Mission-Driven Mergers

Tony Martignetti
Hello, welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I'm your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdomadal podcast. We have a listener of the week, Ross McCulloch from Glasgow, Scotland. Ross sent me a message on LinkedIn out of the blue, unsolicited, and he said, love the podcast. I asked him if he likes it as a concept or if he's a listener. Yeah, I like to probe these things. He said both, actually. So Ross loves the show as a concept and as a listener. Ross, Nonprofit Radio loves you back. You are our listener of the week. Thank you so much for your love of Nonprofit Radio. Oh, I'm glad you're with us. I'd be stricken with walleye If I saw that you missed this week's show. Here's our associate producer Kate with what's coming.

Kate Martignetti
Hey Tony, we have Mission-Driven Mergers. Dave LeVan shares the merger story of Water for Good and LifeWater International to reveal how to lead a nonprofit merger in a resource-constrained environment without sacrificing the mission. He explains the role of the board and C-suite, the importance of trust, the value of spirited conversation, and a lot more. His story has takeaways far beyond mergers for any period of uncertainty or change your nonprofit might face. Dave is CEO of Water for Good. On Tony's Take Two.

Tony Martignetti
Episode 790.

Kate Martignetti
Here is Mission Driven Mergers.

Tony Martignetti
It's a pleasure to welcome the president and CEO of Water for Good, Dave LeVan. Water for Good is a nonprofit that provides access to safe water, improved sanitation, and hygiene in 5 countries. For 5 years, Dave was CEO of LifeWater International and realized the opportunity to merge their work with Water for Good. 2 organizations became one to accelerate the good work being done individually. The nonprofit is at waterforgood.org, and you'll find Dave LeVan on LinkedIn. Welcome to Nonprofit Radio, Dave.

Dave LeVan
Thank you, Tony. It's good to be here.

Tony Martignetti
I'm glad you are. Thank you. Tell us the story of the merger of Water for Good with LifeWater International, and then we'll, we'll get into the broader lessons for everybody after. But like, give us the— give us a summary of the facts, the fact pattern, as we used to say in law school.

Dave LeVan
Yes, absolutely. Um, so we'll get into this later, but nonprofits are, are fairly rare in the, uh, Mergers are fairly rare in the nonprofit world compared to the for-profit world. And for us, we didn't actually start with the intent to merge. We started because both organizations were about the same size and they were both doing things a little bit differently. So Historic Lifewater, we had spent a lot of time really looking at being truly global, empowering folks with capacity and tools at the frontline. Um, and we had also done a big digital integration to connect people, 300 people across 5 countries. And so we were really strong in that. And then also our product, what we, what we actually do, we do a 3-year program and we've been producing results of 90% reduction in childhood diarrhea and over 90%, uh, flowing reliable water at any of our water points. So we had some really good processes. And systems. And we were talking to them because we were ready to accelerate and take all of that out to the broader world. And so we would have conversations about what conferences should we be at, who should we be talking to. So Water for Good had spent a lot of time really building their brand, getting to know all of the players in the sector, from academia through foundations, and You know, we're present at World Water Week and other events, but they were really looking at saying, how do we do a digital transformation of our organization? Because we're still using Excel spreadsheets, you know, with our financials and some of those things. So how did you do that? And so as we talked, we just started by saying, hey, you know, let's not both create the wheel. Let's just talk to each other. And the more we talked about it, we realized that we should connect. At some level. But even then, merger was one option. We talked about different ways to work together and that sort of thing. But it just sort of made sense and kind of deserving to say, hey, we might as well just put this all together. Otherwise, we're both going to spend time and investment doing and creating what the other one already has.

Tony Martignetti
What the other one— what the other one has. Yeah. One has a technological advantage and the other had broad reach.

Dave LeVan
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
All right, I didn't mean to cut you off. I was just—

Dave LeVan
Oh yeah, well, so that's— yeah, so that is where, uh, that's where the conversation started. From there, uh, we started with just myself and the other CEO talking about it, uh, embracing some of the awkward conversations like, hey, we only need one CEO, what does that look like? Um, yeah, then we brought in the conversation to our senior leader teams and said, this is what this could look like. There's a little duplication here. There's a little gap here. Might need to move some people around. And then we start the conversation with our board or our boards, because again, we needed buy-in at all levels. And so just had to spend some time to— we'd have a conversation, then we'd have some pause and some time for folks to think about it and come back with questions and challenges. So we spent about 6 months In those conversations, we finally set a date, went through due diligence and all of that. And then on January 1st, 2024, we officially merged.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. And what was the time period from the beginning of those 6 months? You said it was like 6 months of conversation and exploration from the beginning of that 6 months to the merger. How long was that?

Dave LeVan
So it was probably about 12 months of conversations. And at different levels, we, at different timeframes, we brought different people into the conversation. So it was probably a year or so before the actual date. And then sometime in the fall, we said, well, let's do it on January 1st. But even then, we didn't go public with it until February. We, we used some time internally to let the rest of the staff know this is what this is going to look like and to get our board and our senior leadership team ready for all of that.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, so was it roughly like 16 to 18 months, would you say, in total?

