Nonprofit Radio for July 1, 2024: Use Your Tech To Enable Generosity

 

Jamie Mueller, Peter Genuardi & Natania LeClerc: Use Your Tech To Enable Generosity

Our panel encourages you to expand your definition of generosity and how you measure it, to better acknowledge diverse forms of giving. They help you facilitate generosity through your data, tech and business processes. They’re Jamie Mueller with PTKO; Peter Genuardi at See the Stars; and, Natania LeClerc from Feeding America. (This was recorded at the 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference.)

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And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. I apologize for the distortion you’re gonna hear in this recording from 24 NTC. It’s especially in the, the last segment, but kind of throughout uh it was much worse and I, I had to edit out some parts because you just couldn’t understand what was being said. I, I kept in what you could hear over the distortion. So, uh just I, I forgive me for the distractions that you’re gonna hear in a few places in today’s show. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be stricken with dysphagia if I had to swallow the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s coming? Hey, Tony, continuing our 2024 nonprofit technology conference coverage. We’ve got use your tech to enable generosity. Our panel encourages you to expand your definition of generosity and how you measure it to better acknowledge diverse forms of giving. They help you facilitate generosity through your data tech and business processes. They’re Jamie Mueller with Tko Peter Genuardi at see the Stars and Natania Lalai from Feeding America on Tonys take two Jim attire were sponsored by virtuous. Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org here is use your tech to enable generosity. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC. You know that that’s the 2024 nonprofit technology conference. This conversation kicks off our day two coverage. We are in Portland, Oregon at the Oregon Convention Center and we are here sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Kicking off our day two with me are Jamie Mueller, Peter Genuardi and Natania Le Claire. Jamie is Chief Growth Officer at Ptko. That’s papa tango kilo Oscar for those who like the phonetic spelling. Ptko Peter Genuardi is founder of see the Stars. And Natania La Claire is Director of Strategic and Integrated Planning at Feeding America, Jamie Peter natanya. Welcome. You did your session yesterday and your session title is use your tech to enable generosity. Uh Let’s start right here. Uh Sitting, sitting next to me, Jamie, why don’t you explain why, why the session was needed? Why, why uh what, what we could be doing better in the, in the community about uh, about the session topic. Yeah. Well, Tony, as you, well know, we’re seeing a decline in individual donors, right. Um, and we have some very uh generous people that are kind of making up that difference in the 1% and that is not a sustainable model for the industry. And so we’re really trying to figure out what is it that is decreasing fundraising or dollars coming into organizations. And, you know, the Generosity Commission has done a great job at uh looking at what makes people be more generous, what um encourages people to be generous. And so we wanted to have a topic that really explored all the realms of generosity and how they interconnect together and create a AAA pipeline for dollars to come in uh by way of volunteerism, advocacy and um just giving up time and influence and how our tech can better enable us to identify those indicators of generosity so that we can be more prepared to ask more of um the individuals that want to support our missions. Ok. You mentioned the Generosity Commission. I don’t, I’m not familiar with that. Yeah. So the, so the Generosity Commission is a group, a coalition of individuals that come from Stanford and a number of other uh uh um think tanks in the area. Um The Giving Institute is involved in that as well and give usa coalition. And so there’s been a number of studies that have been done over the that have looked at and explored through different colleges and universities and think tanks. This role that generosity has to play in our society, is there a report issued a report recently, a number of reports 2022 was the latest report, but there’s actually been a longitudinal amount of research that’s been done. And over, I mean, as you probably can imagine, volunteerism is a key indicator of uh of donations in the future. And um also advocacy and just overall relevance to somebody’s life and the way that they are being generous in their everyday life um can be an indicator of future generosity. And so how are we actually identifying those behaviors that people are naturally displaying in their everyday lives as being generous opportunities and then funneling that into the dollars that organizations really need to in order to, you know, further their mission and their capacity. OK, I see. And uh Peter, part of what you talked about in your session is expanding the definition of generosity, which Jamie was just alluding to how, how, how should we be redefining generosity? Yeah, that’s a great question, Tony. Um I think there are two ways that we should really look at it to help organizations just be more productive and engaging and getting more from their audience. The first is what Jamie alluded to, which is really taking a look at, say, Tony and saying, OK, today we really see him as a donor, but we know that he, you know, um volunteers that he is actually seeking services from us, that he is doing so many other things with us, but we’ve hyper focused on just his value to us as donors. And so we need to expand that. The other piece I think um that’s really important is expanding who we think of as people who can be generous to our organization. Um I’ve done a lot of work uh for and with direct service organizations and the vast majority of them really see those as two separate audiences, the people they serve and the people they raise money from. And so the more that we can think about a holistic uh relationship with people uh with the people who come to our organization to seek services, but also to support us in the future, to volunteer creates just a, it, it lets us expand the tent and draw more people into those who could support the organization in a, in a bigger and more holistic way. OK. So I, I’m, I’m, I’m stereotyping and generalizing with both of which are dangerous. But I think the stereotypes, I don’t know, I think they’re, I think they’re not valid. I think they’re ubiquitous that those of us, those who come to us for service are, are whether it’s feeding and of course, we’re gonna get to Italia Feeding America um or, or sheltering or, um, you know, I’m, I’m something of the, the, the the personal type of services that those folks aren’t just don’t have the, the capacity, capacity, the means to, to be donors. And I don’t think we think of the future, but we think of now they just don’t have the means. We’re, we’re wrong headed. I would say yes, I think with direct service organizations for sure. And I’ll let Natania um, tell us a little bit more about that. I think one of the, one of the organizations that actually does this really well is the American Heart Association. Um Several years ago, my dad had a heart attack and we need to get some help from the Heart Association. They gave us great advice and guidance. Um You know, after uh my dad got sick, he passed away, we made a contribution to the organization as donors and now as somebody who’s 47 and, and needs some support myself, I’ve gone back to the organization for information and that sort of thing. And so the way that they have thought about engaging me across this whole cycle of things where I’m a service uh beneficiary as well as a donor as well as somebody who will probably leave the money when I pass. You know, it’s that kind of long term thinking and holistic relationship that I think is really a productive model for many, many organizations. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only response of nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact, virtuous.org. Now back to use your tech to enable generosity. Natania. You’ve been doing a lot of nodding as uh as Jamie and Peter were talking uh whether you want to share your experience at Feeding America or you wanna, you wanna think broader about this expanded definition of generosity who’s capable? Yeah, I think I just wanna touch on the fact that it is a stereotype that the people that we serve and that are in service uh would not be contributors, financial contributors. We find time and time again that our best supporters are our neighbors and the people that have received the services from our food pantries, our food banks and, and the network at large. And we even tell stories of our neighbors who are now volunteers at these pantries. Um So they see the direct benefit of the service they received and the value that they get from that and want to immediately give back and, and turn that into more that, that ripple effect of continuing to give to others who now need. Um which is, you know, it’s a beautiful thing and we’ve started to give them a platform as well, not only through our storytelling and um you know, not being the mouthpiece for the, for the movement, but really allowing our neighbors to be the voice of the movement and, and telling us what they need in order to thrive. Um So that’s one way in which we’ve been generous. But I think, you know, in terms of expanding the meaning of generosity, um you know, I think the big um the sound bite that I wanted to bring from yesterday was I think, you know, not that you need to throw out technology in the whole process, but that you can start from a place of ignoring the drop down menus that you have in your technology and, and not trying to categorize generosity based off of the constraints of what’s in front of you in, in whatever platform you’re dealing in, but go out and talk to people about what is meaningful to them, about giving to you um in the ways in which they want to give and then try to build systems that can track that in a, in a way that is, that helps you understand how invested they are in you are, are there other constituencies Natania that, that we should be thinking about? Besides those of us who are uh service beneficiaries, are there other constituencies? We should be expanding the definition of generosity to I think. So, I think uh you know, there’s advocacy for sure. And I think there’s also folks who um who want to create their own fundraisers or they want to give in ways that are not currently in our structures. And really what this is about is giving people the opportunity to, to support you in the ways that are meaningful to them. That could be a number of ways and a number of platforms. And one of the things that we kind of ran into some friction in, in the conversation yesterday was, well, you know, how do smaller organizations that don’t have the resources and um the means to adopt all these platforms and run all these programs and just, you know, try anything under the sun, you know, what are we supposed to do? And um you know, really, what, what we, our other um compatriot who’s not here today was, was able to contribute was, you know, pitch it to your leadership as a test start. Say it’s a test of trying out a new platform, a new way of um you know, tracking the, the ways in which people support you and then see over time if it gets you um exponential results, Peter can we talk a little about using technology because your, your, your session topic is use your tech to enable generosity. Now, Natania just referred to the inadequacy of the current drop down menu uh menus. I’ll just, I’ll just pluralize menu and this way, I don’t have to think of another noun. So the inadequacy of the, the drop down menu, how should our tech be integrated into this expanded definition of who can be generous and how folks can be generous. Yeah, I mean, you, you’ve kind of opened up this Pandora’s Box and I got, I’m afraid I’m afraid that my friends who work at software companies here are listening to this podcast and I hope they are. But um I’m gonna be critical of us as an industry for a second. I think Jamie um by coordinating this session really got this topic out on the table for us and it’s being had at, you know, all levels of organizations um in all the departments. But here at the, the technology conference, you know, we have to be a little critical of ourselves. Um I’ve worked for a couple of software companies that have made online cr MS that help with email and fundraising and advocacy and volunteer registration. And I have to tell you, you know, the place where those platforms are the most mature is when it comes to uh seeking money. So whether it’s getting people to convert more often on donation forms or to hit them at the right time with an email that gets them to open their wallet. That’s all well and good. And that’s important. But I think, um, don’t stop there. That’s right. We’re not, we’re not expanding beyond, beyond the, the simplest. That’s right. And so, you know, as a senior ranking Marxist at this table, I don’t really know if I’m the senior ranking Marxist. But I would tell you that my goal is to take all of this technology that we use to get people to open their wallets. Um All of these tools of late capitalism and flip them on their heads. So how do we use the tools that help us advertise to find people to draw them into the fold to provide those social services? Can you imagine if we lived in a world where direct service organizations brought the same kind of discipline and technology to serving their population as they do to raising money? Um I think that’s where we’re going to see a lot of research and expansion in the next couple of years. Be a little more specific about the software shortcomings. What’s the ideal for you? You know, I’ll give you a good example. Yeah. So here it is one of the organizations that I work with, we help them find about three quarters of a million people to put into and lead to their job training programs every year. Um Part of that challenge is that we’re trying to reach them with advertising tools that find people who are over 50 people of color, primarily women, lower education, lower banking rates. And those tools for advertising are optimized to find rich people who have money to spend on discretionary stuff, whether it’s buying a TV or donating to, uh, a worthy organization. And so we’ve had to come up with really innovative ways to identify people who meet those criteria, um, because they’re not optimized to find people with lower income, lower discretionary dollars and that sort of thing. And so, um yeah, I’m not sure, I’m not sure how we do it. I think we have to do our best to take those tools that exist that have been built by very smart people and get them to really deliver a human service and make the world more compassionate, diverse forms of generosity is essentially what we’re talking about. So, Jamie, you were, you were the impetus behind this, this session. Don’t be ashamed. It was, it was, it was my fault. No, what else? Um Let’s see, uh facilitating generosity. I’m just reading from your session description, facilitating generosity through your data tech and business processes. I mean, we’ve alluded to all that stuff but why we, you know, you had a full hour session. What else? What else can we dive deeper in? Well, we had two other individuals that were here and I think that they made two very strong points that I’d like to just bring up real quick. Yeah, I will cheer. So Mike Fisher Trusts Republic land, he was uh he was really bringing home the point that one thing that nonprofits could easily do well and that there is technology to support is to encourage those individuals that are your five star fans, your, your, your individuals that are advocating, they’re opening your emails, they’re clicking through, they’re donating, maybe they’re volunteering, maybe, but they’re just consistently available to you and your mission. They are the ones that you should be asking to get more involved by bringing more people into your organization. They are your super fans. They are the ones that can tell their friends about you easily and well, because they’re obviously passionate about your cause and mission. Um The other thing is to be looking at who your social influencers are, uh who is on um who’s retweeting you who or re xing you. I don’t threating you. I don’t know. I know, but you know what I mean? I think now they just call them posts which is totally generic. So let’s do that. Well, I like, I like I do too that we’re expanding the definition, we’re expanding definitions. So yeah, so the ones that are posting about you on social networks that matter to you or that you’re finding um engagement on those are the people that you should be asking to support you in those regards that the idea of spreading generosity and connecting people to resources into each other is, is something that I think we undervalue yet is extremely important. And so Mike Fisher was really great at driving home that point that we are well under utilizing those individuals that can help us invite more people into our cause. And then also, and how we measure what they do. We don’t even have metrics really for like social influencing. Oh no. Does that exist in CRM systems? It does in some? Yeah, but it, it’s underutilized primarily and then it’s, it’s the other thing is, is that it’s a acknowledged and Peter really brought this home to us yesterday is the fact that when you get an email talking about the way that you’ve made impact at an organization, commonly, they’re reminding you of the last donation you made and how you can expand that donation or up a $10 and become a sustainer. But rarely do they say, and we really appreciate also the 25 hours that you, you gave to us this year through volunteerism or the peer to peer fundraiser that you helped us make a success and our match with others on Facebook last year. And so we’re really not tracking these different ways that people are showing their generosity and it’s really a shame. And um, so I’ll just make two other points real quick. One is um, storytelling which I think Natania has led, um, has done a great job at talking about and Michelle Payne who is jobs for America’s graduate on our panel as well. Um She, you know, they work with youth and high schools that um need are, are looking for a pathway to success in underprivileged neighborhoods or, and in areas um where opportunity is limited and the stories that those J A alumni are providing jobs for America’s graduates fundraising team in order to go out and raise more funds is critical to the success of jobs for America’s graduates. And um that, that needs to be acknowledged that these people are spending their time, their energy and being vulnerable by telling their stories to others in order to help raise critical funds for organizations and commonly, that goes unnoticed. Last thing I’ll just challenge everyone to say is we talk about donors like we’re not donors and like we’re not generous people, we and to take a step back and say, why aren’t donors giving more or why are, you know, or what should we do to make our donors more engaged with us? Look, look at yourself what is missing from the process of donations and from the way that organizations are engaging with you, how are we going to get folks to be more engaged with us, engage with them? I mean, you’re saying, acknowledge, acknowledge the breath of their generosity. Right. Exactly. Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way that a mission or organization has been responsive to you? How would you like to see that improved? Um If you’re feeling dissatisfied by the process, then I guarantee you every stakeholder in your organization, every stakeholder that’s giving to your organization is probably feeling the exact same way. Um So do unto others as you want to do unto you, I think was Peter’s line yesterday. Several years ago, there was someone on who I followed on then Twitter. So I’m gonna keep using Twitter. Uh She was, uh she was the Whiny donor. Uh She was a board member and I had her on the show. She didn’t want her name revealed. Uh but she was a board member of a couple of nonprofits in upstate New York, Buffalo area. Um So I had the Whiny Donor on several years ago and I used to follow her on Twitter and we would engage and she was, you know, she was, um often disappointed, not always. I mean, she would point out successes too, but, you know, you sent me, uh you sent me a thank you letter, but the donation amount is wrong. I mean, that’s a, that’s like a killer, you know, I mean, that’s so basic. That’s that, I mean, that is cr MS are capable of somebody put the wrong number in, you know, someone who was careless or, you know, they didn’t proofread the letter to compare it with the data in the, in the CRM and it’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers. Just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs, helping you help others visit donor box.org to learn more. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate in the gym. I’m, I’m coming back to these gym stories. Uh Yeah, no spending a lot of time there. I’m, I’m noticing things. I see a big difference between the way women dress in the gym and men dress in the gym. I, I think it’s easier to describe men the way they dress. They don’t give a shit put on anything old. I mean, and I know for myself like I’ll go in a pair of uh I, I typically wear, I wear a bathing suit as a workout workout shorts. Uh because they’re nice and short, you know, like they’re running, I use them as running shorts and also workout shorts like, uh you know, orange, uh orange bathing suit shorts and a green shirt. It makes no difference to me and my socks. All my socks are white. I don’t, I don’t call to coordinate any socks or anything that’s men, don’t give a shit. Women the color co ordination. The time that goes into the, the, I can imagine the hours that go into the shopping, not just the dressing but the shopping to match like the, the ankle band on the socks matches a color on the shoes or the ankle band on the socks matches the shorts. I’ve seen both of those or the shorts and the top color coordinate. Not identical. Man, you, you don’t have to go identical, but they’re coordinating a color, not saying matchy. Matchy. I’m saying coordinate much more sophisticated than Matchy. Matchy color coordinate or the shoes and the shorts. That’s another one. I’ve seen a lot. I the, the time that goes into matching these colors, it’s, it’s amazing uh or coordinating these colors. So women have a much better game in uh in gym attire. Uh You gotta say much better and um I just saw something in the New York Times this afternoon, uh about sock length in millennials versus Gen Z. And we get some of both on, on a, uh I’d say most of the people probably more than half the people who come to this gym, this town community gym are over 55 sixtyish uh but some, you know, but some are, are younger. Uh Now I have not noticed this myself. This is one that I I got from the Times today. Your, your Gen Z will, will not show their ankles with socks. It’s gotta be above the ankle and maybe even up to like mid calf gen Z but millennials always show the ankle what heads, I don’t know if P socks is an outdated. I didn’t, they didn’t, I don’t think they mentioned pets in the, in the article. Maybe that’s an outdated term, but that’s how I know them head socks. So you’re supposed to be able to tell Gen Z for millennials by the height of their socks. I don’t know what that’s all worth. Uh Congratulations women for having so much more pride in your gym appearance. And now I hope, I hope the energy that goes into your workout is equivalent to the energy that went into your shopping and then wearing the coordinating colors. I mean, I hope you’re working out just as hard as your shopping, but women got it over men. That is Tony’s take two Kate. What do you think? It’s, it’s like that old. Um If you feel better, like you’ll be better kind of thing. I think when you look better, you’ll feel better and you’ll do better. Um Also shopping for active wear is like so much fun nowadays because they have so many colors and you don’t want to show up in like boing black leggings or like white tank top. Like I want to show up in coral, you know, color coordinating, head to toe. It’s more fun that way. Ok. Ok. That’s the, that there’s the sentiment behind what I’m, I’m, I’m observing. And then you said pets for the socks. That’s how I know low, so low socks that are, are below or right at the ankle. Those are pets. We call them no shows because you can’t see them above your shoe. Yeah, I, I, I gathered that meaning, I, I was able to figure that out why they might be called No show. Thank you. All right. So, I’m using an outdated, outdated, antiquated, uh, uh, anachronistic term for old. Simple, old. All right. Well, I like, uh, I like, uh, I like, uh, synonyms as well. Ok. No more pet socks. No shows. We’ve got just about a butt load. More time. Here’s the rest of use your tech to enable generosity. Uh, Natania. I’m gonna put you on the spot. Do you wanna, do you wanna tell AAA um, a fee? No, no, a feeding America story. This antiquated, uh, mindset that nonprofits have that donors, you can only communicate to donors about giving money. And if you have advocates or volunteers don’t, don’t ask them for any money, you better not, you know, don’t, uh, don’t intimidate them or vice versa, you know, don’t encourage your donors to do other things besides donate. Um, we don’t want to distract them. We want to keep them on this path on the, the donor journey and the ladder of engagement to get them to be major donors. But none of this other stuff is gonna matter in that Um And I think that’s, that’s broken thinking and we have started to see how we’ve turned that around at Feeding America is, we’ve started to message all our in full file about advocacy actions and legislation that’s at risk. Here’s the spectrum of possibilities of how you can engage with us. That’s how you’re going to really build those brand champions for yourself. Um And, and get them to be the voice of your organization too as Peter um alluded to um II, I presume you haven’t had a lot of pushback from these donors as you’ve broadened their, there’s been no, no risk to it. I give, why, why do you ask me to sign the petition? Why do you ask me to write the email to the representative? You know, I’m already donating. People don’t still think that way they see everything as something coming from feeding America and a message from us to them. And, you know, I think that lifting that up and, and starting from that point, you can create a more holistic message that is more meaningful and stronger and gets you the results that you wanted. This is right within your purview as strategic and integrated planning director, right? And that’s a pretty big portfolio, strategic and not just strategic, strategic and integrated big portfolio. What I have to ask you the uh the significance of the you’re wearing a hat that says bagels, are you a, are you a bagel? Um connoisseur because I live here. They live in OK. Now I’m from New York where we’re boiled bagels? Are they boil them? OK. That’s the boiling. That’s the boiling. That’s the pre boiling before the baking. Which is, that’s, you get the golden crust on your bagel. It’s not supposed to be a pound cake. The definition of relevance. I’m learning a lot. I find this to be very generous. Henry Higgins. Henry Higgins. Henry Higgins. Spoiled bagels. Tony. If I could be so cheeky. I’m going to ask you a question. Um, Zars or David Bagels. What’s your, what’s your bagel place in New York? Well, it used to be H and H God, they close, they close, they always warm bagels. It’s gotta be, if you were willing to wait like five minutes, it’s the next round of warm whole wheat bagels, which is my, my, my, my go to would be coming out. But so, but h and h isn’t there anymore. So I’d probably have to say Zars. There are, I’m hearing an echo from our production assistant. Soon to be demoted. I said that earlier though to be nice to Amy free. I think that’s a good idea. No, after the conference, after the conference, but before the bonus. Yeah, exactly. After the work is done before the bonus is paid. Um, ok. Uh, so, ok. No, probably Zars. Yeah, we’re in Portland. Natan is Portland. Not a food city. It’s a big food city. This is an appropriate digression plus, you know, the middle aged white guy has got the master board and I I’m dictating the agenda. So, no, but I do, I do, I wanna work food in because Portland is an enormously rich and rightfully proud, rightfully proud food city from the trucks to the restaurants, et cetera. So, uh ok, let’s go back to genero expanding the definition of generosity though. Um What else? What more can we Peter? You’ve, you’ve been uh well, the, the, the one who hasn’t spoken. Well, you did contribute the bagel to the bagel conversation. But aside from that, uh what else, what else came out? Well, maybe some questions if uh if you feel we’ve covered topics, maybe some questions that came out of the session yesterday that were provocative, informative, interesting things you all hadn’t thought of. No, the questions were dull. You know, honestly natanya mentioned a couple of the really good ones and it was, you know, hey, look, we’re really small. How do we, we’re just trying to find our um our butt with both hands. How do we, how do we do the things that big organizations are doing? And I usually don’t say it so kindly, but with both hand that’s acceptable here. Oh, we had somebody say, fuck yesterday talking to my 14 year old daughter. So, you know, I try, I try to keep her. This is, this is not a G rated show. I mean, it’s a PG show but yeah, I still think it’s appropriate. I get it, I get it. Um I might, um, I might let you talk a little bit about it, Natania. Um, but I, I thought like, you know, look, you just have to, you just have to do it. Um delivering value to people and delivering a valuable experience is really critically important. Um And that’s one of the ways that smaller organizations can dive in and really try to grow. Everybody started their email list or their, their, you know, Instagram or Facebook profile or tiktok. Uh What do they call it an account, I guess over there um with one follower, right? Them, plus their mom. So um it’s really one of those things that I think we get asked a lot is how do small organizations get in? And so, you know, you just have to do it and, and from my perspective, I think delivering value is the way to, to really um start to do it. Just just give people something that they want, whether it’s that experience, whether it’s those compelling stories, whether it’s, you know, imagery that reflects people who look like them and the people they care about. Um that becomes probably the first step on that ladder towards, you know, programmatic maturity and getting people to really um engage an audience and get them to support their cause. Um Natania, I trounce all over what you were saying yesterday. Can I just insert something? There’s, there’s a basic principle in promotion and marketing that the way to get more clients or in this case, donors or volunteers is to be great to the clients or donors or volunteers that you’ve already got. And Natania, that goes right to what you, you’re saying about expanding their engagement. Uh and not, not, you know, putting people in silos as strictly a donor, never talk to them about, you know, other, other opportunities. Uh You know, and I think it’s just treat people the way you’d like to be treated. You know, you don’t even have to go to Prenn of promotion and marketing. Just uh the golden rule. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And no, you did not trounce all over. I was gonna say, um I do think, um, you know, yeah, offering those opportunities and, um, you know, I think there’s, there’s this perception that, um, you know, if you can’t do things at the, at the Cadillac or the gold standard that then you shouldn’t do it at all. And I just don’t think that’s true and, you know, we might be at, or I might be at a large organization now. That doesn’t mean we have everything figured out either. You know, we, we all are in the same industry that is founded on some broken principles, you know, the nonprofit industry isn’t perfect just like any other business out there. Um, and we all have to deal with the same fundamental um cultural issues that we, that we are dealing with um as an industry and uh at the end of the day, if you can ask three people, five questions or five people, three questions. However, you want to go about it, which are, you know, something like what are the ways in which you want to be involved? Do you prefer to support in person virtually or behind the scenes in an operational capacity? Do you wanna get email from us? Do you wanna get paper mail? Do you wanna not get anything? Um You know, asking people how they want to be involved is the first step and that can get you more data than any kind of, you know, the only caveat there is you then have to honor their honor their request. I mean, if you can’t, if you don’t feel that you can segment that way, then don’t ask the question. But I do think you can ask people, you know, what are the ways in which you do want to be involved? That doesn’t mean you’re gonna promise them that, but it does mean that you want to get to know them better. And then this is for in the future for us to be able to understand what do we need to deliver to you in the future. And it’s all about how you deliver that message to them. And I think you can keep yourself honest and accountable. Without over promising too much. All right, I’m gonna defer it to Jamie as, uh, as our origin originator, uh, to, uh, to wrap us up with some warm motivation. Ok. Well, so there were actually two other things that came out. They weren’t questions. We had a lot of people that offered a lot of great ideas in the audience as well. So we actually did, yeah, we did an exercise where we turned to each other and talked about as donors. How would we want to, how do we like to be treated? Um What seems to be missing from our, our um generosity experience beyond donations. And there were two things that came up as one is uh a Human centered design approach and starting from places of generosity, different origins of generosity, right? Volunteerism or advocacy or influence or engagement of referrals, storytelling and then mapping a journey uh throughout your organization for how you believe that individual is going to want to engage with your organization and, and delve deeper into your mission. Um And then using CRM automation or Eecrm automation, um offline analog, whatever, whatever you need or have available to you to make that journey as realistic as possible. People that are showing generosity in a certain way together to uh to help design together. How are you going to further that form of generosity within the mission? So if you have a number of volunteers that are volunteering at a food bank, uh bringing them together into a roundtable or fireside chat to talk about what’s missing from the experience. What could we be doing better? What are you finding fulfilling about that experience is a great way to get people involved and people find that form of generosity and, and being invited into a community of common, like individuals and common behaviors to be very fulfilling and a way of saying thank you to those people because you’re acknowledging the fact that they are contributing in a certain way. And that’s why leadership circles exist and giving circles. I just want to insert that I had someone a guest yesterday, call that a town hall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever you want, whatever you want to call it, people feel warm invited to that. Absolutely. People want to share their ideas. I will say I’m very, I am excited about this book, Tony and I do not know the gentleman’s name and I apologize. So I hope you can find it for me. But the head of Ted just came out with a book called Infectious Generosity. And it’s all about how the greatest form of generosity is spreading ideas. And he gives some great examples, some great stories throughout. And I think that there are some really critical lessons for us in the nonprofit industry on how we are helping individuals uh and facilitating individuals, the spreading of ideas and resources to each other. Um because that’s really what connects us all together. That’s Jamie Mueller, Chief Growth Officer at Ptko papa Tango, Kilo Oscar, also Peter Genuardi, founder of see the Stars and Natania Le Claire, Director of Strategic and integrated Planning. What a portfolio at Feeding America. Thank you very much, Jamie Peter Natania. Thanks very much for sharing. Thank you, Tony. Thank you outstanding. Thank you and thank you for being with Tony Martignetti nonprofit Radio coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits next week using A I in your communications. If you missed any part of this weeks show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by Virtuous. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guide and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for June 24, 2024: The Essential Craft Of Leaving Your Job & Data Privacy

