Nonprofit Radio for November 25, 2024: “Passion Isn’t Enough”

David Rhode“Passion Isn’t Enough”

That’s David Rhode’s new book. “It’s necessary, but not sufficient,” says the author. He brings us his practical advice on building your programs, your board, your brand, your team and your volunteer community. His expertise has value for aspiring, new and experienced nonprofit leaders alike. David is CEO of DotDotOrg.com.

 

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Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the embarrassment of tinnitus if I had to hear that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s going on this week? Hey, Tony, we’ve got passion isn’t enough. That’s David Rhodes. New book. It’s necessary but not sufficient says the author, he brings us his practical advice on building your programs, your board, your brand, your team and your volunteer community. His expertise has value for aspiring new and experienced nonprofit leaders alike. David is CEO of dot dot org.com on Tony’s Take two tales from the plane, talking to your roommates were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org here is passion isn’t enough. It’s a pleasure to welcome David Rode to nonprofit radio. He is the founder of dot dot org, a nonprofit consulting firm focused on ceo mentoring. He teaches nonprofit branding and nonprofit consulting at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s the author of the book Passion Isn’t enough, a practical guide for nonprofit leaders, which is what brings him to the show today. His company is at dot dot org.com and you’ll find David on linkedin. David. Welcome to nonprofit radio, Tony. I’m delighted to be here. We are both delighted to be at the Serafina Restaurant on the 77th in Columbus because you know, any Schmo podcaster can record his podcast on Zoom as I do week after week. But only the uh exemplary podcast hosts are gonna actually meet the guest. Uh where, where around the corner, uh a block and a half, you came. So, you know, there’s the expression, you meet people where they are, you literally came to meet me where I am. I did it. I’m glad I’m walking the walk. All right. So I’m in New York City. Uh visiting uh doing some work. David lives here on the Upper West side. So we are at Serafina. Cheers, cheers. Congratulations on your book. Thanks so much. We’re excited. We’re both drinking uh sauvignon blanc today. So let’s turn the title of the book into a question. Why isn’t uh passion enough? Passion isn’t enough? Because while passion may be necessary to bring you into the non profit sector or to help you launch an organization, the skills that you need to run this business and nonprofit organizations are businesses. It requires you to have a range of skills covering a range of areas. So passion can be one of the elements that’s necessary to be successful within the non profit sector, but it’s not sufficient. There’s so much more to the role and there’s so much more to being successful long term. OK. So fair to say necessary, necessary because of, because of everything you’re gonna, you’re gonna sacrifice to do this work most likely but, but not sufficient. Ok? Uh Tell the story of, uh, pitching for baseball and softball because a lot of what you share in the book. Uh, you have a lot of advice from others as well, but a lot of your advice, I it sounds like comes from your experience leading pitching for baseball and softball. Yeah, I mean, my, my experience ranges from, from my time there to also all the other client interactions I’ve had. But yes, fundamentally, uh I founded a nonprofit organization in 2005. I had a lot of confidence in myself as a leader, but I was new to the nonprofit sector and pitching for baseball and softball, really sort of blended with my personality. I’m a sports person. I was coaching my two boys in baseball at the time and I realized that, you know, all of the equipment that they would acquire and then grow out of maybe there’s a better use for it than sitting in the corner of our garage or in a closet. So the whole premise of the organization was based on seeing if we could collect and redistribute new and gently used equipment so that kids in under resourced communities, both here and around the world could gain access to the game. And the organization grew and thrived, it thrived for a lot of reasons. We had a really clear idea of who we were a strong brand. We really relied heavily on strategic partnerships with major league baseball teams and equipment manufacturers, all those things for years and years to develop. But at the end of the day, the organization really had a meaningful impact helping over a million kids in over 100 countries around the world. So really proud of the time I spent there. You evolved into disaster relief too because we’re gonna talk a little about uh a little about you. We’re gonna talk a fair amount about programs and maybe expanding programs but, but not getting carried away with that. But you, you did move into disaster relief. Well, the, the organization was actually born right around the time of hurricane Katrina and this is in some of the first work we did not by design, but just the way the world worked. Um Our first board meeting was in late September of 2005 and, and hurricane Katrina struck, I think August 31st of that year. So we found ourselves in a moment where it’s like, well, yes, we envision helping people all around the world. But the people that need the most help right now are in the Gulf coast region of our own country. So we quickly shifted our focus and learned how, what was a very simple idea of providing baseball and softball equipment could be really not just helpful for kids to play but provided this real sense of healing for a community, getting kids back to doing something that they found was normal to do. And that really defied our organization in many ways. Almost 15 years. I was with the organization disaster relief programs, you know, Hurricane Sandy here in the New York area. This is some of the most important work we did and things that we became known for. We were the Red Cross of baseball, one group tabbed us and we wore that Monica really proudly. We were really happy to play our small part in helping communities recover from natural disasters. I’m a little intimidated. Uh, when you say you’re a sports guy because I’m, I’m not well skilled in sports, softball and baseball are those the ones that have field goals? Uh, is that softball and baseball they can, but only, only if things go really poorly. All right. So that’s a, that’s, you’re being, uh, you’re being kind, in other words, no, there’s no field goals. That’s a, that’s a hard, no. All right, we’ll try. All right. Baseball is that the one that has the Super series at the end of the, uh Well, there’s a World Series. It’s not super, what’s the Super Super Bowl is the end of the football season? Oh, it’s not, there’s not who has the Super Series. Nobody? Super Series. Nothing I’m aware of. I mean, I, I can’t speak to every sport, Tony. And again, I’m not from North Carolina. I don’t know what goes on down. I don’t know what. Now, this is a long standing. This is a long standing belief I had, I thought that I thought it to the end of some season. It’s not hockey. It’s the Super series. That’s the Stanley Cup. Oh, the Stanley series. Oh, the Stanley Cup. All right. All right. Well, so, so like I said, I’m intimidated. May. Maybe, maybe we’ll keep the sports metaphors to, uh we should, we’ll just keep doing stick to white wine and, and non blanc and non. All right. No sports. All right. Uh Even though it’s your origin story, uh here I am dismissing it as no sports. No, but you, you told the story. All right. So the book, the book is, uh I found valuable. There are 16 chapters, but we cannot even broach uh half of them, but I wanna give the book its due and I’m not gonna put you on the spot and ask you to recite by memory the 16 chapters because I didn’t, I, you asked me what to bring and I didn’t say bring your book. So I will uh I will give you the uh share with listeners the 16 chapters, they’re all around. It’s building your strategic plan, board, fundraising strategy, partnership, portfolio, financial controls programs, which we’re gonna talk about evidence based brand, which we’re gonna talk about communication strategy A I capabilities team. We’re gonna talk about diverse organization, volunteer, community, building your crisis response, your exit strategy, and then you have advice for new leaders. Does that sound familiar? Does