Dave LeVan
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, just give folks a sense of the, you know, the commitment of time and due diligence, as you mentioned. Okay. So it makes perfect sense. I mean, you can— the word synergy is often misused, but in this case, it does apply. You can see that each one had advancements and, and advantages that the other wanted and didn't have. So, right. So why not just bring us together so we can enjoy under one nonprofit the benefits of what we both have created separately? It seems to make very good sense. All right.

Dave LeVan
Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, I love that word synergy. It was really popular in the '80s, and I have kind of kept it going myself.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, but correctly, I hope, because people say like, you know, they'll— I hope you'll find synergy between you. That just means like, I hope you'll get along or you can help each other. But a synergy has to mean that the result is greater than the sum of the 2 points, in this case, the 2 parts. So what the 2 parts brought together, it was synergistic because now you had lots of duplication that you could eliminate. You eliminated a lot of overhead costs that were duplicate. So there was in fact a synergistic relationship. Yeah. Greater than the sum of the 2 parts. But that's a little bugaboo of mine, obviously. It's— I've spent too much time on it already. But, you know, I like to— language is a precise tool. I like to see it. I like to see words used correctly. So please, you know, just because you introduce 2 people doesn't mean there's synergy between them.

Dave LeVan
Absolutely.

Tony Martignetti
They have to merge their families, their work, you know, they're going to have to become very intimate together for there to be synergy. It's highly unlikely, actually, that there will be synergy between the 2 people that you introduce. It's very, very unlikely. So, please. All right. We had fun with the word synergy. All right. So, what are some of the broad lessons? What would you like folks to take away now? Because, you know, the vast majority of our listeners are not going to be involved in a merger, most likely. But what should they be— maybe I should ask it this way first. Like, what should we be keeping our ears open for that might result in— look, if it doesn't result in an actual merger, but maybe some kind of other Partnership, joint venture, you know, joint program? What should we be attuned to listening for, watching, looking out for?

Dave LeVan
Yeah, that's a great, a great question. So, you know, last time I checked there, you know, there's 2 sources. One says there's 1.4 million nonprofits in the US, another says 1.9. There's a lot. Yeah. And 90% are, uh, under a million dollars in revenue. And so I think there's a lot of opportunity. If it were for-profit, where I spent a bunch of my career, even you could see fierce competitors that Because of a profit margin, they'd say, wow, we should, we should come together because we can actually make more money together. I think in the nonprofit world, the first thing I would say is just being open to the possibility of connecting, whether it's in a joint venture, a merger. And, and I think sometimes we can get so locked into our own, not just our mission, but, but everything about it, the name, All of the other things. So in this coming together, we had to stay focused on the vision, and our vision is to bring more water to more people, more sanitation to more people. So our long-term vision is that that's not an issue. Our short-term vision is to double our impact. So in order to do that, to go from 1.3 million people served to 2.6, we had to do things differently, and we couldn't do it alone. And so Being open to that conversation of a potential merger collaboration that's deeper than just saying we collaborate with each other, we share ideas, that goes— that actually becomes to be more synergistic, right? Using the, using the term, it's not just we're talking about it, we're actually doing something that affects the outcome that we're able to produce. And I think that would be the first thing. And then just looking at the What opportunities will advance the mission of the organization? And I think there's a lot of room in there, in, in the nonprofit sector, for organizations to consider merging, uh, to consider working at a deeper level to actually achieve more and to cut costs. We cut like $3 million out of our overhead. That's $3 million that can go to serve more people. In addition to that, we're able to increase Even during the integration, we were able to increase the number of people served ever so slowly in those years, but we continued to serve more people more effectively. And I think that would be a message I would want out there in the nonprofit sector to say, hey, start considering ideas and options. And there's a lot of barriers to why organizations don't. I had lots of phone calls after we announced the merger. From colleagues and friends who are leading nonprofits. But the gist of it was, hey, you know, we almost merged. Let me tell you about the time we almost merged. So, you know, my, uh, my enthusiasm would be, you know, to say to people, hey, you know, what stopped you? And what, what, what's blocking that from happening? Uh, and to just look kind of openly at what, what is out there that's causing organizations not to work closer together, not to be able to create more value for every dollar that they

Tony Martignetti
In, in your sample of non-scientific— what did— what did— non-scientific survey— what did you hear as the reasons people, uh, the nonprofits didn't merge?

