Tag Archives: relationships

Nonprofit Radio for October 24, 2022: Make Friends

 

Dr. Marisa G. FrancoMake Friends

Dr. Marisa G. Franco helps you start and grow friendships, so you can enjoy rich, valuable, fun friendships now and throughout your life. She’s a psychologist, professor and author of the book, “Platonic,” a New York Times bestseller.

 

 

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[00:01:56.93] 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 get slapped with a diagnosis of de extroversion if I saw that you missed this week’s show make friends. Dr marisa G franco helps you start and grow friendships so you can enjoy rich, valuable fun friendships now and throughout your life she’s a psychologist professor and author of the book. Platonic a new york times bestseller tony steak to planned giving accelerator. 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. It’s a genuine pleasure to welcome my guest an enlightening psychologist, international speaker and new york times best selling author. Dr marisa G franco is known for digesting and communicating science in ways that resonate deeply enough with people to change their lives. She’s a professor at the University of Maryland and authored the new york times bestseller platonic how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends. She writes about friendship for psychology today and has been a featured connection expert from major publications like the new york times, the telegraph and vice. She speaks on belonging at corporations, government agencies, nonprofits and universities today. She belongs on nonprofit radio she’s on instagram at d r marissa g franco and at D. R. Marissa G franco dot com. Welcome Marissa,

[00:02:27.00] spk_1:
thank you so much for having me. tony I love your energy.

[00:02:30.36] spk_0:
Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to have you. You get me excited to talk about friendship and you’re coming off. You just told me before we got started. You’re coming off a ted talk?

[00:02:42.03] spk_1:
Yes. Ted talk

[00:02:44.55] spk_0:
That is wonderful. Congratulations. Thank

[00:02:47.13] spk_1:
you so much.

[00:02:59.64] spk_0:
Pleasure. Look forward to seeing it. Friendship, Marissa unfortunately declining in the United States. What’s happening?

[00:03:48.48] spk_1:
Wow, that’s a great question. You know, it’s, it’s been declining since like the 1950s unfortunately. And um, there’s this really good book bowling alone and he analyzes all the factors that kind of started this decline in what he calls civic engagement, like engagement in our communities. He says it started with the television basically that before then leisure was something you did publicly, you did it with other people right? But with the creation of the television, you spent leisure at home and not only that watching tv triggers lethargy. So even if you want to get out and call someone, you’re like less likely to do it right. And then I think as we’ve continued technology like 2012 loneliness really began to spike. What happened in 2012 was the rise of the smartphone And it’s not that we can’t use technology to connect with people. We absolutely can. It’s just that the way that technology is now developed. It’s developed in a way to keep us kind of scrolling on our phones not engaging with other people, right in ways that continue to foster loneliness. So I think there’s also analysis that found that like in 35 out of 37 countries, kids in school were significantly more lonely than they were a decade ago.

[00:04:43.78] spk_0:
Mm So these uh, these technologies tv was tv was wonderful. Um, I think the belief was that I was gonna kill movie theaters, which obviously didn’t happen. Uh, Netflix was supposed to do that too and it didn’t um, blockbuster before netflix was supposed to. But so the technologies, um, you know, in some respect, especially the phone and social, the social networks, uh, that’s a lot of the promise was that it would bring us together and I know you’re saying it can, but we need to be intentional about our technology use

[00:04:55.72] spk_1:
exactly what I’m saying.

[00:04:58.12] spk_0:
Okay. And we’ll get a chance to talk, we’ll talk more about, uh, we have the whole hour together so we don’t pack it all into the first five minutes. Um, well let’s a little motivation for folks that might not recognize what what the value is of having rich fun friendships.

[00:05:50.23] spk_1:
Yeah, So we absolutely don’t recognize the value. Um, in fact there was a study that found that when people predicted how they’d feel, talking to a stranger, they, they thought they’d feel a lot more, a lot better just like being on their own and not talking to anyone that was their prediction, but the study actually found that people after they had talked to a stranger increased their amount of positive feelings and joy and more so they felt better than those who were just kind of sitting alone. And so we underestimate just how much connection will bring to our lives. But The researcher, the research finds that for example, loneliness is akin to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and its impact on our bodies.

[00:05:59.76] spk_0:
That, yep,

[00:06:01.66] spk_1:
yep, it’s that bad.

[00:06:03.58] spk_0:
15, 15.

[00:06:28.89] spk_1:
Yeah, it has a greater impact on our on how long we live in our diet or how much we exercise, so it really destroys us. Um loneliness, it’s it’s a chronic stress experience because when you’re lonely you think other people are rejecting you and you’re looking out for all these signs that people are rejecting you and your body is basically undergoing chronic stress when we’re lonely. Um so it’s really bad for us. And you know, friendship connection really helps. Like just like we need water, just like we need food to function. Well, we absolutely need connection.

[00:06:42.69] spk_0:
What do these connections do for us physiologically? That that bring down our, it sounds like raging cortisol and adrenaline if you’re if you’re lonely.

[00:07:43.62] spk_1:
Yeah, so when we are connected we release a hormone called oxytocin and oxytocin is considered a hormone that does double duty, it’s also looked at as the fountain of youth in addition to like the hormone of connection. So it both keeps you young and it keeps you connected because not only when we feel connected we release this hormone but also that you know, oxytocin actually makes us more friendly people that have higher rates of oxytocin, they’re more trusting of others more generous towards others. So it’s funny. It’s just sort of like, oh, the hardest time to make friends is when you’re lonely because of how it affects your brain and how you think about things. The easiest time to make friends is when you’re connected because it makes you friendlier and warmer and more open towards others. So kind of like our brains like sabotaging us a little bit right? Like when we really need the connection the most our brain is like actually we’re going to see everyone is very scary and weary right now and sources of threat.

[00:08:03.10] spk_0:
Okay, but we can we can overcome this. Uh and I think this is where the science of attachment comes in. So can you guess this is this is your work around the science of attachment.

[00:09:44.60] spk_1:
So as I was writing my book, I found something in the research that basically our personalities are fundamentally a reflection of our experiences of connection or lack thereof. Whether we are warm, friendly, trusting, cynical aggressive, right? These are all predicted by how you’ve connected in the past, but not only that those people that have those healthier connections. They develop an internal set of beliefs that fosters continued healthy connection. Right? So it’s like the rich get richer is kind of what we’re saying here. Um these people are what’s called securely attached. They had healthy relationships which makes them go into new relationships, assuming people like them, assuming people are their side assuming they can trust people, assuming they can be vulnerable to people, assuming people will be there when they need right? All of these assumptions really help them create connection. Whereas those people that have had difficult connections in the past, they tend to be insecurely attached. They can either be anxious, which means they go into relationships very scared that people are going to abandon them, which makes them see see rejection when it’s not there, get closed off and shut down or very angry at other people which then makes them um reject people, right? They don’t even realize that when we get really afraid of rejection, we reject people or they can be avoided only attached, which means because people have broken their trust in the past, they go into relationships with no effort, they kind of just withdraw. They’re not really trying at all. They’re very afraid of intimacy, right? And these set of beliefs that insecurely attached people will hold onto that people are going to betray me betray my trust or people are going to abandon me. They tend to become self fulfilling prophecies. They tend to become confirmation bias is where we all look out for signs that those things are true and ignore all the signs. To the contrary.

[00:11:31.17] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Their newsletter this week. Their newsletter is on message hits the importance of gathering different perspectives as you are preparing your communications. They proposed a water bottle image for a national advertising campaign for their community foundation clients nationwide. And that water bottle image didn’t feel too good to the folks in flint michigan and Jackson Mississippi turned to hadn’t thought of those, you know, those possibilities, those opinions until they did testing on their proposed images. Now of course they will develop something new. You can get their insightful newsletter on message at turn hyphen too dot C. O. Turn to communications. Your story is their mission now back to make friends. Marissa, do these have implications? It’s sounds like for for uh Children who grow up in not necessarily single parent homes, but because because single parent homes can be nurturing, but but grow up in homes where there’s uh I don’t know, I don’t know how to characterize, but like early divorce, a lot of abandonment do do kids. Kids must carry this then to their with them through the rest of their lives without some kind of intervention.

[00:12:54.10] spk_1:
Yeah. So absolutely. You know, going through a divorce as a predictor of insecure attachment. And we see that these anxiously attached people, the parents aren’t mean, but they’re just not prioritizing their kids. They’re like prioritizing themselves more. And so the kid feels like I need to like fight to earn your love. Right? Then that’s the sense that they go into in all relationships. Like I’m not inherently worthy. And if I’m not trying to prove myself all the time, people are going to leave me and then the avoidant lea attached people. And again, there’s a genetic component because some people may be like, my kid came out anxious. Um, but yeah, there’s also a genetic component that sort of intersects with the environment here. But um, and then people that are avoiding li attached, they kind of grew up with emotional neglect, like their parents fed them their parents gave them shelter but did not respond to their emotions and told them don’t cry, handle that on your own. People it on that, you know, put your emotions away, suppress your emotions, right? That’s the message that they got. And that’s why they feel like if I’m ever vulnerable people are gonna harm me or minimize me or I can’t like quite trust People with that level of vulnerability. And it’s shocking. There’s a study that basically found that our attachment as infants predicts how many inflammation related illnesses that we have like diabetes heart issues at age 32 and anxiously attached people I think were seven times more likely to have the inflammation-related issues. And avoiding the attached three times more likely than secure people.

[00:13:19.63] spk_0:
Holy cow from infancy,

[00:13:22.90] spk_1:
infancy. Yeah.

[00:13:34.21] spk_0:
Okay. Um, and and the first set of folks that you you you described, you know, if they’re they’re constantly reaching out and trying to be friends. I mean that’s gonna that’s gonna put people off, isn’t it? If you’re if you’re trying so hard, doesn’t that become apparent and a put off?

[00:13:49.33] spk_1:
Yeah, I would say it’s not the trying, it’s the pressure, like anxiously attached people.

[00:13:56.02] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:14:51.26] spk_1:
exactly. Like if someone pulls away from them, they double down there like you’re trying to take your space. I need to get you to like me, like they tend to try to create friendships with people that aren’t interested in them because again, that’s what they learned about love. Like you have to demand it and when it’s freely earned, you can’t quite trust it. Right? So the so I think I describe anxiously attached people when it comes to friendship as high effort, low reward. They put a lot of effort into creating their friendships they do initiate with other people, they try to maintain their friendships. But their fundamental problem is they are they feel so rejected and abandoned that they tend to see that when it’s not there and they tend to reject people back. You know, try to get revenge on people. They tend to not be good at letting people have their own lives and their own needs because it’s like you need to do all these things to show me that I’m worthy. So when you need space, right? When you need a little bit of distance, when you’re not able to hang out this one time, right? That’s triggering my worthiness ruin. Instead of me being able to see that you’re a separate person with your own needs and you’re not necessarily rejecting me. So that is, that’s their big struggle when it comes to

[00:15:08.92] spk_0:
friendship. Those are the anxiously attached,

[00:15:11.27] spk_1:
Those are the anxiously,

[00:15:12.35] spk_0:
anxiously attached and avoidant lee connected.

[00:15:24.33] spk_1:
Um, well, there’s the, yeah, it’s interesting, anxiously attached avoidant lee connected. Um, what do you mean by avoiding the connected?

[00:15:26.19] spk_0:
I thought that was with, I was just trying to summarize the two phrases to monikers that you put on folks actually attached and avoiding maybe I got

[00:15:38.43] spk_1:
attached

[00:15:52.13] spk_0:
attached. Okay, so let’s try to uh, I’d like to apply the, this your work, the science of attachment to uh, to, to making friends in in new jobs. We we know about the great resignation. Lots of people moving. Certainly impacting small and midsize nonprofits. Our listeners. If we’re in a new job understanding it may very well be hybrid. What, what, what applies, what, how can we help ourselves to build these platonic friendships? Platonic relationships.

[00:17:51.90] spk_1:
First of all, I just want to emphasize just how important it is to make friends at work. Um, when people rate how meaningful their job is one of the biggest predictors, even more so than like salary flexibility. Um all these objective measures of work is how connected they feel like that’s like the biggest predictor of how meaningful people find their work. And there’s like studies that look at data from like all these different countries and have people rate out of these 12 domains which winter the most important to you in the workplace and resoundingly across all the countries, people say having good relationships with other people. So it’s critical. I mean, you know, lonely employees, they’re more likely to miss work, their performance suffers less engaged, less likely to be retained, right? Like for us to be happy at work, we need to feel connected, right? It’s it’s no, it’s not just and I’ve been through this as myself, as a professor at an institution who was like, I love the work that I’m doing but I don’t feel like I belong here and I feel really isolated and I left right, even though I love the work because that connection is just such an important resource. And you know, there’s research that finds that when we estimate how steep a hill is when we’re with a friend, we see it as less steep, which suggest when we face challenges and we’re connected, like challenges at the workplace. They feel less challenging to us. Other research that finds that when you have a break to have a conversation with another person and you come back and you you fill out like a test similar to like an IQ test your score is actually higher because you took that time to converse with another person. So

[00:17:57.11] spk_0:
remarkable outcomes.

[00:17:59.96] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:01.62] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:18:54.77] spk_1:
So impactful. So so what that means is like relationships don’t get in the way of work, they’re part of what we need to facilitate it. And for us to be performing at our best, we need to feel connected. Um And so if you want to make friends at work, I think it’s similar, similar tips that I share. Um for outside of work, which is assumed people like you um because according to research on something called the acceptance prophecy, when people, when people are told that you’re going to go into a group and be liked even though this is a lie, they become friendlier, warmer more open. So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy right? So assume that your co workers want to hang out with you and want to get to know you want to hear from you right? Of course if they if they say no or they’re disinterested then move along but make that you’re starting assumption right? And then you have to initiate

[00:18:56.30] spk_0:
because we underestimate that we

[00:18:58.51] spk_1:
underestimate yep

[00:18:59.87] spk_0:
underestimate people’s other people’s esteem for us.

[00:19:17.86] spk_1:
We do, it’s called the liking gap when strangers interact and estimate how like they are by the other person, they underestimate how like they are and not only that the more self critical people were the greater this underestimation so people like us more than we think

[00:19:20.89] spk_0:
like you people

[00:19:22.32] spk_1:
like you

[00:19:23.75] spk_0:
Smalley you know al Franken on saturday night live.