that sound, that sounds like a book that I’ve recently had played a major role? That is the right book for the right? All right. Um Some of these things we have talked about recently, like Strategic Plan. I’ve had guests on two or three guests just in the past month or six weeks talking about strategic plan. So that’s why we’re skipping some of these. And plus we just have so much time together. People want the full value of the book. They’re just, they’re just gonna have to buy the book. Passion isn’t enough. All right, but we are gonna talk about building your programs. You have advice around uh quality over quantity being persistent, flush out your, your thinking around building your programs. Well, I I think there’s a lot of pressure on leaders and organizations to grow and expand. And I think that that’s a, it’s an important dynamic to think about growth but, but measured growth, I think is very important. I think it’s really important to prove what you have to refine what you have before you begin to expand and replicate your model. And sometimes people get, maybe the expression is a little out over their skis. They, they, they try to, they’re so worried about scale and helping more and more people that they, that they don’t focus enough on getting the actual programming, right? And that programming is in part, you know, identifying what you do. And it’s also then the measurement and evaluation that goes along with it, how do you know that your program is working? And so I think it’s really important to kind of know who you are and not spread yourself too thin. And again, we’re talking about organizations maybe in the earlier days, sorting themselves out and, and figuring out what they’re really good at. And so I think quality over quantity just means trying to really understand what is the unique impact you’re gonna have on the community. What is the unique impact you’re gonna have with the target population you’re trying to serve and, and how can you do that? And how can you do it better than everybody else that’s out there, there’s almost 1.8 million nonprofit organizations in the United States. And many of them have similar missions. They’re in the same sector, the same space, same geography. And so it’s important to sort of differentiate yourself and figure out what do you do best, what should people think of when they think of your organization and I think that comes down to your program and we’ll talk about brand in a little while, but, you know, really understanding who you are understanding what you’re good at. So how do you resist the pressure though, to do, to do more? It may come from your board, it may come from the community, uh your staff, you know, wherever, wherever the origin is, how do you resist helping more folks who need help? And it’s just a little bit maybe just an increment from what we, what we, what we originally originally are doing. It’s not that much of a stretch. It’s closely related. How do you avoid that? We’re here in Manhattan. We should be able to go to Brooklyn or we should be able to go to Queens or we should be able to go to wherever these are natural conversations and every board and every organization should have them. And I’m not saying that help more people. I’m saying make sure that you have the infrastructure and the resources and all of your ducks in a row before you start doing that. So it’s a natural progression to help more people. It’s a natural desire to help more people. That’s why most of us got into this business helping people. But, you know, we want to make sure that and organizations typically have very limit resources. So both, both people and money. So you want to make sure that those dollars are being used wisely and this is not meant to say that growth is bad. I’m just saying, make sure that you, you kind of have a smart plan that you know where you’re going, you know why you’re going there and that the programs that you’re and and the dynamics that are present that are making you successful in, in maybe one community or within one program are going to be present as you continue to expand that so that you can deliver the same quality, the same impact that you’ve achieved initially, it’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money but also supports you in retaining your donors, a partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location. So you can grow your impact faster. That’s donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs, helping you help others visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to passion isn’t enough. Let’s talk about assessment, then you, you mentioned it in passing, but let, let’s let’s drill down on identifying what the metrics are for uh for your, for your program. So you know what kind of success you’re meeting or if you’re not, right? So if you’re not being as successful as you are, so measurement and evaluation is an aspect of the nonprofit sector, which is growing in importance. It’s been on a trend in that direction for years and years and it’s not going to go away and it shouldn’t. Um The reason you want to measure your work is really two fold. One is first and foremost to prove that this, the people that you’re trying to impact are being impacted the way that you intend. How can you demonstrate that? How could you know that if you’re trying to attract a donor or if you’re trying to tell your story, you can’t just say, trust me, we’re doing great work. You need to be able to demonstrate the kids that we’re helping are going to college at a higher rate and we can show you the kids are reading at a higher rate. People are being retrained in their jobs and more successful, more sustained, more independent as a result of whatever, whatever the sector that you’re in. So the good news when it comes to measurement evaluation is, it’s very idiosyncratic. There’s no standard that says you have to measure it this way, you can measure it in a way that really is right for your organization. So there’s a, I’m a big fan of sort of right sizing measurement and evaluation. You may help 5000 kids with your program. You don’t have to measure all 5000 kids to prove that your program is working, choose a cohort, a group that represents the others in some meaningful way and then measure them. So what does measurement look like? Measurement fundamentally means you have to measure this group of individuals before they enter your program. And then you have to use the same device, same measurement device and see how they’re doing along whatever dynamics you’re trying to capture after they’ve been through your program. So it’s a before and after component and therefore you can measure the change that your program uh help, help demonstrate, help create. Uh and so those dynamics of a pre and post measurement and using the same instrument in the beginning and at the end are sort of some of the fundamentals of, of sort of research and research design. Um And then it’s really ties back to your theory of change. Maybe also, let me just insert, maybe also having a control group. Well, a really a similar cohort that does not go through your, didn’t go through your program in an ideal world. Yes. But, but realistically, that’s gonna be difficult to come up with in the nonprofit sector. And again, how are we gonna find a control group? What we’re? And I think there’s a little bit of an understanding that if we can talk to funders and people and say we’ve measured this group of people and this is the way we measure them. They’re not holding us to the standard of a control group. This isn’t the same as some other types of research which require that, let’s say medical, you’re trying, you’re trying to get a new drug through the whatever you’re trying to show some cure rate, you have to have a control group. We’re in the nonprofit sector. People understand that the amount of resources we have to measure and evaluate things is not to that level. So while a control group would be ideal and maybe there are schools in your community that are not part of your program and you’re helping kids in school. B and there’s a school a that’s across the street that draws from the same population. And you can somehow measure college success rates within that school versus your school and, and things of that nature. That would be great. All I’m, I’m being a little too sophisticated. You’re not being too sophisticated. It’s the right thought. But I, I think, I think at the fundamental level, we have to try to measure our people in a thoughtful way and we should tie it back to our