Dave LeVan
Well, I think in any time there's a merger, uh, everybody has to give something up, right? So Lifewater, at that time I had been with Lifewater. Lifewater was actually a 47-year-old organization. Great organization, great legacy, great history. And Water for Good was actually a younger organization. So putting the 2 together made sense, and we honored the history of both. It became like a joint history. But in that process, we had to give up a name that was near and dear to many, many donors, board members, folks like myself who worked at the organization. Yeah. And so it's trading off, giving that up. On the other side, Water for Good constituency had to say, hey, who's this new CEO? And why are we doing things this way now? And so I think in the merger, both organizations had to give something up for something better. And at that point, it's only the hope of something better. I think sometimes organizations get bogged down at that very level, like, uh, who's— what's the name going to be? Well, we don't want to give up our name. What's— who's going to be the CEO? Well, we have one, you have one. How's that going to work? Um, and I think it's getting beyond those things, or we have a way of doing things, um, and yours is different. Um, and so it's— I think getting those things get in the way instead of just the mission to serve people with water sanitation and hygiene until there's no people left on the planet that need that. And this helps accelerate that. So I think that's where the— in my experience, from the folks that I talked with.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. All right. Sacrifice, compromise. How did you manage the— I mean, you could have gone with co-CEOs. But maybe that may— well, no, this is not that reason. Yeah. I mean, I've had at least one guest on were co-CEOs. Um, but you didn't— obviously didn't go that way. What— how did you work out the, the, the conundrum of the, the 2 CEOs being reduced by 50%?

Dave LeVan
The 2 of us were in the room and we were talking and we were whiteboarding what it might look like if we came together and what the different options were. We even talked about like a, um, a center of excellence, creating that together, and then both working with it. We talked about lots of different options, joint ventures, but at the end of the day, it was coming clear that we thought merger was the best. So we basically just talked about what made sense, what our different experience levels were, what— where we both were in life. We're at different points in life, different outcomes, and then we decided to sleep on it. And the next morning we came back to the whiteboard and we talked about it again. And I think for— we both looked at it and we both were in 100% agreement of how it should go. And the former CEO of Water for Good actually took the opportunity to help us through the transition and then move into another industry. And that was better for him at that time. So we just kind of talked through it and came up. With a couple scenarios and a couple solutions for the organization, what that might look like.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. So in this case, it was it was a life choice that the the previous CEO of Water for Good was willing to make and ready ready to make after the transition to to step into another career. So that that kind of makes it a little that kind of makes it a little easier.

Dave LeVan
Well, and we had that conversation.

Tony Martignetti
I'm afraid of a situation where we both want to be CEO.

Dave LeVan
Right. And we had that conversation, just the two of us. Like, we didn't bring other leaders. Yeah, I guess, right.

Tony Martignetti
This is the two— this was—

Dave LeVan
it wasn't a popularity contest. It— because we both truly care about each other. And so it was just, hey, if this isn't— like, we don't need to take it any further if we both can't come to the same conclusions or where this might make sense. I think both of us were willing to walk away if that was what was best for the organization, and both of us were willing to stay. And then we just talked through why it made sense for us to do it the way we did it.

Tony Martignetti
How about getting the boards on board, um, the C-suite, and, and then below? You know, you've got to, you got to get a lot of bot— well, look, everybody's not a decision maker. The, the CEO and the board are the decision makers, and maybe some influence from the C-suite, but they're not, they're probably not the ultimate decision makers. It's gonna be the CEO and the board. So before we go, before we go below the C-suite, 'cause I do wanna talk about those folks too, you know. Sure. They're, they're, they're the most fearful for losing their jobs, or, well, the C-suite could lose their jobs too. We don't need 2 CFOs. We don't need 2 CMOs and CIOs and whatever, you know, so How do you, uh, how do you get people past their potential objections, get the buy-in? We also don't need 2 full boards, I don't think, right? Unless you, unless you brought— unless 2 12-person boards became one 24-person board. I don't know. Talk through the upper level before we get to the middle managers and the, and the folks actually doing the work on the ground.

Dave LeVan
Yeah, no, you've mentioned a lot of the, the comp— conversations that we had to have. There's—

Tony Martignetti
Yeah.

Dave LeVan
We didn't really find a playbook for this. It wasn't like, oh, turn to page 3, this is how you do this part. Uh, and so we started with our senior leadership team. We started bringing them along, um, in some cases knowing this was going to happen. So at Lifewater, we needed a chief development officer, uh, early. We were— we already were looking, um, and we put that on pause because We knew that in 12 months we might be merging and they, there was a good chief development officer. And if we hired someone, then we'd have to figure out another job or let somebody go. So there was some of that where we both organizations did not hire knowing we're having the conversations, which actually put some strain on the individual organizations in the, the year leading up to that. Mm-hmm. Um, to have those, uh, holes or those gaps. And then when we just talked to folks, so we had a development person who was gonna report to a development person on the other side. Right? And they're used to reporting. I think he reported to me. And so just start having the conversations and giving some time and some space so that it wasn't like an announcement on a day. 6 months of let's talk about it, let's talk about why. In those cases, we had conversations about the strengths of multiple leaders and why one, it made more sense to have this role, one made more sense to have this role. And so we had a lot of those conversations. with the C-suite because I really wanted to have our leadership, senior leadership team on board and really all like when we started talking to the rest of the organization that we were all like-minded. So we spent a lot of time meeting, talking about these things and talking about what we thought this needed to look like, even the name. At that point, we were thinking this made more sense because you can go with LifeWater, Water for Good, or something new. But we really, the brand equity with Water for Good was strong. We decided that, but systems, names, things like that, we started talking about with the organization as far as roles and structure. And so that was the C-suite kind of bringing them along and really all of our, at that next level of leadership, we brought all of them in on the conversation. And then—

