Nonprofit Radio for June 27, 2022: The Chronicle of Philanthropy Will Go Nonprofit

 

Stacy Palmer: The Chronicle of Philanthropy Will Go Nonprofit

The Chronicle is taking a bold step, from privately held to nonprofit. Why? What does that mean for journalism that covers our community locally and nationally? What can you expect for webinars and professional development? Editor Stacy Palmer answers all the questions.

 

 

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[00:01:46.74] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of borelli assis if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, the Chronicle of philanthropy will go non profit The Chronicle is taking a bold step from privately held to non profit why what does that mean for journalism that covers our community locally and nationally? What can you expect for webinars and professional development editor, Stacy palmer answers all the questions. non tony steak too. This is show # 597. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o And by 4th dimension Technologies IT in for in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D Just like three D but they go one dimension deeper here is the Chronicle of philanthropy will go non profit it’s my pleasure to welcome back Stacy palmer to non profit radio she is editor at the Chronicle of philanthropy. She’s been editor since the chronicle’s founding in 1988. Stacey welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:01:49.19] spk_1:
delighted to be with you again it’s

[00:02:21.34] spk_0:
a real pleasure thank you, Thank you um and I want to Disclose to listeners that I was a podcast publisher For the chronicle of philanthropy for about four years I published their fundraising fundamentals podcast. So Stacy early May you, you had a little announcement, a little, a little thing. You leaked something out about the Chronicle going non profit So what’s this? What’s this little bit of news about?

[00:03:34.74] spk_1:
Thank you for asking about that. So we’re very excited about the fact that we’ve been working on a growth plan. Um, and one of the things that we realized we wanted to do more of is to influence how nonprofits are covered by the mainstream media. And so we are doubling down on a lot of the work we do to help nonprofit professionals, but also expanding our mission to do even more to make sure that other journalists are paying attention to nonprofits and foundations and giving them really the attention that they deserve. Um, so our mission is growing and our staff is growing. Um, and as a result of that, we decided that it was time for us to move out of the organization that now houses us, which is the Chronicle of Higher Education. We’re going to go independent and part of going independent is deciding that a non profit structure makes more sense that way. We’ll be in tune with what our readers are experiencing and doing every day. Um, and so, you know, it was sort of two separate decisions, how do we grow and what status do we want to have? Um, and we examined it pretty closely and decided nonprofit status was right for us. So now we have the I. R. S examining our requests to become a charity. So we are not officially that yet. We are in that waiting period.

[00:03:47.34] spk_0:
All right. You’re not just gonna be attuned to what nonprofits are going through day to day. You’re going to be enjoying it, enjoying it and suffering it with them. So there’s gonna come a day when there’s gonna be a donate now button on the Chronicle of philanthropy website.

[00:03:58.94] spk_1:
We haven’t decided what we’re doing about that piece of it, but money from foundations, mostly

[00:04:17.04] spk_0:
foundation. Okay, sure. Um, and you are going to be executive director of the new the new non profit Okay. How does that coincide with being editor of the Chronicle?

[00:04:21.91] spk_1:
So we’ll be hiring an editor to take my place. Um and obviously I’ll be working really closely with that person. Um, but we need to make sure that we have somebody else who is day to day thinking about our coverage. Um, so that I can do all of the things that the nonprofit needs to make sure we run well and do things and you know, develop these other partnerships. So I’ll be doing a lot of other things other than editing every day.

[00:04:49.24] spk_0:
Interesting. So that’s a huge transition for you.

[00:04:51.72] spk_1:
It is, it is

[00:04:52.66] spk_0:
gonna be you’re gonna be a nonprofit executive director

[00:04:58.84] spk_1:
Exactly. Learning how to do it. And one of the things I realized given the nature of our coverage. While we do a lot of advice. We also cover a lot of the ways in which things go wrong with boards and executive directors and those kinds of things. And so now I’m really putting my attention on what makes things go right. Um and realizing I need to learn a lot more about that,

[00:05:39.64] spk_0:
I see a stack of books that books about nonprofit management. No, I don’t know. All right, okay. So you’re you’re committed to increasing collaborations, increasing staff. You know, I think listeners are very interested in what this significant transition means for them as as readers as consumers of your content. So what what do you see around these collaborations? The staff increases?

[00:07:53.94] spk_1:
Yeah, I would say for nonprofit professionals, there are several things that are important about what we’ll be able to do. Um one is that we know we need to provide more tailored information depending on what job you have what size your organization is. And we have been doing a fair amount of research. Um some of it got interrupted by the pandemic to better understand what our audience needs and especially as the field is changing. Um so one of the things we want to do is provide much more tailored information. So, you know, newsletters that are geared to the kind of job kind of organization. Um making it easier on our website to find things our webinars, you know, that you can decide whether you need an advanced level webinar or beginner level webinar. We have people at all stages um and their organizations of all sizes. We, you know, provide information to one person organizations and to organizations that are as big as Harvard the nature Conservancy, those kinds of organizations. So we need to serve everybody according to their own needs. So our growth is going to be geared at, you know, making sure that when you have a need, you can turn to the Chronicle of philanthropy and we will be better able to serve you rather than right now. We’re a bit of a one size fits all kind of publication and we know that needs to change. The other thing we’re really looking at is how do we make sure that we reach the next generation of nonprofit professionals, a lot of people who have grown up with the Chronicle um we deeply appreciate, but we know we need to expand out to all the people who are coming into the field. That probably means more video, more audio podcast. Yea, um that will go back into doing things. So as we step up, we plan on expanding the skills that we have in the range of ways that we can reach people. One of the things that have just been enormously popular, especially during the pandemic are our live briefings um that are freely available, gathering experts to talk about really important topics. Um and we’ve been just delighted by the response to those. It’s a very easy way for people in one hour to get a lot they know on a specific topic. So we’ll probably expand those kinds of things too. So people shouldn’t think of us as just this old fashioned print publication. We’re not that anymore, but we’re going to be even less of that, I would say in the days to come.

[00:08:13.04] spk_0:
So you see greater investment opportunities than then you saw as a part of being owned by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Yeah,

[00:08:55.74] spk_1:
I mean part of it was just the capabilities that we had with it being within that organization were 1/6 the size of the Chronicle of Higher Education. So that just meant that we couldn’t grow as much as we wanted to. Um, but the, this is a very friendly separation, the Chronicle of higher Education, I knew that we needed to grow and basically encourage this because it was the only way that we would be able to serve our audience well. And one of the things we found, you know, a lot of our readers are in higher education and that’s it’s so natural that the Chronicle of higher Education spawned the Chronicle of philanthropy, but colleges and universities are now very different than not many nonprofits. And so the things that we used to have in common about serving our audiences, we don’t find those with the case as much and sometimes they’re so different that, you know, if we do something that the Chronicle of Higher Education does and we try it with our audience that just falls flat and vice versa. So that’s one of the reasons we decided that it’s better for us to go independent.

[00:09:41.24] spk_0:
You know, I’ve been seeing for years the decline in, in non profit coverage. So I, you know, I remember when Stephanie strom had been non profit beat the new york times and I think it was Melanie West had donor of the day in, in the, in the in the Wall Street Journal. I mean there were, there were, there were non profit beat reporters and I don’t know of one now any anymore.

[00:10:01.84] spk_1:
Well now there is, this is interesting actually. I mean the Times has David Fahrenthold who’s covering non profit fraud and you have nick Kulish who is covering billionaire philanthropy and those are the two areas that the Times has said is what it needs to cover and that’s the vote on the things that matter most. So

[00:10:09.35] spk_0:
did

[00:10:09.82] spk_1:
not know that when you know, we decided to go ahead, we started our planning long before those appointments were put in place, but I feel like that’s a call to action of all the other things that news outlets need to cover and especially one of the things we’re very excited about is working with all of these non profit news organizations that are sprouting up to cover either specific communities or look at specific issues, the marshall project, you know, looks at criminal justice for example, talk looks at education. Um, there are all of these nonprofits, you know, that are just starting to figure out what their coverage areas are and we want to make sure that they embed coverage of non profits as part of what they do all day. So that’s where we’ll be working most closely

[00:10:56.53] spk_0:
interesting. So you mentioned, even on the local level,

[00:10:59.14] spk_1:
yes, definitely.

[00:11:00.36] spk_0:
Much more local than like propublica or Center for investigative journalism.

[00:12:51.64] spk_1:
And you know, propublica has done a lot to go local as well. And so we’re following what they’re doing in terms of some of that, but you know, philanthropy is so local. Um, and that’s what people really need to understand these things. Um, and so that’s why we, we would like to work there. Um, you know, we will work nationally to. Um, but one of the things that we started last year um, is a fellowship program for local journalists. And so we have four fellows that are working on various projects. We’re teaching them how to cover philanthropy in their communities. So there’s a nonprofit news organization in Boulder that’s looking at all the money that came in after the Wildfires there to the Community Foundation and asking questions like how do, who decides how that gets spent? Where does it go? How do they raise money? What do they do? And it’s an unprecedented sum for that Community Foundation to have that flowed in because it was the nature of the disaster was so intense. But we were really excited that they had a pitch where they actually knew what community foundations were, they wanted to explain. You know, that this is how it works, um, and investigate that sort of thing. So we hope that assuming, you know, these fellowships go, well, we’re in the early stages of it, but then we’ll do a lot more of that where we work intensively with local organizations today in journalism. There are a lot of these one off seminars on nonprofits. Some of your listeners may have been asked to speak at those things where, you know, an hour on what makes nonprofits important or something like that. Well, that doesn’t have a really long lasting effect in changing the coverage. Um, and we’re hopeful that by spending an entire year with these news outlets that that will make them decide this is important and this kind of coverage needs to continue and we hope that it will be more sophisticated coverage than we’ve all been used to seeing. I think, you know, I know the number of nonprofits that send me notes every once in a while, say, can you believe this news organization set X or y or Z. And they clearly don’t understand how nonprofits work. And so we want to do something to change that.

[00:13:09.14] spk_0:
Alright. I’m still bothered by the fact that the new york times hyphenates. We

[00:13:12.50] spk_1:
we follow New york times style. So I get the angry letters about their style all the

[00:16:52.04] spk_0:
time. It’s time for a break. The only one of the show turn to communications have you got your crisis communications plan in place so that you know who’s responsible for message creation. Is it the one person or is it a couple of folks a committee who needs to approve that messaging who’s authorized to speak on behalf of your non profit who’s gonna brief internally and who’s going to brief external audiences. There’s more to a crisis communications plan than that. Turn to knows what all belongs in there and they can help you create yours so that you’re ready. When the crisis comes. Turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C. O. Fourth dimension technologies. Their I. T. Solution is I. T. Infra in a box. It’s budget friendly. It’s holistic. You pick what you need and you leave the rest behind. That makes it your I. T. Buffet but why is this a budget friendly buffet because you pick only what you can afford from the buffet selections, your budget can’t afford shrimp and lobster, have the tuna salad, no rack of lamb just get the mint jelly, choose what’s right for your I. T. Situation and your budget. Fourth dimension technologies. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. It’s time for Tony’s take two. This is show # 597 woo. But don’t celebrate because the big celebration is coming in. Just a few weeks, three weeks to be exact because that’s when The 600th show is Coming out on July 18 of course we’ve got the live music coming from Scott Stein, you gotta have that with the live playing of cheap red wine and a couple of other songs that he will do for us, naturally the co host for every milestone show, Claire Meyerhoff, she will be with me, we’ve got our esteemed contributors, Amy sample Ward and Gene Takagi, they’ll be with us as well. The sponsors are coming sponsors turn to communications four D technology, they’re all going to be with us. So it’s the blowout show coming in just a couple of weeks, three weeks to be exact, the 6/100 it’s on its way. That is Tony’s take two, we’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the Chronicle of philanthropy will go non profit with Stacy Palmer, we’ve got the boo koo because I grouped the sponsored messages and the tony state two together. You see how it’s all structured for your benefit so we can do the boo koo. It’s it’s hard, I feel bad when it’s just a just just a butt load when you’ve got the boo koo but loads then you know your set, I mean, I mean that’s the ship when you got the boo koo. So that’s where we are, you, you you’re doing something now with the so thinking nationally now with Associated Press their partnership with them. What’s that

[00:17:01.94] spk_1:
about? So the lilly endowment made a very generous grant to our organization, Associated Press and a group called the conversation, which does terrific work to get um scholarly articles out to the public in very accessible ways. So we’re all working together to put the spotlight on philanthropy. So the Associated Press hired to reporters um who are now covering philanthropy, we’ve hired three reporters who, and so as part of a collaboration, we worked together um, to provide more coverage is aimed at the general public. You know, a lot of these stories appear for our readers, but you know, when we when those reporters are looking at it, they’re saying what’s of interest to local news organizations, what’s gonna cause um a local outlet to republish this kind of thing. And really the Associated Press obviously is global. Um, so what’s of interest to them. So the fact that we have now added five reporters focused on helping the general public understand it’s just enormous. I mean, what we were just talking about before is how the coverage has dropped so much. Um and the fact that now we have people paying attention to this all the time. It’s just fabulous. Our articles appear on the Associated Press feed. We published some of the Associated Press articles and we were working on some ambitious projects together. One area that we’re looking in, especially right now is gun violence and we started this, you know, long before Vivaldi and Buffalo, um, to put the spotlight on what philanthropy and what nonprofits are doing to curb gun violence. And so you’ll see a lot of stories going in depth on that topic over the next year.

[00:18:41.64] spk_0:
You, you promised to build a public commons for debate. How can people, what does that look like?

[00:20:02.54] spk_1:
I would love to hear from listeners, um, what they would like to see that we’re in the earliest stages of developing that. But I would say, you know, as, especially when I talked to funders, the thing that bothers them most and that they’re working on and that they want to solve. And they would like us to be a part of it is bringing together the polarized sides in philanthropy itself. I mean obviously they’re working to bridge the divides in the country. Um, but philanthropy has a lot of challenges talking to itself, um, lifting up voices that often aren’t heard. Um, conservatives often feel that their ideas are run over by progressive philanthropy. Um, you know, there’s great concern that there’s not enough attention to rural voices to people of color to younger voices. There are just so many challenges of getting people to express their views to hear each other to do well reasoned essays to debate each other. Um, and to figure out where they have common bonds, which they have a lot more of than they realize, but our work is going to be to help people overcome that. Um, and also, you know, we plan to cover that area to what are the non profits and foundation efforts that are successfully bridging divides. So they’ll be, you know, a multipronged effort on that. But we really would love to hear from as many people as possible about what, what gaps they see that we can feel. We don’t want to duplicate what other people are doing. Um, you know, we should be additive. So whatever we can do on that front, we’d love to do.

[00:20:24.04] spk_0:
Gosh, I I hear a lot of opportunities for podcast since you mentioned it. That’s that, that’s, that’s a rich one I think.

[00:20:31.32] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely is more

[00:20:34.09] spk_0:
live events. You, you anticipate more those, you, you they’ve been well reviewed. Your, I know your webinars do well.

[00:22:17.24] spk_1:
Our webinars, our, you know, our webinars are geared at professional development and very, very well attended. Um, and you know, we bring in, you know, we work hard to get experts who, you know, know what they’re talking about can give real great case studies and examples and help, you know, help people understand what it is that they need to do in an area maybe that they’re not familiar with. Um, so those are very popular and then the live briefings are a little bit different. Um, in that there will be a topic, you know, one of the ones we’ve got coming up, um focuses on a new report that’s come out about how to reach diverse donors. And we’ll be spotlighting some of that research, for example. So there are a lot of different opportunities. I don’t know whether we’re getting to the point where we’re gonna be able to return to in person events. We hope so at some point, um, we’ve got some inquiries from folks that want to do some things in the fall. I I just don’t know health wise whether that’s going to be a safe thing to do. Um, so we expect to be virtual for a while, but we definitely do a lot live. And this partnership that I mentioned with Associated Press in the conversation, A component of that also is live online briefings. So, you know, we’ve done a number of different topics will be getting into climate philanthropy will do something on the gun violence package I mentioned. Um, we did, you know, as soon as the Ukraine war erupted, we did something to help people think about both the short term and the long term aspects of giving because we didn’t want to have, you know, there was such a rush to give, which is wonderful, but we know in all disasters you need to think about the long term. And so we gathered some experts who could talk about why it’s smart to start thinking about that now.

[00:22:33.54] spk_0:
So, you know, I’m hearing, uh coverage and professional development expansion of the the expansion of the work for the nonprofit community, but also, you know, in these partnerships and the fellowships, you know, expanding coverage about the nonprofit community to the, to the general readership.

[00:24:01.84] spk_1:
Exactly. And obviously for nonprofits, that’s usually important because they aren’t getting the attention or understanding they deserve. So while you know, you can talk about those things being different, they sort of our version of the same thing is we see it as an extension of how do we better serve nonprofits? We help get their stories out. And one of the things I think the Chronicle has always been very good at doing is helping nonprofits tell their story. Um, I wish nonprofits invested more in being able to do that themselves. I hope maybe we can help them in more ambitious ways than we do now. Um, but a lot of times when Chronicle reporter contacts and nonprofit, it’s the first time that they’ve had a chance to gather the photos to get the examples to get the data and the evidence that they need to show why what they’re doing is super effective and worth other people knowing about that often then allows them to take the story to their donors, to other people to know about them. Um, and so, you know, I think the more we can do with that to help get the word out about what nonprofits are accomplishing get people engaged in that. Um, we hope that that helps, it’s another part of the democracy and divide building, you know, is that if people knew that nonprofits are solving more problems, we hope that that allows the nonprofits themselves to be more effective.

[00:24:13.54] spk_0:
You’ve got some ambitious goals that you published double revenue and subscribers in five

[00:24:42.34] spk_1:
years. Yeah, we expect to be able to do that in part because what will be investing in is a staff that spends all of its time thinking about those things right now, we don’t have that. Um, and so, you know, once we add more people who focus both on our business and technology, we think it will be pretty easy for us to expand our revenue. We’re very excited that we have strong foundation support, but we want to make sure that we’re earning our own way, um, and that were sustainable and have very diverse revenue sources. Um, and so that’s what we’ll be working on building like every Good non profit needs to do.

[00:25:03.24] spk_0:
And then right on the heels of that comes the conversation about transparency and the separation between uh, fundraising and, and editorial. So why don’t you reassure folks?

[00:26:12.94] spk_1:
Yeah, no, that’s I thank you for raising that. What’s part of what we’ll be working on really intensively over the next few months before we become a nonprofit, um, is to strengthen some of the guidelines that we have now that we use when we’re accepting gifts and disclosing right now, we’re very good about that. We receive a very small amount of foundation support right now, and we’re grateful for all of it, and we always disclose it, but we want to be more transparent about how we make decisions about stories. Some foundations have asked me questions about, like if they’re supporting us, can they still pitch stories to us? Um you know, and how do we handle that? We probably will do webinars and other sessions where readers can ask us questions about Our coverage and make sure that if they see anything that bothers them, they can let us know. Um I think, you know, we’ve had nearly 35 years of publishing in this field, I think our integrity is pretty strong, but we want to make sure that we keep it that way and that there’s no perception of any influence. And one of the things I’ve loved in the conversations I’ve had with foundations seeking their support is how conscious, they are that they no way want there to be any perception that they’re influencing our coverage. And, you know, a few foundations, if they said no to us, it was out of that concern that they think that it’s impossible to help, you know, that perception is gonna be a problem and they didn’t necessarily want to be part of that, and I really respect that.

[00:26:30.49] spk_0:
Is it. Is it much different than the separation between advertising and editorial.

[00:28:18.04] spk_1:
Glad you asked that No, it’s not. And we have always had to be conscious of, you know, influences, you know, a lot of our advertisers provide services to the nonprofit field or their foundations that want to, you know, talk about a specific project, you know, and they’re doing it with their advertising dollars. Um, so it’s not different. You know, the other thing people often get in a not about advertisers or foundation support if we alienate our readers are subscribed or revenue is hugely important. And the fees that webinar, you know, each person is individually paying a subscription and it may not feel like a huge amount of money, but it adds up to being a significant sum source of our support and the reason for our being so if we do anything that tarnishes that we are in trouble. So that’s who we put first is our readers, um, and thinking about their needs. And I have found that, you know, as we’ve been going into this nonprofit work, I have become much, much more aware of the challenges that nonprofits face. I mean, I knew it from our coverage, but you know, I do, I already feel living it every day. Um, I understand much better what challenges they face. And I think that will be a good thing for all of all of my, all of the audience and for all of our staff, which will get to know that more transparency is something that is very different than the private company we’ve worked for. So, you know, we’re excited about, you know, really, you know, doing our 1st 9 90 making sure that it’s clear doing annual reports, all the kinds of things that we haven’t done before. Um, but we know that we need to meet the highest bar in terms of transparency. So we’ll be looking at that and I hope others will hold us accountable for some reason we fall short, but we’re gonna try to do our best not to

[00:28:23.64] spk_0:
what’s on your mind as you’re, uh, and uh, an imminent executive director. You know, what kinds of, you know, what’s keeping you awake? What are you thinking about?