theory of change. So your listeners are sophisticated nonprofit professionals. But in your theory of change, you’re trying to say, you know, we want people to become more resilient so that they can do X and Y and Z. OK. So then you have to measure resilience um or you’re trying to increase reading levels so that this and then you have to measure reading levels. So like each of the, each of the organizations are, are, have the freedom to measure what is necessary for them. Not just in terms of outputs, we, we’re reading at a better level, but then long term impact would be things like are able to attend college at a higher rate and things of that nature. So it’s, it’s important for people to be rigorous about measurement. Um And think about it from day one, not, not after I’ve been in this nonprofit sector for years and years, I really encourage people to begin to think about measurement. You know, at the earliest moments of the organization, how are we going to prove to others that our organization is having the desired impact? And it’s very challenging. Most organizations really struggle with this but start at the outset so that you can, you can see progress, you know, year one metrics are not gonna presumably not going to be as strong and positive as your year two. That’s right. And if you’ve been working with a group of kids for a number of years, starting to measure them in year three really is not a deal. So maybe that you’ve figured out your programs. But now instead of being in school one, you’ve added schools two and three to your program. Great. Now those schools are new to your program, measure those kids before they start with your program and track them along because the kids that are in school one, they’ve already been with you for a couple of years. They’ve already been seeing the positive effects of your program and, and you’re not getting a pure read on, on how you’ve been able to alter their trajectory, whatever their origin. That’s right. So it’s really important to kind of identify a group of people and be able to measure them before they come into contact with your programs and then measure them after they’ve had whatever that cycle of programming is. And, and ideally, you measure them longitudinally meaning over time. So it’s not just six months after, but maybe 12 months after or two years after three years after. So you can continue to measure their progress and see the long term effect. Anything else you want to share about the programs before we move on? Let’s keep rolling. OK, we’re good. All right, I’m gonna take a sip. I’m, I’m a little ahead of you with the wine. You wanna, you wanna take a sip? You’re all right. I’m gonna catch out. OK. OK. No pressure. All right. Building your brand. This is um as I said, one of the many chapters building, building your, building your brand. Let’s identify it first. Ho how do you define brand? A brand is sort of the totality of the thoughts, feelings, emotions that you might have when you think about something. So if you think about Starbucks, you might think about the music, you might think about the pricing, you might think about the coffee, you might think about the the, the service or the amount of time it takes for you or the noise or you might think about their position on a social issue, like fair trade for acquiring their coffee beans or you might think about their green sign. So it’s the mistake people make when they think about the brand is they tend to equate it with the logo of the organization and the, the visual identity of an organization is part of your, it’s, it’s a part of it, but it’s, it’s a small part of it. And in the nonprofit sector, it’s an increasing and that’s just the visual identity too. The brand is your, your values are part of your brand. That’s exactly right. So in the nonprofit, we’re not Coca Cola, we don’t have, we don’t have hundreds of millions of dollars that we’re spending on, on marketing for the typical nonprofit organization. In fact, most of the smaller organizations will spend zero on marketing. So, you know, your visual identity, they might see it on, on your website or they may see it on a T shirt, but they’re not, they’re not being blasted with it. So it has it, it’s kind of a smaller piece of the puzzle. So the brand is really, you know how people think about you and, and, and this is really, it’s sort of the essence of your organization and it’s not easy to always put your finger on it. The mistake organizations can sometimes make is, they think they, as maybe the executive director or a board member knows what the brand is and they, they, they have a sense of what the brand is. But the, the people that you’re affecting the constituents within your program, they can tell you what your brand is and the people that volunteer with your organization, they should be telling you what your brand is and your donors should be telling what your brand is. And then you’re looking for patterns and alignment and you’re trying to see if I imagine a word cloud, that sort of is the totality of what people are telling you their impressions and feelings about your organization. It could be everything from responsive to, in our case, baseball equipment to whatever. And then you start really feeling like you understand what your brand is or if there’s this huge diffusion of how people think about your, your, your organization and you realize we don’t really have a very well defined brand and that’s not really a great problem. That’s not a great, um I mean, getting the information is really helpful. It may not be the answer you were looking for. But so brand is really this totality of everything. It’s, it’s, you know, how, how you communicate the tone of the organization, the way you share the impact so that people understand what your organization is all about the, the consistency and quality of their communications, you know, branding is really the long game branding is about how do I want people to think about my organization? Five or 10 years from now. It’s not a campaign that we run on giving Tuesday, that’s not your brand, that’s a communication strategy, that’s tactical. The brand is really sort of more amorphous a little bit elevated. Maybe how you approach your Tuesday and you have more fun with it, maybe you’re more formal, all of those things should be consistent with who you are. You know, brands have personality, brands have personalities. So, you know, if you take a nonprofit organization, I don’t want to do this in the wrong way. But there are certain organizations which are maybe a little bit more abrasive and there’s other organizations that you said are more formal and then there’s other organizations that are more inclusive and welcoming and there’s organizations which are youthful and there’s organizations which deal with older populations. So all of those entities have to really think about how they communicate where they communicate all of those things so that the people that are the consumers of their organization experience, the organization in way that’s sort of right and appropriate for them. And then you could build and shape the perception of your organization into a brand over time, right? And appropriate and, and consistent, consistent, you know, what you expect is go to an event with you, they have a meeting with you, they uh I don’t know, they engage with you even, you know, just commenting on, on social posts or something. They, they know they know what the vibe is, they know what to expect if you’re lighthearted, you know, they, they, they know they can make a, you know, maybe make a uh ha have some fun in a social comment or something. That’s right. It’s a, it’s a consistency, right? So branding is one of those things and, and, and one of the references in the book is to uh Jim Collins and his book Good To Great. And he talks about branding is, is sort of like turning the fly wheel. So if you’ve ever been to a spin class or something like that, and you get on the bike for the first time and the resistance is kind of hard. You put a lot of effort in and, and the wheel hardly moves at all. And then, but if you keep applying the same effort and you keep communicating consistently, then the wheel turns a little bit more easily and the wheel turns a little bit more easily. And brand building is, is a little bit like that. The amount of effort it takes to establish your brand up front is enormous and you’re not going to see very much progress in the early months and even maybe years. But then there’s going to be a moment when the wheel