Tony Martignetti
Okay, I want to stop you there. Hold on. All right. So what about the difficult ones? All right. So you gave an example of the easy one. One had a CDO and the other didn't. So, Lifewater held off. Okay. But what about— weren't there 2 CFOs? 2 COOs. Give us the hard case where you had 2 duplicate C-suite officers.

Dave LeVan
Absolutely. And I think we were pretty transparent on what— we painted a picture of here's what we're going to need, right? Because now you're an organization that's twice as large. as you were before. So the leaders you have on both sides, uh, are they ready to lead at that level, at that next level? Um, because in some cases we were also thinking we might need a new position, right? Somebody who's got broader experience than even that, that can bring it to our organization. Um, so, uh, we just had some really candid conversations. There were some leaders, uh, I think one of the things that happens is There are people on both sides that use that as an option to opt out, right? Because they were really excited about the organization, what they were doing, but they're not as excited about the merger. And that's fine. We had very transparent conversations about that. That's okay. If you were great, you helped us bring us to this point in the journey. But if you want to go use this as an opt-out, Um, to go this way a little bit instead of this way, that's great. And so we had a lot of those heart-to-heart conversations. We had a few where it was like, well, why am I reporting to that person? Um, and we just had to have conversations again. We had to go back to, here's where we want to be as an organization. That's what I would say, Tony, is like focusing on the vision. This is the picture of what we want to look like as the new Water for Good. And to get there, here's what we need. And this is why we believe this is the right— Structural solution.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, but why? But, but, but I don't agree. I, I want to— I want to— she should be reporting to me. I, I should not be reporting to her. I, I agree with the vision. I want to stay. I don't want to— I don't want to use this as an opt-out, but I don't agree. I, I think I have superior experience and I'm a better whatever than, than she is. Why, why are you— why do you believe— why are you making me report to her?

Dave LeVan
Wow, Tony, I'm getting PTSD right now of conversations.

Tony Martignetti
I want to get to the tough— I like the tough situation, you know.

Dave LeVan
Absolutely. No, I think it's why—

Tony Martignetti
tell me why. Why? This is not fair. It's not fair.

Dave LeVan
Absolutely. No, uh, I— this, this is why we gave it some time, right? Because everybody has to process. And so we had the conversations, and candidly, at some points we just had to say, this is what we think is best for us moving forward. And I acknowledge and understand that you don't necessarily agree with that move. Fortunately, we didn't have too many of those. But ultimately, it's just acknowledging that their opinion is valid, but it's not the opinion that we think. And here's why we believe in the stance that we're taking. And in some cases, that causes a person to leave the organization. That would happen even in a non-merger situation where you're growing the organization. And let's say your director of marketing or sales or whatever got you to this point. Yeah. But they're not the person for the future. You'd have that same conversation. It's just, uh, it's accentuated in a merger. There's more of those happening. And so it's just being patient, but also letting the person know that they're heard, right? It's not like you're wrong and I'm right. It's more, these are 2 valid opinions. Here's why we believe this is what's best for the organization. And then giving some time. So in some cases, uh, one I can think of with the, the person Initially didn't think they should move in their reporting. They did, and it turned out to be really healthy, and they developed a really strong relationship. Some cases that happened. In other cases, the person said, hey, you know, I think I'll use this as an opportunity to go and do this other thing over in another organization. And we needed some of that, frankly, because the opt-out— we had to eliminate some jobs. So when— It's not necessarily a bad thing when people opt out. From a personal level, it might be somebody you really liked and you're sad you're not gonna see them as often. But from an organizational level, that actually is healthy, I think, in a merger because you've got to eliminate some jobs anyway, and you've gotta create some time and space to figure out what are those jobs that you're gonna eliminate.

Tony Martignetti
Alright. Well, thank you for taking on the PTSD with the, with the hard, the hard ques— the hard, the, the hard case. The hard case.

Kate Martignetti
It's time for Tony's Take Two. Thank you, Kate.