[00:29:27.54] spk_1:
Oh, all of the things related to the transition. Um, as you can imagine, it’s, there’s just a lot of work to make sure that we do this really well. Um, and that my staff is really excited about what we’re doing. So, you know, the next thing we’re doing, um, is, you know, really sort of outlining our values as a team because we will have this new organization that we can build. Um, right now we follow what the Chronicle of higher education does. Now we get to say what happens when we build our own culture and our own organization and how do we do that? Well? Um, so, you know, it’s pretty thrilling to be able to reinvent an organization that’s as old as ours is, we’ve got the strong backing of the Chronicle and the organization that we have, but we are reimagining almost everything and and that’s just the most thrilling thing possible. But it is scary when you say what keeps me up at night say, which piece will we get to first? We have a lot to do. We have an ambitious agenda. Um, and how do we make sure that goes well?

[00:29:34.00] spk_0:
You already have your board, you have a core

[00:29:37.35] spk_1:
will be expanding the board when when we actually get charity status from the I. R. S will expand the board, but we have four independent board members now. Um, and then two people from the Chronicle of Higher Education are also on the board. So that part we’ve done and we’ll be expanding later.

[00:29:55.14] spk_0:
What would you like to leave listeners with Stacy?

[00:30:36.64] spk_1:
I really welcome all the suggestions about how we can serve the field better and what this transition means. If you had a chance to say what the Chronicle needs to do more as we grow. We want to hear from our audience about what’s most important, what do you need most um, and what can we do for you? So please um feel free to drop me a line. I’m Stacy dot palmer at philanthropy dot com. I don’t always answer as fast as I’d like to as tony learn setting up this podcast. But I do read my mail pretty carefully and I really would, we’ll probably do some sessions to actually, you know, webinars or other things to open it up to readers but feel free to drop me a line anytime I I truly love to hear from people about what we can do to serve you better. All

[00:30:40.34] spk_0:
right, and again, Stacy dot palmer at philanthropy dot com.

[00:30:43.54] spk_1:
Exactly alright,

[00:30:44.69] spk_0:
Stacy dot palmer, thank you very much.

[00:30:46.60] spk_1:
Thank you All right to be with you. Thanks

[00:31:48.84] spk_0:
very much next week. The future of fundraising. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o And by 4th dimension technologies I thi infra in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein. Mhm. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty, You’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for June 20, 2022: Your RFP Process

 

Josh Riman: Your RFP Process

There’s a better way to manage requests for proposals, so that you weed out vendors who aren’t right, choose the best finalists, select the best provider, and transition smoothly to project launch. Josh Riman from Great Believer explains. (This is part of our coverage of #22NTC, hosted by NTEN.)

 

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[00:01:58.74] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast and oh, I’m glad you’re with me, I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of awful Modena if you paint me with the idea that you missed this week’s show your RFP process, there’s a better way to manage requests for proposals so that you weed out vendors who aren’t right, choose the best finalists, select the best provider and transition smoothly to project launch josh Lyman from Great Believer explains This is part of our coverage of 22 NTC hosted by and 10 on tony steak too. Thank you. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o And by 4th dimension technologies I T infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Just like three D but they go one dimension deeper here is your RFP process. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 N T C. It’s the 2022 nonprofit technology conference of course you knew it was coming on non profit radio and we’re kicking off our 22 Ntc coverage with a returning Ntc guest very welcome, very glad to have you back josh Lyman President and founder of Great Believer, josh welcome back.

[00:02:06.24] spk_1:
Thanks for having me

[00:02:57.44] spk_0:
Pleasure. Real Pleasure. Thank you for, kicking off our 22 NTC coverage, your session topic at the conference was running an RFP process while keeping your cool and I see that you’re a solo this time in in the past, you’ve had, you had the support of other great believer team members now, your solo, let’s see. Let’s see how the founder and Ceo does by himself, your team is watching. That’s right. Um so what about this RFP process? I imagine you’ve filled out, I don’t know, scores maybe hundreds of these through the years. Uh great believer. What just like overview, What are we not quite getting right about our R R F P s?

[00:03:36.94] spk_1:
Yeah, I think I’ve got an interesting perspective because I’m not the one who’s writing the RFP or sending it around or reviewing it, but the one who’s actually receiving it and responding to it and like you said, we’ve seen scores and seen the good and the bad and the ugly and some are FPs are great and some RFP is leave a lot to be desired when they’re not specific enough or they’re not clear enough. And We’ve essentially created a session that organizes the RFP process into six stages which are right. The RFP distributed, hold Q and a review proposals, interview finalists and select a winner. And in looking back at other our FPs, we’ve received and things that work and things that don’t put together a series of dues and don’t that we thought could be helpful for organizations that are working on our FPs, whether it’s someone who’s an RFP wizard who does it all the time or someone who’s making their first RFP trying to give them a good place to start from.

[00:04:08.74] spk_0:
Okay. Um before you even Alright, so you have six steps, so I’m gonna be a little troublemaker. I’m gonna be like before even the first one was writing, what about, you know, do you need an RFP? Does does this project require an RFP? Do you need that kind of formal process?

[00:04:49.54] spk_1:
Our way? Nothing would have an RFP. Our understanding from talking to organizations is that there, there could be a lot of reasons the two that I’m aware of that organizations put out our FPs are a, if there’s a certain amount of budget being invested, there’s a policy that says you need to consider a certain number of vendors and in doing so you should release an RFP to make sure it’s a level playing field. That’s one reason. Another reason is that often the board stipulates that no matter what the project size might be, they want to have multiple candidates, they can review and and assess who might be the best fit. I think there could be other reasons also to play into it. But those are the ones that we often hear. I don’t think anybody likes the RFP process whether you’re the one writing it, receiving it or reviewing it, but it feels like it’s a necessary evil for a lot of nonprofits.

[00:05:10.14] spk_0:
Okay. And uh, and let’s acquaint listeners with what great believer does like what kind of R. F. P. S. Are you seeing what what is what web design I know, but you may go much deeper than web website development.

[00:05:50.34] spk_1:
No, it’s mostly that were graphic design agency for nonprofits. Web design and development is our core area of focus and most the vast majority of the RFP s that we apply to our for web. And I think that makes sense because web is often a large investment that a non profits making compared to something smaller one off projects, let’s say an annual report or something of that nature. And when they’re doing a website project, it’s often years in the making to collect the funding to get the executives on board to go for it and to actually engage someone in this project. I think because of that, they want to review multiple vendors, candidates and they also want to have a document that says, here’s exactly what we’re looking for, solve the proposals they receive are as apples to apples as can be.

[00:06:11.54] spk_0:
Right. Right. Right. Like you said, everybody’s level playing field, everybody’s had a chance to answer the exact same questions. Everybody’s seen the exact same specs, etcetera. All right. Alright. Let’s get into your your six steps writing. What do you what do you want to see us do better.

[00:06:17.14] spk_1:
Yeah. So we did a poll

[00:06:19.55] spk_0:
actually just stop. Don’t don’t. Right.

[00:06:21.98] spk_1:
Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:06:24.31] spk_0:
You have to if you have to. All right, let’s get started.

[00:06:26.84] spk_1:
Exactly. We we did a poll at the session and asked of these six phases which one do you most to test? And again, the six phases are right. It distributed hold Q and a review proposals. Interview finalists, select a winner, the vast majority of people most to test right in the RFP. It’s definitely the hardest thing. And because of that we have the most dues and don’t that apply to that stage. So happy to just start ripping through them. And if you have any thing you want to add or questions you wanna ask, go for it.

[00:07:03.54] spk_0:
Yeah. Okay. My my fear here is that people feel that they have to be like formal, you know, like they’re almost writing a legal document. They want to be such, such great degree of specificity that I don’t know. Maybe the maybe the overall purpose gets lost in the in the in the in the weeds. We’ll find out. All right, go ahead, take off some and we’ll see

[00:07:20.24] spk_1:
Well, that’s a good point because one of our dues is be specific about your needs. But I think there is a limit there where some groups try to be so overly specific that it becomes prescriptive and you’re not letting the candidates themselves showcase their process and how they would actually solve your problems. So specific enough that the right people apply for your RFP but not so specific that it puts them into a box,

[00:08:04.24] spk_0:
right? That we have to do exactly this way. Or, you know, even though we think we have a better way and it leaves out the possibility of some, I mean, you’re a lot of your creativity is is in not only graphic design but in like database design, right? You know, the back end and, you know, they’re not availing themselves of, you know, maybe half your expertise. If they’re just if they’re speaking it out so much detail that uh, you know, they just want you to be an artist or a graphic designer and then and then like a droop a code or something. All right,

[00:08:16.02] spk_1:
Right, right. Where we’re more focused on on WordPress, but your point is

[00:08:19.34] spk_0:
it

[00:08:35.04] spk_1:
is totally legit. We don’t expect the RFP to have all the answers and we also don’t don’t expect to be able to solve everything through our proposal, but at least we want to get somewhere where it’s feeling like this could be a promising fit and we’re understanding your needs. Okay, notice.

[00:08:36.64] spk_0:
And what I say, I

[00:08:37.71] spk_1:
think that’s the balance is we shouldn’t expect the RFP to have all the right questions and then you the organization shouldn’t expect our proposal to have all the answers. We only know so much at this point, but if it seems like there’s good chemistry and it could be a good fit, then let’s move forward and talk more about the potential of working together,

[00:08:55.33] spk_0:
right? And you want to give your vendors a chance? You you mentioned this to showcase their expertise, but here’s what we bring to it, you know, let us let us share some ideas that we have that we think may be better than yours because this is what we do.

[00:09:10.00] spk_1:
Exactly you

[00:09:11.13] spk_0:
didn’t, you wouldn’t need us, you know, if you

[00:09:13.43] spk_1:
Alright,

[00:09:14.32] spk_0:
what else you got in the writing stage?

[00:09:52.54] spk_1:
Well related piece to that is you definitely want to get input when you’re working on the RFP? I think there are two groups you can get input from because writing an RFP when you started off, you could be thinking, I don’t even know where to start. How do I frame this thing? How do I organize it? How do I structure it? So two thoughts here, one is ask other organizations who have put out similar RFP s, how they did it. And we asked them to share their RFP if they’re comfortable doing so and then use that as a template and use it as a starting point, modify it as needed to best serve your organization’s needs, but don’t feel like you need to reinvent the wheel. There are lots of good RFP s out there and by asking friends in the space what they’ve done for their R. F P. S, you can probably get a good template to start from.

[00:09:59.04] spk_0:
Okay, What else you got? That’s that’s a straightforward one. Good.

[00:10:01.37] spk_1:
And then the other thing in terms of asking people for input is people at your organization? So maybe there’s a group that’s assembled, that’s the RFP team and it’s perhaps mostly the comms team, maybe some people from development, you’ll still want to survey, you know, folks in I. T. Executives, other people to make sure the RFP you put out is as comprehensive as can be in terms of collecting the goals and input from other groups of your organization. So then you get the right agency to work on this project in a way that helps everybody and doesn’t just help comms or just help development so on and so forth.

[00:10:39.54] spk_0:
I can see, you know, this is generic advice that’s gonna apply to any RFP, not only a web development project. RFP conversation.

[00:10:43.76] spk_1:
Yeah, this is, this is, this is for any RFP that anybody puts out.

[00:10:48.64] spk_0:
Yeah, more more on the writing.

[00:11:06.24] spk_1:
Got a couple more dudes in the writing stage. The first is this is kind of sounds like a simple one, but when you receive a proposal, you’re gonna learn so much about these agencies, you’re considering, you know, the project team, the process, their budget or timeline and so on and so forth. In the RFP, it’s nice to view the organization, also introduce yourselves, not just your mission and vision, but your project team. So we the agency can get a sense for who we’d be working with, you know, how big is the team, Who are they, How long have they worked there? What are their positions? That’s just a nice way to kind of level the playing field and give us the recipients and respondent to the RFP a sense for what it might be like to work with these people.

[00:11:48.44] spk_0:
Yeah. Like what, what’s their expertise, you know, the expertise, maybe all all uh, maybe it’s all technical or, or maybe it’s on the other side. Maybe it’s all graphic, communications, marketing related. And there isn’t anybody with, with, with with a technical background that’s that’s valuable for the RFP respondents to know

[00:12:23.14] spk_1:
I’ve got one more due on the right, the RFP section, which is, there’s something called intent to bid, which can be a deadline you said in your RFP that says you’ve, you know, received this RFP, you’ve read it through if you plan to submit a proposal, let us know by x date. And that’s great for the organization, primarily because then, you know, let’s say we distributed this RFP to eight groups where we know we’re gonna get five proposals and we don’t need to play a guessing game, maybe one of the people we distributed to is one that we’re secretly hoping is the best fit for us. And then you’ll know if you say again, submit your intent to bid, which is just an email where where we would email the organization and say we intend to bid on? Just on this RFP, you’ll know who’s bidding. You’ll know who’s not. And then there are fewer surprises when the actual proposal deadline hits as to who submits and who doesn’t

[00:13:32.74] spk_0:
what if your, your secret insider or not? Not necessarily inside your secret favorite, um, is not, has not said that they intend to bid do you now? I mean, you’re supposed to be fair about this too. But I mean, there’s nothing legal around it. It’s just, it’s really just ethical and moral, right? You know, you’re not supposed to be favoring the whole purpose of an RFP. Well, that’s not the whole a purpose of an RFP is the level playing field. You’re not supposed to be favoring your your favorite, you know? And so what do you, what do you do then? You just, you ought to just let it go and hope you get another another good one that rivals what you what was your favorite? That’s what you ought to do is that you think people do that or have you? I don’t know. Have you seen shenanigans? Have you seen dirty tricks around our FPs? You don’t have to name names,

[00:14:00.04] spk_1:
but I’ve definitely seen some shenanigans. I think something that you could do as the organization to inquire as to who’s gonna submit while still leveling the playing field is maybe a day before the deadline for organization for agencies to submit their intent to bid, email. Everybody that you sent the RFP to and just say just a reminder tomorrow is the deadline for receiving your intent to bid. So in case, you know, your your favorite, your secret love. It falls off their radar, but they do intend to bid. And they just honestly, for God, it gives them a second chance to do so. And then for a second reminder to do so. And if they don’t submit, then se la V. I think you’ve done everything you can while still remaining as impartial as you can.

[00:14:22.44] spk_0:
Yes, impartiality. You know. Right. All right. But you’ve seen shenanigans,

[00:14:27.84] spk_1:
believe

[00:15:25.94] spk_0:
it at that. All right. Maybe you’ve been the insider. Maybe you’ve been the beneficiary of shenanigans. We’ll leave it there. I’m not. Maybe you have. Maybe you have not. It’s just the host speculating pure speculation. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Have you got your crisis communications plan in place so that, you know, who’s responsible for message creation in the face of a crisis. Is it one person or a couple of folks who needs to approve the messaging? Who’s authorized to speak? Who speaks internally? Who speaks externally, there is more to a crisis communications plan than that turn to can help you with yours? Turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to your RFP process. You had some don’t some don’t just give us a couple of like to your top two donuts for the for writing.

[00:15:51.84] spk_1:
I’ll give you just one don’t for writing and that is don’t withhold your budget. It’s so important that the organization puts a budget in their R. F. P. It could be a specific number, it could be a range, it could be a don’t exceed this number, but if you really want that apples to apples comparison you need it and also it helps to filter down the right types of candidates. So if your budget is X and you’re clear about it, you’re gonna get candidates that can do your work for that amount. You’re not gonna get a much larger agency who can never work with you because their price for that work is four times that. And you also probably won’t get a small freelancer who is a one person show and isn’t able to do work with the kind of capacity they have. So I think budget is important because it doesn’t waste the candidate’s time in submitting a bit if they’re not the right fit from a financial perspective and doesn’t waste the organization’s time reading through proposals that ultimately have budgets in them that are way too high to make work. So sharing the budget of essential.

[00:17:08.64] spk_0:
That’s an important point that the last point because, you know, let’s continue your hypothetical, you submit to, you send it to five, sorry you send it to eight and five submit, they say they’re going to and then they do and then like four of them are out of your out of your budget range now you’ve got now you’re down to one or you’ve got to expand your budget, you know, but so I’m emphasizing that point because the obvious pushback on the nonprofit side as well, if I give them my budget or even a range, then they’re gonna go to the top end of it, they’re gonna, they’re gonna expand my budget. I tell them it’s a $30,000 project, they’re gonna, they’re gonna build me $30,000 when they would have done it for 22-5.

[00:17:32.94] spk_1:
That’s fair. But I would say just give your budget honestly put a number in there that you’re comfortable spending and no matter who it is that you choose to work with, just know that you found the right fit and sure maybe they could have done it for $5000 less. But ultimately, if that’s the budget you set aside, who cares, that was already set aside for the project. So just put it toward it.

[00:18:09.14] spk_0:
Okay, well put, I agree and and it is, it is valuable. I I, you know, as a plan giving consultant when I’m at the inquiry stage, I don’t, I think, I don’t know in in in 19 years of consulting, I’ve probably done like two RFP S so they’re highly, highly very rare. Um, But you know, but in conversations I always ask for a budget or a range, you know, I need to know is, you know, everything we just scoped out in a, in a great, you know, 30 minute conversation is your budget in line with the aspirations that you just identified.

[00:18:13.44] spk_1:
No,

[00:18:32.34] spk_0:
If I’m thinking this is, a a $30,000 project and you’re thinking it’s an $8,000 project. we’re not, you know, either you’ve got to scale down your aspirations or you’ve got to bring up your budget because we’re not even close. So it’s, it’s, it’s critical, it’s, it’s, it is critical to share your budget. All

[00:18:52.04] spk_1:
right. And, and I do think that the way things are moving more organizations are more comfortable sharing budgets. And I think this is in some ways working in parallel to job listings. I feel like many more job listings these days have the actual salary requirements, whether it’s a specific number or a range, especially in the nonprofit space. I know that web sites like idealist essentially mandate that you share a salary, which I think is great. And I think those things again, are moving in parallel and there’s definitely a movement toward transparency.

[00:19:20.44] spk_0:
A lot of that is equity too. That, that, that minority populations are going to be, uh, are going to be Disadvantaged when it comes to the salary discussion because they’re generally, you know, paid less. So N 10 is another example of that. N 10 requires either a, either a number or a range. They require at least a range in their job listings too. So

[00:19:26.42] spk_1:
I love that.

[00:19:27.41] spk_0:
Um I agree. Yeah, distribution.

[00:20:54.74] spk_1:
Yes. Now it’s time you’ve you’ve you’ve written your RFP now it’s time to send it out. I’ve got one doing one don’t that are essentially opposite sides of the same coin. Do is you need to find qualified candidates. So consider people you’ve worked with before, ask around, ask other organizations who have done similar projects in the past, who they worked with and how well it went, do some research, you know, do some online digging, search for some key words that take you to groups that maybe you’re not aware of or people in your network are not aware of that. You think could be a good fit. We get a lot of RFP some people to find us online through searching for, you know, design agencies in new york city or nonprofit focused design agencies in Brooklyn, whatever the keywords are that bring people to us. So it’s essential to find qualified candidates. And the flip side to this coin is do not blast out your RFP to the masses and you know, we see this happen a lot and I understand why it happens. There are websites like RFP DB dot com. There are other places to post your RFP s. You can put it on a list, serve like the progressive exchange and you are going to get a lot of respondents and you’re gonna get a ton of junk, you’re gonna get people who don’t thoroughly read your RFP that are just spending 10 minutes on it that don’t really understand who you are. And it’s gonna create a lot of extra work for you to review these and try to pick out the, you know, the needles in the haystack that are actually fits for you. So it will take time to find the right groups to send your RFP to. I know we said eight as a number before. I think it is a good number to shoot for try to shoot for at least five that you feel good about. But if you spend the time to make sure those you send it to our actual potentially good fits, it’ll pay off in the end. Save you some time.

[00:21:12.74] spk_0:
I like the idea of asking for a an intent uh what do you say? An intent to

[00:21:17.34] spk_1:
intend to bid,

[00:21:44.14] spk_0:
intend to bid because then if you know, if you only come back with one or two intends to bid then to be fair to everybody, you might want to revise your RFP or you might end up sending it to more more agencies than you, you know, and then you have to expand the deadline I guess. Yeah, you would um you know, but you want to reassess if you’re only going to get like one or two out of out of however many you you you distributed, you know, one or two is Not, it’s not so good. Well one is terrible

[00:21:47.20] spk_1:
too.

[00:21:55.34] spk_0:
Is is always like is half as bad as terrible, bad, terrible. Three is one third is bad. So you know you wanna have a decent number to choose from.

[00:21:57.64] spk_1:
Yeah

[00:23:02.04] spk_0:
right it’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. Their I. T. Solution is I. T. Infra in a box. It’s budget friendly. It’s holistic. You pick what you need and you leave the rest behind. That’s why it’s your I. T. Buffet. Why is it budget friendly? Because you’re picking what you can afford from their extensive buffet. Your budget can’t afford Chateaubriand for two. Have a hamburger. No chocolate souffle. Get the brownie. You choose what’s right for your I. T. Situation and your budget. Fourth dimension technologies. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Let’s return to your RFP. Process the Q. And A. Stage. Should be the Q. And A. That’s for um who’s that? Is that for the bidders to to ask questions.