is going to turn a lot more easily. And that’s because you’ve been applying this consistent pressure, this consistent messaging this consistent theme over time. So now finally, people are registering that messaging that you have been saying all along, but it just took a little while for it to sink in. And, and I think that that that sort of picture is really helpful for people to understand. It’s not a quick fix. Branding is not A B I go over the sports again. I I I’m, I’m outside me. Maybe I had a long term when you, when you mentioned, when you mentioned sports thing, you might have to take the, it’ll get, it’ll get much worse. Uh It’s a long term. That’s correct. Ok. Ok. Uh You, you sort of, you’ve alluded to this a little bit, but you, you make the distinction in the book about marketing versus branding. You wanna flush that out a bit. Yeah. And it’s, and sometimes it’s easy and I, I’ll find myself. I mean, I teach nonprofit branding at the University of Pennsylvania. I started my career, Proctor and Gamble. I’m a branding person. Um But the way you work with brands that we would know, I work with the Tide brand. I work with the Dawn brand. I use the Tide Free and clear. There you go. You were you there when in the free and clear days or I may have been there a little bit before lemon scent. I used to be in lemon scent, but now I’m purely uh free and clear for years, I’ve been, I’ve been committed to free and clear. I’m not gonna tell you when I was there, but it was before that. But anyway, that’s, that’s big business. So the, the thing about marketing is marketing is sort of how you carry your branding messages forward. So, um marketing is sort of the how and the what and, and so that, that’s decisions about, you know, which, which platforms you’re gonna be on, which communication channels, the types of messages when you do things, things of that nature. So marketing is much more tactical. Um It’s you really think marketing about who your target audiences are and how you’re going to reach them with specific messages, but all of them should tie back to this bigger notion of who you are as a brand and, and everything should still fall under that umbrella. If, if you got some marketing ideas that are really inconsistent with this big idea of what you think is your brand, then there are the wrong marketing ideas, you know, you got to rethink them, they should, there should be an alignment there that should make sense. Um So the marketing is really the tactics that of how you carry your brand and your planning forward. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate, talking about talking to roommates. Uh I’ve been in a center seat for a past couple of flights. Now this is a touchy one. it’s a little dodgy. Uh, you know, everybody’s, uh, everybody comes in, they sit down and of course they’re, uh, glued to their phone. So now I’m not saying you have to talk to you or, or even try, but if you want to, if you wanna be a friendly outgoing person and maybe have a conversation, uh, first of all, you’d have to be off your phone. Yeah. And this is as the person enters the row, uh, and I’m envisioning you being the first person in your row we take on if, if you’re joining a row and everybody is already on their phones already. You know, this, this might work but not as well. So I’m thinking, um, you’re the first one in it doesn’t matter a row of two or three, doesn’t matter where you’re seated. Somebody comes in, you, you open the conversation. So what I’m suggesting is start with, hey, how are you or? Hello? You know, how are you a little more, something more than just, hi. Hello? Ask a question and see what you get back if you get back. Hi. You know. Ok. That’s that person. Probably not interested in talking. I wouldn’t push it any further, wouldn’t pursue it. But if you get back, uh, hello. Uh, I’m good. Ok, that’s, that’s pretty good or I’m good. I’m doing well. How are you? Oh, now, now they’ve asked you a question. So that’s my, and then you can go from there, you know, and then into are you, are you going home or you know, traveling, what, what’s, what’s at the destination, you know, wherever you all are headed, is that where you live, et cetera? So that, that’s the easy part going from there. The the more challenging part is opening the conversation and doing the uh call it, doing the assessment work. What kind of person are you dealing with? Or are they just, you know, it’s no comment on them as a person. Just they may not feel like talking, right? So by no means saying, am I saying, you know, push it or something? But it can be fun. Me, I’ve met folks, I’ve exchanged business cards, people. 62 years old sometimes. II I still carry business cards and other people do too sometimes. So it can be fun and you can learn about the city you’re going to, if you haven’t been there before, you can tell them about the city if you’ve been there and they haven’t. So, you know, it can be fun but you just gotta do your assessment work at the uh, at the outset. All right, good luck. Let me know, let me know how it goes out there talking to your roommates on the plane. And that is Tony take two Kate. So Tony, I think you can do that with just about anyone anywhere. Like even when you’re in like the supermarket and I love to do it when I’m getting my Dunkan order and I see, you know, the driver worker and maybe she has a new set of nails or her makeup looks great today. Compliments go a long way and just checking in on people. I think you can do that anywhere. Not even just on the plane. That’s excellent. I’m glad to hear you say that Kate. Really? Um uh I mean, I, I’m like, genuinely impressed that you would, that you’re doing that already for workers, you know, workers that just, people just don’t pay a lot of attention to, like, the drive through line at Duncan. Absolutely. Like, give me my order. Here’s the money I’m going. Oh, don’t you hate that? That’s so like you’re not connecting with the person and you can connect fast. I mean, on a plane you could have an hour, you could have a plane, you could have four or five hours together, you know. So all the more reason to try to strike up a conversation. But, yeah, but, but absolutely no, I’m, I’m glad to hear you say that because there are so many workers, service workers who are just really ignored. People just want their service and they don’t need, they don’t feel the need to be civil or polite even sometimes. Yeah, that, um, that gets me and then, you know, like if I’m behind the person who’s the uncivil one, you know, I’ll give an eye roll or if the uncivil person has left the area. I’ll say, you know, sorry you had to, sorry, you had to go through that. But yes, civility, humanity, politeness, sincerity. I mean, these go a long way, a long, long way. So I admire you doing it at the Duncan line and you’re right. There’s lots of places it could be done. Absolutely. Well, we’ve got f but loads more time. Here’s the rest of passion isn’t enough with David Rode. Can you talk about, uh the seven PS in your, in, in the building? The brand chapter? Now, we’re not gonna go through all seven. There are traditional ones. I don’t want to put you on the spot again. Maybe you can name the seven. Would you have been able to name the 16 chapters? No, probably not. Not in order. Well, not, certainly not. In order you think you could have gotten them all? I could have gotten them all. You could. All right, I’m not gonna hold you through. All right. Well, these are seven P. So we, we’re gonna take a little shortcut with that. So you, you distinguish between uh, the traditional 44 PS and then some additional add ons for, for nonprofit. So the traditional are the, are your price, product, place and promotion. But then the nonprofit add ons, that’s where I want to focus on the people proof and the process, right? So when we look at the nonprofit world, what are the tools that we have in our toolbox that can help us build our brand and carry out our marketing efforts. Um And the ones that I found to be the most important and relevant and really what separates the for profit and the non profit sector are people proof and process. So why do we talk about people, people in a nonprofit organization? You know, we don’t talk about who’s on the board of directors at, at, at mcdonald’s or who’s on the sales force or who’s doing this or who’s doing that. These people are totally unknown to it, unless, unless they do something outrageous to make a headline, then you’ll know them for the wrong reason. But in a nonprofit organization, the