Tony Martignetti
This is episode 790, which leaves us a mere 10 episodes, a mere 10 weeks away from episode 800, the 800th show, the 16th anniversary Of Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. That's this podcast, this one, the one you're listening to right now. That's this. 2010, we started July 2010. Unbelievable. 16 years later, we're creeping up on show number 800. You know that I am grateful that you are with us. Through the years, through the, through the decades, or the, the decade, through the decade point 6. We have 1.6 decades, and I'm glad you're with us. Thank you. Thank you for listening. The show would not be without its listeners. There's a word for, uh, a podcast that nobody listens to: diary, right? Diary. This is not a diary. This is a bona fide podcast. So thank you for not letting this lapse into, uh, letting it fail into, uh, being— becoming a diary. It's not the Nonprofit Radio Diary. It's the Nonprofit Radio Podcast because we have you as a listener. I thank you very much for that. So 10 more weeks and we will be celebrating the 16th anniversary and the 800th show. And that is Tony's Take Two. Kate?

Kate Martignetti
For the 800th show, we should get a little sneak peek at Tony Martignetti's diary.

Tony Martignetti
I don't think that's a very good idea. No, I'm vetoing. I'm vetoing that idea. But I don't, I don't, I don't. I don't have a diary. She's— you're probably thinking, yeah, you're just saying that so I, I dropped the subject. But no, I really don't have a diary. But if I did, I still wouldn't think, uh, that's a very good idea.

Kate Martignetti
Not very interesting.

Tony Martignetti
What about the associate producer's diary? How about that? How about you open your— I'll open your, your diary book.

Kate Martignetti
No, I, I can't say that I have one. I wish I was into journaling. I got like a scrapbook.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, yeah, how convenient. Yeah. We've heard that recently. I think it was about 15 seconds ago.

Kate Martignetti
We've got beaucoup buttloads more time. Here's the rest of Mission-Driven Mergers with Dave LeVan.

Tony Martignetti
How about the board? Talk about the 2 boards.

Dave LeVan
Yeah. So we smashed them together, Tony. We had about— we had like 20 people. And what we did is, again, um, there were a few folks—

Tony Martignetti
20 between the two? Between the two, yes.

Dave LeVan
It was about 10 and 10. And there were a few folks on, on either board that were overcommitted and said, hey, you know, so we kind of left an out, like, hey, if you've overcommitted and this is one of many things and you want to use this as an opportunity. So we had a few people do that, and we ended up with somewhere between 18 and 20. And what we decided is That we would just start out that way. I wouldn't necessarily make that a recommendation for everyone, but for us it seemed to work. We had a, you know, it's a volunteer, volunteer boards, very committed boards, and we didn't want to ask somebody to step off. So we just said, hey, this is going to be a little more challenging, but we want all of your opinions and what you bring to this merger because it will add value to who we become and where we're going with that. So we did that and it took us a couple years, but actually last year We had to, in the last year and a half now, we've had to add 4 new members. So we're down to, you know, we try to keep between 11 and 13 in that range. And so, yeah, for a couple of meetings, we also took the 2 board chairs and said, okay, we're gonna have co-chairs, which again, from a CEO perspective, I'm not recommending that in every situation. In this situation, I knew our board chair well. I also happen to know their board chair through another channel. And so there was a lot of trust between the 3 of us. And we just said, hey, you know what, let's just do this. Let's, for the first year or so, let's just have co-chairs. And the one chairman was timing out on his time on the board anyway. So we just decided to go that route. It actually worked well for us. Because then it wasn't, uh, it wasn't about eliminating a bunch of people, uh, through the board. We got a lot of good information as we transitioned, as we put documents together for governance, good information from both sides that we could put together into our new governance going forward.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, cool. So, so you did take on the, the co— the co-model on the, on the board chair?

Dave LeVan
We did. And the other thing—

Tony Martignetti
Not the CEO though. The CEO, one of you had to go. No, I understand. One was ready. One One of you, you were the survivor. The, the, I don't know, the, this, what, what are the, the victor writes the history or something? No, I'm sure you're giving us the accurate history. No, one person did want, one CEO did want to go. All right. That's good. So, co-CEOs, I mean, co-board chairs. Co-board chairs.

Dave LeVan
Co-board chairs. Yeah. And then the other thing we did is we just left time. We would have conversations. Uh, I would say keeping the conversations focused, focused on the vision. Here's where we want to go. We want to serve more people more effectively. This is why we think this makes sense. And then allowing board members to kind of vet whatever it would be like, oh, we should use LifeWater as a name, or oh, we should keep this system over here that Water for Good had, whatever it was that was near and dear to them, just giving them an opportunity to kind of express. And I guess it'd be experiencing the loss, right? Because there's a loss for both sides, but it's with the hope of something better. And so to keep focusing on that something better, and to bring it into fruition, it's worth giving this up because of that. And so we just focused on that. And then we would have conversations, we'd leave some time and space for people to process and write down their thoughts and then get back together. And sometimes we would just deviate into a conversation needed to happen about something about vision, values, mission, what was that gonna look like?

Tony Martignetti
Hmm.

Dave LeVan
And we would just let it go down a trail, which typically in a board meeting, you would bring that back and get back to point. But sometimes we let that happen just so people could get kind of their feelings out as a board. I remember one meeting we had—

Tony Martignetti
So they can be heard, like you were saying.