[00:24:11.34] spk_1:
Exactly. So the two things here the first is that there should be a deadline in your RFP that says you need to send us all of your questions by X. Date and that’s important to give people an opportunity to help to put things into focus or clarify different parts of your RFP to make sure they’re the right fit. And also that they understand how to price it out and how to develop a process around it. And then so that’s a do set a deadline for all questions. I would say give candidates at least two weeks when they receive your RFP to submit their questions to you and just submit them through email and then the don’t is don’t withhold Q and a results. And by that, I mean, don’t just send the answers directly to the people that ask the questions, send the answers to every question to everyone you send your RFP to. Even if someone didn’t ask you a single question, you need to share the answers with them because there might be things that you answer that fundamentally change the structure of your RFP or the process or the old ultimate goal that you’re looking to strive toward. So it’s essential and will be often received. And we love

[00:24:15.04] spk_0:
a google

[00:24:27.84] spk_1:
doc or a word doc that just has all the questions in there divided into categories. So maybe there’s a question about timeline, a question about budget, a question about process, a question about logistics, whatever it might be. And it’s not saying like great believer asked this question and so and so asked this question. It’s just questions and answers. It’s very generically formatted, ideally divided into sections and it’s so helpful for everybody to receive.

[00:24:51.14] spk_0:
Do you only do that at the end of the question period or are you doing it? Are you updating it as questions come in because it might stimulate because those questions might stimulate new questions. And if you only did it at the deadline then then it’s too late for the people to ask those new questions.

[00:25:23.94] spk_1:
Yeah that’s a good question. I would recommend doing it once. And then if people still have questions after that then they can make clear that they’re making assumptions in the in their proposal and that’s okay. They can just say like here’s a piece, I’m not sure about it, we’re gonna approach it like this. But if you have other thoughts then we can reevaluate. But I think the way it usually works is the Q. And A. Where all the questions are collected and then all the answers are distributed usually answers like 95% of the questions. Because if you’ve got five groups that are really engaged in the process and sending really thoughtful questions between those five groups you’re gonna answer almost everything and between those five groups they’re probably gonna have a lot of similar questions also.

[00:25:49.24] spk_0:
Okay okay so one time one shot. Alright alright reviewing stage,

[00:26:31.54] spk_1:
you called your QA if you’ve you’ve received the proposals now it’s time to review them. And the first well these two DUIs are are related because you’ve got to get an RFP review team, it shouldn’t just be on like a single person let’s say to review all of these proposals and say who the winner is. You need to develop a team ideally it should be. Should people should be people expand different departments. Somebody in com somebody in development, somebody in I. T. So on and so forth? There should be some nice representation there and you also need scoring criteria. So there should be kind of a rubric rubric that you develop where you can score each proposal based on let’s say the plan they put together the experience, they demonstrate the budget, they share their timelines. Reference like

[00:26:35.04] spk_0:
a one through five. You know again you’re trying to level playing field. Should should every evaluator evaluate every proposal.

[00:27:19.84] spk_1:
Yeah that’s that’s the goal. Everybody evaluates every proposal. But you could also say okay we’ve got these five scoring criteria you know let’s say it’s project plan experience, budget, timeline and the understanding of your mission. You may say I don’t want those to be equally weighted for us. I think project plan is 40% and we think that the budget is 10% whatever that is. You can then assign different weights different categories but you should still evaluate every proposal with the same way. And literally when you finish reviewing a proposal score it Have those those five columns right there and give it a score on a scale of 1-5 and then do it blindly and then come together as a team afterwards and look at how you all review these groups and see which one has the highest average score or which let’s say three had the highest average score and those are the ones you might want to interview in the next stage.

[00:27:50.84] spk_0:
You mentioned something review blindly. So are we is your recommendation that you not know who the who the respondent is? Is that what you meant?

[00:27:52.54] spk_1:
I think it’s okay to know who they are. What I meant was um if you got a review team of four people review them in isolation from each other and then come together and share your unbiased thoughts.

[00:28:30.74] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Alright, interesting. Yeah everybody everybody should get a shot. It’s like college admissions. I think everybody should get a shot at all the all the bidders. Okay um mm the review stage. So now it’s um does it happen much in review that that the organizations come back with questions or is that more of that’s more of like interviewing the finalists stage?

[00:29:10.04] spk_1:
Yeah that’s the that’s the interview stage for sure. I we well before I get there I want to share one. Don’t that I think is really important for the review proposal stage which is we said this before, there could be like a secret favorite. You have someone who submits a bit. Oh they did hooray and then the proposal looks good. I think we’re ready to move forward but try your best not to prejudge any candidates because whether you’re looking for a specific candidate or not? You might be surprised. You know some groups are small, some are big, some of you may be aware of. Some you may not be aware of. Some are based in the same town as you, some are based across the country. What I found is you may be surprised by who you ultimately think is your best fit and going to the review process with an open mind.

[00:31:12.64] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Hard to do. But still it’s an it’s an aspiration. You know, if you have a favorite, it’s hard to abandon that and and keep that open mind. But you should, you should try try. You might be short changing your organization there maybe and like you said, there might be an agency out there that you don’t know or that you don’t, it’s not one of your favorites. Maybe you know them, but it’s not a favorite, but maybe come in a little lower cost seems to be a comparable work. Yeah. They seem to be a little friendlier, you know? Yes. Alright. Keep an open mind level playing field. It’s time for Tony’s take two time for me to thank you again for listening for supporting nonprofit radio I’m grateful. Any sharing that you might be doing so that the love gets shared. You’re learning your friends are learning whoever you’re sharing with your board is learning. If you’re sharing with your board, your colleagues are learning if you’re sharing with them. So thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing share share. That’s fair. That’s way that’s the way I grew up. So no, thank you. Uh, if it wasn’t for you, There wouldn’t be 13,000 plus listeners each week. So I am grateful that you listen to non profit radio I’m ecstatic that it helps you. That’s the point helps you in your work. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting the show. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for your RFP process with josh Lyman, your finalists. You wanna talk to some finalists.

[00:31:36.14] spk_1:
Absolutely. So a couple of dudes and don’t hear when it comes to interviewing finalists. So you’ve done your review process, you’ve scored everybody. Schedule calls with a handful of candidates. So if you’ve submitted, if you said your RFP to eight people, let’s say five groups submitted proposals. Speak to three to your point before. Don’t speak with to that that’s two for you don’t speak with one. You probably also should not speak with all five because ultimately, when you look at the scores, there should be, there should be some candidates that rise above the rest and you should save yourself the time of interviewing the candidate that you think truly might not be the right fit and you’re just doing it to do it. So try to filter that process down to the handful of candidates that feel like they could be the best fit.

[00:31:56.54] spk_0:
Are you informing the ones that are not finalists that that they’re out of the process or is it better to keep them in your back pocket just in case one of your top three doesn’t pan out.

[00:32:23.14] spk_1:
You know, this is an interesting question. I’ve got a really important do about this in a little bit, but I would say it’s okay to keep them in the back pocket at this point, but there needs to be a lot of transparency later in the process and I’ll I’ll tease that for now. I’ll get back to it in a second.

[00:32:25.14] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. What what other advice uh talking to the finalists?

[00:32:29.24] spk_1:
Two things. The other do is ask to speak to your potential project team. The goal being you don’t want to just speak to generic representatives from an agency you’re considering. See if you can speak to the people, you’d actually be working with. Your account director, your designer, your developer, your project manager or your copyright or whatever that person is. Um to actually see what kind of chemistry there is and what kind of car that that’s essential. And it’s not always possible. Some bigger agencies may say, look, I’m sorry. We don’t know what our project team might be. You know, we are more of a small agency were about a full time team of 10. So when we are proposing to work on a project, we already know who might be working on it. I think that actually puts us at a bit of an advantage because you can meet the people you’d be working with, not just people that you may or may not be working with.

[00:33:21.04] spk_0:
You want to talk to the Ceo as well, bringing, bringing him or her as well as your, as your, your potential project team.

[00:33:52.74] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, we are again, we’re a full time team of 10 and I as the president and founder, I’m creating all the proposals. So I’m always the person who’s working on these and submitting them. It might be tougher if you’re considering working with a much bigger agency to get the, you know, the top brass into the room, but if you want to meet the people at top, you can always give it a shot. And honestly, if you ask if somebody can join and they say no, maybe that’s a sign you should keep.

[00:34:06.84] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah. What what what’s the value of your work, what’s the importance of your work to this uh, to this agency? You know, the Ceo can’t give up half an hour. All right, josh. Lyman will never turn you down.

[00:34:08.50] spk_1:
You

[00:34:10.07] spk_0:
asked for the CEO, you will get the Ceo President President. Um, okay, more more more advice around talking to the talking two finalists.

[00:34:50.74] spk_1:
One more piece. Which is in these conversations. I think you mentioned this before. You alluded to it when it comes to writing the RFP, it doesn’t need to be a formal meeting. You can keep it light. One of the best meetings that we had as part of an RFP process was we ate lunch with an organization who was considering us for the project and we did not talk about our proposal for a single minute. We just had lunch, we talked about each other, we talked about where we came from, you know, we talked about our interests and hobbies and T V. Shows and whatever and it was really fun hour and they called us the next day and said we’re in so it doesn’t, it doesn’t need to be that informal, but it’s important to not keep things so formal and so structured and so buttoned up because that’s not what it’s gonna feel like when you work with this agency, so try to replicate that feeling. Hopefully

[00:35:18.24] spk_0:
not right. I mean, this is this is an an iterative process, There’s so much back and forth. You know, this could be a six month project, you know, you want to uh yeah, you wanted to make sure you have chemistry with the folks that you’re gonna be working with,

[00:35:21.64] spk_1:
you

[00:35:29.24] spk_0:
don’t want it to be so formal that you don’t, you know, you know, you feel like, wow, maybe I better not bother them now or something like that. That’s that’s that’s a bad feeling like, you know, they wouldn’t give us, they didn’t give us much time or I felt awkward asking questions, you know, that’s those are all red flags big

[00:36:11.73] spk_1:
time and when you think about it, a lot of projects that require an RFP are pretty long term projects. A website could take up to a year. It could take longer depending upon the goals of the project. So you want to make sure you get along with these people because you’re gonna spend a lot of time with them over the course of the project. So use that meeting as a litmus test to see how well you get along with the candidate, how well the candidate gets along with you and then make that part of your criteria as to who goes from a finalist to an actual wegner that you want to work with.

[00:36:22.13] spk_0:
What’s like a median time for the projects you’ve done. Can you say, you know what, what should folks plan on? What what’s the median, a median time arrange for a, for a let’s say, a complete, not just a refresh, but a completely new new new site.

[00:36:57.03] spk_1:
Sure. For us it’s about 10 months and that’s because the first few months of the process, we’re not doing any work yet. We’re just doing research. So we’re doing interviews. Were researching your current site, we’re talking to other stakeholders in your network and we spent a lot of time on that before the work actually starts. So we are in the 10 month range for a full website redesign. There are groups that can do it faster. There are groups that spend more time on it, but For us a great believer, it’s going to be about 10 months.

[00:37:20.93] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Um, so that is that, is that it for questioning the questioning the finalists? Oh and uh, who should be doing these questions? Should do you have like if you had a panel of three or four reviewers, those three or four reviewers be in the in the meeting? Because because that’s how you get, you know, you you want multiple people, I would think right?

[00:37:49.23] spk_1:
Yeah, I think that would be perfect. And if there are other people in your organization who you think might be on the project team, people that are on the day to day communications with you, the agency you hire those people should also be in the meeting and you don’t want it to evolve into something where there are like nine of you and three of them. But all the key players that have been involved in the process so far and those that are gonna be involved in the project with whoever you move forward with should be there.

[00:37:51.93] spk_0:
Okay. And selection?

[00:38:33.22] spk_1:
Yeah, this is it. So you’ve you’ve you’ve interviewed your candidates, you found one that you know you want to move forward with. So doing a don’t here to do is share the news with all candidates in a timely manner. So once you have made your selection, the contract is signed, then you can say send an email to everybody saying like thank you, we’ve made a selection, you know, we appreciate the work you put in your proposal. We’re going in a different direction and do that in a timely matter because people I know like myself were wondering, you know, where do things stand? Are we still in the running? We were a finalist. But how did that meeting go? Did it go well, are we gonna get to work? So that’s the do. And then in that email, this is the don’t which is don’t give the people, you did not select the finalists. You did not select the cold shoulder. What I would suggest, what I appreciate immensely is if in that email with the organization

[00:38:46.00] spk_0:
there have been that you did not get

[00:38:48.92] spk_1:
Yes,

[00:38:50.17] spk_0:
that’s happened to you. Absolutely

[00:38:52.29] spk_1:
do

[00:38:53.97] spk_0:
believe it. How could that happen? I can’t I can’t imagine it.

[00:40:06.41] spk_1:
I appreciate the endorsement. But for us we’re trying to learn from those that we don’t get is the why. And in that email where organizations say, you know, we’ve chosen to work with somebody else. For me, I understand like we’re we’re one of many who submitted a bid and we gave it our best shot. But what I want to have the opportunity to debrief with the organization and this could be as simple as a 15 minute phone call where the organization says, you know, here’s why the agency we selected stands out here are some things with your proposal that we fell fell short and and push you down to like a second tier was the other group rose to the top. And the organization may also say they’re comfortable, here’s who will be working with those kind of things are so valuable. I think organizations are often well intentioned and extremely respectful, but they can forget sometimes how much work goes into a really good proposal. A really bad one could take an hour, a really good one can take a day or more of time creating a thing, developing a timeline, developing a budget, talking to team members, making sure the process makes sense for these specific organizations needs. So Just a 15 minute phone call and look, I know it’s not the most comfortable thing to do to talk to an an agency you’re not working with but they are gonna be so appreciative of the opportunity. Some may not even take you up on it. But those that do will be happy to have the conversation and learn more about the process. They’re not gonna go into the conversation with like a chip on their shoulder. They’ll just go in looking to learn more.

[00:41:04.71] spk_0:
Yeah, they certainly should not. Yeah, you’re being very generous if you’re if you offer that offer that to the folks who weren’t selected. Yeah. And and if you look, if somebody does come, You know vindictive, you know, then you know that you made, you know that your selection process works because you suss them out. Okay. You just had to sit through an awkward 15 minute phone call that validated your process come. Yeah, yeah. I do find that valuable. Remember the last time I I asked it wasn’t offered and I asked and then I just didn’t hear back. You know, you know, basically an email said I’d like to know how I came up short, it’s happened to tony-martignetti I know it’s hard to believe

[00:41:06.99] spk_1:
too, but

[00:41:38.81] spk_0:
I’ve also not gotten something that I’ve been on one time and uh yeah, you like to know, you know, it’s just it’s just a gracious way of, it’s just a gracious way of conducting business to share your lessons, maybe, you know, help someone be better for next time. They’re not gonna try to talk you out of their decision that that’s that would be ludicrous. They’re not gonna go that far, it might be vindictive, but they’re not gonna try to talk you out of your, you know, they’re certainly not gonna try to talk you out of your decision. Um So yeah, that’s very that’s a good idea, josh. Very yeah, very magnanimous.

[00:42:18.70] spk_1:
It’s such a it’s so much appreciated because when I look back at proposals that I submitted to organizations, let’s say 56 years ago, there’s so much better and more thoughtful now because we’ve evolved as an organism as an agency. But also because we’ve gotten great input from those organizations. We submitted bids to that we did not win. And that’s helped influence how we evolve the way we pitch ourselves. So it’s it’s extremely beneficial. And again just a nice way to be magnanimous to use your word and show some appreciation to these agencies that truly wanted to work with you and gave it their all. Because if they’re a finalist they really did want to work with you. It’s not one of the groups that submitted this, you know crappy fill in the blank

[00:42:23.80] spk_0:
proposal. Yeah

[00:42:25.35] spk_1:
They genuinely put effort into it. So give them 15 minutes of your time and it’ll be much appreciated

[00:43:01.10] spk_0:
but good. Yes good karma. Um so some dates that belong in the in the RFP, you know the the deadlines that you’re specifying. I’ve got, you know the intent to bid then when the question period is gonna be I guess. And then should you say, you know what your review period is gonna be like we’re gonna take these three weeks or these two or three weeks to during for review and then and then the selection date, Are there other, are there other milestones you should you should be including,

[00:43:30.20] spk_1:
well I think you you got it. The one thing I recommend is flipping have the Q. And a deadline first and then they intend to bid after. So all the agencies can understand the questions that are being asked and then confirm if they might be the right fit to submit a bid. So Q. And a deadline, you know at least two weeks after the RFP is distributed intend to bid maybe a week or two after that. And I love it when there’s a little grid in the RFP that says, you know, um Q. And a deadline this intend to bid deadline, this your proposals do this date, we’re going to review over the span of these two weeks. Here’s another, this is like a more off the top of the head thing.

[00:43:43.18] spk_0:
It’s

[00:44:24.19] spk_1:
almost never that an organization says we’re going to review proposals during this time frame that they just need that much time. They always need more time. So when you’re writing a proposal, give yourself more time If you are gonna share how much time you want to spend reviewing tag on a week, because it’s gonna take more time than you think. Not just to get through all of them, but to have everybody internally score them. So I think it’s great to have that time in there. And if you can estimate when you’re going to actually interview finalists and make a selection, That’s great. And look, you can put a note. These are estimated dates are subject to change. But if you can give organisms or agencies rather who are applying a sense for what’s to come, That’s really great because they they’re probably pitching several other things at the same time, I want to make sure they can not just get your proposal and on time but make themselves available for potential interviews.

[00:44:34.50] spk_0:
Alright overall, you want to just make this a humane process,

[00:44:39.29] spk_1:
you

[00:45:03.39] spk_0:
may be humane, we’re talking to human beings. You don’t have to be overly formalistic. Um, you probably don’t want to be, you know that may put people off, that may put agencies off. Like we said in the beginning, they feel they have no latitude. That may discourage some bids. So right. Running you an RFP process while keeping your cool. Yeah. Bu man, come on.

[00:45:05.39] spk_1:
We’re

[00:45:13.59] spk_0:
all, we’re all humans. Alright, josh Excellent. Anything parting words you want to leave folks with reporting advice.

[00:45:16.19] spk_1:
Mm Yeah, I think you know, I think these dudes and don’t are really helpful and I mentioned this in the session but if you want to skip the RFP process, come straight to us, happy to work with you on a different website. Projects design and development and other facets also like branding in print. But I understand that our FPs are like I said before a necessary evil and when they are required. Hopefully these dudes and don’t make the process a little bit easier.

[00:45:41.19] spk_0:
Okay, great believer. What’s the website?

[00:45:43.69] spk_1:
Great believer dot us

[00:45:46.59] spk_0:
josh Lyman founder and president, Great believer, Great believer dot us josh. Thank you very much. Good to talk to you. Thanks for sharing all your ideas.

[00:45:54.94] spk_1:
Thanks tony

[00:46:54.48] spk_0:
my pleasure next week. The chronicle of philanthropy will go non profit with editor Stacy palmer. If you missed any part of this week’s show. I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn knife into dot C. O And by 4th dimension Technologies IT Infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D, Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty be with me next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for June 13, 2022: Appealing To Tomorrow’s Major Donors

 

Nejeed Kassam: Appealing To Tomorrow’s Major Donors

There’s $50 trillion set to change hands in North America by 2050, enriching today’s millennials and Generation Z. Let’s talk about cultivation and fundraising strategies to reach these generations. My guest is Nejeed Kassam from Keela. (This is part of our coverage of #22NTC, hosted by NTEN.)

 

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[00:01:40.64] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with blended vaginitis. If you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show appealing to tomorrow’s major donors, There’s $50 trillion North America by 2050 enriching today’s millennials and generation Z let’s talk about cultivation and fundraising strategies to reach these generations. My guest is Najid Kassem from kila. This is part of our coverage of the 2022 non profit technology conference hosted by N 10 On Tony’s take two. Trepidation about new york city, we’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o And by 4th dimension technologies I. T infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Just like 3D but they go one dimension deeper here is appealing to tomorrow’s major donors. Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 N. T. C 2022 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10 with me now is Najid Qasem Ceo and founder of Kayla Najid, welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:02:18.54] spk_1:
Thanks so much Tony and just for the folks that are listening because I might have a conflict I’m also on the board of directors at N10 and so really really proud to be part of the governance team at antenna and grateful to all of those of you who attended NTC this past, I guess almost a month ago now. Wonderful.

[00:02:31.14] spk_0:
Thank you for thank you for letting me know. We have Miko Whitlock and Jason shim. I have to see if they’re still on, but we’ve got, we’ve got Beth Kanter coming up. Um,

[00:02:32.86] spk_1:
I mean those are, those are my people, that’s my tribe. So you’ve got a great, great lineup coming up

[00:02:57.34] spk_0:
well. And you’re on the, you’re on the board of a terrific organization. Any sample ward is our technology and social media contributor. So she’s on many times a year sharing her wisdom on, on those subjects. We’re gonna talk about your seminar topic. Great transfer of wealth, how to reach the next generation.

[00:03:00.54] spk_1:
Absolutely.

[00:03:07.04] spk_0:
And you say you’re in your description that there’s a $50 trillion dollar transfer coming. What’s, what’s on the horizon?

