:23:32.84] spk_2:
We are a food manufacturing business. We started with Bean Soup in 1989 and that’s where our name comes from. But today we have 50 different food products that we sell all across the country. What makes us Different is that we employ women who are chronically unemployed. So a typical woman we hire hasn’t had a job longer than a year in her lifetime. Though the average age is 38, they come and work for us as for a full time job for 6-9 months. And during the time they’re with us, we teach basic job readiness skills. And then we also, in 30% of her paid time, we teach her life skills, we teach problem solving and goal setting and budgeting and planning and organizing. And so this whole thing is her job for these 6-9 months. At the end, she graduates our program and moves on to mainstream employment in the community. So we’re kind of two businesses were running a food manufacturing business and a human services business,

[00:23:50.43] spk_0:
which is exactly what, what the type of model will, will, will be talking about what I admire about that I found very interesting is that you said it. Um, Well, you’re used to saying it but I want to call it out for 30% of their paid time. The women’s paid time is not spent working. It’s spent learning the soft skills of employment.

[00:24:02.42] spk_2:
Yeah, we call it the you job, the Y ou job. So, she has the bean job and she has the U job and she’s paid for all of it.

[00:24:13.14] spk_0:
Uh, yeah. So I see the value and you’ve had, uh, you’ve had a lot of success with folks, women having jobs longer than a year after they’ve, they’ve, I’m gonna say graduated. But

[00:25:04.10] spk_2:
the project, yes. So we track them at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months and we track them. What makes it easier to track them is that we pay them for those check ins. So we pay them $50 to check in at six and 12 months, $75 at 18 months and 100 bucks at two years to check in with us. And what we found that is that at a year, uh, 95 plus percent of the women are still employed. And I think what makes, what’s significant about that is that again, the women we hire haven’t had a job longer than a year in their lifetime before they come to us. So, what we really want to know is, are we setting them helping them on a path for long term employment? You know, being able to sustain that employment.

[00:25:20.79] spk_0:
So what kinds of nonprofits are? Our listeners are all in small and mid sized nonprofits. So I, I think there’s an ideal subject for listeners, what, what types of nonprofits could consider having a social enterprise as part of their part of their work?

[00:26:38.22] spk_2:
I think organizations that are serving people who are on use, you know, by necessity on public benefits and really who for a variety of reasons, whether it’s because of a felony background or it’s because of uh low education levels or because of the history of addiction, you know, a variety of things that get in the way of, of getting and keeping employment. And so if you’re serving those people anyway, one way to help them in addition to helping them with build their foundation of, of soft skills is to employ them in a social enterprise. So that’s just one way that a social enterprises run. But it’s, you know, it as adults, we learn by doing so it’s a really great way to work with the people that you’re working with anyway, to create a business where you’re helping those same people in the long run. Be able to be successful.

[00:26:41.55] spk_0:
You were a partner of social venture partners in Denver. What, what did you look for when you were investing in these types of organizations?

[00:27:20.17] spk_2:
Well, we specifically in S V P, Denver, we’re looking for small organizations that both needed some funding, but also needed some technical assistance. And the reality is that we don’t, if you’re, if you’re running a human services organization, you don’t necessarily have somebody on staff that has the skills to launch a business. For instance, you know, even to do that market research, to figure out what kind of business that might be um have the operational skills. You’re, you’re running a business, human services business, but you’re not necessarily running say in our case of food manufacturing business. And so S V P really looked for organizations that needed the skill set of our partners and also could benefit from the funding that we were providing that. And then svp’s model, the funding and the, and the technical assistance go hand in hand.

[00:28:14.48] spk_0:
So what, what about organizations that, that uh don’t have the expertise that they need? Uh Let’s, let’s assume most of our listeners are not in Denver. So they don’t have access to S V P. Denver. What, how can they, how can they fill that void? And even just start, like you’re saying, like initial market research, how do they know where to get, how to get started?

[00:30:19.38] spk_2:
Well, every nonprofit has a board and I would venture to say that most nonprofits have business people on their board. So there are a lot of resources either through board members or through people that board members know the one great thing that I’ve observed and I didn’t come from the nonprofit world for my entire career. I was in the private sector before. And what I love about being in the nonprofit world is that there are lots of people who want to help and, and just need to be need, they need help knowing what you need. And so I’ve been, I’ve seen lots of ways we’ve been able to engage uh professionals in, for us in, in food manufacturing, um who have expertise that we need to sit on, say a business development committee and help us look at uh new product ideas. And I think that same concept could easily be applied to any organization that’s trying to figure out what kind of business they might run because that’s the key, you could decide to start a business, but it still has to be a viable business. The just, just starting a business, you’re not gonna get the halo effect of, you know, you’re doing it as, as a non profit and therefore it’s going to succeed all the same market. Um factors come into play that do for any business. And so you, you really do have to still find a viable business that makes sense that is needed that you can price appropriately. Um One of the things about the research for social enterprises or whether or not consumers are going to buy from a social enterprise, whether it’s a product or service. One of the statistics is that all other things being equal. So in other words, quality price, etcetera people more and more have a tendency to purchase products and services from a mission based organization or mission based company. But the most important part of that statement is all other things, other things equal, all other things

[00:30:26.35] spk_0:
being equal. Right? Yes, you have to, you have to be able to compete with your private, enter strictly private enterprise, market driven, profit driven competitors.

[00:31:37.05] spk_2:
Yeah, you have to be able to compete and yet at the same time, you also need to figure out what your Um competitive advantages yourself. So for instance, in our case, we are able to um we’re right now in the holiday season, you know, September to December for women’s Bean project, 70% of our sales are, are made. So, you know, we really peaked during this time of year. One of our competitive advantages is we can bring in volunteers to help us say pack boxes or help us, you know, get shipments out the door or, you know, help with, with prep of product. And um that’s something that is a bit of a competitive advantage because if we were just, you know, in the, in the private sector running a regular food manufacturing operation, we really, I don’t think we could, you know, look somebody in the eye and get and get that kind of assistance. But for us, yes, it’s a way to engage donors to get people really invested, get new customers. You know, there are so many ways that, that bringing people from the community in to help us is advantageous, not just to get the work done, but to get additional support for our organization.

[00:32:13.43] spk_0:
So you’ve opened yourself up to a whole new set of metrics as, as having a social enterprise and we’re gonna get to what, what the relationship is between the company and, and a nonprofit or, you know how that could be set up by different, by different organizations. But, but you’ve, you’ve got to measure, you’ve got to measure the company’s profit and the company’s output and productivity, productivity per employee hour or, you know, whatever, you know, the, the, the key metrics for the business are as well as the social outcomes of, of your graduates and your employee members and your, your,

[00:33:00.64] spk_2:
it’s, you know, I joke sometimes it’s a horrible way to run a business, right? Because we intentionally everyday hire women. We don’t know if they’re gonna come to work every day. I mean, that’s part of their barriers to employment and we work with them and they help, we help them become great employees and as soon as they become great employees, we let them go off and become somebody else’s great employee and we start all over again. Uh and it’s so it’s super inefficient and we also over higher. So if we were a for profit company and we were trying to be as efficient as possible and, you know, squeeze every penny out of our margin. We absolutely would not hire as many women as we do, but that’s not the point. The point for us is to use our business to advance our mission. So we hire as many women as possible as we can justify based on what our sales are going to be.

[00:33:33.96] spk_0:
So, what are some of the things that nonprofits need to think about beyond? Alright. What’s, what’s a viable business? What other, what other factors are important?

[00:33:47.78] spk_2:
Well, maybe the biggest thing is it’s hard. I joke sometimes with our, our team, like if this were easy, everybody do it

[00:33:53.59] spk_0:
do. We really want to do. It is an important threshold.

[00:36:14.38] spk_2:
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s hard because you have to have the ability to entertain two opposing ideas at the same time, right? We need to run an efficient manufacturing business and we also need to deliver on our mission and those two things actually often don’t go together very well. And so being able to both entertain those ideas and acknowledge that perhaps today the business wins, maybe we um the women instead of um spending 30% of today’s time in a class, say financial literacy there on the production for, for the whole day because we have a lot of work to do. But tomorrow, maybe it’s the, it’s reversed and they’re spending the whole day in some sort of training and not making any product at all. And so our job is every day to, to balance that out. Uh And so that’s, I think one of the hardest things is uh is having that ability to understand that if not for the mission, your business doesn’t really exist, but yet your, your business has to be profitable in order for it to make sense and contribute to the mission and, and that, you know, balancing act, you know, is a constant. So that’s part of what makes it hard. I would say another thing is that you, you still have to find all the other. I mentioned this before, all the other market forces still prevail. So if you have a product that nobody wants to buy, you’re not going to have a successful business and there’s no amount of mission that’s gonna forgive that, at least not in the long term. And, you know, at this point, women’s bean project is 32 years old. And I think in a lot of ways, we’ve just been lucky. There was no initial market research that said, you know, being, I think that’s the key to success. No, nobody, nobody did any kind of research at the beginning. Our founder just noticed she was in her late 50s, she’d gone back to school to get her master’s degree in social work. And she noticed a lot of her friends who were around her age were eating bean soup for health reasons. And so she invested $500 of her own money. And bought beans and put two women to work making 10 bean soup. The crazy thing is that still 32 years later our best outing product. Alright.