Dave LeVan
They can be heard. They can be heard. Yes.

Tony Martignetti
And these big picture questions are magnified when you're bringing the 2 nonprofits together.

Dave LeVan
Absolutely.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. It's valuable to have this introspective conversation. digressing conversations about values and mission and scope. And yeah, this is a valuable exercise when you're working through a merger.

Dave LeVan
Absolutely. And I'd love to say we got it all right and it was just perfect and smooth. That would be a myth. But I think what we did by that space and by learning and iterating as we went is We were able to tackle some of the bigger issues a little bit earlier rather than being surprised by them later. We were able to just— let's just talk about this because this is something that could be awkward. And that's the one thing I was thinking about, like the transparency discussions at those meetings, both with the senior leaders and with the board, specifically thinking about what are the elephants in the room going to be at that conversation.

Tony Martignetti
Hmm.

Dave LeVan
And not waiting until they came up. Let's just talk about this. This is— this could be awkward, but we need to talk And so we really focused on those conversations as much as we could to address those at the front of the conversation.

Tony Martignetti
All right. Now let's bring the elephants in the room with the conversation with middle managers and folks functionally doing the work on the ground. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job.

Dave LeVan
Absolutely. It's a big fear. Here's the, the thing is we tried to overcommunicate, right? So there was some initial— some leaders did it better than others. Some leaders brought their teams along. Here's what the change is going to look like. You're going to be reporting here. This job might be eliminated. Like, they, they had conversations. Others didn't bring leader, uh, folks along quite as well. And so you had all, all kinds of reactions. Um, but I think the biggest one is fear. Yeah. Right. You know, Brené Brown says if you have 2 pieces of, you know, 2 points of data, you're gonna take the darkest, deepest road, and it's always gonna be the worst-case scenario that you build in your mind. So, so knowing this, we just talked about, you know, communicate, communicate, communicate. Have the conversations, even if you don't know all the answers. Have— embrace the conversation. Say, you know what, I don't know the answer to that one. I'm gonna have to get back to you. Have the transparency to say, you know what, the role that you had was titled this, That's not a job anymore. I think you could do this. Let's— can we explore that together? Uh, we had a couple of roles like that, um, and some were successful, some were— I think it's successful either way, but some we discovered that that is a role and that person has a heart and a passion and skill set for that role. In others, maybe it is a role, but that person is like, yeah, you know what, I, I appreciate that, but I don't think that's where I'm meant to be. And so, you know, so then they, you know, would go to another organization perhaps and do what they were doing before. But it was having those conversations. Again, Tony, we didn't get it all right. But it's embracing that, embracing the fact that employees might even be angry, right? They'll be like, why'd you do that? I like it the way it was. Mm-hmm. And, and again, it's not a right or wrong. It's not like you're wrong, I'm right. It's just more of, yeah, there's different opinions. This is why we're doing this. Again, focusing on the, the, the vision. This is how we advance our mission. This is how we serve more people more effectively. We said that phrase a million times in those 2 years. This is how we believe we can serve more people more effectively. And that's essentially what we're here for. That's our mission. Uh, and so we kind of went back to that and then valued opinions and then just work with whatever the situation turned out to be. If it was somebody taking a new role, helping them get the training, the opportunity to fail fast, to learn the role. The other thing I will say is they were in one country, Central African Republic. Water for Good was in one country, Central African Republic. Lifewater was in 4, 4 different countries. So we didn't see a huge turnover of our country teams, and most of our employees are in One of the countries that we were in. And so it was mostly our US staff that felt that, but it was very real for the US staff to feel that. And so, yeah, lots of patience, lots of conversations, lots of listening times. Yeah, yeah. And validation, validating employees' views, whether it was ultimately what you did or not as an organization, but validating that what they're feeling and thinking is good and it's not It's just different from where we're going.

Tony Martignetti
Our conversation has value beyond mergers. Any kind of significant change in the organization might be taking on a new program, adopting a new revenue model, I don't know, maybe even a new CEO, you know, whatever could be a culture shift in an organization. I think everything you're saying is germane to any of those, any of those episodes in a nonprofit's life.