[00:19:27.52] spk_1:
Yeah

[00:19:28.54] spk_0:
dammit people I’m a good person and people like me or something like that.

[00:19:46.54] spk_1:
People like you. Yeah. Yeah and then you have to initiate, you have to say like hey do you want to get lunch sometime or hey do you wanna have coffee sometime? I totally love to get to know you more right. I don’t know why we think these things come off as weird. That’s

[00:19:46.91] spk_0:
the hard step taking that taking that affirmative step to say let’s move it to the next level

[00:19:53.81] spk_1:
which is not that

[00:20:50.23] spk_0:
big A. Level. It’s just like chatting in the office versus having lunch. It’s time for a break. 4th dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box the I. T. Buffet it’s the holistic I. T. Services solution where you choose the buffet items that fit your budget or your I. T. Appetite as it were like help desk, security assessment planning and budgeting. Moving to the cloud and there’s more, take what you want from the buffet line. Leave the rest behind fourth dimension technologies, tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper let’s return to make friends. Why do we feel that That’s so that’s such the hard step to take

[00:20:54.71] spk_1:
after

[00:20:56.22] spk_0:
The five minute conversation that that went you know went smoothly and fun.

[00:21:20.30] spk_1:
Yeah. I think our fear of rejection is one of the biggest barriers to making friends, but our brains have a negativity bias which means that when we predict how our behaviors come off, our predictions tend to be inaccurate and more cynical than the truth, right? Like I already told you about the like and gap, but that is a finding that is across the board. There’s so many studies that find that people are perceiving us more positively than we tend to assume, right. And so if we can just remind ourselves of this like people like you, they’re less likely to reject you than you think it gets a little bit easier to reach out to people and say yeah, I’d love to connect

[00:21:45.42] spk_0:
sometime and I don’t know I am I am I oversimplifying if I say that uh people are over thinking like should I take the next step? Should I, should I say let’s have lunch or should get together after work? I mean are we are we doing that or am I am I oversimplifying if I am saying you know you don’t know what you’re talking about?

[00:23:07.61] spk_1:
No, I think so. I mean I think if you think it do it right, if you think, should we have lunch just ask let’s have lunch right? It’s you know, you don’t have to go back and forth with it if you’re rejected. Also like that’s okay. Like for there’s a study that had people basically read stories about people transitioning to college where people kind of said at first it was difficult making friends, but eventually I found my people right? And then to share their own story of like, oh, I was rejected along the way. But eventually I found my people so and that that fosters greater belonging when we are able to see rejection as part of the trajectory to belonging, right? Like if you want to belong, you put yourself out there, you’re taking a risk. Some people will reject you. Some people won’t, the rejection is not assigned to crawl back into your cave and carl black and tortoiseshell and never try again. It’s a sign that you’re doing everything right and that you’re on the path and this is a part of the path to connection is rejection, right? So I think that helps to remember that. And I like to tell people like if you’ve reached out to someone, you’ve succeeded because you can’t control their outcome and you can’t judge yourself by an outcome you cannot control. So if you did successfully what was within your control, which is reaching out to someone like you’ve already succeeded, no matter what they say.

[00:23:38.39] spk_0:
Now we’re getting into the realm of like, value yourself. You know? Think, think well of yourself people uh the the uh keep in mind the liking gap, you know, but it’s not a reflection on you. It’s they they it’s a reflection on them or maybe they really are busy for lunch already.

[00:24:03.58] spk_1:
Exactly, yeah, don’t take it so personally, I promise it’s not as personal as you think and the more you take it personally, there’s a theory called hypervigilance for social threat hypothesis, which is really clunky, but it’s just the meaning of it. Is that the more that we assume we’re going to be rejected, the poorer our relationships will be because when we assume we are going to be rejected, we engage in antisocial behaviors, right? I’m not going to reach out to you, I’m not going to try to connect with you. I’m not gonna be vulnerable with you. I’m not going to show affection towards you, right? Because I’m assuming that I’m going to be rejected.

[00:24:18.74] spk_0:
Thank you for defining that too, because we have drug in jail on non I’d hate to I hate to have thrown you in drug in jail, but you you defined you defined it.

[00:24:28.11] spk_1:
Okay.

[00:24:36.88] spk_0:
Um so is there anything else about new employee, new workplace, uh that advice that you have?

[00:24:40.15] spk_1:
Yeah,

[00:24:41.23] spk_0:
or hybrid, maybe hybrid advice with, you know, I’m not gonna get to see these people live for several weeks.

[00:24:56.46] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah, I think setting up a regular time to me is a really good idea because you’re not going to just kind of bump into each other, like asking people are you open to just like a weekly catch up or a bi weekly catch up. Right? And the other thing is when you do catch up, like stop talking about work, Like if you there’s a study that found that the more time you spend with your colleagues, the less close you feel and that is really weird, right? Because

[00:25:14.01] spk_0:
the more time the more time you spend with your work colleagues, the less connected you

[00:25:20.28] spk_1:
feel. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:25:22.38] spk_0:
How can that be?

[00:25:40.93] spk_1:
So my theory is that you know, typically we spend time together at foster’s connection but at work we spend time together and we’re only showing this work side of ourselves. So it’s like you only know me as like an employee, you only know my ability to fill out this data sheet and that’s all we’re talking about. So I think it’s really important if you want to make connections at work, like stop talking about work, tell them about who you are. I think some people think it’s like risky, but like there’s so many things you can share about who you are that are not risk, like what are your hobbies interests? Like what is your community, like outside of work, where have you lived before? What are you learning? What media are you engaging in recently?

[00:26:39.04] spk_0:
All these things that you can ask people about when you’re first meeting them, you know maybe maybe not in a work setting, but something social. I mean people have people want to tell their stories, you know, where like you said, where have you lived? What have you done? Uh are you married, you have a partner, you have Children. Where is your family? Do you know all that, all that stuff? Um Yes. Um what about uh new town if you’re in a if you’ve relocated recently, special advice for uh for a new new new place to live or someone who’s maybe uh I don’t know how many listeners this applies to, but a nomad perhaps on the road a lot.

[00:27:56.16] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah. So, um, I think people move to a new town and they’re like, I hope to make friends and I want to tell you do not assume it’s going to happen organically, just don’t like friendship in adulthood, it doesn’t happen organically. Um people that think it does are actually lonely or five years later, according to one study. Whereas people that see it as happening based on effort or less lonely five years later. So my suggestion for you is thinking about something that you’re interested in and pursue it in community with other people. Right? So, I love learning different languages. I can take my spanish class, you could do your hiking class, your improv class, your meditation class, your, you know, whatever it is that you like, your class at the university. I think a lot of retired folks to do things like that, right? Because when you and then you’re you’re setting yourself up to see someone in a way that’s repeated over time and that does two things for you. First of all, when you see someone in a repeated way over time, we have an unconscious tendency to like them more. It’s called the mere exposure effect. So

[00:27:57.41] spk_0:
mirror

[00:29:06.61] spk_1:
Mirror. Yeah, mere exposure effect, yep. And so when researchers planted women in a psychology lecture, they found that, um, students liked the woman who showed up for the most classes, 20% more than the student, the woman that didn’t show up for any, they don’t remember any of these women. Um, but we also find something called like the anticipation of liking effect, which is the, the effect that when we think we’re going to see people again, we report liking them more. Then when we’re not sure we’re going to see someone again. So if I just show up to this lecture and this happy hour, it’s a one off event. I’m not capitalizing on those powerful forces of connection versus when I’m joining something that’s repeated over time, people tend to be more invested in each other, they come to like each other more. I think another implication of mere exposure effect because when I was in college, I like joined a club to make friends and in the first club, I didn’t feel like anyone reached out to me and I didn’t really connect with anyone and then I quit. But the implications of mere exposure effect is like you are going to feel uncomfortable at that first meeting. You’re gonna feel weary. You’re gonna feel like I don’t trust anyone, right? That is part of the process new, your exposure effect has not set in yet, right? It’s going to take a little bit of time before you feel comfortable and they feel comfortable around you. Um,

[00:29:18.96] spk_0:
that’s what you say, you’re, you’re doing the right things,

[00:29:48.91] spk_1:
you’re doing the right things. It may feel, you may feel uncomfortable along the way, but that doesn’t mean that you’re doing anything wrong. But the other tip that I share, because this was my other issue, I show up at this club and I wait for people to talk to me, right? And I don’t really try to introduce myself to anyone and I’m engaging in something called covert avoidance, which is when you show up physically, but check out mentally you’re on your phone, you’re in the corner, you may be talking to the host, the bar bartender, right? You’re watching the television, right? But to overcome covert avoidance, it’s not just about showing up. You have to engage with people when you get there, right? You have to say, hey, my name is Marissa, it’s so good to meet you. Like tell me more about your experience with this club, right? That’s that’s the sort of thing that really fosters the connection.

[00:31:37.05] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two planned giving accelerator. I’m just planting some seeds here. The next accelerator class is going to be starting in March and I really won’t be promoting it until january, february. Well in january and february. Starting in january, I’ll have some info then. So just like I said, planting seeds if launching and planned, giving fundraising program is something you want to do at your nonprofit or if you’re interested in it for professional development purposes, your own skill building plan giving accelerator, I’ll be able to help you in, uh, for either of those use cases. That’s it. That’s Tony’s take two, two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for make friends with Marisa Franco. This has a lot of residents for are a lot of our listeners who are professional fundraisers and so they’re, they’re, they’re naturally drawn to folks, uh, and relationships. Hopefully otherwise I think they’re in the wrong profession. They’re not, if they’re not naturally inclined to like people, but, but this is all that valuable reminders. I’m, as you’re speaking, I’m thinking of myself in a charity event, you know, a cocktail party or a dinner or something. Yeah. And, and there are the folks who are right talking to the host, talking, talking to your fellow coworkers. You’re supposed to be supposed to be talking to the donors and potential donors to the organization, not huddled with your coworkers for half the time.

[00:32:29.71] spk_1:
I wanted to just touch on that tony because everything that I’m saying about making friends applies to networking like networking to me is making friends with people. Um And when people go into a networking event, one study found that they spend so much more time interacting with people they already know when 95% of people that go went to this networking event reported wanting to meet new people. So literally everybody is there to meet you but everybody is afraid and we think if they’re not engaging with me they don’t want to meet me. But no they’re not engaging with you because they’re afraid just like you are right. And so you know I met this woman, she’s really good at making friends and her secret. Was that she her mom had always told her everybody wants to be your friend, they’re just waiting for you to initiate.

[00:32:59.75] spk_0:
I love that. In one of your new york times interviews I saw a comment that was a little disturbing, but I’m glad I saw it because I would not have thought of it. The guy said this doesn’t apply to men may be fine for women but this doesn’t apply to men can you? And I was first I thought it was unfortunate then I thought some in cell sitting in his mom’s basement or something. Uh tuna helper uh scrolling four chan So can we help this, Can we help this person can reassure us that it doesn’t matter. You haven’t said anything about gender. I brought it up. Can we can we reassure folks that it applies for everybody?

[00:33:32.75] spk_1:
We can we can engage in the complexities of gender, which is that this person is right. It is harder for men. Um we know from the research that men are half as likely to be vulnerable with their friends, half as likely to share affection towards their friends. What men are up against is something called homo hysteria, which is men’s fear of being perceived as gay. So a lot of the behaviors that foster yeah,

[00:33:57.98] spk_0:
hysteria,

[00:33:59.10] spk_1:
hysteria,

[00:33:59.95] spk_0:
afraid of being perceived as gay,

[00:34:45.59] spk_1:
yep, yep. And it’s like it can be very deep rooted and very unconscious, but you know, why are some men so afraid to say I love you to a friend, right? Or you know to even like have any sort of touch with a friend a hug with a friend. Right? And and I think that’s you know, this homo hysteria makes men feel like I can’t um I like I I can’t reach out to a guy. I can’t ask him to just hang out. We have to do it around an activity, right? And this home hysteria makes it so that I think it’s harder for men to find other men that are ready to be in deep relationships with them. That being said. I still think all my tips apply. I think they I still think all the tips apply. What I do think is that men who are specifically seeking friendships with other men. They might have to go through more of a sifting process, right? I told you rejection is part of the experience, right? Men just might have to meet a larger pool of men to find men that are ready for the deep intimacies of friendship, who aren’t as haunted by homo hysteria.

[00:35:10.79] spk_0:
And what about cross gender friends? Uh male and female? Is that that make it harder to I’m engaging in deep stereotypes here. Is it harder for men to to be friends with women? And this comes from when Harry met sally? You know, what what what what are the dynamics there?

[00:36:26.07] spk_1:
The dynamics are that men very much benefit from being friends with women. Like the research is mixed on whether men feel closer to their women friends or their men friends, whereas women in general report that the women in their life are the closest friends that they have. So so men and also men that are friends with women actually experience more intimacy in their friendships than men that are just friends with men. So, so I think men feel safer around women in some ways to get really vulnerable in a way that they don’t always feel around other men. So these cross gender friendships really give something to men in particular and obviously, you know, everybody gets the sort of new perspective that they might be looking for from someone of a different gender, which both genders report appreciating about these cross gender friendships. We also know though that these cross gender friendships tend to be more fragile, they’re more likely to end. And there can be, you know, people can feel threatened, right if you get into a romantic relationship or you have a spouse and oh you’re making friends with someone of a different gender. And what does that mean for our relationship? Right. And so I think some of those assumptions are part of the reason why it can be harder to make those friendships.

[00:36:44.49] spk_0:
That was uh what you just mentioned was the cause of my uh my a divorce once.

[00:36:52.25] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:36:54.09] spk_0:
Yeah. I my first wife refused to allow me to um have lunch with female colleagues

[00:37:03.93] spk_1:
at

[00:37:14.46] spk_0:
work at work. Um and then um then she she she thought I had had a lunch and devolved from there. But that was a deep, I mean to me it was an insecurity that you know, lunches with colleagues were were prohibited. Yeah.

[00:37:25.26] spk_1:
Can I speak to that tony because I think you’re raising a really important

[00:37:28.50] spk_0:
point.

