Nonprofit Radio for February 8, 2021: Opera Singer to Fundraiser

My Guest:

Yolanda F. Johnson: Opera Singer to Fundraiser

Yolanda F. Johnson’s classical opera training informs her fundraising practice. She’s the founder and president of YFJ Consulting and the first African-American president of Women in Development, NY. She’s with us for the hour.

 

 

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[00:02:12.24] spk_1:
Hi there. I’m shaking it up this week. It’s a throwback. I picked an archive show, and I’m keeping it intact right down to Tony’s Take Two from Boise, Idaho, and the podcast pleasantries in the live listener Love you remember those. The sponsor messages are current, though. Got to keep the sponsors satisfied and fulfill contractual obligations. It’s from back When When we were in the studio, remember, remember the New York City studio with Sam? Sam Liebowitz, our producer? Yes, a throwback here is from June 28 2019. Hello and welcome to big ideas for the other 95% on your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with Hemi Diocese Asia if you blindsided me with the idea that you missed today’s show From opera Singer to fundraiser Yolanda F. Johnson’s classical opera training informs her fundraising practice. She’s the founder and president of Y F J Consulting and the first African American president of Women in Development, New York. She’s with us for the hour. I’m Steak, too. Hello from Boise were sponsored by turn to communications PR and content. For nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives. Prospect to donor. Simplified for a free demo and a free month. I’m very glad to welcome Yolanda F. Johnson to the studio. She has nearly two decades of experience as a fundraising expert and professional musician. She is founder and president of Why F. J Consulting and the first African American president elect in the 40 year history of women in Development New York. Her company is why f j consulting dot com Women in development is at UID and why dot or GE? And she’s at Yolanda F. Johnson. Welcome, Johnson. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Come a little closer to the mike. Okay. Classically trained opera singer. I’m surprised your voice

[00:02:27.70] spk_0:
If I’m singing, you’ll

[00:02:28.61] spk_1:
hear everything

[00:02:29.57] spk_0:
way

[00:03:01.44] spk_1:
may get to that. No, I wouldn’t put you. Okay. Um So congratulations, President Elect of women and Development with New York. Uh, you begin your term on July 1st. Awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. So timely. You see, everything in your career has led you to this day on. Indeed. Everything that we’re gonna talk about and and coming up, uh, culminates here. You’re at the pinnacle. It’s all downhill from here. That means it’s all downhill from here. I’m sorry. Uh, okay. So, uh, your Nebraska girl I am. How did you find your way from, uh, Nebraska Thio Professional opera Singing that Z, That’s not a typical trip for Ah, Nebraskan.

[00:03:12.54] spk_0:
Well, not necessarily so. But we all have our own paths. And I began with music probably four years old, and that was piano first. And then I started to sing in church, actually went to get a music degree of performance degree in undergrad in Oklahoma, went to get a graduate degree that had a focus in fundraising, arts administration and fundraising and then sold all my worldly goods and moved to New York. Because this is where you could do everything

[00:03:39.89] spk_1:
for singing, for singing principles originally or or fundraising or something else.

[00:03:45.07] spk_0:
Interestingly, I never did fundraising. Some people always have day jobs or you see performers and they have other jobs or servers or something like that. Hospitality. I’ve always loved both. I’ve always loved music, and I’ve always loved fundraising, and I’ve always had them in my life simultaneously.

[00:04:02.36] spk_1:
Okay? What does it mean to be a classically trained opera singer? What? What is that what

[00:04:08.76] spk_0:
it means? I worked really hard with lots of teachers. Um, toe learn proper technique to sing opera and classical music. Uh, opera and recitals. Art song. Um, I specialize in spirituals as well with the underground railroad.

[00:04:25.44] spk_1:
Oh, really? Okay. Um, we’ll say a little more about that. What about spirituals in the underground railroad? I mean, you’re performing those now? Yeah.

[00:04:43.84] spk_0:
Yeah. I have an album called Feel the Spirit Feel. Feel the spirit. Feel it. Yeah, And I have a concert lecture called a spirituals experience. You like that? Spirituals

[00:04:46.96] spk_1:
experience, spirituals experience, a concert lecture, eso that’s talk and singing.

[00:04:51.86] spk_0:
Yes. I teach people about the hidden messages behind some of the music, the spirituals, some of the things they meant with the underground

[00:06:00.34] spk_1:
railroad. Okay, okay. I haven’t seen a lot of opera. My the pinnacle of my opera attendance was probably I saw Aida in Italy at the Battle of the Baths of Caracalla, which is an outdoor. It used to be a bathhouse in ancient days. Now it’s, uh it’s a performance space and I was traveling in Italy. I just stumbled on these tickets from a booth on the street. Stumbled on those two. Yeah, they were. Well, I had to pay for them, but I stumbled on the booth that was selling the tickets. Just said Aida Caracol. And I thought, Well, that’s cool. I know what Caracalla is. Um, so I mean, this was a lavish. I mean, I eat it takes place in Egypt. Uh, I know, you know that, but for for for the Neophytes out there, uh, I need to take place in Egypt. And there were There were all kinds of animals. There were camels. I think there were tigers on stage, like 100 and 50 people. I mean, this was a lavish. There were live animals and lots of people. It was amazing. It was amazing. It was a beautiful night. Um, anyway, so, um, have you performed e

[00:06:03.98] spk_0:
have not performed the only one I

[00:06:05.22] spk_1:
know. Okay, e don’t even remember. This was years ago. I don’t remember, but I know it involves a queen and love and a mistress and Egypt. A lot of just like 90% of opera. Okay, Um now you’re still currently You’re still performing? Yeah, you have some. You have a show coming up.

[00:06:23.04] spk_0:
I dio have a show in August of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Console and we actually put it in contemporary times. So it sparks dialogue about the immigration debate.

[00:06:35.94] spk_1:
Okay. Ah, nde. We’ll say it now and then. We’ll remind listeners at the end, where can they see the console?

[00:06:45.69] spk_0:
They can see the console. I’ll be Magda Magda in that production at the amphitheater at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers. It is not upstate, it’s just the suburb

[00:07:13.14] spk_1:
Yonkers. It’s not yet well, right for New Yorkers, that’s upstate. But it tze not upstate eerie and buffalo upstate. Okay, but for geo centric New Yorkers who think this is the center of the universe, that’s you need a passport to get toe Yonkers. OK, eso if I don’t. If I forget, remind me that put little pitch in for that at the end to um so now you’re before we get to weed. So opera and singing informs your consulting. It does Y f J consulting very much. What’s the What’s the influence their of singing over fundraising?

[00:07:26.91] spk_0:
Well, since you know, as I mentioned, I’ve always had a love for both. I found this intersection that makes me so excited. And it’s using performance practice in philanthropy and and fundraising. I realized I was at somewhat of an advantage, right, because, uh, I knew how to get into character. I knew how to breathe. I knew how to get through things that make may make other people nervous. Um, by using the things I had learned as a performer and all the world is a stage. I have a workshop that I just launched a month or so ago called All the World’s a Stage, and it deals with that. It helps people. It coaches them through, um, being on that fundraising stage and using performance, practice, toe, succeed and excel.

[00:08:10.29] spk_1:
So we’re talking about overcoming the anxiety of what face to face meetings, uh, training session, public speaking, kind of public speaking,

[00:08:26.91] spk_0:
making me ask, making the pitch, knowing how to pivot if I’m talking to you and it’s not going quite right knowing what to say next. That’s improv. Improv. Yeah,

[00:08:40.66] spk_1:
uh, interesting. Because I was trained. I was I was coached, I guess, uh, years ago, when I was getting started, public speaking. I didn’t feel like I was very strong and my coach was a jazz singer and she brought in some elements of jazz, which is largely improv on Dhe. Then we thought this was incredible. She she and I worked together for a couple of years, on and off, and then she felt like she had done everything she could to help me, and she recommended I take improv classes on. I loved improv so much that I, instead of taking one class, I took four classes. Like in a year. There were three months classes. I think I could come back to back improv at UCB, the Upright Citizens Brigade here in New York City. Uh, that really she she did take me to another level, but then improv. Just the confidence of walking on stage with a scene partner with knowing only one word like knowing your first word of your first sentence and relying on your scene partner or team.

[00:09:25.64] spk_0:
And even if you’re not confident faking it until you make it getting into character, taking that breath, walking out there and just doing it, getting that performance done, whatever it is if the stage is the boardroom, if it’s on the stage, um, you’re always on stage, right? Pretty much in life. You wanna live an authentic life, but you also wanna be prepared and be able to navigate.

[00:10:52.24] spk_1:
All right, So let’s all right, let’s take our first break and then we’re gonna talk a little more detail about, uh, some of the things you just ticked off, like some of the some of the, um singing lesson performance lessons that specifically that inform your informed fundraising and speaking etcetera, little detail. Here’s that break that I inarticulately introduced turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times CBS Market Watch The Chronicle of Philanthropy Turn two has the relationships with outlets like these. So when they’re looking for experts on charitable giving, trends in philanthropy, they turn to turn to turn two turns to you. There’s lots of turning going on because your turn to his client turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to from opera singer to fundraiser, say a little more detail about I mean eso I riffed on improv, but what are some of the specific, uh, skills that you could bring from performance toe help fundraisers.

[00:11:01.74] spk_0:
Well, one thing in particular, I think, whoever your audiences, if it’s 205 100 people in an auditorium, if it’s your board of directors, if it’s some major donor prospects, um, you know, always being prepared, nothing will save the day like being prepared. So you have to

[00:11:17.78] spk_1:
prepare. Yeah,

[00:11:52.94] spk_0:
nothing’s gonna get you by you don’t prepare. Um, but once you have that, there’s a certain peace of mind that comes And then so you understand your audience and you wanna make sure that, uh, there’s a level of comfort between you and them with, especially with American audiences. Um, we don’t breathe a lot as native speakers of English. Have you ever noticed? Well, have you ever noticed that you’re talking and you’re just having this conversation with somebody? Maybe not you, because you’ve done improv, but a lot of us other people were just talking and then suddenly take a really deep breath.

[00:11:53.59] spk_1:
Yeah, and sometimes on the show. And I think everybody here is my breath. I’m like some kind of Godzilla. Something.

[00:11:58.88] spk_0:
Yeah. You take a huge breath because you haven’t been breathing. You don’t wanna walk around breathing too much. But you want to relax, right? Because your audience, actually on the subconscious level consents. You’re not breathing, and it makes them very uncomfortable singing or speaking. If you’re going to long, they’re like, Oh, my God, she

[00:12:16.10] spk_1:
hasn’t. I’ve also done stand up comedy along with along with improv and the audience can definitely sense fear. Maybe it comes from breath. I don’t know, but they could tell when you’re nervous and that makes them nervous. And your material could be fabulous, But they’re scared for you. So they’re not laughing the way you want them Thio audience they can smell. Yeah, right. I mean, audiences consents eso you got okay, So be prepared. Gives you confidence. You’re not fearful. People don’t sense your fear,

[00:12:45.91] spk_0:
right? And then you just know what you’re doing, right? I’m having a conversation with you. Have done the research. You do your prospecting as a fundraiser. You read your lines. Um, you learn your music as a performer, be prepared, whatever it is that you’re doing. And then that gives you that peace of mind. So I’m having a conversation with you where I don’t necessarily just have bullet points in my mind that I want to cover. I have them there is back up. But I can have a real authentic conversation with you. Right? And and from that comes hopefully dollars and cultivation of relationships and augmenting of audiences.

[00:13:30.64] spk_1:
Um, anything else we can, uh, touch on Besides, Okay. So preparation, preparation. What about breathing? Are there breathing at Do you go through breathing exercises with clients? What’s a breathing exercise? Could we doing?

[00:13:32.79] spk_0:
Sure teach me. So

[00:13:35.25] spk_1:
I’m trainable. Do I need to stand up for it? We can. We pretend I’m standing cause then we gotta adjust the mic and everything. Okay, Pretend I’m standing.

[00:13:53.48] spk_0:
So whenever you take a breath, the proper breath is not a shallow one that just goes straight out front. Right? It’s ah, breath that’s barrel shaped. We have these muscles between our ribs. Everybody talks about the diagram, but think of your not necessarily untrue. But think about your intercostal muscles, right?

[00:13:59.57] spk_1:
That’s the ones that connect the ribs to the spine.

[00:14:01.62] spk_0:
So your breath should be barrel shaped, not shallow. There you go.

[00:14:05.94] spk_1:
And into the shoulders, like up, up,

[00:14:28.34] spk_0:
up. It doesn’t have to be affected deep. And then you control it out. Mhm. Whether or not I’m sitting there and I’m about to perform or if I’m about to ask you for $10 million you take that breath, then I can look you in the eye and we can have an authentic conversation. Okay. Did that help? Did you notice the difference between the shallow and the

[00:14:42.74] spk_1:
also the pacing of your the way you were talking to? Yeah, together. Okay. Like you change, you can change the mood in a conversation through pace.

[00:14:44.47] spk_0:
Exactly. And pace is very closely related to

[00:14:46.71] spk_1:
breath. You could get people’s attention with silence. You built in a little silence. Not awkward, but there’s some pauses. You could get people’s attention that way. Yeah, I do that. Stand up trying to get I do that sometimes. Stand up, take a pause. Like every second doesn’t have to be filled with syllables. Right,

[00:15:04.24] spk_0:
Because in the audience starts getting stressed out. Okay.

[00:15:11.04] spk_1:
Okay. All right. Thank you. You’re welcome. Um, this is very good. All right. So this is the intersection of performance and on dhe fundraising. And of course I mean, you’re right. We are like, sort of constantly performing and fundraisers all them or whether you’re in a board meeting where you’re in a 1 to 1 meeting and it may not even necessarily be a solicitation. You’re trying to get to know someone, make them comfortable so that a couple of meetings from now, you know, you’re gonna ask them to be, uh, step up for the campaign or for the dinner, or to be a major volunteer or be a board member. You know, whatever it is not only about dollars.

[00:15:42.97] spk_0:
Whatever ask it is that you’re going to make. You can’t just ask people unnecessarily immediately for money. You want to cultivate that relationship, and you wanna be asked again, or you want to have your invitation accepted the next time so you can continue that process?

[00:16:23.14] spk_1:
Yeah. And if it’s awkward, uncomfortable, you’re lowering the chances of going to get an email. Yeah. Yeah. You get an email after a call, right? You get a voice, you leave a voicemail, you get an email. That’s bad. That’s usually a bad sign. Um, okay. Um, let’s all right, let’s talk some about wid 40th anniversary. You’re the first black. Uh well, they’re all females. Your first black president of wid. Congratulations on that milestone. Um, what’s what’s coming up for wod This is a big anniversary year for we do.

[00:16:27.72] spk_0:
It’s a huge anniversary. Here I happen, toe. Just love this organization. I don’t just say that, um it’s been a really big factor in my fundraising career and in my life, and it has some amazing women that are really running this town as far as fundraising is concerned in the tri state area. Really? And for our 40th anniversary, um, we have lots of wonderful things planned new programming. We have a really row best programming schedule. We’re gonna delve deeper into some issues that we haven’t necessarily touched upon before about the experience of being a woman in the field.

[00:17:03.74] spk_1:
Like Like what? What are some of those issues?

[00:17:09.64] spk_0:
Uh, well, we’re actually gonna have a conversation about the role of men. Okay? You know, uh, and we’re gonna look holistically at the with woman and And who women are in the development field and embrace

[00:17:19.91] spk_1:
the role of men. I mean, like, I could synopsis eyes that I can summarize that in a sentence. White men have all the power.

[00:17:25.74] spk_0:
Well, we’re going to talk about that. Maybe you should come to that session.

[00:17:44.14] spk_1:
That’s very interesting that you say that I wasn’t gonna bring this up. Um, but I will. Eso Years ago, I tried to be a speaker at UID, and they had some kind of policy. I don’t know if it was written or or just, uh, er de facto, but they weren’t They weren’t bring in male speakers.

[00:17:48.69] spk_0:
Well, I’ll put it this way. Would is open Wit is really smart. Okay, I will say that not just because I’m the leader of the organization, but we were dealing with some really highly intelligent people who make really good decisions for the organization where it’s at at whatever period that

[00:18:04.22] spk_1:
was Well,

[00:18:05.94] spk_0:
I don’t I don’t know that they blew it. They just made a decision that was best for the organization. But that being said, um, we our mission is to empower women in the field, whatever that means in whatever way, um is appropriate at that time. And so, in this particular season, we’ve been around for four decades, and, uh, we find the value in having that conversation about empowering women And what does that mean? You know, how can this whole village of people in philanthropy empower women in the development field? And so, um, at that particular session, it would make a lot of sense, possibly for you to join us. Well, I would like committees listening. Right? We have witnesses.

[00:18:47.58] spk_1:
Okay, I would I would love to. We’re gonna send out live Whistler in love with you. How many are in Manhattan right now? Um, but I also want to make clear they don’t doesn’t have to be, uh, men in the room to talk about dealing with male

[00:18:59.69] spk_0:
power. No, not not. Not at all. But we, as women, have talked about for a long time. And now we need we want to look at it from a different perspective. And not only that, but again empowering women. So we have programs around professional development skills based, um, wellness. You know, we’re gonna be introducing that this year. We’re going through a rebranding. So we’re gonna launch that at our member meeting in September. Eso just lots of really wonderful, exciting things. We also talk about leadership, of course. You know, in the trajectory of ah women and development members career. How to assess that. And then we have this amazing network of women that are so supportive. There’s a sense of camaraderie with wood that’s just unique,

[00:19:42.25] spk_1:
is with National. And this is the New York, uh, chapter we’re talking about, or is with New York unique

[00:19:49.54] spk_0:
with other women and development. There are other chapters, but there’s not a national body that oversees us. Uh, but there’s a chapter, and there’s would Greater Boston. Um, there’s one in New Jersey. There’s one upstate in actual upstate, not in Westchester. E think there’s one around Westchester to, um and you know, we’re actually doing some research to really discover. So if, uh, your audience is broad, right all over the country. So if there are with chapters that we may not know of, we want to talk to you, actually, because we like toe toe, have a conversation with you about getting together and working together.

[00:20:27.14] spk_1:
Um, does wid you mentioned the network does, does does we’ve encourage mentorship. You must

[00:20:58.04] spk_0:
we Do We have an organic mentor ship that happens? I’ve had several really, really, um, pivotal mentors that have come through with that have taught me so much. Uh, and I think that we all find those relationships. It’s why going to our networking events going to our programs. You end up developing the circle of colleagues and really friends that it lasts for years.

[00:20:59.32] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s it’s crucial. I’ve had lots of guests talk about it, and I’ve experienced it myself. Um, mentorship.

[00:21:22.64] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s very important. And that’s one of the beautiful things about many and leadership with with our board of directors Phenomenal women. Uh, and I don’t say that I don’t give free compliments. Um, I mean it when I say that and they are so open to, you know, spending time with young professionals with other people if they have questions, um, really championing. And again, we all go back to empowerment of women in the fundraising field.

[00:21:41.18] spk_1:
Is there a coronation on Monday? Uh, Monday Coronation event that we should be attending at Cipriani, or oh, uh, no,

[00:21:49.60] spk_0:
but we just had our woman of achievement a week or so ago. Um, no, there isn’t it. It’s a quiet transition, but, uh, but nonetheless enthusiastic.

[00:21:58.04] spk_1:
What is your first official act? A ZX president.

[00:22:02.64] spk_0:
My first official act I already have a task list for Monday of some things that just need to get done. I’ve been working for a while, actually. Are outgoing president. I’ll give her a shout out here. Bryant, Um, wonderful person and leader. And,

[00:22:16.49] spk_1:
uh,

[00:22:23.04] spk_0:
she’s the director of development there. And so I’ll just be looking forward to a lot of the things that I’ve started implementing. Really? As early as January, she was very supportive. We started a system that hopefully I’ll be able to continue of allowing the person coming next, um, to begin the planning process so that they could be ahead of the game before that July 1st period.

[00:22:41.26] spk_1:
It sounds like you have that advantage. I did. And how long is your time? Two years. Two years? Okay. And 2020 is the 40th year of Is that right?

[00:22:49.83] spk_0:
This is our 40th anniversary year, but we’re gonna have ah, birthday anniversary bash in January to celebrate that we’re entering

[00:22:56.97] spk_1:
that. Oh, wonderful. So that at the Pierre Hotel? No. Would you like to sponsor? E Don’t know about sponsoring, but I might come. Where is it? Where you doing it?

[00:23:05.14] spk_0:
Uh, those details will be available later. We have a lot that we’re launching at the meeting in September.

[00:23:09.97] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. So, January January, Miguel in

[00:23:13.53] spk_0:
January. Not big gala, but big celebration

[00:23:15.98] spk_1:
celebration. Okay. Okay.

[00:23:17.86] spk_0:
Um, as an events person, I’m very careful about that. Word. That g word,

[00:23:34.16] spk_1:
uh, means a certain certain expectations. Right? Ah, 1000 people A tw the world over story. Right? Right. So, events, um, do you Do you still enjoy events? Still like, Do you still like putting them together? I mean, I know that’s not your practice, but you still like being the organizer of events

[00:23:41.64] spk_0:
on a personal level. I think I planned my first event when I was six years old.

[00:23:45.94] spk_1:
Okay, that was two years after you started music so late, Bloomer in events. All right,

[00:23:50.64] spk_0:
Um, and I personally, I love to love people through that they’re being bringing them together through ah, common bond. A mission, Uh, just, you know, an affinity for something with delicious food and for was ready for you mentioned food? Yes. Food

[00:24:06.69] spk_1:
and food and wine, I think are great. Lubricate er’s for a room.

[00:24:11.74] spk_0:
Yeah. You know, just it’s that sensory thing. Yeah, the sensory thing

[00:24:15.44] spk_1:
and sharing. It’s a share, sure, coming together with a table, not necessarily sitting around it. But it’s a buffet table, you know? Or if we are sitting down together, it’s sharing a space, That’s why. Yeah,

[00:24:40.14] spk_0:
exactly. And for a, it should have that same sentiment. I think you know, we’re all what makes it special is that you’re coming together to celebrate. It’s a culmination of them, you know, belief in that organization’s mission. Um, it’s not just the party, but it is a celebration, you know,

[00:24:42.34] spk_1:
Um, yeah, events. I have a hard time doing events. I just the details, like, Does the bunting match the flowers? You know, things like that I don’t have a lot of patients for So I am grateful that there are people who enjoy doing

[00:24:53.79] spk_0:
it. And I love campaigns. You know, Those are my focus areas with my practices, events and campaigns. And I happen to specialize in anniversary campaigns that culminate in an event. So, you know that marries those two

[00:25:05.90] spk_1:
things that the anniversary Yeah, the anniversary, as you’re doing with wid, should be celebrated over a long over over a long period, right? Plan. These things in advance.

[00:25:14.50] spk_0:
Yes, I mean,

[00:25:15.89] spk_1:
not just a one night like a one night thing. 40th, 40th anniversary night and then e. It should be multiple activities right through a year

[00:26:07.84] spk_0:
exactly on. So it is the 40th anniversary year. That’s why we’re starting in 2019. It’s the year and then it will culminate next year, and there are lots of things planned. So we have. We’ll have our woman of achievement lunch and again next May, And, uh, then we’ll have the celebration in January. But everything this year, you know, we have thematic concepts across a year. A lot of the time this past year was women in philanthropy, and this coming year is gonna be focused upon being around for four decades and what would has meant to the fundraising field. And, uh, and where it goes from here with has meant a lot tow women in the field. We have some real pioneers, um, many of whom are still around and still supportive of the organization, and we’re really appreciative of them. Oh, see, And I know I will, but you

[00:26:10.75] spk_1:
know, I’m not. Leave somebody out, right? And then you’ll feel

[00:26:12.90] spk_0:
bad. Let me do that disclaimer. But I am that type of person that loves to give people individual attention. And then I’m like, Oh, wait. Next week on your show, you mentioned these

[00:26:21.14] spk_1:
names. E o. I put I put her on the spot so she did not come prepared. But names, um, pioneers who are members of wid

[00:26:30.79] spk_0:
Linda Hartley.

[00:26:32.24] spk_1:
Okay, I know her. She’s been on the show when she came out with her book.

[00:26:35.73] spk_0:
When is amazing? Um, Shirley Jenks, who you also know

[00:26:39.17] spk_1:
I know Shirley very well. Done some work with her Shirley Jenks and J n ks in, uh, in here in the city.

[00:26:56.44] spk_0:
Margaret Holman is a past president. Margaret. She has a relationship with Nebraska to okay, she’s on the board of the University of Nebraska. Um, we have a current board member who just co chaired, uh, woman of achievement luncheon this past year. Jane Carlin, Who’s a beautiful person. Uh, and then Oh, my God. See, now I don’t know Susan Yulin. You know Susan because she know my favorite people on the Planet

[00:27:13.26] spk_1:
E. Yeah, but just generally, for non profits, do planning in advance of your upcoming anniversary. You know, if it’s your 50th year or some organizations you know, 125th year you wanna be start planning that a couple of years in advance whether there’s gonna be What’s it gonna be? Is it gonna be a fundraising campaign or it doesn’t have to be. But it’s a good hook. Whatever it’s gonna be, you should start planning out of major anniversaries. I think two years in advance or so

[00:27:42.60] spk_0:
that’s a good timeline. Yeah, it gives you time toe to think ahead and be creative.