[00:04:22.34] spk_1:
Well, you know, I think a lot of the topic is just about the fact that boomers and those, the generation, the great generations as I like to call them, are starting to, to, to find peace and move on to whatever happens in the next stage of our lives and you know, as well as they pass our grand, my grandparents passed away. Um, the last couple of years and you see that generation, my parents are starting to get older and thinking about the next, you know, the next chapter of their lives and so for those of us that are gen, x, gen y and I guess gen z is now, um, you know, a lot of money ultimately is going to transfer between generations, the boomers and their parents Postwar really generated absurd amounts, like, like, you know, unthinkable amounts of wealth and, and that’s all transferring and there’s a bunch of really interesting factors that are, that are going to change how giving is done. What’s gonna happen to that? Just the demographic, you know, general demographics in the United States and so, you know, a lot of money is going to change hands and, and that’s going to have a profound impact on getting because for a whole host of reasons we’ll talk about today.

[00:04:25.00] spk_0:
Yeah, So you’re expecting that millennials are going to grow the

[00:04:28.50] spk_1:
wealth that’s

[00:04:30.28] spk_0:
left to them. Well, if they spend it, then we’re hoping they’re gonna be giving it away because otherwise we have nothing to talk about it. If they’re all buying super yachts, then you and I may as well end right now, shut the mics

[00:04:43.04] spk_1:
off. I mean, for the sake of humanity, I really hope that they’re not just buying superyachts. How about that?

[00:04:49.40] spk_0:
Okay, right. Super yachts, private

[00:04:51.42] spk_1:
islands.

[00:04:53.18] spk_0:
You and I

[00:04:54.38] spk_1:
can’t possibly conceive of tony

[00:05:04.04] spk_0:
Okay, I hope not. I hope it doesn’t go that way. Alright. Otherwise, like I said, you know, you and I are done in three minutes. Okay, let’s go on the safe assumption on the humanitarian and um magnanimous assumption that uh, they’re gonna be giving a lot of this wealth away and, and they’ll be growing it too. Right?

[00:05:16.14] spk_1:
Absolutely.

[00:05:21.44] spk_0:
So you’re encouraging us to focus well before we get to the, you know, what to do, how to reach these folks.

[00:05:25.94] spk_1:
What

[00:05:41.94] spk_0:
are, what are some of these factors that you alluded to? Why are you expecting? Why? I think the, the estimates I’ve seen of transfer from baby boomers to millennials is not 50 trillion. I’ve seen 20-30 trillion or something like that. But you’re saying so in

[00:06:00.54] spk_1:
20, in 2014, um, um, For Boston College or some researchers at Boston College did a research and their prediction was 58 trillion would, would be transferred to the next gen. And that I think it includes gen x and gen y and ultimately gen z. So it’s not just millennials would be in the amount of 58 trillion, but when we’re talking 30 40 50 ultimately, I think it’s the same. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just a huge amount of money.

[00:06:28.14] spk_0:
It is. Okay. And so you’d like us to approach are younger donors Because we’re talking about, we’re talking about anybody 60 and under, where, you know, I

[00:06:41.44] spk_1:
would say like when does gen x start 50 and under maybe probably 55. I don’t know whatever gen x is. But yes, I think millennials are the the the most commonly, um, the most commonly thought about populist, But ultimately I think, you know, the age of the internet, the age of artificial intelligence, all of these kinds of things are, are, are ushering in new ways to engage donors. And I think that’s the crux of it.

[00:06:59.74] spk_0:
Okay, okay, now you’re using millennials and gen X interchangeably.

[00:07:18.54] spk_1:
No, No, No Gen X is what 1965-1980? Millennials are 1982, Some say 2000, some say 96. And then gen, Gen Z is people that are too young for me to think about.

[00:07:31.34] spk_0:
Okay, we’re not there yet. Um, Alright, what, what’s your, what’s your advice around talking to these? Um, millenials and gen xers?

[00:09:03.54] spk_1:
Yeah, I think you asked a great question previously and I’ll get to this question, but let’s talk about why they’re different because I think that’s really important to note. There’s a few factors that are, that are super interesting. The first one is, household sizes are smaller and you might think, why does that matter? Well, there are fewer millennials and gen Z s than there were their parents. And so between, I think it’s from 1962 around today or 2018 or whenever this data was published, Household size in the us has gone from 3.6 people per family to 3.1 people. Now that might be only half a person, but that’s a substantial number of people. And what it means is the people inheriting money are actually gonna be fewer, right in terms of their populace, but they’re gonna have more capacity in terms of their wealth. And so I think this data point is actually quite um, it’s interesting, it’s a little bit terrifying in some ways because you know, you’re gonna organizations, the sector as a whole is going to have to seek, you know, a a lot more from individual people as opposed to being able to diversify in the same way. I think that’s a very interesting piece of data and one that I think is going to change the dynamic, especially of major gifts because, you know, currently you think about the people, the high net worth individuals, the families, they care about health care or they care about this or there’s a lot of yours, Right? I think with that next generation there’s gonna be a lot of ants because there’s less people inheriting larger amounts of money. And I think excuse me, that’s quite profound. Don’t you think tony I

[00:09:25.94] spk_0:
do. I think I have a person, times tens, the many tens of millions of exactly that we have in this country that’s significant. Uh, you know, we’ve always thought of the average family as, you know, a family of four. All right, so you’re saying

[00:09:28.56] spk_1:
you’re

[00:09:41.34] spk_0:
saying the average is 3.6, but look 3.6 rounds to 43.1, barely, barely, barely three. So, you know, with 3.6 and four, 3.1 is a big difference.

[00:10:03.74] spk_1:
Absolutely. And think about it like this, if somebody, you know, earns $250 million over their life and they built a portfolio of real estate and wealth and influence ultimately. And they take that and they go to one kid, okay, let’s say each kid, you know, 100 25 million, but when one child is inheriting all that money, your major donor pool is ultimately getting smaller and and so now they have more power, they have more influence, they have actually ability to write bigger checks, but organizations are gonna have to do better at collaborating to generate these things because whether we like to admit it or not in the sector, tony

[00:10:20.21] spk_0:
Another, the other 125 million goes to the Super Yacht.

[00:10:23.84] spk_1:
Of course, sorry, tony slipped my mind. So

[00:10:27.56] spk_0:
there we are. So we’re done again again, we’re done. One kid and one super yacht, there’s your 250. Alright,

[00:10:33.59] spk_1:
You just you just cut generosity and a half and I think we started, Alright,

[00:10:37.34] spk_0:
let’s reduce the super yacht, you know, let’s say in

[00:10:40.44] spk_1:
70

[00:10:44.94] spk_0:
five, let’s do 75 million on the Super Yacht. Another 50. Another 50 to be very generous

[00:12:26.14] spk_1:
with. I’m gonna cut you off because I’d like to share a couple more pieces of data that are useful. The first one, is that, Is that migration has changed over the past kind of 30, 40 years Kids or kids in that 3.1 case right, families are actually staying more geographically close together. And that was especially heightened during the pandemic, where 52% of people aged 18 or 29 were actually at home with their folks in 2020. Now, if you look at data from Um, I think it’s 2004 is when it starts people, both seniors. And so like the parents of these boomers who many of them have passed now, but also the kids of these boomers are staying closer together, which means, you know, they’re more integrated into their families. And what that at least the research that we read and I understood or interpreted was that that can actually mean that maybe people are more aligned with their parents, beliefs or they’re more engaged with them? Or at least they certainly know their parents interests better. Now. The question we’re going to have to figure out is is that going to make them more likely to continue the legacies? Let’s say I I’m I’m let’s say there’s a high net worth family. Okay. And they’ve spent years giving to poverty alleviation? Well, these kids or kids that inherit this money because they’re closer to those parents, both geographically and, you know, in many other ways, are they going to continue that legacy? Are they going to rebel against it when they give? And it’s a question we don’t know the answer to, but it’s an interesting piece of data well,

[00:12:31.04] spk_0:
which also leads to, uh, you know, our our subject of appealing to these

[00:12:32.07] spk_1:
folks

[00:13:45.64] spk_0:
so that they don’t, by default, abandon the philanthropy of their, of their parents. I mean, they may do it consciously, but you don’t want it to just happen because you never gave it a shot to, to avoid it from happening. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They’ll develop your media strategy for you. What are the parts of that? It starts with identifying your core messages then defining those channels, those outlets where those messages ought to be heard. The places where you want to be known as a thought leader turn to will do the legwork to approach those outlets and as they close opportunities for you, craft your message appropriately to the specific audience you’re gonna be talking to. That is a media strategy. That’s what turned to communications can do for you because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O now back to appealing to tomorrow’s major donors because I want to keep talking about the trends before we get to the Yeah. And I think there’s one

[00:14:14.84] spk_1:
interesting one that we can’t forget and that’s women outlive men, um, by like, I think it’s like five years on average in the US now. So it’s like, that’s a, that’s like, you know, a meaty 56789% of people’s lives. Right? And so it’s interesting because unlike, you know, unlike, unfortunately similar to many other things in our history, you’ve kind of focused on like older white men that’s been like, you know, kind of it’s you see it in representation in politics on boards of directors and ceo position in funding for investments, whatever it might be.

[00:14:27.65] spk_0:
Call it what it is. We’re talking about sexism.

[00:15:27.04] spk_1:
Sure, look, I’m a person of color. I I don’t and my wife’s a person of color who is a woman. She has it way worse tonight. Right? And so the interesting thing is my wife’s gonna be gonna outlive me almost for certain. I mean for sure in my case, but, you know, demographically as well. And so philanthropy forget about just the transfer of wealth. The transfer of wealth is going to be inter mediated by the transfer from men who are dying at, you know, whatever 70 something to women who are probably dying 56 years later. And so philanthropy is going to be affected by the fact that decision making historically and giving has been made by the primary breadwinners. But as we see more women taking positions and leadership making more money. We see women inheriting money, they’re gonna give differently. And I don’t think we exactly know how that is yet. But that’s like I said, it’s like a stepping in the in the in the transfer, right? So I did a point that’s super relevant to this conversation.

[00:15:40.94] spk_0:
There is research about the way women give being different than the way men give. They want to be more involved. Uh, they were more involved in in how the money is used. Um, it’s less transactional for them. And uh,

[00:15:45.73] spk_1:
that’s interesting. I didn’t know that.

[00:16:06.54] spk_0:
Yeah. And um, they like, you know, they like to have more of a role in how it’s spent. Um, and it’s, yeah, I don’t, I think there’s, there’s other research to that. They like to be not only involved in how what their gift is is going to do, but be involved in the organization generally. So maybe they’re giving they’re giving what we’re talking about major donors, I think is what

[00:16:17.80] spk_1:
the research

[00:16:18.85] spk_0:
research is. Um, but they’ll also be, they’ll increase their volunteering with your

[00:16:23.94] spk_1:
organization, which

[00:16:27.64] spk_0:
may have nothing at all to do with their giving. Uh, they again, less transactional more, much more relational when it’s when

[00:16:33.69] spk_1:
it’s and I think what’s interesting is like, there isn’t much data on that yet, Right. Because of the demographic realities and the power dynamics that have been so, so unfortunate. And so you see

[00:16:44.44] spk_0:
like, Yeah,

[00:16:50.04] spk_1:
and that’s, I think you’re gonna see more of the research and ultimately more from that because it’s valuable, you know,

[00:17:00.64] spk_0:
the sexism in fundraising is, uh, I think long standing and obviously shortsighted, um, not just in fundraising, right.

[00:17:03.23] spk_1:
tony and everything, to be honest.

[00:17:05.64] spk_0:
Absolutely, yeah.

[00:18:37.84] spk_1:
But what’s interesting is there’s also been and I’m not, you know, I want to kind of move on because there’s also been quite a significant ageism in fundraising. You said it yourself, we spend, what is it 80% of our time on the top? 20% of donors? I think that’s the math that everyone teaches at fundraising school. Um, but what’s interesting is that’s shortsighted ultimately. Yes, I understand it completely. I really do. But what is interesting is, and this is something I touched on in my lecture 10 10 was, you know, the investment in youth giving has actually been minimal to be honest, because it hasn’t seen us providing as much instant return on investment, which is true. It’s a long game, not a short game, right? And but youth, the youth, especially in the context of this transfer of wealth, are going to inherit all that money. And if you haven’t laid your groundwork, you can’t suddenly show up at their door and young people giving even if they don’t have wealth yet or at all. But yet for the sake of this conversation is different. A couple of interesting trends. The first one is young people and I say this millennials I think is the research that I’m quoting are much more influenced by their peers. So young people, I think the data point is our 46% more likely to donate if a co worker does and 65% more likely to volunteer if a co worker does. That’s fascinating to me because it actually it’s a social activity in a weird way. You know, the power, you know, we’ll talk about social media maybe in a bit. But that’s interesting. The second data

[00:18:45.66] spk_0:
point. That’s Yeah. So that’s just that’s co workers, not even necessarily friends.

[00:18:51.84] spk_1:
I assume the data is similar for friends,

[00:18:55.34] spk_0:
friends giving up their birthdays, friends doing peer to peer campaigns.

[00:19:06.54] spk_1:
Well, I think, and I think I have a peer to peer data point that in my notes, let me just see if I can pull it up. I’ll see if I can find it. But let’s keep going. Yeah,

[00:19:12.64] spk_0:
Okay. But coworkers. That’s that’s quite an affinity for co worker giving.

[00:20:19.84] spk_1:
But and you know, we see it, look, I have a lot of young millennials in all my staff and they’re wonderful and amazing people and they’re definitely, you know, whenever something personal giving, that’s the other point. The second point, this is actually a nice segue giving us much more personal to millennial generation. And that has a couple of ramifications for example, to segue from our previous conversation When you know, we have, I think we have staff from 15 countries at Kayla um, on our team born who are born in 15 countries. And so, you know, whether it’s an issue area they care about or something happening in in a in a home or or former place of theirs, they share the plight and also opportunities to engage, right? I think this is a beautiful part of our culture because it helps, you know, But I can, I can watch this in action. I can see I’ve made donations because our coworkers feels an affinity or a passion or, or a sense of connection to a cause. And so, you know, I think that is interesting because I’ve watched it kind of firsthand, right, tony I think that’s super. That’s it kind of reinforces from a non data perspective kind of qualitatively exactly what this data point is showing

[00:20:51.14] spk_0:
interest. But I think, you know, what else, you know, uh, anecdotally I’m a young baby boomer and I’ve never done that. I’ve never given because a coworker gate, I mean I haven’t, haven’t had coworkers for something like 20 years, but back when I did for the short time that I did and I could stand being an employee of someone else. I, I never gave for that reason.

[00:22:47.24] spk_1:
Well, and I think the social media thing is, is I can’t find the data point and I apologize, but I think it’s essentially the same thing. It’s that folks are influenced, not in a bad way, but like folks are inspired is a better way to put it from their communities ultimately. And it’s not church or synagogue or mosque or united way as much or community centers anymore. It’s what they’re seeing on social media, what matters most of their friends and what that actually is kind of segue. Me too is that they’re giving is much more personal for millennials than it was. You know I say our generation I’m right at the cusp of being a millennial but I consider myself at least emotionally outside of it. And so things like organizational status, tax deductibility, organizational legitimacy are much less at the forefront of their decision making. They you know the rise of go fund me where people are giving to people directly the rise of um of of of not having the intermediary of an organization. Um the rise of not carrying the fact that they’re not going to get a tax receipt which is gonna offset a percentage of their donations. Millennials aren’t necessarily looking for that break or something tangible. They want that feeling of making an impact right? There’s a huge feel. It’s it’s why we see the rise of you know be corpse attracting more staff and the why that almost every millennial says when you’re looking for a job impact is a part of that calculus. And so you see those I’m gonna go out and say values of a generation applying themselves or or or or showing their face in giving in a very different way from from me and you and our parents and I think that’s very interesting.

[00:24:09.24] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. Their I. T. Solution is I. T. Infra in a box it’s the I. T. Buffet, it’s budget friendly. It’s holistic. You pick what you need and you leave the rest behind the different components that are available. I. T. Assessment, multi factor authentication for security, other security methods, cost analysis of where you’re standing, what you’re spending money on the help desk and there’s more you choose what’s right for your I. T. Budget for your I. T. Situation as it exists. Like they’ll help you fill the gap between where you are and where you want to be. That’s the I. T. Infra in a box. Fourth dimension technologies tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Let’s return to appealing to tomorrow’s major donors. Let’s turn to what nonprofits can do to huh exploit this and using exploitation as in a non pejorative sense. Take advantage of or

[00:24:09.64] spk_1:
C the opportunity I think.

[00:24:15.14] spk_0:
Yeah in the data and then the and then the trend.

[00:24:17.12] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:24:18.01] spk_0:
And you know I think enormous wealth transfer. So let’s talk about the

[00:26:02.74] spk_1:
really low hanging fruit like the most boring fruit that you could possibly and and and that’s like you know when high net worth individuals give for major donors for major giving. Excuse me as major donors. They don’t see it as I. Samuel l smith is making the donation. It’s me the smith on behalf of my family. The smith family. It’s a family. There’s so much of that family legacy idea and so when organizations are so privileged to get those kinds of donations don’t just look at Sam look at SAm’s wife and look at Sam’s kids and make those connections with the family and that’s for two reasons. One, it’s the right thing to do. Super obvious. But to it’s actually laying the groundwork for, for relationships in the future, share the impact being made, engage the families, the kids. Especially because if you want to get another gift, if you want to, you know, create opportunity from that, it’s going to happen likely either when the donor dies and his or her wife does it or husband, but much more likely their kids continuing that legacy. So engage with them. Like that’s not hard. It’s like, you know, bring them, bring them in, engage them, take them out to lunch instead of just the major donor or the couple or whatever it is. It’s an easy thing to do is encouraging families to come and come around recognizing the families, not just the person and then offering entry points for the kids to um, to engage the organization as volunteers. You know, we talked in the, in the lecture and, and Nathaniel gave a great example about youth councils and, you know, bringing on kind of communities or boards of youth. Often the kind of, yeah, kind

[00:26:08.60] spk_0:
of advisory like

[00:26:09.50] spk_1:
engagement boards I think would be the best way to put it. But yeah,

[00:26:13.03] spk_0:
I’m,

[00:26:15.91] spk_1:
I’m just in our notes, we call them like youth, hold on. I’ll find the exact term we used.

[00:26:22.30] spk_0:
I

[00:26:22.64] spk_1:
think they’re called youth councils,

[00:26:24.24] spk_0:
you’ve counted. But what you would call them for the folks. Youth council,

[00:26:27.60] spk_1:
right?

[00:26:40.94] spk_0:
You want that, you want that perspective in your, in your event planning, certainly in your event planning, but in your fundraising, you know, you may, you may not be thinking of peer to peer well,

[00:26:41.52] spk_1:
and that’s actually my next point

[00:26:43.60] spk_0:
Are in their 30s and 40s, you may not be taking a peer to peer campaigns.

[00:28:54.04] spk_1:
And I have a feeling a big part of there’s a, there’s a symbiosis between that data point on giving from coworkers and peer to peer. So peer to peer kind of had a lot of sex appeal a few years ago, and then people were like, is it that valuable? I’m here to say peer to peer is phenomenally valuable, but not necessarily because people think it is or thought it was. I think a lot of people thought, oh, it’s gonna spike our donation. I’m in it for the long game here. To me, Pierre, Pierre is an entry point to engagement with an entirely new group of donors. I think the numbers in the 80% of people who give through a peer to peer campaign are first time donors to the cause. And, and if you don’t store them effectively, which we can talk about later or on another show or I’m sure you have really qualified folks talking about it, you’re gonna lose that donor to bring them into your giving ecosystem as an organization, but they are an entry point where somebody else is doing the lead generation for you, right? Ultimately that giving about coworkers, I give to every single period of your campaign. One of my staff’s writing in a, you know, um, cycling in an event or running a race or I don’t know whatever it might be. That’s an entry point. That’s an entry point. And it’s an entry point to diversify your donor base to access new donors to get your giving list up and, and we all know in the space, the donor retention is a lot cheaper than donor acquisition. Every data, like there’s absurd amounts of data that show that and peer to peer is a great example and, and it’s how you engage a generation and I’m gonna take it a step further. Millennials like to feel agency, they want to be part of something that goes back to that feeling that personal nature of it. When you get folks engaging with peer to peer, what you’re doing is not just getting money. You’re, you’re, you’re building advocates right? Like the youth council, but much more scalable, ultimately right. You’re getting perspective, you’re building advocates, you’re, you’re finding new ways to get into communities and you’re ultimately empowering social media to do the work for you and why wouldn’t you do that? And I think it doesn’t have to be a big event or a race. It can be, you know, that we can use peer to peer much more creatively to, to think about the long term opportunities, does that make sense? tony I

[00:29:21.34] spk_0:
had a guest, yes, it does have a guest who used the example of a local animal shelter they hosted a dog wedding for and, and you know, again an event to attract younger donors and, and it was phenomenally successful. I know you said it to my

[00:29:44.94] spk_1:
staff, they would all go like all these, it’s just, that’s a lot of them have dogs and you know, you know, it is what it is and it’s, it’s wonderful for them cause a lot of them are having kids, right? tony look at that number kid that 3.6 to 3.1 that someone’s not having Children and so, but that’s a way to encourage an entire demographic, you probably would, wouldn’t get to otherwise. I think that’s brilliant. It’s brilliant.