[00:37:45.23] spk_1:
We sometimes really perceive friendship as antagonistic to romantic love, right? Like if you’re hanging out with your friends, you’re not hanging out with me. Like I only want you or I only want you to hang out with me, I won’t be the only woman in your life, right? But in fact people that have friends are a lot better spouses because if I make a friend according to the research, not only am I less depressed, my spouse becomes less depressed because

[00:37:56.00] spk_0:
like

[00:38:32.02] spk_1:
yeah, your own happiness in a relationship is going to impact your spouse’s. So anything that makes you happy is going to make your relationship happier, right? And and there’s other studies that find that when you get into conflict, your release of the stress hormone cortisol after the conflict is like dis regulated off, it’s off, it’s wacky. But when you have quality connection outside the marriage, that’s not true, your stress hormone release is still typical. And studies also find that for women that have particularly close friendship tend to have more close friendships when they go through difficulties in their marriage, they’re more resilient to them because they’re centering themselves emotionally and re engaging in this relationship from a centered place because they have someone else that they could also talk to about the issue. So, so I don’t think I wish that we didn’t see these two things as antagonistic because in fact they’re synergistic like your spouse making friends is going to make for a better marriage, a better relationship with you and

[00:38:53.77] spk_0:
you

[00:38:54.45] spk_1:
and happier you and happier spouse both things All

[00:39:04.79] spk_0:
right. Um you you encourage folks to share that with with their friends how they feel that they that they like their friends that they’re thinking about their friends. Why why is that so important?

[00:39:34.90] spk_1:
Yeah. So I think sometimes we have this misconception that oh, vulnerability burdens people, right? But in fact the research is sort of like clear that the more you disclose intimately about yourself, the closer that people feel to you, the more that they like you, right? It’s and the more that they disclose back. So it becomes again this sort of positive reinforcing cycle and fundamentally, you know, having someone to confide and being vulnerable with someone is really important for our mental health and well being. There is a study that looked at 106 factors that influence our depressive symptoms. Do you know what the number one preventer was?

[00:39:56.81] spk_0:
Vulnerability?

[00:39:59.39] spk_1:
Yeah, it was. And then having someone to confide in that was the number one, number one preventer of depression. Um and so

[00:40:07.59] spk_0:
100 and 600 and

[00:40:13.50] spk_1:
606. That’s the most powerful one. Yeah. So we need it for ourselves. We need it for our relationships like we need that vulnerability. Otherwise you’re going to feel like I’m friends with them but they don’t really know me. And I don’t actually feel that close to them.

[00:40:44.42] spk_0:
Listeners are gonna know may even predict what I’m about to say about vulnerability and leadership that I’ve I’ve I’ve always subscribed That vulnerability is a is a wonderful characteristic uh feature of of of leadership that you can open up vulnerability about, you know, not necessarily about your personal life but about uh you know that that you don’t have all the answers that the organization isn’t where we want it to be, but here’s how we can get it there vulnerability. Can are you able to speak to vulnerability in leadership and how that’s perceived by the people who work for that person?

[00:41:26.73] spk_1:
Yeah, I haven’t read extensively on this, but I know it does contribute to positive outcomes at work and I also know that as a leader, what you do disproportionately sets the culture and the tone of the place, right? So if you’re able to be vulnerable, you literally create an entire culture of people being vulnerable where now colleagues feel like, okay this is a norm. Like leaders are creating the norms. And so the people that are all working under you are all going to feel like, oh now I can be more vulnerable with other people and I can share more and obviously that’s going to help them create those workplace connections with their colleagues that we just talked about is so meaningful.

[00:41:46.37] spk_0:
So that that can absolutely trickle down

[00:41:50.27] spk_1:
from from from

[00:41:51.28] spk_0:
leadership.

[00:41:51.97] spk_1:
Whatever you do as a leader trickles down so choose wisely.

[00:41:56.89] spk_0:
Um I’ve been firing a lot of stuff at you, Marissa, what what would you like to talk about?

[00:42:01.68] spk_1:
Yeah, I’m wondering what has you interested in this topic?

[00:43:55.63] spk_0:
Uh Okay thank you. I’m I’m the connector among friends. Um Hi going back to high school, I’m 60 I still have deep friends friendship from high school um from college law school, the Air Force jobs I’ve been in like I leave a job, but I still stay in touch with the friends. I still, because I didn’t like the job. It’s not that I didn’t like the people. So I tend to be the ones my fraternity. I’m the one who organizes the, uh, the annual reunion around the spring carnival at the college. Um, I’m a connector. You know, I’m the one even even through and I don’t have, I don’t have Children. I’m married but don’t have Children. So even through the ages where, uh, my friends were, uh, saddled, had the responsibilities of Children, put it trying to put it as politely as possible saddled or burdened with parenthood. You know, we had the responsibility of childhood. So, you know, they couldn’t get away on a, on a reunion weekend, you know, but you, you wait out, you know, stay in touch and do what you can call instead of meeting, maybe, Uh, quick meeting instead of dinner meetings. You know, things like that. And then through the decades, uh, you wait 16 or 17 years and then the Children don’t want to be around because the parents are now humiliation and embarrassment. So if you wait out your friends, they’ll come back to you and then all of a sudden they can come back to the reunions and they can meet you for a weekend and a dinner because their Children don’t want to be seen anywhere near them. You wait it out, your your, your your you’re friends with, Children will come back. Um, so yeah, so yes, I saw you in the times. And the idea of deep friendships, relationships going back to high school, uh, resonates with me. I’m the connector.

[00:44:08.91] spk_1:
So you’re the one that will reach out and initiate and put in the effort. It sounds like,

[00:44:30.99] spk_0:
yeah, I keep the email lists for a bunch of, a bunch of different categories of friends. I forgot to mention Boy Scouts. My Boy Scout camp fellow coworkers and Boy scouts. Uh, yeah, I’ve got a bunch of email lists. I’m the one who initiates, but you know, it’s, it’s to me, I’m doing it for selfish reasons because it feels so good.

[00:44:36.59] spk_1:
It’s

[00:45:24.38] spk_0:
the, it’s the, it’s the cortisol regulation you talked about. I don’t know if dopamine is firing. Um, the oxytocin that you mentioned. You know, people thank me, but I’d say I do it for selfish reasons because it feels good to get to see 20 friends together for a reunion weekend and laughing like they can’t laugh in front of their families or their coworkers, because you know, we have bonds and we saw each other when we were stupid in college or in high school that that transcend these bonds, transcend all our other relationships. And so the persona is the personas are dropped, the facades are down and everybody’s just back slapping and laughing and enjoying each other’s company that we’ve known each other for 45 years in some cases.

[00:45:44.24] spk_1:
And I also hear that because I know sometimes people are like the one to reach out and the one to organize and they can feel a little bit resentful. Like people aren’t reaching out to me. But it sounds like maybe part of the reason why that works for you is because you’re able to be like, well, this is a joy for me. It isn’t, you know, the task to be the one that reaches out all the time. Or or do you sometimes feel resentful if people aren’t as intentional as you are?

[00:46:07.33] spk_0:
I used to. But that was that was probably 10 or 15 years ago or so. And I just got over it. A lot of it was because folks had Children. So, you know, so they weren’t as available. Um, but I, yeah, I got over it. I don’t You know, if people don’t respond to the, well, it’s not that nobody responds, but for the folks who don’t respond to the let’s get together over the reunion weekend at college. You know, they have their own things going on. That’s okay. You know? Uh, let’s let’s focus on the 25 who will, who will come.

[00:46:22.32] spk_1:
Yeah, it seems like you learn to not take things personally and that really helped you with your friendships.

[00:46:27.36] spk_0:
Yeah, enormously that

[00:46:29.15] spk_1:
security. That’s the secure attachment. We’ve been talking about.

[00:46:32.64] spk_0:
Okay, great. I’m talking to a psychologist. I’m doing my therapy. I’m doing my therapy and public here.

[00:46:40.41] spk_1:
I want to have my podcast. I love asking questions. I love turning the tables and hearing from people and we all have so much wisdom inside of us. You

[00:47:12.68] spk_0:
know I appreciate it. And obviously I had a story to tell why this all this your work resonates with me because I believe in deep rich friendships. You know the jokes that only we get You know that only we know because it goes back 30 years or something. You know those types of things that those inside things you know that it all it all resonates my synesthesia is kicking in because I’m getting goose bumps as I’m talking to you. Um You have a quiz we should encourage folks to take your quiz at. Uh D. R. Marissa. And by the way marissa is one S. D. R. Marissa G franco dot com. You want to acquaint folks with your quiz on on your site?

[00:47:35.11] spk_1:
Yeah so at dr marisa G franco dot com you can take a quiz. It assesses your strengths and weaknesses as a friend and also gives you some suggestions for how to improve as a friend if that’s what you’re looking for and you can reach out there. I do for any speaking engagements on connection and belonging

[00:48:13.70] spk_0:
you say dr marisa DeFranco people will spell out doctor. Okay well it’s the lawyer it’s the Air Force I guess. D. R. Marissa. however you want to do it just doctor is D. R. D. R. Marissa. Dr marisa DeFranco dot com. Um But what else anything else from from the book or from from your research, science of attachment or anything else you wanna you wanna talk about? You graciously turned to me. That was very

[00:48:15.58] spk_1:
thoughtful. You

[00:48:16.92] spk_0:
are very generous and thoughtful

[00:48:18.03] spk_1:
that way. What

[00:48:19.16] spk_0:
would you like to talk about that we didn’t cover?

[00:48:22.55] spk_1:
Well I think you know my niece read my book and one of her takeaways was that for friendship to happen someone has to be brave so be brave.

[00:48:35.03] spk_0:
Okay would you like to leave it there? I

[00:48:53.41] spk_1:
would like to leave it there and of course my book you know I appreciate if you read it I think you’ll really like it. It’s called Platonic how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends. It’s a new york times bestseller. Or you can find me on for more tips outside of this. You can find me on instagram at D. R. DR D. R marissa G franco as well and hopefully we can connect more. But tony thank you so much. This was really pleasure and I really did enjoy hearing some of your insights especially because you know I’m a little younger than you so I’m like what is the future hold for me and friendship So it’s just it’s really helpful to hear your your wisdom.

[00:49:13.10] spk_0:
Oh thank you very much. I guess I guess I would summarize with wait out your friends,

[00:49:19.71] spk_1:
wait

[00:49:20.07] spk_0:
out your your weight out, you’re married, you’re married friends, they will come back to

[00:49:24.97] spk_1:
you. Uh

[00:49:26.49] spk_0:
and uh and Marisa’s book is at uh is that dr marisa DeFranco dot com? So that’s where you can find her book, platonic, Thank you, Marissa, real joy. I got more goose bumps. Thank you so much. Thank

[00:49:40.35] spk_1:
you.

[00:50:41.75] spk_0:
Don’t leave yet. I have to have to say goodbye to everybody. It’s time for um sorry, it’s time for me to tell you that next week what what next week’s show is gonna be ordinarily I would, but I’m working on it, I’m working on, I won’t let you down again. I mean, not that I have, I’m saying again that I won’t let you down. Not like I let you down in the past and now I won’t do it again. That’s not what I meant. 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 tion for in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and his music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation, Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit, radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%, go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for April 25, 2022: Asking For, Receiving & Giving Feedback

 

Amy Drader: Asking For, Receiving & Giving Feedback

The mere thought of getting or giving feedback makes many people anxious. Yet normalizing feedback as a safe, productive, routine exercise will improve your team’s performance. Amy Drader from Growth Partners Consulting, reveals how to get to that higher state. (This is part of Nonprofit Radio’s coverage of 22NTC, the 2022 Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by NTEN.)

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[00:01:46.34] spk_0:
mm hmm. Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into Ankara rex sis if you broke me with the idea that you missed this week’s show asking for receiving and giving feedback, the mere thought of getting or giving feedback makes many people anxious yet normalizing feedback as a safe, productive routine exercise will improve your team’s performance. Amy grader from growth partners consulting reveals how to get to that higher state. This is part of nonprofit radio’s coverage of 22 NTC. The 2022 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10 On Tony’s take two ever sued a donor. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o From 22 NTC here is asking for receiving and giving feedback. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 Ntc. Our coverage continues. Of the 2022 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10 with me now is Amy draeger. Welcome Amy.

[00:01:49.84] spk_1:
Thank you. Thank you for having me

[00:02:16.34] spk_0:
Pleasure. A pleasure to have you on nonprofit radio Amy is consultant and leadership coach at growth partners consulting. Amy you’re session topic is asking for receiving and giving feedback. It’s very interesting. It caught my eye. Why do we have such a difficult and awkward relationship with feedback.

[00:02:34.94] spk_1:
Absolutely. I you know, it’s funny you brought that up because that’s one of the first questions I posed to the group at the session was and you tell me actually. So if somebody were to come up to you and say, hey, can I give you some feedback? What comes to mind? What’s that connotation for you?

[00:03:05.34] spk_0:
Well I try to say thank you. Yeah. You know what, what are you, what are you thinking? What what can I do, what can I help you with? Maybe what can I do better, what can I help you with? Uh you know, but it’s hard to not to personalize it, especially, you know, I’m the host of a podcast, although the podcast of course only gets positive feedback, it’s all, it’s 100% unanimous. I’ve been doing this for 12, 12 july will be 12 years. I’ve never gotten a negative comment. Natural. So so that’s feedback is easy to take. No, but you know, it’s easy to personalize it of

[00:03:07.30] spk_1:
course, you

[00:03:21.84] spk_0:
know, instead of you thinking about it being your performance, you know, you think about it being you? Me alright. Oh I did something, you know, especially I have my own business podcast, et cetera. Um, so but I try to be opening open to it and I like to think I am.

[00:04:48.64] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the majority of folks do try to do that. What’s interesting is I posed this question to the group and the reaction over 70% of the people in the session, associate feedback as either something bad, there’s going to be a problem or a correction of some sort or avoided the word entirely. So the organization didn’t even want to use the word feedback instead use advice, suggestions, recommendations. So there’s this connotation, that feedback is something back and you know, it’s, it’s kind of one of my missions in working with leaders and teams is to normalize it into information that’s intended to advance performance or intended to improve or help us grow. It’s just information. Now, naturally we are human. And so when we hear something about ourselves, we naturally go into threat mode, there must be something wrong. So exactly what you brought up. We try not to personalize it, but then we sometimes do and then we have to figure out ways how to navigate that. What we do know is talking about how the team works together, how a leader performs, how the team works with the leader. When we have open feedback on teams, we get better results, Teams perform better. And so that’s, that’s really what the goal of of having open discussions without feedback is really about.