[00:27:47.44] spk_1:
Maximum advantage. Big news

[00:27:49.82] spk_0:
hook. I’m a piecemeal or by nature. You won’t really see me dive into something and completed all at once. I like to be ableto work on it and take a step back. Go back to it. Have the daily experience of your life. Inform some of the decisions that you make, You know, you keep living life and things happening there, like, you know, I’ll go back to this and maybe I’ll try it this way. So, um, so what is definitely We’ve been planning ahead and we’re excited.

[00:31:24.04] spk_1:
It’s a life practice. Piecemeal. You say piecemeal. I would say life, it’s a life practice you come back to things. Um okay, um let’s zoom, Let’s take our break. And when we come back, I want to talk a little about your experience as a black woman in fundraising and ah, survey that we have, uh, so hang on there. Okay, great. Alright. Thank you. Don’t walk out now. Time for. Stick to hello from Boise, Idaho. I was just there for a long weekend. Visiting dear friends. Um, and I recommend Boise on, by the way, it’s Boise, Boise. I mean, you don’t Boise, but it’s not Boise for you. East coasters. It’s Boise, Boise, Idaho. Um, I learned just like it’s Oregon, not Oregon. There’s no easy Oregon at the end of Oregon. Um, a little bit of a digression. So, Boise, what about it? It’s got mountains, beautiful mountain range, snow capped mountains in the winter and the spring even when the temperature is is, uh, more modest, you know, down below the beautiful, snowcapped mountains. Um, they take their beers very seriously. 16 brew houses in Boise Now, I did not get to sample all of them. I went to a couple. Uh, I can shout out, uh, powder powerhouse h A U s powerhouse. Very nice place. Um, 10 barrel, which happens to be downtown. Uh, those air to that that we went to there was a third one. I can’t remember. They also take their food very seriously. If you go downtown. Around where? Around where? Uh, 10 barrel is 8th, 8th Street and Main Street. Lots of restaurants and other brewpubs and breweries not serving food. Right along eighth and main. Um, lots of serious restaurants there. And I don’t mean serious upscale. Just very good food. Reminds me of Portland a lot. In that respect, they take this food very seriously. Um, what else about boys? Oh, just drive 10 minutes, 15 minutes. You’re out your way out of the city. We visited a winery, so I’m recommending Boise as a travel destination. And there’s more in my video. Um, and you will find that at dot com. And that is. Take two. Now, let’s, uh let’s continue a little more with Yolanda F. Johnson and upper singer to fundraiser. Whoa, Look at the bursting. Oh, man. When we get to live listener love, we’re bursting. But we’re not doing that now. Okay? Bursting I mean, there’s a lot at first were bursting with live listeners on We’re on Facebook Live to Oh, I guess I should do is all shout out All right, Aunt Mary. Mary Bob Largent. Hello, Rosemary Video. Love to see you. Thank you for being with us on Facebook. Give us give us a little Give us a love on Facebook and I’ll be happy to shout you out. All right, so all right. So the power in nonprofits is maintained by white men. Uh, they’re they’re overwhelmingly the board chairs, the board leadership, the CEOs, the C suite, the senior fundraisers. What’s been your your experience as a black woman doing fundraising in that culture?

[00:32:19.44] spk_0:
Well, coming from Nebraska, how’s it going? And it’s interesting that it is a national issue, is it not? You know, no matter where you are, even in a place is diverse. A ZX New York City. That’s still our reality. And, uh, it’s obvious that, uh, philanthropy would do well from continuing, um, diversity and my experience as an African American woman in the field, you know, You know, this year we did a diversity Brooke and I did a diversity and inclusion task force for wid because we were looking at the room and amazing women. Um, but the room could be a bit more diverse, you know? And so we wanted to think about that. One of the first questions was, you know, is the field already diverse? Does it exist that way? It’s just that people may not, um, come out and aren’t necessarily feeling as welcome for whatever reason, or, um, are they just not there? And so, because of some of these studies that have come out recently, I was I spoke at a case conference and diverse on diversity and fundraising in Indianapolis in April, and that was one of the things we talked about. Is diversifying that pipeline for fundraisers because you don’t necessarily see yourself,

[00:32:47.04] spk_1:
Did you have you come to any conclusions whether it’s, uh, there, there are there is greater representation in fundraising, but people are not coming out or there just isn’t the representation that we’d like to see

[00:32:59.91] spk_0:
both.

[00:33:01.14] spk_1:
It is okay. I kind of think there’s more. The latter. They’re just not just not represented, but

[00:33:26.24] spk_0:
it’s both. It’s both because we have to make those efforts toward diversifying the pipeline. We have to look to the future. We have to look to see what’s happening now. We have to stay self aware and just aware in the profession. Um, and that’s the thing. You know, inclusion is the exact opposite of tokenism. So inclusion means that you’re naturally, organically there. You’re appreciated for what you’re bringing to the table. And when you don’t see diversity, sometimes that doesn’t come to mind. So one of the things with is gonna dio is really focus on that this coming year. And, uh, just make sure it’s on our mind, You know, if you have an opportunity to invite a speaker or toe work with different people and partners, Um, is there someone who’s just disqualified who may be a little more diverse? Um, thinking fairly, you know, they’re just disqualified again. Like I say, it’s not tokenism, but just making sure that’s on your mind, because when something is not on your mind, it’s, um it doesn’t exist. Okay,

[00:34:04.72] spk_1:
right. So, consciousness awareness consciousness. Yes. Critical first step, but necessary, but not sufficient. You know, there needs to be action. They need to be conscious. Action? Yes. Not just policies not just tokenism.

[00:34:40.04] spk_0:
Yes, I’m outcome oriented person. So I believe in the process. But I’m not interested in staying stuck there. So we have some definite recommendations that our task forces made to the board of directors that we’re gonna be implementing in the in the coming year. And so just toe elaborate a bit on my answer to your question. So, yes, there are fundraisers of color in the field, but as the cause effective study shows, you know, Yeah, um, mentor ship professional development, because, you know, they were still underrepresented. There’s more work to be done to get those. You know, um, professionals of color, all of the support that they need to survive and to thrive and at the same time work to be done to develop that pipeline so that we continue that into the future with great consciousness and then being intentional about it.

[00:35:49.54] spk_1:
I know that I personally have been paying more attention to this just within the past two years or so. Um, so but I don’t know if that s Oh, I see. So I Seymour conversations about this, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m participating Mawr and I’m or I’m thinking about it more. I woke. I woke, um, or if the conversations really are happening more frequently and there is greater awareness than there was three years ago, do you? What’s your sense? Do you do you think, Do you think there’s, uh, not not saying sufficient awareness or or action? But you feel like there’s more activity around diversity equity and inclusion now than there was just like three years ago?

[00:35:53.54] spk_0:
I do, yes, and strategically. So you know, I’m a strategic thinker.

[00:35:58.75] spk_1:
Meaning what?

[00:37:11.23] spk_0:
Uh, there’s been a lot that’s been going on for the past few years, but now people are really buckling down their understanding those exact, um, facts and figures and metrics, um, that they want to capture. And then we’re talking to each other more about how to move that forward. There was a great event, um, a week or so ago, on June 18th, it was held at the deep, and we there’s a committee, a host committee. I was on it. Um, one of the lead researchers for the study was on it, um, the a f p person who’s involved with their idea programming. Um, people from case. It was a pretty good host committee of us. And I’m sorry if I’m forgetting anyone and and then, um, on a barber barber as well whose? Ah, noted phenomenal fundraiser. We all got together to get the fundraisers of color together in New York City. And, you know, it was interesting because honest said to me, we’ve been doing this in D. C forever. Can’t believe, you know, like it’s interesting that New York hadn’t done it yet. And so we did. We got it done. We got together, um, divided. We fall united, we stand, and so we’re aware of each other more aware of each other. Now, instead of being siloed and in a vacuum of ourselves, um, for whatever reason, we can come together and work together and push everything forward, move the needle.

[00:37:38.33] spk_1:
Well, that moves that leads to empowerment. Exactly. Were working together. Okay, Um, so now you’re your personal experience as a as a fundraiser. You feel like that’s ah, anomalous for an African American woman? Um,

[00:38:54.82] spk_0:
somewhat I you know, I’ll give the greatest shout out of all to a woman named Lori Krugman from would be remiss if I didn’t mention her name, uh, jokingly call her my would mom. Sometimes she really brought me into the organization and and introduced me to so many different things and people that have to do with fundraising. But it takes a village, no matter what the color that transcends color lines. It takes a village of people sometimes to pull you up to support you, to help you get that professional development and to help you move forward and to encourage you. Um, it’s something that’s on my mind for young women of color. Of course, in the field. It’s something that personally is important to me because I think it does make a difference when you see someone who looks like you, just like, um, not only within the field, but even within your organizations. You know, Um, that kind of had gone over my head at first, and then I had a board member mentioned that to me where I I used to work and they said, You know, a lot of these kids are seeing you, and it makes a difference because they think that the executive offices, or, like the big bosses in the office, is up there in the executive director and all of that. And the fundraisers and philanthropy, That’s a whole other issue within it, you know? Do they really understand that this is a viable profession for them? You know, first, the profession had to get the respect it deserved on and then because, you know, we work hard and we’re educating this, and a lot of us have degrees that are focused upon this. We’ve studied the science of fundraising, and it should be fully respected. They

[00:39:11.86] spk_1:
used to be thinking that these event planners

[00:39:14.05] spk_0:
and right there, just out there

[00:39:17.53] spk_1:
holding your hand out and it just comes

[00:39:19.52] spk_0:
It’s like, No, no, no, no. We work very hard. Um, and so you have to have that first. And now we have to diversify. And we have toe really consider all of the different issues within the field.

[00:39:32.02] spk_1:
Um, the woman who you said you’d be remiss, uh, gave you guidance, Coach? Mentor? Um, she is at a white woman. It is Okay.

[00:39:44.32] spk_0:
Happens to be yes, but I had, um, some really wonderful African American women, obviously, who have been integral to my life. I had, you know, a good balance, but um,

[00:39:56.87] spk_1:
but it’s sharing the power, sharing the power. It’s important to have role models and mentors off of whatever ethnicity. Nationality?

[00:40:21.71] spk_0:
Yeah, we all have to work together. Because if you’re there and if things air imbalanced in the first place, then if white males air really? You know, at the the pinnacle of power, then you know. And what role do white females have Are females of whatever color, but you have to reach back, and you have to help people.

[00:40:34.41] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s why I say share the power. Uh, okay. Um, so you’ve had a, uh you’ve been fortunate and your and your obviously grateful,

[00:40:38.51] spk_0:
and I want to do everything I can for all of the

[00:40:45.92] spk_1:
president of wind. Now, you can lift up others, uh, and they’ll see a black woman in power at wind.

[00:40:50.01] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, I think that makes yeah, it makes a difference.

[00:41:05.21] spk_1:
Um, let’s talk a little about the this cause effective study. Okay. This is, uh, money, power and race. The lived experience of fundraisers of color. Um, are you familiar with what they did? I mean, speak to what they did. What the process was. Just interviews, etcetera. can you

[00:41:21.01] spk_0:
speak to? They did. Ah, lot of in depth work. Um, Judy and Cynthia, if you’re listening, this is the shout out to you. That’s the executive director of cause Effective. And then Cynthia Rhetoric who did a lot of work on that, and she actually engaged me. I was interviewed for this. They worked very hard at getting a diverse array of professionals of color to answer and to participate in the survey. Um, I was, ah, reader at the end as well. Um, another wonderful person. So Neil Omen. Um, I know he was a swell with a f p. And, uh, I’m very happy for them. I’m very proud of them. Of the work that they’ve done. This is a very important study, and I think it’s gonna be helpful. Helpful tool if we don’t set it away, you know, you have to keep these things out and keep

[00:42:23.50] spk_1:
remembering like the strategic plan that goes on the show. Yeah, cause effective, terrific organization. We’ve had guests on, um, Greg Cohen comes to mind he’s been on a couple of times. And then someone who, Uh oh. Now I feel bad. Someone who retired out of cause effective. She’s Greg Cohen’s neighbor in Brooklyn. Because I was out there. I was at their summer party last year, and they shared. There was a back shared backyard thing. Um, it’s not. It wasn’t Judy, though. I feel terrible now, Uh, she’s retired, so she probably doesn’t listen. Well, nobody listens to this show. E

[00:42:33.41] spk_0:
shouldn’t. Yeah, well, you

[00:45:48.49] spk_1:
just told me we’ll take it to make it. Fake it to make it that way. Um, okay, let’s take our let’s take our very last break, okay? And then we’ll talk more about the more about the survey study. Time for our last break. Did you like that? Take to throw back quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our execution team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising towards their goals. Fun indeed. Watching numbers rise two goals dot drives has allowed us to take those relationships and bring them to a deeper level end quote. But there was little commentary in there. I’m sure you, uh you sussed that that was Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is prospect to donor. Simplified. Get the free demo for listeners. There’s also a free month, all on the listener landing page at. We’ve got but loads more time for this throwback with Yolanda F. Johnson from June 28th 2019 from Opera Singer to fundraiser. All right, now we gotta do the live listener Love. Uh, Steve Cook give you a shoutout on Facebook. Steve Cook joined us on Facebook and let’s let’s start abroad. There’s just so many I’m not even gonna use the languages. Like comes a et cetera. We’re just gonna go through where everybody is. Seoul, South Korea, Denmark. Jakarta, Indonesia. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Who you’ve been with us before? It was Becca. Stand not the first time. Not not every week. Try to make it a little more regular. There I was. Becca stand. Would you please try? Toe should be with us every single week, but no live. Listen, love Thio. Hochi Minh City in Vietnam. Um, Porto Alegre, Brazil. Whoa! Tehran, Iran. Tehran has been with us before. Yes, not the first time. Glad to have you back. Live love to Tehran on Thio Toronto, Canada And now we made it to North America. So let’s spring in New York, New York. Three people. We’ve got multiple listeners. Looks like three while ago. Uh, right here in the city of New York. Uh, Gillette, New Jersey. We’ve got Brooklyn, New York, in, uh, we’ve got Clifton New Jersey. Wallkill New York. Woodhaven, New York. Bellmore, New York. All right, Staten Island. Staten Island is in Yes. Welcome Staten Island. Live love to Staten Island. So who’s not with us? Bronx and Queens Chicken. Maybe there. Maybe they’re masked. You know what? They could be masked. I’m sure that I’m sure Bronx and Queens are with us. So live listener, love, live love to you. Thank you so much for being with us. And for those of us on those of us those of you with us on Facebook live love to you as well on the podcast. Pleasantries to the to the over 13,000 that I keep saying it’s nowhere near that, but, uh, no, we have 13 over 13,000 podcast listeners. Um, listening in the time shift. Wherever you squeeze us in. I don’t know. Weekends. You binge. Listen, you spend Sunday listening to hours of podcasts on end. Thank you. Pleasantries to you. I’m glad that we’re in your podcast Library. Pleasantries to the podcast, listeners.

[00:45:58.05] spk_0:
Pleasant. That’s one of my It’s almost like a therapy. Oh, it’s almost like the lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue, the pleasant pleasantries to the podcast Listeners

[00:46:09.22] spk_1:
Podcast pleasantries. I’m a big fan of a big fan of, uh, what did you What was the little phrase you just said? The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue, lips, the teeth, The tip of the tongue? Yes. Is that little exercise? Yes, it is. Right before you go on stage,

[00:46:19.26] spk_0:
isn’t just toe enunciate. Like I said, native speakers of English. Sometimes when you’re, uh, enunciating on stage, it could be difficult to decipher what they’re saying. And so a lot of deep bonds going on and what we think is over doing it. But that’s what it takes for the audience to actually hear what we’re saying.

[00:46:38.78] spk_1:
It does the lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue. Okay, what do you do right before you go on performance, right. The minute before your first appearance on stage. What are you doing as a thing as a singer, I mean, as a Well, I guess there’s any kind of performer. What are you doing in that last minute?

[00:47:01.58] spk_0:
Um, I’m saying a little prayer, okay? And I’m getting excited because I’m ready to share this with the audience.

[00:47:07.99] spk_1:
Your blood pressure’s

[00:47:10.21] spk_0:
sometimes, but not really. I’m pretty. Chill. I’m ready. Thio, go do it. If I’m prepared that I said I will never be that person backstage like, Oh, my gosh. I know I didn’t read any of this stuff, but I sure hope it goes okay, That’s terrible. Um, and so I just It is what it is at that moment, right? And so I just get excited and go out and share it. All right, Well, thank you for sharing a little prayer to Yes, definitely

[00:48:06.27] spk_1:
prayer. Alright. Um okay, So the cause effective study was it was interviews. There were surveys, lots of personal interviews. Yeah, people of color. Remember to stay close to them. There we go. Okay. Well, I wanna hear everything that you say. Um, so they learned some things. Um Why d I is important. This is interesting. Now you’ve mentioned earlier with you said we’d has a diversity and inclusion. You don’t include Uh um equity equity. Uh, it’s an I d I It doesn’t matter. I mean, were you short changing people because you didn’t include the ease?

[00:48:13.95] spk_0:
No equities? Not at all. Um, I guess it could have been a debt if, but it’s a d t i f. Um, the equity is inferred in that. It’s just that it’s not called the d. I think, and people have different thoughts and opinions on what each word means. You know, some people don’t like diversity as much anymore, and they’d rather focus on equity. E

[00:48:32.73] spk_1:
i e I All right. It’s like L g b t q plus. I mean, now we put the plus until it’s all inclusive. Just a part of it. If you’re not LGBT or Q, you’ll have to just be in the plus because okay, what did you say before? D T d t I f

[00:48:47.44] spk_0:
d I T diversity and inclusion task force.

[00:49:27.67] spk_1:
Okay, okay. We have jargon jail on. I hate to see imprisoned even for a short even for a short term. Um, so we know, I think we know why it matters. Um, you know, interesting. Making explicit that money is power. And for fundraisers of color, you know, they’re they’re seeking money from the people who have it, which are largely white and male. So that’s a that creates a dynamic for fundraisers of color that, um, white fundraisers don’t have toe sort of deal with overcome your depending on the opinions of the people they’re trying to get the money from.

[00:50:22.36] spk_0:
Well, and I wanna add to that whole diversity discussion. Donors of color, you know, they’re out there donors of color and tapping into them. You know, just like we have toe work on the pipeline. We have to support people who are already in the field, and we have to think outside of the box. And remember everyone who’s been blessed with, um, the ability to be a philanthropist. And what does that even mean? Now, you know when you think that it’s so pie in the sky, but it’s not. It’s right in front of you to be a philanthropist in many ways. You know, the Indiana University Women’s Philanthropy Institute. We had a partnership event with them in May, where they revealed some of the women give study and, you know, adult in tow. You know, how do you define being a philanthropist? So we have philanthropists of color that need to be tapped into as well That air, um, came be called ignored. Sometimes I think

[00:50:30.26] spk_1:
you find that you feel like we’re not reach. The community is not reaching out toe donors of color wealth, wealthy folks of color.

[00:50:33.78] spk_0:
I think it’s a complex issue, but I think I could say yes to that in some ways. Um, but remember that a donor of color, um, we’ll also have probably had certain life experiences as well. So you know,

[00:50:48.76] spk_1:
it’s Yeah, we’ll have

[00:50:50.06] spk_0:
Yes. Okay.

[00:51:09.32] spk_1:
I feel like we’re not We’re not We’re not getting thio. So I’m surprised that that you find that because if we’re if we’re trying to get support for our organization, I mean, it ought toe come from anybody who has the means exactly the means to support us. E mean, money is color blind.

[00:51:10.57] spk_0:
Amen to

[00:52:05.95] spk_1:
that. Okay, that’s an interesting insight. I never I have to think more about that. Pay more attention. I’ve never. I’ve never thought about that. All right, Uh, you’re full of good ideas. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh huh. Mhm. Okay, s. So I think we understand why the, uh d matters like we’ve sort of flush that out. So? So some of what they they say something interesting. Fundraising reflects and magnifies the racial hierarchies of our culture. That’s sort of what we’re scratching at. You know, um, it’s a, you know, fundraising is, uh there’s there’s just inherent, irrespective of people’s color. Uh, there’s it’s a It’s a fundamental power subservient relationship. You have money, and I’m asking for it. I mean, I do fundraising. I do plan to giving fundraising People of wealth have money, and I’m pursuing it. Eso there’s

[00:52:09.78] spk_0:
you’re definitely pursuing people that have a certain amount of

[00:52:12.27] spk_1:
Yeah, Well, now, modest people of modest means could do plan. Gift to That’s true. Let’s not forget, okay? Actually, just like anybody could put will request for 1000 or $5000 in there will

[00:52:22.92] spk_0:
probably And that goes to the same point of What does it mean to be a philanthropist? You know, if you’re giving $500 whatever you have to give. You’re still helping a cause. It matters.

[00:52:31.45] spk_1:
A lot of people don’t think of themselves as philanthropists, but they indeed they are. It doesn’t really matter. I mean, they’re supporting organizations. But people who write $20 checks, $50 checks, they don’t they don’t think of themselves as philanthropists.

[00:52:43.42] spk_0:
And I think that’s what I you is trying to get people to think differently, especially with women donors toe value yourself and to understand, um, that contribution that that you’re making to society through whatever

[00:52:54.68] spk_1:
the size well, they understand they’re contributing. What what’s the importance of? You could educate me again. Eso I’m trainable just need the ideas. What? What? What’s the importance then of them recognizing themselves as philanthropists?

[00:53:08.25] spk_0:
Because it empowers you in a different way. When I see myself a certain way, um, it allows me toe think differently. And when I’m making those decisions, uh, it might allow me toe to get involved with an organization on a deeper level on bring in my network. You know, we could talk about give and get so it can be open lots of different doors and just change the way that people think about themselves and about, um, the ways that they give.

[00:53:33.59] spk_1:
So we should be encouraging our donors to think of themselves as philanthropists. Yeah, including the 20 and $50 donors.

[00:53:39.70] spk_0:
You’re a philanthropist, and we appreciate your gift and

[00:53:42.96] spk_1:
that. Well, there’s always that. Yeah. I’m just trying to distinguish the philanthropy. Think of yourself as a philanthropy. Yes.

[00:53:48.55] spk_0:
And then, you know, it’s that strategic thinking. So, you know, it’s that same story of the whoever it is the janitor, somebody who passes away and leaves five million

[00:53:57.54] spk_1:
dollars right there lived a very modest life. They 40 year old car, they were driving or whatever, right? And then they have millions of dollars to leave. You

[00:54:04.70] spk_0:
never know you can you never. You can’t judge a book by its cover. And so you never know what’s going on. You treat everybody with dignity and respect and appreciate their gift. And you never know what network they might bring in or, um, people they can introduce you to.

[00:55:00.94] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s all true. Yeah, it’s just a philanthropist thing. Getting getting your modest donors small dollar donors to think of themselves as philanthropists. Interesting. Okay. Um, all right, So this is the, uh, talking about the magnifying, the racial hierarchies. Um, and we just have a couple minutes left. All right, so let’s leave the survey. That’s enough of that survey. Yeah. So, again, it’s money, power and race. The lived experience of fundraisers of color. It’s published by cause effective, which is, I believe it’s cost effective dot or ge. And now that you have the name of the survey study, you should have no trouble, obviously finding it and check it out. Okay, Um, a couple minutes left as, ah, professional woman in in fund raising your own practice, What would you like? Thio? Would you like to leave our listeners with?

[00:55:48.99] spk_0:
Well, um, I just like to reiterate how honored I am to be leading with in this 40th anniversary year. I’m excited about I’m continuing the work of my practice. We already talked a bit about events, and I also specialize in campaigns and in going in and assessing what’s happening with small and medium sized development departments and helping them to get to the next level. So I look forward to continuing all of that work. Um, and I also look forward to continuing singing have a vocal workshop coming up in a couple of weeks. And then, of course, the console again August 10th at the amphitheater at the Hudson River Museum. And it’s gonna be It’s deep, you know, using music, using art as that medium to spark the dialogue, the conversation, the thought about these current issues and you cannot make. Yeah, you can’t make this up, though. The libretto has not been changed. It’s 70 years old, and it could have been on the news last week.

[00:56:12.03] spk_1:
Really, it’s fast. Okay, when does when’s the opening?

[00:56:14.63] spk_0:
It’s when we talk. It’s a one night only thing. It’s August 10th 8 p.m. August 10

[00:56:18.42] spk_1:
2019. If you’re in the New York City area,

[00:56:21.10] spk_0:
check Yolanda. If johnson dot com

[00:57:34.32] spk_1:
Please Dio. That’s who she is. She is. Hold on to F. Johnson. Her company is Y F. J Eyes. Her company is at Y. F. J hyphen consulting dot com. Women in Development. You’ll find that W I D n Y dot or GE, and she is at Yolanda F. Johnson and thank you so much. My privilege. I’m back. It’s February 2021. Now, next week riel listening. Let’s talk. My guest will be Emily Taylor. If you missed any part of this week’s show from 2019, I beseech you, find it at dot com were sponsored by Turn to Communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives. Prospect to donor Simplified Our creative producers. 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 information, Scotty, do with me next week for big ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for February 1, 2021: Communications Trends Report

My Guest:

Kivi Leroux Miller: Communications Trends Report

Kivi Leroux Miller returns to share her 11th annual, Nonprofit Communications Trends Report, released just last week. She walks us through the impact of the pandemic, the resurgence of email, email best practices, CALM, leading a Girl Scout troop, and more. Kivi is CEO of Nonprofit Marketing Guide.