people are, are very important to carrying out our message. You know, it’s marketing, um, is very decentralized in the nonprofit sector. If you are a fan of my organization, you might talk about the work we do. So the challenge is as a person, whether you’re a volunteer or a board member or donor or whatever, my job is somebody that’s a senior staff member is to kind of make sure that I give you the right talking points. If you were going to explain my organization, you probably would not have had me on the baseball and softball board. That, that would have been, I would have had a tough time getting you through the nominating committee. But, but I mean, you’re a heck of a guy. What is baseball? But, but let’s start with a common understanding of what is baseball people as an example are important to people. It’s a remote hypothetical people help us fundraise people carry our message forward. People know other people. So we’re not buying, we’re not buying paid media. All of most of our communication is word of mouth. So it’s the people play a huge role in the nonprofit sector in terms of how we build our brand. And then we talk about proof. So proof goes back to this notion of measurement and evaluation. And so it’s really, it doesn’t have to be 53 different statistics about how your organization is making a difference. It could be one or two key numbers. Um It could be really even the proof could even be in stories, it could be storytelling, it could be a story about a family or a child or whatever that was positively impacted by the work that you’re doing. So that proof element is really necessary because you’re trying to say, we know that we’re having the impact that we’ve hoped. And I can tell you about this individual case or I can tell you about this data set and I can, I can demonstrate that our organization is making, it’s, it’s its impact in the way that we hope not every organization can do that uh equally. So the ones that are more successful about demonstrating proof are the ones that are maybe going to get a greater share of funding dollars and attract other resources. So proof is really important and then process might be not on the same level as, as people improve. But process is the way you go about doing the things that you do. You might have um special type of way that you do programming, whether it’s coming into the community in a certain way or the way that you serve meals or how your, how your shelter is organized or how your volunteers go into the home of people that are seniors and help them use technology or help them feel a reduced sense of isolation. So the process of how you go about your work sometimes is very interesting. I cite an example in the book of an organization that I um I know a little about here called Bloom Again, Brooklyn and, and, and, you know, they are taking upcycled flowers and then they’re using those to help reduce social isolation. So if you can imagine, you can’t imagine a more perishable item in some ways than flowers. So they’ve been used at a we or a party and then they get donated to Bloom again, Brooklyn. And then they, with their volunteers have to very quickly turn these back around and use them in a way that can be gifted and shared with people that are maybe not feeling a sense of connection in their communities for whatever reason. Um, but that process that they go through once you kind of see the care they put into that you’re like, huh, these guys really have their act together. So, you know, it’s the process can also be a way that we build our brand in the nonprofit sector, how you make laundry detergent or how you do this, that and the other thing in the for profit sector, the process isn’t really all that important. You know, we, we think in a different level in the nonprofit world, people proof and process can help define who we are and help us build our brands. I’ve had a little word about uh potentially rebranding. If we’re, why, why might we, why might we uh engage in a rebranding exercise? Well, rebranding is common. Um It’s common sometimes for the right reasons and it’s common sometimes for not as many right reasons. So a lot of times you’ll see a change of leadership in an organization, maybe a new executive director comes into the seat and they wanna, they wanna prove to the, to the community that they’re having a big impact on the organization right away. The first thing they’re gonna do is they’re going to rebrand the organization and that’s a very common dynamic. Um And rebranding can, I mean, rebranding can mean a lot of things in the best case scenario, what rebranding does is it maybe better aligns with the current version of your organization is with the current work that you’re doing, an organization could have been started 1020 3070 years ago, called itself a certain thing and, and, and was, was understood in a certain way, but then maybe it evolved over time and now it, it’s sort of a disconnect between the work they’re doing and, and how the organization may be understood by people. So in those situations, a rebrand is completely appropriate or you decide to be the upper West side something, something. And then you realize you’re going to expand your work to other boroughs in Manhattan. So you can no longer be the upper West side something or other. You have to be the New York something or other to make it more, make more sense in those situations. Rebranding is, is, is logical and necessary. Rebranding is not easy, it takes time, it takes money, it takes more time and more money than people think. And as we mentioned earlier, this is not a quick fix just because you changed the name of the organization and maybe tweak your programming. It doesn’t mean that people that have been living out in the real world or have the donors or supporters of the organization are gonna understand that and digest that right away, it might take a few years before the full effect of a rebrand really takes place. So I, I just, I want, I would want to encourage people to understand that while branding is the long game rebranding is also part of the long game. If it’s the right thing to do, that’s fine. But don’t expect it to somehow be some kind of a magic wand for your organization, your branding chapters where you, uh, on, um, Sarah Trump Peter from, uh Big Duck. She and Sarah have both been guests through the years. Uh, smart, smart folks, good smart agency. Uh, I think they’re in Brooklyn. Are they in Brooklyn, New York? They’re here in New York. And you know, Farrow is one of 22 subject matter experts that I interviewed in the creation of the book. And so while you get a lot of David Rode in the book, you also hear from some folks that have been in this sector for quite some time. I think that, that I, I did some back of the envelope math. It was like 450 years of experience or more in the group of people that I that I spoke with. So, you know, you, you not only get my insights that somebody’s been a practitioner and a founder and a consultant and an educator, but you get this compilation of all of their collective wisdom and knowledge baked into the book as well. So I was really delighted to speak with far and so many of the other folks that contributed meaningfully to the book. Next on one I I’d like to talk about is uh building your team and you break this into hiring on boarding, performance management and retention, uh hiring, you say, uh higher, slow fire, fast. Well, I mean, sometimes these are, there’s cliches and sometimes they’re cliches that you’re backing away from your own book. No, I’m just saying these, these, these expressions come about for a reason. Um I think we sometimes we can spot a problem, somebody that’s not working out, but we, we form a personal connection to them or we, we, we, we try to rationalize the ways that they could be helpful or might be helpful or have been helpful in the past. So we keep them around. We keep them around for 369, 1224 36 months longer than we should. So sometimes when you spot a problem, I’m not talking about being, you know, a maniac about this, but, you know, making the decision to get rid of somebody, there are a lot of talented people out there and if somebody is not the right fit for what reasons move on and you have to be willing to have made the mistake, whether you or somebody else made the mistake. It’s, it’s, it’s better to everybody else on your staff already knows that they’re not the right person. This is not gonna surprise anyone. So if you keep them around, you’re some in some way sending the wrong message. Now, how quickly