[00:05:15.24] spk_0:
Let’s start with not banning the word back. Okay, The word is feedback. You know, like I work in plant giving fundraising. The word is death. We don’t have to say. People passed on, moved along, left us went to a better place they died. It’s okay, they died. It’s someone’s death has happened, death. So here the word is feedback. It doesn’t have to be advice or mentoring or, you know, whatever other euphemisms feedback don’t be afraid of the word feedback.

[00:05:28.04] spk_1:
Exactly, Exactly. And that’s that’s the whole goal. Let’s normalize it. And when we normalize it, then we can talk about it, keep relationships intact and then continue to improve in advance and achieve whatever those goals are that we want to achieve.

[00:05:41.74] spk_0:
Your description says normalizing feedback begins with asking, not giving Yeah, What do you mean? How do we start this?

[00:05:44.50] spk_1:
Yeah. So, so the so often people will come to me and say amy, how do you get feedback? And we’re very quick to want to give it to others and let others know what we think

[00:05:53.84] spk_0:
about,

[00:05:55.33] spk_1:
right? Right. And and

[00:06:06.44] spk_0:
like my my modeling that is Larry David, you know, on curb your enthusiasm. I’m not this is not criticism. It’s help. I’m helping. I’m helping.

[00:06:08.12] spk_1:
Exactly. Exactly.

[00:06:09.62] spk_0:
But he’s he has the vindictive school of feedback. We don’t want to don’t want to go to Larry David model. All right.

[00:07:49.44] spk_1:
Exactly, Exactly. But really it begins with us asking for it and modeling how to receive it in a safe and productive way. So we demonstrate that we’re open to feedback. We embrace it as valuable information that’s helping us improve. People are going to be more likely to receive feedback from us. So it begins by asking for and receiving feedback and doing that in in, you know, I really say, there’s two high quality ways to do that um and the first one is to ask for feedback about something specific. So most people are not very good at giving feedback spontaneously. So the way to not ask for feedback is to just spring it on somebody, you’re like, hey, how do you think I’m doing? The person isn’t gonna know what to say about what? Right. So the first way to really ask the feedback is to do it about a specific activity. Maybe there’s a particular skill you want to improve upon. Um You know, a simple example is maybe you want some feedback in the organization on how you run a meeting. You might go to a trusted colleague or your boss and say, hey, listen, can you observe me in this meeting and watch how watch to see if I engage everyone in the meeting to speak up. I want to be sure that my the way I’m facilitating and engaging people, I’m doing it in a very equal and consistent way. So that’s very something very specific for someone to observe of you and then give you some feedback on it. So ask for specific feedback about something. It was interesting, we had folks in the session get excited about that um and and to be able to narrow in on something about their effectiveness and be able to get specific about it and get some specific feedback.

[00:08:02.34] spk_0:
Does that include asking a supervisor, you know, to be sure be that specific? Alright.

[00:08:24.34] spk_1:
Yeah. In fact, it’s funny you brought that up because a woman in the session said she often goes to her boss and says, hey, can you give me some feedback? I really want to be sure I’m doing my best. And she said her boss never has anything good to say. Her boss just says you’re doing a great job. Just keep it up. And that’s a good example of even leaders in positions may not be prepared to give specific high quality feedback. So giving them something to look for is going to help you get something of higher quality.

[00:08:44.74] spk_0:
Okay, okay. How does this all play into the annual or semi annual performance review? You know, you don’t have, you don’t have to ask for that. It’s coming whether you want it or not, it’s it’s coming.

[00:08:50.34] spk_1:
What

[00:08:50.94] spk_0:
what’s your advice? Maybe I’m jumping ahead. Maybe I’m jumping, you

[00:08:53.82] spk_1:
know, you’re

[00:08:57.94] spk_0:
stuck with a lackluster host. I’m sorry about that. So how do we how do we incorporate normalizing?

[00:09:02.72] spk_1:
Well, I guess we don’t

[00:09:11.04] spk_0:
have a normal, I mean that’s just part of the procedure, you know, it’s coming, it’s coming in a month or it’s coming in a year? Whatever. What’s your advice around that performance review?

[00:09:12.06] spk_1:
No, that’s a great question

[00:09:13.43] spk_0:
formal stuff.

[00:09:23.54] spk_1:
The the the the bottom line message with feedback is to have it uh frequently occurring throughout the year. And so, you know, one of the things we got into in the session was the right ratio, positive two critical feedback. And and what we know really well is that positive feedback motivates positive performance and that’s well established in, in psychology literature.

[00:09:42.13] spk_0:
So

[00:10:04.74] spk_1:
when it comes to your question about the performance management system or the performance reviews, by the time an individual gets to a performance review, there should be no surprises because the leader has been having conversations about performance the entire year and and none of that should be stockpiled for the six month review or the the annual review. Honestly, performance review should be no big deal because we’ve been having routine and consistent conversations throughout the entire year.

[00:12:17.74] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They can help you with content creation. Content management and content promotion. The creation. Do you have documents that need to be written like an annual report or do you have research that you want to have produced? Maybe a case study, maybe an interview series, any big content project you want to get off your staff shoulders turn to can take care of it for you, the content management, that’s the organization. Do you want to create a blog? Do you want to need to organize your blog? All content management and and organizing so that you can find things that your team can find things. Everything is put together orderly, whether it’s on your website or some external site, that’s the content management and the content promotion. They have the relationships and they can help you build relationships with journalists, podcasters, other industry folks, industry, maybe related nonprofits that you’d like to partner with all to get your messaging your content promoted in all those different channels. Right? So the content creation management and promotion, do you need help with content with written words, video, audio speeches. Even though those are, those are spoken words, spoken words turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to asking for receiving and giving feedback. So should we go back to the, the normalizing process? So you know, All right, number one, So ask for feedback. So ask your boss, ask your, I mean, I think a good boss will be asking for for feedback from people who work for him or her.

[00:13:17.64] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s the second way of asking for feedback is to do it in a routine exchange. So, so I always share an example that it actually comes from a boss I used to work with, we had quarterly feedback sessions with each other and we would ask each other the same three questions and it was like, you know, what am I doing well and what contributes to our effectiveness together? What’s something I could stop doing and then what’s something new that I could try that might really help me out. And it was three questions that we ask the same every single quarter. And he would ask me those questions and I would ask him those questions and it would foster this routine discussion about how we work together and how our work affects the team. And the beauty of it is that it was expected. So it didn’t create this like a ton of nerves or concerned because we knew it was going to happen. So routine exchange and you bet happens with bosses too.

[00:13:47.74] spk_0:
And that also helps you prepare, you know it’s coming. So we’re doing this quarterly, it’s on our calendar, we have plenty of time to think through what what am I doing? Well, what what should I change? I noticed you didn’t say what am I doing? Well, what am I doing poorly? He said what am I doing? Well what should I

[00:14:21.24] spk_1:
change? It kind of depends, you know, I I would like to think if something needs to be corrected, it’s corrected in the moment. So if somebody full on makes a mistake and it compromises client relationships, safety depending on what type of work it is. The correction is done in that moment, we’re not waiting for a feedback session for that. So if something needs to be corrected because it’s a mistake that happens immediately. But when we’re doing performance exchange debriefs, this is really about advancing performance, taking it from this point today and take us into the future versus talking about the past to correct it.

[00:14:59.84] spk_0:
Okay, Okay, so so you have three questions, what am I doing? Well, what can I do better? Is that the way you, can I improve on, what can I improve on? Alright, and what’s new, what can I try? That’s new. You’d like to have me try all right now, this sounds like an ideal boss though, taking feedback from, from below, from those who work for him or her, I’m not sure that’s a typical scenario, is it really?

[00:15:33.84] spk_1:
Well, I would say if you have a leader who is embracing leadership best practices and a leader who was likely trained in leadership, it’s quite common and and it’s really, you know, being able to have conversations about how the team works together or performance is a part of leadership responsibility, so leadership is getting results through others. That’s really what being a boss is, is getting results through others. Now that said, there are plenty of people who are promoted into management jobs who don’t have the leadership skill set and so to your point, that may not be a part of the routine expectation experience,

[00:15:47.84] spk_0:
part of what? Say that again,

[00:16:01.14] spk_1:
I said, it may not be a part of the routine experience if you know, and and you know, folks took the session at intent because they wanted to beef up that skill set. So you bet it’s not one that that is always this common

[00:16:10.64] spk_0:
Alright, boss’s boss is listening be good to the folks working for you, uh you know, ask for their feedback about your

[00:16:13.18] spk_1:
performance. It’s

[00:16:14.37] spk_0:
it’s good for the whole team

[00:16:15.58] spk_1:
it

[00:16:28.54] spk_0:
Alright. Um Alright, we still have to talk about the personalizing but but since we’re talking about these feedback, the routine feedback that we’re now gonna have quarterly, right? Um this is done individually, I assume one on one, right. Not in a not in a group, not four or five people who work for one, you know, one vice president or something doing this uh as a team. No.

[00:17:09.14] spk_1:
Right, right. You can do team debriefs as well. In fact, teams that debrief together on their work Perform. I think that the last article I read was 25% better than teams that don’t do debriefs of performance. So you can do a group debrief and it’s for example, what are we doing really well as a team, what are our strength? Where can we improve? So yes, you can do a team debrief. What we were just talking about is exchanged between boston employee. Yeah, do that in in an office or private.

[00:17:29.94] spk_0:
Ok. Now, a team debrief, you need to you need to monitor that to make sure it doesn’t turn into finger pointing. You know, she doesn’t do this. Well, you know, she, I rely on her and she’s often late. You know, then the boss has to step in and say, well, you know, we’re off the we’re talking about a team, we’re looking macro level here, right?

[00:17:31.92] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:17:33.01] spk_0:
If the monitor, make sure the thing doesn’t collapse.

[00:18:19.94] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. The content of feedback matters. So we’re talking about the activity right now. We’re talking about content of feedback and what what we advocate for. And you know, many folks who are having expertise and leadership development are well versed in positive productive feedback is what advances performance. Um Not only is it helpful to know what we’re really good at so we can replicate it, but when we’re recognized for positive performance, it makes us feel good, it makes us feel valued and as obvious as this may seem, when people feel valued, they perform better and that is well established as well. Um You know, there’s there’s lots of research that shows that when bosses show very simple demonstrations of gratitude, people perform their work more accurately, they perform their work better

[00:18:33.34] spk_0:
or

[00:18:45.84] spk_1:
when teams recognize each other’s strengths and when teams appreciate each other, they then perform their work tasks more effectively because they know their peers respect and value them. All right,

[00:18:47.14] spk_0:
Alright, positive, positive positive feedback causes positive performance.

[00:18:52.42] spk_1:
I

[00:18:52.54] spk_0:
mean, it’s it’s clear you said earlier, it’s clear in the research.

[00:18:55.79] spk_1:
Alright.

[00:19:08.94] spk_0:
Positive. Okay. Some of it’s not going to be positive though. Some some feedback of necessity, you know, it’s gonna be negative if we’re let’s go to the personalization again, we touched on it. I’m receiving some negative

[00:19:10.82] spk_1:
feedback.

[00:19:32.44] spk_0:
How do I how do I accept it best. How do I think through it best for really to self preservation. Let’s start with the self preservation before I before I start thinking about how I how it’s gonna help my team if I receive this. Well, how can I help myself to receive this? Well,

[00:19:43.64] spk_1:
yeah, absolutely. So if it sounds like um was it? Well, it can be you get feedback two ways. Either you asked for it or it’s sprung on you? Right. It’s a surprise. Either way, let’s say if you’re asking for it because that’s what I’m trying to normalize it.

[00:19:47.20] spk_0:
Right? Let’s do the ideal. You’ve you’ve asked for it and you you asked for it. You got it.

[00:19:51.21] spk_1:
Exactly. In fact, this just

[00:19:53.80] spk_0:
careful what you ask for it goes be careful what you ask for. All right?

[00:20:25.54] spk_1:
And and that is a worthy thought process, thought process to go through before you ask for feedback is take a step back and think about, okay, what might you hear? And just to prepare yourself and you know, some people get a little bit more extreme than others. Some people go to worst case scenario, whatever works for you because you are putting yourself out there even though asking for and receiving feedback is the way we get the great performance. It’s still can sting. It’s uncomfortable, right?

[00:20:26.78] spk_0:
You’re making yourself vulnerable.

[00:20:28.35] spk_1:
Absolutely

[00:20:29.73] spk_0:
absolutely discomfort. You know, you might consider it attack,

[00:20:33.50] spk_1:
yep.

[00:20:34.09] spk_0:
Alright, so, Alright, so you’re it sounds like your first advice is just prepare

[00:21:34.74] spk_1:
Yeah, just prepare for it. A second piece of advice is to consider it a single so you’ve received it. Okay, so you asked for it? You’re prepared. You received it and you’re like 00uch we’re quite prepared to take a step back, maybe take a deep breath and know that in the moment you don’t have to agree, this could be feedback that you received that you consider is wrong. Maybe you consider it unfair or you consider it hurtful and in that moment there is no need to agree to this feedback to explain this feedback to justify your actions. Take a step back and just thank that individual for their candor and that they had given you something to think about and process even asked for time. May I have some time to process this? Mhm. So take a moment to just thank that person because you did ask them for it. They delivered on what you asked of them. The last thing you want to do is punish them for doing something you asked them to do

[00:21:40.45] spk_0:
right?