 

 

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[00:02:13.44] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome if you got ratted out that you missed this week’s show Communications trends report. Kimmy LaRue Miller returns to share her 11th annual non profit Communications Trends report, released just last week. We talk about the impact of the pandemic, the resurgence of email, email, best practices, leading a Girl Scout troop and a lot more tony steak, too. The people are seizing power were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives. Prospect to donor. Simplified here is communications trends. Report. What a pleasure to welcome back to non profit radio Kivi LaRue Miller. She is founder and CEO of non profit Marketing Guide, helping hundreds of non profit communicators and participants in the communications director mentoring program. Each year, she called leads a Girl Scout troop and is president of the Lexington Farmers Market Association in Lexington, North Carolina. She also co founded Grow and Go Girls, a small bakery where all net profits go into a travel fund for a group of small town girls to travel. The big World non profit Marketing Guide is that non profit marketing guide dot com? Where else would you expect it from a master communicator? Where else would it be? And at N p m k t g d. I’m not sure about that one. Kivi is at V l m. Welcome back to the show,

[00:02:19.89] spk_0:
Kivi. Thank you, tony. I’m glad to be here. It’s a pleasure to have you

[00:02:23.39] spk_1:
back. You got a little screwed on your Twitter handle for non profit

[00:02:27.08] spk_0:
marketing. You know, it’s too many letters that profit marketing God is just ridiculously log. So you gotta abbreviate these things.

[00:02:43.94] spk_1:
N p m k T g d. I’ll find you on T V l m get you there. All right. Um, what about this Girl Scout troop? What’s that? Like hurting a bunch of girls through a pandemic? Uh,

[00:02:55.57] spk_0:
well, we’re just grateful that the big trip we’re working towards us in 2022. So 20 we will be going to bullies in 2022. God willing so, you know. Yeah, it’ll be a 10 day trip. They are all ninth and 10th graders that we’ve had with us since they were little itty bitty brownies and Daisy Girl Scouts. So, um, it’s great. It’s great. We started the baking business to help them earn more money because you can really only earn so much via Girl Scout cookie sales. But we’re also doing that, too. So it’s alright.

[00:03:23.97] spk_1:
So is an adjunct to the Girl Scout cookies. You’re you’re baking your own throughout. Yes, yes, that’s a short term

[00:03:30.11] spk_0:
campaign. Exactly It Z

[00:03:33.24] spk_1:
is there a brick and mortar store? Thio grow and Go girls.

[00:03:36.32] spk_0:
Well, we participated the farmer’s market six months out of the year. So they have a booth at the farmer’s market. And, uh, we did a little renovation in a building that used to be my father laws electrical shop. So they have a little kitchen out in our backyard, and they do bread and cakes and all kinds of delicious,

[00:03:53.74] spk_1:
so they don’t have to do it in their own home. You have ah,

[00:03:56.28] spk_0:
commercial. We have a state approved home kitchen. Yes, so they can stand that they can sell their stuff legally.

[00:04:05.34] spk_1:
How big is the Girl Scout troop?

[00:04:07.48] spk_0:
It is six girls.

[00:04:09.94] spk_1:
That’s outstanding. Alright, that’s a smaller troop. It’s a small,

[00:04:14.34] spk_0:
uh and you know, the girls they tend to drop out of girl scouts is they get a little older. I think the same is true with boy Scouts to, uh, the promise of international travel is what’s kept them all super engaged in girls

[00:04:26.43] spk_1:
who have Teoh. You have to bake a certain number of gross gross number of dozens or something to get to qualify for your bellies trip. No es somebody somebody brownies.

[00:04:41.04] spk_0:
They’re doing really well. There, there, you know, they’re They’re making significantly more money at the farmers market than we do for the cookie sale. I’ll just leave it at that. We’re gonna be fine. They’re gonna have a great trip. So,

[00:04:49.79] spk_1:
Lisa, what a wonderful exotic place to go.

[00:04:52.54] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:53.82] spk_1:
You need any male?

[00:04:55.45] spk_0:
Uh, schedule is very flexible. We’ll put you on the wait list. Tony.

[00:05:08.14] spk_1:
It really wouldn’t matter when you’re going. I know I could accommodate it. Very flexible schedule. Believes I would love. Yeah, Wonderful. Um and so how about the girls through the pandemic. Well, what’s what’s that like right now?

[00:05:32.24] spk_0:
It’s tough, you know? I mean, they’re all doing online schooling, so they don’t really want to get on Zoom to do Girl Scouts. So we we occasionally do things outside, whether permitting, you know, here in North Carolina, it’s not totally frozen out. It’s certainly a little too cold right now, but, um, we were doing some things outdoors with them. It’s a small enough group that we could meet outside. All

[00:05:39.16] spk_1:
right. Wonderful commitment to non profits. You got. You got a bakery. They got the farmer’s market. I love farmers markets. When I lived in New York City, I would look forward to Saturday Farmers markets.

[00:05:49.54] spk_0:
Oh, yeah? Well, New York City got some

[00:05:51.40] spk_1:
amazing one. Yeah, they do. But now here in Emerald Isle, North Carolina, I could just go to the farm stands. There is a There is a local farmers market a couple towns away, but it’s only every other week, you know? So all the farmers are together in a big lot, but But otherwise, you know, we have the luxury of farm stands. I mean, I could go to my favorite please get my apples in the winter. Get my straw. Get my strawberries. Starting in like April May uh, for my favorite You pick place. You go right to the farmers here in North

[00:06:19.19] spk_0:
Carolina. Right? We’ve got lots of lots of roadside stands and curb markets. All kinds of choices

[00:06:26.06] spk_1:
stuff so But I admire your You have a six month, six year, six months a year farmers market in Lexington too.

[00:06:33.54] spk_0:
Yeah, made October. So being a communications professional, I got roped into being on the board. Shocker. Eso now. So now the president of the board

[00:06:45.24] spk_1:
another? Well, food, food, food. Uh, the emergence of girls as leaders.

[00:06:51.94] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:07:19.34] spk_1:
that’s all. Great baking. You got your food component. It’s You’re staying active. Alright, so let’s talk about the trends report. Um, coming out Well, by the time we record is just last week, it z Tomorrow, as we’re recording, congratulations on 11 annual reports. Thank you. Uh, this was presumed this was an unprecedented one. I mean, you had the we had the recession, but that’s that Z not as significant as the pandemic.

[00:07:38.74] spk_0:
Right? And so, you know, we we there are sets of questions that we ask every other year. So we stuck with some of those. But then we did shift it up a little bit and asked a number of questions. Specifically related. Thio. How people, Whether the pandemic in 2020 and I suspect given how things were going this year, we may ask some of those questions again. Next year is well, since I think we’ll be living with this through 2021 as well.

[00:07:48.84] spk_1:
Uh, certainly a good part of it. Yes. Uh, So what What’s your What’s your like number one take away from from this year’s report?

[00:08:17.24] spk_0:
Well, you know, I think, Ah, a lot of people did really well Ah, lot of nonprofits did really well in a lot of non profits did not do well, And I think there’s a There’s a pretty big stark contrast between the ones that were able to really pivot. I know that everybody hates that word now, but, uh, really pivot in to do things differently. And to do that successfully and the ones that were really just kind of stuck and paralyzed by all of the change that was thrust upon them

[00:08:32.64] spk_1:
and your you have your acronym for what characterizes those who distinguishes those who did well from those who didn’t.

[00:09:18.34] spk_0:
Yes, yes. So we the way that we talk about communications, management frameworks and and effectiveness is calm and calm stands for collaborative, agile, logical and methodical. And that is true. Pandemic or no, the organizations that really embrace those for qualities and the way they manage their communications work are always more successful than those who don’t. And you know, I was very curious to see if that would have an impact if the if that mattered or not in 2020 and in fact it mattered quite a bit. Based on our survey results, it’s time for a break

[00:09:55.74] spk_1:
turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS Market Watch, The Chronicle of Philanthropy You want to be in media outlets like this. Turn two has the relationships with outlets like these, so that when they’re looking for experts on charitable giving, non profit trends or philanthropy, they call turned to turn two calls you because they know you because they’re your their client. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Now back to communications trends report. Um, I don’t suppose you consider bomb I was thinking a bomb like bold, bold, agile, logical, methodical.

[00:10:03.04] spk_0:
We’re going. We’re going with com e like bomb, too, but, you know, already wrote the column. Not busy book, tony. So late on your A little late on your assistance with the acronym there.

[00:10:13.74] spk_1:
Well, I wasn’t. My opinion wasn’t solicit. Well, that’s my opinion. Wasn’t solicited 30 seconds ago. And you got anyway, so that doesn’t hold me back. All right, we’ll stick with bomb. No, you’ve been with You’ve been with calm for years. Of course. E. I was thinking balmy. You put a y in maybe.

[00:10:28.64] spk_0:
Yes. Okay. This is you living at the beach. Be

[00:10:32.73] spk_1:
for beach. Alright. So let’s let’s define com for folks who are not part of the non profit marketing guide community. And then we’ll talk about how that how that helped folks during the pandemic. So your collaborative, agile, logical and methodical What

[00:11:18.50] spk_0:
do you mean so collaborative? When you are being collaborative us, the communication staff are working with your management team with your program ah, leaders with your fundraisers, if those are on a different team and really collaboratively developing and implementing a communications plan. In contrast, to that. We often see communication staff that are just sort of thrown in the quarter by themselves, and they only communicate with others when those people are coming to dump work on their lap. Yes, yes, it’s so. You know, we use a lot of metaphors, that non profit marketing guide. So the metaphor for this is like, Are you the drive thru fast food window where people are just coming and barking orders at you? And then you have to turn around and quickly deliver a somewhat mediocre product often, um, or are you more like a You know, a nice restaurant where people are coming in and sitting down and having conversations about what they’re going to eat, and it’s more of a collaborative, high quality product at the end.

[00:11:46.09] spk_1:
You can even bring over the Somalia if you wanna. You wanna high end wine choice

[00:12:56.54] spk_0:
right? It’s a little different than just the like barking orders and get in the back of seat out the window, so that’s collaborative. When we talk about agility, it’s really about trust. Ultimately, so do the managers of the organization. The program managers trust the communication staff, trust their ability to do a good job, trust their intentions and supporting the goals of the organization or not. And when that trust is there, the communication staff have the ability to really be responsive to what’s happening in the world. And to do that very quickly and to have their professional judgment about how to make those changes be trusted and followed through. They are the experts on a lot of the communications work. You know, a lot of executive directors come up through the program side. They don’t know anything about marketing on dso. You know, the agility really comes and building those trusting relationships and trusting the professionalism of the communications staff again. On the flip side, as you can imagine, when that trust is not in place, there is tons of second guessing what the communications staff are recommending. There is a really inability to make a fast decision. Uh, people just get really paralyzed. And I think we saw a lot of that, um, paralysis and decision making, uh, in the comments that we saw in the trends report.

[00:13:23.54] spk_1:
Okay, how about logical? Methodical?

[00:13:57.44] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s a logical is all about. Does your communications plan makes sense for what you’re trying to achieve. So when we talk about you know what is your objective? What are you really trying to accomplish with your communications? Have you thought that through, or are you just making all the things? So the people who I would say are less logical are the ones that air just doing the stuff, putting this stuff online because that’s what you dio the people who are more logical, understand what they’re actually trying to achieve through their communications and methodical is really about workflow and process. It’s kind of the boring stuff, in a way, but it’s the it’s the kind of secret sauce. It’s the things that we tend to geek out on most at non profit marketing guide. So things like Do you have an editorial calendar? Have you talked about the process by which people will create drafts and who’s gonna edit those things? And who has final say, How many times do people get to see things? Or is it just these endless review loops, you know? Is there a style guide all of these sort of process and workflow things that keep communications moving and produce high quality product relatively quickly

[00:14:37.73] spk_1:
keep things orderly.

[00:14:39.32] spk_0:
Exactly. Exactly. And so again, organizations that don’t have that in play, um, tend to be the communication staff that burn out very quickly on get very unhappy on Don’t produce good results because it’s really just kind of chaos And how stuff is produced and approved and published,

[00:15:14.64] spk_1:
Right? So what was Cem? Were some bad Some bad spots? Or maybe still are. I mean, we’re still in a pandemic. Of course. Right. Um well, uh, I was like, I want to end with Yeah, I wanna end on the upward trend. You gotta start low. What are some? And and of course, you learn from mistakes, too. I mean, this is basically asking what not to do when when your besieged by by a crisis at your non profit or worldwide, you know, what should we be avoiding? So what do we see? That’s not such That’s such good work,

[00:17:21.24] spk_0:
right? So we asked people to explain in their own words. You know what we’re what? Problems were exacerbated by the pandemic. So we were We were assuming that some of these things were kind of already in play, and then the pandemic made the worst so well, that’s how we asked the question. And so we saw a number of themes come out from those answers. One won’t be a big surprise to anybody that’s been working in our sector a long time. The having to cancel all those in person events was obviously traumatic for everyone. Whether you were successful in doing something different or not, there was a big split there. So the organizations, like I said that are not calm in particular, not agile, ended up just canceling and not really doing a lot of replacements or took a very long time to make those decisions. So staff were just constantly scrambling around and there was a lot of mixed communication and a lot of confusion. Um, so you know, that was a problem. We also saw. You know, a lot of organizations have not invested into their digital communication strategies. They have old, clunky websites. Uh, their email lists are pretty small or un engaged. And so when we really had to shift to more of those communications channels, a lot of organizations just weren’t ready for that, and, um then failed toe move quickly. Again, it goes back to that agility and be able to make fast decisions and to ramp things up quickly. And they just weren’t able to do that. We saw a lot of people complaining about additional sort of crisis. Communications associated with the pandemic piled onto the workload, but nothing being taken off the plate. So this sort of ignoring the reality that everything was changing pretending like they were going to keep doing things, Um and and just not really changing quickly.

[00:17:45.24] spk_1:
Do you know how this cuts across? Um, organization size,

[00:18:28.44] spk_0:
You know, we have found in our research. And it was true this year that the organization size by itself doesn’t make that much of a difference. Nor does the mission over the organization or where they’re located. Um, the things that really make a difference are the communications team size, which does not necessarily track with organization size. So you have some very large 10 $20 million organizations and bigger that have a single communications staff person. So those two don’t necessarily track. Okay, so it’s really across the sector. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:32.74] spk_1:
How could How could an organization be that big? I mean, $10 million organization with a single communications director. I mean, a person. How can that function organization with that much staff and that much activity? And there’s just one person talking to all their constituencies.

[00:19:28.34] spk_0:
Yeah. Yes, it does. It does. It does No. And you know, how are they doing that? Well, in a lot of cases, they’re not doing it very low. Um, and in other cases, you know, it’s just it comes down to how they view the role of communications. And and so if they think that, well, all of our program staff are capable of communicating, uh, then you know, they’ll just have that one person that basically tries to play traffic cop with everybody else putting stuff out. But when you know, you take a look at how those organizations were performing, it’s usually not fabulous. Um, you know, some organizations have more need for communications than others.

[00:19:33.04] spk_1:
How about one of your questions reveals level of control that you have over your workload.

[00:19:39.84] spk_0:
What

[00:19:40.96] spk_1:
do you What do you I guess. What have you seen over time and what we’re seeing now in this report?

[00:21:32.64] spk_0:
So that is definitely one of those indicators that we look for when I’m coaching communications directors. It’s one of the first questions I ask, because it really gives you a sense for whether, um, they could be strategic or not. If they if they feel like they have some level of control, then that tells me that they are willing to say no to requests. Or maybe not yet. Or maybe if you know, they can push back on it. Just the overwhelming number of requests that air. It’s just endemic to our sector, like the communications have always being asked to do more than they can. So whether they have the control to really be strategic about what they actually dio and what they say no to or push off is a pretty big indicator for us about whether they’re going to be successful, long term or not. And, of course, in the pandemic, we did ask people, uh, if something’s changed. So we saw more planning, more collaboration, but basically less or the same amount of a feeling of control. And I think some of that is natural, like all of us are in this pandemic. And you know, none of us have control over the pandemic. But um do you have control over your reaction to the pandemic and your response to it? And so you know, we would like to see more people saying Yes, you know, I had a role in deciding the strategy going forward. That wasn’t always the case, you know, in part again because of the I think that our over reliance on in person events and the sector is a big part of this with canceling all of those events or putting them online. That was a huge communications lift for non profits. We’ll see if you know now that people have some experience with the online events there. We’re seeing a lot of organizations that are getting better engagement now reaching out to different kinds of folks through the online events that they didn’t get to the in person. So I think it’ll be really interesting to see a year or two or three from now what that mixes between in person and online events.

[00:22:37.04] spk_1:
You know, folks have been talking for years about diversifying beyond events. Those conversations were always focused around the value of having different streams of revenue, whether it’s earned income, individual giving, corporate Azaz event sponsorship monthly sustaining etcetera. So, you know, obviously nobody anticipated they’re being a Nev ent. That would cause all events to be canceled. But it certainly does go again to the the value of diversification in in all realms, whether it tze fundraising or communications channels. Um, you know, it’s it’s risky to be to be dependent on 11 source of In this case, we’re talking about one source of revenue and it all be events. And plus we know how much time events take versus return on a lot of

[00:22:48.26] spk_0:
them. Exactly. And, you know, again, this sort of goes back to the logical. It’s like how many of these organizations were actually paying attention to just how effective those events were with that are Oh, I was. A lot of them aren’t paying attention to how much staff time is included, or they only pay attention to the event coordinator. They don’t add in all the communications time associated with marketing those events. So I do hope nonprofits will take a much closer look before they just sort of revert back to what they used to Dio.

[00:23:26.94] spk_1:
Yeah, good. Critical. Look. Right. All right. So we know that the organizations that maybe maybe thrived is overstating it but succeeded during the pandemic. Those are those are the calm

[00:23:30.59] spk_0:
ones.

[00:26:31.44] spk_1:
It’s time for tony. Take two. The people have seized power. My concern is that non profits are not exempt. Stopping the work of the U. S. Congress seizing the capital. Five people dead, maybe even more now. Ah, suicide from one by one of the officers. And just this week bringing Wall Street hedge funds to their knees so that they needed many billions of dollars of infused capital. Thio keep them going. Groups of people are organizing collective izing and seizing power, seizing it from Washington, seizing it from Wall Street. My concern is that nonprofits are not exempt a crowd. However they put themselves together, however they organize could easily see that or could easily decide that your good work isn’t so good to them. That might look like some kind of attack on your website. It could even look like an attack on a physical office. I mean, does that really seem impossible now? So these air my concerns that the non profit community we need to be planning for the possibility that these insurgency’s hit us hit our organizations. I don’t think it’s so far fetched. Folks are seizing power from institutions and nonprofits, our institutions. So I just want you to be thinking about it. Planning for it. I don’t know how overt overtly you plan. I mean, certainly in terms of disaster recovery communications, you don’t know when it’s gonna happen. In it happens. I think in an instant I just wanted folks to be conscious of it. That’s all that the non profit community isn’t, isn’t isolated and is not immune from the whims of large groups. That is tony steak, too. Now, let us return to communications trends report with Kivi LaRue. Miller, you wanna you got a story of or a case you can share of somebody. That was some organization that was exemplified. Calm

[00:26:37.49] spk_0:
calmness. Sure. So we we saw a number of people talk about, um they’re essentially their leadership team, sort of stepping up and saying yes. Now I’m ready to listen, and I’m ready to invest because their hands were really forced, right? So you know whether it may have been a little collaboration before, we did see a number of organizations really step up from the programmatic management side as well, a sort of the executive director side and say, Okay, we’re with You were ready. What do you need? And so those organizations that really gave that attention and time and resource is to their communications staff. We’re able to really make some great things happen. And we saw a number of organizations really beat their fundraising goals, beat their community engagement goals. Um, so you know, it really speaks to having that sort of full collaboration across the organization around those strategic communications goals.

[00:27:38.04] spk_1:
Talk about engagement a little more now. You mentioned twice. You’ve some organizations. So higher rates of engagement in the pandemic. What what was what were they doing that caused that?

[00:29:56.54] spk_0:
So when we talk about engagement, it’s It’s almost like everything other than fundraising, right? So a lot of people are communicating for fundraising goals, but about half of non profit communicators don’t actually consider fundraising to be a primary goal for them. What they’re usually trying to do instead is the sort of big term community engagement, so it’s trying to get it depends on the organization, but for some of them, it’s people that are actually using their programs, and service is so recruiting them and keeping those people engaged in in those service is other people. It’s more of an advocacy or education or awareness kind of engagement where they’re trying to get people to care mawr or to think differently or act differently on different issues. Um, so you know, we saw a lot of successful organizations really experimenting this year, particularly with moving events online and the ones that were really willing to try some new things, I would say moving events online. We saw a lot more people talk about video this year than we ever have. We have been, you know, preaching video as engaging online content for many years now. But, you know, it’s kind of hard, and people get nervous about being on camera on DSO. The pandemic has really again sort of taken that barrier away. And we saw a number of organizations say, You know, I could never get my program staff to do a video for me before they just always No, no, no, no, no. And now they’re you know, people are used to being on Zoom. They’re more comfortable using their own phones to video themselves. So now we’re seeing tons more program staff, cooperating with their communications departments on creating video in particular. So that’s been really nice to, um, you know, just mawr attention to the online channels in General Thio email to social media. Whereas those might have been considered sort of nice toe have sorts of things before now. Leaders we’re really seeing them is essential tools to communicate for fundraising and engagement. Instead, attention is nice.

[00:30:15.24] spk_1:
The attention is nice. Yeah, leads. Thio leads to calm leader leaders got dragged by the pandemic. Thio Thio. Execute what you’ve been saying for for years. Be calm. Let’s be calm. Email. You got a lot to say about email. Email is not dead by any means, but no, no, not only not dead, but it’s resurging. You’ve got ideas around anybody. All right, so first, let’s start with the resurgence of email. What happened?

[00:31:30.84] spk_0:
Yes, so you know, for as we said, this is the 11th year of the trends report and then the first five or so we you know, every year we would ask Okay, what is your most important communications channels? And we kept getting the same answers every year. It got kind of boring. So we stopped asking. So we haven’t really asked in five years. And the last time we asked, you know, websites were always number one and then email and social media kind of flip flop between two and three. Well, so we waited five years, we asked. Email is now number one, and I don’t think that’s just because of the pandemic. I think in part it’s because, you know, it’s still a direct way to communicate with people, unlike the website, which you sort of have to draw people to. But you have so much more control with email than you do with social media, you never know what Zuckerberg and all the rest of them are going to do with their algorithms and what changes they’re gonna make to the way. Yeah, you know. So it’s extremely frustrating for folks. Um, so, you know, it makes a lot of sense that email is now number one. But there’s some problems too now, I

[00:31:45.54] spk_1:
see. Yeah. Um Okay, well, you’re the guest. So you talk about the problems, I cease? Um, e c. Some dissonance between importance and use, but we’ll get to that talk about the problems that you see with email, please.

[00:33:29.54] spk_0:
So there are a lot of best practices associated with email, and this is true for anybody that’s using mass email, not just the nonprofit sector. So managing your email list, for example, paying attention when people stop opening, you really have to stop emailing them. Um, it goes into what’s called your sender reputation, and that effects how often your stuff shows up in the spam folder. And I don’t think nonprofits really appreciate that. There are these algorithms at work, much like there are in social media, where the inbox providers. So the Google’s and Microsoft’s of the world are deciding whether to send your email to spam or not. And, um, you know, I bet tony, if you look at your inbox, I know I see this. When I look at my inbox, I’m subscribed to a lot of different non profit newsletters, etcetera. Sometimes those things show up in my inbox and other times, same organization. It will show up in my spam folder, and I honestly never go look in my spam folder unless someone has told me I missed something or I’m trying to do some research like this. So a lot of non profit content is going to spam. How do we stop that? Well, there are a number of best practices, and unfortunately, in our surveys both this year and last year, you know, maybe 25%. Maybe a third of nonprofits are implementing those different best practices. The overwhelming majority of nonprofits are not doing it. So while email is becoming more important, the likelihood that you’re nonprofits email is going into that spam filter is going up a ZX.

[00:33:30.53] spk_1:
Well, all right. Um, personalization s. So we got to talk about the things that that are simple organizations should be doing thio over. Overcome the the algorithm, the spam filter algorithms personalizing. You mentioned personalizing subject lines. Even

[00:33:50.24] spk_0:
so, is that your name

[00:33:52.55] spk_1:
in the subject line?