[00:29:51.44] spk_0:
Her other idea was a bark mitzvah.

[00:29:53.74] spk_1:
I’m

[00:29:57.81] spk_0:
trying

[00:29:59.08] spk_1:
to make a joke with mazel tov like,

[00:30:04.45] spk_0:
like

[00:30:05.12] spk_1:
it’s there, it’s there,

[00:30:19.34] spk_0:
it was all about to share that with her. Um, yeah, very good, very good, very good. Um, yeah, as somebody who thinks that the only good puns are the ones that I think of, but I thought I thought bark mitzvah was very good, yes muzzle top outstanding, very good, very good. Alright, tony I told

[00:30:28.50] spk_1:
you I have now been a dad for two years and so my dad joke. This is just, it’s, it’s coming, it’s rising, you know?

[00:30:40.34] spk_0:
Well you’re still just approaching it because is very good. When the jokes start to be about your genes, you know, then then then they’re then they’re tired. They’re

[00:30:47.42] spk_1:
tired. You’re

[00:30:59.84] spk_0:
just you’re just approaching but but you’re still in the you’re still in the humorous category and not high rolling. You’re not, you haven’t, you haven’t transcended into the eye rolling. Alright.

[00:31:00.18] spk_1:
There’s two more topics I want to touch on briefly before we run out of time.

[00:31:17.24] spk_0:
We have time. Okay. Wait, are these still in the category of what nonprofits can do to, to attract and appeal to and or steward, you mentioned stewardship I want to, you know what be doing do talk

[00:32:23.04] spk_1:
about? I think there’s two factors that we all that. So I I don’t know if this is a do and bring me back onto shore if you need me to. But let’s talk about family foundation and donor advised funds for a second because engaging both of these things is actually critical to capitalizing on the opportunity of of the transfer of wealth. So, you know, for whatever tax reasons, right. A lot of folks might build family foundations or or engage with staff so that they can receive the tax benefits on the event of some kind of liquidation. Whatever it’s selling the company or having a windfall or whatever it might be. But what’s interesting is two things to think about the first one is how are we thinking about that as part of the transfer of wealth? Like what can we do with that? And the second one is, that’s a give now benefit or, you know, benefit other communities. It’s like give now from a tax perspective, give later for the organizations. And so to me, I think laying the groundwork engaging family foundations or high net worth individuals early as that process is starting is going to be super valuable because folks could pass with dispersement quotas very low, at least in Canada. And I think in the States they’re relatively low as well.

[00:32:39.16] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:33:40.24] spk_1:
5%. So I think Canada just went from 3.5 to 5% in this past budget last week. Actually, well, exactly because their foundations, right. But yeah, so, but the thing is those are, those are like grounds for giving, you know, from a generational wealth because ultimately the kids might be forget about being involved, tony the kids might be actually driving that even when their parents pass on, so the gift has been made, but the, but the, but the beneficiary hasn’t benefited yet. And so it’s this liminal state that if we forget about as organizations and I speak as a board member of six nonprofits or five or whatever the number is, we’re losing an opportunity as part of this transfer of wealth. So laying the groundwork starting to build relationships with both the foundations and the daft or the daft, depending on the structure, getting the kids involved in other ways. Like peer to peer, I think, not forgetting the family foundations and the daft components to generational transfer would be shortsighted.

[00:37:02.03] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. I’m returning very shortly To New York City for two weeks. In fact, as you’re listening to this, I’ll be in the city And you know, I lived in the city for 15 years, but I’ve got some trepidation about returning. Um and I don’t think that my situation is any different than yours. You know, returning to old Patterns, old places, it might be an office, might be returning home after having been away through the pandemic. That’s my situation. I haven’t been in New York City since early March 2020. And so things on my mind do I remember how to get around on the subway. I feel like that’s like riding a bicycle. Um I don’t think I’ll get on too many uptown trains when I want to go downtown, but you know, the familiarity, the old alacrity, the smoothness, the comfort, it’s not quite there. I’m gonna have to check check my subway map app more often than I used to where you know, I used to just pop downstairs. Oh yeah, it’s right this way pop pop pop. I know the turn, I know which uh entrance I wanna use. I know exactly where to stand waiting for the train. I don’t have that, that level of comfort anymore. And Covid of course, You know, I did see that. Covid rates are declining in Northeast. But I mean new york city is still a huge city densely populated. So we got some trepidation there. I’m gonna have to be more scrupulous about my masking than uh, than I am here in this little beach town in north Carolina. And then the other part is just, you know, identity. I was a new yorker for 15 years And yes, I, I moved out of New York six years ago. So it’s not, I didn’t move out because of the pandemic. I left several years before, but for two weeks, I don’t know, can I be a new yorker again for two weeks? Is that that allowed? Am I a tourist? I don’t know. I’m, I don’t think I’m an expat new yorker living in north Carolina. I don’t feel like that. No, but am I a tourist returning for two weeks? Interesting. What’s, what’s my identity? How do I fit in former resident? Not, you know, that that’s somewhere higher cash than tourist returning resident, but just for two weeks. So interesting. You know, and I’m sure that you have got lots of these kinds of thoughts going on as you return two old patterns, old places That’s Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for appealing to tomorrow’s major donors with najid Kassem by the way. You’re on five boards, you were dismissed from one of the boards. I’m not at liberty to reveal at this time, but you’ll, they’ll be in touch with you.

[00:37:11.43] spk_1:
Good to know. tony I’ll expect the letter.

[00:37:14.13] spk_0:
Now the donor advised funds and the foundation. Yeah, very good. But when I said, when you know the kids are involved now, um, ultimately, I mean the kids may have already taken over, but ultimately when their baby boomer parents have died, then the kids are gonna be involved, especially in the family

[00:37:38.83] spk_1:
legally required to, to make disbursements. So if you haven’t gotten on the ground game now In 5, 10, 15, 20 years when there are these huge amounts of money, which they constantly have to be giving away, you’re gonna be behind the eight ball and that’s unfortunate position for folks to begin

[00:37:59.33] spk_0:
good. Yeah, no good advice. And that is right in line with what nonprofits can be talking about can be thinking about and and likely acting on. So yes, now you’re, you’re still in that you’re still in the, you’re still in the game.

[00:38:13.82] spk_1:
I’m still, I wanted to end at some point with five weird facts about legacy giving that I found, which I think you would really enjoy. I

[00:38:22.12] spk_0:
probably will. Let’s not, it’s, it’s not the show though. It’s still tony-martignetti non profit radio So hold, hold back with the, with the anarchy and we’ll get, we’ll get to the five points. we still have plenty of

[00:38:27.56] spk_1:
time

[00:38:31.02] spk_0:
alright, the five, five idiosyncrasies maybe of plan giving or legacy giving as you call it.

[00:38:34.79] spk_1:
And I think which is relevant obviously in the transfer of wealth conversation of course. What

[00:38:49.12] spk_0:
about what about more advice about thinking about acting on younger the younger generations, millennials generation, z you mentioned stewardship, what are we talking about? So

[00:38:51.08] spk_1:
I was just, I was just gonna go there and talk about

[00:38:52.72] spk_0:
community.

[00:39:56.92] spk_1:
So, so I think one of the pieces of advice that Nathaniel especially gave is like the post gift engagement, especially in peer to peer. And I thought that was really interesting because, and it’s two kinds of post of stewardship, the stewardship of the donors who give to peer peer campaigns, which is valuable and we talked about expanding the donor base, but I think what she really drummed down on is how important it is to actually engage with the fundraisers, the folks who are actually doing the period, like, you know, who are the, you know, for those of you who don’t know a peer to peer, you have a group of fundraisers who raise money for the cause and donors make donations in support of those fundraisers and the money goes to the organizations, but the fundraisers, they’re kind of like your champions, right? They’re the ones who are casting a wide net who are sharing and promoting, who are engaging their social media’s and I think one thing that we often forget is to thank the fundraisers, we do a good job of thanking the people with the money fine and maybe we don’t do good enough a job but you write a check general, you’re gonna get a thank you. But the fundraisers are actually your access to market their your go to market strategy, so to speak and so

[00:40:03.19] spk_0:
you’re right. They created the campaign.

[00:40:05.66] spk_1:
Absolutely. They did all your work for you

[00:40:15.91] spk_0:
birthday, whatever. Yes. Yeah. Are we are we are you seeing that? Are we bad at thanking the fundraisers? We are we

[00:41:37.01] spk_1:
are um it’s very automated, it’s thanking for signing up more than thank you for what you’ve done. So a lot of like the impact or or community reporting people often forget the fundraisers and there’s you know, we’ve seen that anecdotally, we’ve seen that with our product and I’ve seen that in some of the research as well. And so where you know, Nathaniel gave this great example, I’m trying to remember but she said send a personalized impact report to the things that the fundraisers care about because generally when you’re signing up as a fundraiser for a peer to peer campaign, you give insight into the things you care about the reasons you’re doing. My mom, you know, my grandmother passed away from acts or my you know, my my aunt did this or or someone at my work struggled with that. And so you’re gonna get some insight into what they care about and if you want them to run these things again to do it participate next year or in subsequent years to get more involved as a donor themselves or a volunteer that follow up is so valuable and make and spending the time Doing it for for each of them, even if it’s 10 minutes, you know, make a call, put their name on an impact report, it’s so little in terms of cost or time, but the value of the return and ultimately that feeling of values align, which was, you know, I’ve tried to come through, come up over and over again through the, you know, this conversation about millennials, they’ll feel valued, they’ll feel values aligned and ultimately it’s the right thing to do, but but also it will help you getting them to get engaged in other ways or or

[00:41:56.31] spk_0:
again. Yeah, Alright, very smart, very savvy. I’m disappointed to hear that we’re not being good about the fundraisers. It’s I

[00:42:17.30] spk_1:
think it’s easy because there’s lots of them and it’s hard because we’re not used to it. Right, peer to peer is relatively new, it’s not built into the muscle memory of us as fundraisers and I think that’s yeah, a lot of organizations, especially mid to large ones are actually getting peer to peer officers now. So you know, you’ve got your major grant donor officer or program manager, you got your recurring donor, you got your peer to peer now because the R. O. I. S. Is so strong both from a brand perspective and from the donation perspective. Right.

[00:42:24.33] spk_0:
Very good. Thank you. All right. When you said you had I think you said you had to

[00:43:45.90] spk_1:
I think I think the stewardship one is interesting and it actually comes to you know again it’s that personalization element what what millennials want to hear however you’re engaging them if they’re the kids of high net worth if they’re part of peer to peer campaigns or if they’re just giving in general as part of the transfer they want to see much more intimately or much more directly what’s happening with the money? Right. What are you know the older generation is like how much are you spending on administration? That’s actually a lot less. They don’t care as much and you can see that because of how they’re giving, what they care about is what actually happened to that money. I don’t care if you use 13 cents or 18 cents or 23 cents for administration. How many malaria nets was I able to get from that or you know what value did my gift or my time bring to the cause that I care deeply about and that subtle difference in stewardship is actually quite substantial in how you treat it. So you know it’s not a budget or or or a financial document that you’re sending as part of stewardship it’s a lot around stories around data on impact and and around around making them feel like they were a part of that, which I think is quite different from what we saw in this boomer and other generations. What do you think? tony

[00:43:50.96] spk_0:
Yeah, no, I agree. I think there’s been less attention to that.

[00:43:56.00] spk_1:
It’s

[00:43:56.78] spk_0:
been it’s been growing, but the boomers are probably dying at a faster rate than they can, they can gain the they can gain the benefit of. I’m one of them, I’m happy to be a younger one.

[00:44:32.29] spk_1:
But but I also think it goes back to the values which we’ve sort of been talking about, right, that different reason for giving, right that the reason people millennials take certain jobs or do certain things or engage with certain, you know, community activities or civil society, it is different. And if we don’t steward differently with that, we’re not only missing an opportunity. We’re kind of not meeting folks where they are.

[00:44:34.29] spk_0:
Look, if, you know, if you’re ignoring this, the difference in the generations, you’re, you’re doing so at your peril. You know, you’re, you’re ignoring critical difference is that there’s a difference between your 70 year old donor and your 40 year old donor

[00:44:48.88] spk_1:
and I don’t want your old donor and

[00:44:51.30] spk_0:
You’re 25-30 year old donor

[00:44:53.59] spk_1:
absolutely and I don’t want it to be like we’re just doing this to get more money. Like as much as that’s easy to do. You want to connect like it’s the right thing to

[00:45:14.49] spk_0:
do. Yeah. Including families has always been, especially in planned giving, but it’s, it’s just, it’s just smart. It’s just smart business, um, engagement, which leads leads to more, more, greater impact, whether it’s volunteering or giving or just thinking well of your cause.

[00:45:23.26] spk_1:
You know, you

[00:45:24.25] spk_0:
know, I don’t give to the organization anymore, but they were very good to me when my mom died,

[00:45:30.19] spk_1:
yep.

[00:45:35.29] spk_0:
All right. All right. The Big five now giving, I will, I, I prefer the phrase planned giving so I’ll tolerate, I’ll not accept, but I’ll tolerate your legacy giving moniker.

[00:45:46.49] spk_1:
This kind of, and I’m gonna type

[00:45:49.97] spk_0:
each

[00:46:47.28] spk_1:
of them back to the conversation we’ve had today. So this isn’t out of nowhere. So first data point is 50% of like of, of planned donors give to their organization for more than 20 years before making a planned gift. So when we talk about engaging folks If you’re 45 or 50 right now, you’re part of that gen x or you’re, you know, you’re an elder millennial. If the, if the data point stays strong 20 years, it’s gotta start now, You know, if you want. And that, that’s why this transfer of wealth is super interesting. Number two donors, aged 44 older represent about 75% of all wills and more than 80% of the total value of all charitable requests made. So again, 44 is a young, it’s, you know, it’s not, we’re not talking people in their seventies when people are thinking about their wills, their thinking about the, when their kids are still in single digits often, right? Like, you know, we, my wife and I did our will when she was pregnant. We didn’t have a will before that, but we, you know, we did our, our will our wills. I guess there’s two of them

[00:46:52.80] spk_0:
was donors, 44 and over represents 75% of all existing wills

[00:46:58.73] spk_1:
and more than 80% of the request

[00:47:07.58] spk_0:
And more than 80% of all right. I guess I’d like to see a finer breakdown. Like that’s 44 and over. You know, What’s, what is 60 and over look like

[00:47:10.18] spk_1:
and I don’t have that off my fingertips. But I would bet it’s even it’s the vast majority. I

[00:47:14.95] spk_0:
would bet I

[00:47:33.48] spk_1:
would bet again, Absolutely, absolutely. Number three, 50% of donors age 50 and over with no Children had charitable estate plans, but among similar donors With Children, only 17% had philanthropic plans. That one was actually quite interesting to me.

[00:47:41.08] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:47:42.58] spk_1:
So

[00:47:43.91] spk_0:
your, your folks with no Children are better plan giving prospects than your folks with

[00:47:49.55] spk_1:
Children and

[00:47:50.57] spk_0:
There’s, there’s a difference of 33%.

[00:47:56.28] spk_1:
Absolutely, yeah. In terms of the number of them that have wills. Right, Which is fascinating.

[00:48:01.27] spk_0:
That’s the population is have a charitable request in there

[00:48:07.50] spk_1:
will be 30

[00:48:14.67] spk_0:
3% if you’re, if you’re 55 and over, No, 50 and over, You’re 33% more likely to do it if you’re 50 and over and have no Children than you are if you’re 50 and over and had at least one child.

[00:48:36.57] spk_1:
Yes, absolutely. And again, why is this relevant? Because in this transfer of wealth, more and more people are inheriting money who don’t plan to have kids. Right. And that’s super interesting and incredibly relevant. Um,

[00:48:38.77] spk_0:
You know what, that’s even, it becomes more interesting even on another level, because yeah younger folks are less likely to have kids from the current 55 year

[00:48:48.91] spk_1:
olds. So

[00:48:54.57] spk_0:
assuming human nature isn’t, isn’t changing then that the Delta is gonna change between between the population, that doesn’t have Children in the population. That does, because the population that doesn’t have Children is going to grow up.

[00:49:16.17] spk_1:
And you look at that first data point where most people are gonna make requests to folks that they’ve engaged with for 20 plus years. that’s again relevant because more people are not having kids. So you got to engage them earlier. Because if you do the likelihood of you getting a request is, is going to be like you said, the Delta is going to be higher and higher. Right? Very

[00:49:28.23] spk_0:
interesting. And

[00:49:52.27] spk_1:
ultimately Planned gifts from single, never married donors are actually 13% larger than from married donors. So it’s interesting is, again, how do you focus this? This is, this is part of the lecture he gave on like how do you focus your time? Of course, you have unlimited resources. You focus on everybody. But thinking about folks who haven’t been married, um, or are no longer married and without kids, you’re gonna get bigger donations. Right? And, and that’s super interesting. Especially in the context of people not having kids. A lot of this transfer is inter mediated by that,

[00:50:07.06] spk_0:
that those have always been your best planned gift prospects, folks who are unmarried and no

[00:50:11.65] spk_1:
Children.

[00:50:23.46] spk_0:
Um, not to not to exclude others from your program. If you have the, if you have the luxury of knowing who has Children and who never married and a lot of that, you can just find out from, uh,

[00:50:26.19] spk_1:
social media.

[00:51:04.96] spk_0:
Well, yeah, that’s true. Um, then then those are your, those are your, you’re ultimately best prospects. And thank you for using the word Penultimate correctly. I appreciate that so many things. So many people think that penultimate is is the better one comes after the ultimate because its penultimate. So she correctly, thank you for using Penultimate, it’s among my favorite words along with, but the ultimate, it’s the

[00:51:11.86] spk_1:
Ultimate, the Bark Mitzvah. Ultimately Pet owners are 70% more likely to give request than non pet owners.

[00:51:15.06] spk_0:
Pet owners.

[00:51:33.86] spk_1:
So free will, which is a will’s website in the US. It like helps folks create their wills. Did some really interesting data around the charitable giving of pet owners and folks who have pet owners are much more likely to make requests, 70% more likely than non pet owners. So I have no idea how to use that piece of data, but it’s so obscure and so interesting that I included it as my factoid and I’m sharing with you

[00:51:46.06] spk_0:
for folks who are in a, in an animal oriented non profit you know, they know

[00:51:48.68] spk_1:
that a lot

[00:51:49.97] spk_0:
of pet owners are very concerned about the life of their pets after their own deaths.

[00:51:55.36] spk_1:
So

[00:51:56.60] spk_0:
they’ll make, they’ll often make

[00:51:58.39] spk_1:
gifts for

[00:51:59.55] spk_0:
the care of their

[00:52:29.65] spk_1:
pets. Interesting. I, I think what’s interesting is going back to millennials and the demographic data that we’ve seen as most folks, you know, a lot of people who don’t choose to have Children choose to get a pet. It’s like a pretty common, you know, trend, I think. And so, you know, that’s interesting because there they still have a lot of love and they’ve made a choice which is so personal and they want to continue a legacy, Not just for their pets, for what you said, but rather just in general. And so they see their way to, to continue. They don’t have Children. So their legacy is gonna live through their gifts. And I think that’s, that’s, again, speaking to the 3.6 to 3.1 number of people in the household and that number continuing to, to change.

[00:52:49.05] spk_0:
Thank you very much.

[00:52:51.52] spk_1:
Let’s

[00:52:59.35] spk_0:
let’s take care of a couple of things when it first, don’t you shout out to Nathaniel Fung, since you mentioned a few times, So

[00:53:24.35] spk_1:
was was my co presenter on this. Um I got to give a lot of the nerdy theory that I shared with you all today, but Nathaniel did a phenomenal job of sharing the case studies that she’s done. She spent a lot of years, decades I think, working in health foundations and health giving and she just brought incredible examples of youth councils and examples of campaigns and how they started them. And so it was, it was an absolute treat to, to speak alongside her.

[00:53:32.65] spk_0:
Nathaniel is director of philanthropy, where at

[00:53:32.82] spk_1:
the BC Women’s Foundation

[00:53:34.75] spk_0:
Women’s hospital

[00:53:36.48] spk_1:
british Columbia, women, women’s hospital, where my son was born.

[00:53:41.35] spk_0:
And Kayla, you give it a shot for Kayla,

[00:54:30.04] spk_1:
I mean, always happy to, to to serve such an incredible institution um for those of you who don’t know, Kayla is, is fundraising um intelligence and donor management tools, built, you know, with the most powerful, exciting technology. But built by fundraisers myself, being just one of many and ultimately our goal is to help folks, you know, have a great um donor management experience, to help increase the predictability and to help nonprofits grow. They’re giving it’s a Crm, it’s an intelligence tool. It’s got beautiful and amazing forms you can pick and choose if you want crm, you want forms, you want intelligence. But ultimately it’s a it’s a technology company with the sector at its at its core and I encourage everyone to to always take a look at kayla k e l a dot com.