[00:22:54.34] spk_1:
Thank you. Don’t have to agree with it. Then give yourself some time and think it through. And and the first piece to remember is this is a single data point. So everyone has an opinion and a perception and ultimately a bias. And so when you receive feedback, you are also receiving feedback from a single data point from one source that likely is not a full representation of who you are. So go out and seek additional data points. This is where you might go and ask a trusted colleague or a trusted friend. Hey, listen, I received this feedback. I want to check it out with you and get more information. Now the key here is not to discredit the person who just gave you this feedback. That’s our experience and that’s our experience with you. There is truth in that. So you also don’t want to discredit it. Get additional data points and then take some consideration on how you might start to adapt your style. Maybe you might adapt the way you communicate with just this one person or maybe you, you might get more feedback that validates the original feedback and you realize, okay, now I I need to adjust my behavior or I need to adjust my work.

[00:26:05.64] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. Have you ever sued a donor to enforce a gift or maybe an estate to enforce a gift? This came to me because there’s a recent piece, it’s from March in propublica about ST jude. Children’s hospitals practices around litigation uh, at ST jude in Memphis Tennessee, I can’t really comment on whether ST jude is appropriately suing estates or not. You know, I need a lot more facts than the article reveals and you can’t always trust media to get details like that. You know, 100% correct. But it gives rise to a really interesting question. You know, what factors go into deciding whether to sue a donor or again, you know, maybe a donor’s estate. Like how much is the gift worth? That’s important. What about the possible public relations fallout? Some people are gonna think you’re champions for your mission, other gonna other people are gonna think you’re scoundrels picking on widows, widowers and, and bereaved people or elderly people or an innocent family. So the pr fallout, you have to consider that how well known is the person that you’re considering suing. That’s gonna give rise to more press than, than less if the person is not very high profile, um, what are, what are your board impressions or board opinions? Your board is your fiduciary, uh, your, your, your, those are your fiduciaries. Um, you know, their opinions are going to be important. Can they come to a consensus? Lots of factors to consider. So just wondering if that’s ever happened to you, if there’s a story you’d like to share. You can let me know because I am interested, I used to be an attorney a long time ago, but you know, I still am interested in the legal side of fundraising and certainly planned giving, you know, if we’re talking about potentially suing estates. So you can get me at tony at tony-martignetti dot com if you have a share a story that you want to share all around suing a donor. Maybe in a state to enforce a gift That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got about a butt load more time for asking for receiving and giving feedback with Amy draeger a little shorter show this week. What if you’re asked to sign something? Uh This is a more perform, this is a more formal now performance review, semiannual or annual. Um There’s let’s say it’s a mixed bag you know but there are some things that you don’t agree

[00:26:15.92] spk_1:
with, some

[00:26:17.81] spk_0:
of it’s quite positive but some uh some is

[00:26:21.11] spk_1:
feels

[00:26:26.44] spk_0:
unfair or wrong but you were then asked to sign the performance evaluation form.

[00:26:28.45] spk_1:
Yeah

[00:26:48.74] spk_0:
usually the boss was I mean in my experience I haven’t been an employee for a long long time. I would be I would be a lousy employee. I could go I could go much stronger than the word lousy but let’s just leave it lousy I’d be a really lousy employee. Um When I used to do you know that I would say you know it doesn’t mean that you agree with it. It’s just that you have received it or something like that. You know you have to sign the form really don’t

[00:28:15.74] spk_1:
you? Huh? I think it depends on your organization and your HR policies so I don’t really know um I have some you know past experience in some organizations and HR was fine if you didn’t sign it, you didn’t have to you know. Um So I think it would depend on what the HR policy is but this is such a good example of not leaving feedback to these like specific events that occur. Um and where I see leaders really compromise candidly, their own credibility is where they’re not recognizing their team for their positive contributions and and and stick with me here because what I find and in fact we we talked about this at the intense session is that there was a lot of leaders in the room who said that they only said thank you or recognize positive behavior if someone went above and beyond or only if they thought about it. And so when we don’t recognize the good things that our teams are performing and doing then when it comes to having a difficult conversation. The context that’s even worse because we haven’t acknowledged all the positive contributions that the person has brought to the table and so that person will feel even more attacked. Undermined by getting this zinger of a negative piece of feedback out of the blue.

[00:28:23.54] spk_0:
So do you

[00:28:23.87] spk_1:
mean

[00:28:25.64] spk_0:
what do you mean? Are are are positive feedback should be even around routine things that the team is doing well. Don’t ignore the d don’t ignore the day to day. In other words

[00:30:09.54] spk_1:
don’t ignore the day to day. And and that’s and the reason for this is that critical feedback negative feedback inhibits our learning in our brains. It triggers fight or flight and when we go into fight or flight, uh, we become very defensive, it’s that taking it personal component that we talked about this whole time. And what we know well is that when we get critical feedback, we then have these negative emotions that emerge, whether it’s shame, embarrassment, uncertainty, these are all very natural emotions that come up when we’ve made a mistake or we haven’t performed in the way our bosses wanted. Now this is why having routine positive feedback flowing on a team is because it creates this foundation of support. And so when I’m on your team and I’m working with you and we recognize each other’s contributions and then I drop wall. You gotta come and talk to me about that. You talk to me. But because we have this relationship where we’re recognizing each other and appreciating each other’s contributions. I know you’re not coming to embarrass me. You got my back because we already have this routine exchange of appreciating, appreciating each other. And so that’s what is critical for teams, especially teams that perform at the highest levels is that they routinely appreciate and demonstrate respect for each other. So that when they have to address the tough stuff, they’ve already got a positive foundation set.

[00:30:13.24] spk_0:
It’s like a relationship building, right? You want to, you want a strong relationship, whether it’s with your co workers, those who work with you for you, uh, above you.

[00:30:24.25] spk_1:
Just

[00:30:34.34] spk_0:
donors, volunteers. You want to have a strong relationship. So that when there is some difficulty, maybe it even escalates, rises to the level of conflict you have, like you just said, I mean, you have this strong foundation and and it’s all kept in context.

[00:30:41.39] spk_1:
It’s

[00:30:41.97] spk_0:
not an isolated negative feedback because there’s never any routine positive feedback.

[00:30:47.84] spk_1:
That’s right. That’s right. And so, you know,

[00:30:50.66] spk_0:
it

[00:30:52.03] spk_1:
is, it is and that’s really what we are at work. We are humans in a relationship with each other. And so acknowledging our contributions and the value each person brings to the table ultimately helps everyone achieve the goal.

[00:31:28.74] spk_0:
And you, you said it so many times you used the word routine routine routine. Don’t wait till the giving Tuesday campaign that everybody, you know, killed themselves on for 4.5, 5 weeks or something, you know, don’t wait for the big gala. The fourth quarter fundraising routine routine positive feedback. So that then routine negative feedback is in the context

[00:31:32.04] spk_1:
of the

[00:31:32.34] spk_0:
more positive and the positive is most likely to outweigh the negative. Otherwise you have a you have an employment problem.

[00:32:18.24] spk_1:
That’s right. That’s right. And and there is a difference between positive routine feedback with occasional critical feedback to advance our performance, right? And performance management. When you have a habitual poor performer who’s lacking the skills to perform in the job there. Those are separate where we want leaders to create a habit around is appreciating the team demonstrating valuing someone’s opinion. Thanking people for speaking up. Um and and doing that, that level of routine feedback performance management is almost a separate topic.

[00:32:22.44] spk_0:
Okay,

[00:32:23.03] spk_1:
okay. What

[00:32:30.14] spk_0:
else should we talk about around this, that that we haven’t or maybe anything that came up with the intense session, what what more do you want to

[00:32:31.78] spk_1:
Know? Well, I think, you know, um my first management job, I was 23, I had absolutely no training and um I had a team of 30 people. It was looking back on it three

[00:32:44.68] spk_0:
years ago, three years ago, you were leading 30

[00:32:46.65] spk_1:
People uh when I was 23.

[00:32:49.39] spk_0:
Yeah, three years ago.

[00:32:52.44] spk_1:
Oh Yeah, yes, three years

[00:32:54.30] spk_0:
ago. Okay,

[00:32:56.01] spk_1:
that was good. Anyway, very early in my career, I was taught the sandwich feedback model, have you heard of the sandwich

[00:33:02.73] spk_0:
sandwich feedback model? No, I don’t. Not acquainted with this.

[00:33:21.34] spk_1:
Okay, this is positive, negative positive. So you need to give someone some sort of critical feedback and you go in and you say something positive to them like, oh, tony you’re, you know, you’re such a valuable member of the team. I just think you’ve been doing a really good job these past couple of months. But you know, when you talk to that customer last week, you could have done this better, but hey, you’re really important member of the team and I

[00:33:28.92] spk_0:
just think you’re doing very, very, very the reality between, well, maybe it’s not between fantasies, but you know, very the reality in the middle very the hard part in the middle.

[00:36:45.93] spk_1:
Yes, exactly. And so the sandwich feedback model, positive, negative positive has since been studied and it’s wildly ineffective and it’s ineffective for all of the obvious reasons. The the employee feels that there’s a grenade in the middle of the positive feedback which undermines positive feedback. So the employee either doesn’t believe the positive feedback or just only listens to the positive feedback because there’s more of it than the negative. So the the key that when you do get to the place of needing to give feedback that you’re very direct and clear on the specific situation and not too muddy it with positive things beforehand. And this was something that was interesting in the session is we we talked through a framework for giving feedback that is um standard for positive or for critical feedback and it allows the person. So let’s talk about critical feedback because that’s really what people want help doing. That’s what makes people mixed managers the most uncomfortable. And so the framework for giving critical feedback begins with allowing the other person to self evaluate. Okay so let’s say I have dropped the ball in a couple of meetings and my first meeting started 20 minutes late and the second meeting, I forgot all the materials for it. Okay you’re my boss, you need to talk to me about it. The first step is to let me evaluate myself because if I already know I screwed up, there’s no need for you to pile on. So the first step is allowed self evaluation and tony you might say to me, hey me, how do you think those last two meetings with marketing went and you’ll just bring up the conversation and maybe I own it and say, you know what, I really dropped the ball on those two meetings or maybe the opposite happens and then I think I nailed them and I just think I was fantastic at this. You now need to share, share with me some candid feedback about these two meetings. So then described the situation from a fact based situation And described first meeting started 20 minutes late. Second meeting didn’t have materials, what do you think about that? So you’re asking me for my perspective then describe what that impact was? My reaction. Is that we started that this my reaction is that um this looks like we’re unprepared. Okay, it’s your reaction then state your expectation moving forward. I want to be sure we’re prepared for all of our meetings. How does that sound and support the person. So this is the framework for getting feedback where I’m going with this story, is that there was someone else who asked the question he said, but do you have a different way of starting it? Like is there a different way other than saying, can we talk about that meeting and what was coming forward is the person was just uncomfortable giving feedback. There was a need to have like the perfect phrase and giving feedback isn’t comfortable. That’s not the goal, that’s not the expectation. And in fact, if you’re someone who has to give feedback and you’re uncomfortable with it, I’d say that’s good because you’ve got some compassion there. You know, it’s an uncomfortable situation. Okay, So my point

[00:37:07.13] spk_0:
that you played sort of a therapist role in that evaluating what was what the core of her question was. It wasn’t opening the conversation. It was discomfort with giving feedback.

[00:37:27.93] spk_1:
Yeah, it was it was one of those things that I think because we’ve all been there, we’ve all had to give feedback and there’s this, you know, for some people it’s dread. And for others it’s just sheer avoidance. And it’s because we’re we we have this belief that giving feedback should be easy. It’s not. And so eliminating that from the expectation is important because if you feel discomfort, it’s okay. That’s pretty typical.

[00:37:39.63] spk_0:
I I appreciate that you say that’s compassion.

[00:37:42.33] spk_1:
Mhm. It is, it’s compassion.

[00:37:45.03] spk_0:
How did you get a leadership job over a person with a team of 30 people at 23? Is that right? That was that right out of college?

[00:38:03.62] spk_1:
Uh nearly I had one year under the book. Uh I had one year at the the organization, I think I was recognized at the time for potential. Like I had no past

[00:38:04.67] spk_0:
experience.

[00:38:21.42] spk_1:
And um, and I also worked for at that time the most influential boss I’ve ever had. And he taught me he was the kind of boss who grew leaders And he would invest 20 minutes with me every day, Those first like 90 days. And he’d quiz me, he’d asked me, Okay, what’s important to your team? What are your goals, who’s doing? I mean he would in

[00:38:35.52] spk_0:
20 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day For your first time for your 1st 90 days that is a real investment in a new employee.

[00:38:54.52] spk_1:
He did and I learned the most about leadership from him in that very short time frame. And so, you know, I also find that everyone benefits from having a great mentor and he ended up being a great leadership mentor for me. And so, you know, that could be a turning point in people’s careers, is to

[00:39:02.97] spk_0:
have somebody, somebody you want to shout out,

[00:39:13.02] spk_1:
oh sure I could. His name’s wade upland and he was my uh, this was 22 years ago,

[00:39:16.42] spk_0:
where, what was the organization?

[00:39:33.62] spk_1:
It was retail, it was a department store, retail, which, which lends to leading a team of 30 people. It’s probably one of the toughest leadership jobs out there because it’s shift work like people work in these shifts. And um, and it was for a department store that of course is now defunct, no longer in business,

[00:39:39.13] spk_0:
which one

[00:39:39.90] spk_1:
marshall field’s

[00:39:44.31] spk_0:
that was a huge brand, huge

[00:39:46.33] spk_1:
brand in the midwest. Yes, yeah, yeah,

[00:39:49.82] spk_0:
I know it because

[00:39:50.97] spk_1:
I

[00:39:51.72] spk_0:
I lived in Missouri for five years when I was in the Air force.

[00:39:55.12] spk_1:
So

[00:39:55.71] spk_0:
I may remember it from, this was

[00:39:57.37] spk_1:
uh

[00:39:58.54] spk_0:
Mid Mid to late 80s,

[00:40:00.34] spk_1:
84 to

[00:40:14.91] spk_0:
89. So maybe I remember it from Kansas City here. I lived about an hour from Kansas City, I may remember Marshall fields, but that was a huge yeah, that was big. Alright, well not not not not because of your leadership experience and you’re not because of your skill. Had nothing to do with the downfall of marshall field.

[00:40:19.03] spk_1:
No, no, there’s there’s more external forces at play

[00:40:24.11] spk_0:
hard to imagine more powerful forces than than your leadership though. Right? Alright.