 

Karolle Rabarison, Laura Guzman, Leana Mayzlina & Aparna Kothary: The Essential Craft Of Leaving Your Job

This provocative panel shares their real stories to inspire you if working at your job, isn’t working for you. They recommend you leave well, and share their advice for your handover plan along with tips for setting up your successor or team for future success. They also help you manage your emotions. They’re Karolle Rabarison from Online News Association; Laura Guzman at DevGlobal; Leana Mayzlina with The Aspen Institute; and Aparna Kothary, an independent consultant. (This was recorded at the 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference.)

 

Kim Snyder, Lauren Feldman Hay, Jonathan Gellar: Data Privacy

Kim Snyder, Lauren Feldman Hay and Jonathan Gellar remind you of the fundamental principles of data privacy, as Jonathan reveals his tragic story of data not adequately protected. They encourage all of us to be good data stewards. Kim is from RoundTable Technology. Lauren and Jonathan are with Fountain House. (This is also from 24NTC.)

 

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Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the effects of tetrachromacy if I saw that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s up this week? Hey, Tony, returning to the 2024 nonprofit technology conference, we’ve got the essential craft of leaving your job. This provocative panel shares their real stories to inspire you if working at your job isn’t working for you. They recommend you leave well and share their advice for your hand over plan along with tips for setting up your successor or team for future success. They also help you manage your emotions. There are Carol Robberson from online news association, Laura Guzman at DEV Global Leanna Masina with the Aspen Institute and Aparna Kari, an independent consultant then data privacy, Kim Snyder, Lauren Feldman, Hay and Jonathan Geller remind you of the fundamental principles of data privacy. As Jonathan reveals his tragic story of data not adequately protected. They encourage all of us to be good data stewards. Kim is from Roundtable Technology. Lauren and Jonathan are with Fountain House on Tony’s take two. If he can go to the gym were sponsored by virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org here is the essential craft of leaving your job. Welcome back to the Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC, the 2024 nonprofit technology conference where we are all convened together in community at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. Our continuing coverage is sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for non profits with me for this conversation are Carol Robson, Laura Guzman, Leanna Masina, and Aparna Kari. Carol is director of communications at the online news association. Laura Guzman is director of Communications at DEV Global Leanna Malina is a senior project manager at the Aspen Institute and Aparna Kari is in an independent consultant. Carol. Laura Leanna Aparna, welcome. Welcome. You can talk into the mic. Yes, thank you. Yes, we’re sharing. It might be some jokes might be a little loud because we’re sharing. There are three microphones and four people, but I did not want to four guests. I, I make five but we didn’t, I did not want to sacrifice this sub just because there’s one mic, fewer than there are a number of panelists. So we’re gonna make it work because nonprofit radio perseveres and they all know each other very well. And so we’re sharing it’s communal and it’s gonna work perfectly because the important topic is the essential craft of leaving your job. All right, let’s start at the far end from where I am with Aparna. Ok. What was the genesis of this topic? What brought the four of you together around leaving your job? I might ping it to Carol as our fearless leader and panel organizer if that’s ok. Ok, Carol, you were the impetus for this. Please tell us why. Yeah. So I’ve been thinking a lot about transitions. I’ve had the experience of leaving a call jobs. Uh, one time with something lined up another time without anything lined up. And in the past year I took a leave a few months leave from my current work. And this happened at the same time that three other colleagues out of a team of 12 were also going on leave within a few months and we had a leadership transition. So the question of how do you leave your job? Well, when do you do that? What do you need to do everything from, um, the sort of very tactical pieces of that process to just how you feel about it has been keeping me up at night or getting me up in the morning, maybe both? Ok. And, and how did you uh convene these three? Uh, well, I just, I, Laura and I know each other from, I think we met at a conference years and years ago and sort of, you know, connected and had followed each other’s work over time. And, um, we caught up recently and I learned that she had recently left a job and I thought that’s perfect because I’m looking for people who had been in an organization for several years and um wanted to invite people to share their stories and use that as part inspiration, part provocation to invite other folks to think about conversations with their team and conversations with themselves about these transitions. Yeah. Your session descriptions, talks about inspiration and provocation. Yeah. Um And then from there, Laura introduced me to Liana and a partner and I recently met a couple of weeks ago. I think we recently connected. Um So, yeah. OK. So let’s turn to Laura. I want each of you to tell your stories. Inspiration provocation. Laura, why don’t you begin? That’s a, that’s a big one. But I’ll start with the role that I most recently left, which was uh I had spent about six or seven years at a nonprofit that I loved and continued to love and support, but realized that my road was kind of running out and I was in a leadership role and a moment of a lot of transition within the leadership of the organization itself. So it was pretty tricky and emotionally loaded, I would say. So I left in September and shortly thereafter, I heard from Carol to speak on this. Prior to that, I’ve kind of left roles in different ways and overseen a lot of transition. So I came at this with a deep care for wanting to talk about how we can do it well and how we can build cultures that support individuals and kind of the resilience of the organization. So you’re saying in your last role, there was a leadership void, but your road wasn’t uh wasn’t toward those leadership positions. I wouldn’t say that there was a void, but we had, we had someone leave for health reasons which just kind of precipitated a few years of just a lot of transition and shifting and changing. We were experimenting with co leadership, which was really powerful for us. I had a co deputy director at the time that I adored working with and I saw myself, the organization kind of going in slightly different directions in terms of my own interests and knew that the best thing for me was to figure out how to exit. And also honestly, the best thing for the ORG was to figure out how for me to exit. So I think it all came from a place of growth and longer term resilience, but it was still, you know, emotionally tough to leave a place I cared about for. So long, yeah, we’ll talk some about the emotions. Leanna please. My most recent transition was about a year ago. I had been at N 10 for almost eight years and left for a new role at the Aspen Institute. Um And, you know, in, in reflecting on sort of all of the prior transitions as well, I realized that in pretty much every single role I’ve held, I’ve been the first person in that role, meaning there were no transition documents for me. Um I was on boarding myself, I was creating a new role for myself. I was sort of establishing what the responsibilities are, what the structure is, cetera. And it made me much more mindful of how I wanted to leave a role um to make sure that my successor in whatever role I might be in actually has some documentation, has some tracking of relationships um so that they’re set up for success when they step in and they understand what the sort of the expectations are. Um the goals are and everything that sort of comes with the role that’s very altruistic of you to be concerned about your successor. I don’t know, I don’t know how common that is. Maybe it’s more common than I realize, but still altruistic Aparna. Yeah, I had a transition about a year and a half ago where I left an organization where I was for 10 years. So just taking stock of the responsibility of all of that information. Similarly just was the only person in the role, didn’t have anybody to necessarily hand off that role to at the time. And so I just, I was interested in this topic because I think there’s so much to say about how you, how you leave. Well, but how you take care of yourself as you’re leaving. I just think it’s so important because we do care about the mission in the organizations and I think sometimes it happens at the expense of our own well being. Um And I just, yeah, so 10 years long time, the organization love the people of the organization. I think also just the perception of leaving a place that you love can feel like what am I missing? Who said this in the panel? But what’s underneath and sometimes there’s nothing, sometimes it’s very personal. But I think there’s just such so much conversation that happens around someone leaving after a long time, Carol. Do you want to share more detail of your story? You just said you had left and been in transition and felt strongly about what, what would share more. So we’re going through a lot of transitions. So some of the, some of the challenges they were just really tactical on a small team and you have four out of 12 people who are not going to be in the roles over the course of six months. Um And they hold a lot of responsibilities and then you have um a transition at the, you know, top leadership level as well. And so some of these challenges are just figuring out what documentation do you need. How do you, how do I talk to my boss about who’s going to cover these things when I’m not there? Um Again, altruistic, I don’t, I don’t know how many people think about what’s going to happen after they leave, they just leave and they figure that’s the organization’s responsibility. It’s not mine. I was leaving temporarily. So I went on, I went on parental leave for three months and we had four, taking those leaves at the same time that we had people leaving permanently at the leadership level, including my boss. So, um so, yeah, and, you know, being in the coms role, I’ve had to think through, um it’s not just handing off my, my role that works across the organization, but also thinking about helping other folks communicate about those transitions that they’re going through. Um So that, that was been top of mind in the past year. The other little piece um in my story that has sort of stuck with me and why I think why this keeps coming up is that at one point, I had a manager who from day one told me, you know, you’re here for a reason and this is, you know, we’re going to have this working relationship for a set time and all I want to know is when you’re ready to go. I don’t, I don’t want it to be a surprise and I didn’t believe that at the time is this person actually serious. You know, I, I would never just go to my manager and say I’m looking to leave my job. Um, but they really were serious and over time we built a kind of relationship where, um, I was able to go to them and say, you know, here are some of my goals here. Um Here are some things that I’m interested in. Can you help me talk about the impact of my work in this organization with other people beyond this work? Um And that, that stayed with me so strongly and that’s sort of how I work with folks that I manage now and why I feel so um why I feel so strongly about needing to have these conversations even when you’re not, you don’t even know yet that you’re ready to leave and building the kind of um the kind of culture, the kind of team where people are OK, talking about it that you’re not going to be there forever. You all call this in your session description, a handover plan. The handover plan is that does that is that put into place before a person is thinking about leaving? If it’s for like, like uh almost like a job description, there’s a handover plan when the person is not anticipating leaving, we were mostly um we were mostly talking about the, the plan for when you are leaving, like when you’re ready to go. So the, the session today, um, we split it between, here’s some things to think about to build the kind of team that can handle these kind of transitions. Well, before you even know that you want to go and then we sort of dove into the tactical pieces of, ok, you know, you want to go. here are some things to consider. When um who do you tell, when do you tell them, how much detail do they need? What kind of documentation do you need to put together? And I know a partner has done pretty extensive memos around the work that she led. Ok. Well, I mean, we’re not just going to talk about what you talked about, we’re going to talk about the details that because you’re not going to hold back on nonprofit radio listeners, I’m not gonna have that happen. So we’re not just gonna say, well, this is what we talked about, but we’re actually gonna talk about it. So, Aparna, are you the right person to start off with? This is, so this is what goes into your, your, your handover plan. Is that what we’re talking about? We identified some resources that folks might want to think about putting together before they leave. Some things we talk about were a succession plan, not just for leadership, but for people across the organization, regardless of position. What happens if you leave? What are the things that people need to know more concretely? We talked about an exit memo and different elements to consider an exit memo that are big picture and zoom in on the details and to make sure, yeah, you can hand something over and I don’t know if it’s altruistic. I think that even the fact that we’re having this session is unique to the sector. I think if it was more in the corporate world, it’s like more traditional, not traditional, but just outside of the nonprofit sector, I think you’re right. People do, they leave and they give notice and they’re out. But I think it’s just inherent in our sector that we care about the organizations and the mission and the people beyond just ourselves. And so maybe that is ultra, I don’t know, but I feel like there are so many people in the room, so we’re not alone in how we’re thinking. And so I think that carries forward to the resources that we put together. It’s for, we’ve been in position where we were handed nothing. And so thinking about, ok, someone walking into this role, what do they need to know about the things I’ve set up? So let’s talk about what the things are. What are those things? Ok. In the weeds. I would say things like contractors and consultants we’ve worked with before. How did it go? Would we work with them? Again? What went? Well, what didn’t, where did they leave off? We did a review. Are there introductions to these people if they like you at the time that you’re now, now we’re, now we’re hypothesizing. Now you’re getting ready to leave you, you’ve given your notice, you’re leaving in a month or six weeks or you know, whatever. Um Are there, are there introductions made to these vendors, consultants people you work with on the still live or potentially will need to be reactivated in the next year. So introductions to colleagues making sure people have the information. So the way I split my exit memo up was strategy initiatives and tools and in the initiatives, it was like, what are all the things that we’re doing now that still needs to be carried forward? So for example, we were rolling out our cybersecurity plan, password manager, like fishing, testing, like all kinds of things that we’re doing with a partner. So I hand that relationship over. So all the initiatives that are happening and then the tools we went into. What’s the tool? How do we use it? How much is it? When does it get renewed? Do I think we should use it again or what, what else is in there in the world? And then the strategy was the big picture around what’s the history of our technology program where, what’s what’s the future recommendations I have around staffing? How do I think it should be staff, if I could wave a magic wand a little bit, it’s like visioning. If I could wave a magic wand and you had all the money in the world and here’s what I think you should do. And here’s maybe a middle tier version of that, but big picture initiatives and tools for what I covered. And this is a written document as well. Do you have conversations with the successor? I guess if the successor is known, you’re able to make these introductions. We just talked about the successor is not known, this was more of a shared resource. Uh Laura, did you have contribution? That’s Laura, I’m sorry. Um Leanna, did you uh did you have contributions to the to the handover plan? My handover plan was pretty similar to Parnas. The one thing I would add is my role was or has been in many different organizations, very engaged with community organizations and partners. And so in addition to sort of handing off the relationship, a lot of relationship tracking. So, um you know, writing down the names of all of the community members that were engaging or the community partners and giving some background information, not just like this is the mission, this is the person, this is their email, but some context around this person never responds to emails. You have to pick up the phone or this person is really busy. Don’t ask them for anything unless it’s really critical and then they will step up. So just providing some context and then some historical knowledge of that relationship because people don’t, they don’t love it when someone new steps in and they have no idea about their importance or their relevance. So filling them in on this person has been in the community for 10 years and this is all the ways that they’ve engaged with us. And this is why they’re critical and this is who they partner with. So that relationship management piece um is really important. And then, you know, we, we’ve also talked quite a bit about how the handover document is one thing, but ideally in our organizations, we’re creating all of these, not specifically the exit memo, but a lot of the documentation during our time there when we’re not even thinking about leaving. So documenting how we do certain processes where possible building in redundancy. So like having someone shadow you when you do something so that if you have to step out, someone else can step in um making sure that you’re not working in a complete silo, which I know is really hard in a small organization because everyone is so busy, but just as much as possible trying to build in some crossover. And um like a partner, I was saying sort of succession planning where like once a year you sit down, you look at, you know, your job description, the responsibilities you have, who can back you up and just making sure that’s up to date because at any point, even if you’re not planning on leaving, anything could happen and you really want to leave, not just the organization a good place back to the altruism comment, but also you want to make sure that the people that you’re supporting, like the community and the partners and you know, your fellows, in my case, you want to make sure that they don’t get dropped and they feel supported in the transition. Did you Leanna, did you meet the person who was going to take your place? Take your job? I knew the person but I did not know they were going to take my role. So they were the person who ended up in my role and is currently in my former role, was a fellow. So I had connected with her as a fellow, which was awesome because she was the right person. She knew the programming, but we didn’t get to do a handover just because, you know, that hiring process took time. And so all there was at that point was sort of documentation. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world. And in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact virtuous.org. Now back to the essential craft of leaving your job. Laura, do you have anything to add to the to the holdover plan guidelines? I think kind of the direction Lena was taking it of there is that document I put together plenty of shared Google Docs as I was exiting. But ideally, that’s just kind of the icing on top. And ideally you’re building on a culture where it is just normal to keep things documented and to work in the open is a value that we had of, I’m not supposed to be working in a document that only I have access to because I eventually want my colleagues to be able to feed in whether it’s to contribute or just to understand and be able to check in. So I think again, circling back to the initial question of why even this topic, I think places that are resilient and healthy places to work often are places where it’s OK and normalized to leave because we’re individuals with vibrant lives and vice versa. A place that feels like awesome Carol’s moving on to something new. That’s fantastic. Probably also has already existing. A lot of processes like the redundancy Leanna is talking about or the documentation culture or just openness and frankness. So I see it all as very, I don’t know, connected to well being of people and organizations. I still think that’s altruism. Laura, did you, did you know who your successor was going to be? And did you talk to that person about the job? I didn’t, I was in a co leadership role at the time, like I mentioned, so I knew that she would be taking forward a lot of things, but I didn’t meet my immediate successor yet. Did anyone, did anyone ever in any job? Never? Ok. I don’t know. I was wondering if that would be awkward but, but you’re all so generous and altruistic that it might not be awkward at all. Um OK. Well, we don’t know, we, we’ll just say that it wouldn’t be awkward because you have the, you have the best interests of the organization in mind as well as your own best interests. That’s why you’re departing, right? Ok. Ok. Um Have we said everything about the Hold the, um, thinking of the movie, the movie The Holdovers? So I was thinking of Paul Giamatti and the Holdovers, the, the Academy Award nominated movie that the handover plan. Have we said everything that you said in the session about the handover plan? Did we leave anything out? Ok. I don’t want nonprofit radio listeners to get short shrift. We covered the handover plan. Well, we created a couple of templates and gather some resources that are related to that documentation piece. And so we did share that out with attendees on the collaborative notes for the session. Um just as an example of what we’re talking about to make it, would that be possible to share with the public or it’s just, is that like just through the NTC 24 NTC app, it’s in the app. But I mean, if someone listening to this wanted to reach out to one of us, I’m sure we can just send a link and I think the URL is public anyway, so anyone can access it. OK. So what would you search for N 10? I think there’s usually after NTC, a list of all the collaborative notes from the sessions, but I don’t know the Exactly right. Right. OK. Yeah, because I saw it for last year’s 2023. Right. So if you go to N ten.org and you look up 24 NTC, you’ll find the list of publicly available resources there because I know it’s available from last year’s so. Alright. Um Checklist of what I’m just drawing from your session description. I’m not imposing these things on you. You, this is I’m taking from you sample checklist of what to address in your job handover. Well, we kind of covered that. Yeah. Right. Right. OK. I wanna make sure we cover everything, tips for setting up your team or successor for success. Yeah, we talked about that. Alright, but we’ve only been talking for like 23 minutes and we did a 60 minute session. The emotions. Thank you. Yes, the emotions how to leave. Well, let’s um ok, uh Laura, you brought up, you mentioned emotions. So why don’t you? I suspect that I would get caught. You volunteered. You were gracious enough to volunteer the idea. So thank you for sharing. Well, I mean, I hope my lovely folks here in because what I realized actually through the process of getting ready for this panel was that the emotions I had to deal with were my own, were my own fears that I decided after a long period of deliberation that I needed to leave and not directly to another role, which is sometimes harder to talk about. It’s easy to say, look, I’m going to this really cool shiny place. It’s a little harder to say, I’m going to my couch now, like I’m going to rest and recharge and all of that, Lena, you had that because you were, you knew where you were going to the Aspirin Institute at the time you left. So you experienced that, right? Yeah. So I had the first step for me was validating my own feelings and recognizing that going to nothing, going to rest, going to myself was valid. And once I got past that. There was a lot of concern about how is my co deputy director going to take this? I love working with her. If I could, I would work with her forever. I don’t want her to feel bad. How is the rest of the leadership going to feel? How is the team going to feel? And that’s all on me, that’s all on the person who’s ruminating on these things more so than the actual departure. Guilt. It sounds like departure, guilt. Yeah, I think we talked about guilt and shame as well, particularly perhaps in the nonprofit sector where folks have a sense of identity and like uh see themselves as their work or their work as themselves and take it very personally. So for me, the biggest bit was my own emotions that anybody else want to share about. I’m not going to call anybody, anybody else want to share about the emotions they felt in the, in the transition for themselves, for the for family, pressure from family, friends, a partner, I think similar to what you’re saying, I think I realized so many of my emotions around it were not misplaced but blown out of proportion by myself. Like when I actually announced that I was leaving and people were really happy for me. Like I, I just, I had assumed that I don’t know what I assumed the worst, right? You assume the worst you hope for the best, but they were such on opposite ends of the spectrum that end up being, ended up being really great, I think for me, because I was taking a leap to not another organization to independent consulting. I think there was just a lot of fear and it was a realization of how much of my own self worth I had tied up into having a job like a traditional 40 hour a week job. And I was like, who am I? If I don’t do that? Am I worth worth less to who? I don’t know. It just now that in retrospect, when I think about it, it feels silly. But at the moment, at the time, I was like, I don’t know any other way and it felt like a huge leap to say, I want to try something different. So it was more, you’re right. It’s so much internal pressure. And once you make that decision, once you announce it, Carol is talking about a comms plan of like, who do you tell first? And then who do you tell? And what’s that whole list? And I feel like with each little bit of telling, it feels a little bit more freeing and like, oh, this is real and it’s ok and life will go on, someone will get hired and the work will happen and it’ll be fine, Leanna Yeah, that I think, you know, announcing it to or sharing it with your colleagues, some will take it well and encourage you and others might not take it well. And part of my learning was that if someone did not take it well, or they felt like why are you abandoning us? This is your loyalty is here. You know. But I think we think about nonprofits as like family, we’re going to be here forever. And so even I think unintentionally sometimes someone’s first reaction might be like, but why I don’t understand, it just doesn’t compute even if eventually they get to a place of like, I’m happy for you. I get it. But I think for me, it was a learning to, like in the beginning, I was very much trying to manage their feelings and justify and be like, wait, wait, wait. But don’t be sad. But let me explain, but let me make you feel better. And then at a certain point, I realized that wasn’t really up to me. It was not my responsibility. I still as a good colleague and friend wanted to be there for folks, but I couldn’t really control what was going on for them. You know, they might have, I don’t know, maybe they were also wanting to leave and they felt like a little, I don’t know who knows what they call survivor guilt, right? And so it’s hard because you feel like I’m the one that’s creating the hurt. So I also need to manage the hurt, but really it’s not up to you to do that. And it’s hard, it’s hard to sort of set that boundary and be like, I understand where you’re coming from. And also I can’t, I can’t fix this feeling for you. Emotion, Carol, we talked a little bit about, I mentioned the coms plan maybe because I have my coms hat on, but we talked a little bit about um actually having a huddle and thinking through and writing out here’s, here’s who needs to know about this internally. And before a public announcement goes out, here’s who needs to about this, what level of detail, um what level of detail or context that they need to know how is it going to be delivered to them? And so what we found is that sometimes for, for one person, it might be that it needs to be a phone call or one on one conversation with someone you worked really closely with for a very long time. And it would be really shocking if they found this in a public announcement, even though you hadn’t been in touch with them the past year. For other folks, it might be, it might just be a group email. You, you were in touch with this organization at one point in Fy, I, you know, um the transition is happening in this role and, but in all of that, I think you can, you can do a lot of homework and planning how you share it. But in the end, humans are humans and they will really surprise you and sometimes they will surprise you and how supportive they are and how, you know, they, they help you navigate some of those questions that you’re struggling with yourself and sometimes they really might just not take it very well. Um And I think so you can do your homework, but in the end, humans will be, humans will be humans. And that is, that’s not on you. And you know, it’s not your responsibility to figure out how um how the role is going to be filled once you’re gone. I think we’re taking on. We feel like it’s our responsibility to leave it well, but it’s not on us to chart out what it looks like beyond our time there. I think one thing we don’t talk about enough and even I am guilty of hiding. This part is I made the decision to leave when I was on parental leave and that happens to so many people. It’s such a monumental change in your life. And I think there’s so much shame attached with like, oh my gosh, but I owe them X amount of time, whoever it is or I have to go back. I don’t want people to think this is what happens when you go out on parental leave that you don’t come back. And there’s so much complexity that goes into that. But we don’t honor the actual huge change in your life that it feels like for some people. And I think we live on Congress may repeal parental leave. If I abuse, if I abuse it, it may, it may be withdrawn from the nation if I Yeah, maybe like it will affect the policy. The ORG policy. I’m like, you don’t want people to you. And then at the end of the day, I was like, but it’s, it’s my life. I have this one beautiful life to live and I don’t want to make stay for the wrong reason. I want to be there and I want to be present. And so I made the decision kind of halfway into my leave and I didn’t just not go back. I went back part time. I phased out there’s ways to do it with care and compassion that you feel. So it wasn’t betrayal to myself. But I think we just, it feels like an all or nothing like you have your leave and you go back and you just pretend nothing happened in your life. And I think in this age of social media, I was looking at so many people that do that and I did that with my first kid and this is my second kid. And I was like, I don’t want to repeat that for myself. It had to be such an individual decision. And I was like, oh, but all these other people, they can do everything and they’re so happy and they make the home cooked meals and they work outside the home and why can’t I cut it? That is what I asked myself and I had to really let go of that. It’s not me, this is such an individual decision and we owe it to ourselves to really think about it as carefully as possible. Anyway, I didn’t want to not mention that. Thank you. I’m glad you did. Thank you. What about the role of family, friends? Is that, uh is that important? I mean, a lot of you are saying that it’s in, well, you’re all saying it’s individual so you don’t not that you need the support. You, you’re, you’ve made the choice for yourselves. Um And you’re, and you’re learning, you come to respect it but family and friends, any, any role, uh doesn’t really matter what they think you can say that I don’t want to put out a directive that you must discuss with your family and friends. I think, you know, we all have different kinds of relationships and, um you know, I have friends who are peer mentors in a way that, you know, people that I can discuss some of these transitions or questions with, um, in a way that’s really where I can be really safe and vulnerable because they’re not in, you know, involved in the work that I’ve invested in. Um And I’m sure there’s a lot of conversations with families about what it means if you’re, especially if you’re leaving without something. Um one thing that came up towards the end of the session is someone, uh, one of the folks who were there, asked, you know, did you have a, was there a particular thing that made you realize I got to go like this is the moment and I raised my hand and I was like, very easy. I’ve left a job because of money and, you know, if I, if I can’t, um, you know, if I don’t see a way that that can change at all, that’s, that’s me sacrificing something for myself and for my family. So Rihanna, we also talked about how not all um situations leaving a job are by choice. Sometimes leaving a job is also because you’re getting laid off, right? Um And in that case, like you can’t really prepare for it necessarily by talking to your family and friends. But um having been through a layoff, like your friends and your family are your number one support system. Um And it is so critical to be able to lean on those people to sort of figure out both from a logistical aspect like your finances and your insurance and all of that, but also just the mental and emotional support of how to deal with um leaving a job when you’re also like, have maybe even more feelings about it than you would had you made the choice on your own. Ok. How about a closing remark? Uh Carol will let you book in since you were, you were the impetus for this. You kicked us off. Uh Leave us with uh some closing thoughts on the essential craft of leaving your job of leaving your job. I love how you call it a craft too. You could, you could have chosen art. I don’t know if you consider it art. Uh But anyway, you chose craft, the craft of leaving your job. Leave us, leave us with some closing thoughts. And then um I guess my main thing is talk about it, talk about it, talk about it from day one and towards the end of the recession, a few people came up and um some folks said, oh, I’m, I’m thinking about leaving my role. You know, I, I’m so glad I sat through this. Another person said, I just left a role that was not working out and sitting here felt so healing to be together with other folks who are sharing about their experience and speaking with us. So I think um in the lead up to this session, I had connected with other folks about it as well and even arriving here when people would ask, oh, like, are you presenting? And I would mention this is the session that I was, um I was speaking on. Most people had a pretty strong reaction to it. Like I think we just don’t talk about it enough. So, um you know, sit with yourself and, and think about it for yourself, but also talk about it with your team as you build out those teams. Thank you. That’s Carol Robison, Director of Communications at the online news Association with her is Laura Guzman, Director of Communications at DEV Global. Also Leanna Malina, senior project manager at the Aspen Institute and Aparna Kari, independent consultant. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you for sharing. Thank you all. So that’s you’re gonna leave us book ended. You remember I was like, I’m gonna stop talking. People have better things to say than me. Thank you all very much. And thank you for your, for being with us for the 2024 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for non profits. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. It’s time free break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money but also supports you in retaining your donors, a partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability, your organization needs, helping you help others visit donor box.org to learn more its time for Tonys T to thank you, Kate. There’s a new Jim guy. Uh I’ve been overhearing. Uh I haven’t seen the previous gym guy, I’m sure he’ll be back. The one who, uh, gave me the, the lesson in motor boat, uh, engine troubleshooting and, um, the, uh, narration for the Blue Angels, uh Memorial Day show. I haven’t seen him, seen or heard him. I haven’t heard him lately. He hasn’t been in the same time that I go, but there’s another guy a little loud, you know, loud, uh, older easily. I’d say 75 or so. Uh And he has recently been diagnosed. Uh, of course, I’m learning this as I’m forced to listen to him at the gym with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Now, I knew right away idiopathic means the, the doctor can’t determine the cause. It’s just an unknown cause and pulmonary fibrosis, I wasn’t so sure about. So I, I mean, obviously I knew with lungs, pulmonary lungs, but uh, so idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, they don’t know the cause but your lungs thicken and harden. Uh and, and they sort of grow these fibers, they become fibrous and lung tissue is supposed to be uh loose and expandable and contractible and flexible and permeable. So he’s got a serious and it’s a serious disease. Um, he comes to the gym with a supplemental oxygen tank, he’s got a tank strapped across his shoulder like a, like a woman might wear a, a purse in a crowded subway or, you know, in a, in a busy uh in, in a busy city, you know, like, so you don’t want it to be taken off your shoulders. You’d wear it across your shoulder. And that’s the way he wears his supplemental oxygen tank. And I was thinking if this guy with a supplemental oxygen tank can get himself to the gym and he’s working his ass out, he works on a bike. Uh, that, that seems to be all, that’s all I saw him doing. I think that’s all he does. He’s on a bike, but this guy’s got supplemental oxygen and he’s, he’s pushing himself to get to the gym and work out. So I think if idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis guy can get to the gym, we all can do some form of exercise, whether it’s go to a gym or run or yoga or even meditation is exercise. What, whatever it is, pick your, pick your workout, free weights, Pilates, whatever, Peloton, whatever it is. If this guy can work out, I think he’s an inspiration for all of us. And that Stony take two Kate. Now, I feel inspired to go to my Monday yoga class. Now, I wish it was tonight. I’m gonna go do yoga now. You, well, maybe there’s two classes a week you can go to. Now, I gotta figure out if there’s Thursday night yogas. All right. Do it. It working out if, if this guy can do it, any of us can. We’ve got vuko but loads more time here is data privacy. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit. Radio coverage of the third day of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference you might be able to hear in my voice just a little bit that this is the third day we’re sponsored at 24 NTC by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits with me. For this conversation are Kim Snyder, vice president of data strategy at Roundtable Technology, Lauren Feldman Hay, the Chief Information Officer at Fountain House, and Jonathan Geller, a member of Fountain House, Kim Lauren, Jonathan, welcome, welcome to nonprofit radio. You’ve done your session already? Have you or is it this afternoon? Ok. Ok. Very good. First day you took care of it. So maybe we’ll talk about some of the questions perhaps that emerged from there. We’re gonna talk about a little more privacy. Please diving into data privacy for nonprofits. Jonathan, let’s start down the end with you seated. Uh furthest from me. Well, you know who you are, but for the folks, uh folks who don’t have the advantage of video, Jonathan is seated uh furthest. Why do we need this? Why do we need the session, Jonathan, what, what was the impetus for this? Well, for me, uh being a member of Fountain House, uh first of all, something that I that I’ve been screaming, screaming about from the mountain top for over 20 years is data privacy just personally. So once I became a member of Found House and I saw how seriously they treated my data. It was, it was refreshing. All right. So you, you, you saw the impact of uh Fountain House’s scrutiny, scrupulousness, scrupulousness, not scrutiny. Um Alright, so Lauren, why don’t you share a little bit about what, what fountain house is about and uh why, why you are so scrupulous about your members data. So um Fountain House is an organization um that was one of the first uh the first clubhouse for folks with serious mental illness. Um It was formed by members um for members and so staff and members work really closely alongside each other, which means that members and staff um work with member data. And um and we want to make sure that members and staff um know about data privacy and know why it’s important um especially when dealing with really sensitive personal information for folks. Um And I guess, yeah, that would sum it up. We’ll go into more detail. That’s a good, that’s a good kick off. Thank you. And um Kim, can you uh add your your perspective to the, to the overview the why for the topic? Um Well, besides for the fact that data privacy protects data that belongs to people, and I think that’s what we need to remember. There have been numerous data privacy regulation, numerous laws passed in, in states and we’re seeing an increasing number of that, of those kinds of laws. So it does speak to something that nonprofits need to think about being compliant with or being able to answer to at a time when people are thinking about their own privacy more and might be asking questions about it. Privacy is very aligned on in terms of ethics with a lot of nonprofits and nonprofit values and very human centered approach to data. But now it is entering the kind of we’ll call it regulatory world. Um So I think it does need to, it, it has implications for how nonprofits work with data, the regulatory world. So you’re referring to the pi i the personally identifiable information and, and states, I mean, there are a lot of states that are enacting laws uh that what we’re referring to. Yeah, they’re, they’re picking up steam because federally we haven’t been able to pass a law. So GDPR, which is the general data privacy regulation that came from the EU really created a framework for data privacy and what it means that an individual has rights to their privacy. So if I give you my data, I have certain rights, my data does not become your data. So that, that comes with certain implications and in the absence of a federal regulation, we’re seeing more states pick it up. And in 2023 7 states pass privacy laws, they’re all a little different and not all of them will cover nonprofits necessarily. But in a time when people are more privacy focused, you need to be able to answer to the kind of data practices that would allow you to comply with these regulations. Are there some state laws that exempt nonprofits? You, you just, you just mentioned some don’t apply to nonprofits. Are, are there states that exempt nonprofits explicitly? Well, I’ll say I won’t say they exempt them explicitly as well. There’s a, there are carve outs for nonprofits in some states. Yes. And because some of these laws will are more designed around higher revenue, for profit sales of data, things like that the law might apply to a certain threshold of annual revenue that a lot of nonprofits wouldn’t meet. But that said there are other laws that apply to nonprofit organizations and as we operate in a more boundary world, uh uh in terms of different states and, and also collecting data of people who live around the world in different countries, we need to be thinking about the implications of these kinds of laws. So while there may not be a law in your state, um it still is relevant because these laws cover the residents of the States and the countries um for the people whose data that you collect doesn’t, doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with where your place of business is. Also. Some of the laws also deal with that. So, so it’s based on the individual’s state of residence and uh your and or your, where you’re doing business. OK. So in other words, you need to be acquainted with what your state law is around privacy and data protection. That’s because we’re not gonna be able to, you know, we can’t, we can’t survey the whole country. You need to know what is, what applies to. But it’s also to your states where your, where your folks are, where you are. And yeah, might include donors across the country. Might include donors in Europe and other folks too. So you might not naturally think, you know, Fountain House is a New York based nonprofit, but we’re starting to do work with more clubhouses around the country. We have a history of working with clubhouses around the world. Um But when, when a lot of folks think about Fountain House data, they might first think about our own member data or employee data and having that based in New York. Um But really, you know, we are collecting data about people um donors like from, from around the country around the world. So the law would say you’re doing business in all these states where your, where your donors are. Ok. And that gives them that gives the state jurisdiction over your practices. Yeah, I’d like to add something though about um not getting too state focused but thinking of the framework that was laid out by the GDPR because all the laws are based on that. There’s some variation of GDPR thinking of that instead as a framework for trust and responsible data practices because it may not be in a state that you’re in today, but it could come and we’re in a time of more, the, the term digital trust speaks to do people trust what places are doing with their data. And I think as nonprofits, we want to be able to have the most human centered data practices and be able to answer to questions say, if a donor, um whether or not their state has a law says, you know, II I would like my data deleted. Do you want to be the nonprofit that says, well, if it’s a donor, then you legally are obligated to hold on to that data. But so that then you can say that. But if it’s just like a marketing or, or something that you’re not, you’re not legally required. Do you want to say, well, you know, you’re not from a state where that applies. So we’re not gonna do that. So it, it, you want to start thinking about this because it is and it’s the right thing to do the right thing to do. Jonathan, let’s go back to you. Take it from the organizational level to the individual. What, what were your, what were your concerns? What are your, well, you’re still concerned. Fountain House is treating you right? But other organizations, companies that you deal with may not. What are your concerns around data privacy? Well, my concerns stem from the fact that as someone that was the victim of identity theft and uh poor data practices. Um um I’m very concerned about what organizations are doing with my data. And even after being uh becoming a member of Fountain House, after dealing with my own mental health challenges, I certainly wanted to be more aware of what data was collected and what, what they’re doing with the data. Um So one, once I became a member and then within uh the unit that I’m a part of which is the research unit, we do a lot of work with other members, data, not just uh my own. So it was required that we get hi, a trained hi A certified so that we handle the data in the appropriate manner and that we treat other people’s data like our own data. Um What was your own story that uh of the the where you were victimized? Um Basically all of my information, people would just approach me and hey, this is your social security number. Hey, this is where you live and I’d be sitting there saying how did you get this information? There was some bank account stuff that happened and it all just some of that contributed to my declining mental health? I see. All right. Thank you for the personal side of this. I don’t think people think of that at all, you know, they think about the the credit report impacts the, you know, the credit worthiness impacts. Thank you. Alright. Um Lauren, let’s turn to you. For some I’m taking from your session descriptions. I’m not, I’m not imposing this on the on the three of you. That’s what you wrote up. Uh fundamental principles of data privacy. We started to touch on some, but let’s go into some detail. You’re our Chief Information Officer representative. So um like Kim said, I think starting from a culture of trust is really important, knowing the regulations, important, but also not getting overwhelmed by the amount of regulations because there are a lot and working at a nonprofit, you have limited resources, you usually have staff and constituents members who have varying levels of digital literacy and digital understanding and comfort with technology. So you have to meet people where they are. Um and, and, and have conversations about data and about keeping data secure, you know, which has a relationship to cybersecurity as well and learning about things that could compromise your data, conversations with. You’re talking about employees, volunteers, anybody who’s in touch with other people’s data. So it’s useful especially to have conversations with folks because whether you’re a new employee, be a new member, you might not know the types of information that are being gathered, the pieces of data that are being gathered to accomplish your everyday work. You know, because our organization Fountain House is complex. We’re growing, we’re growing quickly. Um We’ve been around for a long time but things change over time and, and how we process our membership. Um app applications, how we um either share information with external stakeholders or partners like health insurance, um managed care organizations that evolves and we need to have the conversations to be able to know, you know, what does this department or area of Fountain House want to do with information in order to serve folks better or outreach to more folks. Um And if you don’t have those conversations and if we don’t communicate, we don’t always know what’s going on aside from conversations. Can you share another best practice with us for, for listeners? Yeah. Um I would say um I really like documenting things in different ways because people learn in different ways and especially working in an organization where um you know, folks are at different levels of digital literacy, it really helps to have maybe like a visual a diagram um and some written documentation and then conversations uh we have a very verbal culture, I would say at Fountain House. So being comfortable with conversations, but then also having other ways for folks to learn and absorb information or go back. Um And, and see the, the documentation about, oh, now I know when I enter information into this system, it’s also used by this other system because I can see the visual connection between the two systems in this diagram. Whereas just interacting with them on the computer or on a tablet, I thought they were completely separate. So that type of thing II I found has been helpful as well. Kim. Can you add to our list of best practices for data privacy? Sure. Well, one of the things that’s really important to is to, well, first of all, getting to know what data do you collect, you can’t protect that, which you don’t know you collect. So, and it is a lot about, that’s adorable. Sort of a poem. Data privacy poem. I’ll work on a better one for you next year. Um But uh where was I? Um you can’t know how to protect what you don’t know that you? Um So, OK, so one of the things that’s really important because this is overwhelming, maybe you can come back with a haiku next year. I will do that. In fact, I’m sorry now. So, one of the things that’s really important is getting to know what data you collect. And I’ve been working with nonprofits for um 30 years and data actually got my start at Fountain House, which is interesting to be back working with them. But um um data in nonprofits tends to, tends to be by its nature rather siloed because a lot of nonprofits are program driven. So there isn’t a sense of what all do we collect? Whose data do we collect that might be sensitive. So the first real task in any of it is getting to know what data you collect. Well, how do you do that? That’s kind of for people who have a full plate. That’s, that’s a lot to also take on, right, the data inventory if you will and that is done or that is that job is made easier when you have what’s known as data stewards or different people. Departmental champions of data, they don’t have to be data analysts. There are people, in fact, sometimes it’s better if they’re not. Right. It’s more important that they know your organizations, what programs, what’s happening with programs and what’s going on in each of these different areas and departments, you kind of appoint folks as a data steward. I those are anointing with Excalibur like King Arthur and the round. I was thinking of what is uh uh from the Lady of the Lake that’s from um Monty Python, the Lady of the Lake. OK? Not like that. Um But, but you ID these, you identify them, they’re not always like the, the the program director, right? It’s people who find they have a, they kind of get along with data. You find those people, those are your gems and the fountain house. It’s, it’s, it’s so great because it’s members and staff and it’s, and those people will know your data stewards will know what you collect and you engage them in the process of understanding what you collect, understanding how data moves, right? Lauren was talking about diagrams but understanding like how do we get this data and then what happens to it and what are the steward’s responsibilities. Why are we anointing these folks? We are? Well, I don’t officially have an anointing process. That’s my word, but I encourage every organization. What do they do? What do our stewards do they get to know the data? They, um we actually have templates and things like that. These are the kinds of things we gave out in the webinar. Uh They document what it like the flow of information through their various area. It could be very specific to one program. It could be a department. Um It really depends on what their perspective is, but they there and there’s a certain template for interviewing kind of to understand mapping, start to map the structure to the flow of data through your organization. And at that point you can identify. Wow. OK. We’re collecting very sensitive information in XYZ program. OK. Wow. What are we doing with that? How do we protect that? Where is it all going? Do we share it? Do we allow people to download it to their computers? Hopefully not Jonathan. What does, what does Fountain House do specifically that you as a member? See? And that reassures you. Well, again, I’m just basing this off of my experience. Um This is as Kim was mentioning before about the data stewards. It’s something that I wasn’t anointed. The Lady of the Lake did not know it didn’t happen in a way at all. They basically said you seem to have an apt some some level of aptitude for this. So you need to get HIPAA certified. And I said, sure I’ve had experience with that in the past. Um Basically, now again, this is more from the member side, not so much the donor side. Um Anything from processing the nece uh the necessary membership applications as Lauren was mentioning before just uh inputting the data within into certain systems, sometimes migrating that data over to other systems. And then for me, what’s the most important part about it is I treat everyone’s data like I’m handling my own data and you feel like others in Fountain House do the same. I’m looking for, you know what reassures you about what they do. It’s just again, as Kim was had mentioned, just the conversations you have with people, they’ll sit there, privacy is something that’s very important to me. So they’ll sit there and due to the fact that it’s just it’s an open culture, but it’s also a respectful culture. So it’s someone sitting there saying listen, is this something you would like to talk about in private? Come here, let’s talk about this in private. So we could go over this, we could find out what to do. If you have any questions, there’s, there’s boundaries put in place and their unspoken boundaries. But it it’s I think it’s more of a respect than anything else. Respect, respect for the person and, and their data. I mean, and this could be as simple as like address. I mean, I’m thinking of maybe an animal shelter. Well, they need to have your address, they need to know where they’re placing adoptions, right. I mean, it doesn’t have to be social security number and credit cards and children’s names necessarily address and phone number, email. All of that is considered personally identifiable information and we want to make sure we protect it. Um, we in our clubhouse locations, uh we have members and staff working together with contact information of other members reaching out um conducting outreach, phone calls, emails, texts, and people take that information seriously. Um And um they want to engage with the member and they know that other members also will be engaging with their information and reaching out to them. So I think that participation, that direct participation really lends itself to both understanding why it’s important to protect information. Um because data is information, you know, it could be on paper as well. We haven’t really talked about that aspect of it. Um And, and also identifying and working with, with people’s strengths. Um That’s something that’s really important in our culture too, to identify people’s strengths and come from that approach. And, and that’s kind of a similar, a nice parallel with identifying data stewards, identifying folks who, who might be doing things and they don’t consider themselves a data person at all. Um They might be really focused on, on helping folks find employment or housing. Um And then they learn more and more about data and then, you know, a new, a new phase of their partnership and membership in Found House emerges, which is pretty cool. What came out of your uh your session? Like what, what questions that uh you remember uh were, were poignant, interesting questions or comments or comments from the audience. Uh One that stood out for me was there was a gentleman who informed us that he, he became sort of the accidental techie at his organization. And he said, how do I start this conversation? And it’s a simple question because is, is there, you know, it, it sounds like is there a specific approach, is there a way to do this? And I’ve had experience in sales and marketing in the past. So I just, it stood out to me as a very unique question because the answer is just simple. Just start talking to someone. What do you do? What’s what throughout your workflow day? What is it that you do? What is it that you handle? What is it that you come across? What do you use to? What do you use to navigate this? What do you use to complete it? Just ask a question. That’s all you have to do. And I think I was thinking of that same, that same person and that same question because a lot of times if you end up being the accidental techie or the person who’s, you know, maybe the first person to, to start talking about, about data privacy and, and the risks that we have as nonprofit organizations having lots of personal information on, on lots of different folks. And how do you, when you’re say a small nonprofit, especially where you don’t necessarily have someone in charge of operations as a whole or technology as a whole. Um How do you start having those conversations with people, you know, who aren’t necessarily on your team? They might be on a different team. Um You know, working in finance or you might be working in like marketing and like keeping all the social media accounts up to date. And so having having conversations can then help you start to have a venue like a regular, you know, meeting series where you talk about things like data privacy that maybe didn’t have a home before and then by, by having these conversations, you start to build a home for it and more and more people begin to learn about it and realize its importance. Anything else from the session that stood out comments, questions that maybe questions you weren’t anticipating. We didn’t have that much time. I will be honest um in the side because it was a full plate, let’s put it that way. Um Wish we had more time for people’s individual questions. I think one of the, I can talk about one of the takeaways that we wanted people to have and I think both Jonathan and Lauren have spoken to this already. But the idea of this is a journey and you can find a way to mesh it with your culture. This does not require lots of technical tools, getting to know your data is by and large, not a technical task. It’s one of having conversations, it’s talking to people and often people want to sit down and have these conversations and to build that knowledge base in your organization to start to, you know, educate your staff, your colleagues on this is what we collect. Well, these are kind of the policies we might wanna put in place in order to make sure that we’re handling data uh in a way that’s, you know, both respectful and enables us to get our work done. Jonathan, I’m gonna ask you to close us out as the, as the person who was uh sounds like devastated by AAA breach of, of data. So talk to our listeners in small and mid size nonprofits and remind them how important it is and what you want them to take away. I think um when you’re dealing with sensitive data again, as Kim had mentioned, no, and Lauren has mentioned, know what your data is, know what it is that you, you have your hands on and take the necessary steps to ensure that you treat others data like you would treat your own data. That’s Jonathan Geller. He’s a member at Fountain House with him is uh Lauren Feldman Hay, the Chief Information Officer at Fountain House, and Kim Snyder, Vice President of Data Strategy at Roundtable Technology, formerly of Fountain House. All right, Kim Lauren Jonathan. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you a pleasure. Thanks for having. Thanks for sharing and thank you for being with our coverage of 24 NTC where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us next week. Use your tech to enable generosity. If you missed any part of this weeks show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by Virtuous. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and go giving virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Fast, flexible, friendly fundraising forms. II, I can’t get over the alliteration. Love it and I didn’t write it. You know, they write it. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. The show, social media is by Susan Chavez, Mark Silverman is our report guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 percent go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for June 17, 2024: Gen Z Career Challenges

 

Ray Sherry: Gen Z Career Challenges

After a deeply personal episode, Ray Sherry devoted himself to helping Gen Z’ers—like the one who saved his life—with their careers. He channels his 40 years of experience in financial services and consulting to share his advice, so younger professionals take charge of their careers. Ray is CEO of Zynd.