Dave LeVan
Yeah, for sure. Change is hard. And change, change always brings fear to people. That's the immediate reaction. Yeah, fear. Like, what's the worst-case scenario? And you have to keep reminding them of the best-case scenario. And I say them, I actually love to change stuff. I mean, in my, if I look at my history of my career, It's a lot of change management. But I'll tell you what, I still go to fear when it's changes that are affecting me. And then I have to come out of that and say, well, what's, what's the positive side of this? Where are we really going with this? And what's interesting is in LifeWater, we had gone through, we had gone through a lot of changes right before the merger. The merger was '24 and '25. That's when we did all the integration. But I would say coming out of COVID through almost right up to that time, At Lifewater, we had decided we're gonna be more global. So we moved about 40% of our headquarters jobs became jobs in the countries that we worked. So our director of engineering, instead of being in the US with 7 other engineers, we basically moved all of our engineers are either from Addis Ababa, Tanzania, Uganda, and they're at more— they're closer to the work. So truly being global, the digital integration, like here's the system, here's how we want you to use it. I think we launched 5 new systems. So we had gone through a lot of change at LifeWater, but we did all that because we wanted to hear voices. We wanted to connect people. That whole idea of listening, we launched this BambooHR. So our teams are in some of the most remote parts of Africa where people don't have water and don't have sanitation. That's where they're walking alongside communities. And so we're— we want them to be able to connect. We still want their voice to be heard. We still want to have a pulse survey that says, how valued do you feel? How engaged are you? What equipment? What do you need to do your job better? We do quarterly conversations like that so that we can know and hear all of those voices. We launched software like Asana so that all of our engineering projects across the world, instead of it being a one-way street to an engineer in, say, in the US, That's all open to everyone. So if I'm in Cambodia, I can see how their engineering projects in Tanzania— I can learn from that. I can then connect with my colleagues because I have the tools to do that. And then if I'm feeling like I don't have the tools, I can, I can, I can reach right out to the CEO through Asana. In fact, I can assign him a task if I want. And he may say, I don't, I don't have time for this, or can I give this to Tim? Or can I give this to Beth? Or can I give this to, you know, someone else? But trying to create that culture, uh, and that was a major shift for us as an organization. So we had gone through a lot of change even coming to that point. Uh, so for, for the LifeWater side, it was adding another country and continuing that process. For Water for Good, it was probably where it— what it felt like for LifeWater 3 years prior.

Tony Martignetti
Let's expand out beyond the teams, which became a team, donors and volunteers. When did you bring them into the conversation? And what was the— I guess the messaging was consistent. This is where we want to go, and this is how we think we can serve more people more efficiently. But when did you start bringing in donors and volunteers in your messaging?

Dave LeVan
Yeah, that, that's a great question. So we went, uh, we went senior leaders, board, kind of in the, you know, pre-merger. In the merger, we actually then went to some key donors and foundations first with individual conversations, kind of going through the same conversation. And then we kind of ultimately sent out a bunch of announcements, uh, and had lots of phone calls and lots of conversations. I will say this, There's always a pause. And I, I, I saw this in the for-profit world, right? Like, 2 companies merge, customers pause for a second. They're like, is that still going to be the product and service and the company I believed in? Like, what's coming out of that, right? And so we— I would say to a donor, to each donor I've talked to, and it's been lots in the last 2 years, every single one of them said, yeah, we paused for a moment. Yeah. Because we were former Water for Good and we wanted to make sure that this was still going to be what we believed and what we loved about Water for Good, or we were former LifeWater and we wanted to still make sure this is what we believed and loved about LifeWater. So that would be one takeaway I would give to any listener here. If you're considering a merger, consider the fact that you are going to have donors pause. Now, some paused and still gave in that year. Others paused and didn't give in '24 and they decided to wait in '25 and then they got back on board. But there is a pause. Yeah. And I think it's a legitimate pause because they want to make sure this is the organization that I believed in to begin with. So we've had lots and lots of conversations with donors. We've had town halls, we've had lots of calls, lots of visits. What is fascinating to me is you can't overcommunicate because even with that, you know, as late as fall of last year, we still had a few donors that said, oh, did you merge? Yeah. And so, you know, again, it's, it's helping them, just like our staff and our board, helping them see the vision for— this is why we did this, because when you donate a dollar now, that will serve so many more people than it will. And so we— what's kind of cool is for '24 and '25, our strategic plan really was an integration plan. This is all the things we have to do to get these organizations. And Tony, it's everything from— Yeah. We have 2 really good mission statements and they sound pretty similar, but what's gonna be the mission statement of this new organization? And it, it's gonna take those parts and the values and, you know, all of that. And so what's been really exciting from a donor's perspective is those 2 years, it's an integration plan and donors don't get as excited about, hey, help us integrate. But out of that, now we're able to prove out this is why this makes sense. Our strategic plan now is literally in the next 3 years, We served, uh, just over 1.3 million people this past year. We believe that we can serve up to 2.6 million by the— by 3 years from now. And part of that is bringing these assets together, um, moving more of our capacity to Africa, uh, and then expanding the way that we serve. And so now we're taking that out to donors, and that's far more exciting. But during the merger itself, it's a lot of, here's why we're merging, here's where we're going. Now we can actually show them in this plan, this is We couldn't have done this without merging, but now we can take these assets and we can actually serve more people more effectively. This is how we do it in the next 3 years.

Tony Martignetti
Did you see a pause among lower-level donors, maybe your monthly sustainers, $50, $100 a month? Did you see pausing there too, as well as the major donors?