you bring in that right person? You know, I, I just say you know, people are so um important getting the right people are so important that this is the higher, the higher part time. It’s, it’s so much better to have taken, taken a little extra time or significant time to get the right person because we all know how much effort it takes to on board train, you know, in, in incorporate somebody into our culture. Um And then if you get the wrong person, you just have to start all over and redo that again. Um And so I, I just think it’s really, you know, being thoughtful about this, uh trying to, trying to um take advantage of references, take advantage, use a hiring r do whatever you need to do. There’s a birthday and there’s a birthday the next day, there’s a birthday the next day, which is, that’s OK. This is, this is live podcasting. This is, this is, this is the beauty of the thing. Any smo can have a podcast without a, without a happy birthday message, but without a happy birthday singer, a full experience. Any J, is that what you said? J AJ? It could be a smoke or a jam. Sure could, could have a podcast episode without a happy birthday singing. So, but this is the next level. This is next level. So I, I think it’s important to really think about that. And one of the things I emphasize in the hiring chapter is to not just look at what somebody is like as a candidate on paper is really think about your culture, the kind of people that have been successful in your organization in the past and see what characteristics they are. You can train somebody how to do some specific tasks. It’s not that critical that they come in with skills ABC and D, but what kind of person are they are? How do they solve problems? Where, where are they in terms of their resilience and how empathetic are they? How, how good are they going to be as a teammate to work with others, et cetera. You want to begin to try to measure those things as best, you can assess those things so that you can, you can, you can direct somebody as to the specifics of your program once you have the right person. But if you have the wrong person just because they’re good at Excel or they’re good at working your, your database, they’re good on some specific element of social media. If they’re no fun to work with and, and they’re, and they’re not really, you know, committed to the, the core passionate mission of the organization, then, you know, maybe it’s just a job to them. And at the end of the day, you people need to believe in the work you’re doing in order for them to stay around because they’re not gonna get rich mostly in the nonprofit sector. And that’s, that’s a bit of a reality when I see, you know, skilled in razor’s edge or something, you know, you can send them to a course for that. Uh, that, that just because the last person was a whiz at razor’s edge doesn’t mean that the new person can’t learn it. There, there’s, I mean, there are all these other factors that you’re, that you, you just describe that are, that are so much more valuable than your, your querying, You’re querying acumen in razor’s edge, right? I mean, what is the, how is that person? What’s at that person’s core? What is somebody I’d like to have lunch with somebody? Exactly. Our donors, the board, they’re gonna be in front of your constituents, they’re gonna be in front of board members, they’re gonna be in front of donors. How comfortable would you feel? Yeah. And when they’re alone, you know, what, what’s their judgment you mentioned? How did they, how did they solve problems? Tell us about a few instances where you solved the problem uh overcame a, a, a AAA bad relationship. A relationship went sour. How did you overcome that? You know, these are the kinds of things that show reason and judgment and whether you can place. All right, let’s jump to uh retention, compensation, things like that. Right? Le let’s how do we, now we’ve, we’ve taken the time to hire the right people that are, that we do trust and they fit well in our culture. How do we treat them well. So that they’re less likely you can never prevent, of course, but less likely to leave, especially leave soon, like within two years. Well, I, I think it’s, I think many organizations have challenges. I was, I was speaking with an organization today where a lot of smaller leaner organizations, there’s not a lot of clear pathways for advancement. When I started my, you were talking about something about that I was making, I’m not really just today. And so, so Procter and gamble, you start at this level if you get promoted to this level and there’s 15 levels all the way to the top of the company. And you could, you could, you could imagine how your career will progress. But nonprofit organizations, there might be an executive director and then there might be director level people and then there might be people on the front lines with programs, et cetera. But there’s not all these levels that exist where you can become a VP or a senior VP and a this that and the other big nonprofits have that kind of structure because they’re just like any other major corporation. But, you know, I think the statistic was 92% of the nonprofit organizations have budgets of a million dollars or less. And if that’s the case, you’re talking about 456 employees or something of that nature. So it’s not this complex structure where they can really see how they’re going to advance. So I think one of the ways that you retain people is first and this sounds simplistic and I apologize. It’s, it’s a Friday afternoon. I’m gonna try to keep it simple for myself, but like, maybe you wanna ask them, what are they hoping to accomplish with their career? And just what are they looking to do is this, is this skill based? Is this something you know, how can you build a professional development plan with them? So they feel that they’re not only having an immediate impact on the work they’re doing for the organization now, but they’re helping themselves grow at the same time. So people, if people are growing and advancing and, and and becoming a better version of themselves professionally, then they might be more inclined to stay. They feel like the company is making an investment in me. I’m not just giving to them, they’re giving back to me and this is we’re in it together kind of a thing. So I think that the challenge that executive directors have is having line items in their budget for professional development so that when somebody needs to understand and learn more about certain things that you have the ability to send them to seminars, workshops, trainings, get them coaches, whatever is needed, so they can grow class and whatever that new technology is that comes out. So you really do need to ask them what success would look like for themselves where are they trying to be a year or two or three from now and see if you can chart a path together to get them from where they are now to where they want to be. And if you can do that successfully, then they’re going to think this person’s got my back. And even that you’re just taking the time, the fact that you’re there to ask and, and as well. Yeah, now you in the walking, you know, the talk part of part of that equation, then you have to do the thing. You can’t just say, oh, we really care about, you know, you have to, you have to come up with a plan you have or maybe you put it back on the person. Listen, I’m willing to send you to some of these seminars you’re describing, but I’m going to ask you to do the research on finding the ones that you would think would be the best fit for you. That’s OK. That’s a shared responsibility. But when they come back with the answer, you can’t say $400 or whatever that need. You gotta, you gotta be willing to or maybe give them a budget up front. Listen, this is what we have set aside. Can you, can you try to see if there’s something available that we, but, but have an open honest conversation with them and to find out what, what would be their career path, what would be, what do they want to accomplish in the, in the near and maybe if they know this much the long term of their career and see how you can play an active role in helping them get from where they are to where they want to be. And if you do that, I think you’re well on your way to people staying and having this listening culture I think is, is part of that. Uh Well, it helps people see a future too with the organization. That’s right that you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re working this plan that we’ve developed together and they see