 

 

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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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And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d bear the pain of laryngeal FRAXs if you obstructed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with the highlights. Hey, Tony, I’m on it. Gen Z career challenges. After a deeply personal episode, Ray Sherry devoted himself to helping Gen Zers like the one who saved his life with their careers. He channels his 40 years of experience in financial services and consulting to share his advice. So younger professionals take charge of their careers. Ray is CEO of Zind on Tonys. Take two more chatty gym guy were sponsored by virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Here is Gen Z career challenges. It’s my pleasure now to be with Ray Sherry following a liver transplant. And on learning that his donor was a young man. Ray dedicated his work to aligning young individuals with careers that amplify their innate talents. He has 40 years spanning sectors like financial services and consulting. It was recognized in the UK with the best digital start up award in 2022 for ID INFO Limited. He’s now CEO of Zind Zynd. The company is at zind.co.uk and Ray is on linkedin Ray Sharry. Welcome to nonprofit Radio Tony. Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be here. My pleasure to have you. You need to tell us the story to get started. Uh This liver transplant was transformational, not only for your body but for your thinking too, not only for your physical body, but your, your, you, you blossomed from there into something new. I think that’s a, that’s a great way of putting it, Tony. Uh I’ll, I’ll wind the clock back a little bit. Give you a little bit of uh history. So about uh 2005, I was diagnosed with a very rare liver disease called primary sclerosing Cholangitis PSC for short. And I was informed at that time by the consultant doctor that I was working with that at some point in my life, I would need a liver transplant. So unlike many people who need organ transplants, I was given quite a long heads up as to what I would have to go through at some point in my life. But the, the unusual thing about PSC, it’s not something that you can predict how quick it will actually evolve as a disease and how quick the liver will deteriorate. So, wind the clock forward to 2020. In fact, March 2020 I was on an interim uh contract with, uh, with very good payments company here in, uh, in the UK. And the pandemic came along and everyone got locked up from, from March uh 23 March 23rd. Uh At that time, I was already um working towards a AAA major, a major goal in my life, which is actually to do an Iron Man for the very first time. I was already, I was already doing half marathons. I was already swimming over a mile and I was already cycling 75 miles on a, on a regular basis. So 2020 was going to be my breakthrough year from a, from a personal sports perspective. Um And in parallel, I was obviously looking at what can I do after spanning a career of 40 years, what can I do to help my community, help my country whilst we, whilst we go through a pandemic. And that’s when I began to think through what are the challenges that young people face. Um As I went through my own personal challenges of working towards this Iron Man, then the pandemic came and everything got canceled. So like many other people, um I had to stay at home. I had to look out for my loved ones and my friends and, uh, make sure that I wasn’t, wasn’t exposed to the, the COVID virus. Uh, like many others. Um, I continued to cycle. I continued doing my sports and that was one of the, one of the great things about, it was a great time to cycle because all the traffic disappeared from the roads around, uh, Cardiff and Wales where I live. Um And it was a great time. And later that year, uh by the time we got into the September period, there’s a, there’s a race that we do here in Cardiff. Uh It’s called what we call T 10. It’s uh it’s what we call Cardiff to Swansea. It’s 100 and eight miles in a straight line from east to west in, in South Wales. And we were due to do that uh in September, but because of the pandemic, it was canceled in October. Uh we decided as friends to go and do a cycle ride. Anyway, we were allowed to. And at the end of that October ride, I, I’d cycled 100 and 25 miles and then everything changed again within literally two weeks. Um I, I became jaundiced, I became unwell and uh I had to go and see uh my consultant to find out what was going on and it transpired that my liver had gone from regularly, you know, evolving in terms of the pace of change based on the diagnosis I had in 2005 but had gone and, and had dropped off the edge of a cliff. Um, anyone that knows anything about liver function test, my bilirubin was over 100 and 60. That’s 10 times what it should be. Normally. Um Within six weeks I had been through transplant assessment and, um, made the UK transplant list, um, December and January 2020 20 going into 2021 was incredibly difficult for me. I, I’m not really sure how I got through it but I fought um mm mainly probably because of my sports strength and my mental strength that came from all of my sports activities, uh my experience and just knowing myself and my body and, and how I was feeling. Were you in hospital at that time? December, January, you were still in hospital. I was still home. You see, you see Tony, this was the height of the pandemic in the UK. So here in the States too, that’s why I was asking if that was the time that you were in the hospital. But you, you were, you were able to stay home or, or you needed to stay home, stayed home. I, I stayed home uh through that, through that December and that January and actually I was still, I was still cycling, although I was the color of a, of a tangerine orange. I was, I was still cycling. And, uh, the weekend, the weekend before I got my first transplant called, uh, I’d been out and I’d done 25 miles with, uh, a friend and had helped relatively good. I’d, I’d had antibiotics for the infection that was causing me to feel very, very unwell. And I’d sort of recovered from that. Um, then by the end of January, which the pandemic was really, really getting to grips, uh, with, with the UK. Um I had a call from my transplant hospital to tell me that they had closed. So I’m on the waiting list for a hospital that’s 100 and 60 miles away in London. And they tell me that they’ve had to close because of the pandemic and they were transferring me as a patient to Newcastle. Now, Newcastle is a good 250 miles from where I live and it’s about 200 miles from London in particular. And I needed to go and have an assessment with the Newcastle Transplant Hospital in order for them to accept me onto their list. So I had to jump in the car literally within 24 hours drive all the way up to Newcastle through the snow, do the assessment and then wait again, I had to come back to, to cardiff and wait again. Um Literally within a week, I was back on the transplant list in London. Um The, the COVID restrictions have been lifted, things had been cleaned up and they were accepting patients again and it was literally within a week of that, that being lifted, uh which was at the end of February that I got my first call uh for um for a liver. Um I was actually out walking in the local park and they called me and said, Ray, we’ve got uh a transplant or potential transplant for you. The ambulance will be with you within the hour, You need to go home and uh pack your bags and go. So to cut a long story short on, on all of that, uh literally within 15 hours of me getting to London getting prepped, they came with the news that unfortunately the liberal wasn’t suitable for me. There were, there were challenges with it and it wasn’t suitable. So I had to turn around, jump back in the ambulance and go all the way back to Cardiff. Um You know, it’s, those are the sort of things that I was warned that would happen. And uh you know, I was feeling better than, than I had through December and January. So I, I shrugged it off said those are the things that happened and I was forewarned. So I wasn’t too concerned about it. My, my time would come in a week, a week later on the third of March, I had a call 730 in the morning and said, right, we’ve got you another liver, but we’ve got you another donor and uh we’ve checked out the donor. Everything seems good. We need to get you up to London for the transplant. So, that was the third of March. It was early in the morning. By the time I got to London it was two o’clock in the afternoon. Um, by about six o’clock, I was beginning to, you know, twiddle my thumbs. Uh I’d been playing games with the family on the, on the phone just to keep me occupied and keep them sort of, uh informed. And around about eight o’clock, I asked my first question about my donor. I said, how’s things going with the donor? And, uh there was very little information about the donor. Uh, and, and to be honest, we being very selfish and very focused on what I needed to get through. II, I didn’t really think much of my donor. I didn’t, I think I didn’t think of what the family was going through. I didn’t think my donor was going through. I, I really didn’t get paid much attention to that. I just had the focus on myself and get through what I was going to go through basically. Um, and I think in the end that was probably the right thing to do. So at one o’clock in the morning, I was taken down, um taken down to the operating theater. I, I said a little prayer, you know, just a few minutes before I asked for a minute from the nurses and just said a little prayer. And 30 seconds later, I was sort of almost hopping. Seriously. I was almost hopping. Um, quite joyful on my way down to the operating theater. I arrived there, talked to the east, the test I could see into the operating theater room. It was a great big white room, lots of machines everywhere, lots of lights everywhere. And I, I didn’t once feel anything other than this is something I need to do. And I’m really happy that I’m going through this because I’ve waited effectively 16 years since that original diagnosis in 2005. So they put me to sleep. And uh about 11 hours later, I was woken up, the consultant plays a little trick, you know, the main surgeon, he plays a little trick. He actually wakes you up for a few moments, takes out the mobile phone number that you gave the family and he calls the main contact number and he has a little conversation to say everything’s ok. The operation went very well. Let me, let me have a little chat with my mother at this point in time. Apparently I swore, which was not a good thing to do at the time, but I have absolutely no recollection of that whatsoever. So they call me back to sleep and I was, I was, I was sedated for a further 24 hours. This was then um late on the fourth of March. So I’d been asleep. I’d been in the operating theater since the early hours of the fourth. Um, gone through the fourth and I woke up on the Saturday morning, um, and was, was chatting quite happily to the nurses who were still looking after me in critical care unit. I asked a question. I asked a simple question. Um, do you know anything about my donor? And no sooner had I mentioned those words? I was, I just collapsed in a pile of emotion. I didn’t know, I didn’t know him. I didn’t know his family. I didn’t know anything about him. But what struck me was the fact that he was a young man, um most likely in his twenties and through the whole course of 2020. And even before that, in 1919, I’d been working in my mind up a story up a journey, something that I wanted to do, having have a very successful career in technology for 40 years. I wanted to do something for people. I wanted to do something for my community. And it was that it was that moment thinking of my donor that it struck me that I needed to do something for young people. I needed to help young people because my donor, he wasn’t able to reach his full potential in his life. Therefore, it’s something that I needed to do for him and in his memory and for the for for as many young people that I could possibly do. Thank you for sharing. Uh That’s, that’s a, that’s a moving story. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtues believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers, responsive. Fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact virtuous.org. Now back to Gen Z career challenges. So that led you then to Zind and you are taking advantage of the, your 40 plus years and you’re helping young folks embark on and, and grow their careers. Yes, that’s absolutely right. I had been harboring in my mind. These are the sorts of things that you uh you have taken over in your mind all the time that you get an idea. You think about the idea, you part the idea, you then come back to it at some point point in time. And uh 2020 give me, gave me that opportunity to begin to document some of that thinking and it wasn’t until I learned about my donor and his age. And uh the fact that he was a young guy that it really became quite clear to me that helping young people, helping all people who are going through a journey, whether it’s from school, college, university and into the workplace for the first time was the right thing for me to do. Uh Even those people that have been, you know, taken redundancy and, and want to change and move into a different industry. I wanted to be able to help those people to anyone that was coming back to work, whether it was through maternity leave or whether it was long, long term sickness. Um As I was facing, it’s something I wanted to do. So I create in uh along with a, a co-founder uh in January 2023 we started out by um thinking about, well, what are the, what are the, what is the goal here? What is the sort of vision and goal here? And it was really just all about helping young people, helping them navigate what is a very difficult journey from the safety of the educational years or the academic years into the ultimately the crazy world of, of work and the the the 2030 40 years that, that people will face as they enter that for the very first time. So we started researching um in more detail and trying to confirm through research um some of the challenges that young people would be facing. Um anybody would be facing as they, as they approached the workplace for the very first time. Um And there, there may be there, there’s value here also for older folks who might be mentors to, I know you’re, I think you’re, you’re working specifically with or you’re thinking mostly about Gen Z but anybody older who might be uh mentoring Gen Z or even just to be empathetic to what younger folks are facing in, in the, the beginnings or the uh yeah, in the beginnings of their careers. So it may not be the very first job, it might be second job or third job. But you know, as you get yourself launched, uh I think there’s value for folks who are older than Gen Z to understand what the challenges are for these folks. So let’s, let’s again, you know, let let’s go a little broader so that we can help our Gen Z colleagues as they’re as they’re coming along. Um You, you, you say that uh one of the, one of the challenges they’re facing, the early challenge is just un understanding your skills are, are, are folks not introspective enough or do they, do they not understand what skills are needed in the marketplace that they should be emphasizing what, what’s your advice around understanding what your value is, your skills? Yeah, you’re absolutely right. So, so this is, this is probably the the most critical part of this whole process. So when a person writes their CV, for the very first time, um, what, what will they have on there? The question is, what, what can they put on that CV? For the very first time, it will be mostly academic in nature. They will go through whether they’ve been at college, whether they’ve been university and so forth. Ok. So that’s if they’ve got any work experience, they’ve been very lucky. And they’ve done like a, like a, what we call a thin sandwich course where they’ve managed to have a few months in industry whilst they’re going through university, they can put some experience on there and a summer internship as well, perhaps. Exactly. Exactly. That, so, so, so there is a, there is a sort of set of things that you would put on the CV. The last thing they tend to put on the CV is their skills. They don’t tend to identify the skills that they have because they don’t, they’re not trained to think about the skills when they’re going through their academic years. They’re told, they’re told to learn, they’re told to research and, and, and pick up new knowledge, but they’re not really taught about their skills and how to use those skills in particular. Ok. So for that reason, they don’t think about skills when it comes to their, their resume or their CV. And they don’t identify them clearly on the CV. So when you got to be a skills section, very much so, very much so. And, and I would also, I would also advocate that they should identify at least try to determine the level of skill that they’re at. So for someone who’s coming on to the job market, for the first time, I would suggest they probably got a basic level of understanding of communications. OK? Unless they’ve done something in particular to uh forward or improve those communication skills that may have been through work experience, it may have been through a summer internship or it may have been through upskilling and training. OK. So identifying the basic uh or the level of skill that they have is, is incredibly important. It’s also very true on the employer side that they need to do the same. Because if they, if they just advertise a job, we’re looking for someone with good basic uh communication skills, we’re looking for someone with uh teamwork ability, et cetera, et cetera. If they don’t specify the level that they’re looking for, even at an entry level job, then there’s gonna be an automatic mismatch between the expectations of the employer and the expectations of the individual applying for that job. And this is what happens they don’t meet in the middle, they completely miss one another. OK. So what you end up finding is that a lot of young people apply for jobs, a lot of people apply for jobs and they haven’t got a chance even from the outset of matching the expectations of the employer. Not even at that early prescreening prescreening stage. Are they able to meet those expectations? It’s only when the employer shortlists and interviews can they begin to close that gap and understand? Where does that? Where does the applicant sit in relation to the expectations of the employer? All right, I guess if I was gonna summarize that, I would say, know your value, you, you need to know what it is that you bring even, even if you’re right out of, uh, you know, right out of college, you know, what, what is the, or, or even, uh, you know, with a two year degree, four year degree, you know, or even no degree. If it, if, if you’re right out of high school, what is the value that you’re bringing to the workplace and, and, and how does that match what the needs are of the, the organization? So, you know, uh, and I understand your advice from the organization perspective, you know, to be clear about what the needs are, what the expectations are among among applicants. Uh, but there may be some research required as well. You know, you, uh, on the individual side, what does the organization do? What, what do they write about? You know, that, that’s, that’s how you could sort of suss out what, what their needs might be so that you can match your value. To what their needs are. It’s exact, that’s exactly the case. Um uh you know, from experience. Uh and I’ve done this time and time and time again, I’ve picked up a copy of a previous job description. I’ve uh with technology, I’m able to copy and paste it into another job description. I’ve changed a few words here and there and I put it out onto the internet. Haven’t really thought about what it is. I’m really looking for. So the challenges are quite lengthy. There’s quite a long, long list of challenges on the, on the jobseeker side, on the applicant side. But there are failings regularly on the side of the employer as well. They don’t help themselves, they don’t publish enough information about them and their company, their values where they’re going as a company, what their history is, um what their policies are. What do they stand for in terms of a brand? They don’t do enough to publish that information in the right place for the applicants to be able to go? Oh, that looks like a good company. Oh, I would love to work for them. So the applicant is uh, is more inclined to put the effort in to make sure that they get an interview with that particular employer. Ok. So the employer needs to do more. Ok. But, but, and I agree, but the employee, the potential employee needs to work with what they’re, what’s out there. So you gotta do the research, you gotta do the leg work to, to find what, maybe it’s even what other people have written about the organization, you know. Uh, but, um, certainly starting with what the, what the organization says about itself in its, obviously in its website, in its annual report, in its, in its social, uh, networks in the social networks. What are they saying there? Uh You know, you wanna, you wanna, you gotta ally yourself with the work of the organization. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money but also supports you in retaining your donors, a partner that helps you raise funds, both online and on location. So you can grow your impact faster. That’s donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability, your organization needs, helping you help others visit donor box.org to learn more. Its time for Tonys. Take two. Thank you Kate Chatty gym guy up to it again. This week. You may recall that last week. Uh He gave me a or gave all of us. It’s not just me, he’s not talking to me. He’s, he’s uh bestowing his gift upon everyone in the, in the town gym. Uh Last week, it was a short course on uh motor boat uh engine troubleshooting this week this week. Uh There’s a, this guy, there’s a Blue Marlin fishing tournament which is a, a, it’s a very big deal apparently all up and down the east coast. Uh, it’s at a town about a half an hour from where I am. It’s in Morehead City, North Carolina called the Big Rock Blue Marlin fishing tournament where, uh, mostly guys, not exclusively it, it seems like, but, uh, mostly go out and, you know, in these expensive boats and try to catch big fish and who, who’s, who gets the biggest fish and, you know, you win money. So he’s got, so I’ve known about this. This is not news to me. It’s, it’s, it’s an annual thing. It’s been going on, I don’t know, like 50 or 60 years or something. So I’ve known about it since I’ve been here. I’ve heard of it and I’ve, one year I got stuck in the traffic of it. You know, you can imagine how excited I was by that. Now, of course, you avoid the town anyway. Uh, the guy’s talking about the Blue Marlin. He’s all jazzed up about the Blue Marlin tournament. Uh, and, and, uh, the, the winning so far they, it’s a multi day thing. It goes on mid day. I don’t know, it’s like five or six days or a week or something like that. It’s these guys go out, uh, uh, and you have to go, this is one of the things I learned from this. Uh, this, this, uh, Blue Marlin fishing tournament, uh, Savant that, uh, you know, that you, you go out 60 miles, I think. You, you, you can’t, it’s not near the shore. You, you take your boats out like 60 miles and then you fish and then you have to come back, you know, and weigh your fish, whatever, whatever you’ve withdrawn from the ocean. So, the, the winning fish so far now, so we’re only like four days. I think he didn’t say, uh, I think it’s all this week. So, you know, we’re like four or five days into it or something. Uh, £516. You know, I was, I was very elated to hear that. Uh, someone caught a £516 uh, marlin fish, whatever. Marlo. I don’t know how, I don’t know how you tell the difference between a marlin and a trout. But these guys know, you know, it’s a marlin and it’s not a swordfish or whatever, it’s a marlin. So it’s £516. That’s the winning fish so far. But there are, you know, of course, there’s days more days coming. Um, and Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan, the, um, the, the football star he played for the Mets, um, and he was with them in the, uh, the, the Stanley Bowl something. Uh, Michael Jordan brings his boat out there and, uh, uh, he’s apparently he’s not a winner yet so far, but this, this, uh, this guy. Uh, so Michael Jordan is out there somewhere. Um, you know, it’s all very exciting. So, and then the guy is telling us about, uh, the Michael Jordan boat is, uh, is $8.9 million boat. It’s not a $9 million boat. This, this guy again, he’s a savant. You know, he knows everything about fishing and, uh, you know, he, he shares it. We’re so grateful that he shares all his uh his wisdom and, and expertise with us. Uh $8.9 million boat that Michael Jordan has. And uh oh, it, it, it must have a 2000 gallon tank, which, you know, so that means that uh as, as I learned, uh that every time Michael Jordan fills the tank on the boat, it’s probably about, it’s about $8000 that Michael Jordan has to spend when he, I’m so glad to know this and he has a crew. The crew probably costs Michael Jordan $5000 a week, all the details. Uh So, you know, the II I, meanwhile, I’m just trying to do my Pilates sit ups. That’s all I’m just trying to, I’m just trying to do my sit ups, you know, sit up 11 vertebrae at a time, sit up, lay back down one vertebrae at a time, back down on the mat. That’s all I’m, I, I’m just trying to, I’m in the corner. I couldn’t get any further away from the guy if II, I wait, the room’s not big enough. I am as far away from him as I can be and he still is. Like, it’s, he’s broadcasting in my ear. His, uh, his genius. So, yeah, Michael Jordan, the big rock blue Marlins. That’s a big thing. Oh, you got to catch the Blue Marlins. Chatty gym guy. I, I suspect there’ll be more. II, I can’t get away, you know, II, I go early, I, but I have to II, I wanna work out early in the morning and unfortunately, so does chatty gym guy. You know, I’m not gonna alter my schedule around this gentlemen. I’m destined to hear more of his wisdom. And that is Tonys take two Kate. I think you need a pair of airpods or something to cancel them out. Airpods would work. I have a pair. I have airpods. I just, I’m not accustomed to listening to music. I mean, you’re right. I could put it on just silent or the, the air, the cancellation mode. Whatever. That’s true. I could do that. I could think about that. We’ve got Vuko but loads more time. Let’s return to Gen Z career challenges with Ray Sherry. Ray. I wanna move to uh like the, the uh lack of feedback that you might get uh upon submitting your application to be prepared. Yeah. And I think this is the, this is the cliff edge that I think most people uh when they enter the job market for the first time. Really don’t get, they don’t really understand why. When they send their CV in for a, for a job, it, it just disappears effectively into a black hole, it just disappears. That’s the sense that people get, um, it, they, they rarely get feedback. In fact, there was statistic um published by the recruitment Employment Confederation here in the UK, which is the, they, it was like a governing body for recruitment across the whole UK industry that 97% of all job applicants in July 2021 we’ll come back for a couple of years, but it hasn’t changed a great deal. 97% of all job applicants in the month of July, which is about 66,000 people did not receive any form of feedback. None. Now, that’s probably in my language in Zin language. That’s a little bit of a crime. If you ask me, you know, a young person, any person coming into the job market for the very first time, really motivated to find their first job, really keen. They spent maybe a few good years in, in university having a great time and now they’re all motivated and ready go for it. And they take that first step of applying for a job and that second step of applying for another job on the third and the fourth and the fifth and the 10th and maybe 30 or 40 applications later, they still don’t hear anything, I think, I mean, it’s uh both frustrating, demotivating soul destroying. There’s lots of language that, that you can use as such. So the biggest challenge that’s faced the recruitment market, not just in the UK, but worldwide for decades is this inability to provide useful and helpful and guiding feedback to job applicants every single time. Now, I’m pleased when we worked on this uh through through last year that we can now do this 100% of the time for every single, every single applicant at four different levels. So when they apply for a job, they know exactly where their application is in the process, which is, you know, the first, the first, the first area of feedback because I, if I’ve sent a CV in for a job and I don’t know what’s happening with it. I don’t even know if the process is fixed, you know, but that’s, that’s if we’re using the Zinn platform though, you know, our, as I said, most of our, our, our listeners are not going to be using the Zinn platform, but we’re trying to suss out the lessons, you know, that you, you want to share with Gen Z uh about this process. So, you know, what do you do? You OK. Uh 1520 40 applications later. It is a, it has been a black hole. How do you not get dispirited? Well, I think the way the W I mean, I, I can only talk about Zin in terms of sort of how we’ve solved this problem, how we, how we make sure that people get feedback every single time when they make an application. I think the first thing the candidate can do without, without um using the Zin platform is they can ask for feedback if they’re, if they’re lucky enough to remember where they sent that application to in the first place. And it might have been several weeks ago. They’re lucky enough to remember which recruitment agency they went to with, with that application, they should really ask for feedback just to not do that is just uh continuing the momentum down that path. And it has done for decades. I’m guilty of it. Like, like most other people, you send, you send a CV in you, you wait for feedback, you get no feedback, but I don’t go back and ask for feedback. And I think that’s the first thing people should do is they should go back to that recruitment agency and ask for that feedback uh however small. Uh and however um useful it may be, they should go and ask that question. OK? Because eventually that recruitment agency will get the message that people are asking for feedback. We need to do something about this. OK? I think the second thing they can do is is, you know, share their experiences with their friends as well. I think uh community is a really good thing. Um social media is very powerful in many ways and it can be very positive. Um So if there are organizations out there that are taking literally thousands of applications and no one’s hearing anything, I think, call it out, call it out. These, these companies will soon realize that they need to do better. II I think especially your, your, your second bit of advice around your support, you know, community so that you can help each other recognize that you’re not the only ones each facing this black hole. It’s not, it’s no reflection on your submission on your resume. It’s a reflection of the lack of civility that has emerged over 1520 years or so of. I in the hiring process. Uh in, in long three dates, you submitting your application to XYZ nonprofit. Uh It, it’s, it’s just, it’s become an uncivil process, uh a heartless process. So it’s not just you, it’s not your resume. Uh It’s millions of applicants and tens of millions of job applications um asking for feedback I think is a good idea. I, I, I’m not, I’m not sure in the US what kind of reaction you’re gonna get? You, you might get the same uh black hole uh feedback that you, you got when you submitted the application originally. But I think it’s a gutsy thing to do. You know, you, you’re no worse off with respect to that employer uh or the recruiter. Uh uh I, I think it’s more apt, yeah, more, more likely to be direct to the nonprofit. You, once you’ve been rejected you’re no worse off with that nonprofit for politely asking. You know, how did I come up short? Uh, WW, what, what, what did the, what did the, um, but the person who was hired or the folks who were hired have that I, that I’m lacking, you know, this, this, your feedback could be really valuable for me and I’d be grateful to have it. I mean, there’s a simple email, uh, uh, that, that resumes that you have an email address to send it to. I realize you might not. But if you have any kind of contact, uh, information, it probably is worth asking for feedback. You might only get it in 10 or 15% of the time, but that 10 or 15% could be helpful. And, you know what, you’re also distinguishing yourself as somebody who doesn’t just walk away. But, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m interested enough in this whole process and in your nonprofit that I value your feedback and I’m hoping that you’ll be willing to share it with me. Yeah, I think the, another piece of advice I would certainly give job seekers is that when they do apply for a job, make sure they keep the contact information, uh, whether it’s nonprofit or whether it’s a commercial organization, keep, keep the original application information so they know who to go back to, they know who to go and ask that question. What happened to my application? Can I have some feedback? How do I do keep that information because it is very easy with job boards the way they are today just to submit that CV. And wait. And before you know it, the job post has come down from, uh, from the job board, it’s, it’s gone away and you don’t have that information available to you anymore. So always keep a copy of that original job advert. So you’ve got something to refer to. Yeah, and it’s probably going to give you the name of the recruitment agency on there or the nonprofit organization. Keep that information. It’s vital that you keep that awesome. Yes, valuable. Um All right, let’s say, um le let’s say we’re at the stage, we, we’ve gotten through the application process and we’ve been hired. Uh you, you have some concerns and, and advice around um the job not panning out to be exactly what you thought it was gonna be like broken promises from the employer potentially. Yeah, I think the, the, the problem with um let’s call it, retention of, of employees starts in the application process. When you start looking for a job, it starts with your value you mentioned earlier on to, it starts with the applicant understanding his or her value in this whole value chain. Ok. So if they’ve applied for a job and they managed to you know, use some language blag their way through the interview and they, they, they got a job, they got an offer and they got a job and they, and they started, and they didn’t ask enough of the right questions and they didn’t work out their value and they didn’t check that value against that of the employer. But the time they get into the job, they’ll soon realize that this wasn’t for them. You know, the, the whole process starts with me as an individual understanding who I am, what I am, what I like, what I don’t like what I want. Um, the type of organization I want to work for. Ok. And there’s a, there’s a common thread that always runs through, um, people that leave organizations relatively soon after joining is that they were made promises around training, development, rep, progression, coaching, mentoring, you know, the, the list will go on really they land in this new organization and then there’s a, there’s a little bit of a cost cutting exercise or something’s changed and the manager didn’t get the budget, whatever it might be. But invariably, one of the first things that goes is the training, the, the learning and development. Um, and that’s, that’s quite tough for a young person who may have based their, their half of their decision or a good part of their decision on joining that company based on the fact that they were going to be upskilled further trained and they would have some sort of career progression and, and, and employers. I mean, I’m honest, the, the employers face a lot of challenges these days. It’s not easy for the employers and sometimes they have to, they have to go back on their promises or put those promises off to a later date. I, I completely get that but it’s, that’s no good for the young person who’s now in a six months into a new job career and hasn’t had a single training course. Um an upskilling course, this just this distinguished the difference between the two. So you’ve got training which most employers will provide because that allows the person to do the job, ok? Which is valuable to the, to the employer upscaling is going beyond that. It’s going way beyond that. So it’s, it’s learning above and beyond what you need to do the job and that’s where you are able to go for promotions, um and progress your career upskilling allows you to do that as such. So most employers will provide on the job training. But when it comes to breaking promises, it’s typically around the upskilling because that usually costs money, usually costs time and that usually reduces things like productivity and so forth. That results in a higher attrition rate in the uh in the overall um uh number of employees and therefore the, the retention drops uh as a consequence. So people will then leave their job. Uh typically within 6 to 12 months of joining that company for the very first time. There is a, there is a third dynamic which, um, which is sort of linked to value, which is sometimes, sometimes people just get it wrong. Sometimes people just get it wrong. You know, they, they’re not quite sure about who they are and they just want to go and try a few different things and, um, six months, 12 minutes into the job. I go, oh, this is not for me, this is not something I want to do. I, I I’m more interested in artificial intelligence or I’m more interested in working in the environment. So, so thank you very much, Mr Bank. I don’t really want to work with you anymore. I feel as though the green economy is somewhere where I want to be. So it is normal for people to make those decisions as well. Ok. Well, so we’ve set up the what, what might happen or suppose we’re in the second situation. You, you, you explained where the, the employer is not following through on uh promises around progression that upskilling. Wh wh what’s the, what’s the young gen Z employee to do? I think, I think the first thing is go back, go back to the hiring manager, whoever, whoever that was, it may even not be the same hiring manager. But I think it’s very important to go back and, and uh have, you know, an adult face to face conversation with him about, you know, when I was recruited, when I came into this organization, I was, uh, I was promised that, uh, that there would be training and upskilling. Um, go back and hold them account for that. Ok. They may still get a flat. No, but at least as an individual you’ll feel better for following through on the promises that you were made. I think the second option you can go through is look for ways to upskill yourself outside of your employer environment as well. There are some, there are some really good schemes around today where you can, you can go and get, you know, additional training courses uh on, on careers that, that you may be following through on and, and, and that’s perfectly a viable approach as such. But I think the first thing to do is make sure the employer is held responsible and accountable for any promises that they’re making. And I’ll just make a finer point here. There’s a very good chance if they’ve broken the promise to you as an individual, they’ve broken the promise to a bunch of other people as well. So again, this is where the the community of uh employees can actually have a stronger voice by, by getting together to raise the the lack of training or the lack of upskilling with the employer. So sticking together, it’s also a good way of being safe in that employment environment as Well, if you, if you’re working with a bunch of people that all have the same, let’s say grievance, we’ll have the same grievance. Then, um then hopefully, then someone won’t get singled out for, you know, for being a bad guy or whatever, it helps a lot to have allies in, in whatever, whatever you might be trying to move the organization to do. Um And look, and you, you know, if you get that flat, no, at least, you know where you stand and that may be a different reason than you were describing why this is not the right nonprofit for you. It’s not the right fit. They a they didn’t keep their promises and b they’re not um helping us progress in our careers. And, and if there are more than one of you making this case, then there, you know, we go back to uh an old adage that dates me, I guess, but there is strength in numbers. It does help to help out have allies that there are a number of you that are raising this professional development issue and how the organization is not following through on its promises and not investing in its the future of its employees, not just the job they’re in now, but your futures then, you know, it may not be the right place for you. OK? Go ahead. Well, I was gonna, I was gonna move to maybe the biggest overarching theme. So you, you continue on this. Please go ahead. Thank you, Tony. I was just gonna add one more thing really look, I mean, typically employers will look at the cost of training as a, as purely a cost when you start to look at as a value add to your organization and the ability to grow and scale and develop your organization to be better at what you do to provide better customer service, to buy better products, to buy better services. If you look at it in terms of value that, that training gives back to the company, you might make a different decision. It’s an investment II I, it’s an investment in the people in your most valuable asset, which is the people who are doing the work for you. And if you’re not willing to invest, then maybe this isn’t the place for me to work or even better for us to work. All right, I’d like to wrap up. Well, you know what, before we do that, I, I want to explain what Zzynd, what, what it stands for. Well, uh I know it was like in the, in the US Tony but you know, in, in, in the UK, we have something called company’s house. And uh the first thing you do when you set up a new company is you go to company’s house and you put in a name and you pray and hope that no one’s thought of that name because if that’s the first name that you come up with the company. It’s probably one of the better names that you’re ever gonna have. I did that, I don’t know, a dozen, maybe 20 times. Uh, at the beginning when we started setting up the company in the end, you know, I went to good old Chat GP T and, uh, I asked Chat G BT, give me, give me some options for the name of a modern day company that might reflect uh today’s generation a and came back with a list of 10. I can’t remember. I think the other nine, but there was a list of 10 and Zinn Zynd was the name that stood out and it stands for gen Z youth, no discrimination, which is really at the core of what we’re trying to do with Zind, which is that Zin is for everyone. It doesn’t matter what your background is, it doesn’t matter what your religion is, isn’t what you, your sexuality is Zinda for everyone. OK. And we don’t put any barriers uh in, in front of anyone to, to prevent them from applying for a job. Well, I love that you, Gen Z. The company is uh artificial intelligence derived. I think that’s appropriate that uh that the youngest folks have um have a, a company name that uh was derived by uh chat GP T. Um I, I wanna wrap up with taking control of your own destiny that throughout your career, starting with the very first job. And for the next 4050 years, it’s your life, it’s your destiny. What do you have to say about that? Well, it started for me, Tony back in uh 19 nineties, this whole thing, this whole um area of taking control of my career. Um I was working for a really, really good progressive organization. At the time I had the opportunity to apply for an internally sponsored MB A program. I was one of the top performers within the organization and that my performance reviews reflected that my appraisals reflected that every single year I applied for the NBA. I didn’t get it and the feedback was poor, you know. Uh But I said to myself, look, OK, this next year, I’ll apply again. So I applied again next year and I didn’t get it again and still top performer within the organization. So I said to myself, well, that can’t be right. I’m not gonna let anyone else decide my career from now on. So I immediately decided that over the next five years, what I wanted to be where I wanted to be in terms of my career. So I think I was around 3233 years old at the time. And I said that by the time I’m 38 I want to be an IT director. So I picked the senior guy in the organization said I want to be in his position within, within five years. Um I had to move the organization, I broke all the rules and I applied for a job within the wider organization, the financial organization I was in at the time because my boss was blocking my career progression, which is, you know, she was controlling the shots, not me. Um So I applied outside my division and I got a more senior job than my boss, more senior job than my boss and for more money. Ok. Um Within uh within three years after that, um I was running the second most profitable area of the bank, the bank that I was working with at the time. Uh and I had taken them through all the, you know, all the millennium bug and the year 2000 program changes. And we’d put some new products out to the market. Three years after that, three years after that, I was running an organization with 650 people strong. We were, we’re generating revenues of 40 million a year with a very nice uh uh net profit at the end of it. So I took control of my career because I wasn’t able to make the decisions about my life. That’s what it boiled down to. It was about my life and my family’s life. So I had to be, I had to take some risks. Of course, I did, I had to take some risks. I had to decide what I wanted. And um based on the decisions I made I would have to live by those decisions, good or bad. But I was very, very focused and very, I would say somewhat lucky as well that I chose the right path for myself. And it all boiled down to the fact that I really didn’t want anyone controlling my life. Uh, and since work and your career, there’s a huge proportion of the time that you, you, you, you spend each day very, very important that I had control of that. And that’s something that I would certainly uh advocate to anybody these days is be in control of your own destiny as far as you possibly can. Ok. Sometimes it’s in, you know, the hands of God. Sometimes it’s in the hands of um who you are and what you are. But um if you make those key decisions and um live by them and learn from them as well, it’s very important to learn from them as well. Then, uh I think it can lead to a happier career and a happier working career and a happier life as a consequence. I’d like to add, don’t do something because lots of other folks have done it before. You. You don’t have to follow a career path. Indeed. Even a, a life path, a personal path that doesn’t feel right for you just because lots of other people have done it before you. There’s the, there’s life is rife with people who have made mistakes and done things just because lots of other people did it before them, whether it’s a personal decision to marry, uh, and, or have Children, uh, or it’s a professional decision to go a certain path just because lots of other people have done it before. It is, it is your life, it is your destiny. You decide it, you decide what’s right for you and don’t base it on millions of people that have come before you because that may not be right for you. I mean, that’s a great way to sum it up to me. I’m gonna, I’m gonna sort of just give you one image to, to think about, you know, I, I was in London uh late 19 nineties and I remember this very, very clearly because it was very, very, not long after I made decisions to take control of my career. I was crossing London Bridge. This was during the rush hour in the morning, it was about 830 in the morning. I was crossing London Bridge, pretty much every single person was going in the other direction. And that image has stayed with me for the rest of my life. The whole of my life. I had chose a different path and that sometimes means going against the flow of humankind for a period of time until you find your new flow. So for me, that was confirmation that I was, I was on the wrong path or I was moving in in a different direction, which was, was suitable for me as an individual. And uh I remember it was just thousands of people crossing London Bridge and I was just going in the opposite direction. I was bumping into a lot of people as a consequence, but that’s sometimes what you have to do. Ray Sherry, he’s CEO of Zend. You’ll find the company at zind.co.uk. You’ll find re on linkedin Ray, our first Welsh guest. We haven’t, we have not had a, a Welsh guest before. Thank you. Thank you very much, Tony. I’ve very much enjoyed it and thank you to all your listeners as well. Thank you. All right. Thank you for sharing next week back to the 2024 nonprofit technology conference with the essential craft of leaving your job and data privacy. If you missed any part of this weeks, show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com. That’s gonna be interesting. Next week, the essential craft of leaving your job leaving it. Yes. Very good one. Well, they’re all very good that, that one’s just ex exceptionally good. Were sponsored by virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporter generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate T Martignetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guide and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for June 10, 2024: Future-Proof Your Nonprofit With Apps, Tools & Tactics