[00:33:54.84] spk_0:
Sure. So that’s one way you could do it. Another way to do it is to like if it’s a fundraising email is thio put in the body of the email? What? Their last gift, waas or the last time they gave? If depending on how robust your data tracking is, you may know which programs people care about the most. And so another way to personalize email is to, you know, send them the content that they care most about. You know, we just sort of simplify it. We say, Okay, if you’re a humane society, like, who are your cat? People who’re your dog? People like you want to put the dog photos and the dog people emails and the cat photos and the other one’s

[00:34:31.12] spk_1:
right.

[00:34:43.54] spk_0:
Exactly. So that’s kind of all related to personalization. And we do see nonprofits doing that of of all the different things we asked about. The majority of nonprofits have tried some level of personalization, so that’s a positive for

[00:34:48.48] spk_1:
sure. I see you have 59% but we’re still missing for that. We’re still missing 41%. Yes, like 40% of non profit. They’re not doing that

[00:35:00.14] spk_0:
right. All right,

[00:35:01.04] spk_1:
I’m not I’m not focusing on the negative, but, you know, pointing out everybody is not. This is That’s a pretty simple practice, like Hello, you know, first name code. You know, that’s not hard. I mean, even I do that.

[00:35:23.74] spk_0:
It’s it’s not hard, you know. The thing is, it’s like it’s it’s more than just copying and pasting email template and going right. You have to pay attention. And but

[00:35:25.05] spk_1:
there’s value in doing

[00:35:33.94] spk_0:
so. Yes, you have to test it. But it’s time consuming. Like all of these little extra things, you have to dio take time. And so if you’re super busy and dot com, you don’t have the

[00:35:43.84] spk_1:
time. You’re the one person, the one person shopping, a $10 million organization. You don’t have time for the 1st 1st name code,

[00:35:55.64] spk_0:
right? And then also, you know, to really do that, you have to have confidence in the data. So if you have a really messy old database, it could be a little scary to think about what they might be merging into that first name slot.

[00:36:01.19] spk_1:
It might be a letter, right?

[00:36:03.63] spk_0:
Yeah, I could

[00:36:05.81] spk_1:
be any name,

[00:36:06.42] spk_0:
or it could be nothing. You know, you might not even have first names in your database, so yeah, so it could be a mess.

[00:36:17.33] spk_1:
Alright, Data integrity. What else s O A. B testing is another common simple that you mentioned it. You could test subject lines. You could test just about anything the color of the, uh, color of the give now button the body of the text, the photos, the videos.

[00:36:48.83] spk_0:
Yeah, and the email service providers. Most of them are making that a little easier, but again, it’s an extra step you have to take. And then you have to sort of think about Okay, What makes sense to test? How do I keep track of all this? It sounds like you’re

[00:36:49.92] spk_1:
you’re very empathetic.

[00:36:51.77] spk_0:
You

[00:37:03.13] spk_1:
do for the I can see it. E c it, I hear it do. I’m sure listeners gonna hear it. So what do you do for the one person in the $10 million organization who can’t find the time or doesn’t feel she confined the time and which means she can’t? She feels she can’t. We’re not looking at it objectively. Subjectively perception. Find the time for the for the first name code. How do you meet that person where they are?

[00:38:21.42] spk_0:
Well, what we talk about is really getting riel about their workload. They’re often trying to do too much, Um, and to manage too many channels and talk about too many different things. And they don’t have the trust. They don’t have that ability to say no or not yet. So we go back to basic boundaries, you know, I mean, all of us that do any kind of coaching work ultimately end up talking about boundaries, what the people were coaching because so much of that comes back to people sort of personal control and agency and ability to say yes or no to things. And so that’s usually where I start. And then once I can help them kind of get rid of some of the noise that’s not really contributing to success or to just give them the confidence that they’re not going to get fired by saying no to something stupid within their organizations. Um, then we can talk about, you know? Okay, if we can just get two hours a week, we can implement a lot of these best practices that are going to make a huge difference. It really doesn’t take that much time. It’s just kind of getting over that hump.

[00:38:23.42] spk_1:
What about advocating for more help for these beleaguered communications directors? Do you talk about trying to make the case toe leadership absolute for adding another person who’s a professional

[00:38:36.37] spk_0:
community? Yes, absolutely. We talked about that a lot Andi and we’re seeing some of that, you know, like we do a number of different coaching programs and I’m just starting a new group. And there are a number of people in that group that are growing their team from 2 to 4 or 3 to 5, even because they were finally able to make that case.

[00:39:01.22] spk_1:
How about when it just comes down to This isn’t direct place for you. You just You just should leave E mean your coach, and you have to be

[00:39:05.85] spk_0:
absolutely

[00:39:07.82] spk_1:
good for the good of right,

[00:39:10.72] spk_0:
right? It’s It’s one of the secrets of our training and coaching programs that we don’t advertise. So, yeah, just for you, tony and your listeners. But, um, you know, lots of times, we’ll get nonprofits that pay for training and coaching with us, and then I end up encouraging those people to find another job, and they do. They they you know, they realize that they’re working in an environment that is not supportive and that there are lots of other opportunities to work in an environment that is supportive, and they go find those jobs so

[00:39:44.12] spk_1:
well. Our listeners are the CEOs, so they could be on that side of it. But our listeners are also focusing communications, and they may be beleaguered. And so they need to know the the range of opportunity available to them. Of course, yeah, waiting, that’s the last. That’s the last step After you.

[00:40:01.44] spk_0:
It is, but, you know, but

[00:40:07.81] spk_1:
other less drastic methods. But But it has, uh, it’s a possibility,

[00:40:08.72] spk_0:
right? And, you know, I think we all know there are some really bad managers in our sector, just like there’s bad managers in every sector. Just because we’re trying to do good doesn’t mean that, you know, everybody is a perfect human being who’s got all kinds of training and how to be an exceptional manager. That’s just not the case.

[00:41:34.11] spk_1:
Yes, I’ve heard rumors to that effect. Yes, yeah, time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals. DOT drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level and quote, that is Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is dot drives Prospect to donor. Simplified. You get the free demo, and for listeners, there’s a free month. You do that at the listener landing page. Tony dot Emma slash dot We’ve got but loads more time. I’m glad of that. We got, but loads more time for communications trends. Report. You got one more that I really like, uh, welcoming, welcoming and re engaging campaigns around. Email s. So if you have a lackluster list that’s not engaged on and to bring people on board the on board them to your to your organization talk about those those two potentials.

[00:41:45.81] spk_0:
Yeah, these air super easy things again like it doesn’t take. It’s not a lot of time on going. It’s a It’s a little bit of time up front, right? It’s one of these prevention kind of things, like you do the thing up front so that you don’t have to worry about the problems later. So there’s some things you could do with your list to keep the vaccination

[00:41:59.92] spk_1:
your vaccination and then you need occasional childhood boosters

[00:42:03.38] spk_0:
exactly. So Okay, so we’ll stick with your metaphor here. So you’re welcome. Syriza’s your vaccination, right? Someone gets on your list. The hard part is really done. How do you keep them on the list? So the welcome Siri’s? It’s just a quick Siri’s. We recommend three emails over the course of a week or 10 days, where you really just sort of introduce people more to the organization and how they can be involved. You really want to get them excited about this new relationship and try to build that relationship. And so there are a lot of different approaches that you could take to a welcome Siri’s. But the idea is that you’re really trying to say, Hey, we see you, We’re glad you’re here. Let’s do some amazing things together to change the world. And

[00:42:42.79] spk_1:
And don’t email providers often have. Ah, excuse me. Have Ah, a process that you you for on boarding, You know, You know, you’ve got a new you know, you’ve got a new member to your organization do list. And so within 24 hours, you want them to get this and then 36 hours and then 72 hours and there’s your like, there’s your three.

[00:44:34.99] spk_0:
You just gotta go. You just gotta go fill it in. But, you know, making the decisions about what goes on those emails is sometimes too hard a decision. So again, it goes back to whether you have collaborative support from your leadership about what should be in those emails or the authority to just decide for your organization. So filling that out, you know, really, it doesn’t take that long, so going back to your your booster idea. So let’s say people are on your email list. They’re open an email cruising along, and then they just kind of stopped. For whatever reason, who knows? Right, but haven’t opened an email from you in six months. At that point, most of those email companies both the inbox providers and the people sending your email are going to consider that person un engaged. And that again has implications for how often that email will be in the inbox versus spam. So we want to re engage, so you can also do another set of emails just to those people who haven’t opened an email recently and what you’re trying to do. There is basically to get them to open or click on the email, so you’re sending them your best content. It’s the sort of in case you missed it kind of messaging. Sometimes people will do kind of, you know, funny little. Oh, you know, Do you still like us? Are we breaking up? You know that kind of thing? Not my favorite, but you know, it’ll work for some organizations, but you’re basically telling people, Hey, we’re still here. Do you still want to get our email or not? And if you don’t, you should stop emailing them. And that’s a really hard thing. We find that the overwhelming majority of nonprofits just cannot.

[00:44:43.83] spk_1:
They’re not. They’re not stopping there. They’re

[00:45:01.79] spk_0:
not. They’re not. And it’s really bad because they’re going to continue. I mean, that’s That’s the nut. That’s sort of the worst thing you could do is continue. Thio email people that are not opening your stuff and haven’t opened it for months or years. At this point that really tanks your

[00:45:02.45] spk_1:
your sender reputation. It all goes into your algorithm. I

[00:45:05.57] spk_0:
mean, it doesn’t know

[00:45:07.22] spk_1:
that the email providers know how your emails are being treated

[00:45:12.29] spk_0:
right. Sometimes people will call us and they’ll say, Can’t be I subscribe your email, but it’s in spam. I wanted you to know it’s in spam and you know my response to that is, Well, that’s really your behavior problem less than mine because I know I’m not sending bad content. The problem is, you’re probably not opening enough of our emails. So what I need you to Dio is go ahead and rescue it out of the spam folder, and then the next couple times you see it come through. Just go ahead and open that email and that will send the signal that you know, you don’t consider a spam.

[00:45:44.49] spk_1:
How did you get the great name? Kivi? What a lovely

[00:45:46.52] spk_0:
name. Eyes

[00:45:47.85] spk_1:
that from Yeah, it’s It’s like I think of a little bird like it reminds me of a hummingbird. What? What?

[00:45:54.17] spk_0:
What? It’s a Hebrew name, But, you know, I also joked that I was born in 1969 in Northern California. So my parents thought they were hippie, so they wanted to give me a fun name.

[00:46:04.28] spk_1:
It was a fun name, but it’s just Hey, Bru, what does it does it mean something in Hebrew.

[00:46:09.38] spk_0:
I believe it means protected one, although I might have

[00:46:13.83] spk_1:
that non protector. Maybe it’s protector.

[00:46:39.48] spk_0:
Yeah, it tze something nice. It’s also a male name in, I think, something like a one of the Scandinavian languages and it means stone. It’s a it means stone or rock, I think in a e Don’t know camera. But when a camera Which name? Yeah, it’s a male. It’s a male name. So sometimes if you if you’re like looking at Kitty’s online, it will be a bunch of tall blond guys,

[00:46:53.28] spk_1:
right? Right, eating, eating a lot of salmon or swordfish. I like the protector or protected one. Now, uh, contrary to what I usually do, I let you mentioned something. So I said, You’re the guest, So let’s go there. I usually don’t do that.

[00:46:59.78] spk_0:
Yeah, that

[00:47:00.16] spk_1:
surprised ultimately, for you as a za marketing communications professional, because usually I take

[00:47:12.08] spk_0:
over. Yeah, I was a little surprised when that happened, but resume your normal personality. Tony, please. Let’s talk about

[00:48:13.07] spk_1:
the center of the universe is me in this show. The the dissonance I see between your respondents say that email is either very important or absolutely essential is like 50/50 percent, 53%. But then the usage Oh, and then and then Facebook. They about about the same percentage. 54% say Facebook, not at all important to them. But then you have a lovely another lovely, colorful bar chart on community use of communications channels. And Facebook is being used week, either several times per week or daily by 80% of the org’s. And email is down like only 21% are doing daily or or then 53% of doing several times per week or daily. So I see a distance between the the importance the relative importance of email on Facebook and their actual usage.

[00:49:19.07] spk_0:
Well, I guess I don’t quite see that because they’re they’re just different channels, right? And so what would be considered best practice is going to vary so on Social media, You know, people update its shorter updates more frequently, um, than with email, which is somewhat longer content. But you know, most organizations probably shouldn’t be emailing every day, whereas they probably should be posting everyday on social media. So with email, what we really say is, you know, if you’re on Lee doing email monthly or even quarterly. It’s like, Why are you even bothering if you’re only emailing people quarterly? But you know, we we try to really encourage people to move in the direction of weekly for email. Now, of course, it depends what they’re doing, right? Like the organizations that air really actively involved in advocacy work. Our political topics for things were changing very quickly. There’s tons of breaking news, you know. They are going to email daily in a lot of cases, but even kind of your average non profit. That’s not doing super newsy things. You know, I would still encourage them to do a short email once a week. A short email once a week is better than a long email once a month.

[00:49:59.67] spk_1:
A short email once a week is better than a long email. Yeah, yeah, more, more frequency. People only hear from you 12 times a year. That just in 2021. That just seems completely inadequate from educations standpoint. Month. Yeah, they’re gonna forget you in between. All right. All right. So I understand. Maybe there’s not the dissonance that I that I saw Just What about Facebook, you know, Do we still have to be? You have to talk about it because there’s 30 you want me to get Julia Campbell to talk about it, E

[00:50:10.23] spk_0:
I recommend.

[00:50:11.68] spk_1:
Yes, I know. I’ve We’ve We’ve had her. We’ve talked. I’ve talked to her. Um, Alright. There are still 3.5 for whatever billion

[00:50:18.62] spk_0:
people there. You

[00:50:19.39] spk_1:
still have to be

[00:50:20.47] spk_0:
there. I mean, it’s still the, you know, the big the big monster. Right?

[00:50:26.49] spk_1:
So

[00:51:43.06] spk_0:
you know, what I encourage people to do is to really think about how to use Facebook, though. So when you look at what is most engaging on Facebook and where Facebook itself is investing, most of its resource is it’s into video, particularly Facebook Live or it’s into the group’s function of Facebook. You know, tony, I don’t know if you’ve how much time you spend on Facebook or, you know, if you really analyze your own personal use, but I know the overwhelming majority of time I spend on Facebook is in Facebook groups, okay? And so, you know, a group isn’t right for every organization, but if it if you’re interested in both communicating with people and having those people communicate with each other. So you’re really interesting in organizing that community and facilitating that community conversation. Then I think a group can make a lot of sense on. Then again, Like I said, video is something that ah lot of people are embracing now with the pandemic, they’re just going for it. And so Facebook live could be really helpful in that way, too. Um, you know, I don’t encourage people to spend tons and tons of time on just sort of random posts on their Facebook pages. Um, I think there’s a better ways to use that time. Okay,

[00:51:48.06] spk_1:
what would you like to wrap up with? What should we say about the non profit communications trends report that we haven’t talked about yet?

[00:52:59.95] spk_0:
Well, you know, I think you mentioned how empathetic we are, um or I enormously. Yeah. I mean, I am not, like, normally, a cheerleader type of person, but this is the one place in my life, you know? Besides, maybe my girl scouts that I do feel like I am a cheerleader is is really trying to encourage calms, folks, Thio, uh, you know, step into the role to lead in the role to really move their organizations forward. And, you know, I think we’re seeing some of that take place. Every time we do a trends report, we can see MAWR, especially in the open ended questions where people can really talk in their own words, about the changes that are going on on. We’re continuing to see that, and I think the pandemic was a great test of that. The organizations that are doing the calm, the collaborative, agile, logical, methodical are able toe whether even this horrible pandemic on. So I think I find that encouraging and hopeful. If they could get through this, they could do anything. Just imagine the possibilities.

[00:53:21.78] spk_1:
The empathetic Give You Lulu Miller non profit marketing guide at non profit marketing guy dot com and at I’ll Say It one more time. N P M K T G D. On Kivi is at key BLM at TVL M. Well, I’ll be talking to you before you and the girls go toe, but I’ll say I hope you have a wonderful trip thio to Belize, but I’ll be talking to you before then. Thank you very much, Kevin.

[00:53:27.83] spk_0:
Thanks for sharing

[00:54:20.75] spk_1:
my pleasure next week. I just can’t say at this point, But have I ever let you down? If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. Sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives Prospect to donor Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant demo and a free Month Ah, creative producer is kiddies. Friend 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, you’re with me next week for non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for January 25, 2021: Peer-To-Peer For 2021

My Guest:

Brandon Smith: Peer-To-Peer For 2021

David Hessekiel returns with a look at this year’s P2P prospects. But not before a survey of the P2P carnage that was 2020. There are distinct opportunities for 2021 and David shares the collective advice of thought leaders and practitioners. He’s the founder of Peer-to-Peer Professional Forum.

 

 

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[00:01:53.74] spk_1:
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 the embarrassment of gastroesophageal reflux disease if you made me choke on the idea that you missed this week’s show. Peer to Peer for 2021. David Hess Akil returns with a look at this year’s P two p prospects, but not before a survey of the PDP carnage that was 2020. There are distinct opportunities for 2021 David shares the collective advice of thought leaders and practitioners. He’s the founder of Peer to Peer, Professional Forum and tony Steak, too. We’ve calmed down, were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives prospect to donor simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant demo and a free month. Here is peer to peer for 2021. It’s my pleasure to welcome back after several years. David Hesse Kiel. He is founder and president of Cause Marketing Forum Inc. Helping nonprofits enlist millions of people to raise billions of dollars through the peer to peer professional forum and partner with businesses to do well by doing good through engage for Good. Both organizations hold national conferences to provide access to practical information and inspiration To help nonprofits forge valuable connections. You’ll find them at peer to peer forum dot com and at Engage for good calm. David is at Dave cause welcome back to non profit radio, David.

[00:02:14.75] spk_0:
It’s great to be back, tony.

[00:02:16.77] spk_1:
It’s a genuine pleasure. Good to have you after after probably too many years. I’m sorry for that. But here we are now. So no, no more lamentations

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about no time like the present

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to talk about peer to peer. Um, first, just acquaint us with you’ve got You’ve got three organizations there. You got the Cause Marketing Forum. You got the peer to peer professional forum and you’ve got engaged for good way. Know what they’re doing generally, but drill down a little bit. Eso listeners understand what

[00:02:43.62] spk_0:
your marketing forum is really just the the holding company for all for these two endeavors a

[00:02:54.60] spk_1:
shell company. That’s where your that’s where you really tax money enough

[00:02:59.56] spk_0:
money to be dealing with the Cayman Islands and all of that. Alright, alright. It isn’t that interesting

[00:03:01.54] spk_1:
about that, Okay?

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Actually, originally, I started the company with the conference that was called Cause Marketing Forum, All about how businesses and nonprofits could work together. Over over the years, that area of interest morphed. And so the words cause marketing became a little dated. And so we changed to engage for good, because businesses are now looking more holistically at the whole field of how they can have values and do purpose driven work. Creating a better world while still being faithful to their bottom lines. And so that now involves not only consumer facing programs but programs designed to attract and retain and motivate employees activism on the national and international scale. And a lot more, um, peer to peer professional form. I’m a big name changer. I started that one back in 2000 and seven as the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council because I think that many of your your listeners will be familiar with the term peer to peer fundraising. But way back in 2000 and six, when I was really pondering this, that didn’t exist. People never use that free we

[00:04:24.73] spk_1:
didn’t say Peter P a peer to peer. So run, walk, run, walk rides.

[00:05:11.44] spk_0:
So I tried to come up with the title that would telegraph what we were talking about. Um, and it took a number of years, but we picked up steam when peered appear became a a common phrase we re branded, and I learned something very interesting along the way. That is a lesson for us all. I learned we had a huge spike in the number of people who came to our conferences, listen to our stuff after we made that change. And I mean, it’s a great It was a great rebranding, but it wasn’t that great. And I was learning that certain people were being so literal that they were saying, Well, if I don’t have a run or walk or a ride, I’m not invited to the party.

[00:05:17.16] spk_1:
E can’t do a dance.

[00:06:18.34] spk_0:
Exactly where is really what we’re talking about? Is this amazing engine off fundraising and community development in which a non profit has its supporters get involved in some activity and then reach out to their networks to get support, as opposed to the traditional form in which most fundraising takes place where the non profit directly makes an ask in many different ways individual giving, legacy, giving all sorts of different campaigns here. They’re using that power of that network to get money from people who who they probably would never have talked to because they weren’t particularly interested. But those relationships create a lot of opportunity. And so a peer to peer professional forum We actually held our last conference the last week of February.

[00:06:22.04] spk_1:
Got it right in. We

[00:06:23.37] spk_0:
were so lucky. In fact, although the pandemic was mentioned in a couple of panels, we had no idea. Of course, tsunami that was approaching us.

[00:06:37.36] spk_1:
You were two weeks lucky or two or three weeks luckier than in 10, and had Thio canceled, canceled their conference and scrambling. Do what? Do what they could thio put online.

[00:07:00.84] spk_0:
I’d like to say that I was smart. I was just in that case, that was very, very 40. Yeah, way had 650 plus people that with largest conference we’ve ever had, and I speak with a lot of these people frequently, And if I had a dollar for every time somebody said to me, Oh, my gosh. The last business trip I took was to be with you in Austin. Yeah, I could retire. Yeah, well,

[00:07:14.76] spk_1:
you have to have 650 bucks. You live meagerly in Rye, New York. If you could retire on $650 a dollar from each one, I’ll give you $10 for each one. You still wouldn’t be able to retire. Six. Its’s a metaphor. It’s an aphorism. Yes, I understand. But you know, I take aphorisms literally. Unless I’m the one using them. And then Then what? You’re being silly. Where you taking me literally for? There’s no winning. There’s no way, because I do. Whatever the hell, it’s nice to post, and

[00:07:42.56] spk_0:
it’s nice to be king. So you’re the host. What do you

[00:07:55.74] spk_1:
say? I’m the host. I’m the king. Yeah, that’s good. I should use King King non profit radio. All right, so, so much a peer to peer is online that there was virtually no impact on the on peer to peer fundraising throughout. 2020 right? It was already online. I’m

[00:10:08.04] spk_0:
sorry you’ve low star game because that’s absolutely not true. Oh, my gosh. It was so a zay said once in a part of time, we were called the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council, and in one sense, you are right, which is that off all forms of fundraising. The group, the area that perhaps has the deepest penetration of fundraising being conducted online, maybe peer to peer because people who are involved in these types of programs will reach out and use email and social media to collect all of those often smaller contributions. So there is a great penetration, but most of the activity has an analog sort of physical component in the real world, although the balance is changing. Walks, for example, mass gatherings of people, thousands of them every year. We started off in February going okay, It’s getting to be spring walk season. Let’s get going. We’re good luck this season and within a month, basically, this spring, the spring season was completely canceled and everybody was scrambling to create some sort of virtual experience so that they would be able to continue to do that fundraising and then within another couple of months, because we all thought we all hope that we all thought in the early days Well, all right, this is a pandemic. But how long could it last? So we were optimistic that fall programs would happen because these types of programs are very weighted towards the spring and the fall. In a lot of the country, it’s too hot or people are away on vacation, so they don’t do as much of this summer anyway, This the fall went away, and so there was a mad scramble to come up with alternatives to what they had traditionally done

[00:10:15.99] spk_1:
right. And you’ve got some recognition for folks that did that particularly. Well, just just give us some perspective about what? What, what these these cancelations in spring and fall meant to the community nation.

[00:12:14.64] spk_0:
So you know it’s been interesting were one of our best known pieces of research is the called the Top 30 Report. We do a study in which we look at it. The 30 largest programs we do, one actually in the US and we do another one in Canada, and over the first few years that I was involved with this field, we were doing very nicely. The collapse financial collapse happened in 2000 and 8, 2009, and we’ve actually had negative numbers for nearly every year since then. But when you group them all together, it’s usually a couple of percent. Maybe. And I was hoping that this coming year would be the year that we would actually finally have black ink and produce a report that said it was going to that it was positive on General. Well, nothing could be further than the truth, because nonprofits, uh, through no fault of their own, like all of us, in different aspects of our lives, you know, you promised People X they were used to doing X, and now all of a sudden X for 95% of the situations was impossible to do, and so they would create virtual. And anyway, we found out that I’m using a general term that is about a 50% drop off in the amount of money that they raised from these programs. It really like any average. It’s an average. So you had some that were in the 70 80% of recapturing what they had expected to raise, or at least how much they raised the previous year. You have some in the forties, you have some that were canceled and you have a very few very, very, very few situations where they’re actually were physical programs. I actually I mean, there are more than non, but I know of one in particular. Uh, and it was it. It’s been a devastating year.

[00:12:41.64] spk_1:
So you’ve got these three organizations that, um I don’t wanna really talk about them specifically, but name them that that you identified as having done particularly well in adapting. And then, you know, what can we learn from these in aggregate?

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Eso It’s It’s again like everybody else. We’ve also had to make major changes the way that we share information. We upped tremendously the frequency off distance learning that we were providing through our organization because everybody was hungry for information and was locked in and they couldn’t go out. Um, and we have had a tradition over in recent years, off every year late, naming one organization as the peer to peer fundraising organization of the year and sort of looking at the totality of what they do. Sometimes it’s for one program. Sometimes it’s for ah group of programs, and as we looked at last year, we decided that it would be more instructive to look at a few examples of programs. He was a program within a program or otherwise that did well and use them as learn herbal moment. So we picked out three, and each of them illustrates a different point.