[00:40:29.81] spk_1:
I

[00:40:40.91] spk_0:
know, I don’t know what, well, I felt bad about the three year comment. I don’t know, it’s commenting on your age. That was probably a misstep. Alright, I feel bad about that. Um let’s see, Oh, anything else that came out of the intent. Any, it sounds like there are a lot of good questions, anything, anything else you want to share with uh with nonprofit radio listeners about?

[00:41:09.91] spk_1:
You know, I think, I think the biggest aha for me is, you know, consultants, we immerse ourselves in the content and and we start to believe that everybody thinks the same way we do and that’s kind of classic and I think one of the things that was so compelling for me was the candor with the group in questioning how frequently they should recognize someone for just doing what’s expected of

[00:41:17.31] spk_0:
them. And

[00:41:46.51] spk_1:
there was almost a resistance to do that and I found that very candid but also unfortunate because if there’s one thing we need more of right now is recognizing and appreciating each other. And so if there’s one thing that anybody takes away from listening to this or you know, reading articles on appreciation or on feedback is to go out and practice giving good feedback, recognize people for their contribution for the time they spend um because appreciating and valuing others is really what we need right now.

[00:42:00.90] spk_0:
Amy trader consultant and leadership coach at growth partners consulting. Where can we find growth partners consulting. Amy

[00:42:07.11] spk_1:
you can go to try GPC dot com.

[00:42:10.90] spk_0:
Try GPC dot com for growth partners consulting of course, this is terrific. Thank you very much. Terrific I think provocative, certainly timely. Well, timeless, really timeless and uh and and provocative too, you know, but but significant important topic. Thank you very much Amy,

[00:42:32.20] spk_1:
thank you. I really enjoyed it. Mhm.

[00:43:41.90] spk_0:
And thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of the 2022 nonprofit technology conference Next week. A break from 22 NTC coverage. The other tony-martignetti if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com, I own that he, the other guy does not own that were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our Web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great. Mm hmm.

Nonprofit Radio for April 12, 2021: Build Lasting Supporter Relationships & Love Your Donors Using Data

My Guests:

Craig Grella & Wendy Levine: Build Lasting Supporter Relationships
Craig Grella and Wendy Levine, both from Salsa Labs, want you to build strong relationships all the time, not only when you’re fundraising. Their savvy strategies come from their own work building relationships for Salsa. This is part of our 21NTC coverage.

 

 

 

 

Shoni Field & Jen Shang: Love Your Donors Using Data
Nonprofit Radio coverage of 21NTC continues. When you are fundraising, data that tells us restoring your donors’ sense of well-being and identity will increase their giving and engagement. There’s a lot of fascinating research to unpack and apply, so join Jen Shang, the world’s only philanthropic psychologist, from the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy, and Shoni Field from the British Columbia SPCA.

 

 

 

 

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[00:02:18.94] spk_0:
Oh hi 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 forced to endure the pain of benign prostatic hyperplasia. If you leaked the idea that you missed this week’s show, build lasting supporter relationships, craig, Grella and Wendy Levin, both from salsa labs. Want you to build strong relationships all the time. Not only when your fundraising, they’re savvy strategies come from their own work building relationships for salsa. This is part of our 21 NTC coverage and love your donors using data. Non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC continues when you are fundraising data that tells us restoring your donors sense of well being and identity will increase their giving and engagement. There’s a lot of fascinating research to unpack and apply. So joined gen XIANg, the world’s only philanthropic psychologist from the Institute for sustainable philanthropy and Shoni field from the british Columbia, s p C A and tony state too planned giving accelerator were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o. Here is build lasting supporter relationships. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc. The 2021 nonprofit technology conference were sponsored at 21 ntc by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c O. My guests now are Craig, Grella and Wendy. Levine. Craig is content marketer at salsa Labs and Wendy is marketing director at salsa Labs. Craig, Gorilla Wendy. Levine, Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:02:22.94] spk_3:
Thank you. Happy to be here.

[00:02:24.50] spk_2:
Thank you. Thanks for having us

[00:02:38.24] spk_0:
on My pleasure to have you both. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us, your expertise on beyond fundraising, building lasting relationships with your supporters. Wendy. Let’s start with you what as an overview, what could nonprofits be doing better relationship wise do you to feel?

[00:04:29.14] spk_3:
So we work with lots of nonprofits and I’ll just start by saying, you know, as a marketing team. It’s also, we’re kind of in a unique position because we are responsible for marketing. It’s also doing all the normal things that, you know, our marketing team does, but because our software helps nonprofits market their mission and engage with donors, we often work with those nonprofit clients to help them in their marketing efforts. So that was the genesis of this workshop for the intent conference because when we work with nonprofits we see so many of them doing so many amazing things on. And yet there are everyone has their, excuse me there. Their holes are their blind spots in their in their process. So our workshop dealt with um formalizing a content development process and content calendar. Um, craig does this for salsa. So he does a great job of you know, making sure that we are talking to the right people at the right time, that we have the right content in terms of blog posts and you guys and social posts and that’s a lot of work. So when a nonprofit who may not have a whole marketing team, um like we do tries to do those things, um sometimes things get missed. So our workshop was all about providing people content, calendar templates and talking to them about things that they can do to make the whole process of building new content easier. We talked about reusing old content, um repurposing content that you have developed before, how to improve message targeting and how to do all of those things in uh simple ways that can be done with smaller teams.

[00:04:45.64] spk_0:
Well. And we’re going to talk about those things here. You know, you’re not gonna just tease.

[00:04:48.79] spk_3:
Uh,

[00:05:11.44] spk_0:
listen, I’m not gonna let you just tease non propagated. Listen and say this is what we talked about, but we’re not talking about here. So we’re gonna talk about those things to, uh, so craig so you are, you are, it sounds like you are the writer, the content marketer for salsa, and we can all benefit from the wisdom of the corporate marketing team at salsa. Yes,

[00:05:28.94] spk_2:
yes, definitely. I think to kind of piggyback on, on what Wendy was saying, the impetus for this. Uh, this presentation was, I think nonprofits can learn from the more corporate marketing. I think even if you look at advocacy, I think nonprofits can learn from uh, political advocacy, which is kind of, you know, they use their email lists like a. T. M. Machines sometimes. That’s the way it feels like. Uh,

[00:05:42.71] spk_0:
and then I think you have a background in the Democratic Party in pennsylvania. Right? That’s right, yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:09.94] spk_2:
And and I think really it happens on both sides of the aisle. I think when you look at a lot of advocacy campaigns, a lot of political campaigns, I think they tend to look at their lists in that way they go to their list more often with fundraising than other messages. Or they wrap their message in a fundraising appeal. I think nonprofits can kind of get stuck in that rut as well where, uh, they’re using their list more often as appeals. So this presentation was a way for us to say, how do you develop those deeper relationships? How do you go beyond just the fundraising appeal? How do you engage all year long? How do you, uh, take that relationship to the next level or maybe change relationships wherever your supporters are with you in their relationship now, maybe there’s a way to move them to a different relationship that involves other type of work or a different relationship with your work. So that was kind of the idea behind the presentation and how we put together the different steps and tips and things like that.

[00:07:41.04] spk_0:
Now, I suspect, you know, most dogs are doing some of this, like, you know, uh, let’s, let’s assume that an organization has a newsletter, whether digital or print, you know, and they may or may not include an appeal. But, you know, I’d like to think that there are messages going out that aren’t all that aren’t all fundraising related, I mean, but you’re, you’re sounds like you and Wendy would like us to put this into a coordinated calendar, so we’re not just thinking of it at the beginning of the month. What are we gonna do this month or, you know, even the beginning of the quarter, but we haven’t laid out for like a year or something. Uh, so be more sophisticated about it. But then also it sounds like you’re encouraging a good amount of messaging that’s not fundraising related, has no appeal affiliated with it. It’s just purely informative. Is that okay? Is that are we are we wasting? You don’t feel like we’re wasting opportunities to communicate, wasting opportunities to fundraise if we, if we send something out that doesn’t have an appeal in it.

[00:09:18.34] spk_3:
No, absolutely. I think, um, and this became, I think this came more into focus when the pandemic hit as well. Um, Some organizations, I actually had an easier time fundraising, but many had a more difficult time, fundraising really depended on where they were and what their mission was. But, um, it’s, we always talk about engaging with your supporters outside of fundraising and the importance of connecting with your supporters, making sure they are, are connected with your organization in a way that makes them, um, use the term sticky. You know, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re connected to you and, and they’re not gonna just, you know, I’m going to give you money this month. I’m gonna give somebody else money next month. I know who you are, I know who your people are. I really think that what you’re doing is great. I I understand, you know, your mission and and how you work with people. I know the names of some of your staff members, The more that you can connect with those supporters, the more they’re going to stay with you, the more they’re going to give when they can, they’re going to volunteer when they can. And that became even more important during the pandemic because some people weren’t able to give, some organizations, needed people to give more and you know, appealing to, um, people’s connection with the organization that you’ve built up over time is just so important and not just now, but even more so now I think.

[00:11:47.84] spk_2:
And I think for me it’s, it’s kind of human nature. Right? The first time you meet someone, you’re not going to ask him to marry you right there on the spot. I think there’s got to be that relationship development. Uh, there are different steps along the line, obviously that you need to take to get to know each other better. And I think the same is true for any kind of communication, whether you’re at A for profit company, a Fortune 500 company or a mom and pop type of nonprofit, uh, obviously you have a little bit of a head start because that person has found you. Maybe they joined your list or maybe they came to an event, whether it’s in person or virtual. So you have a little bit of interest there. But with so much noise out there these days, whether you’re trying to connect on social media or even through a podcast, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of noise out there and, and you have to rise above that and you rise above that by maintaining that constant relationship. And you can’t only ask for money. It can only be volunteer appeals. I can’t only be, you know me, me, me, me. I need, I need, I need you have to find a little bit of the reasons why those people connected with you and and speak to that and you have to offer a little bit of yourself too. And there are lots of ways that, that nonprofits can do that. And um, we like to it like you said at the beginning, I think this question was, uh, we do like to be organized with that. Uh, it’s a matter of sometimes nonprofits just looking at what they have, you know, oftentimes when I’ve taught courses, courses on how to create content. One of the things I hear most often is, I don’t know what to write or I don’t know what kind of content to put out there. What will resonate with people. And uh, so that holds them back and then they do nothing. And that’s obviously not a solution. So where we start with with this presentation and where we like to start in general, is to just go through the content you’ve created through the years, we tell nonprofits you’ve probably got hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of content out there. Look at your old blog posts. Look at some of the presentations you’ve done. If you’ve gone to conferences or presented, look at your social media posts, look at documents you’ve put together. If if you have programs, you probably have program information, put some of that together and turn it into something written that you can offer people, uh, and, and start there. And then once you’ve gathered all that information, put it together in a content calendar and be really deliberate about how you’re exposing that material to your audience in order so that it makes sense. And it drives a little bit of

[00:12:06.04] spk_0:
engagement, which is, which is much easier to lay out when you see it in a calendar rather than just you just kind of thinking, well I will do this in May and then this will be in june and you know, but you can be more, you’re more deliberate about it more, I think more sophisticated about it. If you if you when you commit something to writing it makes it makes you think about it more. That’s exactly right. I have a written and

[00:12:29.94] spk_2:
not only that, but you can also add responsibility and whether you have a big team or a small team, you can put names to the tasks that people need to do. You know, tony is going to do this article by this date and get it up on social by this date and there’s a little bit of responsibility there for the work that you’re doing, which I think makes people complete those tasks uh a better way.

[00:12:49.14] spk_3:
Yeah. And frankly, I think it makes it almost easier and simpler so that, you know, it doesn’t seem like quite as big of a mountain to climb. You know, I’ve got all this content to create from this quarter or this year, um, when it’s on a piece of paper or in a spreadsheet. And it’s something that just seems more manageable frankly

[00:13:09.94] spk_0:
when anything you want to add about the content calendar before we move on to segmenting your, your

[00:13:15.67] spk_3:
supporters.

[00:13:18.04] spk_0:
Okay, Well I’m willing it’s okay. I feel like we’ve covered the content calendar enough. I’m not trying to, you know, I think so. I think it’s, it’s something

[00:13:50.34] spk_3:
that a lot of nonprofits, um, do. Um, but we also see a lot of nonprofits that don’t do a content calendar and it’s, it’s not difficult. It’s just taking that first step. So we provided people templates, but just just getting it down and finding a way to formalize the process of putting a content together. It’s not that difficult. And it makes a huge difference

[00:14:00.44] spk_0:
helps you organize too. So you can see blog post, you know, maybe some other section on the website newsletter, email, social, social, facebook, social instagram, social twitter, but etcetera. And

[00:14:51.74] spk_3:
it also helps you identify holes in your content. So, for example, um, just as an example, we have some clients who, um, whose mission is focused on raising funds for medical research for a certain condition or, or issue. And they have content that they create for patients and their families, but they also have content that they create for, um, you know, medical experts and they’ll run medical conferences for doctors. Uh, so, um, understanding that they’ve created enough content for each of those groups is also important in having it in a calendar. Um, so you’re, you know, another organization might have volunteer, uh, content aimed at volunteers and content aimed at, at supporters or donors or community members. So just seeing that now, think about what your goals are.

[00:15:12.24] spk_0:
However you’re gonna segment, right? It’s all very orderly. Now. You mentioned templates. I don’t like to tease nonprofit radio listeners without without providing the substance. So can we get this template? Is this somewhere on salsa site or somewhere else? Where? Where?

[00:16:10.04] spk_2:
Yeah, So we we put up a landing page that’s completely in gated as part of the NtC presentation. Uh, it’s salsa Labs dot com forward slash 21 N. T. C. And there’s a little bit of a workbook that goes with the presentation and then of course the presentation slides, PowerPoint and pdf, I think, uh, and the workbook falls along the different sections of the presentation. So the first section is what we just talked about, which is to uh, figure out what you have. You know, go through, take stock of your content, your library, that kind of thing. The second part talks about putting together your calendar and segmenting. And then the third part jumps into really getting organized and then engaging or further engaging, going a little bit further than what you’ve done in the past. And to kind of tag onto the last part you said about or what Wendy said about the content calendar. Oftentimes we see nonprofits look for these templates. Uh, and they’re really just hashtags, you know, if the only communication you’re doing on social media is to put up a post about ST patty’s day or easter or things like that, you need to go a little bit further

[00:16:34.84] spk_0:
in your engagement. That’s not that’s not educating folks. That’s right. On your, on your mission, your work and your values. That’s not going to make them sticky because they can get easter messages anywhere.