 

Jason Shim & Meico Marquette Whitlock: Future-Proof Your Nonprofit With Apps, Tools & Tactics

Jason Shim and Meico Marquette Whitlock return from the 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference, with their annual collection of tech to help you manage your tech. From collaboration to inbox management, from transcription to hidden Zoom tools, this panel will help you find greater balance and efficiency. Jason is at the Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience and Meico is The Mindful Techie.

 

 

 

 

 

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Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer with Jejune. Oily, JJ June. Well, uh JJ June, Jun Ol, did you know I, I did you know ill. Did you know? I welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer with Je Juno iliitis if I had to digest the idea that you missed this week’s show. But first we have a listener of the week, Sharry Smith or it could be Chary. It’s either Cherry or Sherry. I’m gonna say Sherry, but it could be Cherry Sharri Smith from Portland, Oregon. Sharri gave us a shout out on linkedin when she was listing her favorite podcasts for nonprofits, Shari Shari Shari Shari. Thank you. Thank you very much for doing that. Uh You had a couple of other podcasts listed. Um Yeah, they, they’re, they’re good, you know, II, I know them. Uh hm. Ok. They’re good. But nonprofit radio is on the list. That’s the one that’s the one you want. So Sharry Cherry, thank you very much listener of the week this week. Thank you so much, Sherry. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s going on this week? Hey, Tony, congratulations, Sherry. This week we have future proof your nonprofit with apps, tools and tactics. Jason Shim and Miko Marquette Whitlock return from the 2024 nonprofit technology conference with their annual collection of tech to help you manage your tech from collaboration to inbox management, from transcription to Hidden Zoom tools. This panel will help you find greater balance and efficiency. Jason is at the Canadian Center for nonprofit Digital Resilience and Miko is the mindful techie on Tony’s take two chatty gym guy were sponsored by virtuous. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Here is Future Proof your nonprofit with apps tools and tactics. It’s a pleasure to welcome back, Jason Sim and Miko Marquette Whitlock to nonprofit radio. Jason is Chief Digital Officer at the Canadian Center for nonprofit digital resilience. How can we harness technology to make a difference in the world? That’s the question. Jason loves to explore with organizations. He’s on linkedin and the center is at CCNDR dot C A Miko Marquette Whitlock is the mindful techie. He’s a workplace well being strategist who helps mission driven professionals prioritize their well being so they can elevate their well doing. He’s also on linkedin and his practice is at Mindful techie.com, Jason and Miko. Welcome back to Nonprofit Radio. Thanks for having us for having us. This is a tradition. Uh We, we didn’t get to talk at the nonprofit technology conference proper, but uh we’re, we’re, we’re filling in now uh with your annual sort of review of apps techs and uh uh apps, apps uh tools and tactics. And it’s actually quite appropriate, I believe because we’re recording on uh May 1st. It’s May Day in much of the world, not celebrated so much in the US and Canada uh celebrating uh labor organizing and labor rights. However, in the US and Canada, nonprofit workers certainly uh have a right to the apps, tools and tactics that will make their work more balanced and productive. So I’m sure you agree, you both agree with that, right? We can come to terms on that. So, so why don’t we proceed? Uh Let’s go alphabetically by uh first name. So Jason, uh you go first, you get to introduce the first uh apps tools and, and tactic. Yeah. So thank you, Tony. Uh So before we jump into the, the tools, I think uh you know, 11 thing that we definitely, you know, keep in mind when talking about tools is, you know, the concept of tiny gains. And so, you know, having um the uh kind of perspective that, you know, uh one to the power of 365 is one, but 1.01 to the power of 365 is 37.7. And so, you know, that that notion of improving bit by bit, you know, 1% each day is kind of how we look at these tools that, you know, it’s not going to be, you know, uh you know, one tool isn’t necessarily going to solve all the things. But, you know, we’re going to be sharing uh various tools that can, you know, help kind of nudge things, you know, 1% at a time, you know, in that regard. So the incremental growth is uh is valuable, of course. Yeah, totally. So, so you know what the first tool that we want to highlight for folks is that it’s, it’s a tool that is actually built into uh Microsoft Word already. But uh um folks may not necessarily be aware of it in as much detail. Um And that’s that, that there’s actually a built in transcription tool, right in Microsoft Word. And so you can actually um uh when you find a little microphone icon on it that you can dictate directly into word, but you can also upload files uh into it. And so that, that’s a feature that’s not as well known uh that you can upload up to five hours per month per user inter software for automated transcription that is bundled in uh with your uh word online. And where is this microphone found? Maybe I’ve seen it 1000 times. I just haven’t noticed it. Where, where do we find the microphone? So typically it’ll be in the menu bar in the uh the, the top right hand corner uh of uh of Microsoft Word online. So if you’re accessing it in the browser, uh it should be in the top right hand uh uh section. OK. We had a session uh uh uh a panel at uh at NTC about tools that you already have that you may very well not be using. And they covered uh all of the office, office 365 has a lots of, lots of value in there that, that people don’t know about. And also Google, a lot of very uh free Google tools. Um Yeah, we, we, they focused on Microsoft 365 and, and Google. Um interesting, you know, they had like a dozen things that, that are, that you’re already paying for or getting for free and you’re just not, you, you just don’t know that they’re there, they’re hidden. So, OK. So consistent with that is the uh the transcription tool. OK. So up to five hours, you said up to five hours a month. Yes. And it’s, it’s super handy if you’re doing, you know, things like uh interviews or if you’re doing um uh uh yeah, the meeting notes, you know, those types of things, you know, some other tools already have, you know, the transcription part built in. But in the specific, you know, use case where, you know, you may be doing, uh say uh a program interview or something like that, that this is an additional functionality that’s uh that’s in there. So you’re uploading the audio file. Yes. All right. Interesting. I know, I know a guy who does a podcast. Uh II I believe he already has a transcription process in place. But uh I have to re evaluate because uh maybe this is, maybe this one is simpler. Uh And I don’t know if he’s paying for the uh that transcription process. I, I can’t recall what he’s, what he’s been doing for the past several years around transcription. But uh I’ll have him look into it. Miko. Welcome back, Miko. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Congratulations. Also on your new book, uh which you and I will be talking about in a couple of weeks. We’ll, we’ll get you back on exclusively for uh how to thrive when work doesn’t love you back. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yes, I know you and I will be talking in a couple of weeks. Um What’s next? What’s next on our uh hit parade of uh apps, tools and tactics. Well, so if you want to stick on the theme of things that people aren’t using, I would add Zoom to this category. And if I could, I wanna walk through just a few things that I think are pretty interesting in terms of developments with, with Zoom. So similar to Microsoft Office and Google workspace. Um Zoom is one of those platforms or tools that many organizations are using. Many folks have at least a basic paid subscription at the organizational level. And um these are tools that are constantly evolving. And so sometimes because we’re using them all the time, we’re not aware that there are certain features that have been added. Um So I’ll, I’ll share, I’ll just go through these really quickly. So the first is for lots of organizations, you know, it’s important that when people are identifying themselves, important, people identify pronouns. And so one of the ways people have been doing that is they modify the name in the way that that shows up and they add their pronouns. Uh But now for folks that didn’t know Zoom actually has a dedicated pronoun field, so you don’t have to do that. So um if your administrator has enabled this in the web-based um login for Zoom, um You can set that by default for your, for your own profile. Um And you don’t have to update your name when you pop into zoom to do that. It’ll your, your pronouns will appear automatically. So I think that’s one cool feature um where, where that’s appropriate and where that uh makes sense for folks to, to look into that uh another option. And this is about accessibility. This is also about making sure that um we recognize that people learn and process differently. And so you and I are talking uh we’re able to see each other um Right now as we’re recording this interview. Uh But for some folks, maybe they process differently and they actually need to be able to see the, the captioning, they maybe need to see some form of a transcript to be able to follow along and process information. And so for that, there is automated captioning that is built into zoom. Now, it’s not 100% perfect, but it’s there. Um It’s uh essentially computer generated captioning. Um There are a lot of languages that are covered by default in your basic paid description and similar to the pronouns field, your administrator or whoever is managing your Zoom account for your organization and log into the web based portal and enable this feature if it’s not already uh enabled. And what this allows folks to do is if someone is in a meeting um and they need access to um to, to close captioning that particular individual can enable that um for themselves. And for folks who don’t need it, they can leave it turned off or if they’re turned on by default, people can turn it off, uh, completely up to you as the user in terms of what, what you need. Um, I’ll share one final, um, thing and then we’ll toss it back to you, Tony. So one final thing that I think is pretty cool. So, uh, you know, many of us have probably seen like the news, um, where they’re doing the weather report and you have this, this person standing in front of a screen and they’re pointing here and they’re pointing there generally, what’s happening is this person is standing in front of a, a green screen and their technical team is projecting the images. So it looks like this person is actually pointing to a map of where you know, fill in the blank wherever you are, right? Well, you can actually simulate that when you’re presenting. So many of us are used to traditional screen share where you share your slides or you share your screen and then a box if you appear in a different place in zoom, but you can also share your screen in such a way that you are overlaid on top of your slides so that you have that weather man or weather person effect as well. Um Now the caveat here is you have to be aware of how this is showing up your lighting. In some cases, you might actually need to have a green screen in order for this to be effective. And it’s gonna require you to format your slides or your presentation a bit differently because obviously you’re taking up now a slice of the screen in addition to the content that you have on the slides. But a really interesting way to create a different type of experience um for folks that, you know, you are meeting with um or doing a webinar with, I think you can have some fun with that. Uh Like at the beginning of a webinar, like you’re immersed in your slides, you know, I’m, I’m surrounded by my valuable content. Uh you know, you could have, but I don’t know, can you uh can you control where you are or how much of the frame you get in proportion to your slides behind you or whatever, whatever the content is, I guess let’s just use slides. Yeah. So you like, I’ll be in the lower left so that you would make format your slides so that the lower left is always blank and you can do it that way you choose where you would have to test this out and, and, and, and try it out. So there are some limited features that allow you to do this directly into zoom. Um The other which is thinking about physically positioning yourself in reference to the camera. So you think about where you’re going to physically be and try that out, test it out for yourself. The final thing I’ll say is there are third party tools that work with Zoom that do this better. But nonetheless, I just wanted to point out that Zoom does have this built in feature for folks that at a basic level that want to try it out and have some fun with it. OK? So that’s the uh so pronouns can be uh automated, automatically populated, you don’t have to go and change your screen name. Um There’s the automated captioning and then the what is this, this background feature called? It’s called, it’s called set powerpoint as virtual background. OK. It’s aptly named, said powerpoint as virtual background. All right. Um Are you guys familiar with or, or recommending any zoom alternatives? I mean, there’s, I know there’s teams, of course, uh although most people iii I don’t know, 95% of the meetings I’m in are on Zoom. Uh Are you, are either of you finding alternatives to zoom for any, for any reason or, or something that other folks are using? That’s valuable. So what, what comes to mind is uh well, this isn’t necessarily an alternative to zoom for the video conferencing itself. Uh There, there is a tool called the O BS uh that if folks are looking for advanced uh video streaming capabilities, uh that uh O BS actually sits as an additional layer to your video feed so that you can further customize some of the green screen effects or being able to move um yourself uh uh into a corner, you know, like uh like Miko described, but it uh it gives a ton of functionality as well and it kind of sits as in um sits in between your video feed and something like Zoom or Teams or Google Meet and allows you to, you know, do all sorts of things like you could um the directly do like a picture in picture, you know, type thing if you want to do like an advanced video broadcast. So O BS is used quite a bit by uh uh streamers and such. But that, that’s uh uh definitely a tool that uh if folks are looking to explore uh for some more advanced functionality, uh it’s called uh O BS and it’s uh uh available and free. Oh OK. Cool and live streaming, live streaming. Yes. Yeah. Not just for live streaming. It’s also like if we’re on a Zoom call, that isn’t necessarily be live stream that you can activate it and it will uh you know, it will help you control, you know, some of the outputs of your video feed that way. So yeah, O BS stands for open broadcaster software. So essentially go to build on what they are sharing. So going back to the example of the weather person, if you wanted to create a highly produced and polished uh you know, presence that doesn’t look like a typical, you know, zoom or uh teams meeting um screen or presentation, you could add lower thirds, you can change a ho there are just so, so many different cool things that you can do using what Jason was was saying. Um And to pick up on, you know, your original question around alternatives. So to my, in my awareness, um you know, the Zoom, there’s Google Meet and teams I think are probably the top three and there’s, there’s a good reason for that, you know, there’s, there’s broad compatibility across um platforms and devices. Um And there’s, you know, some built in trust there that organizations have in terms of those, those big three. that, that said, I think it’s also a good point to make in terms of thinking about when we think about the expansion of tools we don’t have to use necessarily the the latest and greatest. Everything doesn’t have to be high tech, right? Everything there, there’s a, there’s room for mid tech and low tech and when it comes to meetings and collaboration, sometimes we forget what happened when we didn’t have these tools, right? We picked up the phone, we, we met in person. Um we had conference lines where people called in and we, we couldn’t have seen each other. You know, when I first started working in the tech space, I work with colleagues and manage teams that of people that I actually never met in person. And, you know, we would have phone calls and conference conference line um conversations and meetings. And that was the the primary way that we communicated and collaborated. And we’re seeing that in terms of digital wellness, there’s actually a benefit to that, right? Because we’re spending too much time in front of our screens. There’s research that shows that it increases, you know, cortisol levels and increases stress levels. And over time, too many of those back to back video mediated types of collaboration actually reduce engagement, reduce productivity. Um And actually, in some cases can be counterproductive. So we wanna be able to find that balance and also recognize that, hey, depending on what your intention is, what your outcome that you’re trying to get to sometimes just having an old fashioned phone call or working asynchronously um can be just as effective or sometimes more effective to get to where it is that you’re trying to go. Thank you for that. That, that’s a valuable reminder. Uh Yeah, because you can feel like, you know, unlike an in person meeting with, with many people, several people, you know, you can feel like you’re being stared at uh or, you know, you’re not, but people are looking at their screen, they’re not necessarily looking at you, but it looks to you like everybody’s looking at you and uh I can see why that interesting that cortisol levels rise like by the after a few hours of this, I guess or. Absolutely. And, and what you just described is a very real phenomena. So part of it is um the self view, right? You seeing yourself on screen and being self conscious about that and you can turn this off in zoom. So this is another feature you can you can turn off self view. So if you click on the three dots on your particular image, there’s an option that should be allowing you to turn off your self view if that’s an issue. Um The other thing, others are still so others are still seeing you. So you’re not, you’re not stopping your video, but uh you’re stopping your own self view. OK? And uh one final consideration here is that there’s, there’s research from Stanford University that actually shows that um this particular phenomena that you just talked about is, is compounded for women. Uh because we have different expectations about how women are presentable and show up on screen. And oftentimes there’s this um un assessed costs that we, you know, we just take for granted that that in some cases, women have to do more work in order to be what we think, what we deem of as presentable, right? So if you’re requiring folks to be on camera all the time, that sometimes is one of the the side effects if you’re not aware of that. Excellent. Yeah, valuable reminders. Thank you. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver. It’s their mission to move the Needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Responsive. Fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and gross giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact, virtuous.org. Now back to future proof your nonprofit with apps tools and tactics. Jason, you have, you have something else for us. I know you do. That’s a rhetorical question. When I’m talking to me and Jason, we can go on for hours. It’s purely rhetorical question. Absolutely. So, uh the next step is, uh you know, along the lines of we talked about transcription earlier is uh some of the text to speech tools. So they’ve developed quite a bit in the last few years. And you know, the there’s a few that are out there that I’ll rhyme off, you know, Natural Reader 11 labs. And uh nr and so, uh in particular, um I’ve used Naet before and it’s super helpful when you need to record uh voice greetings. Um And if anyone’s ever experienced, you know, having to record a voice greeting and say like for a voicemail and you have to do like 20 some odd takes to do it that, you know, something like Naki can, can help streamline that. Now the, the special thing is that they have a lot of uh voice models that are available in different languages as well. So it really nails uh some of the uh the accents around the world as well. So, you know, uh given that I live in Canada that when recording, um some of the uh greetings for an organization that it uh uh it needs to be delivered in English and Canadian French. And they have specifically Canadian French models as well as many other language models uh uh for the, the text of speech so that we’re able to provide a script in both English and French and that it’ll read it off and, you know, you’re able to get it in one take rather than having to do, you know, 10 or 20 takes or trying to get multiple people to coordinate around the recording of that. So that’s an example of a tool that can help streamline uh in that regard. And, you know, there’s many other, you know, potential use cases that one was called is called N Yes, like parakeet with an N N and also natural reader and 11 laps. Sorry. What’s the last one? 11 labs? 11 labs. Yeah, and similar to the, uh you know, text speech and also uh editing you know, audio files and text uh is uh there’s a few different tools that, that do this, but the one that I, I’ll name specifically, um you know, with this functionality is a descript. Uh So descript is a tool that can help with things like uh let’s say if you have a transcript, um we have an audio file that you’ve uploaded to uh to descript is that they can do filler word removal. So, what it does is that it imports an audio file and then it produces a transcript for you and you can edit it like a word document and it’ll detect things like if you say, um ah and it’ll, uh it can automatically help you remove some of that. So, you know, let’s say if you added a few extra words and you’re speaking and you can edit the text that is uh in descript and it’ll automatically remove it from the audio file. Uh So, uh it without having to, you know, uh splice the audio file itself and looking at the waveforms that you can do it as uh edit the transcript and it’ll give you a clean audio file afterwards. That to me is, that’s incredible that you can edit it as text and then it, it goes and does the, applies those edits to the audio file? Yeah, it’s good. Uh I, I don’t know. To me that’s amazing. I don’t, I, you know, descript, it’s called D the letter D script. Yes, de D E. Yeah. And there’s additional functionality as well uh in, in the script called overdub. So let’s say if you are recording something and you left out a word that overdub can actually fill in the word for you. Uh If you, you trained a voice model to do it. So let’s say, you know, if I intended to say um you know, an extra word or a phrase or something that, you know, similarly you can enter in, you know, the word that you intended to say and it’ll uh fill it in for you so that it can uh it sounds seamless uh there. So, you know, for something like a podcast or, you know, whatever other um uh function that, you know, folks may be looking to accomplish there is that it really helps streamline some of the audio editing process rather than having to rerecord an entire section against placing and placing and everything that uh you can uh just, you know, type in the word and it’ll drop it in for you uh in uh your voice. So it learns from the rest of the file, how to pronounce the word or words that you’ve just inserted into the text file. You, you, you, you, you may have to do some training on it where you um Yeah. Uh but it, it does use E I voice cloning to uh to replace some of the uh the audio there. Damn. And, and I’ve used this, so I’ve used it for my podcast. My podcast producer uses this and um it’s, it’s, it’s saved us so much time. And as a matter of fact, Jason was one of the folks that we interviewed for the first season and we use this software to clean up our episode with, with Jason. Yeah, that’s incredible because I do some of that work uh in my own post production. But I’m, I’m using audacity. But like you said, Jason, I’m looking at the wave forms. Uh Anyway, it’s, it’s eminently doable. You just have to make sure you have the right spot and you play it a few times to make sure you have exactly what you want to take out. Uh but it’s not nearly as swift as text editing and, and, and you can’t add unless you go, you know, go record again and then the, the ambient noise is never gonna sound the same as it did on the day you recorded even sitting here at my same studio office, the, the ambient sound is different. Uh Wow, I, I’ll add one more thing in terms of how this works. And so you, Jason is right in terms of being able to edit the transcript. And so let’s just say, using that example, if I thought Jason gave a long, would it answer or maybe Jason said something? And he’s like, oh, well, actually, I don’t want to share that with my employer, can you take this out? Right. We can go in and edit the transcript that way. Uh, and then for the fillers, you can set it so that you don’t have to go in and manually remove the fillers. You can just tell it which fillers you want to remove and it does, it automatically, um, for you. And depending on which uh, subscription level you have, you can fill in, you can do not just fillers, but maybe there are specific keywords that are significant to you and your audience or to how you wanna edit that you want to remove. You can train the software to remove those specific things automatically. Oh, that’s very robust. That’s remarkable. I think uh descript. OK. Cool Miko. What’s next? All right. So I wanna talk about collaboration tools and training tools. So I do a lot of training for organizations, a lot of things I do virtually. And Google Jam Board is a digital um white board that I used. Um And I still use. But unfortunately, um Google is winding down that particular offering. They’re getting rid of it as of this fall. And so I, I wanna talk about a few alternatives for folks that either have been using Google Jam Board um and are looking for alternative white board tools or maybe you haven’t been using white boards and you just want to get, you know, you wanna come to the party, you wanna be a part of the all the fun. So I wanna give you three really quickly. Um The first is Fig Jam. So this is a white board tool by the company fig A uh F I MA is uh in the space think of think of Adobe. For example, uh a lot of designers use their UX tools and, and web developers use their UX tools to design products and design websites. But they have the separate product, Fig Jam, which is specifically for uh white boarding. And one of the ways that I use white boarding tools is if I have people doing exercise where maybe we brainstorming together, you know, we can the same way that you’re in the room in person and you get people stickies and people stick them on the wall or they sort them into different buckets, you can do the same thing, but you can do this essentially virtually. Um And so Fig Jam is one of those tools you have mirror uh which is another tool that’s in this bucket. And I know that the the Intend team actually uses this a lot. I know that when Jason and I served on the board at Intend, um that was a tool that we used a couple of times as part of our collaboration and you know, strategic planning process um to be able to do that virtually. And then the final tool going back to Zoom for a moment um is zoom has a white board feature. So for folks that weren’t aware of that and you’re, you’re not using it. Zoom has a whiteboard feature um and tied to the Zoom also has an annotation feature where you can annotate things on the screen. Um Both as the presenter, you can also have I I in my presentations, I sometimes have questions on the screen or like a scale and I’ll have uh participants use the annotation tool to indicate where they are on a scale. People can write on the screen or in this case, you know, if you want to use the Zoom whiteboard feature, you could do it that way as well. But those are three alternatives to Google Jam boards. Uh So fig jam mirror and Zoom White board and they all allow uh all the participants to contribute to the white board. Yes. And so they, they, they, they, they, they all allow that feature uh with the caveat that um they have the all three have the basic white board functionality, but they also serve, they have some distinct reasons why you might want to use one over the other. So just picking on mirror for an example um from my perspective, mirror has a very steep learning curve. And so as a trainer, I probably would not use mirror in a training where um folks haven’t been together before, they haven’t used a tool before. But if you’re using it over the long term and you’re able to train people on some basic things. So use your team over time. Then mirror is a, is a great tool for that. Um Fig Jam and Zoom white board are a bit more intuitive. And so depending on your audience, you wanna take those things into consideration if you’re using the Zoom whiteboard, which I’ve, I’ve never, I’ve never used. Um Are you just collaborating with your, your, your mouse? Is that how you, is that how you contribute to the whiteboard, your mouse, your stylus or if um I believe there are just like with Google Jam Board, you know, the, the way that Google Jam Board works is, you know, you, you can drag and drop text boxes and type in the boxes. Um And so that, that’s one option as well. Jason, I’m not