[00:14:35.24] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Do you wanna be in papers like that? How about CBS Market Watch? The Chronicle of Philanthropy? Turn two has the relationships with outlets like these, so that when they’re looking for experts on charitable giving, non profit trends or philanthropy, they call turn to turn two calls you turn hyphen two dot ceo now back to peer to peer for 2021

[00:16:46.64] spk_0:
In the case of there’s the L S Association off its Greater Chicago chapter, and even though they had a spring event as part of the large Ailes walk Siri’s, each chapter was sort of left to fend somewhat for themselves, and they made a fast move, which was one of the things that helped some groups and being having having difficulty making a decision and telling people what was coming up. The pike was a big problem for a lot of groups. Um, they said, Okay, there is not going to be a large Chicago walk. What? We know that a whole bunch of you have signed up. About 150 groups have signed up as teams in this case, largely family teams, people who have somebody afflicted with that terrible disease of ales. We want you to create neighborhood walks, and we are sending every one of you a walk in a box kit. Oh, it’s amazing that, you know, it’s ah, big box full of of instructions and door hangers to put around their neighborhood, explaining that they were gonna be walking and asking people to give and all sorts of fun, uplifting type of stuff shirts, etcetera. And they were able to got about 125 groups to actually walk. They had even some more grandiose plans which were defeated by the by the pandemic and by some of the unrest that was happening at the exact time that they were supposed to have their their program. They were going to send, uh, emissaries out to the neighborhood, walks and provide them with with cupcakes and have super It’s a superhero themed walk Superheroes gonna visit there weren’t allowed to send people out. But by giving people something, really, by generating excitement, you look with all the stuff we’ve got. They were able to I think they raised about 75% of what their previous total had been. So a less was so taken with their approach and some of the many smart things that they did that they encouraged and taught many of their other chapters to adopt some of their techniques and it stood them in good stead. And they’re and they’re planning to continue that for next

[00:17:12.06] spk_1:
year. So innovation Is that what you were captured you about the

[00:17:39.54] spk_0:
yes, there was association that all all of these in some way, shape or form of innovation. In this case, the easiest shorthand to say is if you can’t bring the people you know Mohammed to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammed where we are, they created some of the excitement. People do walks, not because walks air so exciting. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to the, you know, if you if you’ve decided, you’re going to do it, you’re a runner and your you’ve set yourself a personal goal and you’re doing a marathon. There’s a whole big exciting thing, but walks are neat, but people want to be able to congregate. Of course, be a part of a team. Well, that wasn’t possible is here. So they helped create some of that spirit by sending it out. So that was their innovation.

[00:18:04.93] spk_1:
Bunch of a bunch of smaller communities. Instead of one big community of tens of thousands of people coming together, there were 100 25 communities that came together throughout throughout Greater Chicago.

[00:19:21.04] spk_0:
You’re absolutely right. Will be Dana Farber, and Dana Farber does a number of amazing programs. One of their programs is the Jimmy Fund. Dana Farber has this amazing New England charity called The Jimmy Fund. There is called the Jimmy Fund Walk. David Dana Farber is a cancer research center, and what is best known about that walk it’s they’re based in Boston is that follows the route of the Boston Marathon. So for years, that was sort of what they lead with the excitement that you were actually going to be able to do the route off the marathon and all of a sudden, impossible can do that. And I think that they’re example. They were also able to have a strong performance. But it taught them a lesson about the importance of changing your messaging to never lose sight of the mission and the stories of the people and the impact that the people who are walking have. And by shifting that model of messaging to their supporters, it stood them in very good stead. And then the third group that we

[00:19:28.00] spk_1:
wait before you move on. So what did they do in place of the walk? Uh,

[00:20:11.04] spk_0:
of it A. And an encouragement to go out and walk on your own. Okay. They also created online ways to get involved and to be a part of, ah, a group program. But this was just a really good lesson in how strategically changing your marketing message makes a huge difference. And sometimes we way. It’s easy to get caught up in sort of the sizzle. And this was going back to the steak, which is the reason why you’re doing this. Yes, it’s very cool to be on the marathon route when you’re doing this to help save kids and others. We’ve got cancer

[00:20:17.08] spk_1:
back to the why? Why?

[00:22:26.34] spk_0:
Why? You sound like Simon cynic. And then the third group that we’re going Thio. Yeah, well, I’m a big admirer to the third one is, uh, the Terry Fox Foundation, which I don’t I imagine that many of your most of your listeners Air American in Canada. The Terry Fox Foundation is very well known. Terry Fox was a young man. I think this was back in the eighties, perhaps where who had cancer and he lost one of his legs. It was amputated and he decided to fight cancer to raise money by running across Canada. Very, very dramatic. Um, and he passed away, and they created this Terry Fox Foundation, which holds numerous walks and runs all across Canada. Once again, they went from a group that does almost 1000 events. Ah, year to one that couldn’t hold any in person. And there’s is an example. We’re really honoring them for having the guts to complete what they had it planned. Terry Fox. An amazing organization. One of the largest peer to peer fundraisers in Canada, but also a very traditional organization. And frankly, and they have said to us not as digitized and in their approach to doing business as most other leading nonprofits were. And they had made a decision in the previous year to make a major pushing how they acted and in reaching out to their supporters via digital means and raising money digitally of doing all of that in a very new and much more modern way. And many organizations with all of the change that was coming down the pike as the pandemic swept through the industry, would have said, Oh my gosh, this is not the year to do a major all overhaul of all of our systems. And instead the Terry Fox folks said, You know what? Let’s stick to the course. Let’s do this They did. It was very successful and all the more helpful to have that digital communication and fundraising in a time when you can’t get together and they recruit about forgetting the exact number. But this sort of like seven of the $8 million that they would have raised, they raised a large percentage of the money that they would have raised

[00:23:04.84] spk_1:
a profile encourage for doing something audacious, right at a time when a lot of organizations might not have, but they saw the need. Yeah, great. And they seized it. Absolutely. So let’s zoom. Let’s look forward then. So, though Well, those three organizations gonna be honored right at the march. You gotta You gotta March conference coming up. The people could find find out about the conference where

[00:23:28.24] spk_0:
they will go to peer to peer forum dot com. And they will find out about this event that we’re holding Thea er Noon, Eastern time, March 1st, 2nd and 3rd with a great love or information on overview off the field as well as very this very specifics off. If you do walks or if you are a hospital or if you do cycling events, there are special breakout sessions for all of those and more.

[00:26:07.97] spk_1:
It’s time for tony steak, too. We’ve calmed down Well, maybe I should say I’ve calmed down to events, seemed to have turned down the national temperature or at least turn down my temperature. Maybe I’m extrapolating from myself for everybody. Maybe that’s unfair. Although I am the center of the universe, we know that non profit radio is here with me non profit radio and I are the center of the universe. So maybe I’m not being unfair, but so maybe it’s more what I’m feeling. These two, these two things these two events seem to have have calmed me, and maybe they have calmed the nation. Donald Trump silenced on Twitter and the inauguration. I’m getting fewer news alerts. I’m not looking at my phone as much. I don’t feel sort of, like, agitated on and compelled to investigate headlines like I did before those two events. Um, so again, like I’ve said three times already, uh, maybe it’s just me. So maybe this is a little therapy session. No, I don’t I don’t mean non profit radio would be therapy. If it is, I’m in a lot of trouble. I’m not getting my money’s worth. I I feel I feel a difference. I feel a difference in the in in Communist and increased Communists and decreased agitation. And maybe that’s the national temperature as well. I’m not sure, but I’m sharing with you what I’m feeling since those two things. And that is Tony’s Take two. Now let us return to peer to peer for 2021 with David Hezekiel. Let’s look forward then David has skill. What do you think 2021 is looking like you had some piece in Forbes that makes some predictions from powerhouse people in peer to peer. Lots of lots of, uh, liberation there. Powerhouses in peer to peer productivity and and and And what? Pastrami, pastrami and prodigious nous. So what do your engagement is one thing e talking about? I

[00:26:12.65] spk_0:
wish, tony that your listeners could see a visual right now because you can see that I’ve got a large crystal wall that I am looking into peering into because this is where I get most of my forecasts and predictions. But believe me,

[00:26:36.60] spk_1:
yeah, well, know that Forbes piece was based on lots of other people like non profit radio. I’m not I’m not the expert here. I’m just a bulletin board that you post things on my forehead. And then I put them out for our listeners Thio to pick up on.

[00:26:48.80] spk_0:
Yes, I didn’t put any of my predictions, but I will tell you that it was fascinating to dio to do this, so I don’t know what when this airs. Uh, but

[00:27:00.08] spk_1:
there the week of January 25th

[00:27:48.14] spk_0:
next week. Monday uh, I literally just stepped away from I work in the home office. I guess we all are sort of working in home offices now. And I just watched the inauguration. Yes, very touching. Ah, nde There was no, uh no messing around. No gilding the lily. There’s tough times ahead. And the, you know, vaccination program seems to be absolutely key to really being able to unleash the economic power off all sorts of activity. And this area is is no different because

[00:28:00.44] spk_1:
all the more actually Z originated has run, walk, ride. So you made very clear there is still an important in real life component to peer to peer fundraising.

[00:30:15.20] spk_0:
So when we get to the some of those prognostications in the past But we did a survey some months ago asking people what were they thinking was going to be the shape of their programs next year. The overwhelming majority were saying, Well, we’re hoping that we will have what what what have become the term has has become hybrid programs. They would like to have physical programs, but especially for the spring. I mean, you know, we’re coming up against the big traditionally many programs started in March in the warmer climes were very big in April and May, and the vaccination roll out is just not happening that fast. Eso uh there is the feeling that there may be the opportunity to not re constitute as okay, we’re gonna have 5000 people gathered together to do a major walk. But we may be able to say, Okay, well, certain of you, this will continue to be a virtual experience. But we also have an element of this where we’re perhaps organized much smaller experience, socially distant experience. Maybe you need to reach a certain level of fundraising and then you can come to a gathering that those combinations are called hybrids. And I think there’s going to be, ah, huge amount of that also because one of the thio, almost a person when I talked to speak people in this field to say the most maddening aspect of what’s going on is it’s so hard to plan because we just don’t know when the all clear will be sounded and we can go back to living is normal. So if you plan for ah hybrid with the realization that if things get better it could be more physical. And if things go to heck, it could be mawr or completely Virtual is the posture that most are taking. There’s some hope. One of the people that we interviewed was Jennifer Lee leads the peer to peer effort at the National and s Society, one of the major peer to peer fundraising America. And she is guardedly guardedly optimistic that in the fall there will be much more of a physical presence in these programs. Um, so that is one

[00:30:36.42] spk_1:
your hybrid and and hybrid, and I just built into that is, be flexible.

[00:32:39.94] spk_0:
Yes, The second thing that comes loud and clear is that virtual if your idea of virtual is just saying, well, we really can’t do anything, so just give that ain’t gonna cut it e mean there were certain that’s really just like asking for donation, which, of course, all of these groups do in spades. But if it’s a peer to peer program, it’s a very difficult thing to get a lot of people enthusiastic if there’s no there there. So a lot of investment needs to be made in making virtual, uh, in some way inspiring enabling groups to come together to have that feeling of community giving them props that bring the thing toe life such as we talked about with the L s associations. Example. Um, yeah. On then, we have a wonderful contributor who will be speaking at this This year’s conference. Nicole Dolan works for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. And she said one of the lessons she learned along the way and that they are working on very hard is you need to give people, uh, concrete things that they need to do. Give them assignments, sign up for this email, Come to this meeting, uh, post on social media. You know, be a part of what’s going on because your best supporters will react to that. And it’s much more fulfilling for them to actually get involved. Then if you just sort of give them a blanket. Okay, well, you know, go off and figure it out. That will not work. So are you.

[00:33:57.14] spk_1:
Are you, uh I’m having a deja vu moment right now. I’ve dreamed about you. Are you related? Do you have any? Yeah. Connection to Minnesota? No. Why? Well, I don’t know. Because of what I’m asking because of my deja vu experience. There was something related to Minnesota in in the dream that I had when you and I were talking. Uh, all right. I was hoping you could validate my dream, but all right, there was some There was some connection with Minnesota. And you in our conversation, maybe was just asking. I’ve been on the secretary. Alright. But I am. I am. It’s over now. It’s over now, so I don’t know where we’re headed. I can’t say, um the so I mean, the other advantage Thio keeping that virtual engagement is that you can you can bring in those folks that joined you in 2020 who could not have joined you in a real life event. So you don’t wanna You don’t want to just kind of, I guess, you know, move them to a strict campaign, you know, digital giving platform or or or channel, I should say, when their their initial engagement was around an event. So if you if you keep the hybrid and you stay flexible and you you work on engagement like you’re describing, um you can keep those people involved in a in an event fashion even though there may be hundreds of miles away from you.

[00:37:38.77] spk_0:
Yes, well, I think that the higher level, more sophisticated incarnation of this type of activity has always said that you work at segmenting. You don’t treat everybody as equal where all God’s Children and when you treat them all well. But your top 20% for example, of fundraisers. That’s where you know there’s sort of an 80 20 rule. They will raise the overwhelming majority of your funds, and you should be giving them a lot of attention. There’s a lot of people in the walk world, especially who come who show up where your T shirt to eat a banana, but actually don’t raise any money. And they feel like, Well, it’s a community activity and we wanna be involved were not fundraisers, Um similarly Paul Purty of the American Cancer Society, who is also speaking at our conference. He makes the point that he’s done a huge amount of experimentation and trying different virtual approaches, and one of their lessons is really think about this as an on boarding ramp for finding people who are passionate about your cause, and then you do the segmentation necessary to figure out how to keep them involved, perhaps in a virtual way, or whether they are good candidates for trying your physical event. When you can hold that well. Or maybe there will be a supportive of your charity, you know, completely different way. Maybe they could become great volunteers or maybe substantial individual givers. So this whole on boarding and shepherding, stewarding off, peer to peer and seeing it as an on ramp to building your funnel of of supporters is very important. And virtual will never go back to being sort of the very weak excuse of saying, Oh yes, we have a virtual program. But there was really no there there. It was just a way of saying, Well, if you live far away and you wanna be supportive of other people, you could say you’re a virtual walker. Now there are people, and interesting. We had a weapon or the other day featuring people from Good United who also worked with the American Cancer Society and had a wonderful speaker, Dan Thorpe, from there and what they They are using a whole mixture off using Facebook social media advertising to find people who would be interested in a geo particular geographic area at getting involved in a a squat challenge or a individualized walk or run challenge, et cetera, and using the Facebook milieu to get them involved in to get them fundraising. They had tremendous success with that. What they feel that most of those people will have to be will probably be kept involved by reaching out to them again through that social media connection they made. Two. It’s almost It’s a little strong to say this, but it’s almost like a bait and switch. If you try to say Okay, well, you’re a social media. Uh uh, you like to communicate this way. Now we want to take you off of social media and communicate with you via email and have you go to a physical event with a lot of other people, where you have not demonstrated that you necessarily want to do that

[00:37:51.42] spk_1:
radio meet people where they are. It not where you would like them to be and come meet you. Um, squat challenge makes my thighs tremble because I’ve been doing jump squats. It’s only my thighs. Don’t don’t get to accept, you know, just thighs trembling that stops there. Um uh, doing jump squats as part of my homework out.

[00:38:20.61] spk_0:
I’m impressed because I try to do Burpees Oh, my God.

[00:38:47.12] spk_1:
Things. Oh, and then do split, jump squats Those things are rough toward the end toward the end of a set. Oh, are a bunch of reps. I’m more like It’s more like standing on your toes instead of jumping like stand on your toe and squat squat So squat challenges I got a little this. I got a visceral queen. Visceral reaction when mentioned squat challenges

[00:38:48.28] spk_0:
trying not to use any untoward vocabulary again. I don’t want to scare you, tony.

[00:40:30.01] spk_1:
Well, you wouldn’t know my hyper sensitivities. Uh, if that was gonna be the case, we have to wrap up right now. It is a lot. I got more tony go from or much of issues. Time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals, you could feel this person’s excitement. You can feel her excitement at witnessing this dot drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level. End quote. That’s Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is dot drives Prospect to donor Simplified. Get the free demo for listeners. There’s also a free month. You go to the listener landing page at we’ve got but loads more time for peer to peer for 2021 you got you got also your your thought Leaders in peer to peer had ideas and about not surprising. I mean, we hear this in a lot of a lot of realms. I certainly, uh um in foundation and even corporate fundraising as well. But collaborations be collaborative. Reach out, reach out across your community. Maybe it’s across the country. Be collaborative.

[00:40:43.41] spk_0:
Well, it s so funny that you mentioned that because I literally had a conversation yesterday with with one of the speakers for Thea upcoming conference. And what she was saying is that you know as much as there is, it’s

[00:40:46.61] spk_1:
not funny. David, this is all planned. There’s nothing funny about it. You got coming in. Think I didn’t. You know, You think I didn’t talk to the people you’ve spoken to in the past two weeks to find out about you? This is this. This doesn’t just come together. I’m a little I’m a little offended. I’m a little I’m disappointed. More than offended. Go ahead.

[00:42:18.70] spk_0:
Looking for the silver linings? One of the things that she had been particularly, uh, happy about Waas. That there was a lot of sharing. I mean, although many of us feel zoomed out of our minds, the fact that groups off people who knew each other but worked at different organizations were getting together We’re asking one another’s questions. Um, they were going to some some programming that we created in which there was a lot of sharing has really helped folks get through this very, very difficult, uh, period. So I think that there is collaboration, and for me, it’s such a delight to see, because when I started this group, there was such trepidation that if you went to a conference and you talked about how you held your event sarees, everybody would be taking notes about some sort of secret sauce that you might have and they do that. And then all of a sudden, all of these people who have been raising money for just throwing cancer were suddenly begun to become heart association people because because they did, they did X, y or Z, and

[00:42:21.14] spk_1:
his heart still still cancers ideas. And it’s all zero sum. And if you must be losing

[00:42:38.40] spk_0:
its so much, not zero sum if you’re doing it right, because people do have an affinity, unfortunately, often for your particular cause. And so, uh, this this spirit of collaboration has just been growing and growing and

[00:42:42.67] spk_1:
growing. Can you collaborate with if you’re If you’re in the in this peer to peer world who like who, Who could you be reaching out to?

[00:43:57.40] spk_0:
Well, I think that one thing to do, I think in any field that you’re in is to be looking at other programs, seeing if there’s aspects of what they do that you admire, um, and and being you know, it’s it’s it’s taking that important first step of reaching out to others to find out who they are. One of the things that’s been a wonderful part of what we’ve been able to build is a community. You know, sometimes even figuring out who that person is isn’t easy. When were physically together. Uh, we literally leave a lot of time for networking so people can talk to one another and can share, since we’re so even within our organizations often siloed. But we’re very siloed from other other folks. It’s why, when we produced this upcoming event, we’ve created a lot of opportunities for using breakout functionality to have small group discussions to have actually one on one discussions, because people are hungry for opportunities to talk one on another, and we don’t all need to be inventing the wheel in parallel. There’s a lot of things that we can help each other out with, Uh, that won’t take away from us, but will hopefully make you know. And these people are working towards goals of trying to fight disease, fight hunger. Of course, it is wonderful to see some of this Kumbaya spirit brought to life.

[00:45:15.59] spk_1:
Am I naive if I suggest that when we get back to in real life runs walk, run, run, walk, rides, whatever, whatever form it takes that a bunch of non profits in a community, we’re in a city could get together and host something together so that you know, if if my organization could probably only get 100 or 150 runners and walkers, whatever. But there’s another organization that could get 500 somebody else who could bring 75. And together we could get 2500 or 3000 or 5000 people Thio. And then we could have the synergy of working together with the local police to stop close the streets and they get the park permits, et cetera, and rent the banners that we need and the archways and the sound system. Is that Is that doable?

[00:48:22.57] spk_0:
Yeah, Well, actually, you you you raise a really interesting point and we’re seeing some of that activity already start in different ways. So, for example, in Maryland, there is the Almond Foundation, which is a cancer foundation actually started by the family of Doug Ulman, who is the used to be the head of Live Strong is now head of paella Tonia, which is a tremendous cycling fundraiser that happens in Columbus, Ohio, back in Maryland, the when the pandemic struck the Almond Foundation, which has had a long history of raising money in a number of interesting ways through peer to peer fundraising, decided to create an event, sort of the all of the institutional work that is necessary to create the online presence and the digital fundraising systems, etcetera. And then, uh, opened this to numerous Maryland based charities, and they could have their people plug into this program. And, uh, I don’t don’t totally quote me, but I’m remembering, right there was virtually no cost to the charities to participate, other than to defray the costs that Almond was taking on to create this platform for everybody. They gave a certain percentage back toe, and Ullman wasn’t competing with them to get supporters. So that’s one example. Another example and donor drive was very involved in setting that all up donor drive being a platform company that non profit use to raise funds. Another example. Event 3 60 is a, uh, a production company, primarily very involved with peer to peer fundraising, and they have created something they call the five by five K for good. They piloted this this fall in Denver, and what they did was there a lot of people who are avid runners who want to get out avid supporters of charity. And they created event where you could run over the 24 hour period. Five different five K’s So in Toto, if you did it, yeah, you could run a basically a marathon and they had a number of different charities. It was open to any charity, and again there was. It was sort of free to enter, and then there was a certain percentage that helped defray the cost. So that went on in in Denver this fall. Um, so there There are a number of those, uh, those efforts already underway, and it’s going to be interesting to see, you know, it’s collaboration is great. It usually takes some entity to take a bold first step and sort of create something that others can get involved

[00:48:33.05] spk_1:
with. That’s it. That’s the non profit. You just profiled the non profit radio listeners there, the bold ones you gotta be somebody’s gotta put a stake in the ground and say, Let’s Tze rally around this.

[00:48:44.45] spk_0:
Yeah, and it’s a wonderful way of sharing costs and sharing opportunities that any one might not be able to do by itself,

[00:48:53.81] spk_1:
right? Are you familiar with generosity? Siri’s? Yes. That

[00:48:56.95] spk_0:
was the other one. They actually I

[00:49:09.27] spk_1:
I used Thio. I used Thio. What’s it called? I didn’t I wasn’t their host. I was there. Uh, there M c. I was used to emcee the event. I probably am said I have a dozen in the New York Manhattan.

[00:49:13.60] spk_0:
Other people? Yes, I know them. And I I have not been in touch with them recently. I have a feeling that the pandemic sort of,

[00:49:29.95] spk_1:
uh I wonder because they were strictly e. I mean, they had a fundraising platform, but they were strictly real life events in exactly, also in Philadelphia. And they were trying to go beyond the Northeast. They’re just being just New York and Philadelphia. And

[00:49:34.97] spk_0:
they were attracting numerous numerous charities, uh, to be ableto

[00:49:39.81] spk_1:
Yeah, we have a dozen or so. Yeah, I introduced Steve Buscemi at one because he was really He’s from Brooklyn. So he was a visitor at one. We had somebody. The Brooklyn City Council? Uh, no. The Brooklyn, Brooklyn President, Borough President, President, President, book. That was a different event. Yeah, I did a couple of Manhattan a couple of Brooklyn, so I hope they’re still bound listeners. You could check out generosity Siri’s, because they were. They were looking to go nationwide on there. Pretty ambitious guys. David David, David Lind,

[00:50:11.47] spk_0:
L I N N.

[00:50:13.11] spk_1:
Lynn, David Lynn, right, David and Saul, David and Saul. So I was more in the background. David Lane, right? I hope they’re still doing well. But you could check out generosity. Siri’s Certainly if you’re in the New York or Philly area, because the I know they’ve done events there and I imagine they’re they’re smart and they’ll be coming back in 2021 2022. So

[00:50:31.53] spk_0:
I’m going to reach out to them

[00:50:47.36] spk_1:
generosity. Yeah, I will, too. All right, right. So there’s cause for optimism. Even though we don’t, you know, we got to stay flexible. We don’t know when that, uh, you know, when we’ll be ableto amass thousands of people together. But there are lots of opportunities to go beyond that. As as you describe

[00:51:54.86] spk_0:
20 was a very painful learning year on, you know, again looking for silver linings. Uh, lots of groups learned about things that they could do in less staff, because unfortunately, many groups had to lay off staff, um, quicker than they’ve ever been used to and stretching and using technology in ways that they talked about for a long time. But now that it was a necessity, Ah, lot of them have made some of those investments in technology that will stand them in good stead in the year to come. So I don’t think that this is gonna be a banner year, but I think that the learnings from 2020 will stand us in in better stead to do better in 2021 then hopefully come roaring back in 2022 Because I’ve been trying to figure out tony, you you gotta help me with this. There’s got to be smarter, much smarter guys than I who are figuring out right now and gals, okay, The economy is gonna come back. We’re gonna be able to travel again, et cetera. What are the depressed stocks? And I should be buying right now to make a killing the floodgates open.