[00:54:37.34] spk_0:
Dot com, awesome dot com. Very good. Look

[00:54:38.81] spk_1:
at

[00:54:43.18] spk_0:
dot com. It definitely rhymes what? Almost com

[00:54:49.84] spk_1:
Alright.

[00:54:52.84] spk_0:
And he’s the ceo and founder, thank you very much for sharing your ideas.

[00:54:55.18] spk_1:
tony always a pleasure and hope to see you. Hopefully not two years from now, maybe before that.

[00:55:00.40] spk_0:
No, thank you. Well, will you be in you think you’ll be in Denver if it’s actually live?

[00:55:05.47] spk_1:
Yes, yes I will. Next.

[00:55:06.74] spk_0:
NTC 23. NTC I believe I’ll be there too. All right,

[00:55:10.81] spk_1:
wonderful. Thanks. tony

[00:56:29.54] spk_0:
my pleasure and thank you listeners for being with Non profit radio coverage of 22 NTC. Thanks so much. Next week, It’s your RFP process as our 2022 non profit technology conference coverage continues. If you missed any part of this week’s show? I beseech you find it at tony martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o And by 4th dimension technologies I T infra in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits, tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty Be with Me next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for June 6, 2022: Responding To Microaggressions & Discrimination

 

Dan Berstein: Responding To Microaggressions & Discrimination

Resuming our #22NTC coverage, Dan Berstein helps you identify these situations, decide whether and how to speak up, and mitigate your own potential biases and accept feedback. He has mental health resources for you at bit.ly/mhskills and bit.ly/TMHDashboard. Dan is from MH Mediate.

 

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[00:01:52.84] spk_0:
mm hmm. Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with an echo Griffo sis if you clawed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, responding to microaggressions and discrimination, Resuming our 22 NTC coverage dan Burstein helps you identify these situations, decide whether and how to speak up and mitigate your own potential biases and accept feedback. He has mental health resources for you dan is from Mh mediate Antonis take two tips for Israel. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. And by 4th dimension Technologies IT Infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D Just like three D but they go one dimension deeper here is responding to microaggressions and discrimination. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 N. T. C. The 2022 nonprofit technology conference. I’m joined now by dan Burstein. He is founder and mediator at M. H. Mediate dan Welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:01:55.74] spk_1:
thank you for having me again.

[00:01:57.36] spk_0:
My pleasure. The 21 NTC brought us together, I believe it was it last I believe it was last year,

[00:02:03.14] spk_1:
yep, that’s right last

[00:02:17.44] spk_0:
year. Alright glad to have you back your session this year is tools to help a leader respond to microaggressions and discrimination. Uh now your work is in the is in the mental mental health mental illness

[00:02:48.54] spk_1:
space. Yes, so, you know, my work is focused on helping people have better communication about mental health and that’s what we talked about last year was how to have those kinds of conversations, especially during the pandemic and remotely. Um and one of the issues that comes up a lot is there’s stigma related to mental illness and it comes out with microaggressions and discrimination. So that’s why this year’s topic was tools that can help any leader, you know, notice and respond to these kinds of incidents of microaggressions and discrimination which aren’t just in mental health. They happen across the board. All kinds of different kinds of identities um can be hurt through discrimination and microaggressions. But my focus area has always been um you know, conflict resolution and mental health.

[00:03:14.54] spk_0:
Cool, Alright, so your examples come from that community, but the lessons apply broadly across identities.

[00:03:17.18] spk_1:
That’s right,

[00:03:17.96] spk_0:
okay, let’s let’s define microaggressions and discrimination, let’s start microaggressions, let’s make sure everybody understands what we’re talking about.

[00:06:35.14] spk_1:
So, so a microaggression, uh it can be a number of different things, but basically it’s any kind of comment or even a situation that includes an implicit message that some kind of identity group is less than or bad or has some kind of problem associated with it. So basically it’s talking in any kind of way that um endorses stereotypes or stigmas um and so I’ll give you an example with mental illness. Uh So I myself I have bipolar disorder and I include that often in my professional bio and in my work, and one time I told a colleague that um you know, I have bipolar disorder and he said, oh, really, Oh wow, you’re doing so well. And he said it like that, which was, you know, it sounds positive. A lot of microaggressions sound positive, and actually the message implied is, oh, I wouldn’t expect someone with bipolar disorder to present very well, and so it actually comes across as kind of negative in the meaning um even though it was a friend who meant to be supportive, um the stereotype gets embedded in the message. So a lot of times microaggressions, people think they’re being very nice and they are trying to be nice, but their their beliefs that um in this case that mental illness is something so damaging and debilitating, you wouldn’t expect someone to do well and and with with it um it gets embedded in and what they’re saying. And so there’s a lot of different kinds of microaggressions that um can come out and in in these different kinds of ways, but it’s a it’s an interesting thing. Another, another form of it is um, oh, you know, um you know, everybody, everybody has depression, you know, everybody has bad days and that would be considered what’s called a micro and validation where, you know, they they’re not taking it seriously when you tell them that you have a mental health condition. So it can go in a lot of different directions. There’s a lot of different kinds of messaging. Um and there’s actual academic literature reviews that catalog so many different ways. Um those kinds of messages could be in there, but basically the messages that are commonly unfortunately and inappropriately associated with mental illness are maybe this person is dangerous, Maybe this person doesn’t really have a serious problem and they’re making more out of it than it is, Maybe this person is inferior. Um Maybe I’m gonna treat this person like an infant or like they need my help. Um you know, so these are the kinds of messages that come out where, you know, even saying things like, oh, do you need some help or do you want some help with that? That can be seen as um you know, huge micro aggression in the world of disabilities where um if people, you know, mental illness is considered an invisible disability, but a lot of people have visible no noticeable disabilities and and being constantly offered assistance can be considered seen as a microaggression as well. So there’s there’s a whole literature on it and um it’s a it’s a difficult thing to handle because people often mean, well when they’re doing it and and it happens all the time in day to day life.

[00:06:49.54] spk_0:
Yeah, I’m thinking of the uh example of, you know, saying to someone who’s a person of color, you know, you’re so articulate or you’re you know, you’re so well read or something you wouldn’t expect

[00:06:55.18] spk_1:
and yeah,

[00:06:57.34] spk_0:
what you’re gonna say.

[00:07:53.34] spk_1:
Um and so one of the tools that I’ve shared when I do the workshop about microaggressions is a guide by kevin Nadal. Um that says um how do you handle a microaggression? And the first question is, did this happen? You ask did this, do I think this is a microaggression? Because you know, some of these things can be ambiguous enough that you have to ask yourself like, well, what’s going on here? And then then there’s the question of like, well should I respond? Because if I do um it could be a huge nightmare for me that this person’s gonna get so offended that I point out that they did the microaggression. And if I don’t then um I might get mistreated forever. So it’s, you know, it’s a really tricky world we live in with microaggressions because it can be so subtle and so understated. Um although certainly if it happens a lot and there’s a significant pattern of the men, it can become a hostile work environment situation. Um, you know, as well. So it’s a very tricky tricky confusing world when we talk about microaggressions.

[00:08:38.34] spk_0:
Yeah, I’m seeing this. You know, your your your session is two tools to help a leader respond to microaggressions and discrimination, I’m seeing difficulty just in the identification. Yeah. So if if the um if the if the person who this is who this is aimed at doesn’t doesn’t speak up, doesn’t call it out either on you know, in the moment, which is as you described, you know, which can be very difficult or later. You know, maybe privately to the to the to a to a leader. How is a leader to identify? How can you be so sensitive how how Yeah, that makes it wait. I’m the way I said it makes it sound like it’s impossible. How can we increase sensitivity to help leaders identify these microaggressions?

[00:11:19.74] spk_1:
Well. So so first I I need to flag the difference between microaggressions and discrimination. Okay, microaggression is sort of like evidence of an attitude, evidence of stigma that maybe there are stereotypes of an attitude. Whereas discrimination which we’ll talk about in a moment is an action. So it’s much easier to respond to discrimination because that’s where something actually is done and the person is treated differently versus the mere expression of the microaggression itself, which is much more confusing and complicated. And so it is it is tricky. And The main message that comes out of the workshop that we did at N 10 um is you know, be aware that this is going on, be sensitive, be ready. Um instead of being defensive to hear what someone’s attitude is when they say when they do bring it up and be understanding that it’s not easy to bring it up sort of like when we think about the, you know, the Me Too movement and sexual harassment. Um that every one person who complains there’s a lot who don’t because it’s so fraud. So having some empathy to understand that when someone does come in and they are complaining about something that they experienced as a microaggression. That’s hard. So the guide I mentioned. So it makes it very clear like it’s tricky to speak up because you don’t know if you, if you even can prove it happened and then you don’t know um you know how people will react if it’ll affect your relationships with your friends or your co workers or whoever. And so it is fraught to even bring it up. So the big message from microaggressions is just be receptive to people’s feedback, Be understanding that this happens and and do your best to have empathy for what it means when someone does come forward and and creating a culture where people are less defensive and more open minded about changing how they communicate on a regular basis. Um, you know, one of one of the projects that I have is called the Mental Health Safe project. And it’s about giving people tools to respond to microaggressions and discrimination. And one of the things that we’re working on is developing a stigma mediation program where people can come and talk these kinds of things out without it being punitive just so that way they can sort of work through some of the um stress of handling, you know, these microaggressions because it’s it’s confusing, right? The example I gave you this is a friend of mine who was trying to be supportive and said something that was very hurtful and that you know me being open with the bipolar disorder, I get that all the time and I know that no one’s trying to hurt me. So the question is, okay, well how do I, you know, how do I help them not do this again without making them feel really bad about themselves, You know? Um so it’s it’s a micro aggressions can be the trickiest issue. Then there’s also the discrimination stuff which we can talk about, which is a little less tricky.

[00:11:35.74] spk_0:
Right? Easy, easy too easy to identify.

[00:11:38.51] spk_1:
Still very tricky though. I’ll tell you some stories, it’s still very tricky, but it’s just like clear.

[00:11:45.04] spk_0:
There are also laws around discrimination that helped

[00:11:48.94] spk_1:
they help, but they’re not perfect and there’s still a lot of problems, you know? Um so I’ll talk about that. I mean if you want to transition we can I can talk about that right now.

[00:12:53.74] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They’ll develop your media strategy. What’s that all about that is identifying your core messages, defining the channels the outlets, where those messages ought to be heard, who are the people who should be hearing your messages, who need to hear your messages doing the legwork to approach those outlets and as you are closing opportunities, crafting your message is appropriately to the audience that you uh you close the opportunity with. That’s a media strategy. Turn to communications can do it for you turn hyphen two dot c. O. Now back to responding to microaggressions and discrimination. I hear empathy. It sounds like empathy goes a long way. You know, when when someone is bringing this to a

[00:13:00.25] spk_1:
leader,

[00:13:26.14] spk_0:
you know, understanding what it takes for the person to have done so to have the have the courage fortitude to open the door. You know, to I mean the door got opened by the by the person who committed it. But to to bring it up as an issue is it takes a lot. Thanks a lot. Alright, so what’s the, like, what’s the next step for a leader? Now? We’re talking about tools to help leaders.

[00:13:31.24] spk_1:
What

[00:13:41.24] spk_0:
do you do when someone does bring this to you? Hopefully you’ve treated the person with that empathy and respect what should a leader do next?

[00:16:16.14] spk_1:
So, I mean, my advice would be um outside outside this program to use the guide that I reference, but you can get at bit dot li slash mh skills is the U. R. L. That I have of resources and you can look at that in more depth. But basically this guide, we’ll walk you through number one. If you think you’ve experienced a microaggression, how to think about what to do to handle it and talk about it. And on the flip side, if someone says, I think you’ve um done a micro aggression towards me, uh it walks you through what to do. Um and then, you know, when we’re talking about in a leader perspective, it’s like, okay, so let’s be aware of microaggressions happen, let’s be, let’s be ready with these resources. Let’s have empathy when someone comes to us. And then let’s also have perspective about, you know what it what it means because we live in a world where everybody has stereotypes and biases all the time. We want to all keep growing, but we have to keep it in perspective. You know, was this microaggression part of some kind of deliberate bullying campaign, in which case you respond differently than if it was a one off comment. Um was it associated with some kind of adverse employment action? Right? Was it, you know, it’s someone being excluded from? Um important conversations at work and they also are saying, I think it’s because of um my identity, I think it’s because this person doesn’t treat me the same because I have a mental illness. So they’re not giving me the same kind of projects or they’re not um giving me the same kind of feedback that’s different than just having the microaggression. So I’m not trying to trivialize the microaggression, but when you’re a leader micro aggressions are happening constantly all the time. Um and and so it really um depends what it is if the person is well intentioned or not, if it’s a pervasive pattern of, you know, bullying type conduct at the workplace or if it’s, you know, you know, a one off event, um if it is associated with some kind of, you know, actual different treatment in the workplace or if it’s just a comment that by itself is still a problem, you know, it’s still a problem to have a loose comment, but um it may not be connected with saying, well, you know, I I I have this micro aggression towards dan’s mental illness, that’s why we don’t put down on any of the tough projects, you know, that that would be um you know, a much more discriminatory act, that would be disparate treatment. Um and so, so it’s important to look at sort of the whole spectrum of when does something go past being a one off microaggression comment to uh, you know, mean one to them bullying and then to like different treatment in the workplace

[00:16:22.34] spk_0:
perspective is

[00:16:23.11] spk_1:
important. All

[00:16:27.44] spk_0:
right, context, context. Uh is there another example you can share

[00:16:29.76] spk_1:
of micro,

[00:16:31.58] spk_0:
a micro aggression? Yeah,

[00:16:33.95] spk_1:
maybe

[00:16:34.80] spk_0:
these are helpful.

[00:17:43.44] spk_1:
Sure. So this is this is just in my personal life that I think is interesting us. So I I’ve given awareness presentations in a lot of context over the years. And um I gave a presentation to a school class for a friend of mine and afterwards the friend said, oh, we could tell he has bipolar disorder. The friends that this the students said, oh, we could tell he has bipolar disorder because he got upset whenever we weren’t paying attention. And I said, oh, you know, I was trying to follow your protocols. I had seen the teachers react like that, you know, and have certain like it was a charter school that had this this whole culture and she said, oh no, no, we tell all of our teachers to act like they’re bipolar and that way the students will stay in line. And that wasn’t meant to be an insult, but it certainly was another example. I was giving a presentation for the american Bar Association and someone came up to me and I spoke to them and I mentioned my wife and they said, oh, your wife, she must be a very special person to take you on, you know, So

[00:17:46.14] spk_0:
they’re all bad. That’s egregious.

[00:19:17.44] spk_1:
Yeah, well, I I’m sharing the more egregious ones, but I have a lot of them, you know, there’s a lot of um or there was one time where um I was four months out of having been hospitalized for my illness and I was getting involved with an organization that had a speakers bureau. They said, we only take speakers who are nine months out of the hospital, which by itself I think is actually discrimination. Um, but they said because but because it’s you we want you now and we’d like you to speak. Um, you know, in this program we’re doing for students because it’s so hard to find someone who has a mental illness like you and isn’t very overweight from the medicine. Uh No, I don’t want anyone hearing this to think that you should be afraid of medicine because you become overweight. This was this was a very um, you know, uh ill informed mental health advocate, but that was a very, you know, that that those were compliments, right? That, oh, I’m more articulate than they expected for someone four months out of the hospital and I’m thinner and better looking than that what they expected. But that’s that’s not a good experience to hear those kinds of things. So, these are examples of where people say things that are well meaning and nice. Um, but they’re but they’re not really, they’re not nice ideas inside them that, you know, that that’s what a microaggression is. Is this this presumption, someone with mental illness can’t speak when they’re right out of the hospital. Someone with mental illness is likely debilitated by side effects and overweight. You know, someone with mental illness is a lot to take on why would someone want to marry that person. Um, You know, these are, you know, they come out as compliments, but they’re the premise is ugly.

[00:19:45.14] spk_0:
Um, can we deviate from helping the leader and you’ll be helping the folks who are may be subject to this? How how do you do you know, what’s your advice when when you feel that you’ve you’ve been wrong with with a microaggression?

[00:23:38.94] spk_1:
Um My advice is kind of sad because um you know, I do a lot of work in this area because I want people to have tools, but the reality is, and you’ll see this if you look at the guide I mentioned, um it’s not a good situation to be in when someone makes a microaggression, because first of all, the odds are, it’s a commonly held stereotype, which means if I tried to um counteract it on a regular basis, that’s a big burden for me to assume. Just taking the time out of my day, I’m trying to live my life. I don’t want to have to correct somebody about the microaggression once, let alone all the time. Um and that’s and that’s even with me as a professional who’s doing education, I’d rather focus on what I came to speak about? Not the microaggression. So no matter what, it becomes a huge burden, but then it’s like, well, well, how do I tell my friend, right, my friend who just brought me to give this talk now just said something very insulting. What do I do in response? And it really is a fraught situation. And so my advice first and foremost is similar to the guide is practice self care. So think to yourself, what do you really want out of this situation and what’s actually possible. Um Oftentimes for me what I did in those actual situations is I kind of made little sarcastic jokes because I I’m pretty quick on my feet. Um and and that’s my coping mechanism. So with my friend who said the thing about um, oh we tell our teachers to um to act out their bipolar. I said, well maybe I should come give a talk at your meeting tonight for the district because you know, that’s what I said right after, you know, and I do a little quips like that, but like those quips are not, they don’t really get you anywhere, you know? So, um my I guess my advice is just to to look for support, practice self care, think about what you want. Um I’ve been doing a ton of work this year, especially and addressing not just microaggressions, but published instances of discrimination in my field of mediation. And it’s very painful. People are very defensive. They don’t want to hear it. Um it really has affected my professional relationships because when I point out something that someone wrote that is bigoted towards mental illness, they take personal offense. They don’t want to speak to me. Um so I have reached a point where I have become more assertive, I’ve actually gone back and contacted people from years ago from different events that have happened and said, hey, you know, this, this bothered me and I, you know, because um because now that I’m doing it, um but it’s still hard and it’s still, I I can’t I can’t say it um yield some kind of incredible results. So, um I would say to anyone who’s experiencing this, hang in there, look for for peer support, make a decision yourself of what’s right for you and recognize that, you know, it’s important to take care of yourself, especially because it’s a marathon and not a sprint and this is gonna keep happening. So, um that’s that’s the unfortunate reality is that if you’re living in one of these identity groups, you’re going to be subjected to regular stereotypes that people don’t even realize they’re making. Um and so I’m not saying that makes it okay. But um this workshop gives tools to help you understand your options and and help you um you know, figure out where the lines are, where it’s discrimination, etcetera. But even when it’s discrimination, it’s it’s difficult to make a case, you need evidence to make a case of discrimination if you’re gonna actually hold someone accountable um under the americans with disabilities act a lot of times, judges don’t take mental illnesses as seriously as other disabilities. So even when you get to a point where you’re making a claim, you might, it’s not like I could say you’re gonna have a perfect reaction. Um so um it’s sort of a sad answer, but a realistic one. And um the part that’s better is it’s better than nothing. My answer is better than nothing and that, you know, So that’s what I had for about Over 10 years. I had no I had no options. Now. I’ve done all this research and I can say here’s some here’s some kind of sad options. So.

[00:23:54.54] spk_0:
Alright. No, but it there’s a lot of wisdom I think in, you know, what works for you, figuring out what works for you developing your own coping mechanisms. So, yeah,

[00:23:57.54] spk_1:
on the reality, I’m

[00:23:57.66] spk_0:
stuck with reality, right? And I’m sorry you’re subject to these two. I’m sorry this happens to folks

[00:24:04.74] spk_1:
happens to a lot of people. And a lot of

[00:24:06.94] spk_0:
groups.

[00:24:08.94] spk_1:
Let’s

[00:24:09.20] spk_0:
talk about discrimination. Let’s you’ve you’ve alluded to it a few times.

[00:24:12.85] spk_1:
Let’s let’s let’s

[00:24:16.64] spk_0:
shift their um It’s it’s now distinguished discrimination again, please. I know you did

[00:27:08.34] spk_1:
earlier discrimination discrimination occurs when someone is treated differently based on having that identity group. So a lot of times you’ll hear adverse employment action. So if someone is fired or given a, you know, poorer job assignment or something. Um You know, but there’s a lot of different ways discrimination can manifest and it’s not just employment. Um I’m there’s a lot of different laws to talk about different kinds of discrimination. The law that I’m gonna reference is the americans with disabilities act. The americans with disabilities act protects people who have um all different kinds of disabilities, not just mental illnesses from having discrimination. Um And there’s there’s a few different ways that that discrimination can occur. So one way that it can occur is screening somebody out if you screen someone out based on having um in this case the mental illness or health condition um in my field of mediation and conflict resolution, they actually have things um published that’s that recommend don’t take a case if someone has a mental illness that is not okay. That is discrimination by eligibility criteria. Um And um that is something I’ve been complaining about more recently, but when I when I first trained as a mediator, I was scared because they said don’t take a case if someone has a mental illness. And I thought, oh my, oh my, I just came out of the hospital for bipolar disorder. So um and I kept it a secret before I started being open. But um eligibility criteria is one type of discrimination where you screen someone out related to that. There’s something called undo inquiries or illegal inquiries. And this is, you know, um I think that I think there’s an analog for other groups but with a disability, it’s what if someone’s asking you questions about whether you have a disability, what your disability is, what it’s like for you. Um They’re not allowed to do that. So it’s similar to screening, but it doesn’t have to be related to screening people can’t just start asking you questions about your health conditions. Um And there’s different rules in different situations. Um There’s different timings and employment where some questions are permissible but in general it’s a good rule of thumb to say um you’re not entitled to invade someone’s privacy. So like let’s say you see someone and they have a service dog you can’t just go up to them and say well what’s your disability now that I see you have a service dog. Um And so there’s actual regulations and laws about this. Um And and so that’s the second type of discrimination is you know if someone’s asking questions um about you know the nature and severity they would say of your health condition. Um So we’ve got so we’ve got eligibility criteria. We’ve got the inquiries. We also have just general disparate treatment that’s if you get just treated differently in any way and you and you get and and so it’s not like you’re screened out. It’s not that someone’s asking you questions but someone thinks you have an illness or they or whatever you know whatever it is and they decide to do something different.