Dave LeVan
Less. There was less pausing there, and I think they I can't get in every donor's mind, but I suspect that's because they could see the information that we were sending and they could see that, wow, that sounds a lot like what I saw before, only better.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, and it's close enough. And look, if they're not a major donor, they're not into your programs as deeply. They may just— they like the concept of The broader— they like the broader picture versus your major donors who may be giving to specific programs or specific countries, programs in a country. You know, are you going to keep this up in Tanzania or you're not? You know, that— I'll pause for that reason versus, I guess, your lower-level donors who are committed to the work but not as— just not as detailed knowledge of it.

Dave LeVan
Yeah, I think you're exactly right. So anybody who is tied into a specific thing. And actually, it tends to be more your major donors, but actually we have some at all levels that are really tied into Tanzania or Central African Republic.

Tony Martignetti
Got

Dave LeVan
it. And we do have a couple of, uh, a few major donors who say, hey, we love the work you do. We're not necessarily tied into this country, this country, or this country. Um, but the more tied in a donor was to a specific thing we did in a specific place, the more there was a chance that they would pause and you'd have more conversations because they wanted to be reassured that we're going to continue doing that

Tony Martignetti
Still committed.

Dave LeVan
Absolutely. And the cool thing is, like I said, even in those 2 years of integration, and we wanted to, but we didn't know if it'd be possible, we were able to move the bar up and actually serve a few more people in both those years than we had the year before, which is really, really exciting. And now we can accelerate that growth. But even during the transition, which was messy and chaotic, but even during that transition, we were able to serve more people. So I think donors were able to see that, oh yeah, you're still doing that. You're still serving all those people in Ethiopia.

Tony Martignetti
I hear a through line in all these conversations at all the different levels that we just talked about, and then expanding out to the donors and volunteers, is trust. Trust. All these conversations, people trusted you, whether it was an email to a $50 a month sustainer, or it was the board, the 2 CEOs of the board. Yeah. Or chairs, I'm sorry, the 2 chairs of the board, the 2 co-CEOs, the way they're the, the 2 CEOs, you all need to be, you all need to trust each other.

Dave LeVan
Absolutely. And, and trust, I wouldn't say trust is broken in a merger, it's disrupted in a merger, it's clouded over in a merger because it's like, wait a minute, this is different, this is a big move. And so as the dust settles, they have to say, okay, I get it, this is the same thing I bought into before and I trust And some of that, some of that, like you said, is it, it's as simple as they see an announcement, they read about it, they see a video. Other folks we had multiple conversations with, you know, and let them ask the probing questions that they had or the concerns that they had. And again, I think you said it earlier, but that goes with all change, right? A merger just is a huge change. Yeah. But with all changes that we have made as an organization, It's the same thing. It disrupts that trust and say, wait a minute, is this still— are you still doing that? And is that still reliable? And is childhood diarrhea still being reduced? Are water points still functioning at 90%? Are these things still happening? And so, yeah, it's kind of reassuring that, yes, these are still happening and more.

Tony Martignetti
I really appreciate the the broader value of our conversation beyond mergers. I'm probably still going to call it something mergers, like mission-driven mergers or something. But there is— I'm going to make sure the notes say that there are takeaways that apply across any organization, any organization kind of change, transition, uncertainty, All these— I think everything we're talking about and the kinds of conversations you're revealing are essential to any kind of cultural change.

Dave LeVan
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you hit it too with uncertainty. I mean, anytime there's uncertainty, it's again just being reassured that, yes, this is an organization, a process that you can trust. It's really, really important as far as an organization. Again, I'd like to say we got every one of those situations right. We worked hard to make sure we overcommunicated, uh, and that nobody was left behind. Um, and we're still having— we're still 2 years, 2 years in, are still having some of those conversations. The nice thing now is we can actually tie it to this plan where we can show, uh, donors and partners, this is how we can actually serve more people. So now we did all that work, we built it up to how we wanted, and now this is how we can actually serve more people more effectively over the next 3 years.

Tony Martignetti
Ties back to the mission.

Dave LeVan
100%.

Tony Martignetti
Dave LeVan, President and CEO of Water for Good. They're at waterforgood.org. Dave is on LinkedIn. I hope you'll accept my connection request if we're not already connected. Dave, I enjoyed the conversation very much. Great value. Again, as I said, beyond mergers, but an interesting, good story too. Good. You got a lot of You got a lot of energy around the story. I love it. Donors, listeners should see you like moving into the mic and getting energetic. Your hand flails around, which I love. I admire Italian. I can't stop. If you tied my hands, I'd be silenced. Now, you got a lot of passion for the story too. I appreciate you bringing all that to us. Thank you.

Dave LeVan
Thank you, Tony. Thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate getting to know you.

Kate Martignetti
Next week, back to our coverage of the 2026 Nonprofit Technology Conference with DAF's 2026 Benchmark Report and Dashboards as Functional Powerhouses. If you missed any part of this week's show,

Tony Martignetti
I beseech you, find it at tonymartignetti.com.

Kate Martignetti
Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I'm your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. The show's social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein.

Tony Martignetti
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.