[00:52:09.05] spk_1:
You’re asking the wrong guy. First of all, I don’t like guess to put me on the spot. That’s the first thing I’ll get past that. I’m willing to overlook it this time,

[00:52:16.72] spk_0:
but I’ll never do

[00:52:17.71] spk_1:
it. That’s why that’s why it’s been so many years since you’ve been back. I believe I remember distinctly. You did that six years ago. I remember the day I’m pretty sure was November 4th.

[00:52:26.26] spk_0:
It was probably your dream, but Okay,

[00:52:42.95] spk_1:
that was Minnesota. Now, that was strictly that was strictly a Minnesota thing. Yeah, but the other reason you’re aside from that, you know, if you look at my portfolio, you’d see you know, my my mantra is always buy high, sell low. So you don’t want stock advice from May?

[00:52:44.68] spk_0:
Well, I guess the two of us will be working stiffs for quite over because I’ve got a similar profile. But I do think

[00:52:54.03] spk_1:
I need some illicit income. That’s what I need. I need some of that came and came in high double money because I got I got too much of the income and not enough of the capital game.

[00:53:34.55] spk_0:
I think that when you know, as I said before, sort of like the all clearest sounded. There is going to be such a penned up demand to get together with other, has celebrate and to do the good work that people are so dedicated to that they have such an emotional connection with, uh that, you know, hopefully, maybe at the end of 2021 but certainly 2022 should be should should really benefit from that. And so this year, we’re going to be revealing at at our conferences we do every year. What the

[00:53:37.77] spk_1:
enough with Schilling of the conference. Now I’ll let you get away with it for, like, three times I said it. What was that? March?

[00:54:13.14] spk_0:
But we’re going thio and let Ugo available on our site. You don’t have to pay Teoh get it? What is the results of the 2020 study that we dio in terms of the top 30 programs? And that will be a very somber moment because it’s gonna be terrible. The numbers are awful, however, as any good sales person who’s ever had a sales commission plan knows. What you want to do is you want to join up when they’ve had a terrible year, because the next year that you’re working off of a much smaller base, and so any gains that you have are accelerated. So I’m hoping you

[00:54:19.41] spk_1:
go So apply that lesson to your stock market question. And now you’ve got your answer. There you go. I don’t know what to me. I don’t know what the answer is, but, you know, you get back to you, you have to take the next step on your own,

[00:54:30.48] spk_0:
will get together with David Lynn will find him, and he’ll tell us what you think

[00:54:34.80] spk_1:
of it On the microcosmic level. I mean, aren’t you dying? Thio have a dinner with friends

[00:54:39.01] spk_0:
again. Just answered a survey was sort of a fun survey talking about great, you know, kind of kooky things. And but what were the questions was what are you most looking forward to when this is over? And I said going out to dinner with friends?

[00:54:54.29] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. Hour and a half. No masks. Close table for four to

[00:55:00.60] spk_0:
food. Could be awful.

[00:55:04.94] spk_1:
Yeah, Yeah, we have to go to one of the remaining few remaining restaurants that that survived this thing. All right, Thank you very much. David. David has Shaquille. He’s got a bunch of shell companies one step ahead of the law trying. Tony, did I mention that

[00:55:18.62] spk_0:
the peer to peer forum is uh, march 1st through third.

[00:55:53.34] spk_1:
I’m not gonna say it now, So if you want, that’s a peer to peer forum dot com. If you want to do it on the business side, you’re more interested in partnering with businesses. Um, there’s engaged for good. They also have a conference engaged for good dot com and David is at Dave, not David. He goes by David. But I guess David David, David Cause must have been taken by some near do well considers himself important in the in the cause giving world. So he’s at Dave cause David has skill. Thank you very much. Real pleasure.

[00:55:56.14] spk_0:
Same here, tony. Anytime. Let’s not let five years go by until the next time.

[00:57:03.63] spk_1:
Well, you slipped up again this time by by putting me on the spot, which I said, I don’t like. So I will talk to you in 2028. Very good. Alright, David, Thank you. Next week, maybe it’s Kivi LaRue Miller. If not, she’ll be on soon. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you, find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives Prospect to donor simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for a free demo and the free month Our creative producer is Prayer Meyerhoff shows social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scots. Tony, Thank you for that information. Scotty. You with me next week for non profit radio. You better be big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for January 18, 2021: The Hot Sauce Principle

My Guest:

Brandon Smith: The Hot Sauce Principle

With a catchy book title like that, how could I call the show anything else? The author, Brandon Smith, shares his wisdom and advice on applying hot sauce in your career and at home. He also reveals how to protect yourself from getting burned. It’s all based on his many years of coaching and consulting with CEOs, leadership teams and boards.

 

 

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Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:02:19.14] spk_0:
hello and welcome to 20 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 the effects of vibrio Sys, which is what I should have suffered last week when I missed a pronounced it Mr When I Mr pronounced it vibe Bro Sis, if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show so you know that you’re stuck with a lackluster host, You know, you know this, it’s this is not even news to the most casual listener the hot sauce principle with a catchy book title like that, How could I call the show anything else? The author Brandon Smith shares his wisdom and advice on applying hot sauce in your career and at home. He also reveals how to protect yourself from getting burned. It’s all based on his many years of coaching and consulting with CEO’s leadership teams and boards. Antonis, take two our nation is counting on you were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot CEO and by dot drives Prospect to donor. Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for a free demo and a free month. It’s my pleasure to welcome Brandon Smith. He’s the workplace therapist, expert in leadership, communication and cure. Cure of workplace dysfunction. He’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, fast company, CNN, fox news dot com, NPR, Forbes and many other outlets. His book is The Hot Sauce Principle. How Toe Live and Lead In a world where everything is urgent all of the time and that’s what brings him to non profit radio. He’s at the workplace therapist dot com and at the w P Therapist. What a pleasure. Welcome, Brandon Smith.

[00:02:21.01] spk_1:
Tony. Really glad to be with you today and on your show.

[00:02:24.53] spk_0:
Thank you. And it’s a pleasure to have you. And you’ve got all these media credentials fast company, CNN, Fox News. You realize, though, that those have all led you to this moment on non profit

[00:02:37.03] spk_1:
moment? All this is the pinnacle. This is all those things got me here today and I’m excited about it.

[00:03:04.44] spk_0:
Exactly. This is your you’re zenith your pique your day normal. Uh huh. It’s non profit radio. It’s of your of your exposure. Thio Media is here on non profit radio. So welcome, Thio. The best moment so far. All right, So obvious question. What’s the hot sauce? What’s the hot sauce principal? Lead us into this and then we’ll talk about how folks can employ it to help themselves and their families even.

[00:04:03.44] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m gonna go back in time a little bit. I’m gonna go back five years or so And what was striking me and all the clients I was working with, folks. The non profit space for profit space. It could be university schools, public sector. It could be a big companies, small companies. It didn’t matter. What was true was 22 things. Time was everyone’s most precious resource. It wasn’t money. It was time, and everything felt urgent all the time. And in that world, it was causing us all to operate more like firefighters. And I’m sure your listeners can relate to that experience. And so what hit me was it was like hot sauce. Everyday urgency by itself is like hot sauce and a little bit of hot sauce. I love hot sauce. Frankly, um, you put a little bit on on something that’s bland and adds a little focus, a little flavor, and as interest it gets you concentrating on it. But if everything that comes in on our plates that comes out of the kitchen is covered in hot sauce, the appetizer, the salad, the entree, the brownie, the ice tea, we’re gonna be overwhelmed and curl up in a ball. And that was what so many of the folks that I was working with were experiencing was this feeling of burnout. And so the book really came from that idea of how do we manage the right amount of hot sauce in life, both when we’re leading others or and or when others are kind of guiding us? How do we manage that flow of hot sauce? So it’s it’s adding more interest in focus and not just burning us out. And so that was the impetus for the book, tony. And that’s really the the whole idea behind the concept.

[00:04:51.44] spk_0:
Okay, I want to thank you very much for being a guest. Uh, we’re wrapped up. Wait a minute. You told

[00:04:58.26] spk_1:
me that interview I’ve ever done in the history of interviews. Tony,

[00:05:27.14] spk_0:
we’re having fun, So yes, you talk about uncontrolled urgency, that’s what we’re. That’s what we’re we’re victim of. We’re trying to avoid creating this uncontrolled urgency in our in our lives and our teams. Right? A ZX, you say. Too much hot sauce. It’s no good. It ruins its its ruins. Its impact. It’s not. It’s not interesting and flavorful anymore. Overwhelming and burning and hurting us.

[00:05:50.24] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s exactly that’s exactly right. So it’s It’s both a byproduct of people stress and anxiety. Right? So, you know, if I’m putting pressure on you to get something done right away, and then you might put that pressure on somebody else that they’re on your team, right? You kind of push it down so it can complement stress. And anxiety can also come just from a simple lack of prioritization. You’re feeling like we’ve got to do everything. Everything is important.

[00:05:57.64] spk_0:
Yes. We’re gonna get to the importance of proposition. Yes. And you tell these you you you unravel the mysteries of urgency and the hot sauce through lots of lots of stories opening with Kate, who is, uh, listen, you’ve got to get the book because you gotta hear you got a little stories of Kate and Kate and her boss, uh, the it improves. It ends very nicely, but, uh, it’s a it’s a tough. Especially that opening scene with Kate 5 30 in the morning. Um, that’s rough. It’s It’s hard to read, you know? It makes

[00:06:27.93] spk_1:
good. Used to be hard to read. It’s supposed to hurt. Yeah,

[00:06:31.09] spk_0:
makes your heart race while, uh, while you’re reading about this one dimensional story. Alright, Um, but we can master this. We can master the urgency we can. We can apply the hot sauce sprinkled appropriately and be of great benefit to ourselves. Our careers, even our families

[00:06:49.77] spk_1:
absolutely sure can. Okay, that’s what that’s what the books all about, how to get a master,

[00:07:11.34] spk_0:
it. That’s where we are. Um, you talk about good bit about trust and and vulnerability. Expand on that a little bit. And maybe we’ll even say a little more about I love vulnerability. I think vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness. To be vulnerable is to be strong. I think not. Not cowardly and weak, but you roll that into trust. Yeah, and and so explain. Explain where you’re coming from with trust and vulnerability and credibility

[00:08:01.24] spk_1:
in the in the book. I talk about my trust formula and and And the reason why I talk about it is because if we’re going to create urgency and others, yeah, urgency is a stated discomfort. So you’re intentionally making other folks uncomfortable. You’re taking folks, they’re comfortable and you’re making them uncomfortable on purpose. And that’s advanced leadership stuff. Sometimes we have to do that with our teams. Sometimes we have to do that with our kids. That’s just part of the nature of kind of leading others. Um, and in that moment they’re gonna ask themselves, Do I trust this person enough to allow them to make me feel this way? Which is why trust comes in and it’s so important. We got to start with a foundation of trust. So now I already went back in time. Five years. I’m going back in time a little over 10 years now. So about 10 years ago, I was

[00:08:07.48] spk_0:
teaching have a sound effect for time travel that I used once years ago on this show. Maybe I’ll maybe I’ll insert a little

[00:08:13.61] spk_1:
need to bring it back would be perfect right now. Time travel music. So So a little over 10 years ago, I was teaching at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in their business school. I

[00:08:22.63] spk_0:
see you’re Emory University diploma on your wall.

[00:08:55.74] spk_1:
It’s behind me up. So and I was teaching MBA students and, you know, MBA students typically think in terms of numbers. And I was trying to think of How do you take a concept like trust and make it mathematical? And I ended up coming up with this trust formula. And it’s in the book, and the trust formula is authenticity plus vulnerability in parentheses. Okay, so you got to kind of think about kind of basic math principles, authenticity, plus vulnerability in parentheses and some of that multiplied times. Credibility gets us trust and the reason why I did it that way. Originally, I did it a straight up addition formula authenticity, plus vulnerability plus credibility. But in that version, you could have zero credibility and come out with positive trust. And that’s not how trust work

[00:09:07.76] spk_0:
that case. All three are equal, right?

[00:10:32.64] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s how it works. And so the reason why I had to put the multiplier in there is because whenever you multiply anything by zero. What do you get? You get 00 Credibility, zero trust. And the same is true on the other side. If authenticity and vulnerability go to zero, you got zero trust. So what we’re saying is you gotta show up is credible, you know, which means you’re reliable, predictable. We could talk more about that. But, you know, you deliver on your expectations, you do what you say you’re gonna dio um, but you also gonna show up as a real human being, which is the authenticity and vulnerability side. You know, you’ll be transparent about your thinking and your motives. That’s authenticity. But vulnerability. You gotta be okay to ask for help, Okay? To say, I don’t have all the answers, okay, to say I was wrong. You were right. Okay. To share a little more about your own personal story and journey with other people. That’s that’s That’s how we build trust. And the good news is you don’t have to be perfect on all those, but you just can’t go to zero. You go to zero and you got problems. So it’s a good reminder for us when we’re sitting in that leader seat and by the way, leader. When I talk about leader, it doesn’t have to be by title. We could be leading appear, leading a donor leading, Ah, volunteer, whether we have a title or not, Um, we’re leading others if we’re trying to influence them. And this is this is how we need to build trust. So then we could be effective in those roles. And part of what makes a non profit space so challenging is sometimes there isn’t really clear role clarity. Sometimes there’s a lot of informal leadership that occurs in that world. And so, you know, making sure we’ve got enough in the trust bank account to be able to do what we need to do effectively is really important. So that gets a little bit of high level overview of the formula. I’m happy to riff in any direction you’d like to go.

[00:12:00.14] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times You wanna be in outlets like that? CBS Market Watch, The Chronicle of Philanthropy Turn two has the relationships with these types of media outlets so that when they’re looking for experts on charitable giving, non profit trends or philanthropy they call Turn to turn two calls you because you’re their client. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Now back to the hot sauce principle. I I want to talk about using urgency appropriately to help yourself. So not Thio. Help you manage your own work life, maybe even your career. Certainly. If you’re doing this well, you’ll be promoted into leadership. You know, maybe you’re leading one person or something. But but mawr on the individual basis, you know, so using it and then protecting yourself from hot sauce at work. Also from protecting yourself from too much urgency. So that those sort of direction Then we’ll talk about the family. You have some good stories about your three kids. E hope their good. What? Pardon me, but

[00:12:06.24] spk_1:
I hope their good usually involves the making fun of dad, which is fun.

[00:12:20.64] spk_0:
Exactly. Right? Is there a little private stories? Yes, they’re private laughs. Um, so you talk about eso in with the individual? You talked about having a compelling Why, Yeah, What’s that about?

[00:13:57.04] spk_1:
So I think when we talk about for us one of the ways we can create urgency for ourselves At least in our career is have that compelling line that that sense of purpose. Why do we do what we dio and have that to kind of guide our decisions as we choose career opportunities and choose passed forward when we don’t have that sense of why that sense of purpose as we’re making career decisions we tend to default to shiny, shiny could be a shiny title or shiny brand or shiny paycheck? There’s nothing wrong with shiny, but that’s not what we want. The end all be all to be because, like most things that are shiny, the shine wears off pretty fast, and then we’re looking for a new shiny. So when the more we can use purposes were making career decisions that why the better? So that’s a good long term strategy. Now, going back to your comment around how to be urgency in our professional development and careers, a long term strategy would be a y. A short term strategy is, um, set deadlines and create some kind of accountability system. So I will tell you, tony, I’m really proud of this book that you’ve got a chance to read, and we’re talking about here today It took me about four years to write the darn thing, and the first three years was because I was trying to make it a priority. But there was always something that got pushed up higher. So I finally said to myself One day I said, Look, Brandon, this isn’t gonna happen unless you get some help And I went out and I hired a book coach. Her name’s Cathy Feedback, and Kathy has been wonderful because she created urgency for me. She would say, Brandon, you have two weeks Monday at 9 a.m. In two weeks. You owe me Chapter seven and all of a sudden I had a deadline.

[00:13:58.63] spk_0:
You know, you don’t want to show up empty handed.

[00:14:01.17] spk_1:
Also, it was like it was like I was back in college. I’m sliding the term paper underneath the door at 4 59 right? Um, and so it reminded me of of the of those days, and it gave me deadlines. And you can’t have urgency without deadlines.

[00:14:16.64] spk_0:
You say there were two types of urgency your type one and type two that you can use to your benefit those out

[00:15:02.94] spk_1:
eso these air particularly effective when you’re trying to create urgency with others, but they could be good with you to, um there’s two kinds worst case scenario and opportunity scenario. So worst case scenarios, like, you know, if I don’t change, you know, I’m going to die or something horrible is gonna happen to me. Yeah, on then. In the best case scenario is, I’ve got this great window of opportunity. And if I hurry now, I can make it in the window. But if I don’t hurry, the window is gonna close, and I’ll miss that opportunity. Maybe that’s a promotion or getting yourself up for promotion or some other opportunity like that. Worst case scenario. A good example of that in, um Anyway, uh is every year when I get close to my annual physical, my kids always know and they give me a hard time. Because about six weeks before my annual physical, I start really working out hard. I start really watching my diet because I’m

[00:15:13.40] spk_0:
trying to bring to the doctors. You have to bring down your heart rate, you

[00:15:17.13] spk_1:
know? Yeah, I do. All the

[00:15:18.23] spk_0:
things you started, your iron level is good.

[00:15:21.75] spk_1:
All the things. So then when I get in there? I want the doctor to say, Wow, you look really great. And then I could leave there and immediately go grab, you know, some french fries on the white home. Uh, but that that’s a great example of kind of urgency. That deadline creates urgency for me, right? And then I and then I don’t want to show bad. It’s kind of a little bit of fear factor. So then I I am motivates me. Thio get going.

[00:15:42.10] spk_0:
But the only way to keep yourself healthy throughout the years to have, like, eight doctor, eight physical e carry each one carries you six weeks. That success, you know,

[00:15:52.12] spk_1:
that would be good. I I could do that. Uh, but but that’s why people use things like accountability partners, accountability partners are, you know, essentially a form of kind of urgency. It’s like, Oh, my gosh, I got a call. I got a call with tony today. At one o’clock, I better make sure I’m ready. So it kind of sets me up for that. You know, you, accountability, partner is another great way you can. You could do that And that you can use that with anything you could be

[00:16:17.56] spk_0:
both with. You prepared for this call? Of course I prepared for this, Uh, prepared. I couldn’t tell. I’ve

[00:16:21.59] spk_1:
even got a bottle of hot sauce right here. You can see if I’m holding about a bottle

[00:16:49.74] spk_0:
of Macallan. Ease Tabasco alright? Yeah, of course I know you’re prepared. Yes. Well, this is all you know. You know this stuff? You’ve been working on it for four years. It’s the combination. This is the day Newman, of your four years. Congratulations. I should have said Congratulations on the book. Thank you. Thank you. Now. So you say in the book this book, you gotta get the book. Um, you can. So you can use these two types together. They don’t. They don’t have to be isolation. You can use them in tandem to motivate yourself.

[00:17:42.64] spk_1:
Absolutely. Absolutely. You can. So you know the way that you could do it is you could think about, like, change your disruption is a great way to look at it through both lenses. So, naturally, when change happens, we’re like, Oh, gosh, I hate this. Like, what’s it gonna cost me? You say, Say were part of an organization that’s undergoing a lot of change for lots of reasons. It could be that we’re searching for new funding. Resource is, it could be that we’ve merged with another organization. There could be a lot of reasons why we’re part of change. Well, naturally, the first thing we’re gonna say is Oh, my gosh, I could come out a loser in this. This could be bad for me. So that could be a motivation for me to make sure I’m really working extra hard and positioning myself. But it could also be a kn opportunity. Could be like, Wow. But this is also gonna open up new roles, new opportunities, and And my boss is gonna get promoted. And if I really show, I could do her job, maybe they’ll promote me into that job and then all of a sudden might become a director or whatever the role happens to be. So, you know, change of the great, um, event that occurs to us that we could both look at it from a motivator from you making sure that we’re surviving, but also that we could be thriving and opening up new doors.

[00:18:07.14] spk_0:
So your perspective is important whether you view this fearfully or as a challenge and an opportunity.

[00:18:45.34] spk_1:
Yeah, and I could be even more concrete. So in 2020 that great year that we love so much change that’s all changed. And so much of my work up to that point was in person, like when I would work with non profit teams, they would ask me to come on site or if I would be speaking engagements and asked me to come on site. Well, naturally, all that went away. But then all of a sudden, people begin to get more comfortable and learn how to do things virtually. And then that created new opportunity. Well, how can I serve the audiences? I want to serve in a different way. So it’s every every change brings opportunity. It’s just looking at it through that way and then and then creating some kind of urgency around it to keep us moving.

[00:19:02.94] spk_0:
The one thing I want to quote, I don’t quote often, but just this one little sentence I loved create productive action, not unproductive anxiety, and that that kind of subsumes all the things you’ve been saying in the past several minutes, you know, look at it productively and and opportunistically and I use I don’t use that pejoratively. It all used as as opportunity and not to be unproductive and cause you fear and anxiety.

[00:20:27.74] spk_1:
Right? Right, So So let’s talk a little about about that, too, if it’s OK, because urgency urgency is also anxiety. So what I’m prescribing here today is to intentionally put anxiety into the system. E. I wanna be clear, because that’s super, not what people would be thinking right now. They would be thinking, Well, I don’t like anxiety, Brandon, why are you making me ADM? Or but it’s it’s intentionally using it because anxiety in the right doses urgency in the right doses stimulates action. You’ve ever woken up until the night thinking about work. Well, one of the healthier ways to deal with it is to grab a pad of paper and write down the stuff you’re thinking about. So get out of your head or to just get up and start doing work. It stimulates action, so we want to use it so it stimulates us into moving forward. What we don’t want to do is just sit and let it spin in our head and paralyzes. That’s the unproductive anxiety is when we feel paralyzed. We’re not moving because that energy is not going anywhere. It’s just sitting in our head and and one of the ways the healthy ways we eliminate anxiety is either through activity and action, whether that’s doing work or exercise or those kinds of things. Or it could be through meditation and calming our mind. E I could say I was great at the second one. I’m probably not as good at the second orders. I wish I was a little better the first, um, but those air, that’s how we get anxiety to kind of release is either through meditation and prayer or coming our mind or by actually taken action. So this is a way for us to take action and use it productively.

[00:21:53.44] spk_0:
And if you’re not being productive at it, then Thio deal with you’re not dealing with it productively. Then you’re talking about releasing your releasing cortisol into your bloodstream and cortisol and adrenaline. These things negative, harmful, um, hormones, cortisol. You know it. Tze that that’s that feeling, that of warmth that you warmth and anxiety you get when you’re waking up at three in the morning thinking about work, and all of a sudden, you know, you get like, this hot flash. These hormones are bad for you. So do something productive. Meditation. Get up and work. Just your notes down like you’re saying. You know everything. I’m just I’m just repeating your wisdom. You know, I’m just like a bulletin board here. You post something on my forehead and then you could read it back or hear it back. That’s all. That’s all you’re talking to. A podcasting bulletin board S o U. All right, let’s move to protecting yourself. When folks were pouring too much hot sauce on you at work, there’s too much urgency. And one of the things you mentioned is prioritization. And you’ve got other tips. You got other ideas strategies to. But let’s start with the one you already mentioned prioritization. How does that help protect you?

[00:23:26.74] spk_1:
Yes. So what prioritization allows us to do is eso when we’re talking about prioritization apartment is us prioritizing our own events, our own activities. But more importantly, where this becomes an issue is when our leader or boss shows up and says, Oh, I want you to know no stop doing what you’re doing. I want you to work on this new thing and they keep changing the priorities or they make everything a priority. Then that’s going to create a tremendous amount of anxiety for us. Um, it’s interesting piece of research. About three or four years ago, they asked the question of what’s the worst kind of boss to work for, and I have a clinical therapy background. I thought they were going to come back with the yelling and screaming, angry boss that pounds their fists on the table. That was not number one micromanager. Wasn’t number one ghosting boss wasn’t number one. Number one was the highly unpredictable boss, the one that you never knew what you were going to get on a given day, because that creates a lot of unfocused anxiety. Uh, and so we sometimes get that experience. We have bosses constantly changing priorities or constantly adding a new thing to the plate. So where this is really important is sitting down with your boss and forcing her him to prioritize, basically saying to them, I love all the ideas you’re giving me. What? Or maybe the top three I need to focus on this week and and doing that is proactively and preemptively as you can on then constantly kind of keeping them in the loop on the things you’re working on, um, so that you could be focused so that you could move down a path and you’re not allowing them to add more hot sauce to your plate.

[00:23:54.34] spk_0:
At several spots in the book, you give actual language that you can use in an email or in a conversation, you know, acknowledging that there’s a lot of priority and urgency or there’s a lot of urgency and that that it’s important for our success. But for for me to be successful or for our team to be successful, we need Thio prioritized. But you you’re more eloquent. So that’s why you gotta get the book, you know? Yeah, you want the eloquent version, you gotta get

[00:24:14.17] spk_1:
the book and you have several statements you can actually use. Yeah, it’s all there for in the in the simple way to do The simple reason why we’re doing that is because if everything is a priority or everything is urgent, we’re just gonna be spinning every day whenever actually gonna make any progress on anything really doesn’t want that, and we don’t want that. So you know, if we could help manage her him a little bit and force them to prioritize it, allow everybody to win Well, actually make progress on dhe. That’ll be more fulfilling for all of us.