sure if you have if you have familiarity with this or have other thoughts about the use. Yeah. Iii I believe uh yeah, you folks would drag their mouse and they can type in and uh it has a lot of parallel features to uh to jam board and, and, and neural although lighter for sure on that front. OK. Cool. Right. It’s your turn Jason. Yeah. So the, the next one that comes to mind is uh Minimus launcher. So it’s minimis. And what it is is that it’s an alternative launch screen for your phone. Now it’s uh launched initially in Android. And uh I believe the the iphone version is now out as well. And what it is is that it helps you get control over uh addictive apps. So if folks are finding that, you know, they are um in a loop or cycle of, you know, constantly checking their phone or things, you know, this is one of those apps that can help uh uh make a dent in trying to break that cycle a little bit. And so what it does is that it actually limits and changes uh your initial kind of phone screen uh and gives you a primary access to, you know, the apps that you need for, for work or basic functions. But if you do want to access uh something, you know, like social media um that it will prompt you and ask you, you know, are, are you sure that you would like to do this and you click, you know, yes. And then it will actually prompt you again, like, you know, you’re absolutely sure. And then, you know, you go to another screen and then they’ll say, OK, now give a rationale as to why, you know, you would like to, you know, check your, your social media. So it puts, you know, additional barriers up. Uh and then when you do move through it, it’ll allocate you 15 minutes uh to, you know, time box it so that you’re not necessarily stuck in that loop of, you know, looking down the screen and then you know, looking back up and like, oh my gosh, you know, an hour has passed. Uh so, uh really um uh a tool that can help regulate, you know, some of the uh the, the instincts that, you know, may be triggered around, you know, some of the uh those addictive algorithms that keep on feeding content that, that may keep us hooked to a phone and social media. This is like a uh a mother looking over your shoulder or you know, your own, your own conscience being, being uh awakened. Are you, are you absolutely sure. And then, and then you get a time limit even when you’re absolutely positively 100% sure. You, then there’s still a time limit. Absolutely. That Minimus Minimus launcher. Yes. OK. Cool. These are, these are really fascinating. Um I mean, so there are tools that can help us. We just, you know, we need to be conscious uh Miko, this is right in your right uh right. Aligned with your practice. We just need to be conscious about our uh or intentional and conscious about our desire to be, be uh be more productive, be less distracted. I mean, you know, you, you’re the mindful. Absolutely. I think the underlying thing here, both personally and professionally is uh being clear about what your overall intention is and what is the outcome that you’re driving for. So, being clear about those things is gonna number one help you determine which tools are the best tools for you to use right now. And as I mentioned before, sometimes the latest high tech tool isn’t the best tool. There’s the, there’s the, you know, the the mid tech and low tech also option exactly. Going to the phone. Exactly. So those are options as well. The other consideration is to consider that not only is it intention and clarity about outcome important for the reasons I just stated, but also because you have to remember that particularly for for profit entities, a lot of companies don’t necessarily always have your best interest in mind. What I mean by that is that they have to generate um time on screen. Um They have to sell ads and so their incentive is slightly different. Yes, maybe they want to provide a useful product, but they want you to use that product in a certain way or for a certain amount of time so that they can increase the share of the revenue or profit that they’re making. And so when you are aware of that, um it it becomes easier for you to identify the ways in which you might want to um recapture your time and recapture your attention using something like what um Jason just shared in terms of the Minimus stauncher. It’s time for a break. Donor box open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team and member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors make giving a bre and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations. Visit donor box.org to learn more. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. In the gym. I like to go to the gym and do my work. I work out on the ellipse elliptical and then I go on the floor. I do a bunch of planks. I have to get some upper body work in. I’m not, I haven’t done that yet. I like to, I like to just get the work done, you know, take my time not rushing, but I like to get through the work. And it’s my uh kind of, you know, it’s my time. Theres a guy I know more about this guy’s life. I’ve learned over the past many months that his wife had a stent when they were on vacation in Florida. Uh And the surgeon said it’s a good thing, you’re not in the Caribbean because the medical care wouldn’t be as good. And you, you, she’d end up with an infection. She had to have a stent. She was have a suffering shortness of breath in Florida. It was, I know where it was, it was Miami. They were in Miami. It’s a good thing. They weren’t in the Caribbean. The surgeon says the guy’s boat, he’s having motor problems with his boat. Now, his boat is leaking oil and he’s got a, you know, this guy with the boat and the, and the, the, the, the wife needs a stent. The boat needs, uh, uh, a repair to the, to the oil line. Um, he went to an air show last week. Uh Cherry Point is a local uh the, well, not that low but it’s within a half an hour or something. It’s a Marine Corps Air station. He went to the Cherry Point Air show. I had over Memorial Day. The, the Blue Angels were there. I heard all about the show, like the guy was narrating the show but he, but he’s not even talking to me. He’s talking to somebody else. But, you know, it’s a community gym. It’s not that big. It’s certainly adequate, but it’s not huge. It’s not a 10,000 square foot gym. So, you know, you overhear people. So I, I hear him, you know, I like I got the narration to the Blue Angels Air show, you know, personalized uh to for us in the gym. So this chatty guy. But are you the chatty guy? Oh, don’t be the chatty person, the guy or gal don’t be the chatty person, you know, I don’t know. I’m not watching who he’s talking to. So, I don’t know if they’re suffering or they’re, they’re maybe just, um, you know, being polite, uh, you know, condescending a little bit but he gets his, he gets his oratory out. I mean, he’s, uh, sh, don’t be the chatty person in the gym to do your work just, you know, it’s nice to say hi. That’s different. But, you know, you don’t need to narrate the air show for everybody who didn’t get to go over Memorial Day weekend and the, and the motor with the, the oil line with the testing and you use a soapy water to, to spray it on the line to find the leak. And I know more about motor boat mechanics now than, uh, uh, than I’ve known in my entire life. I’ve learned in the past couple of weeks. I got, I got a short course in, in, uh, outboard motor maintenance and mechanics and, and troubleshooting chatty guy. Don’t be the chatty person in the gym. Just do your work. Just do your work. That’s Tony’s take two. It’s exhausting. It’s just recounting. It’s exhausting. Eight. You meet some of the funniest people in your gym first with the birthday guy and now with the motor guy. Yeah, Tim. Tim was sad with the birthday. This is a different guy. This is not Tim. Yeah, I don’t know the characters. Well, we’ve got Vuk but loves more time. Let’s return to Future Proof. Your nonprofit with apps. Tools and tactics with Jason Shin and Mikko Whitlock, Mio. I’m gonna ask you about one that, uh you have uh in your email signature. And we, we talked about this, uh I remember either last year or the year before, uh, but it, and I clicked on it as we’ve been, uh, you know, scheduling together, uh inbox when ready. So I’m, I’m, I’m imposing one on you. I know this is not on your list because we, we talked about it a couple of years ago or last year, but please reacquaint us with uh Inbox when ready. Ok. So Inbox prim ready is one of my all time favorite tools. And so I use Gmail. So for folks that are gmail users, this is a free plug in that you can um essentially install into Gmail and this only works on the, the desktop. So I wanna make, make sure people understand that if you’re dogging it from a computer or, or a web browser on a computer. But the idea is that um your inbox is if you’re able to hide your inbox after a certain amount of time or you are able to set it by default. So when you log in your main inbox is hidden, so that you aren’t sucked into the rabbit hole of sort of going down the hole responding to emails when your intention might be something completely different. As an example, maybe I was looking for the, the zoom link for today’s meeting and as opposed to logging in and seeing like, oh, I have, you know, 50 new emails. What if I don’t see any emails and I can just go to the search bar and, and type in Tony, uh you know, zoom link and I get directed directly to that email. I’m more likely to follow through on that and not be, be distracted. Um One of the other interesting things too is that we know from behavior change, being able to see metrics that actually show us, for example, in this case, how long we’ve been engaged in a certain behavior or how long we’ve actually been in our inbox for a day? Sometimes that awareness like, oh my God, I spent, you know, six hours like with my inbox open, that would be quite alarming, I imagine for a lot of people, right? And so those this particular tool allows you to see how much time you’re actually spending in your inbox in Gmail on a web browser. And that can sometimes be a tool that can be a catalyst um to help you shift um behavior if your desire is to actually spend less time um in your inbox. Now, the the the beautiful thing since this tool has come out, both Gmail and uh Microsoft outlook, which are the two, I think I would say most of those are the biggest sort of email providers in terms of the organizational space. Um they have introduced new tools including, you know, the ability to be able to snooze your inbox, you know, to be able to temporarily pause, you know, emails coming in for a certain period of time. And there’s a host of other ways in which you can um you know, manage your time in your inbox. Um that are something that you can use to supplement or to actually replace Inbox when ready. But I’ve been using Inbox when ready for so long. And it’s, it works for me that it is one of my, my go tos the idea of pausing your inbox. I mean, so it seems so simple and, but I never thought of it until you said it. I mean, the there’s just this simple functionality like maybe I just don’t wanna, you know. Uh Yeah, I, I just don’t need to see the incoming messages. Um There’s another simple thing that I, I think it was you guys who shared it with me years ago, which I did, which is just turn off the notifications. The little, well, I use apple mail. So for me, it’s a little, it’s a little red dot red circle that has a number of unread messages in it, just turn that off, just turn that feature off. Just let the email sit there in the in the dock for me. It’s a tool bar for others and you don’t have to be prompted uh that you’ve got 15 unread messages. It’s, it, it’s anxiety producing. Yes. And so one of the things that folks don’t re realize so, and I think um this happens in both the Android and the Apple device ecosystem where when you’re downloading a device or downloading an app, sometimes we’re still in a hurry that we don’t read the pop ups that let us know what’s happening. And so we just click. Yes. Agree. Yes, agree. Yes, agree. Because we want to get to the app. And what happens is generally what’s happening is what you’re saying. Yes to and agreeing to is in addition to sharing all your good data, you’re saying yes to um all the notification, right? Not a badge, the alerts, the badges and so on and so forth, right? And so the particular feature that you’re talking about are the badge notifications. Uh where for it could be for email, it could be for Facebook or Instagram. It shows you not only the app, but it shows you a little red dot on the apple device, for example, oh, you have, you know, 2000 unread Facebook messages or you have, you know, three new likes on, on Instagram and for many people, that’s a source of background stress every time you pick up your phone. And so I recommend for folks that unless there is a compelling reason, like uh like you’re some kind of first responder and you’re doing important work where you have to be, you have to know the minute someone is sending you one of those things because if you don’t, someone’s gonna die for most people. That’s not the case. Right. So, um, turn that off. Turn that shit off. Absolutely. And don’t be, you’re absolutely right. When you download a new app, they ask all those questions. Also. Location, share your location. Why do you have to share your location? Yeah. Right. Google Maps needs my location. That really, that’s about it. My bank does not need my location. I can deposit the check without it knowing what my uh well, you know what my IP address is or what or my, my my coordinates are. Um Yeah, don’t. Right. Mindful, mindful. You’re the mindful techie. That’s right. It’s, you’re aptly named as well. There’s a lot of aptly named things here. Um Yeah. Right. They, when you get the app, you’re anxious to get to the thing, take a breath and read. You know, you don’t, you don’t need all the notifications and alerts. OK. Let’s stick with you since I imposed one on you. Uh I took your, I, I took your uh your, your, your chance. So you had one teed up. Go ahead. All right. So I, I’m gonna share one I think is a favorite for both me and, and Jason so much so that I think we probably share this in virtually every presentation because it’s just such a phenomenal school. So it’s called Toby and it is a browser tab organization uh plug in. Uh That is, I think pretty much cross browser at this point. I know that you can get it in Chrome and Firefox and probably a couple of the other browsers. But the idea here is um you know, we routinely have meetings where, you know, you have to open a gazillion tabs that are relevant to that particular meeting. And for many people, you may be doing that manually. So you have a meeting with Tony and you’re like, OK, I gotta pull up the podcast together. I gotta pull up this, gotta pull up this. And so you’re, you’re, you’re trying to scurry around as the meeting is starting to open up all these different tabs. What uh Toby allows you to do is to essentially create collections of tabs and you just press one button. Um and you, you, it opens all those tabs automatically, right? And one of the interesting things with Toby in comparison to the built in bookmarks and, and mini browsers is that then you can share the collections with your team. So if, if you’re working on it, let’s say, you know, Tony, you have a, a humongous podcast staff and you have a central by set of tabs that you all have opened during your, your planning meetings. You could or someone else on your team could create a Toby collection, share that with everyone and then everyone has the same access to the same collection and it sort of standardized and people didn’t have the ability to create their own collections or customize uh on their own. And so it’s one of those things that it’s one of those going back to what Jason was saying about 1% better, you know, that ability to be able to save those few moments and to save that uh mental stress that we go through at the start of a meeting um adds up tremendously over time. This is another good, yeah, good point you made before to accumulated accumulated like background stress, even the the anxiety of seeing the badge with the 2000 Facebook uh messages unread or something, you know, just uh I didn’t get to, oh I’m so far behind and then, and then it becomes pointless to do it. But the number keeps increasing but you’re so far behind, you may as well let it go, but it’s causing more anxiety, more agita. All right. All right, Toby. So, so that falls under like uh um browser, browser tab management, browser management. OK. Toby Jason. Yeah. So the another tool that want to chat about is uh this may be something that is available for folks that they may not necessarily be using, but they just want to draw it to folks awareness. So, um for those that may already have an 03 65 subscription, you know, through their organization is that uh being copilot um has a commercial data protection uh uh flipped on. And so what that means is that, you know, when, when folks are using, you know, some A I tools that, you know, there, there may be a concern that it is the data is being used to train the model or that, you know, you don’t necessarily know that it’s going to end up, you know, being uh you know, pop up somewhere else, you know, down the road is that uh the, the commercial data protection feature, uh actually uh assures you that it won’t be used for the training of the model and it’ll be contained uh when, when you’re using it. And so, uh if you are using it, you just have to be logged in to your 03 65 account at bing.com/chat and then there’ll be a little green um shield on the top right hand corner that says protected. And so, you know, you’re, you’re able to use that and uh resting assured that, you know, the data that you’re, you’re putting in there isn’t being used to train a language model uh for the folks who are using um the generative A I function. So, uh so what it is is that, you know, it’s uh you know, the similar to things like, you know, GP T or uh you know, Google’s Gemini in that for this particular instance, uh that uh it’s uh the, the little green uh icon in the in the top. Right, assures you that, uh, uh, it, uh, stays contained to your organization. Ok. So it’s like firewalled off from, from, uh, the, the generative A I learning. Mhm. Yeah. And, and as a general tip for, for folks as well as for the other, uh, uh, you know, tools that they may be using around generative A I is, you know, to make sure that you’re checking the settings and the fine print uh that, you know, if you are using, you know, one of the free uh options as well, that there may be uh settings in there to uh turn off the um use the data for training data models uh uh for folks that may uh like to uh be a little bit more secure uh with uh their privacy and what they may be um putting out there. There’s also a concern uh when folks give one of these uh tools, their own data to learn, like, you know, I want you to write a letter to a donor in, in my tone and you, so you upload, you upload to the using in your prompts some of your own letters. And I want it in my tone with, you know, you, you need to be very aware of what you’re, what you’re providing for the learning act because I don’t know that it’s only, it’s keeping, it’s keeping your data only to this conversation, this, this uh this purpose that we’re we’re going back and forth about and whether it uses, it uses that your data that would otherwise be proprietary to you because it’s, it’s your letters, uh for some larger purpose. Absolutely. And that’s something to be aware of when, uh flipping on some of the features in some of these programs where, you know, they, you may be prompted you to flip on an A I feature or, or something, but, you know, in the fine print uh or even not so fine print, you know, it may say something along the line of like, you know, uh this will submit your data to a third party, uh you know, just giving you a heads up, but there’s a lot of additional subtext there where it’s like, OK, well, after it’s submitted to the third party, you know, what happens like is this going to be used to train, you know, the language model, you know, is, you know, this going to pop up, you know, somewhere potentially in the future or is, you know, or is it going to stay contained uh and not used to train the model? So, uh you know, those, those are questions that are worth asking, you know, as um you know, more and more A I features, you know, pop up along the way as well. What what third parties, third party is in the world, I think the broader point that I would make here too. And this is with social media. This is with um anything you post on a website. Um we technology has evolved to a point where essentially there’s a forever memory, right? Even if you take stuff down, it’s still there, still findable. It’s somewhere. Right? And so I always, particularly with younger folks, you know, say, don’t share anything, don’t text anything, don’t post anything on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat and tiktok that you would be embarrassed to see on the news, right? If you’re embarrassed to see it on the news, then don’t post it. Don’t, don’t share it very wise, sage, sage advice from the mindful techie. Uh Let’s do uh let’s do one, each 11 more each Miko. All right. So uh we know that the amount of information the V information has continued to increase and it’s virtually impossible for us from a human perspective to keep up with all of that. And so in this case, one of the ways that A I can be very powerful is by actually helping us to summarize, you know, voluminous um documents, videos and so on. And so one of the tools that we shared during our session is uh a plug in for chrome that’s called youtube summary with chat GP T and cloud. So chat GP T and Cloud are both um two different types of um A I tools. And one of the interesting things about this youtube summary with chat GP T and cloud tool is that it allows you to summarize youtube videos, web articles, and PDF documents. And so I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to watch your two hour training on fill in the blank topic. Maybe I just want, you know, just give me the cliff notes, give me the, the, the bullet points and let me dive deeper on the points that are most relevant to my particular question or my particular curiosity at that moment, this particular tool you just plug in a URL and it gives you a summary um to help you to really focus your time and maybe you decide or determine that, hey baby, this video doesn’t have what I need or maybe it does. I want to look at the last third of this and actually dive a little bit deeper. Um but it can be a powerful tool to save you um lots of time um with particularly with lengthy videos or lengthy documents, say the name of the, the tools again. So this is a long one. So it’s called youtube Summary. It’s all one. Yeah, I’m just reading the title that they gave us. So youtube Summary with Chat GP T and Cloud. OK. Yes. Thank you, Jason. Yeah. The, the, the last one I’ll share is uh it’s more of a mental model and a tool and uh you know, to, to really think about things on a two by two grid. And so the the, the model is called the, it’s also known as the Eisenhower matrix. And so when thinking about, you know, the various tasks that one has to do, and, you know, we, we shared a whole bunch of tools that help, you know, automate and speed up things. But it’s also to look at the tasks themselves and really take a look at, you know, what’s, what’s urgent and what’s important. And so on the two by two grid on one access, um you know, you would have an important and not important and on the on the other access, you would have urgent and not urgent. And ideally, you know, you um you’re spending your time on the not urgent and important things because you know, that’s where you can make, you know, a lot of your long term impact and you know, the things that pop up that are urgent and important, you know, those uh is uh you know, important for you and your organization and when you make short term impact and when you think about, you know, things that are not urgent and not important, you kind of have to ask, you know, well, why are we doing them? And so we want to make sure that these tools aren’t automating things necessarily that, you know, if it’s not urgent and not important, you know, automating but not, not urgent and not important is, you know, spending more time and resources to do things that aren’t important and urgent then you know, those things just need to be eliminated. So those can be thinking of the like the the email inbox is a very good example of non urgent, not important. Most of it obviously there are exceptions but most of email is non urgent and non and non important. Mhm. Yeah. So things like starting to, you know, junk mail, you know, checking through, you know, a lot of, you know, social media, you know, they can be, you know, distractions and time wasters and, and then uh you know, and then the other quadrant being the urgent and not important uh part where, you know, that’s where a lot of the tools can help, you know, automate or help, you know, kind of you’re delegating it out to, you know, the, the tool to help accelerate, you know, some of that and, and so, you know, I think this is a really great conceptual framework to as folks are looking at, you know, their tasks and matching it up to the tools that they’re, they’re using as well. And I know that, you know, Miko speak to, speaks to this, you know, really knowledgeably in his trainings and um around uh how, you know, it can be used effectively and uh I’ll throw it over to Miko as well. Uh uh If there’s any additional things to add on this front. Yeah. So Jason, I, I think you’re spot on, I think that the key here. So in the context of the tech tools that we’re talking about, um we shouldn’t just be using the tools just for the sake of using them. Like you want to be clear about the purpose and at least in terms of the organizational context, and I think it’s critically important as you think about urgent versus important. Also thinking about, you know, what are the resources that we have? What’s the capacity that we have? You know, when I was communicating director, one of the the the the the common pieces of wisdom from some folks when social media was emerging is that oh, you gotta be on all the platforms. Well, that was impossible. We didn’t have the staff of the resources nor did it make sense because our audience wasn’t on all the platforms. So asking yourself the question, what resources do I have? What time and capacity do we have? And you know, what goal are we trying to achieve and what’s good enough for now versus what we can build toward for later or perhaps what we can eliminate all together because it’s simply not relevant, even though everyone else is doing it or the conventional wisdom says we should be doing this or be on this particular uh platform. Um And I think we can apply that to A I right now, right? So um I am of the mind that it’s not an all or nothing, right? Not every organization needs to be using every single type of A I tool out there. Um It’s simply inappropriate in some cases and some cases that actually can be counter productive. So you wanna be clear about what outcome you’re trying to get to. Um And how the tool can support you and help you. Not how the tool can sort of replace you being a critical thinker and that’s, that’s actively involved in the process. Yeah, loss of creativity is, is my biggest concern about artificial intelligence. Use that, that we’re, we, we could see some of the most creative things that we do. Uh And listeners have heard me talk about this with uh we had an A I A couple of A I panels. Um The one, the first one was with um Arua Bruce and George Weiner and Beth Cantor and Alison. Fine. And we kinda uh I aired my uh my concerns there in, in more detail just about giving away the most creative things that we do. And over time us becoming less creative, less creative thinkers, less thoughtful thinkers or less critical thinkers. Um All right. So why don’t we leave it there? And, and Jason, I’m just going to reiterate it’s the Eisenhower Matrix, which I’ve followed for years and I try to think that way, but I don’t, I don’t do it routinely but that, that’s uh that two by two that you were describing is uh the Eisenhower Matrix and you said it, I’m just reiterating it for folks. So that, because it is a, it’s a very, it’s a very sensible way of, of planning. And Miko to your point earlier, uh, you know, it’s, it, it, it’s been around for generations. Old tools can still be valuable. Absolutely. And I, I would offer to your audience, Tony if I’ve reworked this, um, for the mission driven context. And I’ve, and I’ve annotated it. Um, and I’ve, I’ve given sort of a road map of how you work through this in a practical way. So if folks are interested in that, they can email me or, you know, we can give you a link to put in the show notes or however, it makes sense. But folks want access to that annotated version. Ok. The annotated version of the Eisenhower Matrix. Ok. All right. That’s Miko Marquette Whitlock. He’s a mindful techie. You’ll find him on linkedin and his practice is at mindful techie.com. Jason Sim Chief Digital Officer at the Canadian Center for nonprofit digital resilience. He’s also on linkedin and the center is at CCNDR dot C A. Jason Miko. Thank you. Thanks very much. Real pleasure each year. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Next week, we’ll take a hiatus from 24 NTC with Gen Z career challenge. If you missed any part of this weeks show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com. You’re gonna be interested in the Gen Z you, you’re Gen Z. That’s me, Gen Z career challenge. We’ll see if it holds true for you were sponsored by virtuous. Virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your support, generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. This show, social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for June 3, 2024: Your Four-Day Work Week & Intergenerational Communication