[00:36:32.19] spk_0:
That’s a terrific story but it’s it’s it’s it’s more or less in what not to do in in determining what, what, what businesses gonna survive because you know you said it, I’m just gonna amplify it. No amount of mission is gonna forgive bad, bad marketing or a bad, bad entry choice or, or any of the, any of the market forces.

[00:36:39.48] spk_2:
Yeah. And I think you also have to have either a product or service that has a decent enough margin margin to sort of forgive the inefficiency. And I also wouldn’t choose food for that reason. Ships sailed for us, but, you know, that’s not the highest margin, um, you know, product category for sure. Right

[00:37:09.12] spk_0:
now food is notoriously low margin. Um, but, you know, you said you gave an example of hiring many more women than you need, then you would, well, maybe then you do need, then you would if you were strictly market driven.

[00:37:15.63] spk_2:
Exactly.

[00:37:23.01] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, before, before we move on any other advice about the, the opening questions to talk about with your board, with your leadership.

[00:38:57.18] spk_2:
Well, another aspect of balance I think is, um, it is balancing being opportunistic and, and, um, and not being um, so bullish on an idea that you ignore, um, other signs. So as an example, uh years ago, we were approached by somebody who had a whole bunch of equipment for canning and they were willing to give us all the equipment. Let us have access to the facility a whole bunch of things. But what we really had to analyze and I think this happens actually a fair amount to organizations that are thinking of starting businesses. Somebody thinks I’ve got a great idea. I’ll just give this to them. But the thing was we weren’t in the canning business. We are a dry food manufacturer and what it would have meant for us to start, you know, pivot and, and create another business, you know, really wasn’t worth that. What seemed like a super generous donation. Um It was forgive the pun, but it was a whole can of worms that we didn’t necessarily need, need to open. But that’s an example because when you start talking about this, all manner of people are gonna surface who are interested and willing to help. And one of the most important things you might need to do is say no thank you because, you know, sometimes gifts are not always gifts in the, you know, when it really comes down to it, it’s maybe not the best strategy and it’s sometimes hard not to get all, you know, um starry eyed about something that seems like a fantastic gift. And the next thing, you know, you’re in the canning business and you never intended to be in right now. You’re

[00:40:34.02] spk_0:
doing wetsuits instead of, instead of dry suit. That’s a, that’s a huge pivot. Um And yeah, I mean, that’s, and that’s in the nonprofit, the straight uh nonprofit sector as well. You know, there, there are gifts that come sometimes with strings. You know, if you’ll, if you’ll adopt this, create this program or women’s school, but if you start admitting boys, I’ll give you the seven figure gift. You know, that’s, those are the gift size can be transformational, but that doesn’t mean you, you sacrifice your mission and transform your mission to accept a, you know, a million dollar gift. Um So, all right, but you know, interesting, you know, you, you, you evaluated from the nonprofit perspective, but also from the market force perspective, you know, now we’re entering a whole new business. Now we’re going to be competing with uh Campbell’s, you know, Campbell’s and Hunts and Hormel, you know, whoever, wherever the big, whatever the soup manufacturers are. Um Alright, so value, right? Uh Important lessons sometimes the better answer is. No, no, thank a gracious. No. Alright. Alright. Um Advice on types of businesses that that could lend themselves to this.

[00:41:51.05] spk_2:
I’ll start with um service businesses because sometimes those can actually be really great support for um really great social enterprises and supports for human services organizations. Um The nice thing about service businesses is our very localized so you could serve one community and then an example of a service business might be a uh landscaping business or there are several social enterprises around the country that do uh go to business districts and clean up trash and snow removal and leaf removal and those kinds of things. Again, those are very localized. And what’s nice about that is that you could do it in this city and then maybe you pick it up and you do the same thing in another city. Those are really cool ways to be able to employ a lot of people and engage in, in multiple communities. Uh And there are, you know, other businesses um like uh has control is another one where, you know, that’s a pretty expandable business, um cleaning services, especially in offices and things like that. Um So those are some examples of businesses that actually could be really great businesses for people. And, you know, when you’re selling a service, that’s a really different dynamic than say, you know, consumer packaged goods where, you know, you’re competing with marketing dollars from companies, it’s just much more challenging um area to be in. You

[00:42:21.11] spk_0:
also, you also have the advantage of being able to, as you said, start local. So you can say initially the impact of our work is local. And so there’s a, there’s an appeal to an appeal to the mission with your caveat that uh lots of mission is not going to overcome bad, you know, uh not being competitive market, market wise. But you can say that you have that you have that local impact, at least as you’re, you know, as you’re getting started. And then as you’re suggesting, you know, you can expand.

[00:43:31.94] spk_2:
And I think, you know, if you’re making a product, one of the potential challenges is that if you make a product that in our case, our products consumable, so we can have repeat customers, you know, of course, it has to be a, you know, good quality and taste good and all of those things. But we have customers we’ve had for 30 years and who keep coming back over and over again. If you end up making a product that’s not consumable, the challenges that, you know, say you’re making um uh cutting board, there’s only so many cutting boards, somebody needs or only so many gifts you can give, you know, to other people. And so you always have to be finding new customers to be able to grow your business. And that said, there’s, you know, when you start out, your customer base is so small that the, the world really is, you know, is pretty large of possible customers. But there’s a point at which um without spending a lot of marketing dollars or advertising dollars to get noticed that you really sort of tap out the people you can access. And that’s, you know, so that’s an interesting challenge of making a, a product where you could teach some really amazing skills. But at the same time, you know, you might have a limited customer base.

[00:44:07.91] spk_0:
Can I get these, can I get these meals and just add water? Are they, are they that, that simple from women’s bean project

[00:45:06.25] spk_2:
pretty straight forward like that? So, a soup mix, you would add water, you put it in a safe crock pot and let it cook for the day. And at the end, you are 10 bean soup. You just add a can of tomatoes or you could add, you know, vegetables and a whole bunch of other things if that’s what you wanted. But just to finish off the recipe, it would just be adding a can of tomatoes. We also have baking mixes. And so in that case, it’s everything that you need. You, you would add an egg and some oil or butter and you’ve got brownies or cornbread or stones. Um, so it’s a, the nice thing about like a baking mix, for instance is you don’t have to buy a bag of flour and buy a bag of sugar and all of those things and then have them left over. You can use our mix and use the eggs that you have and the butter that you have. And next thing you know, you made these yummy brownies and you look like a total baker And No 1’s The Wiser, Right?

[00:45:08.39] spk_0:
You don’t have, you don’t have four and three quarter pounds of flour

[00:45:11.61] spk_2:
leftover. Yeah.

[00:45:13.14] spk_0:
Okay. A little digression. But I was interested in and how simple the meals are. Okay.

[00:45:26.97] spk_2:
And they do have an instant. We have, yeah, we have instant beans and rice cups also which literally are adding water. Um And then, and we also have some ready to eat snacks. So you know, just keep them in your desk and you know, nosh on them whenever you feel like it. Okay. So we have a pretty wide variety of different products.

[00:45:39.62] spk_0:
Okay. Well, I’m gonna check. Yeah, women’s bean project dot com. Um So yeah, so service businesses, you’re suggesting service businesses, what else, what else could folks consider?

[00:47:21.99] spk_2:
Well, there’s some great social enterprises. Again, these are pretty localized that do screen printing. So, you know, you think about your inner city and you have your screen printing business, you’re able to employ people and, and you’re able to serve all the companies locally for, you know, their employee T shirts or, you know, races or things like that again, very localized but also scalable as well. Um There’s a really awesome social enterprise out of Boston called More than Words and more than words serves youth 16 to 24 who are either aging out of the foster system or justice involved. And they sell books, they sell books have been donated from the community and the the youth learn the skill of, you know, scanning the I S B N number to make sure it’s marketable and they recycle the books that don’t have uh aftermarket value and then they sell the books that do and they sell both online. They have a couple of bookstores. The cool thing is all these youth, um, are, you know, they’re helping them find homes, they’re helping them with their academic goals, helping them sort of adult, you know, into the community. Yet, at the same time, they’re also learning these skills of running a book business. So they have measurable um uh um outcomes that they have to achieve. They have certain sales goals that they have to meet for their various channels. It’s a really amazing business that um that they’re operating and the youth stay with them for a couple of years. It’s called more than words

[00:47:40.07] spk_0:
back on the service side. I’ve seen copy, copy services, copy and print and print shops.

[00:48:45.73] spk_2:
Yeah, a bank of America actually has their own social enterprise that they operate in the house and they serve people with developmental disabilities or they employ people with developmental disabilities, but they do all the printing for their own needs. Um there’s also electronics recycling. Uh you know, the statistic is that people who are on the autism spectrum have an unemployment rate of about 85%. And, and yet they are uniquely talented to disassemble electronics. So there uh there are electronics recycling organizations that employ people on the autism spectrum to just disassemble and um and then they part of, so they’re providing the employment, they’re getting the donations of the electronics. Um, and in some instances they’re being paid by the companies to take the electronics and then they also, they sell the commodities of all the things that out of those electronics, metals, plastics. Yeah. So, you know, when you think about that as a, you know, we use the term triple bottom line, it’s helping society, it’s helping the environment and it’s um you know, it’s, it’s making money. That is a really awesome example of, of a business that hits at every level. Yeah,

[00:49:07.97] spk_0:
excellent, excellent. Another, these are good, another example or category,

[00:49:39.32] spk_2:
well, there are some social enterprises that instead of employing people provide employment services. So there is a social enterprise that here in Denver that specifically helps people who are bilingual, English, Spanish, get jobs in the community with employers who need people who are bilingual, but that could apply to kind of any language or not even be bilingual, you know. So they, and so companies come to them when they need people who, maybe it’s customer service, people who can speak another language other than English. Um And so again, a service business, but not where they are employing people.