[00:29:43.44] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies their I. T. Solution. It’s I. T. Infra. In a box it’s the I. T. Buffet budget friendly. Like your average cafeteria right and holistic. I’m not sure how whole ism fits into cafeteria. Maybe it’s a cafeteria with with all the meals laid out at the same time. So you can choose from the breakfast or the lunch or the dinner all through the same pass through the cafeteria so there you go. So it is it’s just like an I. T. Buffet so you’re picking the parts of their offerings that you need and that fit your budget and you leave the rest behind. What’s in the buffet? I thi assessment multifactor authentication, other security methods, overall cost analysis help desk and there’s more you choose what’s right for your situation for your budget. Leave the rest behind the I. T. Buffet it’s I. T. Infra in a box. It’s at 4th Dimension Technologies. They’re at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper It’s time for Tony to take two. I’m going to Israel in november. Have you been to Israel do you live there if you live there can I stay with you know that’s no forget that’s okay that’s okay. But what tips do you have? How well if you know the country if you’ve been there if you live there what do you recommend? I’m gonna be spending most of my time in tel Aviv and Jerusalem but not exclusively and I’m pretty mobile I can get around so what ideas do you have? I’d be very interested in places to eat small. I love small. Local non touristed places in terms of food but also sights sights to see. Yeah, I mean of course I can do my own research. I will but if you’re in in in in this this is real insider maybe you can help me out. So if you’ve got ideas I’d be grateful. You can get me at tony at tony-martignetti dot com or the contact page at tony-martignetti dot com. Thanks very much. That is tony steak too. We’ve got just about a butt load more time for responding to microaggressions and discrimination with dan Burstein.

[00:29:54.84] spk_1:
And as you mentioned,

[00:29:55.97] spk_0:
you mentioned not getting uh sophisticated projects

[00:30:52.24] spk_1:
right? Not getting sophisticated projects where you know and people and this happens where you know in a in a mental health case. You know if you if you look at the case law for the A. D. A. This happens where someone comes back from a medical leave where it gets known in the office, they have a health condition and suddenly people just start treating them differently for one reason or another and there’s evidence that people make comments that the person um is too anxious to handle things or you know whatever whatever it is. Um But but but that’s that’s that that is the disparate treatment um type of discrimination. So for if we’re tracking it there’s three so far out of four. So the first is screening. The second is inappropriate questions. The third is disparate treatment. And the fourth which which is special for disabilities is um if someone asks you to make a change because they need an adjustment because of their disability and you don’t do it. That’s another type of discrimination for disability. There’s there’s different.

[00:30:57.63] spk_0:
Yes,

[00:32:00.34] spk_1:
exactly. So that’s a reasonable accommodation and you don’t have to do it depending on if the if it if it would be a financial hardship or if it would fundamentally alter your service or if it would ruin the services for other people, it’s all decided case by case. But in general I’ll give you an example of when I asked for an accommodation when I travel and give workshops, I’ll call the hotels and I’ll say I need you for a disability accommodation. I need you to give me the quietest room you’ve got because I have bipolar disorder in my sleep is necessary to protect my condition. And I you know, and and it’s free, it doesn’t cost you anything. I just need you to block the room. Whatever room you know, is the quietest. And I talked to them about it, put me in that room, that’s my reasonable accommodation. So that’s an example of an adjustment. I had a reasonable accommodation where I said I’m emotionally triggered because we’re talking about discrimination right now I’d like us to meet by email instead of by zoom and and that was a request for an accommodation. So those are some examples where you know, sometimes you know people can make excuses why they wouldn’t do it, but when it’s something free, it’s like why wouldn’t you just do the accommodation. So um but those are those are the four different types of actual things you can look at. Did someone screen someone out? Did they ask an inappropriate question? Did they treat you differently or did they reject a request for a reasonable accommodation? Those would be the ways we look for discrimination.

[00:32:19.84] spk_0:
And what’s your advice for leaders now? We’re trying to tools to help leaders.

[00:35:04.84] spk_1:
Well, my advice with Leader for Leaders is to be really mindful to these things. As red as red line issues where, you know, like, okay, we’re gonna be careful what questions we asked were going to be really careful if we ever do any screening, we’re gonna have practices. So we know we’re acting consistently and we’re not um liable to have this disparate treatment a lot of times what you have is in the workplace or anywhere. People are just doing a lot of ad hoc stuff based on gut feelings instead of having procedures and that’s where bias will start to creep in and people don’t even realize it. Um And so having having some clarity of just being more attentive to trying to be consistent. So you don’t fall into those four traps of discrimination. That’s that’s one piece of advice for leaders. The other is, you know, the same thing, like listen, when someone tells you um I’ve I’ve been in the process of contacting major like law schools and organizations that have actually printed guidance that says um in print that that mediators should treat someone differently when they have a mental illness. And I’ve said you’ve gotta update this, you’ve got to take this down and some people listen. So um one organization changed it right away that they had said to watch out if someone might be violent based on if they have a mental illness, they changed it. But some people get very, very entrenched and um and and and it’s sad there’s a there’s a real bias in our society that’s demonstrated by research that people just don’t notice mental illness discrimination as much as as other groups. What I what I have found is it’s painful because I we’ll try really hard to explain it and show it and have evidence. And even then people, you know, look at me like they’re I don’t know if you’ve seen Westworld, like they’re a Westworld robot. I don’t know if you’ve seen this where the West in the show Westworld, the robots just can’t process things that don’t fit their narrative. Maybe someone listening will understand what I’m saying. Yeah. So it’s just it can be very uh this idea of being open to just noticing these things and addressing them. Um I think it’s the most important thing and and and and the other thing I’ll say to a leader is um these are opportunities to build relationships when these things happen, you know, instead of viewing it as something to be defensive as a liability? It really becomes a liability when you evade it. But if you tackle it head on and just listen to the people for feedback, most of the people who are going to complain about microaggressions and discrimination are so used to being battered by these things that any small gesture that you actually do to listen is gonna be noticed and it’s gonna probably mean a lot. So, you know, that’s, that’s my suggestion. You know, I’m usually not looking for much from people when I bring this up and it’s like very sad to see these walls go up and to watch them get so entrenched and to watch the problems get bigger and bigger and bigger when it could have been a great opportunity to show compassion and understanding and growth that the organization. So, um, you know, that’s my hope is that people will, will take that opportunity

[00:35:25.44] spk_0:
dan. What were some of the questions that you got in this session?

[00:35:46.14] spk_1:
The questions I got in the session? Um, we’re, we’re generally people had specific instances because we did talk a little bit about reasonable accommodations and other kinds of events. Um, and, and people would ask about, um, you know how to how to respond to microaggressions like you asked, but also, you know how to speak up about it. Um, not much different from what we talked about here. Nothing, nothing earth shattering that comes to mind right now.

[00:36:09.13] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Um is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you want you want folks to know about either microaggressions or or discrimination? Again, we’re trying to help leaders in small and midsize nonprofits.

[00:37:15.53] spk_1:
Yeah. Well what I would say is um I’ll just share some information for leaders. So that way you have it to contact me. So this is my life’s work, this is what I’ve been doing um you know, with all my energy um and so I’m available. So anyone who wants to um contact me can do so easily and ask me questions directly and you can email me at dan at M. H. Mediaite dot com. Um You can get the resources from the session at bit dot li slash mh skills. Um If you’re interested in um seeing more kinds of resources that are out there for handling mental health in the workplace. Um There’s a program called the talking mental health dashboard and you can read about that at fit dot li slash tm h. Dashboard. Um And then a lot of the work that I’ve been doing with microaggressions and discrimination falls under the umbrella of the mental health safe project which is bringing together people to try to have resources for these things. Um And that’s an easy U. R. L. It’s M. H. Safe dot org. So you can go to any of these places and contact me um you know, I’m happy to answer questions anytime. I really um I feel like it’s important that we bring more attention to these issues and have more resources. So um that’s what I would add.

[00:37:30.13] spk_0:
What’s your mediation practice?

[00:38:17.52] spk_1:
My mediation practice um has been mostly families that are um having communication issues um and it’s transitioned more and more from, you know, in terms of the from the direct mediation, I also do a lot of work places um but into into training programs because my big my big goal is um that everybody had these skills as opposed to needing an outside person like need help. Um So I’ve done a lot of these large scale programs that have been grant funded or for organizations um where we set up online resources that are available 24 7. so you know, the next project that I’m doing it was of um is funded by the Ai CDR Foundation and we’re working with um national law enforcement to roll out resources for law enforcement officers to have more empowered interactions about mental health using a lot of the principles of conflict resolution um that go through all of the work I do with my company. So um yeah that’s coming out soon.

[00:38:36.72] spk_0:
Uh we have a drug in jail on nonprofit

[00:38:40.20] spk_1:
radio

[00:38:41.82] spk_0:
Ai CDR.

[00:39:25.32] spk_1:
Oh so a is the american arbitration association I cr is the International Center for dispute resolution. The two of them came together and they have a foundation, the A Ai CDR Foundation and they fund dispute resolution programs And so um I have a program that was funded by them through five different grants called the dispute resolution and mental health initiative. And what we do is we create resources for different communities. We’ve done it for families, for housing providers, for libraries now, for police um where we set them up with these online modular platforms where they can learn the skills they need and have tools they can use um in their regular practice as opposed to it being a one off training. So that way um they have, you know, ongoing access to resources um and in the hopes that they’ll be able to improve these interactions with mental health stakeholders

[00:39:47.32] spk_0:
dan Burstein, founder and mediator at Mh mediate you know how to reach him dan, thank you very much. Thanks for sharing.

[00:39:49.72] spk_1:
Thank you for having me,

[00:41:15.81] spk_0:
my pleasure and thanks to each of you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 ntc. Glad to have you with us next week, 22. NTC coverage continues with appealing to younger donors for the great transfer of wealth if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to Communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c. O And by 4th dimension technologies i Tion for in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits, tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D Just like three D. But they go on to mention deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our Web guy and this music is by scott Steiner. Be With Me next week for nonprofit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Mm hmm. Mhm.

Nonprofit Radio for May 30, 2022: Mentoring

 

Don Gatewood: Mentoring
Don Gatewood shares his extensive experience with professional and personal mentoring—as both mentor and mentee—so you know what to think about before you enter a mentoring relationship, and what to expect. He’s with The Initiative Baltimore.

 

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[00:02:34.44] spk_0:
mm hmm. Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of blepharoplasty. Jah if I saw that you missed this week’s show mentoring Don Gatewood shares his extensive experience with professional and personal mentoring as both mentor and mentee. So you know what to think about before you enter a mentoring relationship and what to expect He’s with the initiative Baltimore And Tony’s take two help for Uvalde texas. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c. O. And by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. We had audio issues in the recording for this show. I cleaned it up as best I can. Um there were actually a lot of problems in the introduction. So to give Don Gatewood a proper introduction, I’m going to read it now. Don Gatewood is co founder and ceo of the initiative Baltimore. He’s a professional leadership consultant and hosts the podcast. Leadership and professional development with Don Gatewood. He’s lead large teams in program operations, strategic planning, accounting communications, compliance and fundraising for several organizations like the center for workforce inclusion. American red cross and Goodwill industries of greater Detroit and Washington D. C. The initiative Baltimore is at the initiative Baltimore dot com and Don is at Don Gatewood dot com. Here is mentoring. Don Gatewood Welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:02:36.94] spk_1:
thank you so much for having me today. I’m super excited to be here.

[00:02:51.74] spk_0:
I can tell. Thank you, Thank you for being excited. It’s a pleasure. Pleasure’s. So we’re talking all about what was your, what was your entree to mentoring? What did it start as a mentee or did you start as a mentor? How did you begin your mentoring?

[00:03:37.84] spk_1:
Absolutely, absolutely. I’ll never forget it. I was 19 years old at Wayne State University, which is where I went to college, my undergrad and I had recently pledged a fraternity alpha phi alpha fraternity incorporated and shortly after I crossed and became an alpha, I had to decide what contribution or impact that I was going to have on the chapter. After all, they weren’t having people become a member of this prestigious organization and you just sit around and do nothing. So some of my pro fights that you call them, they encouraged me to consider mentoring because there was this new initiative with the big brothers, big sisters of America. It was a new partnership that we had and I said, Wow, that sounds interesting. I’d like to mentor a young man that lives in the Detroit area. I was 19 going on 20 and I was connected with a young man named Jerome who was in middle school headed to high school and that’s where the mentorship bug started for me at the age of 19 years old.

[00:04:04.14] spk_0:
Okay, see at 19, I expected you to say at college that you had a professor or someone who was mentoring, you

[00:04:05.76] spk_1:
know,

[00:04:06.53] spk_0:
jumped in, you took the, you took the role as Mentor, 19. Okay, Alright,

[00:04:11.28] spk_1:
Right. Absolutely, but to be fair I did have some folks who mentored me in an unofficial capacity and I don’t think I had the language to know that it was mentoring in some cases because it wasn’t official, but this was the first time that I felt like I was in an official mentoring capacity where it was defined and understood. So that’s how it all started.

[00:04:46.74] spk_0:
Thank you, you just have the word to find uh since, you know, I think most, most folks have a general sense of mentoring but since you and I are talking in detail about the importance of it and the power of it, what you’re the expert, how do you define mentoring?

[00:05:19.04] spk_1:
Right. So the thing about mentoring, truthfully the term, it’s, it could look a lot of different ways. It just depends on the, the contract, whether it’s verbal or official, whether it’s professional or more social, but there is, there are regulations that are sometimes established with the mentoring in some cases it may be weekly, in other cases, it may be monthly, quarterly, so it just depends on the relationship that was established in the case of the Big brothers program though, I understood that there was an expectation that I would meet with the young person at least monthly and that I would make a commitment to reach out to them or they will reach out to me once a week via phone, email or text. So that was the general expectation. Now to be fair you don’t want mentoring to be so formulaic and so robotic that it feels unnatural for either party cause that’s not fun at all, ideally the relationship will be developed and you’ll find a groove. But in the beginning there has to be some type of parameter of expectations for both parties so that each person feels that their needs and expectations are being met.

[00:05:59.55] spk_0:
So it could even sometimes being writing

[00:06:45.84] spk_1:
absolutely absolutely in the case of like for the Big Brothers Big sisters, it could be in writing and I know for some other organizations when young folks are being mentored in a mentoring uh space right now where with initiative Baltimore, of course we meet with them on a monthly basis, but absolutely in writing it really can help both people understand expectations because see that’s the thing about mentoring someone, we have our own needs, but the mentee, they have needs as well and our job is to make sure that we meet in the middle. So all of those expectations are met because sometimes these mentoring relationships don’t go as well as both parties would hope. And so those written expectations can prevent some of those unfortunate things from happening. And boy do they happen?

[00:06:54.34] spk_0:
Okay, well, since you, since you teased the idea, what are some of the potential problems pitfalls that can arise? So we so we can avoid them.

[00:08:08.54] spk_1:
Absolutely. So depending on the reason for mentorship, there usually is a need, whether it’s a professional development need, whether it’s a young person preparing for college or whether it’s just learning how to be, you know, an effective member of society, people have needs and sometimes that need could be more time sensitive than others. So let’s say for example, I’m in a position where I’m mentoring someone who’s preparing to become a manager, that’s their goal, so I’m there to help mentor them because they’re wanting to become a manager, but yet they have a specific timeline, they’re trying to make this change happen within the next year and so that’s not a long amount of time. So in theory, you would need to be engaging with one another more frequently for both parties to get the benefit of the relationship. So if the mentee has this goal of achieving the goal in a year, but yet the mentor is only available once a quarter, then that process the whole, the information sharing and relationship building that’s supposed to happen so that the information is given and received and learn, it may not happen in a timely way and that could affect the person’s ability to achieve their goal. So that’s in a professional example of what could happen because some people really do need the mentorship, they don’t have it, they need the help, they need the guidance and they’re relying on you to provide that guidance and if you can’t be there in a reasonable timeframe it may stymie their development or their their expected outcomes and that’s not good.

[00:08:57.34] spk_0:
So that goes back to what you had said earlier about expectations, you know if this person is trying to advance their career within a year, make a make a move to management within a year and the mentor is only available four times in that year, you know that that sounds to me like a doomed relationship is not going to get what he or she needs

[00:09:02.04] spk_1:
Absolutely absolutely

[00:09:04.73] spk_0:
right.

[00:09:54.34] spk_1:
And then one other thing to consider in any mentoring relationship, there is a period of trust, so in order for the outcome to be achieved and this is the part that often time isn’t talked about as much as it maybe needs to be is that there’s a trust factor because this person who is the mentee, they may have needs from the mentor but they have to be trusting in order to be open and honest and allow themselves to be vulnerable so they can get that information and so that’s a process that can be developed with the relationship and the bonding, but if that relationship isn’t there, if there’s too much space in between, then the person may not feel comfortable, even when you do talk and so those conversations may not be as effective because the trust in the relationship building did not happen and so as a result they’re not as open. So that’s another thing to consider when we’re talking about engagement and just how that relationship building works.

[00:10:07.54] spk_0:
How do you establish that trust early on in the relationship?

[00:10:19.94] spk_1:
One of the most important things that people like to feel is they like to feel heard and so and understood and so in any mentor mentee relationship, people, they have vulnerabilities, that’s why they’re in the space where they’re asking to be mentor to begin

[00:10:31.10] spk_0:
with

[00:11:58.04] spk_1:
and and so with those vulnerabilities, there could be sensitivities where people can feel shy or maybe feel that they’re not good enough and so there could be a lot of emotional feelings around this area while you’re in their life to begin with as a mentor. So one of the best things that the mentor can do is to, you know, help them feel heard, help them feel understood even in areas where there’s a lot of work to be done, we still have to understand where we are and how we got there and appreciate that person for where they are while we’re working toward getting to a different place, but people have to feel appreciated and heard and not judged because again you’re vulnerable in the mentor capacity and then on the other side, this person who’s mentoring you, they have the skills, they’ve reached a certain level of success and so that can feel intimidating naturally, even if that’s not the intended, you know, dynamic, but sometimes when people look at you, whether you realize it or not, they may feel intimidated or they may say this person has everything that I that I want and I don’t have that and so we have to be mindful of the psychology of the person who’s receiving the mentorship because there’s a lot that could be going on, so by not feeling judged and feeling heard and understood is really helpful towards a person wanting to open up and to continue productively and healthy in a relationship

[00:12:00.98] spk_0:
alright and and building that trust,

[00:12:02.84] spk_1:
absolutely

[00:12:07.54] spk_0:
what’s in it for the mentor, um there’s gotta be benefits, there’s gotta be value for the mentor that that maybe folks don’t think about.

[00:12:17.34] spk_1:
Absolutely, I think that there are tons of opportunities for growth

[00:12:19.92] spk_0:
um for

[00:13:17.74] spk_1:
a person who is a mentor first and foremost, um each of us, None of us are at the pinnacle, I mean we all are growing and evolving essentially, some of us may be more skilled in one area or another, but ultimately we all are still growing and when you are mentoring someone, first of all you’re ensuring that this person has the tools they need to to be successful, um but you in order to achieve that you have to have effective communication skills um in in empathy skills that are not just important in a mentor mentee relationship, but also in the relationships that you have at your 9-5 or whatever professional space that you’re working. Oftentimes the mark of a good leader, a good manager isn’t just their ability to do the function of a job as an engineer, a doctor teacher. Okay, so fine, you can do the job technically you have the background and education, but if you’re in a leadership position, how you understand your team, how you’re able to effectively inspire them, motivate them to achieve the goal, which is bigger than any one person is. The organizational department goal is essential. So some of the tools that you use in the individual mentor mentee relationship are some of the exact same vital tools that you need to use for the team that’s reporting to you, who have goals and objectives to reach on a weekly and quarterly basis. And often times when you ask the person what’s one of their biggest concerns in the in the workplace is that they don’t feel heard they’re not getting the training that they need. And so these, this comes at a cost because companies suffer when organizations and leaders are not in sync with the team. So mentorship can certainly help develop those tools necessary to inspire the people who work for you. So it absolutely has a huge benefit to, to the mentee and the mentor,

[00:15:19.54] spk_0:
it’s time for a break. Turn to communications, They’ll develop your media strategy that means identifying your core messages, defining the channels and the outlets where those messages ought to be heard and then doing the legwork to approach those outlets and as they close those opportunities, crafting your message is appropriately that is a media strategy. Turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o now, back to mentoring I would think for for for both to just satisfaction as you’re seeing the mentee grow, develop, you know, whatever whatever their objectives are, I would say that’s got to be enormously satisfying to the mentor, but then also the the as the, as the comfort of the relationship grows, I mean I could see that being satisfying to both to the mentee also, you know, I could see like personal satisfaction and fulfillment.