 

Vishal Reddy, Karim Bouris & Pattie Carlin: Your Four-Day Work Week

This 2024 Nonprofit Technology Conference panel introduces you to the national campaign for a 32-hour, 4-day work week. They’re the executive director of the campaign, a company that made the switch and a nonprofit that did, too. They’re Vishal Reddy from Work Four, Karim Bouris with Mixte Communications and Pattie Carlin at NTEN.

 

Dr. Lauren Hopkins & Dr. Carla Torrence: Intergenerational Communication

Our panel of two Ph.D.’s discusses common communication challenges in the workplace and shares its strategy for overcoming them. They are Lauren Hopkins from Prepared to Impact and Carla Torrence at i.D.R.E.A.M. for Racial Health Equity. This is also from 24NTC.

 

 

 

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Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be stricken with trauma Tonia if I had to breathe while you told me that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s on the menu? Hey, Tony, we have your four day work week. This 2024 nonprofit technology conference panel introduces you to the national campaign for a 32 hour four day work week. They’re the executive director of the campaign, a company that made the switch and a nonprofit that did too. They’re vishal red from work for Karim Bori with Mixy Communications and Patty Carlin at 10. Then Intergenerational communication. Our panel of two phd S discusses common communication challenges in the workplace and shares its strategy for overcoming them. They are Lauren Hopkins from prepared to impact and Carla Torrance from Ire for racial health equity. This is also from 24 NTC on Tony’s take two summertime planning time were sponsored by virtuous. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box outdated donation forms, blocking supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Here is your four day work week. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference. You know that we’re coming to you from Portland Oregon at the Oregon Convention Center where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. What you don’t know is that the conversation we’re about to have is about a four day work week. And with me to have that discussion are Vishal ready the executive director at work for the national campaign for the four day work week. Also Karim Bori, principal at MD Communications and Patty Carlin Finance and operations director for our host at uh N 10. Vishal. Karim Patty. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Thanks Tony Pure. Alright. Alright. I’m glad um you gave me like, like excited to be here, but you were smiling. I want, I want folks to know you were smiling when you said it. So I am very excited to be here. Yes, maxing out the volume and everything. All right, outstanding. Now. Thank you. The four day work week, Vishal, since you’re the executive director of the campaign, the national campaign for the four day work week, why don’t you kick us off? What, what are we? I think we know what we’re talking about. Why should we be talking about it? Why should the nation, the national campaign? Why should the nation go to a four day work week? Yeah. Well, first of all, I just want to say really excited to be here and, you know, when we talk about a four day work week, we want to be really crystal clear about what we’re talking about. We’re not just talking about a four day work week with 10 hour days. We’re talking about a four day, 32 hour work week with no loss in pay or benefits. And that’s very important to know. Thank you. And the reason we’re really excited about this is because, you know, there’s been a whole host of research and organizations, as we’ll hear from Patty and Cream that have shifted to a four day 32 hour model. And, you know, over the last few years, what we’ve seen is that this is a win, win, win. This is a rare triple dividend policy for workers, for companies and for society. And so what we’ve seen for organizations is that, you know, 91% plus of organizations that shift to a four day work week are piloted, stick with it because of increased productivity, improve retention, better work life balance for their employees for workers. 95% of employees that get to try a four day work week want it. And 80% of people in public in the public want it because, you know, better work life balance, you know, and more time to care for their loved ones. And then for society, this really is a policy that has potential to improve the environment, advance gender equity and give more time to people so they can participate civically. And so, you know, we’re really excited by what we’ve seen, you know, hundreds of companies already do across the US And we believe that this is a policy that can be scaled uh through, you know, public policy and through more and more workplaces implementing it. And we really believe that, you know, the evidence and the research is on our side to show that this is something that all workers in all workplaces in America should have. All right, Kareem, why don’t you just give us uh an overview of what it’s been like at uh mix the communications for uh for a 32 hour four day work week. Sure. Um So Tony, Tony would, it’s probably worth knowing is that our industry, the digital marketing and public relations space is often in the top five of high burnout industries, we’re dominated by the news cycle 24 7. We are addicted to the social media platforms, algorithms and we feel compelled to be on all the time. So high turnover um in industry where folks just don’t necessarily have this balance, we work in the social justice space. So as an employer it is super important for us that we practice what we preach. So we always look at our habits and our practices to make sure that what we say we fight for is what we do in our own company. So when the four day work week happened, it was the perfect or not happened. But when we realized that there were all these pilots with data around the world and especially in the UK and we started seeing data in the US that was showing what Vishal just mentioned. 90 plus percent. We just kept compiling and making the case internally for it. And there was no doubt that it was the right move. So we didn’t just move into it overnight. We took six months to plan it and it was a fundamental rethinking of everything we do and how we do it. Um I’ll probably point to three things that we did that helped us a lot. We tested and measured and surveyed our employees um every month for six months and we were measuring what’s working, what’s not working. The one thing we know that our employees all agreed on and we had 100% results from the get go was that nobody wanted to go back to five days a week. So as hard as it was to try to figure things out about how we communicate about how we run meetings about how long we do things and how we’re, we’re measuring productivity and efficiency. Nobody felt compelled to go back to five days in the grind mentality. The second thing we did is that we figured out that the model that worked for us was staggering. So half of our team is off on Fridays, half of the team is off on Monday. We use group emails for all our clients so that it doesn’t matter when they email everybody on that account. Team gets the message so that if you’re there on the Friday, somebody else on, if um on the team who’s out will know what’s going on on the Monday. But there’s never a loss of coverage for our clients. And then the third thing that is worth mentioning is that we actually didn’t tell our clients for a year and no client knew that’s, that’s a great test. All the black box test. You’re, you’re unaware. All right. And no, no, there were no complaints and no nobody really Patty Carlin at N 10. 00, I do have, I’m sorry, one more question. Um How long ago did you uh did you make the final transition? We did in January in January of 2023. And in 2023 we finished a year, a couple of months, we finished a year in 2023 hitting a record revenue first time in our 13 years. Um We intentionally decided that the year was about um rethinking all of our operations and systems. So the, the investment for us was prioritizing this transition. So we weren’t letting profits dictate what we were going to do. So we intentionally went through the year expecting single digit profits, which we hit still because that was the biggest investment for us. We are a fully digital and remote company. So virtual company. So our largest asset are people. So we needed to make sure that we prioritize them. So um it worked. Sorry about that, Patty. Not at all. Please tell us the N 10 4 day work week experience. Well, we started July 1st of 2023. So we’re not quite a year in, but I think that was there a transition the way Kareem was explaining or six months. No, it was a couple of months. We spent a couple of months talking about. Do we need all these meetings? Do we can we just not have a staff meeting if no one really has anything to say, we don’t have to show up and talk about nothing. Is it still a meeting if no one comes and is it a meeting that could have been an email? You know? Yeah, don’t, don’t have it. Uh Thinking about what’s really important to us as a finance and operations director. Maybe bookkeeping is not the best use of my time now. So I’ll hire one. Um What else we do? Um Monday through Thursday, we’re closed on Friday. There’s the whole team. You’re not staggering the way mixed up. And, um, the person in me that was raised to believe that someone should always be there. Wishes we staggered, but we didn’t. And I’m ok with it. Now, was it a conscious choice in the organization? Did you consider the staggering? I don’t think so. Not seriously. But when said they did it, I went. Oh, no. But, um, it’s been great. Uh, and basically I think that this very conference is a testament to what you can do on a 32 hour week. We did this. I did not know that we were talking about a 32 hour week. I’m glad you explained that right from the get go. Um Yeah, I just assumed that we were talking about a 40 hour week in four days. Um Patty, what happens on Fridays when work emails? Uh I know N 10 does have an office. I don’t know how many calls they get but you have an office here in Portland. No, you don’t get calls. We don’t have the office in Portland anymore. We are, you know that IP O box? You used to be on North Aldert, you on OK. No more. Just a po box. Just a po box where 16 people in eight states. What happens on Fridays when, if an urgent email comes from a member or no vendor? Basically, we also have shared customer service emails but on Friday, an out of office goes up and says, and tens closed on Fridays. We’ll see you Monday and all of our staff does that every Thursday when you log off your out of office goes up and it says antenna is, is a four day, 32 hour, 100% pay 100% benefits. See you Monday. So this is very hard for me as I pointed out in our session. I am gen X. I was, I’ve been a nonprofit for years and you are expected to be there first in the morning out last at night, never take a break, you know, don’t eat, don’t sleep. And this was a big deal for me. What was the impetus at N 10? It was just, you know, we’re, we’re always looking at social and racial justice. We’re always looking at what it’s like to bring your whole self to work. What is it, what we want to be the world that we want? You know, we’re gonna be what we want to see and, you know, at any time, we’re really into modeling those things for everyone. So it’s just like, you know what, this is the right thing to do and we’re gonna do it and it got done and it wasn’t that easy. I make it sound really easy. It wasn’t that easy. And I think there were some of us that were really nervous, but like I said, this, this conference happened because 16 people committed to each other and trust each other and did this on a 32 hour work week and it’s been less than a year. Alright. Alright. Um Michelle, what’s the, what’s typically the impetus for a company or a nonprofit? Doesn’t matter whatever a workplace to to embark on the at least at least the consideration of a of a four day, 32 hour work week. And what kind of factors are, are creating the the the discussion? Yeah, I think you know, one place to start at this is a lot of organizations look at their employees and you know, they’re looking around and you just realize a lot of people are burnt out, right? So I think there was a study that came out last month from our partner center for work time reduction. And they showed that organizations that are on a five day work week schedule, typical five day work week schedule, the burnout average burnout at those organizations is 42%. And meanwhile, now organizations that are on a shorter workweek model, the burnout is 9%. So I think, you know, 99, yeah, so 33% difference. And so I think what people are realizing is the way that we structure work is weird. You know, this is just sort of like this. Um the work that we have right now is, you know, it’s a relic from the 19 forties, right? And so, so much of the way we work, how we work when we work has changed in the last 80 years. And, you know, when we see an epidemic of burnout, an epidemic of stress or, you know, just the sort of instinctual feeling, you know, you go to meetings and you’re like, what the hell is the point of that? Right? And so I think people are recognizing that there’s a way to, you know, make our work more efficient, more effective and also meet people’s needs. And, you know, right now, I think one of the really powerful stuff that’s been happening is four day week global. They’re in organization in New Zealand and they’ve been doing these incredible workplace trials over the last few years. And so, you know, like from Cream and P’s perspective when their organization see these studies and trials and they see, oh, this is, this really is a win, win for both, you know, workers at the company and the company. It can be a really powerful impetus to, you know, explore and pilot the change themselves. Kareem, you said you planned for six months, I think before you actually flipped the switch, what kinds of things are you planning for? What were we working through in those six months? It’s a good question, Tony. Um Finally, jeez, it took, how many years have you been doing this the second day of the conference? It’s the end of the second day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um Let’s see, we wanted to make sure that it was not an edict from the two principles that this was something that our staff wanted. So we had a group of staff get together and be part of the planning committee at every level. So they thought through all of our operations. So how many meetings we have? How long do they have? Why do we have them? How many touch points internally do we have to share information? So we went through all of the exercise and the fun one that we mentioned this morning at our, at our session is for a whole month, we removed all meetings from the calendar. We canceled all our client meetings, we believe we did that, but we did, we kicked off, we kicked off the year and we had told our clients when we come back, we’re not going to have meetings in January. We’ll plan our work differently. We’re going to communicate with you, but we’re not having the meetings that we typically do and we usually meet with clients twice a month. So wipe the calendar, clean, internal externals, everything. And we basically had staff work on a rebuilding from the ground up. Why do we have this meeting? How often, how often do we need it? And that was part of the process. So the second thing was the measuring and the iterating. We did this monthly survey and we looked at the data, we shared it internally, we discussed it. Um But that was part of the kickoff part of the planning looked at our budget as well. So we went into the year, as I said earlier, anticipating that this was an investment in staff. So we didn’t get to a single digit profit just because we switched the four day work week. Part of the, the switch was making everybody a salaried employee. So we reorganized and we let three of our more junior staff go. So everybody now is a manage manager and above, we only have 18 employees. So it help, it helps to be at this scale, but everybody’s now an a salaried employee. So the reason that mattered is because if we’re going to move to a four day work week and we need to be efficient. We need our people to be trusted and autonomous. So we could not have folks who were waiting on someone else to tell them what to do. So part of that was changing the salary structure and changing the job descriptions to match that as well. So all that administrative work as patty knows, it takes a while of rewriting job descriptions of having conversations with the team of saying, ok, with this what we’re doing. We so for some of our team, we said, we think you could be a fit for this new role and some of our junior people, we, we let three of our people go and we transitioned through the year. So you don’t make those decisions lightly. And it’s why it took us six months to go through it, Patty. So your transition was, was quicker, quicker. Um Your head was exploding when Karim said that uh they canceled every single meeting for a month. Um I don’t know. But you, but you mentioned there was I, I want, you wanted. So that’s sort of leading into something that you said uh earlier. It wasn’t that easy. No, it wasn’t that easy. Talk about some of the challenges maybe and, and how you overcame them as an organization. We had a lot of meetings, we had meeting on top of meeting on top of meeting. And it, it seriously was about, do we need this? Can we make meetings optional? You know, if you don’t have something to say, don’t and you have something to do. You had meetings about meetings. I said that in our session, I said we had a meeting about meetings and then we formed a subcomittee of people that wanted to talk about meetings and then they came back to the group so we could all talk about meetings again and then meetings were done and you scaled back a lot of meetings and we do have um every other week on a Monday, there’s like a placeholder. And if you go in and say I wanna talk about this for 15 minutes, everybody will show up if nobody needs, has anything to talk about, we’re not just gonna get on their so anybody can call the meeting. But, but it’s, it’s just a placeholder. If no one calls a meeting, there’s no meeting that week and we do and, you know, some of that is complicated at N 10, we have live captioning for every meeting, even staff meetings. So, you know, somebody has to remember to call off the caption and all this and that. But it’s really just to be able to say I have work to do and have everyone trust you that you’re not just going off to hike in the woods. It’s, we talked about that a lot in our session about how we trust each other. We have a commitment to each other to support each other and do what we’re meant to do. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver. It’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that responds to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact, virtuous.org. Now, back to your four day work week with Vishal Reddy Karim Bori and Paddy Carlin K you. I would love to jump in because the meetings are one element of how we work. I’d love you to jump in because your voice is so base. You have a voice for some people. Tell me I have a face for radio. OK? I’ve heard that about 1500 times. You have a great voice for radio. Thank you. So I’d love for you to chime in. I promise I won’t do the only other time I did a voiceover, I started doing voices and the folks in the studio did not like that, we could probably skip that. I would love to jump on to something. Patty just said meetings are one element that suck our time there. We looked at the other things that our employees do that are also indicative of waste. And um and just just this rabbit holes, two tools we use internally are our Asana, which is how we communicate on threads, on different channels, on different topics for clients, operations, marketing. So we have all these threads. It’s basically a chat, right? So if we’re a virtual company, this is where we go for the communication in between meetings and then there’s Asana, which is the project management tool we use. So those are two places where we do a lot of exchange of information. One is organized on projects and we have to say, ok, I’m working on this part. We’re all doing this. Here’s my piece, here’s my update and those are basically nonstop updates. So we have an average of 25 to 30 clients on any given month and we are 16 to 18 people. We’re 18 now, that’s a lot to balance. So it’s not just how many meetings you’re in, in a day, but it’s how much of your time gets sucked. Every time you that chat function dings with a notification, how often you’re on, you’re checking your email, but you also have that slack open and you have a sauna and you’re watching the projects change and you go watching notifications on one and two and three things that’s overwhelming. And we work in the digital marketing space. So we know how these algorithms create um this toxic dependency and mental health breakdowns. So we’re super aware of it. So one of the other things we did is that we told nobody on our team can have their sauna and their slack notifications active. You cannot get a ding or you shouldn’t be able to see when it’s coming. You should be able to shut that stuff off and focus. So it takes a lot of habits to undo. And the one thing we talked about this morning that one of our former employees said was he called it The Great Unlearning. And I think that’s a beautiful umbrella for what it means to transition as a company and as an employee love that the great unlearning Michelle, why don’t you add some larger context to what uh what Patty and Kareem are sharing? I mean, I think their journeys are so indicative of what’s happening nationally, right? So in the last four years, hundreds of companies have shifted to a four day work week in 10 states have introduced bills that help shift, you know, mandate companies shift to a four day, 32 hour work week or, you know, create incentives for companies to shift to a four day work week. Last fall, the United Auto Workers Union led by Sean Fein proposed a four day 32 hour work week in their contract demands. With the big three automakers. Just this morning, my colleagues were tested in front of the Senate. Uh the Senate Health Committee had a hearing about the four day 32 hour work week. So, you know, this is a movement and you know, and a cause that is bubbling and we’re seeing, you know, really courageous workplaces that are, you know, led by courageous people like Kareem and Patty, you know, lead this effort and you know, take it to a place where, you know, it’s going to move in a direction where every worker in every workplace has this. And you know, we really see this as the future of work and not out of our goal isn’t to just make this a thing that is a nice to have, but a must have for an organization. And so I think one of the really amazing parts about this work that we’ve seen on our end is just that, you know, when organizations take the dive head first and they jump in and do the four day work week, when they are on the other side of it and they have a four day work week and everything is humming along nicely, they become really powerful advocates for it, right. So to us, that’s really proof that this is something that works and can work in even more places. And you know, one of the ways that we’re the most helpful too is often connecting similarly situated workplaces to each other, right? So we’ll often have organizations reach out to us and say, hey, we’re really interested in a four day work week. But, you know, just as we know, the five day work week is not a one size fits all model, the same is true of a four day, 32 hour work week. And so what we often do is connect similarly situated workplaces to each other. So that, you know, somebody who’s in a similar field is another field can sort of connect with that organization directly. And what we’re is the organizations that have already shifted are just always so excited to share their insights and best practices from what they’ve learned. And so, um this is something, you know, that’s organically grown so fast in just a few years. And if six years ago you were talking about a four day, 32 hour work week, people would have just laughed at you. And now people are like, they’re like, wait, that sounds amazing. And I know organizations that can do it. And even today during our session, we, um, I think cream asked people, you know, do you know any organizations that are on a 32 hour work week? And I want to say a third of the room maybe raise their hand, which is just a really powerful testament to what organizations can do when they think about their workplace. In a non zero sum way. You talked about gender equity earlier, you, you mentioned gender equity, say more about that, please, Michelle. Yeah. So, you know, a really important part of our work is really couching the advocacy for the four day work week. And our goal to build an economy that gives people time to care for their loved ones and care for their families. And we know that, you know, traditionally and disproportionately, you know, women hold the double burden. They often work full time jobs and then have to do unpaid domestic labor at home too. And so what we’ve seen is that, you know, one way we think about the four day work week is that it gives people more time to care for their loved ones. And one of the really amazing things is that in the trials that we’ve seen, there’s actually been, it’s not just about, you know, giving the people that are already doing the unpaid domestic labor more time to do more unpaid domestic labor. But actually, what we’ve seen is that, you know, amongst heterosexual couples, there’s actually a, a balancing too. So in those couples, men take on more of the domestic labor. And so, you know, part of what we’re seeing is, you know, this is we don’t give people enough time to care for their loved ones, to care for their families to do the necessary care, giving work. And what’s really amazing is just that it’s not just about giving people more time to do that, but also rebalancing it. So that work is better distributed amongst more folks. I’d like to spend more time. We have uh we have more time set aside. Uh Let’s uh I I’m going to your session description um how to ensure