[00:49:58.16] spk_0:
Right. Right. And, and so companies pay for the, for the referral for the screening. Yep, the placement, basically they’re paying a placement fee.

[00:50:51.24] spk_2:
Yep. Exactly. But there’s, you know, there’s just so many different kinds there are cafes that’s a fairly popular kind of social enterprise. Um Here in Denver, we have a cafe called um same cafe and same stands for. So all may eat and they, it is a pay what you want model. So you walk in and the menu is listed for the day and you decide how much you’re going to pay. Yes. And, and so you might be sitting down and having, you know, decide that you want to pay $10 for your lunch. But you also might be sitting next to somebody who is, um, experiencing homelessness and didn’t pay anything. And if you decide if you don’t have any money to pay for your lunch, then you work in the kitchen or you clean or, you know, do dishes and, and so again, it’s a really cool concept that serves people all, you know, it’s beneficial to the community at multiple levels.

[00:51:24.99] spk_0:
Um So, all right. So we talked about services, some, some product. I love the recycling example too. Any anything else before we, before we move on to organizing these, these entities?

[00:52:56.39] spk_2:
Um, well, the last one I’ll mention is one that’s been around for a long, long time, like women’s bean project. It’s called Grace and Bakery there out of Yonkers, New York. And they make the brownies for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. So a big, the bulk of their business is brownies for Ben and Jerry’s. They also have now gotten into doing some retail sales and corporate sales. So you might see your, your listeners might have seen them in some, for instance, Whole Foods at sort of a point of sale or point of purchase with a little brownie. And it says these brownies changed lives, but Grayson is a for profit company. So this is a nice segue into the next part of our conversation. They are actually a B Corp, a benefit corporation and they, they have an open hiring model. So instead of specifically going out and trying to recruit people experiencing chronic unemployment, like we do, they are always accepting applications and when they have an opening, they just hire the next person on the list. So they hire, they don’t, you know, interview or, you know, look at qualifications, they just hire the next person and, uh and you know, so they will have more turnover than a normal company would, but they’re also within that community in Yonkers. They’re, they’re really changing people’s lives give by giving them an opportunity for employment that they might not otherwise have had.

[00:53:42.47] spk_0:
Okay. That’s interesting. Now, first that’s Grayson Bakery. These brownies save lives. Okay. So listeners, we might, we might see those at, at checkout sounds like point of sale places. Okay. Um But then, you know, there’s the issue of, you know, giving a job versus teaching job skills in addition, like, like, like women’s being project is doing, it seems to me that the, the uh the training beyond the skills for the job is more empowering than then giving a job and, and just giving a job.

[00:54:13.22] spk_2:
Well, I think that’s consistent with our philosophy at women’s being project that there are because we acknowledge that there are lots of things that get in the way of somebody being able to um get and keep the, and keep, I think is the important part, right? Like, you know, we prior to the pandemic and I think we’re back to a um there’s a lot of jobs but um and so you could go from job to job to job in an environment where there are lots of jobs. But the important thing is, are you going to a job where you are a contributor where there’s opportunity for advancement and benefits and all the things that make it more of a career than just a job? That’s what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to change the are the women we serve, that’s the trajectory we want them to be on when they finish.

[00:54:41.79] spk_0:
All right. So, you know, of course, different missions just like nonprofits that Grayson has uh has a different model but, but their, their generously hiring, they just hire the next person on the

[00:54:49.63] spk_2:
list.

[00:54:53.20] spk_0:
So, alright, so yeah, as you suggested, and I want to talk about the, how to organize and structure these, we know what’s the relationship listeners already are in non profits? Most of our listeners are, uh you know, how would, what would that relationship look like if they did start a social enterprise? Well,

[00:55:11.40] spk_2:
I know as, um as the interviewer here, you, you will hate to hear this answer but it depends.

[00:55:18.35] spk_0:
Listen. Now, don’t hold back on, don’t, don’t, don’t tell listeners of nonprofit radio What you think they want to hear? It’s an educated self selected group. So, yes. So it’s nuanced answers are, are very

[00:58:28.78] spk_2:
welcome. Well, it, it does depend and it depends on what you want to do and how you might want to structure it and, and honestly tolerance, risk, tolerance of your board and you know, of your team. So, um women’s Bean project is a 501 c three. A big reason for that is because we were founded in 1989. And if you wanted to do good, that was the choice, right? That’s all you had. Um Today, there are lots of different structures you could or opportunities, you could be a for profit company. Um and, and become a benefit corporation B Corp, you could be a subsidiary of a nonprofit. Um You could be an LLC, you know, there are just so many different ways. And so generally what I tell people is first figure out what you wanna do, then figure out what the corporate structure makes the most sense. What I will tell you is that I wouldn’t necessarily change our corporate structure because we’ve made it work for ourselves. Our, the way we have structured ourselves by having sort of everything under one roof. The huge job and the being job is that we’ve, what that’s done is that it has allowed us to have a mixed revenue, uh pie, so to speak. So, about 60% 60% of our operating budget comes from our product sales. What that does is it supports the business, it supports women’s time while they’re working in the business. And it’s, you know, gives us the ability by the beans and the flour and all those things and makes a small contribution to our program operations. And then we fundraise to SAPO program operations because again, when a woman is in a financial literacy class or working on a resume or even in job search looking for the next job we’re paying her still. So we fundraise to both support those classes but also to be able to pay her and, and because we’re 501 C three, we have the ability to do that. It also probably gives us a little bit of wiggle room in terms of our inefficiency. You know, I would, if we were, if, if all of our revenue had to come from our product sales, we would probably have to compromise the mission a little bit and hire fewer women because we have to run, you know, a business with much better margin than we currently do. Yeah, but I will also say that there are plenty of situations where the a board of a nonprofit, they might be interested in this idea of having revenue, that’s basically unrestricted revenue. But they don’t want to risk the larger organization or they do or they wanna just sort of run it on the side as sort of a separate entity and maybe not have it be a distraction within their main business, so to speak. There, there are risks in that as well though. I’ve seen lots of uh non profit big human services organizations that run social enterprises and they sort of treat them like the red headed step child and, and look at them like, what have you done for me lately? Little, you know, business. Why are you not contributing more when the reality is they’re kind of stifling the growth of that, that business? Um And, and perhaps, um you know, causing it to, you know, not prosper um

[00:58:55.69] spk_0:
like a mistaken, well, not only organization but just in, in culture, you think that the way board members and I guess the organization collectively thinks about its, its social enterprise as, you know, as, as uh the ugly step

[00:59:22.60] spk_2:
child. Yeah. And that’s the risk, right? If of creating a structure where you sort of set it off to the side, I mean, I understand that sometimes that’s done to avoid risk, but sometimes it creates more risk for the survival of the business one of the things I worry about having been in this field for a long time is that, you know, uh, we’ve now come to a point where social enterprise is kind of cool. It’s kind of come into its own. I joke that it’s like women’s bean project has been wearing a velour tracksuit for 30 years and now suddenly velour track suits are in. But, you know, so, yeah, exactly.

[00:59:49.52] spk_0:
Long enough they’ll come, they’ll come, my dozen bell bottom suit will come back.

[01:00:16.43] spk_2:
It turns out that’s happening for social enterprise. But what I worry is that organizations will start a business and do that and sort of cut it off at its knees and not even maybe recognize that and it won’t survive and then they’ll look back later and say, yeah, we tried that. It didn’t work. But I, I can tell you that if it’s not always because it’s a bad idea that it doesn’t, it could be because you just didn’t give it the opportunity to flourish. We in the nonprofit world are notoriously risk averse. That’s not a news flash to anybody. I know. And, and so the challenge is to be willing to take some risk and balance that risk. You know, it’s a risk reward ratio in the business and balance that risk a little bit. Um With um with what the benefit could be long term,

[01:00:44.61] spk_0:
You started to transition again. I love it the way you segue easily uh, lessons, you know, lessons learned things to look out, for things to be sure. You, you’ve considered, you’ve been doing this for 30, what, 32 years? 32

[01:03:17.35] spk_2:
years. Well, I, I often say we have 32 years worth of mistakes. We could totally help somebody else avoid and leave them free to make all their own mistakes. Um, you know, it’s, it’s, I would say the lessons learned are consistent with what I’ve been saying, which is you really do. Um If you want a social enterprise to survive, you really do have to embrace it as, as being a means through which you’re going to deliver on your mission and not set it on the side and say, well, you know, someday you’re gonna make me some money and I’ll be able to use that money to advance my mission. They have to be interwoven. Um So, you know, we don’t exist to make bean soup yet we can’t exist without it. And that idea that the two are inextricable um is the probably the most important thing. And the most important, honestly, lesson that I’ve seen, I, I watched a social enterprise um be formed out of an organism um that was providing initially providing the same service for free. And then they formed the social enterprise to monetize the service, but yet they kept offering the service. So they had this business and they kept offering the service for free. So yes, and um and then eventually decided that the social enterprise wasn’t working and the, the problem I thought, you know, it’s, it’s easy. Monday morning quarterback, admittedly, but um you know, was that they set it up to be, you know, be its own competition. So of course, it was, there was always going to be that tension and that conflict. You’ve got enough tension and conflict just trying to advance your mission and advance your business without setting yourself up for failure. So um you know, that’s another lesson which is be prepared for there to be tension between the business and the mission, but be okay with that because that’s part of what you’re doing is you’re, you’re trying to change the world by using market forces. Uh And you know, we are, we’re a country of consumers. So let’s take advantage of the fact that we are a country of consumers. Everybody needs to buy products and services. So what a great opportunity to um to to for lack of a better word, exploit that