potential for themselves. Not that they’re in a dead end that they were hired as a development associate or AAA director and there’s nothing, there’s no, there’s no future for them beyond that. That’s right. They’re working in events to retire or die or move up. Sure. They’re working in events now, but they wanna, they wanna get into major gifts. They know that major gifts is the place to be or, or, or whatever as an example. So how can you transition them from where they are over time? They get more exposure to major gifts, maybe they’re not gonna become a major gifts officer or whatever. But like, hey, we’re gonna have you sit in with or we’re gonna have you learn how to do this and, and begin to kind of get them exposed. You have a small portfolio, we’ll start with a little portfolio of 15 or 20. And then you have more redundancy in the organization. Maybe your major gift person decides to walk out the door or they get hit by a bus or who knows what happens. Then you got somebody in your organization that could step in. So, but again, you’re not gonna know these things until you talk to folks and, and, and that’s the, that’s the end of the day. You’ve got to have quality time. You’ve got to have open dialogue. You can’t just tell them come to work and work hard. You got to figure out like, why are you coming to work? What are you hoping to accomplish? What do you want to learn? Where do you want to be? And I think if you can do that and then support people along the way, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll find your retention numbers moving in the right direction. The premise of the book is that it’s for new nonprofit leaders. And I think most of this that we’re talking about, if not, everything applies to uh uh applies to well, you know, well positioned long standing nonprofit CEO S as well. So I think some of this, you know, they, they may have heard it before, but it’s, it’s valuable to hear valuable advice, you know, uh repeated, you’re reminded of it. Um And sometimes, you know, I think your book transcends. Thank you. It’s, it’s purpose. Thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, II, I had a few people in mind when I wrote the book, some of the people that I’ve mentored along the way and it was sort of helpful for me to have a picture of them. When I was writing this book, this book is written in some ways as a conversation with them. But yes, I hope it applies more broadly. I hope it applies to board members. I think you’d be a much better board member having read this book knowing both the broader sense of how the nonprofit organizations function, but also having a better appreciation of what the executive director is going through so you can partner with them and support them. So there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of benefits to, to people that are other than just young nonprofit leaders reading the book. Let’s talk a little about building your volunteer community. Uh You make the point that volunteers, you know, the, the obvious advantage is they’re doing work, they’re not being paid for it and that can help you expand your, your capacity, uh maybe expand your programs if that’s appropriate based on what we, we talked about a few minutes ago. Um But also, you know, what, what do they get you? It’s a, it’s a value share. What’s their value proposition or what’s your, how do you say it? What’s your value proposition to your volunteers? That’s right. I think, I think you have to look at any relationship from both sides. And I think I try to, you know, provide that perspective in the partnership development chapter in this volunteer management chapter. You know, why are they coming to your organization and what do they hope to get out of it? Sometimes they are hoping to get out of it, special opportunities. You know, maybe they get to work with animals in a way that they could never work with animals otherwise. Or maybe they get to travel because you have a trip with your organization to some part of the world where they otherwise wouldn’t have exposure to that. So you have to understand and ask people, why do they, why do they decide to volunteer their time? And then, you know, think about how you can amplify their work. You know, whether it’s profiling your volunteers and some of your communications, whether it’s again, thinking about the volunteers sometimes are the best brand ambassadors. So make sure they understand what the organization really is. Maybe how they fit into their, how they fit into it. They might have come into the organization in one specific moment. Maybe it’s, you know, let’s, let’s say it’s um an organization working in food and security and they’re helping serve lunch one day that doesn’t give them a complete picture of what the organization is all about. So if you, if you can educate them on what the organization’s broader impact is, then they could tell story versus just, yeah, I made a sandwich for somebody and they, they didn’t go hungry on Friday. So, and I think volunteers have enormous potential. Volunteers can be converted into donors. Volunteers can be converted into board members. Volunteers can attract other people to your community. Um And, and so it’s important that we think about all the ways volunteers can be helpful, but it’s also important for us to understand all the myriad reasons that somebody might come to your organization and for you to, you know, be very intentional about creating uh opportunities for them to experience whatever they’re looking to experience. And so you’re, again, you’re only going to get that by, you know, it’s sort of like the managed by walking around thing, but going to your programs and interfacing with your volunteers talking to them. Why did you come today? Why did you choose? I love these? You know, you have some very basic questions to ask. What, what is it that you love about our work? Why did you come? Why do you spend your time here? People love to talk and, and so give them a couple of open end questions and, and learn to do something. I’m not particularly good at which is be quiet and listen. And um and then, but if you can do that, you’re gonna learn an incredible amount. And so give people the opportunity to talk, donors, volunteers, et cetera and they will tell you why your organization has meaning. And then you as the leader can figure out how to, how to bottle that up and, and use it to the best advantage of the organization so that you can grow the impact and help even more people. You wanna make sure also that you have the bandwidth, the capacity to uh train you train the volunteers, manage them appropriately. Um schedule follow up. You can’t just, you can’t just put out a call for volunteers without knowing that you can manage a volunteer. Ca That’s right. I mean, what is their experience going to be like when they show up? Are you organized or not? You know, did they get there and they spent an hour waiting around while somebody told them what to do or did you have a whole thought out approach for what was going to happen from the moment they got there because again, they’re forming an impression of your organization. The brand is being translated through that volunteer experience. And so you to engage volunteers takes a lot of work. By the way, in some situations, you can do the work more easily on your own because you know how to do it inside that you’ve been doing it for so long. But you realize if I had 20 people helping me, I could probably get more done. So how can I somehow systematize and train people effectively so they can come to my warehouse and you know, an organization like cradles to crayons, which provides, you know, clothing and necessary stuff for, for, for Children and young families, you know, they have volunteers that come and sort clothing by size and by gender and by this and by that, well, you’ve got to teach them your system in a short amount of time so that when they come to help do the work that you’re doing that they do it right. You don’t want to have to do their work nine times over. Otherwise it’s just rework and it’s not helpful. So what can you do? How much resources is it going to take from your organization? Do you need a full time staff person as a volunteer coordinator? Many organizations have that uh and sometimes it’s hard to justify that expense up front. But if you think about the, the impact that volunteers can have, again, this is very organization specific if volunteers are the right match for you. But in many organizations, that is the case that volunteers can