[00:16:37.11] spk_2:
That’s right. And they likely are

[00:16:39.75] spk_0:
and they are.

[00:16:40.39] spk_3:
And we’ll tell you though, that the most engagement we get on our social posts are when we post pictures of our dog, there is some value that All

[00:16:49.42] spk_0:
right. Well, I don’t know what that says about the salsa Labs content, you know, talking to the content team. So I’m not gonna All right. Believe that their salsa labs dot com forward slash 21 ntc for the template that craig just talked us through. Let’s go to, uh, a little on segmentation. Who wants to want to kick us off the value of and the depth you should go to. Who wants to

[00:19:35.74] spk_2:
be sure. I’ll take it when it comes to segmentation. The idea is to be able to understand which audience member wants to receive, which message at what time and by what medium there are a lot of different mediums. We can deliver messages through these days and everyone’s busy and like I said before, there’s a lot of noise. So you need to find your way through that noise and the way we believe you do it is through personalization. If you can understand who wants to receive the message when they want to receive it and where they want to receive it, you will have a higher engagement with that person. And this is kind of goes back to the idea of just shooting out a ST Patty’s day message, right? I mean you might get 50 or 60 likes, but if those people never volunteer or they never donate or they never come to an event, what’s the point? Um, you know, it may be, hey, let’s put out a nice message and that’s fine. But at some point you need to generate people to support your mission, whatever that means. So we like to segment in a couple different ways. One of course is looking at what you have in your own crm or your own list and trying to understand demographics about that person and to be able to split them into some sort of discernible category. You know, hey, we’ve got donors here, We have volunteers or we have people who just engage with us on social media. And then if you are doing a lot of sharing on social, which many groups are really trying to match your organization’s message to the right social network and you’ve got people out there who, you know, maybe they have a very intelligent audience, or maybe they have a very specific demographic in their audience and they completely lining up to the wrong network and sharing a message at the wrong time. Maybe they’re sharing it once, instead of sharing it four times over a month or two months. So that different people see that message. So uh part of the workbook that we put together is going a few different places through your analytics and really understanding what your audience looks like and taking some critical uh peaks at your audience and the demographics of your audience, looking through your Crm, and uh figuring out what’s important to your organization. And how do you label those people so that you understand the message that they want, where they’re going to be and then where you can get that message to them.

[00:19:43.64] spk_0:
Mhm. When you want to add to segmentation.

[00:21:01.04] spk_3:
Yeah, I mean there’s it’s a little bit science and a little bit art, frankly, I think. So, there’s a balance between having too many segments and too many groups and having too few segments or groups. So um if you’ve got groups of supporters, there are so many groups of supporters that you’re sending very similar messages to some of the groups that you probably have too many. Um it may be difficult to handle all the messaging. Uh if you have too few groups, the messages aren’t targeted enough aren’t interesting enough to each of those groups. So as you know, Craig was talking about measuring engagement on social media and and looking at analytics for your emails and things like that. And that’s very important. And that’s all the science part. And then there’s a little bit of art uh in terms of, you know, where the messaging can be split, where the different messages make the most difference on how you engage with these folks, what words you use, what you test. Um, so, you know, I think it’s, I think it’s a little bit of both. And it just takes, you know, not nonprofits know their supporters, Right? So it’s really just a matter of sitting down and looking at, um, where they’re engaging, what they’re saying on social media and you know, what they’re reacting to when, when you send them emails or messages.

[00:21:47.24] spk_0:
Well, let’s probe that a little further windy in terms of knowing knowing your people suppose, you know, you know, something, you know, some people prefer email over phone calls or written mail over email, etcetera. But, and you can gauge some depth of interest by giving history, right. If if Humane society gets donations, when cat appeals from certain people and dog appeals are making this very simple. But you know, so then you know who your dog people and cat people are, but I suppose you wanna go a little further. Like uh, you know, who wants to engage on instagram or which of our programs appeal to you, You know? Uh, So I’m envisioning a survey is one possibility. What else? How else we still have a few minutes left.

[00:21:50.50] spk_3:
Okay. So that’s

[00:21:51.29] spk_0:
what you glean. How does, how does segment?

[00:22:08.74] spk_3:
That’s a really good question. It’s actually something we addressed in the presentation uh, in 10. Um, you’re right. A survey is one way and we made some recommendations. You no longer surveys where you, where you ask more than say three or four questions. Um, are something you shouldn’t do a lot of. And when you do, you should probably combine it with some sort of incentive and it doesn’t have to be, you know, you don’t pay people to take the survey, but you know, hey we’ll send you a button or bumper sticker. You know, if you fill out a survey or this is why it’s really important, you know, um at least, you know, appealing to their uh

[00:22:34.47] spk_0:
their interest in your

[00:24:16.64] spk_3:
cause. Um But we also like the kind of one question asks in emails is another way to do it. So if you’re sending emails to people, you can ask a question in the email depending on the tool that you’re using, you can put a link or button in the email and say, hey um do you have a cat or a dog or both? You know at home? Are you, are you a cat parent? Dog parent? Um have them click on that button and then now they’re in a group and the next time you send an email out, they either get a cat picture or dog picture at the top of the email. Um, and it makes a huge difference in engagement. Um, We talk a little bit also about, um, polls on social media. So that’s not going to give you on the, that’s not going to put a particular person in a group, but it can give you information on what people are interested in. So if you’re going to focus on, um, uh, one, you know, if you’re putting together advocacy petition and uh, you know, you need to understand where people are focused on what they’re most interested in. That can help also. Um, but putting a process in place so that your staff understands what kind of data you’re collecting so that when they bring up a donor record because they’re talking to the donor or they’re about to meet the donor at an event, hopefully we’re all doing that soon. Um they can look and say, oh hey, you know, we’re missing this one piece of information or these two pieces of information. So I’m gonna make a note and I’m going to ask them that when I meet with them and I’m going to put it in there and everyone needs to know to collect that information. Um and it, it just makes it easier and, and there’s a whole process we won’t go into now, but there’s a whole process of right figuring out what information is important on and which ones, which pieces of information should affect the message that you’re sending.

[00:24:32.24] spk_2:
A couple years ago, I think last week feels like a couple of years ago, Sometimes for a couple years ago you tony you did a podcast on integrating Crm with your email marketing and other digital.

[00:24:36.70] spk_0:
That was another, that was another NTC, uh 2017 18, something like that.

[00:24:42.40] spk_2:
Yeah, I think it was a while ago, but you know, it’s funny

[00:24:45.29] spk_0:
that nonprofit radio listener thank you for saying that

[00:26:25.94] spk_2:
it’s a great episode and I think it’s important here because obviously salsa is a product that tries to put together all these different marketing mediums and they work well with each other and, and there are other um products out on the market, but we also find that a lot of nonprofits have these disparate solutions and it makes things harder. It makes collecting data harder, it makes engaging harder. And when you have that uh system that pulls it all together, it makes this process easier because when you send an email and someone clicks on it, you get that information in your crm. So these one question surveys that Wendy is talking about. You can do a survey with a cat picture and someone clicks on it. You capture that data. Uh you don’t necessarily have to go to a full blown male pole or social media poll. You can do these things when you’re systems are integrated and pull that information between those systems. And then when you’ve got the information in your crm, you can then pull that information automatically into your email without having to upload or download or move data around. So It works on two ways. One it helps you understand and track the data but it also helps you personalize the emails that you do send. I think if if nothing else uh non profit should know. Just act just just do it. If you’re not sure where to start, just you know, get a message out there and just do it and then measure and track and along the lines of what Wendy said. If you are missing some information, just ask, just ask for it, create a message and send a note and remember when you do get that data to plug it back into your system so that you can use it uh in in many ways in the future. So that’s the important part

[00:26:32.44] spk_0:
two. We’re going to leave it there. Alright, alright, very much Greg gorilla, my pleasure Kraig gorilla content marketer salsa Labs, Wendy. Levin, marketing Director at salsa Labs. Thanks to each of you. Thanks very

[00:26:44.64] spk_2:
much. Thank

[00:30:41.24] spk_0:
you. My pleasure to have you and thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc the 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by 20 we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for a break. Turned to communications relationships. We just talked about lasting relationships. The importance of building them. Turn to has them, they’ve got the relationships with journalists. So when there’s something fundraising related or philanthropic related or even more broadly, non profit related, those journalists are going to be picking up the phone when turn to calls them with you your name as a potential source, source of quotes, source of background, source of help. They pick up the phone because they’ve got a relationship with turn to, it’s the relationships that get leveraged for your benefit. Their turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for Tony’s take two. I started the second class of planned giving accelerator this week through the accelerator. I’m helping nonprofits launch kickoff, inaugurate their planned giving programs. I’m teaching members who join with me for a year, teaching them step by step how to start and grow their plan giving programs. The classes are fun. I look forward to them every week that we get together because there’s, there’s live trainings and then there’s Ask Me Anythings and I also do a podcast for them. Yes, there’s a, there’s a, there is a podcast that you can’t hear. You got to be a member of plan Giving accelerator to hear the plan Giving accelerator podcast. You see the symmetry there. So yes, I do a podcast for them too. But these trainings and of course, so we’re getting together for the training and they ask me anythings. I look forward to them. And rumors are that the members look forward to it too. I’ve heard rumors to that effect. So it’s, it’s all, it’s really very, it’s very gratifying, rewarding. Um, it’s fun and folks are starting their plan giving programs and in the first class that started in january, they’re already getting gifts. There’s already a couple of nonprofits that each have a couple of gift commitments already, just three months into the 12-month program. So that makes it enormously gratifying. I’m getting um, my synesthesia is kicking in. I’m getting goose bumps thinking about these groups that, that already have commitments only three months into the thing. So that’s playing giving accelerator. If you think you might be interested in joining the next class, it starts July one and all the info is that planned giving accelerator dot com. Check it out for Pete’s sake. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for nonprofit radio here is love your donors using data. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc, you know what that is? It’s the 2021 nonprofit technology conference were sponsored at 21 ntc by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C o. With me now are Shoni field and jen Shang Shoni is chief development officer at the british Columbia Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. S P C A. And jen chang is a professor and philanthropic psychologist at the Institute for sustainable philanthropy. Shoni. Welcome to the show, jen, Welcome back.

[00:30:47.44] spk_4:
Thanks for having us.

[00:30:48.55] spk_3:
Thank you.

[00:31:06.24] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure uh, in talking before we started recording, uh, came to my attention that jen chang now has a british accent, which she did not have when she was on nonprofit radio many years ago when she was at indiana University. So we’ll get to enjoy that. And you’ve been how many years in the U. K. Now jen

[00:31:11.04] spk_1:
Eight years.

[00:31:13.14] spk_0:
Eight years with Adrian Sergeant. I assume he’s still at the institute.

[00:31:16.44] spk_1:
Oh yeah still living in the house to

[00:31:19.69] spk_3:
lose your

[00:31:20.19] spk_0:
house. Oh

[00:31:21.57] spk_1:
you don’t know we’re married sorry.

[00:31:23.17] spk_0:
Oh you’re more than uh philanthropic partners. Oh really? Okay. Were you married? When were you married to Adrian when you were on the show last? Uh huh.

[00:31:32.74] spk_1:
No

[00:31:34.14] spk_0:
your philanthropic psychology brought you together

[00:31:38.64] spk_1:
Absolutely really amazing

[00:31:40.94] spk_0:
mm fundraising fundraising brought you together. That’s wild. Well it’s a it’s a relationship business. So I look at you

[00:31:46.23] spk_1:
you’ve

[00:32:19.74] spk_0:
taken you’ve taken your own science to to heart and to deeper depth than than most people do. Well we’ll give give Adrian my regards, tell him. Absolutely tell him I say hello and hello from nonprofit radio he’s been a guest also. Well look at that interesting. And for those now we’re shooting with video jen has the uh suitable professorial background. There’s papers and thick books everywhere. It’s, it’s really, really quite bad. Oh yeah, there’s, there’s ghost faces up on top um and a crucifix also. So the place is blessed. You

[00:32:25.14] spk_4:
can make up anything about what we’ve got in the background. tony

[00:32:42.44] spk_0:
best mess. Yes, we’ll show me yours is uh yours is, I don’t want to say austere. It’s just uh its proper, you know, you’ve got a couple of framed items and you got a nice uh um um what we call those windows, uh,

[00:32:45.33] spk_4:
skylight,

[00:32:46.08] spk_0:
Skylight of course. Thank you at 59

[00:32:48.14] spk_4:
terrible for when there’s video because it makes the light really horrible. But radio it’s just fine. Yeah,

[00:33:20.84] spk_0:
I know yours is, yours is a like a sort of a gallery background. That’s what I would say. And shen’s is definitely Shen’s jen’s is definitely a professorial background. Okay. We’re talking about loving your donors. Your NTc topic is love your donors using data. So let’s start with Professor shang our philanthropic psychologist. One of, are you the only philanthropic psychologist in the world or just the first?

[00:33:25.74] spk_1:
I haven’t heard anybody else calling themselves philanthropic psychologists.

[00:33:38.14] spk_0:
Okay. So you’re both the first and, uh, and the only, first and only philanthropic psychologist. Okay. I love that you’re married to Adrian Sergeant. Well, that’s, you really took fundraising to new Heights.

[00:33:39.95] spk_4:
Small world fundraising. We all know each other.

[00:33:51.24] spk_0:
Rights, new depths. Yes, But they know each other quite well. Um, All right. So jenn, um, what, what can we learn from here? What, what, what, what, what are we not doing well enough with data that you want non profits to do better.

[00:34:45.14] spk_1:
Um, the first thing that we do that we don’t think nonprofits have spent a lot of time understanding is how people describe their own identities. And when I say when people describe their own identities, I don’t mean just how people describe themselves when they give as a supporter or as a donor, but how people describe themselves as a person outside of giving. Because research after research after research after research, what we found is that the descriptors that people use to describe themselves as a person are not always the same as the descriptors that they used to describe themselves when they think about themselves as a supporter. So not understanding who is the person behind the giving, I personally think is a huge missing opportunity for nonprofits to develop deeper relationship with their supporters.