[01:03:32.91] spk_0:
I love the way you say you’re working to change the world by using market forces. Um Alright. Any anything else you wanna, you wanna leave folks with anything that we didn’t talk about that you feel is is important. Anything I didn’t ask about,

[01:04:43.97] spk_2:
you know, I would say that the last thing would be that if you are thinking about um starting a social enterprise, start looking at other models and seeing what other groups are doing and especially if they’re localized, there’s, you know, there’s no reason to that, that you wouldn’t be able to learn from their mistakes. Um So, you know, we have, I’ve been asked often whether or not we would expand women’s bean project out of Denver across the country. What we have chosen instead is to be more open source where we look forward to sharing the things that we’ve learned. Because I think ultimately, if we want to lift up the whole field, not just, you know, a grand eyes, women’s bean project, that’s not our goal. Our goal really is to help other organizations create or prosper with their social enterprises, not just, you know, have us get bigger and bigger. There’s enough need to go around. What

[01:04:46.67] spk_0:
about social enterprise Alliance? Is that a resource for

[01:05:01.69] spk_2:
folks? It absolutely is. And that might be a great place to start to figure out what is out there. They have um Social enterprise Alliance has uh you know, members all over the country who are involved at various levels of social enterprise. So they might be running social enterprises that they might be consultants. So social enterprise, um if you need an attorney to talk with, for instance, about what your corporate structure might be, there are resources there. Um But the nice thing about that is if you’re in the initial stages of just doing research is a great place to start.

[01:05:31.38] spk_0:
Okay. Good value. You can have conversations with folks. You can, you can, it’s a good place to start your research and, and, and grow. If you decide to mean, you might start your research and decide it’s not really, you know, you can’t tolerate the risk or the tension. Uh It’s just something you don’t want to take on, but at least you do it, make that decision informed.

[01:06:43.52] spk_2:
Yeah, I always think that fear is not a reason not to do something, right? Like you can acknowledge the fear and sort of do the things that, that you need to do to um to try to overcome or, you know, address the fear. But um staying noticed something just because you’re afraid, it’s maybe not the best reason. Um And I think also, you know, we have a tendency to sit at the, at the starting line and try to anticipate all the problems we’re gonna have and, and I guarantee, first of all, we’ll be wrong about what problems we think we’re gonna have and, and whatever solution we decide is gonna not be appropriate for whatever problem you end up having. And so ultimately, you just gotta start and, and have faith that you have gathered the resources and the expertise enough that you can address the problems as they come up. But I think that that tends to be and in my experience just going to lots of, you know, speaking on lots of panels and talking with lots of organizations that are thinking about starting social enterprises is they, they often get stuck at that starting line and have a hard time pulling the trigger. Um The reality is it might not work. But think about, I, I think you learn more from failure than you do successful. A lot of times.

[01:08:06.92] spk_0:
Yeah. Too much ready aim, aim, aim and, and, and no firing. All right. Outstanding. Thank you, Tamara. Thank you very much. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing the women’s bean project story and and beyond. Uh Tomorrow Ryan Ceo women’s bean project. It’s at women’s bean project dot com. You want to look at their dried foods and other products, especially now around the holidays. And Tamara is at Tamara Ryan. Thanks so much Tamara. Next week, Rio Wang with Money Mindset. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows. Social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for October 10, 2022: The Smart Nonprofit

 

Beth Kanter & Allison Fine: The Smart Nonprofit

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[00:00:44.94] spk_0:
Oh, I neglected to mention, you hear me, you hear me do an intro to the show and then we’ll chat uninterrupted and then I’ll do the outro and then I could say goodbye Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of infra occlusion if you made me chew on the idea that you missed this week’s show. The smart non profit That’s Beth Canter and Alison finds new book revealing the potential of smart technology and artificial intelligence for your nonprofit and the entire sector.

[00:00:56.53] spk_1:
Beth

[00:00:56.87] spk_0:
and Allison are with us to share their

[00:00:58.74] spk_1:
thinking

[00:01:28.01] spk_0:
on Tony’s take to debunk those top five myths of planned giving, sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by fourth dimension technologies I. T infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper.

[00:01:32.30] spk_1:
What

[00:01:32.54] spk_0:
a pleasure to welcome

[00:01:33.29] spk_1:
back

[00:01:41.59] spk_0:
Beth Kanter and Allison Fine to the show. Both been on multiple times, although you know them uh they they they each deserve their own special

[00:01:47.79] spk_1:
introduction.

[00:01:49.33] spk_0:
Beth Kanter is an internationally recognized thought leader and trainer in digital transformation and well being in the nonprofit

[00:01:56.46] spk_1:
workplace.

[00:01:57.94] spk_0:
She was named one of the most influential women in technology by fast company and received the N 10 Lifetime achievement

[00:02:04.82] spk_1:
award.

[00:02:05.48] spk_0:
She’s at Beth Kanter and

[00:02:08.97] spk_1:
Beth

[00:02:30.78] spk_0:
Kanter dot org. Alison Fine is among the nation’s preeminent writers and strategists on the use of technology for social good. She’s a member of the National Board of Women of Reform Judaism and was chair of the National Board of Naral Pro Choice America Foundation and a founding board member of Civic Hall. Allison is at a Fine and Alison Fine dot

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com.

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Bethan Alison welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:02:40.69] spk_1:
Thank you for having us. tony

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congratulations on the book.

[00:02:47.60] spk_1:
It’s very exciting. The response has been tremendous so far.

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So both of our 4th book and 2nd collaboration together.

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Second,

[00:03:20.05] spk_0:
yes, you’ve co authored the network non profit if I’m not mistaken. Alright and fourth book for both of you. Congratulations all around. I would actually like to start with the last sentence of the book. If every nonprofit in the sector can transform itself into a smart non profit we can transform the world end quote. Uh does anybody want to claim authorship of that particular sentence? Is it possible for co authors to remember who wrote each each sentence throughout the

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book?

[00:03:29.76] spk_0:
Not, no,

[00:03:31.30] spk_1:
not possible, but so

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then All right, Allison, what what uh what does it take to become this uh ideal. Smart non profit

[00:04:33.67] spk_1:
So a smart non profit tony is an organization that understands deeply how to stay human centered and by that we mean putting people first, internally and externally using the most advanced technology organizations have ever had at their disposal. This this, you know um family of technologies like ai machine learning robots and so on and by doing that tony we can stop the incredible hamster wheel of business frantic business of organizations just playing a daily game of whack a mole with email and telephone and ongoing meetings. All of that road work can be done by the technology, freeing up people to build relationships and tell stories and build communities and solve problems and do the deeply human work that most of us came to the sector to do in the first place.

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And you you used the word business that was not business, that was business

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in the U.

[00:05:08.43] spk_0:
S. Y. Yes. Okay. Um Alright. So there are many uh considerations for becoming a smart nonprofit and some some important roles of leadership that that come out in the book. Um Beth anything you would like to add to the to the intro to our conversation.

[00:05:25.86] spk_2:
Um Sure. What Allison laid out so beautifully is the key benefit of that nonprofits get from embracing this technology and that is the dividend of time and that time can be reinvested either in building better relationships with donors or or clients or stakeholders or also could be reinvested in the staff to free up time. So we’re not. So as you said, the busy work takes up a lot of time but it also takes up a lot of cognitive overload and maybe if we had more spaciousness we would be less exhausted. Um and and more inspired and less burnout.

[00:06:15.66] spk_0:
Yeah the that that dividend of time is throughout the book. And uh well except that hypothesis for now I have I have I have some questions about that, some little skepticism about that, but for now we’ll accept that the dividend of time will indeed accrue to people who work in in in smart nonprofits and to to the to the organization generally. Um Are

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you skeptical that it can be created or are you skeptical that people will know what to do with it once they created it? No,

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well I don’t wanna I don’t I don’t want to challenge right off the bat but

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uh

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skepticism that that it that it can be realized. Not not that people will know what to do if it does get realized, but um yeah well let’s come back to it, let’s leave the hypothesis uh as as as perfectly fair and and uh something to truly aspire to because there are as you say, and as you lay out mostly in the last chapter, um there are great places that the sector can go when we realize this uh this dividend of time. Um

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let’s

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talk a little about, you know, some of these elements of being a smart non profit Um beth let’s stay with you for you know, human centered. What what do you what do you all mean by by that?

[00:08:00.23] spk_2:
Well I guess we use another term in the book um called co batting and really with that I like that because it’s like figuring out what the machines can do best. Right that the automation technology there’s certain tasks that the technology is really good at doing. And those are things like analyzing large amounts of data and automating kind of rote tasks. But there are there’s stuff in our jobs that humans should do and always do. And that is the relationship building, taking the donors out to lunch. Like you were telling us you took a donor out to a nice restaurant recently. You know that’s not something the automation is going to do for you. Um and being creative having empathy, making intuitive decisions. And so when we use this technology leaders really need to understand like what is the right workflow and always keep humans in

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charge?

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What what’s the what’s the

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how

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can we how can we make sure that we center humans in in adopting this this smart technology?