[00:24:26.94] spk_0:
The ghosting boss. You mentioned that just as an aside, but I don’t know that one. What’s the

[00:24:55.34] spk_1:
ghosting boss? It’s so it’s a It’s a common term. When you can’t find a boss, you can’t find a leader. They ghost you. So you know, you’re you’re like, Where are they? Can’t find him like I need this decision made. Well, I thought they were Well, I don’t know where they are on That’s, That’s, um, It isn’t one of the patterns of of less than healthy bosses that I’ve uncovered in my career. The boss you could never find. We need to make a decision. It’s

[00:26:48.74] spk_0:
time for Tony’s Take two. Our nation is counting on you. You are among the institutions that the country needs toe have hold the folks who are supporting you, who love you. They don’t want to see you probably even hesitate, let alone end. You’re among the institutions. It’s not only law enforcement and the media and the judiciary and the military. You’re an institution of the United States and the folks who know you and love you. They want your work to continue. You need to continue it. Americans are counting on you, so please keep doing your critical work. Keep your head down. It’s I you know, we all know what we’re going through, but there are folks who are counting on you, and I don’t even just mean that’s annoying. Next time I’ll put my phone on airplane mode like I’m supposed to when I’m recording, and I don’t even just mean the people who you’re serving, if that’s your work and if you’re serving people, I mean your communities. Whoever they are, however they’re comprised. They’re counting on you. You are an institution of the United States. We need you to keep up doing your work. Keep standing for your values. We’re counting on you, and non profit radio is behind you. I’m behind you. That is Tony’s. Take two. Let us return to the hot sauce principle with author Brandon Smith. You can lower the heat as a as a way of managing managing hot sauce and urgency at work. What’s there,

[00:27:11.34] spk_1:
Lauren? The heat is another way of saying kind of prioritization. Like what? What is the most urgent here, or when do you need a pie? So you know, if something’s high heat, they’re going to say I need this by tomorrow, or I need this by yesterday. It’s like ghost ghost pepper heat. Okay, if if if you

[00:27:15.59] spk_0:
ghost peppers I gather are very hot peppers. Peppers tell a story about ah, video. You watched about hot pepper eating contest. You mentioned Ghost Peppers last. So they must be the most extreme.

[00:27:27.95] spk_1:
They are one of the most. I I think there’s, like, a grim Reaper Heat one in like a North Carolina Reaper. That’s ah really really, really bad. Yeah. So scale. Yeah. Yeah. How you measure the hotness of those peppers,

[00:27:41.59] spk_0:
e It goes into the tens of thousands. Doesn’t

[00:27:44.48] spk_1:
Oh, yeah goes into Yes. Yeah. It could be further than I can handle, tony. That’s all I can tell you.

[00:27:51.02] spk_0:
Are you hot pepper eater? I

[00:27:52.33] spk_1:
love I love hot sauce And hot.

[00:27:53.55] spk_0:
Not just that hot dog. Do you eat the peppers. Do you use the

[00:27:55.85] spk_1:
radio? But But I will tell you while I love them, I will. Um I just start dripping and sweat almost immediately. Well,

[00:28:02.81] spk_0:
the Grim Reaper scares the hell out of me that I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t even touch anything.

[00:28:07.44] spk_1:
Called. Probably called the thing. I would want to try a

[00:28:09.68] spk_0:
food food called the Grim Reaper.

[00:29:32.44] spk_1:
Yeah, something I want to try. Um, okay, I think I think the idea of eso it was interesting. I was getting ready to do a talk right before Kobe hit. And I was supposed to be doing going to Vegas. And I was talking to all these auto auto shop owners, 15,000 auto shop owners, and I was going to talk on urgency. These are small business owners and they run their run mechanic shops, take your car to get it fixed. And one of them told me the story is I was going to prepare, and I was interviewing some of them. He said, You gotta watch out for the hero trap. He said, you know, when you jump in and you’re rescuing all the time, um, that’s another way that we perpetuate urgency because we’re always rescuing each other. That’s a real common were kind of relational orientation, we sometimes holding the non profit space because we’re such close teams that sometimes we could end up rescuing each other. It can perpetuate a lot of urgency on Then. He also added, He said, You also have to be real careful. You don’t over promise when you don’t need Thio And you gave the example. He said, You know, you might have a customer come in And, uh Mr and Mrs Jones and they come in and they’ve got a problem with the car and you promised to get him to the car by the end of the day. Um, and all of a sudden, by making that promise, you made it urgent. Well, they never said they needed it by the end of the day. Maybe they’re going out of town for the weekend, and they’re not going to need it till next Tuesday. But you didn’t ask him that. You just promised by the end of the day, all of a sudden creating urgency that didn’t need to be there. So hero traps and making promises that we don’t need to make our always that we inadvertently create more urgency in our life that we probably

[00:29:42.34] spk_0:
need to We could just say no.

[00:29:44.14] spk_1:
Oh, yes, you could. Yes, you could. Uh, that’s a really, really hard thing to Dio.

[00:29:50.74] spk_0:
You have it in the book.

[00:30:27.04] spk_1:
I know it’s really, really hard thing to Dio, and I will tell you it’s hard for all of us in general. But you can’t be strategic whether you’re talking about your own career or you’re talking about your organization. If you can’t say no and I and I will say working with in the non profit space, its’s one of the more challenging things because no often means we’re shutting down a program or service or some kind of way. We’re helping others, and that’s really hard. We love to start up a new one, but that often means we got to prove something that it’s so hard because it’s like a baby to us and, you know, and that’s doing something in the world that is meaningful to us. But learning how to say no is really important, a ZX. We try, navigate the urgency and and sending boundaries. So in another way, we could say this is all about setting healthy boundaries in life

[00:30:41.64] spk_0:
boundaries. Yes, let’s talk about boundaries and the importance of enforcing them.

[00:30:48.64] spk_1:
Yeah, so it’s one. So I think you may. You hidden on something really important just by the way you said it. It’s one thing to say what your boundaries are. It’s another thing to actually uphold them.

[00:30:54.74] spk_0:
I got that idea from you.

[00:32:53.14] spk_1:
Tell you, tony, it’s hard for me to I’ll give you Ah, great example. I know for my life. My rhythm that works best is when I do all my work, which is typically a lot of coaching, a lot of like cons, therapy sessions. A lot of that. We’re working with teams intensely doing that between 94 every day because it’s pretty emotionally draining work. And then I used the time before nine to do administrative stuff in the time after four to do administrative stuff. Well, they’re caught a point towards the end of last year where I was having a lot of demands on my calendar, so I told my wonderful assistant Nancy, I said Nancy, let’s go ahead and open up 88 to 9. Let’s open up 4 to 5. So she did. And she did a wonderful job of booking me down to the minute. I mean, I was I was just, like, 30 minute calls back to back to back to back to back, back, No room for lunch. I mean, I was just going all the way through and about two weeks of that, I realized I was burned out. I stretched too far, and it was causing me to have ah, lot of anxiety and just stress in my life. So I went back to Nancy and said, All right, Nancy, we gotta go back to 94 because this is not working for me. Well, the next time she scheduled a meeting at four o’clock, I had a choice. In that moment, I could have just accepted it and said, Well, Nancy is looking out for the best. My interest And there was no other place. I’ll just take it or I could say no, I set the boundary. I gotta I gotta push back on that. Yeah, and there’s a part of me that said, You know, I could just I’ll just do it. It’s not gonna be a big deal. One time just one time. But if I do that one time now, I just told her that’s really not a firm line. So I had I had to send an email and copy Nancy and said, I’m sorry, Nancy. This time is not gonna work. It’s after four o’clock. She was your apologized profusely. But that’s that’s important to us in life. When people, you know get when we send a boundary, we’ve got to make sure we hold it. If we tell our boss we’re not gonna be available after seven o’clock at night because we spend time having dinner and putting our kids to bed. Well, we gotta stick to that way. Whatever boundaries we set, we gotta we gotta hold.

[00:32:59.44] spk_0:
We’re gonna get to the family. But let’s let’s turn it over to Brandon. What? What would you like to talk about? Hot sauce. Principal related. That I haven’t asked you yet. We’ll get to the family. But what would you like to talk about?

[00:33:20.84] spk_1:
You know, I think when we were talking about this show today, part of the angry, willing to take with professional growth and development, how to help people kind of grow in their careers and and really become amazing kind of rock stars in

[00:33:35.58] spk_0:
there and and thank you for reinforcing for listeners that we do talk in advance. This show is prepared. It doesn’t just come together slapdash. That’s prepared because there’s none of the stuff With the lackluster host was a mere bulletin board, you know, they may think that’s just you know, you and I talked like 20 minutes ago, and here you are, but does not like that. It’s not like so thank you for reinforcing, for validating unsolicited. Thank you. Thank you very

[00:34:42.64] spk_1:
much. Of course. So I wanna it ties in what we’ve been talking about a little bit about even managing urgency. One of the best things you can dio that will help not only set boundaries, manage your time, but also, um, please your leader that you’re supporting is to be really, really clear up front on expectations. If you can clarify expectations, not only your expectations, but your bosses expectations you can prevent 50% of all work related people dysfunction. So imagine that 50% of all people related dysfunction at work goes away. Yeah, managing expectations by clarifying expectations on dhe When we don’t do that, we allow people to guess, and inevitably they’ll guess wrong and someone gets upset. So if you’ve ever had a family member get upset Thanksgiving, it was probably because somebody didn’t clarify expectations with her

[00:34:46.17] spk_0:
him. Guess, Guess to your disadvantage.

[00:35:25.24] spk_1:
Yeah, they came in thinking one thing. It didn’t meet their expectations. They threw a big temper tantrum, and all of sudden, Thanksgiving wasn’t quite so happy. Well, the same thing is true work. So one of the simplest, um, activities. But the most important is make sure you’re regularly clarifying expectations with your leader. And when you do that, you also are forcing them to manage their urgency because you’re not allowing them to just operate like they’re suffering from a d. D. Every day because you’re forcing them to set priorities. You’re forcing them to tell you what matters. Um, and then you allows you a way to kind of follow up with them s Oh, that’s so I would say that’s a really important thing we haven’t talked about yet. That is a great career strategy.

[00:35:49.74] spk_0:
Okay, cool. Cool. Um, so how about we talk a little about family and home okay. Using this, uh, sprinkling some hot sauce. Appropriately. You like thio prayer? You get sort of a 90 10 rule. Talk about prioritizing the 90% of the 10% at home.

[00:38:00.72] spk_1:
Yeah. So for lots of reasons that we probably don’t have time to go into today, Um, what has happened in, particularly if we’ve got kiddos growing up right now is that everything seems to be urgent all the time. They’re travel sports team makes acts as if that’s the most highest priority. Their teachers act like everything that they’re doing in that class is their highest priority. There’s a lot of pressure on kids demands and our demands. His parents, um and and then, of course, there’s all those volunteer activities that are coming our way. And as everyone on this call knows also well, Andi, all too well that it’s the people who are the volunteers that got asked. The Vulcan volunteered the most, right. The person who’s volunteering three or four places is being asked to volunteer for five places, get things done, tap on the people that get things done, and we keep tapping on them, right? And so all those were demands So I want you to imagine, like, a hub and spoke. You’re in the middle, and all these things are spokes coming into you. Okay? And if we don’t prioritize, they’re all gonna feel equal. Travel Baseball is gonna feel just as equal as replacing the air conditioner. Our house, it’s broken. It’s all gonna feel equal. And so we need to create that rather than have been spoke. Um, circles we need, like, a bull’s eye. We need the circle of the stuff. That’s 10% attend the focus of our time, that is our family is that stuff that we don’t ever want to compromise. And and that’s however you define it. That might be time having dinner every night with your family, Or might be time on on Sundays where you connect with relatives or whatever happens to be or or time where you exercise. It’s time you never want to compromise on using that old analogy. If you put the big rocks in first pit those big rocks in first there are smaller rocks and then our sand last. So putting those in first and then you allow the other things toe other things to come in when we when we’re not intentional, we we become reactive and we allow other people’s urgency to become our problem. And so then we re re we react just because we’re essentially playing tennis with things that come our way. You know, we want out of our court. So we hit back in the other court. But we’ve got to make sure we’re attention about putting the important stuff in. First.

[00:38:05.62] spk_0:
The family health. Your partner? Exactly. Exactly. So.

[00:38:37.12] spk_1:
I mean, there’s no there’s no right or wrong answer to that. But those are the categories you already listed. Some really important categories are our relationship with our significant other our family, our health, Um, rest rest is really important. Making sure you’re getting enough sleep. Doctors used to say seven hours was the target. Now they’ve moved it up to eight. They want all of us having at least eight hours of sleep that’s going to be protected, Um, a time down time for us to wind down just those things that are important to our rhythm and pace of life. So we always show up at our best.

[00:38:55.72] spk_0:
You got some other ideas, like delegating in the family or delegating in the home? Um, outsourcing. Yeah, you got some other ideas, you say No, you could say no at home, too.

[00:39:25.22] spk_1:
You could say no at home. Out. So you mentioned outsourcing for folks that don’t know what that means. Outsourcing is a fancy way of saying, What’s the stuff that happened? I do during the week or on the weekends that I’d really rather use that time doing something else. And I can pay someone to do that for me. So maybe that’s mowing your lawn. Or maybe that’s your dry cleaning. Or maybe once a month, you have somebody come in and do a good once over into your apartment or your house. Um, it’s just finding those activities that you would rather not spend your free time on. Andi. There’s more higher and best use of your time until you find folks that could maybe support you in that so you could be using your time the way you really want.

[00:40:40.41] spk_0:
Thio Time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals. That drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level. End quote. That’s Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is prospect to donor. Simplified. Get their free demo For listeners, there’s also a free month. It’s all on the listener landing page at tony dot Emma slash dot We’ve got but loads more time for the hot sauce principle. Now I’m the guy who does not have Children, but you could, UH, it seems, if you did have those those child units you could delegate absolutely could absolutely could. That’s the reason for raising them. Thio. Manual labor age you have. If you are smart, you’re doing that. You can see why I don’t have Children because e economic units,

[00:41:57.61] spk_1:
I I will tell you, and it’s just like with delegating at work, right, because what happens is we delegated work. We see ourselves, you know, it’s so much easier if I just do it myself because the first couple times this person does it, it’s gonna be slow. It’s not gonna be good. But if you go and invest that time, then pretty soon they’re doing it without you in my house. What that has taken the form of tony is laundry. So I’ve got my oldest. She’s now Ah, freshman in college and I’ve got two boys and teenagers. They all do their own laundry. Okay, there were many, many, many a casualty in the process. Tony the girls Lulu lemon workout pants got shrunk down to doll size on more than one occasion. Lots of lots of casualties. But now everybody knows everybody knows how to do laundry. They know how to do their own laundry and they even know how to do other people’s laundry. So my boys know if it’s girls workout pants, we’re not gonna dry those. We’re gonna hang them and they hang them and they’re doing all the laundry. Well, I’m not and and so absolutely. But there is. I want to acknowledge the fact that there’s, Ah, there’s there’s just like anything delegation. There’s a learning curve that

[00:42:07.10] spk_0:
happens, right? You sounded make it sound pretty good. Maybe I should have had Children after all. E, think of the time I

[00:42:11.22] spk_1:
started about. It’s not a banking, although they end up with once they get to become teenagers, they end up with very creative nicknames for you.

[00:42:24.40] spk_0:
Oh, nice. Yeah. You see, that’s the But I wouldn’t be able to handle the, uh, mom and dad are stupid stage after everything I’ve done for you for the past 15. 16 years. Now, you could You think I’m ignorant and embarrassing? I wouldn’t be able to. My ego couldn’t handle it.

[00:42:33.38] spk_1:
It gets more creative than that. So you’re you’re seeing me. Your listeners aren’t seeing me. But what my kids like to call me now is they said one of my many nicknames is off brand Obi Wan Kenobi.

[00:42:43.70] spk_0:
All right. You’re all white. Your beard in your hair. Always

[00:42:46.10] spk_1:
all white looking. So I kind of look like Alec Guinness from the original New Hope Star Wars A little bit. Yeah, they say, but I’m off brand like I’m like the cheapo versions. I’m like the dollar general version of Obi Wan Kenobi. OK, Cie creative created insults,

[00:43:10.90] spk_0:
creative, insulting. Yeah, Yeah, I don’t think I’d be able to handle it. Um and so All right, you can Let’s let’s just round up this family. This home family discussion with how you could turn up the hot sauce. Turn up the urgency a little bit to your to your benefit at home.

[00:44:02.99] spk_1:
Yeah, so turning up the urgency is necessary as your raising any kind of fully formed adult is trying to get them to realize, Um, sometimes they’re too comfortable. And most parents probably had the experience where you you walk into your kid’s room and you told them two or three times that they need to clean their room and you go in and they’re laying on the bed and the room is filthy and they’re watching some show on their phone. They’re too comfortable. So we use urgency to create a healthy state of discomfort. So you say I want your room clean. You have two hours to get a clean. If you don’t have a clean, that phone is mine for a week. That’s a form of urgency. Yeah, we’re setting a deadline. We’re ramping up the hot sauce, and we’re giving kind of a worst case scenario. If they don’t do it,

[00:44:16.49] spk_0:
what about with spouse or partner? Can we can we go there is that you don’t mention you. Don’t mention that the book. But you got me thinking about it now because well, you

[00:44:22.61] spk_1:
can. You can You can. You wanna be real careful on that.

[00:44:25.50] spk_0:
Yeah, let’s talk about it. Sounds like fun.

[00:45:35.79] spk_1:
Sounds like Fine. Uh, this is playing with fire. So the easier one with the spouse and partner is opportunity scenario Thio. You create some kind of reward system like, Hey, honey, let’s do like, a workout challenge and let’s see what if we could hit this goal in six months? And if we do, let’s reward ourselves with a trip to Hawaii. So that’s a form of opportunity scenario. Like, can we work out together, support each other, create pressure with some measurable goals with a reward at the end? Yeah, Zed, that’s happy stuff Now, when you might want to use hot sauce on. The worst case scenario is when you’ve been asking your significant other to do certain things, um, that you feel like are reasonable. And then, uh, this is now the fifth or six or seven times, and then you create some kind of a deadline with a punishment system like you know if if you don’t make this change, you know, then I’m not going to do these things for you anymore on this side. Yeah. So, um and then you have to stick to it to show them that you’re serious. So this is this is one where so when we do worst case scenario urgency with a spouse, we’ve got to be ready to really, really play some, uh, some some tough hot sauce games.

[00:45:51.29] spk_0:
So hardball and then stick to it, as you say. All right. All right. Um, something you alluded to. And you said, Well, you’re not sure we’ll have time for it. But this is non profit radio. We don’t We don’t skimp on our listeners. Um, you spent a good amount of time, Uh, took off a few things that that got us here. How did how did we end up with this master of this uncontrolled urgency? How do we all get here?

[00:46:12.98] spk_1:
There’s a lot of reasons for it. Probably the the number one reason to just start with the first one on the obvious one. And I’m holding up for you to see it. But our phones thing

[00:46:23.79] spk_0:
that you threatened to take away from your child for you

[00:48:24.37] spk_1:
threaten to take away from your child what this did. While we love the fact that we can communicate with anybody at any time, anyone else can communicate with us anywhere at any time. So all our natural boundaries of work disappeared as soon as this became part of our life, cause it used to be one day, not too long ago that when you left work, you left work. All the things you did at work were at work. All the filing cabinets, the computers, all the resource is were there. When you went home, you couldn’t work. Now we can work anywhere, anytime. And in many ways Kobe is kind of reinforce that even more so because we’ve had to learn how to do that. So now we go back. Employers know God’s tony can work anywhere, anytime. So therefore, I can call him anytime, anywhere. So our phones broke down natural boundaries. So what’s that? What’s happened is now we all have to set our own boundaries. We have to do that as employers and leaders. We also have to do that with our own leaders on dhe Co workers, um, creating kind of the rules of the game that we’re gonna work for us. So that’s probably the most important. The number one reason, um, the other. There’s many others, but I would say if we even go back to 2000 and 8, 2009, when we had that kind of economic recession, Um, it created a lot of force, a lot of organizations to go very lean, and so they operated with a lot less headcount. It was almost like a fear of adding on too much headcount, cause I don’t wanna have to go through the process of letting people go again. And so it created more work than than a normal full time employees can dio on dhe. That’s I don’t think there’s been one non profit that I’ve worked with. It hasn’t had that as an issue where they said, you know, there’s there’s I’m not working 30 hour weeks or 40 hour weeks and working 60 hour weeks working long hours. There’s more work than anyone of us can do. We don’t have enough people. And so that’s another factor that just created Mawr urgency, because you could never feel like you’re getting ahead like going using an old Seinfeld reference. At one point there was Newman, who was the postal worker, and he said, He said, The mail, it just keeps coming and coming and coming and and and that’s kind of what it’s like a work. It’s like we could never quite get ahead. So, on top of never being able to get ahead and not have enough resource is, you know, there’s no natural boundaries. We could work anywhere, anytime. That’s just that’s created an environment of hot sauce being put on us every day.

[00:48:56.57] spk_0:
Hello, Newman. There used to say, Um, cool, you’re in. You’re in Atlanta, right? I am. I’m in Atlanta at Emory University. Uh, is that where you teach? Also, Yeah,

[00:49:03.59] spk_1:
I I still teach their adjunct when I’m not out and about in the world working with other folks. I’m still I still there with the business school there in both their executive MBA and their executive education arms. So, yeah,

[00:49:32.07] spk_0:
what’s it like to be in in Atlanta? What’s it been like the past month leading up to the January What? What was the January 3rd, 4th, 5th? Something like that election highly unpleasant. What was it like? Yeah, share. Well, why was it unpleasant?

[00:50:02.30] spk_1:
Imagine every other commercial being the worst political ad you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Um, that was what was happening on every radio station in every TV station. And the extremism on both sides for for the candidates was just ridiculous. I mean, after watching these commercials, you would say, Well, why are even these people not in jail? It was just just the worst kind of dragging a made up

[00:50:03.41] spk_0:
stuff for them are so bad, they

[00:50:30.46] spk_1:
and all extreme statements and all my doctor kind of videos and and and none of it, you know, you almost not not only want to throw the candidates in jail if you believe that stuff, but you definitely wanna throw the producers of the commercials in jail because of the way they just butcher any real information. So it was just a lot of really unpleasant angry noise, hard to just keep a positive attitude when there was that much negativity. So that was definitely not a talking about emotion and energy. Um, not a pleasant time. Thio kind of be consuming any kind of media that had any access to political campaigns, which is pretty much all of it

[00:50:44.04] spk_0:
amping people up, you know, the, you know, getting to talk about urgency. You know, getting people whipped up into a frenzy over how bad all the other the other candidates are. The other candidate is, I guess, in

[00:51:07.16] spk_1:
the Yeah and extreme polarization Extreme polarization s. So then? So then people scratch their heads and wonder why It seems like everybody is so polarized. G How did that happen? Yeah, right. Eso eso I’m glad it’s over. It’s finally quiet.

[00:51:18.16] spk_0:
Yeah, Should quiet that right. Alright, Brandon Smith, you’re terrific. Thank you,

[00:51:21.37] spk_1:
tony. Thanks for having me on. I really

[00:51:56.06] spk_0:
need another conversation today. Genuine pleasure. I did too. Thank you. Thank you very much. The book is the hot sauce principle. How to live and lead in a world where everything is urgent all of the time I got my copy. My, uh, decimated Copy I when I when I get a copy of a book, I the first thing I do is break the spine so that I can open it up and it won’t close on me as I’m reading. I just I like that. And then I could make my notes on the page with out on the right hand page without the left side collapsing on it. So I So I’ve beat up your book. But that’s because I was reading it. It’s

[00:51:56.62] spk_1:
to be beat up. I’m glad you did

[00:51:58.04] spk_0:
it. I did. All right, Brandon, Thank you again. The folks just just get the book. And, Brandon, thank you so much for sharing,

[00:52:06.05] spk_1:
tony. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show. Keep up all the great work.

[00:52:55.95] spk_0:
Oh, thank you very much. And you, you as well. Next week, peer to peer fundraising in 2021 with David Hezekiel. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives Prospect to donor. Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant a free month. 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 information. 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 January 11, 2021: PPP 2.0

My Guest:

Gene Takagi: PPP 2.0

Gene Takagi

Gene Takagi returns with the ins-and-outs of the second round of Paycheck Protection Program help for your nonprofit. He’s our legal contributor and managing attorney at NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group.

 

 

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[00:01:50.04] spk_1:
non 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 heh abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of Vibe bro Sis, if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show P P P to zero Jean Takagi returns with the ins and outs of the second round of paycheck protection program. Help for your non profit. He’s our legal contributor and managing attorney at Neo. The non profit and exempt organizations law firm Antonis Take two. I’m still optimistic, were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives. Prospect to donor, Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant demo and a free month. What a pleasure! Genuine pleasure to welcome back Jean Takagi. You know him, for God’s sake, but let’s do the formalities he deserves. Gina is our legal contributor and managing attorney of Neo, the non profit and Exempt Organizations Law group in San Francisco. He edits the wildly popular non profit law blogged dot com, and there’s the American Bar Association’s 2016 outstanding non profit lawyer. He’s a part time lecturer at Columbia University. The firm is that neo law group dot com, and he’s at G Tack g T a k. Welcome back, Jean. Happy New Year.