[00:35:08.24] spk_0:
And what are some of these, uh, mm dis associations or in congruence sees between the way people identify themselves generally and the way they identify themselves as as donors.

[00:36:23.43] spk_1:
So one of the most consistent findings that we saw pretty much in all the data sets we have is that when people describe themselves as a person, they like to describe the morality of themselves. And usually there are nine highest frequency words that people use to describe their own morality and they are kind and caring and compassionate, generous, fair and so forth. And for most charities, you would see quite a large collection of these moral words in people’s self descriptors. But usually you see a smaller collection of these moral words appearing when people describe themselves as a supporter. So what that says to me is that when nonprofits communicate with supporters are about giving, they haven’t connected the giving to their sense of being a kind and caring and compassionate person as well as they could be. Usually you see the word generous, show up and you see the word helpful, show us show up in the descriptor of the supporters, but not the rest of the moral words.

[00:36:44.03] spk_0:
And there’s evidence that using more of the moral descriptors that the individuals would use will increase their giving.

[00:36:57.03] spk_1:
Not only it increased their giving, it also increases their psychological well being, and that is the real missing opportunity here. So when people give out of their kindness and out of their compassion, they feel better. Even when they give the same amount of money.

[00:37:39.73] spk_0:
You studied this really. You can you can gauge and Shawnee we’re gonna come to you. Of course. I I know there’s a practical application at british Columbia. I understand. I just want to flush out, want to flush out the like the limits of the, of the science and then we’ll get to the practical application. Absolutely. Um, All right. So so we can make people feel better about themselves through our non through nonprofit communications, through our communications to them. And they will then, uh, as as a result of feeling better or is it because they feel better than they will give more to our cause or we we just know those two things are correlated, but not necessarily cause and effect.

[00:37:52.63] spk_1:
We first communicate with supporters about there being a kind person and then we see giving increase and then we measure their psychological well being and we see their psychological well being increases.

[00:38:22.72] spk_0:
Okay, So we know that the giving has come first and then then from those for whom the giving has increased. Your then you’re studying their psychological well being. Yes, wow. Through our, through our communications, through our uh, is this what method of communication do we use phone letter?

[00:38:39.42] spk_1:
We have we have a few experiments in emails. We have survey evidence from donors. And we have laboratory experiments from the general population. Okay

[00:38:47.72] spk_0:
let’s turn to show me for the for the application of this uh at the british Columbia. S. P. C. A. What did you do their show me what how did you take this research and use it?

[00:41:16.41] spk_4:
So the and it feels like I’m jumping into the story halfway because I didn’t know how we got there but how we used it was um we worked with jen and her team to do um surveys and research into our donor base because you know, not every donor base is going to have the same characteristics. And so what do animal lovers in british Columbia? Um what are their characteristics of how they identify themselves as a moral person or in that sort of aspirational sense of self? Of where they’d like to? Well, I’d like to get to and supporting the S. P. C. A. As a way of getting there for them. So we we looked at our donors and came back with Jensen, looked at our donors and came and through surveys and research and came back with some some levers that resonated stronger than others with our donors. And so then we could go out and test those with, you know, our controls and then testing these levers and see where we see if we did. In fact, um originally c boosting giving over the long term, then we’ll be able to measure retention because I think with psychological well being would become an increased likelihood of wanting to stick with that relationship that makes you feel great. And so we’re able to measure um with within that field research what then when we put it into into play, what did get higher responses. And then we’ve gone back with jen and her team to study our three tests further and identify how we can build on that. Some of those tests worked better than the others. And so we that gave us some further insight into what we needed to to dig in on. And I think our our first error had probably been, we had all this learning and we wanted to use it all all at once, all in all the same time. Uh, the second sort of round of analysis really helped us be more focused and, and jen refers to allowing donors to breathe into the moment and just really be in that. And so it allow it, it allowed us to identify, yes, there’s a ton of good things we can do, but here we’re going to do three of them and we’re going to do them really well and really focused.

[00:41:18.91] spk_0:
What were some of the descriptors that you found were the levers for your, for your folks?

[00:42:43.90] spk_4:
Well, I mean, there’s so there’s the sort of descriptors of self that jen talked about in the, you know, the generous and loving and kind. Um, and then there’s one of those in particular, uh, dig into more, But there’s also these sort of, um, oh, you know, we call like victorious hope, this sense that there can be, um, that there will be success, that people have had past success in helping rescue animals and they will have future success. And, you know, this comes out of their love for animals. And so we use this victorious hope theme. Um, we we see, uh, personal sacrifice come through and we’re familiar with that from, um, you know, male direct mail that said, you know, just for the price of a cup of coffee a day, you could, you know, you could do this or you could do that, that sense of someone giving something up to get this, this outcome that they want. So we, we’ve used those a lot and we also saw the word loyal come up a lot more, um, than we had, than we had recognized was important. And it makes sense because people’s relationships with their animals are a lot about loyalty. Um, so it makes sense that they’d also value it as in a personal trait, but we’ve, uh, we had already been doing a lot of work around generous and loving and kind and we also increased that, that sense of loyalty.

[00:43:14.90] spk_0:
And now I don’t want any frustrated guests on nonprofit radio So you said, I asked you a question that came in the middle and you you uh, you thoughtfully answered answered the question, so thank you, thank you for that. But but I’ll give you the opportunity to go back if you want to take a minute and explain how you got into the jeans jeans research.

[00:43:19.10] spk_4:
I mean, this is like goes back to weigh like my beginnings as a fundraiser

[00:43:23.10] spk_0:
where a fundraiser

[00:44:01.69] spk_4:
where I got really frustrated with people’s perception of fundraisers as sort of snake oil salesman, you know, in the nonprofit world, there was the program, people who were doing the virtuous work and then there was the fundraiser, people that were, so it was sort of a little like unclean that you were trying to make people. And to me it always felt more like I was helping someone do the work that they couldn’t do themselves because their career had taken them in a different path. Like they wanted to save the environment, they wanted to help someone with the disease. They want they loved animals and wanted to help animals, but they trained as an accountant or they trained as you know, they have run their own business and so

[00:44:17.29] spk_0:
it’s very it’s empathic and magnanimous in the same that they wish they could be doing this good work. But they chose a different path. You have your like your empathetic to them.

[00:44:50.09] spk_4:
So this when I saw gems research of this sort of aspirational sense of self, this really struck a chord with me of like this is the work people wish they could be doing and we all know how we feel when we get to do something that’s really close and really important to us. It feels really great. So that just clicked with me. The sense of if we can help people do the work that they really want to do, but they haven’t been doing because something else does their pay brings their paycheck in and paying the bills is also important. Then we’re all going to be much stronger for it.

[00:44:59.69] spk_0:
And just quickly, how did you find jen’s research?

[00:45:03.89] spk_4:
I mean, this is, you know, I, I followed it around at conferences for quite a while before reaching out and saying, hey, I love this stuff. How can I, how can I do more?

[00:46:09.08] spk_0:
There’s value in conferences. Like, like ntc, there’s value in completely. Yeah, this reminds me of the work that you and I talked about when you were back in indiana before you were married to Adrian Sergeant. And we were talking about a phone research that you had done with public radio. I think it was in bloomington indiana. And you would describe women. I think it was Well, maybe you saw more of an effect that was it. You describe you saw more of an effect with women when the caller from the public radio station would use words to say. You’ve always descriptive words. You’ve always been so loyal to us. Or you’ve you’ve been such a generous supporter of us. Would you would you make a gift again? And you you saw greater giving when the right descriptors were used for those bloomington indiana Public Radio, uh, supporters. So this seems like a continuation. Uh, you know, where your again, it’s the way you describe the donors.

[00:46:16.18] spk_1:
Yes. And it’s not just the way that we describe the donors is the way that donors describe

[00:46:29.48] spk_0:
themselves themselves. Right. And then this increases their feeling of well being, more about that. How did you, how do you measure their sense of well being?

[00:46:32.08] spk_3:
So we, um,

[00:48:00.47] spk_1:
when we started measuring psychological well being, we explored a range of different scales. Um, at the moment, the the several scales that we use most often with nonprofits who haven’t started our kind of communication with supporters, our competence, autonomy and connectedness. Those are the three fundamental human needs that psychologists have studied now for decades. They in in the giving situation, they refer to, um, competence, my ability to make a difference for others autonomy. I have a voice of my own. I’m not giving out of any social pressure and connectedness. I give to make me feel connected with the things the animals, the nature and the people that I want to connect with. Those three needs. If we lack any one of them, we wouldn’t be able to experience well being. So it’s most ideal if any given giving act can simultaneously help people fulfill all three psychological well being. And those are the ones that we have now used most frequently in giving at the range. Um Lower than $500 a year.

[00:48:16.97] spk_0:
Shoni mentioned the next step being written, measuring retention. Have have you seen in your research whether there there is greater retention among the donors who whose well being we’ve we’ve enhanced.

[00:48:41.27] spk_1:
Um, so what we have seen is that um, yeah, the factors that drives giving are not always the factors that drive psychological well being, but if you can communicate with people on only the factors that drives both than that giving is more sustainable.

[00:48:51.47] spk_0:
Okay. Wait, all right. Say that one more time. You’ve been studying this for decades and I’m hearing it for only the second time in like eight years. So okay,

[00:49:35.27] spk_1:
so say, um you have five most important factors that drives giving and you have eight most important factors that drives people psychological well being. You’re five and you’re eight are not always the same, but sometimes they are three that are common between these two sets. If you only use those three to communicate with your supporters and increase giving an increase well being, then you can expect to see repeated increase in giving over time because the same three factors both increased giving and increase people’s psychological well being.

[00:50:29.66] spk_0:
Okay. I see it’s the intersection of the two little circles in the Venn diagram. Okay, You gotta explain this to a layperson, Right? All right. Thank you. Um So, were you So it’s fascinating, fascinating. Um Plus, you’re married to Adrian. I just can’t get over this how this this career has brought you together. I’m just I’m taken by all this. Um, Were you wondering about this back when you did the public radio research? Were you wondering how the description by the by the callers from the public radio station made the donors feel you knew you knew at that point? No, you weren’t thinking She’s shaking her head. You knew at that point that that describing them in certain ways could increase giving. Were you curious then, about how it made them feel? Um,

[00:50:44.26] spk_1:
I think when I first got into fundraising, it was very important to me to find some psychological motivations that can help nonprofits to raise more money. But once I realized that actually, that is not very hard, you can pretty much

[00:50:50.98] spk_0:
like, look, we’re not doing a great job in a lot of ways. Yeah,

[00:50:55.11] spk_1:
I mean, raise money by about 10 really is not hard when, you know, a little bit of psychology,

[00:51:00.15] spk_0:
you’re being more gracious, alright. A

[00:51:48.46] spk_1:
few supporters. Um But to make the giving experience meaningful for people to make the giving experience a part of people’s lives that they treasure. And to make that giving experience and experience that can allow people to experience the kind of life that they would not otherwise have. Those are the things that are hard because those are the things that do not have the the focus that they need and those are the things that I pretty much spent the last 10 years after I graduated from Indiana doing. Because those are the things that gives me meaning in doing what I do.

[00:51:59.06] spk_0:
Sure, let’s go back to you. Uh How much increased giving are you seeing you? I’m sure you’ve quantified this. What differences are you? Are you experiencing?

[00:53:05.55] spk_4:
Well, I mean, we’ve we’ve now tested it in a number of different areas. We, you know, we test it in, uh, we we use it in thank you scripts to our donors. So we don’t, you know, that’s a long term test of if we’re using this, this language consistently and everything, we we play around with the different levers on web forms, um, where we see, you know, we can extrapolate over the year if like, okay, if we use this, you know, we have a form and the form on the donor form, what difference are we going to see? Um, so it’s, you know, it’s hard once it becomes infused in everything you do, you no longer have a test in a control. You have, you have just the way you’re doing it now because you roll it out in all these different ways. I will say. I mean within that first batch of three, we paid for our research. So, you know, we got we we made an investment. We we we learned a ton. We paid for it right away. And then everything after that is, um, is bonus or, you know, is the real game. But it’s, it would be hard to measure at this point because we’re not, we haven’t infused in and everything, but we no longer have, uh, you know, we’re getting there, but we no longer have a sort of test and control where we can say this is the difference

[00:53:24.85] spk_0:
jen where can folks find your research? Is it is it somewhere that we can easily uh,

[00:53:32.90] spk_1:
most of our research is at the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy’s web site. There are freely downloadable.

[00:53:44.55] spk_0:
Okay. At the Institute for Sustainable philanthropy, um, what do you think? Should we leave it there where we explain this adequately that we picked people’s interest? I

[00:54:50.84] spk_4:
don’t I have if you have time, I have one more thing that I really think this work is sort of um a really important bridge between the sort of donor centric, the donor is always right. We’re stroking the ego of the donor and the community centric fundraising models because jen said, you know, this is I give to connect people, give to connect to to other people to the animals. And that I think in that sense of connection and love comes a more sustainable way forward because we don’t have to have this um artificial barrier between the donor and the beneficiary. And we don’t have to talk about, well if we privilege the donor, then it’s at the expense of the beneficiary or vice versa. We can talk about it’s about making connections as humans and and and together working for change and I I see it as a really healthy way forward in that conversation.

[00:55:20.04] spk_0:
That’s a great place to stop. We’re international for this segment from british Columbia and the UK from B C. Is Shoni Field chief development officer at the S P. C. A. Society for prevention of cruelty to animals, the british Columbia and from the UK, jen, chang professor and philanthropic psychologist at the Institute for sustainable philanthropy where you will find all this valuable, valuable research Shoni jen, Thank you very much.

[00:55:24.64] spk_4:
Thanks tony

[00:56:05.34] spk_0:
What a pleasure. Thank you Next week. Susan comfort returns with team wellness as 21 NTC coverage continues. 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. They’ve got the relationships for pete’s sake. Turn hyphen two dot c o r. 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. Mhm. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty

[00:56:07.05] spk_5:
Be with me next

[00:56:25.74] spk_0:
Week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Uh huh.