[00:09:29.83] spk_2:
Well I think the first step is to ask to talk to them and get their feedback and their input in before you even like grab the software off the shop? It’s not about that at all. Um you really have to start with. Um you know, what are the points of pain? What are the exquisite pain points that we want to address by adopting this technology and getting feedback from the end user’s whether that staff clients donors and then, um, setting up a, you know, an understanding of what the journey is, what the workflow is and where you divide things. And then you begin to go look at software tools and uh, and and find vendors that are aligned with your values and once you’ve, or technologists that are aligned with your values and then once you’ve done that, you can begin to start with pilots and uh, an iteration on it before you get to scale. This is so different tony than social media, which both Allison and I have talked to about where we’re encouraging people to just jump in experiment fail fast. What we’re saying with this technology is that it’s really important to, um, to go slowly and to be knowledgeable and reflective about it.

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And reflective. Yes, reflective is, uh, something else I wanted to ask about. So what you read my mind fantastic being reflective Alison, what is why, what’s that attribute about for the, for the smart non profit

[00:11:37.25] spk_1:
So this is, um, something I’m deeply passionate about tony Um, I don’t know if, you know, I had a first career as a program evaluator and uh, it’s very, very difficult to get, particularly smaller nonprofits who are so busy and so under resourced to take a step back and not only think about how is what they’re doing, Getting them closer to the results that they want to do, but how can they improve over time and we need them to understand not only the human centeredness that beth just spot on, you know, outlined, but in particular tony how are we making people feel internally and externally about our efforts? Are we making people feel seen and known and heard or and this is particularly important when we talk about smart tech, do you feel like a data point, just you know, a cog in large machinery? Um that’s just getting lost um and we know that feels terrible, everybody has experiences of feeling being made to feel small by organizations and nothing is more important in our work, particularly in the social service and human service areas of making people feel known and heard and yet it is just the sticking point for the sector that it is the thing that gets left off and again we’re back to the business of work, so we want people to be reflective of. Is this the right technology, are you solving that exquisite pain point that you had? How are you making people feel when machines are now doing what only people could do until just a few years ago, you know, through smart tack and is it solving the problems that you set out to solve?

[00:12:00.50] spk_0:
Uh Yeah, I I admired that idea of, of reflective because you know, it’s it’s closely related as you said to being human centered uh you know, thoughtfulness um and it goes to like preparation to um it

[00:12:23.51] spk_1:
also goes to leadership right? You have to have a leadership within an organization that isn’t so brittle that they are open to learning about how to improve and there are too many organizations that are so fearful of being seen as not doing something well that they won’t openly and wholeheartedly be reflective about their activities.

[00:12:42.57] spk_2:
And it’s also about the culture too, and we’ve used this word a lot dizziness and when we have a culture of business and people are multitasking and there’s back to back meetings. They don’t have that space to be reflective. So um and and that’s so required to um to make the changes that you just read about the last line of our book, you know, to get to that place

[00:13:23.79] spk_0:
and we’re gonna talk some about the leadership. Uh you talk about being trustworthy and empathetic, we’ll we’ll we’ll get there. Um Another, another attribute you you mentioned um beth is being knowledgeable, knowledgeable about the tech and I think it’s limits too. But what would you you say it you’ll say it more eloquently than I will.

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I

[00:13:33.74] spk_2:
think we can both say that both Alice and I can say both eloquently, but I’ll kick off with um when we say knowledgeable and we’re and we’re saying this to leaders, we’re not saying that you need to know how to code. Um you know, roll up your sleeves and write the code but you need to understand um

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what goes

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into the code and whether it’s biased um the data sets it’s been trained on and you need most of the time. A lot of leaders in the nonprofit sector when it comes to technology it’s kind of push back, you know sent down the hall to the I. T. Department and we’re really asking leaders to lead in because there’s you know potential challenges which Allison is really great at explaining.

[00:14:16.56] spk_1:
Alright

[00:14:18.19] spk_0:
well Alison explain those but then maybe you can tell us a story too about

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uh

[00:14:22.80] spk_0:
about like the degree to which a leader needs to be knowledgeable.

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Uh So we’re talking about um this family of technologies tony that is very quickly becoming embedded in every single part of organizational life. Right? This is not a you know fundraising software, smart tech is going to be embedded in the finances and the back office and the coms and development and everything. And the idea of having machines automatically paid for things or screen resumes or screen people for services is a fundamental shift in who is doing work and how it’s being done. Right? So when you understand that premise, you have to have the C suite leaning into this to underst and what it means when your staff is doing different things than they used to do and when people on the outside are engaging with machines instead of people, these are fundamental shifts. So one area. Um Well too I just mentioned that are so important is if you are automating the screening of resumes, then the assumptions that some programmer put into that system and the resumes that were used to test it for looking for certain kinds of employees with certain kinds of skills are going to be biased. I can tell you that right now, right. They are going to have a bias. And largely that bias is going to be against, you know, people who are black and brown or or women.

[00:15:57.35] spk_0:
It’s gonna be in favor of white men.

[00:16:40.39] spk_1:
Exactly. Because that is what employment looks like. Those are the questions we use those are the expectations that we have and the programming was done most likely by a white man. Um So if you don’t know what to ask. The creator of that software that you’ve just bought that is going to quote save you a ton of time looking at resumes. Um but also screen out um people of color and women then you’ve just an incredible disservice to your organization and the same if you are providing housing services or food services to people in need, the same kinds of biases are going to be found in these systems, right? This is a systems problem. And that’s why as Beth was saying, this is not a technical problem. This is not something where you say go I. T. Guys go find us a good product. You know, they’re not looking out for your organization’s interest in equity. That’s what leadership is for right, setting those moral standards, setting that compass and making sure that your values are aligned in everything you do and how you do it as an organization.

[00:17:59.64] spk_0:
Yeah. You both are very clear in the book that this is a leadership issue, not a technology issue. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They have another interesting newsletter this week advocating for the use of cliches. Their argument is that cliches shouldn’t be ruled out entirely but used judiciously. Like not don’t go overboard either. Whatever you think about cliches, my point is they’re thinking about them. They’re thinking about how best to communicate your story because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. Now back to the Smart non profit any any stories, can we can we tell a story at this point? Alison

[00:18:23.00] spk_1:
sure there are, there are social services agencies around the country um that we’re using smart tech systems to provide um food assistance. And only after the system had been in place for several years. tony did they find out that it was literally leaving out black people from the system. In the opening chapter of our book, we talked about a screening tool called V. I. Speed at uh

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three times.

[00:18:40.55] spk_1:
I

[00:18:42.50] spk_0:
just kept saying it. V. I. S. P. D. D. Yeah.

[00:18:50.81] spk_1:
Yeah the I stood at that was programmed by um why white man with very good intentions that unintentionally was leaving black people out of getting priority housing in hundreds of communities around the world, four years before the social workers finally got heard saying, we know this tool doesn’t work on the ground, we’re using. It, it is not screening people correctly because the questions were biased against people of color who have so much trouble getting into public systems.

[00:19:32.89] spk_0:
You you have three caveats sort of that that you uh you make very clear and bias is one of them. So we’re just talking about that um responsible use is another another of the three beth can you can you talk to uh what you’re thinking about responsible use and sort of thinking through problems?

[00:19:59.01] spk_2:
Um Sure. Uh it’s kind of like taking a Hippocratic oath that you will do no harm. Right? So the example that Alison just laid out, obviously there was harm done by keeping people screening people out for important services. Um so so it it who’s um non profits to do uh something that we call threat modeling? I know it’s a big scary term and word and it comes from the internet cybersecurity but

[00:20:11.51] spk_0:
didn’t frighten me.

[00:20:17.94] spk_2:
Okay, well it might frighten some people we have had that reaction, um but it’s just basically

[00:20:19.33] spk_0:
not profit radio It’s very savvy listeners here.

[00:20:21.72] spk_2:
Absolutely,

[00:20:23.24] spk_0:
this is this is a higher echelon audience than you’re

[00:20:25.77] spk_2:
right, of course, your

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other podcast. So please

[00:20:28.49] spk_2:
threat

[00:20:29.80] spk_0:
modeling is not intimidating to us.

[00:20:31.51] spk_2:
Okay, so threat modeling is actually having a brainstorm of all the possible things that could go

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wrong.

[00:20:42.33] spk_2:
Um if you uh implement this technology um what what harm could be done to the end user um if they if they were given um let’s say you have a buy right? And in fact the Trevor project is an example of an organization that did this threat modeling. They wanted to they had a problem. Um they had, you’re familiar with the Trevor project,

[00:21:02.88] spk_0:
explain, explain what what

[00:21:04.80] spk_2:
okay, so they provide uh

[00:21:07.10] spk_0:
counseling

[00:21:23.42] spk_2:
to yes to L. B. G. T. Q. Youth, you know through text and online phone, if you will. And so they’re dealing with kids who are in crisis and a whole, you know, um continuum of issues and they have councilors that there who are volunteers but they’re trained in this very specific, very sensitive type of counseling, especially when young people are coming to them in crisis. And so um so the problem was, you know, they needed to scale um and get more counselors in there so they could help more clients. And so they decided that they wanted to use a bot,

[00:21:44.37] spk_1:
which

[00:22:33.01] spk_2:
is, you know, automated response. We’re all familiar with thoughts, you know, buy a pair of sneakers online or trying to make a doctor’s appointment and you encounter a bot. And so rather than replace the counselors on the front line with this technology that won’t be human center, it could be potentially dangerous. Um especially with a sophisticated self learning bot, which could learn through, you know, and learn through interactions and say the wrong things and that could be devastating to an end user who’s in crisis. But what they decided to do was to use the bot for training simulations. So they took data from real conversation, stripping all privacy information and they use this to train their bot, which was a highly sophisticated software that was self learning. But they said that this spot will not be on the front lines with anybody, will only interact with um for training simulations. So what this did was free up a lot of time from the staff in terms of delivering trainings to more quality control. So they were able to get more counselors on the front

[00:22:51.82] spk_1:
line, so

[00:23:01.15] spk_2:
it’s an example of being human centered, but it’s also an example of that dividend of time and and repurposing it um and also uh making sure, you know, so it’s doing no harm. Yeah,

[00:23:15.16] spk_0:
and that and that responsible use. Okay, okay. Um the other the other caveat you have, so you have, you have three caveats bias, responsible use and privacy. Talking about ethical standards who’s uh, who’s who’s most interested in talking about privacy Allison Fine, raised their hand first.