[00:01:52.04] spk_0:
Happy New Year, tony. Great to be back with you. It’s

[00:01:54.34] spk_1:
good to have you. Thank you. It’s outstanding, lawyer. Now, that’s five years old now.

[00:01:59.14] spk_0:
Yeah, I think that that probably has to go down the wayside.

[00:02:25.54] spk_1:
Take that. Actually, Is it more embarrassing now then? It always has done What? What’s he done in the past five years? Exactly. I’ll take that. Alright, we’ll take that out from starting next time. All right, Um, so the paycheck protection program is is back version 2.0. Um, what what’s your what’s your overview of it? The p p p re ducks.

[00:04:28.64] spk_0:
So it’s a good thing, of course, and it comes in sort of within the broader context of a kn appropriations act that’s to help stimulate the economy. And we know how hard co vid and, um, all of the shutdowns that have been caused by the coronavirus, all of the health care issues we have presented a huge challenge for our economy and for the nonprofit sector as a whole. I think back in August, The Washington Post had written some article that suggested one third of nonprofits could ultimately shut down at the end of this crisis. I think that might have been a little overblown. Hopefully, the vaccine is going to contribute. Thio Um, the development of several vaccines contributes to a little bit more of a recovery, but we still seem to have a long slog through this. And that’s why more money needed to get out to stimulate the economy and particularly nonprofits who are impacted two ways. One by just less money coming in. Less revenues, less donations. Andi the greater need for so many people who need the service’s of non profit. So the good part of the second kind of draw of the P P P loans is that there’s more money been made available. Um, it’s still not enough in my personal opinion, and hopefully we’ll see more, but 11 of the really good things about this second draw, the P P P loans is that you can go in for a double dip now, So if you are a kn organization. One of the I believe it’s 180,000 non profits that applied and received the first round of loans. Who came, actually, which came into parts? Um,

[00:04:29.30] spk_1:
180,000. Sounds low to me. I’m not I’m saying that I heard it was more. But of the 1.51 point six million or so only 180,000.

[00:04:40.14] spk_0:
Yeah, I believe that’s the number that that I I have that that actually received loans

[00:04:45.13] spk_1:
12% or something like that.

[00:04:47.94] spk_0:
Yeah, on dhe. You know, so out of those, the original set of loans under the Cares Act on day one of the amendments to that so you could only come in once, so you get one loan out of them. You can’t go back in for another loan. Um, so this second draw actually allows a nonprofit that took out a loan, used it up, or is going to use it up to come back in for a second loan. And that’s really important with the covert crisis dragging out.

[00:05:47.84] spk_1:
So, um, let’s see, just I know you You introduced a second raw, but let’s let’s talk about the folks who maybe did not get a p p p low in the first time. So that so for nonprofits, That s so they they certainly are eligible this time to, um, let’s talk about like, you have to have fewer than 500 employees, which I’m sure all our listeners do. Um What who else is what? Like what else you have to do to be eligible for for a loan first time through.

[00:05:50.64] spk_0:
So I think that the numbers actually 300 or fewer on that

[00:05:54.93] spk_1:
isn’t that for the, isn’t it? For the second draw?

[00:06:59.74] spk_0:
Yeah, I think this whole thing is sort of called. I’m sorry. You’re right, tony. So that that refers to the second draw for for, um, organizations that have received a P P P loan. So it’s 300 or fewer. The original draw was 500 or fewer. Um, and demonstrating at least a 25% reduction in gross revenues between the same quarters in 2020 and 2021. So you took a look at the first quarter. You measure first quarter versus first quarter, second quarter versus second quarter. You can’t mix and match. So the same quarter in two years if you experienced at least 25% reduction in gross revenues. And that’s how you had reported in the 1990 year gross revenues figure, then you would be eligible for for that, that second draw. And I believe that’s the standard for the first draws. Well, um, and it’s subject to a maximum of 2.5 times. The average monthly payroll costs up to $2 million in this round.

[00:07:10.94] spk_1:
Okay, Okay. And those payroll costs, you can choose, right? A period between eight weeks and 24 weeks. Correct that. You want that you want to be compensated for And that and, uh okay, that you wanna be compensated for, right? So, between to two months and and six months,

[00:07:26.84] spk_0:
right, starting on the origination of the loan. Okay. Yeah.

[00:07:37.44] spk_1:
Okay. But but to be eligible, you have to demonstrate a decrease in gross revenue of 25% or more. Correct. Incomparable quarters. Okay. Okay. Now for folks who again, this first draw the first time through it at this point so far, um, they should be going to their bank. Right? You need a bank. That’s that’s s B A Small Business association approved, but it seems like your bank will be the place to start at least looking for where you can find a lender.

[00:07:59.74] spk_0:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s that’s the place to go to get the application forms. And yes, the S B A operates the loan through the sort of approved banks that

[00:08:09.88] spk_1:
the bank. Yeah, And in my experience, if your bank isn’t an S b a approved lender, I had heard that your your bank can help you find one. You can also just search for them in your area. But you might be able to get a referral from your own bank if they’re not a S B A lender.

[00:08:28.06] spk_0:
Yeah, and you can, I think, find that out on the Web as well. If

[00:09:18.64] spk_1:
it’s time for a break, turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times You wanna be in papers like that? What about CBS Market Watch? The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Turn two has the relationships with outlets like these. So when they’re looking for experts on charitable giving non profit trends for philanthropy, they call turn to turn two calls, you turn hyphen two dot CEO now back to P P p. To point out now all the all the money you get, even though it’s called paycheck Protection Program does not have to go to a paycheck. There’s other things that you can spend what up to 40% on

[00:10:53.34] spk_0:
that’s That’s exactly the number tony. So 60% has to be payroll related expenses that that you are using the funds for but up to 40% could be used for other things. And in the first round of the Cares Act sort of payroll protection plan, program loans or forgivable loans, they had things like mortgage, certain qualified mortgage payments and rent and utility expenses. They didn’t offer a lot more. So this round, this second draw, whether you’re taking it for the first time or not, I’m just going to refer to it is the second draw. Okay, he BP loans. You can use it for four other covered expense areas, and they include operations expenditures, which sort of refer to software and cloud computing service’s for businesses and have to do with payroll H R. Accounting all of those things. So if you need that, you can use it for those things property damage costs if they happened in 2020 and they were not covered by insurance and that might be related to looting or other public disturbances. UM, covered supplier costs which are for purchase of goods that are essential to the operations of the business, generally made pursuant to a contract that was in effect prior to the covered period of the eight or 24 weeks. Ah, nde covered worker protection expenditures, so that’s really important. So that includes the PP, eat of personal protective equipment, face masks and everything else, and also operating and capital expenditures that air related to meeting worker or customer safety requirements. So if you need to put barriers up, you know those plexi barriers between things like that,

[00:11:22.27] spk_1:
maybe upgrade your h v a c so that Z Okay,

[00:11:23.04] spk_0:
okay, so you want to take a look at what the requirements are in your area. If you need to spend on that, um, this is also going to be available for those type of expenses up to 40% so again, 60%. This is mostly focused on payroll in keeping people in jobs. Andi organizations operational, but 40% realizing that you do have some other costs that you need to have to be able to run the business. It’s not just employees, so this was a little bit more thoughtful in sort of creating that that those uses for P p p loan funds.

[00:12:39.04] spk_1:
Let’s talk about forgiveness because that’s a big advantage to these p p p loans that if you do it right, your loan could be 100% forgiven if you do it right. So what do you have to do right now? I know we don’t know about, like, forgiveness forms that even for the first round. I mean, I in my business got a P p p low in the first round, and I’m still waiting for guidance on forgiveness. It Z S B A has gone back and forth many times, and so my bank doesn’t even have the forms ready yet for forgiveness from the first loans, which I got like in March or April or something. So but there are guidelines about what you’re supposed, how you’re supposed to spend to be eligible for the give nous for the forgiveness when the forms and the process do ultimately come out. So what’s What’s what is s b a saying there,

[00:12:56.34] spk_0:
So yeah, first, just a comment on whether we’re going to see those forms out soon

[00:13:04.68] spk_1:
so we could get the loan forgiveness from from March or April. Yeah,

[00:13:09.24] spk_0:
yeah, eso It’s been a long time. The S b A actually has some forms out, and they did come up with a little bit of guidance in December. But the individual financial institutions, the banks haven’t yet developed all of their own forms on DSO. Yes, it’s a combination of looking at both of those forms, and we haven’t seen much happening there across all banks. Yeah, so that I think will be coming pretty soon, but we haven’t seen it just yet.

[00:14:03.94] spk_1:
I guess I should be kinder to the S B A to I think overall, they managed a new emergency program pretty well. Eso you know, clearly their priority was getting the money out, not worrying about the forgiveness at the back end. So, uh, not trying to be harsh against SB A. They’re working under short deadlines and people in great need, So they focused on what’s more important getting money out. All right, so what do they say about how you should spend if you wanna have your loan forgiven.

[00:14:08.44] spk_0:
So one of the things is what we talked about earlier. About that 60 40 split. Well, that is the requirement for loan forgiveness. So if you don’t want the loan to be forgiven, you don’t actually have to look at that 60 40 split, right? You could just pay back the loan at the interest rate, which I believe is 1%. Um, but I think nonprofits have taken out this loan, have taken it out with the very intent that it be forgivable loan and to use it for those purposes. So in order for it to be forgivable against, 60% must be used for payroll related expenses and 40% for those other covered categories that I mentioned. So, you know, the mortgage, the rent utilities and those four new categories that came out with this second draw that would apply only to the second draw amount. So amounts coming out of this 900 billion that that was part of this new act that came off this new relief act. Um,

[00:15:25.04] spk_1:
you wanna make sure you keep your documentation so you can prove when it does come time for the forgiveness application, because you have to apply that you can prove that you spent the money on the bona fide expenses that are allowed. And you didn’t spend more than six more than 40% on the on the non payroll. Correct? Yeah, to be documentation.

[00:16:20.94] spk_0:
And what I’m hearing back is from the first application, which you’ll soon see tony. The reports that they asked for are pretty complicated on dhe tough, and they’ve gone back and forth on like what to include and what not to include. But it can be pretty tough. The good thing is about this second draw. This new act that that was signed into law the just a few weeks ago at the end of the year is that if the loan was for 150,000 up to $300,000 or less, it’s going to be a one page one. So they’re going to make it super easy, and it’s really gonna you know, they haven’t released what that form exactly looks like. But they said what they’re going to ask for is the number of employees that you were able to retain the estimated amount spent on payroll costs. So did you meet that 60% basically, the total loan value and an attestation? So you basically you’re signing saying, I attest that I complied with all the requirements of the P P P loan program. So rather than documenting every single thing out, if it’s $150,000 or less, get most of the listeners. They’re probably going to fall into that category. Um, they’re going to be able to do with the one page form. But there are several larger nonprofits that they’re gonna have to file the more complicated forms. And to get you know, to your point, really good records really critically important for this because you do want to get this loan. Forget

[00:19:54.44] spk_1:
it’s time for Tony’s Take two. Yes, I’m still optimistic. Even after what happened last Wednesday at our nation’s capital and the Capital building I still am. The optimism is for the whole year. It’s not just for the first 10 days, so I still feel good. Look, they’re already started arresting people for the trespassing and the unlawful entry into the Capitol. They’ve already arrested folks. So and there’s gonna be many more coming, so that gives a little bit of short term, uh, solace. I think that people face justice for their transgressions against our capital. But beyond that, beyond that, I just look forward to new years and I am feeling good that the country will be in a better place. The world will be in a better place this year. Then it was last year 2020. I mean, think about the pandemic to look how much further we’ve come in. Just what? The past 4 to 6 weeks with vaccines rolling out. Okay, Not as fast as they were supposed to have, but vaccines air rolling out. I think it’s gonna be a good year. 2021. I say. It’s gonna be a good year. That is tony Steak, too. Let us return to P P. P to zero with Jean Takagi. There’s something that you and I talked about, um, earlier in 2020 when the first paycheck protection program loans were offered was it was a little complicated Then if you had gotten another kind of loan, the e ideal economic injury disaster loan and you if you gotta an advance on that, which I’m not sure those advances really went out the way they were supposed to, but they were supposed to be, like, up to $10,000. You get in, like, within three days for the e i d l. But I know in my own case, I applied for that. But, um, didn’t didn’t it didn’t end up really being needed. And it was nowhere near the three days. Um, it was more like three months, and it all just came at 11 time. That’s a separate. But so that was related to you know that advance if you if you got it was related to paycheck protection program forgiveness, the S B A. Wasn’t gonna allow you toe be forgiven on ah e ideal loan advance. Now, you don’t have to worry about that anymore, right?

[00:19:57.31] spk_0:
Yeah, that’s I mean, that’s one really good thing about this

[00:20:01.09] spk_1:
two minutes set up for something that doesn’t matter anymore.

[00:21:00.74] spk_0:
But it is important because some some of your listeners may be out there thinking, Oh, I can’t You know I can’t get this. Um uh, advance if I want loan forgiveness on Now it’s like, No, you can you can get both. So that’s really important that they repeal that former restriction on DSO. Now you can get both. Just a reminder for that the ideal stands for economic injury disaster loan on dhe It is alone, except when it’s called an ideal grant, Um, or advance. In which case, the idea is is that you’re going toe Qualify for it If you’re located in a low income community, you suffered an economic loss greater than 30%. So this is a little bit more stringent. And the second drop TPP loans

[00:21:04.31] spk_1:
25%.

[00:21:05.09] spk_0:
Yeah, and the same requirement that you employ not more than 300 employees. So it’s it’s a different program. I misspoke earlier and talked about $900 billion being the P P. P program, but that 900 billion was actually the total

[00:21:19.48] spk_1:
that was the fullest

[00:21:47.34] spk_0:
package. Yeah, eso of that 284 billion roughly was for the P P P program. Second draw loans that were coming out again, Whether you’re taking it for the first time or second time again on 20 billion for the e I. D. L grants those ran out very quickly on DSP. A page has still not been updated. Web page has still not been updated. So it will currently say we’ve run out. We don’t have these available, but we’re waiting for the update as a result of this new act, so you have to just keep looking for it.

[00:21:56.04] spk_1:
Okay? Okay. The money is there for the the ideal grants,

[00:22:10.54] spk_0:
but it’s 20 billion versus 284 billion for the P P P second draw loan. So it is a smaller pool of money. So just toe, be aware that that yeah, you’ll have to go in pretty quick if you’re going to qualify

[00:22:21.04] spk_1:
in the second drawer. Loans got, um, expanded with 501 C six is now now eligible. Which they weren’t before.

[00:22:31.34] spk_0:
Yeah, you know, I think non profit that’s really wanted, like a za sector. They said, why is it restricted? Just to 501 c three. There’s lots of other types of nonprofits that air doing important work here that are going to get tremendously impacted and small businesses are allowed toe sort of get the benefits of these loans. What about like chambers of commerce, especially for, like small regional areas that could really impact multiple businesses, and not just one or organizations that are focused on the travel business industry. So if you’ve got a trade association of related to travel, they can impact a broader industry and to lose them, um, could be really detrimental thio an entire industry and not just to a single business. So the idea was, let’s get other nonprofits involved or eligible as well. So 501 c six. That was kind of the lobbying for the 501 c six is specifically on. Yes, they become eligible for this P p p round A ZX well, but they have some of the same requirements, so they can’t employ more than 300 persons. But they also have some lobbying limitations. Um, that air there, so s

[00:23:42.90] spk_1:
so if you’re a C six, you gotta look closely.

[00:24:08.64] spk_0:
Yeah, and one other thing just about this and I won’t go into the details of C six. But generally speaking, um, the government said, if you are a lobbying or political like organization, that was principally into lobbying and political activities. A lot of five but one C four organization social welfare organizations would fall into that category. Um, then you are not eligible for the PP, and that remains still a restriction on participating in this. So the 51 C six is that that participate? They really they’re all sorts of lobbying number restrictions that are involved. But generally speaking, if you’re principally a lobbying organization or political action organization, you will not qualify for these

[00:24:31.91] spk_1:
and see fours are not eligible.

[00:24:34.24] spk_0:
Yeah, so by and large, yeah.

[00:24:54.84] spk_1:
Okay. There was a lot in the press about the deductibility of the expenses that you use the money for. I’m talking now about the the 40% That’s non payroll. Um, initially, you weren’t allowed to deduct what used to be deductible if you spent P p p money on it, which was kind of, Ah, a clawback. You lost the deduction. They have the money was forgiven if you did it right, but you had a but you couldn’t deduct the expenses that you spent it on. So it was like it was like giving and then taking that’s that’s been changed. Those expenses, air now deductible.

[00:26:23.41] spk_0:
Yeah. Although let’s sort of frame it to tony that most nonprofits, that we’re talking about our tax exempt in the first place so they don’t have to worry about deductions except with respect to their unrelated businesses. And so, for taxable and for taxable entities. Yeah, Or if, if a non profit does have unrelated business income resulting coming from a specific business and that gets a little bit more complicated, it is really important to know that if you receive the P P p loan and you spent money on some of those expenditures that you can actually deduct from it. So the rationale before is that the government is giving you money so you shouldn’t be able to spend it and then get another tax benefit of a deduction with it, because the government just granted that money to you. But overall, in terms of stimulating the economy, it was just too popular. And just to important to the overall goal, Thio restrict that from happening. So yes, now you can get a P P p loan and you can spend it on legitimate business expenses within that sort of that that range of qualified expenditures that we talked about and you could get a deduction for those things as well. So yeah, good point.

[00:27:39.34] spk_1:
Thank you. Thanks for clarifying to time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals. Sounds exciting. That drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level. End quote. That’s Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is prospect to donor Simplified. Get the free demo from DOT. For listeners, there’s also a free month. Go to the listener landing page at tony dot Emma slash dot We’ve got but loads more time for P P p two. What else? What do you wanna talk about? Tpp Wise way didn’t cover.

[00:28:11.94] spk_0:
Well, I thought I’d talk about something a little bit fun just to start off with E. Sure. So there’s the three martini lunch deduction, Um, which is a kn interesting deduction. Um, but basically, you know, I think it’s been since the eighties, where that if you had a business expense and this is again mostly for for profits. But it’s one that puts a little bit of a smile on my face, although there’s some serious consequences that can flow from it. But

[00:28:14.03] spk_1:
we’ll go ahead and smile. Gene, allow yourself to smile. Yeah, you have to qualify your given unqualified smile.

[00:28:31.04] spk_0:
So since the mid eighties, I think if you are I in our separate businesses tony took somebody out, took each other out for lunch, You know, 50% would be deductible if it was a legitimate business lunch. Um Well, um, President Trump and the outgoing administration really felt important to give back um, Thio 100% deductibility. Eso business lunch is going to be deductible up to 100% for two years s. So this is sort of received the nickname the three martini lunch deduction. Um and yeah, I mean, there implications to this because obviously this will have a tax impact. And I believe the final document that put into the PDP loan in the whole stimulus package in late December with somewhere around 15,000 pages, So I can’t imagine that somebody has read all of this yet. Um, but the impact the economic impact of this will eventually be sort of a judge. But this could cost, you know, the government a billion or $2 billion in lost revenues. So it does have implications there.

[00:30:00.14] spk_1:
Can this also have impact for, um, employee of a non profit? Who lets, say, does a ah business lunch and their employer does not reimburse that expense. So then when they’re deducting, they can then deduct that expense if they itemize, and it would now be fully deductible instead of only 50% deductible. Is that is that true for non profit employees?

[00:30:32.64] spk_0:
I don’t believe tony. So generally I think, you know, the best interest would would be for the non profit to reimburse, employ. Um, but if the employee is going thio state that it was, ah necessary business expense, it’s going to be a little bit more difficult. Thio do so for them. And I don’t think that they would get um

[00:30:33.23] spk_1:
Yeah, like if they took a donor, Suppose they took a donor to a lunch?

[00:31:18.14] spk_0:
Yeah, for that again, I would think it would be the nonprofits responsibility. Thio to to reimburse them if they individually took them out. I’m just wondering how that business expense would work out where they don’t have a sole proprietorship. You know, as I think about it a little bit more, tony, I guess the rules would still apply. So it is just a question about whether they could get the deduction in the first place. They can get the deduction in the first place, and it’s possible that the 100% rule might apply. But I’m not sure that it would in this case, because it’s not necessarily their business expense. So I don’t think I have anything definitive for you, but it’s kind of like, you know, the auto expense deduction. So if you know if your business

[00:31:28.31] spk_1:
car for business purposes right, you get 57 cents per mile or something like that, whatever it is,

[00:31:34.92] spk_0:
yeah, gets adjusted every year. But if you’re doing it for ah, non profit organization, your deduction rate is much, much smaller. It’s I can’t remember the number, but it’s like 14 cents, um, so you don’t get the same benefits when you’re doing it for another organization?

[00:31:53.82] spk_1:
Is that for a volunteer or that applies to employees. Also,

[00:31:57.84] spk_0:
it would apply to anybody who’s taking that deduction on their own s. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Best for the non profit to reimburse.

[00:32:34.54] spk_1:
Yeah. Spitballing. Okay, um, I’m glad you’re smiling over the three martini lunch. That’s good. Let’s go. What? Well, we could cynically say that was a gesture A KN award for focus on Well, doesn’t have to be Wall Street, but we could be most cynical and say it was for the president’s Wall Street friends to now deduct all there all their fancy meals in New York City at 100% instead of only half.

[00:32:40.54] spk_0:
Yeah, that’s right. And I I think that’s the cynical viewpoint

[00:32:50.54] spk_1:
e. There’s no question of that. That’s time. But then there’s the

[00:32:51.25] spk_0:
other side of that. Well, can stimulate the restaurant

[00:33:11.14] spk_1:
well, and they stimulate the restaurant economy. Yes, industry. And also there are small businesses. Everybody does not own a Wall Street business in New York City. Of course. All right. Onley only only holds 80% true. Um what? Anything else? Anything else that you think non profit need to know about P p p two point. Oh,

[00:33:16.64] spk_0:
well, I think out of the same kind of act where the pee pee pee loans came out of was important provisions regarding the charitable contribution deduction. So as long as we were talking about deductions, I thought it might be important to know that

[00:33:30.57] spk_1:
for your donors,

[00:33:48.44] spk_0:
Yeah, so for donors. So when we talked about deductions and itemizers, you know, as a result of the Trump Tax Act, um, some years ago, now a tw the start of his administration, we ended up with having, you know, itemizers, um, mhm being reduced from, I think, something like 35% of all taxpayers, down to about 10% of taxpayers. Meaning that 90% of taxpayers would not get the benefit of a charitable contribution deduction because they would take the standard deduction rather than itemize. It would be better for them. So the vast majority of taxpayers, the math, vast majority of small organization donors are not going to get a tax benefit from giving a charitable contribution anymore. So, you know, we’re still relying on them to do it because they believe in the organization and its mission and the people there, and you know what it’s doing but the tax benefits not going to be there anymore until the cares Act provisions last year that said, Well, even if you’re non itemizing, you can deduct up to $300 Is an individual $600 for a married joint filer? Um, above the line, basically. So you can you can get that deduction even if you’re not itemizing.

[00:34:55.48] spk_1:
Take the standard deduction, but you can add another up to $300 per person,

[00:36:21.13] spk_0:
Right? So what this bill does is it Extended it out. So now we will. The previous bill was going Thio run out and we’ve got now an extension of this for another year, so that is a good thing. So that was only gonna last through 2020 Now, Now we have it for 2021 A ZX well, and and, uh, another thing or are somewhat related thio that are just sort of other relief provision. The measure provides an additional $300 per week and unemployment benefits through March 14th is gonna be helpful. Um, there’s a moratorium on evictions that was going to expire December 31st, 2020. And now that’s, um, uh, going to be extended out for a month. Not very much, but every little bit helps right on $25 billion available in additional federal funding for assistance to renters. So we will see if that if that actually plays out. And finally, there’s an extension of the Cares Act employee retention tax credit through July 1st. So that’s a credit. So versus a deduction, which you take after you figure out what your taxable, you know, um, in determining your taxable income. I’m sorry. And the credit after you figured out what your taxes are that would apply against your taxes. So there’s an employee retention tax credit. Um, that’s been made a little bit simpler. It’s a little too complicated for probably people’s interest on this radio program. But take a look at it as a tax credit might be really valuable to some organizations that might not otherwise qualify for PDP. Forgivable

[00:36:46.96] spk_1:
long. Okay. For employee retention. Yeah. Okay. Okay. How about we leave it there? Gene Sound. Okay,

[00:36:54.03] spk_0:
That sounds great, tony.

[00:37:58.63] spk_1:
Okay. Thank you again. Thank you for doing P p p re ducks. Two point. Oh, uh, course. Gene is managing attorney of Neo. You’ll find the firm at neo law group dot com. He’s at G Tack, and you should be subscribing to the wildly popular non profit lob log dot com. Thank you very much, Jeanne. Always a pleasure, tony. Thanks Next week. The hot sauce principle. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives Prospect to donor. Simplified for a free demo and a free month. 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