productivity and business outcomes are still achieved. I mean, we’ve touched on some of that accountability metrics measuring Kareem. You’ve been, I mean, are you still measuring productivity or it’s not necessary anymore anymore? We’re done, we’re done. All right. So that we put a lot of metrics and we say we’re not measuring that anymore, but that’s a lifetime journey. Very rare. Although we are, we are, we’re not measuring the four day work week anymore. What we are continually measuring is how are we using those tools that suck our time? So this slack tool, we are regularly going back to it and we just finished a three month pilot of how do we limit it? So we are constantly saying, are we seeing the small signals that tell us that our staff are reverting back to those bad habits and old habits? So let’s put a pilot together where we iterate test again, do before and after te uh measurements, surveys of our employees and then see if it’s worth continuing. I also, I, I think in, in, in ensuring productivity and business outcomes are still achieved. Um I, I’d like to talk more about the trust. I mean, the trust between employees, between the team members. Um You know, I, I think some of that I from the pandemic, you know, eroded. We, we, we hired a lot of people that didn’t get on boarded the way folks before 2020 got on boarded and they didn’t have the, they didn’t have the benefit of that. Now you have to. So a team has to be very, very conscious about bringing those folks in. Um and, and engaging, but let, let’s, I don’t know, I don’t know what more to say about Trump, but you all are experiencing it. So Patty say, can you, can you say more about the, the, the trust factor? Where is that from a movie or something? The trust factor I don’t know. I don’t know. As long as it’s not a slasher film. No, we don’t want to go in that direction. But, yeah, employee trust. Yeah, I, I think that feeling like you have to be able to see each other to trust each other is something that we’ve actually kind of gotten through partially because intens been distributed for 24 years. We did have an office in Portland, but only eight people live in Oregon. So we’ve been distributed all that time. So there was already a little bit of you don’t have to be in someone’s face to understand that they’re there and have that um feeling like you can trust them. We hired, mm I think the last three or four people that we hired were complete virtual hires. None of us had ever seen them other than on a little screen from stranger to colleague without ever an in person meeting and I completely trust them. We did have to get very intentional about on boarding. Um making sure that everybody knows how to use those tools because it’s crucial. And the other thing that has been a goal of mine for the last almost two years and it started with the pandemic was making our asynchronous work work better. And a couple of people have come up to me since our session and said that might be the next session for next year is let’s talk about asynchronous word because we have people in every time zone and how do we make that work? So on boarding is important, trust is important and just committing to each other to do our thing. Part of that onboarding has to be the A AAA lot of discussions or maybe even before, maybe even be in the hiring process, the culture, the culture of intent, the culture of mixing what, you know, what we stand for. You know, we’re, we’re not, I’m, I’m getting a little misty here. I don’t know, this is so lofty, but we don’t only hire for uh for skills, but we hire for value and, and trust, um values, values and trust. Um I don’t know. Do you want to add something Kareem on trust and on boarding, I saw you shaking your head. I do and I want to jump on the soap box and I’m going to be singing the gospel of leadership and the role and importance of leaders because I happen to be in this capacity. And that’s, I think where it starts. If we want loyalty. If we want folks who are going to stick around, it’s on us to set the tone for what trust is, it’s not going to be given to us just because we hired someone and you can be really talented and this is probably the message for any other business owner, CEO or nonprofit executive director. You can be really knowledgeable in a certain field that doesn’t make you a good business operator and that’s on us. Culture starts with us to have the humility and the flexibility to hear ideas that we don’t know. So I don’t assume that people just because we give them a paycheck and hired them owe us anything. We have to set the tone for what transparency, accountability, honesty, trust looks like. So I get really irritated very fast when folks start saying, well, our employees, I’m like stop, We create the conditions that employees walk into and we get to choose the environment that we create for people and we get to choose if we want them to come to work from a place of love or a place of fear, period. And that’s something I will hang my hat on and I will go to a fight with any executive director or CEO out there who disagrees with me, please. I am super easy to find. Ok. Did, did you uh avail yourself of the, the advice and council of uh work for as you were as you were embarking on your planning, your planning? No, no. Where were you all my life, Michelle, I introduced them. I’ll take the credit for that. 10. Avail itself of work for while you were preparing Tristan and Amy and I met with V Tristan Penn Equity and Diversity director at 10. I have it was just a guest. I think I think I it’s equity and Amy s everybody here knows her. So as we were making the transition. We had a call with Michelle and it was just such a good, you know, you’ve heard the things that he has to say and he asked us how we were doing and how we did it. And so when, um, you and Jamie reached out to say, let’s do this, I’m like, I got the guy, I got the guy and, and so it was kind of like we talked to you because we were doing it and then it just all came together. I’m really, really honored to be sitting here with these wonderful people. And if I could just chime in quick time, just that, you know, I think one of the amazing things that, you know, I connected with both Cream and Patty after they had begun to transition. But one of the reason, the reasons that we had, I reached out in the beginning was just because the way they were talking about the four day work week, you know, hated all the things that they’re saying today. And so it was just really one of the things that we want to continue building is just, you know, building a network of organizations that are interested in this and it’s so exciting to be here with them because they’ve already taken such leadership within their organizations and want to take such leadership with this cause that um it made so much sense to connect and collaborate and um and you know, it is very helpful for organizations to have outside support as they’re going through this change. It’s not a prerequisite, you know, these organizations. And so it’s really amazing to sort of see, to show that organizations can do this with no outside support, but we’re also happy to be that helping hand if needed. Alright, so why don’t you uh let folks know how they could reach uh work for if they wanna, or, or reach the website, if they wanna explore some resources about, you know, they’re thinking about maybe possibly considering sometime in the future, a four day work week where, where do they go? Well, so our organization is called Work For and our website is also work for. So that’s work and then for the number. So four.org and so if you’re at work for.org, you’ll see a page that says for employers, if you’re an employer for workers, if you’re a worker and if you fill out a quick form, then it’ll set up a conversation with us and we can sort of talk through what makes the most sense for your organization, but really encourage folks to reach out and we’re always happy to chat with people that are really interested in bringing this to their organization or to do any other advocacy work as well. Kareem, if I’m working at mix to do, I get my choice, whether I want Mondays or Fridays off, you can ask and then we look at which account you’re going to be on and we want to make sure half and half is well distributed between both. So my preference is considered at least it’s consideration. Well, Patty Carlin, I want to thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. And uh Michelle Michelle, thanks very much for sharing, interesting conversation. Fun, valuable, a little touching too, Tony. There’s only one day that everyone in N 10 has to have off and that is the first business day after the NCC. That is the only day everyone is off. You must take off its mandate. So if we see you online, you are in trouble. Everybody’s off on Monday the 18th of March this year. Don’t call in 10. Ok. And Friday, Friday. Well, tomorrow is Friday tomorrow next Friday, 1920 21 the 22nd. So it, so it’s a three day week for everyone at N 10 next week and well deserved. I don’t know what day it is. I just want to make sure you’re not swapping the Monday for the Friday. It’s a complete capitulation and everything we just talked about, right? Antithetical to everything we just talked about. All right. Uh Vishal Kareem Patty. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for being with our 2024 nonprofit radio coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us. It’s time for a break. Donor box open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations. Anywhere anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team a member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors, make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations. Visit donor box.org to learn more. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. Summertime can be a good time for planning. Uh I’m thinking specifically about planned giving, planning for a fall launch um or even planning in June and July for August launch because August is national make a will month. So that would be a good time to kick off planned giving fundraising or do a campaign if you’re already doing planned giving. But the summer months, you know, June, July uh and or August could be good, very good for planning uh for either that August or September launch. Um It’s not limited to planned giving, of course, you know, summertime, slower. Uh Now I know it’s harder to get people together because there’s more vacation. But you know, that’s, that’s overcomeable. We don’t, we certainly don’t wanna deny people vacation time and everybody calls it PTO now. Wait, I’m on PTO. You get the email messages. I’m on PTO. I’m away on PTOW. When, when did vacation become PTOPTO? Sounds, uh, I don’t know. It sounds like something military vacations, you know, vacation sounds like fun. PTO doesn’t sound like fun. Uh, I don’t know. It sounds like something is mandated. Uh, just, I’m on vacation so we don’t want to deny people their vacation so that you can do your summer planning naturally. Uh And that would contradict what I said a couple of weeks ago about taking time for yourself because you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. So summertime can do both though. It can be your planning time and it can also be the time that you take for, for rejuvenating for relaxing yourself so that when you come back, you can take care of others, right? Summer can serve two purposes. So thinking about planning this week using summer for planning for that uh maybe August campaign or, or something in the fall. And that is Tony’s take two Kate. I am so ready for the summer and I have all my vacation plans planned out and I’m, I’m so ready to hit the beach. It doesn’t sound like you’re gonna be doing a lot of planning for the fall. Sounds like you’re in the balance. Like if there was a balance, you’re weighted heavily toward the time off rejuvenation, relaxation side. Oh, yeah, I know. I mean, I’ll go pumpkin picking in the autumn, but that’s about it. Ok. That, that’s a pretty audacious plan you have. Uh, ok. Very, very. All right. Congratulations on that. We’ve got VCU but loads more time here is intergenerational communication. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference in Portland, Oregon where we are thoughtfully sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits with me. Now are Doctor Lauren Hopkins and Doctor Carla Torrance. Doctor Hopkins is social impact consultant at prepared to impact. And Doctor Torrance is consultant at Ire for racial health equity. Doctor Hopkins. Doctor Torrence, welcome. Thank you. May I call you Lauren and Carla? Would that be ok? Doctor Laura Carlin Car Lauren Lauren? Ok. I’ll do doctor Doctor Carla. No. Ok. Absolutely. Your names, your titles you earned them. Let’s talk about, let’s talk about your topic. Your session is strengthening organizational culture through intergenerational communication. Uh This struck me because uh I’m a baby boomer and I do a lot of work not in, I mean, I have my own company but uh I do a lot of work with folks who are younger and um and even, you know, I do planned Giving, which puts me with folks who are in there, seventies, eighties and nineties. So there’s that uh there’s that dynamic also for me. So uh so I guess maybe for selfish reasons. Uh, I was very interested in this topic but I think a lot of, I think a lot of folks are struggling at across all the generations working with folks who don’t consider work the way they consider work or don’t think about, uh, I don’t know, don’t organize their lives differently that they just, they conceive of work differently. The purpose of work, the reasons for work, they conceive of family differently. Are these some of the reasons that this session is uh critical Doctor Carlo for sure. And what it is, it’s our work, it is our community. It’s everything it has for the first time in history. Five generations are in the workplace. Traditionalists, baby boomers. Gen X millennials and Gen Zs, which they’re now calling zoomers traditionalists. Is that the silent generation also known A K A the silent generation traditionalists. Um Dr Lauren, do you want to sort of frame this up for us before we get into some of the details? Yeah, I’ll tell you how we got started. So last year at N 10, at the NTC conference actually presented a session. It was a workshop on teaching technology skills within an intergenerational workplace. And so it was a nice size crowd and Dr Carla was in there and really enjoyed the session and came up to me afterwards and we connected and here we are. And so we’ve done a couple of projects together and of course, when in 1024 came up. We wanted to create a part two for this year. And so we were really excited and we actually presented this morning. You’ve already done? All right. All right, good. So we can maybe talk about some of the questions that arose, questions or comments. OK. OK. Um So one of the I’m just taking from your session description in the, in the agenda, uh common communications challenges in the workplace. Of course, we’re talking about intergenerational. Um You know, why don’t we start with? Stick with you, Doctor Lauren. What, what, what are some of the common challenges? Yeah. And so one of the um it’s very interesting that with the various generations, how we just prefer um modes of communication best and so with traditionalist and the baby boomers, they prefer more face to face communication. Um Yeah, more face to face, more written memos and things like that. And so if they are able to get in front of someone um that is better or if they’re able to talk to someone on the phone, that’s what they prefer also for um Gen X. No, Gen Xers. Yes. For Gen Xers, they really prefer um phone or verbal communication also and they’re also very quick learners. And so with Gen Xers, if they’re able to integrate some type of technology in it, think about like slack or texting or what not, they’re very fast learners. Um I’m actually a millennial and so I, I did not even say that but um we are two different generations. So I’m a millennial and Doctor Carla is a baby boomer. And so which makes our um our relationship very unique. So will you expand in 25 NTC? Bring in, bring in a traditionalist or someone on the other end? Maybe a maybe a gen X maybe. So I was thinking maybe like a panel with all with representative. I mean, it’s all born of yours from last year. So how do we overcome these? I mean, so as the baby boomer, I would rather just get up and go walk over to your office, but you’d rather I slack you or, or pick up the phone. I wouldn’t mind the phone. But that would be my second choice. My first choice would be the more laborious, the more time consuming I admit the more time consuming, the more invasive to you. I’m, I’m admitting that I still would rather knowing all that. I still would rather just get up and go talk to you in your office. You would rather I slack you or pick up the phone. Well, it’s very interesting. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you personally your generation. I got you. Yeah. And so traditionally, with those generations and the stereotypes, the research says that yes, that is um that is normal and stereotypical. However, we really have to consider the person. And so for instance, like me, um like millennials traditionally, we prefer texting something quick. I prefer a phone call. And so people know if they need to get me, they should just pick up the phone because I’m probably not going to text back. And so, um, and that’s just not just because I don’t like texting, but I get distracted and things like that. So we have to understand who the person is and communicate and ask them, hey, how do you prefer that I communicate with you and adapt to their preferred communication style? So we have the stereotypes but then also, you know, the person and the human aspect to it. But then I have to ask a challenging question, a question that challenges that a bit. So if I prefer the in person and you prefer the phone, where, where, where are we, we need to meet in the middle somehow and, and compromise and um yeah, and just figure out, OK, how do we work on this? And so an example with myself and, and Doctor Carla, sometimes we’ll text but often times we will um she’ll call me if she knows if she trying to get me like pretty quickly is a call or she knows that, OK, if it can wait a little bit, a text will be OK. But it just depends on the relationship and the person and just finding a common ground and communicating that from the beginning. OK, Doctor Carla, what about the different conceptions about work? You know, the generations consider work. I think different, different purpose. Uh younger folks consider it, you know, it’s a part of my life, but it’s not that big a part where I think, I think older folks consider it more, you know, they tend to more self identify around their work, you know. So you get, does it make sense? Different conceptions of work across the generation? And I think that COVID um was, was definitely an eye opener for everyone for engagement. So what you’re talking about is actually engaging with the community at work or just engaging with a person? Whereas um for years, uh baby boomers being in the workplace, you know, everybody, you know, um you know, you know, their Children, they all, everybody’s grown up. Well, once COVID hit, then we were all sent home and some of us went back. Well, they saw a difference in engagement, engagement. Those who went back to the work workplace, they saw a little bit more engaging in the whole community of work. Whereas those who were remote didn’t really engaged. So they were, they saw different generations, for example, the the baby boomers are more engaged, but the millennials and gen Z are less engaged because they’re remote, they’re remote, they’re not connecting as much. And so that connecting and engaging is very important for well being for anyone that is, is, is is on a job. So what do we do to overcome the lack of engagement. And I think that that’s where it comes in where maybe a hybrid or meeting at least once a month that there is, there is a time that we all do come together um and see one another and that meeting that coming together in person in face to face is for real, not just zooming or teams, but actually coming together and meeting and talking. And how are you doing? How’s your family? Because sometimes even when we were just tell me about your family, you don’t even know about your family, right? Because a lot of times when you’re working remote, you don’t even have to show your face. So a lot of people are not. But what we’re finding is that is making you even more, less engaged. Research is showing that there’s less and less engagement and you need engagement for well being. So we have to be intentional. Leadership needs to be intentional, all levels of leadership, not just all levels from board members, all the way down to every person within the organization needs to be intentional of wanting to engage. Because I can, if I can work on four jobs, if I can work on four projects and just give you what you need and send you on your way, I don’t have to connect with your organization. Just get, just get the money, just give me the money, pay me. And here, here’s the end result, the product I still I’m not connecting. OK. OK. Um Other challenges. I mean, we’re just, we’re just getting started. Well, you know, when you’re talking about I’m modes of communication. Um Again, we can’t generalize, we can’t use the stereotype is that traditionalists are like this, baby boomers are like this, those millennials are like that and those, those, you know, Gen Zs are like this, we can’t do that because even in our relationship, um if I text her, I mean, I, I mean, I hear from her all day whereas if she texts me, I text her right back now. That’s not normal. I mean, it’s not normal as far as baby boomer versus millennial. It should be that if everybody is saying what everybody does, she should be able, she should be calling me and it’s, oh, hi. It’s so nice to hear from you. How’s your family? Because I’m a baby boomer. Right? No, we’re to the point she, she wants to and she’s different, but we have learned and I think we’re test tubes for this and that’s why this workshop was so good for us to work it because we, we’re, we’re showing the strategies and how helpful it is to learn one another and to respect one another’s mode of communication and not just say, oh, that’s how you are. That’s how your generation is. No, it’s individual. It is and it’s respect, it’s respect of whatever it is. Whatever your mode of communication is, let me respect it and let me see where we can drop our drawbridge down and where can we come together so we can really communicate otherwise we’re, we’re just sacrificing the productivity of the, of the office of the mission. Right. I mean, we’re, we’re just, if we’re not, if we’re not listening to each other and respecting communications preferences, it’s just gonna be, uh, it’s not gonna be as an effective or an organization as it could be. It’s robotic, it’s not human, it’s, it’s just not, it’s not personable, it’s the long lasting. OK. We have um strategies for strengthening intergenerational communications conversations. We’ve talked about some share some more. Yeah. And so um so we talked about um go ahead, we talked about the um the different modes is what you’re saying, the different modes. OK. Yeah. OK. So we talked about um in what type of mode, how we will, is that what you’re saying? What’s the best way to communicate with you, whether you, whether you like face to face or whether you like text or whether you, whether you want social media. And so finding out which one is best and how can we be more effective? How do we find this out? We survey everybody with a uniform survey and then share the results or? Well, I mean, you can do that but you can also bring that human aspect to it and one get to know people, you know what I mean? Oftentimes in the workplace and even in the community, but especially in the workplace, I feel like we’re so, you know, just stuck at our desks or, um, there’s a lot of assumptions and just ask the person, especially as you get to know them, it might come naturally or sometimes you might have to ask, hey, I noticed that you haven’t responded to my teams. Um, I noticed that you haven’t even looked at it yet because I didn’t see little icon come up. Um, is there a better way that I can reach you if you, you know, if I need something? I noticed that it’s been like five hours, you know what I mean? And so they might tell you, oh, I don’t use that thing. Ok. Well, that’s not the best way to. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And sort of adapt and, um, and then, and then, you know, and tell them what you prefer. Also another one of the challenges I was going to say was learning from each other. And so it’s not really a challenge but it’s one of the different strengthening aspects. And so we always can learn from each other within the workplace. And so especially intergenerationally and we all have various experiences and knowledge and we can all grow from each other. And so that communication piece is not just about being effective in the workplace, but it’s also about just growing as a person growing as a professional. We can all learn from each other. And so really honing in on that and even within the workplace, how can um organizations and employers really foster that opportunity for intergenerational learning. How can we encourage people to grow with each other and from each other? So is that a co mentorship program, maybe it could be a baby boomer being linked with a genzer or oftentimes in the workplace. Now too, there may be a millennial who is supervising a baby boomer. You know what I mean? And those are opportunities for growth. Also, next week, apps, tools and tactics to future proof your nonprofit. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech. You find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by Virtuous. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box outdated donation forms blocking your support, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org, fast fund, friendly, flexible fundraising forms. Love that I just, I I can’t get over the alliterations. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. This show, social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that mission study. Be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.