[00:25:08.25] spk_1:
Yes, I did. Um so this is not a new issue, right, We’ve been dealing with digital privacy um for a long time, but as a sector haven’t really ever gotten our arms around it. tony right in that we has a sector have just subscribed to. I think we think the lowest expectations from the commercial side, which is you try to get as much personal data as you can write. You ask for those emails and you leave. You might let somebody unsubscribe from a newsletter, but you don’t delete their emails. Right? And a much, much more ethical model we feel is in the european union, the G D P R. I can’t remember what that stands for. But the idea is that, um, the people, the consumers, constituents, donors, volunteers are in charge of their data and they get to tell us how they want to be engaged with us, right? They get to tell us that they want to be forgotten entirely from our systems. They don’t want to be on any of our list. They don’t want to be in our systems. And that flipping over of the model we think is very in keeping with being human centered, right? It’s very in keeping with the values that we’re trying to, uh, in view in this whole concept of smart nonprofits, right? That we shouldn’t fear, um, asking people what the value we provide to them is. Right. Do we brought enough value in having their email for them to want to stay with us or are we just turning through again, as we said in the beginning, turning them through systems like the cogs in a great big machinery. So we think the smart tech is going to generate even more data than the last 10 years of digital tech, which is astonishing to think about kind of mind blowing to think about

[00:25:18.86] spk_0:
Because I think didn’t you cite 90 90% of the data that we have is in the past two years?

[00:25:34.41] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah. It is remarkable to explode. And so we need to be, we need to raise the bar on our ethical considerations on the use of data and the relationship that we have with our constituents. They need to trust us more. The fact that the nonprofit sector along with other sectors, the degree of trust is going down. tony is, is not good and we ought to hold ourselves to higher standards of privacy and data protection.

[00:26:52.20] spk_0:
Two weeks ago, Gene Takagi and I talked about that exact subject in a show that I called in nonprofits do we trust? It was just, it was just two weeks ago. It’s time for a break. 4th dimension technologies, your tech is an investment invest wisely. What’s the state of your office infrastructure? Should you give remote or hybrid employees tech allowances or just give them the equipment outright or both or neither. How’s your disaster recovery plan? How’s your backup working? four D. Can help you with all these investment decisions, check the listener landing page tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But you know they go one dimension deeper. Let’s return to the smart non profit Do we know what the impact has been on, on business? Uh,

[00:27:02.62] spk_1:
coming

[00:27:13.65] spk_0:
out of the G D P R has, it, has it had the devastating effect on business that the business community in europe was, was claiming when they were, uh, lobbying against it or trying to, you know, trying to weaken it. Do we, do we know I’m putting you on the spot. Do either of you know, whether that’s had such a devastating impact on european business?

[00:27:25.95] spk_1:
It’s been fine. And, and look, companies, commercial companies here have had to put, uh, more effort into privacy issues when they do work in the european

[00:27:37.36] spk_0:
union,

[00:27:40.59] spk_1:
you know,

[00:27:40.96] spk_0:
California

[00:27:41.82] spk_1:
for Nya are holding people to the same standards now. Um, but it hasn’t had a huge negative impact on business,

[00:27:50.70] spk_0:
you know,

[00:27:51.44] spk_1:
it’s fine.

[00:28:01.23] spk_0:
Okay, okay, now this, this smart tech artificial intelligence we’re talking about, this is widely used commercially, Right? I mean, isn’t this, I don’t know, fundamental to amazon google the 24 hour chatbots that beth mentioned, you know, you see a little about 24 7, the likelihood of that being a live person at four in the morning is very, very small. This, this is, this is ubiquitous in the commercial sector,

[00:28:22.79] spk_1:
isn’t it?

[00:28:23.82] spk_2:
Yes, it is, but I think we’re at this point um, uh, Allison likes to call it the heel of the hockey stick where it’s going to the cross of this technology has come down. It’s becoming democratized and it’s becoming more accessible to non profits of all sizes.

[00:28:41.29] spk_0:
You

[00:28:42.67] spk_2:
don’t have to be nasa to use this.

[00:28:51.56] spk_0:
All right. Now to keep yourself out of jargon jail. You’re gonna have to explain the, uh, the hockey stick on a graph metaphor. So go ahead, tell us what X and Y are and why it looks like a

[00:28:54.63] spk_1:
hockey stick.

[00:28:55.50] spk_2:
Okay. It’s okay. So imagine a hockey stick, right. Or I should do it this way. I’m looking at my

[00:29:02.71] spk_0:
nobody can, nobody can see your hands, but we all know what

[00:29:04.91] spk_2:
happened, but

[00:29:05.98] spk_0:
not sophisticated enough to know what hockey sticks.

[00:29:20.11] spk_2:
It basically shows. And this happens with technology. Um, is that, you know, early adopters use it because it’s very expensive, experimental. It’s unproven. And as it, the technology improve and the cost comes down and it becomes more accessible to consumers and small businesses into organizations. The adoption rate starts to skyrocket. So it goes up. So you see sort of a flat line and then a steep hill or steep mountain increase in

[00:29:35.49] spk_0:
X’s time. And why is technology adoption?

[00:29:39.42] spk_2:
Yes.

[00:29:40.76] spk_0:
Yeah. You’re better at

[00:29:41.91] spk_2:
charts than I am.

[00:29:43.65] spk_0:
Okay, well, you, you, you invoked the metaphor of the hockey stick. You gotta, you gotta be able to stand behind it now.

[00:29:48.41] spk_2:
Oh, I guess I guess I should.

[00:29:50.13] spk_0:
All right. All right.

[00:30:31.21] spk_1:
It’s not just nonprofits adopting this now. tony I would say that it’s all medium and small sized organizations in every sector that now has available to them, technology that they couldn’t afford just a few years ago. And that’s, that’s what the difference is. The technology is a brand new, it’s just become very affordable for smaller organizations. However, as I mentioned before, just because it’s available and just because it’s affordable, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right stuff to grab off the shelf. And that’s the part that’s that’s the impetus for us to write this book. You need to know what you’re grabbing and using, Yeah,

[00:30:42.60] spk_0:
the availability to small and midsize shops, I think is through is throughout your book. Um, let’s tell another good story. The one with the, uh, uh, the repurposing of the school bus routes to deliver food instead of drop off Children during the pandemic because Children were no longer going to school. So they repurposed school busses to drop

[00:30:55.43] spk_1:
off meals.

[00:30:57.87] spk_0:
Who knows that story best.

[00:30:59.76] spk_2:
Yeah. So, you’re, you’re talking about research at Carnegie Mellon University and you’re talking about Pittsburgh school system and

[00:31:07.96] spk_0:
Pittsburgh school system.

[00:32:38.23] spk_2:
United Pittsburgh school district or whatever it’s called. Um, so this was at the very beginning of the pandemic when we were in the shutdown and um, and kids that are in schools that are in poorer areas relied on the school lunch program to get their meals right. And so if schools were shut down and, and, and students were tele community, there’s no way to get this food. So they used a machine learning algorithm to re engineer the must routes to take the food to the kids in the most efficient way. It’s really interesting how during the pandemic, you know, there was a little bit of a silver lining. I know it’s awful. But there was a silver lining for some nonprofits to really push and to innovate. And I think food banks in a way we’re forced to do this. Um, there’s another example in boston of the boston food bank completely automating its inventory and it’s stocking to become a lot more efficient. And at one point they even were experimenting with having robots come in and stock the shelves because most of the food banks, volunteers are older and they were told not, you know, during the very early part of the pandemic, not to, you know, come in because it could be dangerous to their health. Um, and that’s also a great kind of idea story, use scenario to think about to do the threat modeling that we were talking about earlier. So let’s just say for example, food banks. So let’s let’s bring in the robots and have

[00:32:38.99] spk_1:
them stock

[00:32:40.47] spk_2:
the shelves, you know, so, but you also have to think about that volunteers who are coming in, um, to do this type of work. Those were their lifeline in terms,

[00:32:50.89] spk_0:
yeah.

[00:32:51.75] spk_2:
How are they going to feel and how are we going to redesign the volunteer job and how are you going to encourage them to come back in and make them feel safe and welcome into the food

[00:33:02.13] spk_1:
bank. Right.