[00:15:23.34] spk_1:
Absolutely, and I want to say this, there’s a very big difference between being an expert in the field are good in the field and being able to explain to inspire and to teach their many experts who are really good, but that doesn’t always translate. In fact it could be a disaster when the person is trying to inspire or teach. And so I think in mentorship you learn that there may be some areas where you have to make adjustments to be effective and how your training and how you’re explaining things. So you do learn a lot about yourself your strengths and opportunities. Um, you know, if you’re being self aware of course, but absolutely you learn a lot

[00:16:16.04] spk_0:
interesting, I’m gonna put you on the spot. Can you, can you share something that you learned? You know, uh, you know what I opening for you in a, in a, in a mentoring relationship

[00:16:19.24] spk_1:
like

[00:16:19.63] spk_0:
that you learned about yourself or maybe the organization?

[00:17:30.14] spk_1:
Oh, absolutely. I mean there’s been so many, so many moments that I’ve that I’ve had in my life when I’ve mentored and I’ve learned, but let me see if one example that I’d like to share. Okay, so I once worked in a capacity where I am, I worked with people have been coming out of prison, they had been in prison for whether it’s 10 years or 17 years for whatever decisions they had made in their youth in the past and they had come out and wanted to start their lives in a different direction. And so I was in a position where I had a chance to mentor someone. who was a man who was older than me. And so of course, you know, you make assumptions sometimes when someone is older than you that they have a certain mindset and, and and that wasn’t, that wasn’t the case, that wasn’t the case at all. So I had made some assumptions and I had made some liberties in, in, in judging a situation, but in fact I got it all wrong, I misfired. I misunderstood the situation and where it was. And so what I walked away understanding was that you know, you can look at people and and make an assessment based off what you think you see and what you think you know? But sometimes what you think you see and what you think, you know isn’t true at all. So taking the time to when you communicate with people communicate in a measured way in a thoughtful way and not making assumptions based off what you think, you know was a lesson that I learned because I did make a mistake and quickly though I was able to identify it and make adjustments. But yeah, I absolutely made a mistake. I made assessments that just were not correct at all.

[00:18:05.88] spk_0:
Alright. Thanks thanks for sharing.

[00:18:07.24] spk_1:
Absolutely.

[00:18:38.44] spk_0:
What if the relationship isn’t going so well? Uh you know like both parties realize, you know there’s some frustration. Um you know do you do you take a step back? When do you or when do you say you know we need to stop. You know I need to mentor someone else and you need to find someone else to mentor? You know like what what do you what do you before you get to that point? What what if what if both parties just no it’s not, there’s just something wrong. How do you how do you fix it?

[00:18:41.29] spk_1:
Right. Well that’s a really good question.

[00:18:44.60] spk_0:
I mean like how do you try to, how do you address it at least?

[00:18:48.25] spk_1:
Right. Well, the first thing that the mentor has to remember is that you’re being called on to mentor for a specific reason. There is some need or some deficit

[00:19:00.34] spk_0:
or

[00:22:21.44] spk_1:
some area for improvement that the meant he has. So it’s important to truly understand that because if you understand that, then when you’re met with certain challenges and behaviors that are out of line with how it should go, just remember that this person doesn’t have all of the, that the skills, that’s why you’re the mentor to begin with. So that understanding that could be very humbling. Number two, I think that we should always anticipate that there will be moments where there will be difference of understanding thought and opinion and that’s the reason why I would suggest earlier on in the mentor mentee relationship, you talk about the fact that hey, you know, we’re here too. So I can share with you some of the lessons I’ve learned and maybe it can help you as you grow. But there there may be some things that I say that you don’t understand that you don’t agree with and you know when those moments happen, you know, we want to have open dialogue so we can talk about those things. So when you set that expectation in the beginning where you let them know, hey, it’s very likely that there will be moments where you and I are don’t see things exactly the same way uh those points are important points for us because through those moments will grow and you’ll get the, the lessons that I think that you, you intend to get from me. So we should address that from the beginning and not make it seem like a disagreement or difference and thought it’s such a bad thing. In fact it’s inevitable, it’s going to happen. The question is, how large will it be? Will it be smaller? Will it be larger? But I think by identifying it in the beginning that can help expectations be set? But then also when a person is there is a, there’s you’re out of sync that you don’t seem to be able to be on the same page. I think it’s important to deal with those things directly. And one way to do it is by establishing an advanced a weekly or monthly check in. So it’s already established that on a monthly basis you all are going to check in and see how are things going? What are things that’s going well, what are some of the things that could be going better? So you don’t wait until the problem arises to have these emergency meetings already, have it built into your, your program so that there is a safe space that’s understood to be the time that we’ll deal with these things. And then when you have those conversations, you’re able to say, this is what I’m noticing and this is what I’d like to see and then you can learn from their standpoint why it’s happening and if they can make those adjustments and if not why and then we can come to something maybe in the center, but it may not always work out. It may, but I would still say before, you know, walking away from the mentor mentee relationship, we do need to try to struggle to set new expectations and new boundaries because if you set expectations and then they didn’t work out, the question becomes do you keep setting those same expectations in the future or do you make adjustments to them? Sometimes we have to be willing to be flexible with because at first we maybe thought that this was gonna be the outcome, but based off of what you’re learning, you’re realizing that no, maybe the in goal is going to have to look different now. And once you’re able to accept that truth that it may look different. You’re relieving yourself of pressure and you’re leaving them with pressure because you’re not trying to hold to the same standard that you came up with that you realize now is not realistic. So we have to have some real honest conversations but some more thoughtful um internal conversations as well.

[00:22:30.64] spk_0:
I think it’s there’s great value in having that periodic check in where

[00:22:35.00] spk_1:
you said

[00:22:42.54] spk_0:
it’s a safe space, Tell me how you’re feeling about the relationship, I’ll tell you how I’m feeling, you know, so that it’s not, it doesn’t, it doesn’t break to a crisis,

[00:23:21.14] spk_1:
right? But one thing I do want to say that’s really important because I had a difficult moment once and it’s actually pretty recently And it wasn’t in a mentor relationship, but I’ll say this when there are difficult moments that are happening. It is important that we prioritize the issues or issues that were going to deal with because in some cases you may have identified five or six issues that are a problem. But you have to ask yourself, will it be effective for me to just list all of these issues and problems that I have, you may well not prioritize and identify the top two and deal with those because when you overwhelm people with all these things that you feel are going wrong, it can be hard to process. So we have to figure out what’s realistic and what you need to talk about and deal with and what are some of the things that you can maybe let go and deal with that another time.

[00:24:12.24] spk_0:
Are the mentor and the mentee equal in this relationship or or is the mentor have more of a leadership role? Uh, do you, do you you and, and, you know, I think for our listeners, you know, in small and mid sized nonprofits, they’re most likely to be doing professional mentoring mentoring someone new to nonprofits or new to administration maybe or management or new to fundraising or if not new, you know, junior to them, but conspiring to, to something greater. Um, is it, is it a relationship of equals or or it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t be

[00:25:19.94] spk_1:
right. I think that’s a wonderful question and I think absolutely it’s a relationship of equals. All parties involved in the mentor mentee relationship, they are equal. Even if it’s a dynamic where the person is much younger and the other person is much older, One is a male or female, you know, that one has a PhD, the other has a no degree. The everybody that’s in that relationship are equal in terms of, because each person has to fully show up and participate in the relationship in order for it to work. Now with that being said though, each person has a different responsibility. The mentor inherently has more information about the subject than the mentee. And so when it comes to being a subject matter expert, of course, the mentor has more information. They have more responsibility to help frame the experience and the, and to help guide the mentee when they’re on track or off track. But the minty also has to has to show up and be participatory and they have to again be feel comfortable with the relationship in order to for it to be a healthy relationship. I think that that relationship cannot be successful if both people aren’t showing up fully and the relationship cannot be successful if one person is entering it, thinking that they have more authority and in more power because absolutely not, each person has a role to play and it’s important to understand the limits of that role and not to overstep or under step it because that’s when things can just go bad.

[00:26:30.54] spk_0:
Cool. Thanks. What what are what are some ways you’ve seen folks grow and and mature and and that that could be, you know, that could be the mentor growing and maturing too. I’m not assuming it’s the mentee, but you know, sort of like getting a uh some of that really valuable outcomes. I don’t I don’t really want to make it sound quantifiable or anything like that, but but you know, more of the squishy, you know, like more than the humanity of it. What’s some of the ways you’ve seen either party or both parties, you know, develop, grow, maybe mature? You know, what, what what what what can we aspire to in a relationship like this?

[00:27:54.74] spk_1:
Absolutely. So when to answer that question, I want to think about a relationship that I have or that I’ve had with a with a mentor. Um I have a a gentleman who has served as a de facto mentor in my life. Um and we don’t talk all the time. It isn’t the monthly or it isn’t, you know, weekly conversation, I should have said it’s not weekly, but we do engage in professional and some of the other goals that I do have in my life and one of the things, the biggest benefits that I’ve gotten from that membership or that relationship is the fact that I understand that the journey that I’m on and the challenges and shortsightedness that I no doubt have, it isn’t something that’s unique to me and it isn’t something that other people have not experienced in a similar type of way, if not exactly 100% the same. And just knowing that there’s someone there that can help um honor and validate my experiences and where I am, it has been life changing, not just in that relationship with that mentor, but just in general, me knowing that as I’m on a journey, whatever that new journey or old journey might be that the travels I experienced the challenges or the successes, they aren’t something that’s new, that or impossible, but what I’m on is a journey that is pretty um pretty normal and it’s something that I I can, I can achieve on because others have done it and I think that that’s probably one of the biggest lessons is not, you know, it’s not about learning how to, you know use micro software or how to do this one particular thing that your mentor may have taught you, but it’s more so about that understanding that you know, you have an opportunity to grow, as long as you rely on the resources and the tools around you that you can use to grow and I think that mentorship it teaches that basic lesson that could be utilized well beyond that official relationship ending. It is something that I I lean on with with you know with all of my relationships

[00:28:53.84] spk_0:
so valuable to know that you’re not the only person going having this these frustrations. You’re not the first person to suffer with something or that that that context I think can be and the perspective can be very reassuring.

[00:29:11.54] spk_1:
Yeah and you’re not stupid you’re not a failure because you you you you made a mistake or there was an oversight it happens it’s just a part of the process.

[00:32:03.44] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. Their I. T. Solution is I. T. Infra. In a box budget friendly holistic. You pick what you need and you leave the rest your I. T. Buffet. In other words some of the offerings in the buffet I. T. Assessment, multifactor authentication, lots of other security methods, cost analysis help desk and there is more you choose what’s right for your situation and for your budget it’s the I. T. Buffet I thi infra in a box At 4th Dimension Technologies tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper It’s time for Tony Take two. The murders of 21 people in Uvalde Texas were this week if you’re a quick listener then this is still fresh and raw for you. If you listen to the time shift, it could be two weeks, 468 weeks since these killings the world and our attention have moved on. The people of Yuval Day have not, I’m not sure they ever can, it depends on what moving on would look like. They need our help. If you’d like to make a gift, a vetted place is the san Antonio area Foundation, the Foundation set up to funds. Uvalde a strong fund and Uvalde Strong survivors fund. If you’d like to contribute, it’s san Antonio area Foundation. S A F D N dot org. S A A f D N dot org. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got a lot more time for mentoring with Don Gatewood. If we’re a potential, well we could be either one, you know, we we could be Mentees are listening and potential mentors are listening to. What should we look for If if we if we’re thinking about this relationship as a mentee, let’s take someone there. What what would they be looking for in a potential mentor? You know, before they approached somebody, what what kind of, I don’t know attributes or you know, like what are you looking for in a person?

[00:32:24.14] spk_1:
Right. So the first thing that we all have to do, number one, Congratulations for anyone who’s even thinking about finding a mentor, that is a wonderful step because it identifies that, you know that there’s an opportunity there that currently isn’t in your life. So, congratulations to thinking in that way. But after that point we have to really think about what exactly is it about my life that I think that

[00:32:30.48] spk_0:
I could

[00:33:10.14] spk_1:
use some support or some advice or some guidance in whether it’s professional, whether it’s spirituality, whether it’s, you know, a relationship with a child or a loved one or you know, a wife or husband, what exactly, you know, ceo of yourself managing your own affairs, what exactly is going on? Or are there different areas that you are looking to be mentored in simultaneously? So identifying which it does take some level of self awareness, knowing oneself, knowing oneself, strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. So once you’re able to identify that look within and maybe write it down, I believe in writing things down, people write things down because it it makes it real when you write it down or type it in the computer and once you’ve identified those things, then you can move forward, recognizing the the type of person you need to connect with because they have skills or success in those areas where you have determined to be areas where you’re wanting to grow. So I think it starts with self evaluation and understanding what it is that you are trying to grow in, what are your goals? What are your objectives? What are those areas? And that would be the first step I would suggest.

[00:34:19.74] spk_0:
Okay, and then what what, what is still you know going further than what what are you looking for in someone who or what are you asking them to to commit to? Um Well no that’s different, that’s different. You and you you talked about that you know early on and verbal versus written and the expectations but um you know in terms of maturity um you know accountability you know do they are they someone I I think I can rely on

[00:34:24.76] spk_1:
right?

[00:34:26.02] spk_0:
I’m I’m I’m really just kind of stabbing at the dark in the dark, you’re the you’re the subject matter expert,

[00:36:01.73] spk_1:
right? And so there’s a so there’s a certain level of preparation that you can make which is what I’ve suggested with you know framing the mentorship as well as asking yourself introspective questions. So there are some things you can do on the front end to the best of your ability to create an environment where the mentor mentee relationship can possibly be successful. But you gotta remember we all are just human beings and a person could have all the skills in the world on paper but that does not mean it’s going to translate into a relationship that’s gonna be fruitful for both. So there’s there’s there’s an extent to how much preparation that that you can do in in advance but in terms of you know finding a person of course you want them to be available. You want them to be in a position to to listen and to to be empathetic and you want them to have demonstrated experience in the area that that you’re looking for. But you got to remember that your mentor is just a human to who’s juggling life and has challenges and may have periods where they’re more available and less. And we can’t be so quick to dismiss someone because the mentor who you are, you sort out is imperfect or they are not able to do everything exactly as you had hoped because that’s not the way that it goes. So I think that they do have to have expectations that are grounded in real realism as well because I do think that a mentee if not careful, can put expectations on the mentor. That could be unrealistic. And those expectations can be the reason why the relationship isn’t working. It may not even have anything to do with the value of the person, but it’s just how you envision and when they’re not meeting your your vision then you see it as a failure with really what needs to be adjusted is your expectation.

[00:36:31.73] spk_0:
Yeah. I I guess what I’m getting what I was getting at is you know, something that you said earlier, you know the greatest subject matter expert in the world on something, you know, doesn’t mean that they’re the greatest mentor. No, no,

[00:36:40.16] spk_1:
no, no not not not at all. But I will say this a lot of a lot of folks they do, you know, want to be mentored by someone who has a certain name or a certain reputation in the community and I do get that, but sometimes those folks are not available or they may not be the best mentor because of the other obligations that they do

[00:37:31.03] spk_0:
have. Alright. And if you’re a mentor looking at a potential mentee, it sounds like and correct me if I’m if I’m presuming if I’m presuming wrong, but I’m thinking it would sound like you would want someone who’s done some introspective work, thought about what it is they want to get from the relationship, you know, what, how do they want to grow if if you’re if you’re a mentor looking at a potential menti sounds like you would want someone who’s done that, that that personal work.

[00:39:12.82] spk_1:
Right. Right. But at the same time remembering though that there’s a spectrum, so people show up at different phases and some need more support and some need less support. So you got to remember that depending on who you’re connected with, they may just need more support or there may be some foundational things that you presume that they should or would have, they may not have. So a mentor has to be aware that there may be some things that they will learn about the mentee along the way that maybe they did not see in the beginning of that relationship and if that occurs, how do you respond to it, the easiest thing to do would be to let it go. But I would argue that understanding that there’s a possibility that some things are gonna show up and you got to be prepared and have some space and some latitude that you’ve built into this equation so that when it happens you’re not completely thrown off and you’re really ready to throw in the towel because a mentor, it’s almost like when you think about a you know a basketball team or a tennis person or an ice skater, they have a coach and sometimes there may be a gap there something that they thought the team would be able to learn faster. Or maybe Simona had a tennis player. We thought that with this sort of coaching, she would learn this the slice sooner but she just didn’t. And so whether you do do you just let the person go because they’re moving slower than what you thought. No, maybe you look at your coaching style and trying to problem solve. So it’s problem solving is a huge um part of mentorship or coaching. You know, you can’t just let the team go and let the players because then they’re not where you thought they should be,

[00:39:33.42] spk_0:
there’s such enormous value in this. I I see you know for professional growth for personal growth for both the mentor and the mentee. No it’s just it sounds so rewarding. You know, you’re you’re motivating

[00:39:35.42] spk_1:
at it is very rewarding because here’s the thing, we all have our area of expertise, whether

[00:39:41.52] spk_0:
it’s

[00:40:18.81] spk_1:
education, whether it’s medicine, nursing and it’s not enough for you to be good or passionate about your job. You want to make sure that your field is in the hands of other people who are equally passionate, equally qualified and have the skills to do um good and good faith in their positions. And there’s no people don’t just wake up and swallow a magic pill and have these skills. I mean, some of us really need the guidance from someone. And so for the love of the this professional space or whatever space it is, whether it’s, you know, religious or whatever it is that you do, you know, it’s it’s making sure that the people have what they need to be successful because it it rewards the greater good and we ensure that quality uh is the priority when when we sold back into it. Quality, it’s about quality.

[00:40:57.51] spk_0:
That’s very inspiring. Yeah, thank you. Don. It almost should be the place where we end, but I still want to I want to I don’t want to end yet because I want to give you a chance to. Uh so, so I guess listeners like I’m gonna ask, don you know what he wants to talk about because I’ve been asking all the questions. But so then if you want the inspirational part, you have to go back and play what, what don just said the past two minutes, that’ll be like close inspirational closing. So you’re stuck with a lackluster host, I’m sorry, you know your

[00:41:04.92] spk_1:
but

[00:41:18.51] spk_0:
you know, but you said something very that was very inspirational, but I still want to give you more time. So you know, what is it, what what would you like us to know that that I haven’t asked you about yet? You know, I can’t, you’re again, you’re the expert. What what what more is there that you want us? You want us to know about mentoring?

[00:42:03.90] spk_1:
Well when I turn on the news, when I walk into work spaces and my job, when I think about previous positions that I’ve held when I see the kids walking to school because I have a school, the math of high school right across from the building that I live in and I just see so much opportunity and and so much need across the board. I mean people wake up everyday wanting to do their absolute best. I believe that the majority of us truly feel that way now some of us, I don’t think that’s what we want, but that’s what we think, but I believe that the great majority of us, we really do want to be successful and we really do want to do the best we can, but sometimes we don’t know how sometimes ego, sometimes we don’t have the blueprint or the support

[00:42:17.70] spk_0:
and

[00:42:30.90] spk_1:
so that’s where mentorship comes in and mentorship, it doesn’t have to necessarily be something that you have to do you know regularly. Um I think about my my dad, God rest his soul, he passed away, but my nephew who didn’t, his father wasn’t as involved in his life, but I remember at my dad’s funeral, he talked about the conversations that he had with my dad and it wasn’t a whole lot because they lived in different states, but those conversations were very impactful and they, they helped shape the way he thought. And so I just want you to know that you don’t have to spend seven days a week, you know, for 15 years mentoring someone, uh sometimes some of those valuable lessons and jewels that you have that you impart onto people, even if it’s not every single day they can really have an impact on people. So we should always be thinking about how we can influence someone and how we can have an impact on someone, even if we’re not in a mentorship capacity, we all still have a responsibility, mentor or not to look at people around us and say, hey I see an opportunity right here and although I don’t have a whole year to give, I have this one statement to give and this one statement could have an impact and I think that that’s a way that we all can be involved in mentoring on a small or in a larger way

[00:43:38.30] spk_0:
more inspiration, You’re amazing. Thank

[00:43:40.40] spk_1:
you. Thank

[00:43:44.50] spk_0:
you. He’s Don Gatewood, you’ll find him and his professional leadership consulting at Don gatewood dot com. Don thank you so much for sharing. Thank

[00:43:53.70] spk_1:
you so much. It’s been an honor being here today.

[00:45:09.39] spk_0:
Oh my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Next week. Back to 22. NTC with responding to micro aggressions. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o And by 4th dimension Technologies IT Infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. A creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy. And this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Mm hmm