be really helpful. The question is, can you make their experience positive for both the organization and for them, follow up with them appropriately, capture their information so that you can thank them so that you can communicate in the future when there’s another volunteer opportunity or, or what or when giving Tuesday comes up, you might want to ask your volunteers to help, support your work so that you can continue to grow and, and, and help even more folks. I like what I’m just gonna amplify something you mentioned. Um It struck me in the book that they, they’re your brand ambassadors from, from their first impression, the, the, their first half hour with you through multiple times that they come the way they’re treated, the way they’re followed up with. They, they can be very effective um evangelists and ambassadors for, for your work in the community. That’s right. And, and so that’s why you have to be very thoughtful about it. I’d like to move to um your, your final chapter is uh advice for new leaders, which as I said earlier, I think applies to all leaders. Um Share some of your own advice. Uh You know, I had some things I wanted to touch on but uh I’m feeling like less of a, a general manager now and more of a uh uh uh a more, more open approach. The general manager, that’s a sports thing. I was gonna have teams have managers, they do, the general manager usually decides, uh and, and figures out who’s gonna be on the team, they recruit the players to sign the contract and then who decides who’s gonna play full back or third day? Oh my God. Here you go. I mean, full back as a football person and third base as a baseball person. But yes, absolutely. So, advice for new leaders. What would you like to talk about? Well, it’s, you know, I, I asked the same question of all, each of the 22 folks that were uh subject matter experts were generous enough with their time to, to help me on this project. Um And so, while I talk to them about some very specific things in terms of their background, I asked them each this question about what advice would you give to somebody that’s either a new leader or new to an organization? Um And, and the most common answer was this notion of a listening tour, figuring out how to go around thoughtfully first to staff, to board, to donors, to partners and ask them some of these open ended questions. We just talked about, what does our organization do? Well, why are you, why do you support us in the way that you do? Do you think there’s anything that we could do better? Um, and really just get them talking and, and that’s how you can establish? First of all, that’s how you learn. Like, what’s the culture of the organization where, where the blind spots? What do you do? How are we perceived? How are you perceived? Maybe, maybe it’s inconsistent what we do, what we do hire, you’ve been hired somebody in the hiring committee, you were interviewed, you, you your way through that and now they gave you the job and now you’re like, well, now, why? And so the thing is you got to go find out what you just got yourself into because invariably you want have learned the true organization through that interview process unless you have been with the organization for 10 years and you just got promoted up from, you know, one level up to the executive director, let’s say you’re new um in that role or new to the organization. So these listening tours are fundamental um they’re vital and, and it enables you to learn about the organization and enables people to begin to develop a relationship with you to get a sense for who you are as a person. You’re coming to them without an agenda other than to learn and listen, you’re not telling them what your plan is. You may have a plan and they may even ask you what your plan is and you can tell them I have some of my own ideas and let me give you a couple of things, I’m thinking about them. But the reason I’m here today is to learn from you, you, you’ve been with the organization much longer than I have. So, you know, my thoughts might be preliminary. I’m here today to learn more about what you think. So turn it right back around as quickly as you can, right? Because you are here to listen. That’s right. All right. Um Self care CEO it’s lonely, it’s lonely at the top. It is. I mean, I’ve heard this theme over and over again that being a leader of a nonprofit organization could be a lonely job and there’s a couple of things that were suggestions that I think make a lot of sense, which is finding the cohort of other nonprofit leaders. Maybe it’s somebody that’s in your same community. Um Maybe it’s somebody need at a conference or something else. People that you can talk to about, maybe the struggles you’re having it. It’s a little bit of a therapy session. Sure. You do it over a glass of sauvignon blanc or you do it over coffee or you do it virtually doesn’t matter, but build time into your schedule to talk to other people that are kind of in the same role that you’re in. And what you might find is that some of the problems that you’re experiencing are also problems that they’re experiencing. And then you don’t feel like that somehow you’ve created this disaster and you’re the only one that’s been in it. I know it’s common and that gives you a sense of community and, and, and feeling a little bit better maybe. And then you’re also going to get potentially some really practical suggestions for how to move through that challenge. So that’s one particular suggestion, patience, patience for leaders. Well, and maybe this ties back in a little bit to, you know, this listening tour and being will may be willing to take a step back and learn before you might come up with an agenda and preset ideas of how you’re gonna put your plans in place and, and make the organization turn in one direction or another from the minute you hit the ground. But I think you need a certain level of patience to build relationships. You need a certain level of relationships to understand what the organization is good at and not good at. And then you need a willingness to understand that when you put changes in place that you may not see the immediate effects. But if they’re the right decisions for the long term, then you need to be willing to just let it take its natural force, setting up your successors, you’re setting up the organization and your successors and everyone for success and, and trying to get the fundamentally the right pieces in place. So where would you like to leave it? David? Uh spent a good amount of time. You uh I, I’m feeling egalitarian again. What would you like to leave us with? I, I’m just, I’m just delighted by the fact that, you know, people have responded well, that have read advanced copies of the book and I’m hopeful that I’m, I’m really excited to hear from people that read the book. I, I’m really hoping that this book has the effect that I’m intending. Um You know, this has been a really writing, a book is kind of a very vulnerable. Um There’s, there’s some big time impostor syndrome moments that come into play when you’re writing a book. Like, why am I, why am I writing this book. But as people have read the book and, and given me really good feedback, like, no, you were the exact right person to write this book, conversational, a bit of a sense of humor, a lot of experience, a lot of perspective. And so, um I, I don’t know, sometimes we have to get out of our comfort zone personally and professionally in order to grow. And I think writing this book was um that and um but I’m delighted that it’s, you know, the book is being released as we speak. And um I’m really excited to see what’s gonna happen because I don’t know, it’s a lot of unknowns, but I’m excited about the. Congratulations on the book. I, I appreciate that. And as far as I can tell, well, the book is excellent. Uh As far as I can tell, you’re, uh you know, a Stanley super series, uh celebrity star uh in all, whatever many sports that covers. Exactly Bravo and, and thank you. Thanks for taking time. My pleasure. The book is passion isn’t enough, a practical guide for nonprofit leaders. David’s company is dot dot org, which you’ll find at dot dot org.com and you’ll find David on linkedin David. I thank you very much again. Thanks for coming out to Serafina, sharing a glass of wine and uh your wisdom. It was a great pleasure. Thanks. Thank you. I’m glad next week, Stacy Palmer and Andrew Simon, the leaders of the chronicle of philanthropy. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

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