[00:33:02.86] spk_0:
Less feeling less unless they feel useless and replaced by machinery. And this is all the organization thought of us. And now they now it’s just a bunch of metal replacing us metal and plastic parts. So yeah. Alright. Also being human centered, reflective,

[00:33:59.75] spk_1:
but that that’s that’s the dividend of time, tony if you can say all right, we used to have these uh, you know, two dozen volunteers who came in and were stocking shelves all the time. And now we’ve automated that task. What is it that these, you know, lovely people who wanted to help could do that would be so, you know, deeply human and centered as you say, and uh, you know, in in improving our relationship with our clients. Maybe they could be calling clients. So what else do you need? You know, what else is happening for you or just saying hello to somebody, Right. I mean, there are all sorts of wonderful human things that those people could now do if they want to um that they never had the time to do before. That’s the that’s where this is again, a leadership issue of really thinking about how do we want to use our human capital in the next chapter of organizational development?

[00:35:40.16] spk_0:
Okay, I think that’s an excellent example of the dividend of time that we’re we’re about a half an hour in or so. So let me uh let me try my, my skepticism out on you that we I’ve heard this before, that there was gonna be, there were promises of increased productivity and increased time. I’m thinking of smartphones, we’re going to give us more time and they certainly make us more productive, but I don’t I don’t I don’t see studies saying that we we have so much more time. I see that time being absorbed now you might say, well maybe I’m making your case for you that time being re allocated. Unthought feli unwisely. But I don’t I don’t see people walking around feeling that they’ve got so much more free time since the widespread adoption of smartphones 10 years ago or so. Um Another video conferencing, you know, whatever teams uh zoom, I hear more about zoom burnout than I do about feeling that I’ve got so much more time available because I don’t have to go to meetings. I don’t have to go to the office. Um You know, so those are a couple of the paperless office. That was another paper, the promise of the paperless office was going to be so much so much more efficient for us and I think that was gonna save time because we wouldn’t have to file papers and it was gonna save office space because we wouldn’t need storage and these promises. Um I sound like a whining 60 year old, but these promises have not come

[00:35:44.78] spk_2:
to not

[00:35:46.09] spk_0:
come to fruition in the

[00:35:46.96] spk_2:
past. So I’ll take what I’ll tackle the zoom fatigue thing and, and then Alison can kind of related to smart text. So

[00:35:56.32] spk_0:
I guess I should say uh, it’s not whining. I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeonly 60 year old.

[00:36:00.94] spk_2:
Well you’re not a curmudgeon and you never whine.

[00:36:03.79] spk_0:
All right, Thank you.

[00:36:52.45] spk_2:
So, so if you take zoom fatigue, right? Um, and that came from stanford University and basically what is causing it is the flight or fight response that is going on in our bodies when we see the grid. I mean, there’s some ways to mitigate it. But what happened is is that nonprofits like many businesses all of a sudden were forced to pivot to becoming remote distributed teams. We never really work like that. So the idea was, let’s just all make, get a zoom meeting. Let’s just take everything we did in person and just plop it online. And what happened because everybody was doing this there was, we didn’t really evaluate how do we collaborate effectively. What do we need, what can we do? Like a synchronously so we can make use of our synchronous or real time experience. So we can make meetings shorter. There’s research from Microsoft that shows that if you have stacked back to back meetings without taking a break your level of stress just stays the same throughout the day. And so if organizations were reflective, knowledgeable

[00:37:07.39] spk_0:
and kind of prepared, they

[00:37:16.17] spk_2:
Would have looked at and said, Okay, so let’s look at how we can, you know, stick to a culture of maybe a 20 minute meeting with 10 minute break in between or have a zoom number per day that we know that we’re not going to schedule more than x number of meetings, which would then think to how do we rethink our work? Um So it’s not just the technology, that’s true, the technology doesn’t create the dividend of time. It’s a combination of the technology with thoughtful leadership, reflective leadership as we’ve been saying, that can then change the culture.

[00:37:41.25] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:37:51.31] spk_1:
And let me let me let me build on that tony So we have an entire generation of digital technology That was intended to make us go faster, right? That was that’s what it has done. We are at a point now, we’re checking your email on average, 74 times a day is quote normal, right?

[00:38:04.53] spk_0:
We’ve gone from uh let’s say facts to email, to texting to to to um slack.

[00:39:36.27] spk_1:
We we we get that this technology, smart tech ai automation is not that technology, it is a fundamentally different kind of technology that’s intended to do things instead of people not to have us do more, But as Beth just said, it’s only going to do that. If we implement it thoughtfully, right, if we end up in the same place where we are checking on the box 74 times a day shame on us. The stuff has the potential to relieve us of so much administrative wrote work that just eats up everybody’s day. And if we can co bott well and have the bots do what they’re supposed to do and the people do what they they’re supposed to do, we can actually re humanize work. But as you know we’re just at the beginning of this process a lot of this is theoretical and that’s again is why we wrote this book instead of jumping in and grabbing the stuff and adding it onto your existing dizziness, frantic nous culture, we need you to stop and think and figure out how to do this. Well you know

[00:40:34.55] spk_2:
there’s some research that’s from M. I. T. Sloan school that looked at the effectiveness of this technology and um and where it is effective is if people don’t just focus on the efficiency of it that is to, okay well we can get all of these tests done way more efficiently because people aren’t cutting and pasting from different spreadsheets. Um But we’re not gonna fill up people’s with more work to do so it’s not to go faster, it’s really to be more effective and so if this technology can be implemented and it can kind of relieve some of that stress and pain of overload then that has an impact on morale and people feeling good about where they work and there is a synergistic impact that the study found that where efficiency and kind of effectiveness, let’s work together. So there’s so that can have more people feel better about their work, they do better, they get better results, they’re less likely to quit, there’s less likely to be turnover and the organization moves forward in a in a better way with better outcomes.

[00:41:09.01] spk_0:
Right, Okay. Alright. And that’s that’s if if it’s adopted with leaders consciously being human centered, knowledgeable, reflective, prepared. Uh and we’re gonna get to trust and empathy. Um All right, well you may have moved me from skeptic to uh cautious optimist.

[00:41:16.14] spk_2:
I was gonna say, what are you still are you still a little uh

[00:41:34.32] spk_0:
you know the history, the history has not has not borne out that leaders have adopted the new technology reflectively thoughtfully and prepared. Lee um It’s just so I’m just basically,

[00:41:36.18] spk_2:
pardon

[00:44:17.51] spk_0:
Me, they never had its 2022. Now they have the book, they didn’t have it when we went from facts to email or email to slack or email the text and text. Alright, Alright. No, no it’s okay. Um so leaders please uh keep listening. It’s time for Tony’s take to debunk the top five myths of planned giving, that’s my free webinar coming up. It’s Tuesday october 18th at 10 a.m. Pacific one o’clock Eastern I say free webinar but it’s not free for everyone. It’s free for you because you’re gonna use checkout code tony T. O N Y couldn’t be simpler. I think you have to put it all in caps too. I’m not sure about that part but do it all in caps to be safe. So I’m gonna be talking about debunking these insidious, pernicious top five myths of planned giving, I hate them, I loathe them, they are loathsome, that’s why I loathe them because they keep people away from planned giving like the one that says plan giving is gonna ruin all your other fundraising. It’s going to take away from your annual gift and your major annual giving and major giving. Debunk. We’re gonna debunk that and for others as well. So join me very simple to sign up. Of course. You go to our gracious host site. We are thoughtfully hosted by N. P. Solutions. So you go to N. P. Solutions dot org. You click workshops, you’ll find me in the list and then when you’re checking out use that code tony do it in all caps and it’ll be free for you. Not for everybody, but for you, I hope you’ll be with me. Let’s debunk these Hateful Top five Myths. That is tony stick to we’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the smart non profit with Beth Canter and Alison fine. Let’s let’s talk some about the leadership. That’s perfect. So you mentioned the three things I really want to talk about trustworthy empathy uh, and curiosity and I have to get this in. If you had an H then you could have spelled out tech trustworthy empathy, curious, high minded

[00:44:18.40] spk_2:
human, human centered,

[00:44:26.89] spk_0:
human centered. You need, you got the T. E. C. In the book. I was looking where’s the H. All right. Uh, what does it look like for leaders to be to be trustworthy? To adopt Trust?

[00:44:34.88] spk_1:
Who

[00:44:38.64] spk_0:
who who’s the best, who’s the most trustworthy explainer of of trust?

[00:44:43.00] spk_1:
I

[00:44:43.18] spk_0:
don’t care. It could be either one. Okay, Allison Trust is yours. We got to go in order and then if we can come up with an H uh centered, but that you already have that in the in becoming a smart non profit That’s that. You already covered that one. So you can come up with another one. Um Herculean, heroic, heroic, Herculean, Right. Trust Alison, Why why is this trust?

[00:46:58.76] spk_1:
Important? So organizations are making a bond with people in their communities, right? We are, we are asking them to come along on a journey with us, uh, to be clients to be donors, to be volunteers, to engage with us in some way and trust is the stuff that’s sticking us together, right? It is social capital. It is thinking that an organization has your best interests at heart, not just their best interests at heart. And um, I feel like for 20 years, so many organizations have been going moving so quickly on this hamster wheel advised by people who make a lot of money off of transactional fundraising and transactional engagement online and have lost sight of the fact that unless and until people out there trust that you are doing the right stuff in the right way, nothing else matters. And we’re all trying to scale way too quickly, tony without really understanding the fundamental D. N. A. Of making sure that we are entirely values aligned from what we want to do to what we’re actually doing to the outcomes. And again, you know, beth and I feel so strongly that the nonprofit sector is such an incredibly special place, right? We are the epicenter of the world for you know, providing human services and doing advocacy work and it is such an incredibly brave, difficult work and yet we still have a ways to go in asking are the leadership of organizations both C suite and the boards to raise the bar to be more transparent uh to to ask more questions about how they’re doing, to measure their outcomes, to uh take care of their people internally and externally better. And so that’s why we put trust so high up on the scale of what we want organizations to be focused on.

[00:47:19.32] spk_0:
I think leaders feel when they’re there

[00:47:24.02] spk_1:
falling

[00:47:24.70] spk_0:
short in in in in in the aspirations that you just described. I think I think folks feel it it’s just but they’re on that hamster wheel and it’s, it’s hard to take, it’s hard to take that step back and and acknowledge what you’re feeling and be introspective as an organization.

[00:49:01.87] spk_1:
Let me, let me, let me describe something though. That’s really important. tony that we as a sector don’t talk nearly enough about. And that’s what Beth and I called the leaky bucket in fundraising. Right? So year one, you get 100 donors by year two, you’re down to 25 of those. You’ve lost 75% of those donors Because you’re so busy filling up the bucket again because you’ve lost 75% the year before and all you’re doing is this transactional fundraising, the email, the direct mail to fill up the bucket again. All of the measures of fundraising success are front loaded, right of did we hit those, you know, revenue targets for this year? Very few organizations are really focused on donor retention and how to increase it. It’s never been at a board table for discussion that I have been at in many, many years, many, many organizations of being on the board and that is where the panic comes in. And it feels terrible to staff and you know, my heart just goes out to all of those people who are in a panic about hitting those revenue numbers knowing that what they’re working with is hemorrhaging donors every single day and that’s where, you know, just in my heart of hearts tony I just want everybody to stop, just stop and take a step back and figure out how to improve your relationship with donors more. So they stay longer with you and you’re not in this panic every day.

[00:49:25.83] spk_0:
Allison, we’re gonna come back to you for for curiosity beth let’s talk about empathy,

[00:49:29.41] spk_1:
I’m

[00:51:40.41] spk_2:
sure. And I think the empathy is, needs to be turned within first before it gets turned outside to the donors to solve um, what what Alison was just talking about. But so empathetic leadership means the ability to understand the needs of others and being aware of their feelings and thoughts. And unfortunately it’s viewed as kind of like a soft skill. Um, and it’s not always linked to performance, um, indicators, right? And so I think it’s really important, especially with what we’ve been through in the pandemic, um, that organizations really need to have clear expectations with their managers to lead in a way that is supportive of, of employees and that supports and contributes to their overall well being and they can do that and still get work done. Um, and I think that like don’t get me started on well being, but um, well being has to be put center and it has to be raised up and given as much importance as fundraising metrics or, or other financial metrics, especially given what we’ve been through. And so this includes checking in training people to like actually observe on their staff and making sure that their, um, you know, caretakers for each other’s well being. And it’s, you know, like a one on one check in isn’t just about, hey, where’s that report? Where’s that proposal? But it’s also how people are feeling what their energy is. Like what their job experiences like what could be improved, which gets us closer to that conversation around technology. So, um, the types of skills and competencies that make for a culture of care or empathy or self awareness and self regulation, adaptive skills, active listening coaching with powerful questions, observing for signs of burnout. Being able to give and receive feedback in a way that doesn’t cause stress, disrupting microaggressions, inclusive facilitation, having those difficult conversations sometimes, which is too nice. But there’s ways to have those conversations that aren’t devastating and genuine perspective, taking. Being able to see it from other people’s points of view. And it doesn’t, I don’t think that makes us weaker. I really think it makes us stronger.

[00:51:54.81] spk_0:
You know,

[00:52:05.03] spk_2:
it’s not a bunch of, you know, reaction when I wrote the happy, healthy. Yeah. Right. We get the, you know, that’s a bunch of hippie crap. Yeah.

[00:52:07.04] spk_0:
I didn’t say that when I talk to you. You

[00:52:08.92] spk_2:
didn’t say that. Of course you wouldn’t say that. You’re too smart.

[00:52:25.83] spk_0:
Thank you. Well, you hardly know me, but thank you. I’ll take it anyway. Um, I know a lot of what you’re describing to is vulnerability. And I think vulnerability is a sign of uh is evidence of confidence that you’re, that you’re strong enough to be vulnerable where lots of people think it’s a sign of weakness that you’re showing, you know, you’re, you’re showing your human side and you know that I think that’s terribly misguided. Um alright, if we’re gonna, we’re gonna, I’m gonna keep you uh not beyond our allocated time. Let’s go to Alison for for curiosity.

[00:52:48.83] spk_1:
Why is it important?

[00:52:50.46] spk_0:
Yes. Why is, why is curiosity a valued trait for leaders?

[00:54:31.33] spk_1:
Uh, you know, the world is moving really fast tony and we have um, a lot of organizational leaders who think tech is not their thing, right? Tech is for somebody else and it can’t not be your thing. If you’re running an organization right now, it’s too important. It’s threaded throughout everything that your organization is doing and you can’t just lean back, You need to lean into it and to do that? You need to be genuinely curious about in our case for smart tech, What is this stuff and why is important and how is it different from the last generation of technology and what could we actually accomplish if we didn’t spend three quarters of our day responding to emails? What is possible out there in the world. And you know, my heart breaks for so many of the nonprofit folks that beth and I talked to who have such good intentions and are so deeply unhappy with how stressful their jobs are or how unrecognized they are by the C suite um or how um pressurized they feel. So it is just uh innately important for organizational leaders to be genuinely curious about, where do we go from here? Right. The world broke two years ago in so many fundamental ways the political economic stress of this moment is wearing people down but we can’t stay here tony we need to go somewhere and we genuinely believe that the family of technologies we call smart tech creates an opportunity to be different in the future to make work joyful and much more meaningful and rewarding and you can only get there if you’re genuinely curious and engaged in understanding the technology

[00:54:58.39] spk_0:
and I think curiosity and empathy are interrelated to curiosity about your people as beth was for all the, in all the ways Beth was describing. That’s

[00:55:08.56] spk_1:
exactly right

[00:55:12.54] spk_0:
alright. Um I don’t suppose the beth I don’t suppose you on the fly came up with an H for to spell out tech for us. Did you?

[00:55:23.89] spk_2:
You

[00:55:24.77] spk_0:
Have that one already?

[00:55:27.02] spk_2:
Humility

[00:55:28.26] spk_0:
Humility is a good one. There you go.

[00:55:29.86] spk_2:
So let’s riff on that humility in

[00:55:31.81] spk_0:
the second edition, you can add, you can add humility and spell out

[00:55:35.20] spk_2:
text and then we’ll footnote and say suggested by tony

[00:55:44.65] spk_0:
Thank you. Yeah, humility. Right. Isn’t that simple? Yeah, related to being empathetic leaders don’t need to know everything, do they?

[00:55:49.85] spk_1:
Oh gosh

[00:55:50.62] spk_2:
no listen

[00:56:15.01] spk_1:
we you know the reason why we wrote the network on profit tony was to take that idea of the hierarchical model of leadership and organizations out of the equation and say the point is somebody else in your network has the answer. You don’t have to have the answer yourself. You just have to know how to go about getting it right and and that of of flattening your organization and your worldview is so important to being able to survive all the uncertainties of what’s happening right now.

[00:56:52.37] spk_0:
Since we started with Allison, Beth I’m gonna let you wrap us up please. There’s so much more in the book. There are use cases, you know, we don’t the book, we can only scratch the surface here. You gotta get the book. That’s the point. You get. They talk about increasing program capacity, fundraising, back office automation, including a lot of talk about human resources. Um you just you gotta get the book which is the smart non profit but beth why don’t you leave us with inspiration and wisdom?

[00:58:30.19] spk_2:
Okay. Um we’ve been through a lot the sector has been through a lot. I mean the world’s been through a lot in the last 22 plus years with the pandemic and accompanying other crisis is and as Allison is outlined and I think we’re we are like at a precipice where we could just either go down the rabbit hole of you know a human capital crisis and spiraling out and people leaving the field and organizations just, you know, stopping business and, you know, leaving lots of people who are vulnerable who need their services. I mean, that’s we can’t go there. We have to pivot. And I think that um, smart tech is part of the tools that can help us get there. But again, their tools, they also need this empathetic leadership that we’ve been talking about and we who can also steer and change the culture to put people first. Um, and um, and I think if we can have all of these things together, working for the organization, the Smart Tech plus the culture plus the leadership, uh, we’ll be able to move forward in a post pandemic world with much better outcomes with happier staff, with staff doing a better job with donors, feeling seen and heard and wanting to, you know, um write bigger checks if you will with clients who are receiving the services that they need and we’re on a path to a better world. It’s not gonna be easy, but uh, we believe that non profits can do this.

[00:58:48.89] spk_0:
That’s beth cantor at Beth Kanter and Beth Kanter dot org co author Alison Fine at a fine and Allison Fine dot com. The book is the smart non profit you can find it in either of their two sites,

[00:59:00.00] spk_1:
Beth

[00:59:00.35] spk_0:
and Allison, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing

[00:59:03.70] spk_2:
genuine

[01:00:00.00] spk_0:
pleasure next week. Eric Sapperstein returns after many years. Let’s talk about waking up excited and going to bed fulfilled. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech You find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O and by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff showed social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, Thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty, you’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.