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Nonprofit Radio for April 22, 2024: A Step Back On Artificial Intelligence & Get Your Team To The Next Level

 

Beth Kanter & Philip DengA Step Back On Artificial Intelligence

Beth Kanter and Philip Deng urge you to consider the ethical challenges your nonprofit should grapple with before fully adopting generative AI in your work. They’ve got advice for an ethical use policy and guidelines for training. Beth is an author, master trainer and facilitator. Philip is CEO of Grantable. Our conversation was recorded at 24NTC.

 

 

 

 

Kim TruongGet Your Team To The Next Level

“We do our best work when we’re at our best,” says Kim Truong, as she explains how to evaluate your team’s roles and responsibilities, meetings, reporting, and communications. She also reveals what belongs in your Team Ways of Working Guide. Kim is an independent consultant. This is also part of our 24NTC coverage.

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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 bear the pain of aico mycosis if you touched me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate back from sick leave with what’s going on this week, Kate, how are you feeling? Hey, Tony, I am feeling so much better. I’m at like 90% better. But yeah, thanks for checking in. We missed you terribly for the past two weeks this weekend. A step back on artificial intelligence be cantor and Philip Dang. Urge you to consider the ethical challenges your nonprofit should grapple with before fully adopting generative A I in your work, they’ve got advice for an ethical use policy and guidelines for training. Beth is an author, master trainer and facilitator. Philip is CEO of Grant. Our conversation was recorded at 24 NTC and get your team to the next level. We do our best work when we’re at our best says Kim Tong, as she explains how to evaluate your team’s roles and responsibilities, meetings, reporting, and communications. She also reveals what belongs in your team ways of working. Guide, Kim is an independent consultant. This is also part of our 24 NTC coverage on Tony’s take. Two loving donor meetings 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. Here is a step back on artificial intelligence. You know, it is kind of nice having a second voice. Uh We’ll see, we’ll see about the future. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference. We’re all together here in Portland, Oregon at the Oregon Convention Center and nonprofit radio’s coverage of the conference is sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. This conversation is with Beth Cantor and Philip Deng. Beth is an author trainer and facilitator. Philip is CEO at Grant Beth Phillip. Welcome. Thanks, Tony. Nice to have you, Beth. Welcome back. Great to be here. I lost count. How many times I’ve been on your show? Yeah, many, many Nt CS and Philip. You’ll be welcome to come back. Thank you very much. It’s great to be here. Thank you, my pleasure. Your session topic which you uh unburdened yourself of uh yesterday, right. Taking care of you did. Your session is embedded, ethical and responsible use, generative A I and nonprofit work. Um Philip, why don’t you get us started as a, as our first time guest. Um Why did you see the need to be concerned about ethics and, and responsibility around generative A? I? Well, I think, um Beth and I have been talking about the topic for a few months now, maybe over a year. Um And I think that generative A I, I, I’ll start kind of in reverse is a transformative technology that is shaping the world every single minute now. And all of these nonprofits, their missions, their clients, this, this all is being done in a generative A I world now. And I think nonprofits in particular have a, a sort of native inclination to consider things from a perspective of responsibility and ethics. And so I think there’s this really important work to be done uh led by folks like Beth now for quite some time. But to help them figure out how to take these really powerful technologies, these really important tools and then apply them in ways that are aligned with their missions and most importantly with their values. I’m glad we’re having this conversation because it’s important to take a step back and, and evaluate, you know, our, I guess our values, uh you know what our, our core, what we stand for, what we, you know, the walk that we, that we wanna walk um and not be talking about uh the use cases and, you know, use it as a draft and then then it’ll be iterative and you’ll have a conversation with your, with your, uh, with chat, chat GP T, et cetera. Uh, uh, so that’s why I wanted to take a step back because Beth, you and I had that conversation in a, in a panel with, um, uh, last, it was last June, I believe with, uh, AUA Bruce and George Weiner and, um, Alison Alison, the four of you, the four of you. Yes. So we, and uh so, I mean, there’s value in that we, we do need to know what, what are the best use cases and how best to interact with this Philip, as you said, absolutely transformative tool. But let’s, let’s take a step back. Beth, why don’t you help us off as well? Um Sure. And I think as we talked and we’ve been talking um and the reason I wrote the book about it with Alison published two years ago now because we saw this coming is that most, for most that we leave with our human centered values and that we do no harm because there’s a lot of potential to do harm. Um Given um that this technology is working on ingesting a large amount of data from the internet and it’s ingested all its biases and in the ways that we can interact, we can inadvertently, you know, harm people through divulging private information or maybe using it to block people out people of color, out of service. And a whole host of other things. Right. Um, and I could give you that whole list, but that’s like a college ethics course. But the important thing is that, um, nonprofits need to be aware of it and have a way to navigate through it. And luckily intens released of uh ethical framework tag fundraising dot A I and organizations I think are um overwhelmed, their concern. They should be, um, but they need to be prepared and to move thoughtfully. And so the session that Philip and I did was more, you know, how do we operationalize our values in the context of this technology? As uh Philip mentioned before, it’s something that we’re used to doing in this sector leading with our values. But now we need to apply it to the use of this tech to this transformative moment. That is, is, is only going to become, I don’t know more. It’s, it’s, it’s only going to accelerate I I think. Um All right. So Beth, let’s stay with you. You know, what, what should we be? What should we be thinking about talking about? Not just thinking, what should we be talking about consciously? Um at, at, at the CEO level, I don’t know, maybe at the board level help us help us understand what the, what the issues are that we should be grappling with. Um There’s a few things and I’ve been having a lot of those conversations. Um first is educating, understanding what the technology is and actually getting hands on it in a safe way, low risk cases. So you understand, like the limitations of it without just being concerned, it’s a double edged sword here or I don’t know the right metaphor, but it’s there are tremendous benefits, but we want to be careful, right? We don’t want to be so scared of it that we don’t use it. We need to, we do need to use it but carefully. So we need to think about this in terms of, you know, humans always in charge, humans always in the loop, humans making decisions. And I think the most important skill that leaders need to understand is when, where does that human intelligence come in? And where do we let the machine do some of the work? Right? It’s called Cobo. We talked about that before higher up what what’s going to happen is more nonprofits adopt. Um It’s going to free up time, it’s not going to disrupt jobs necessarily, it’s changing and automating job skills which redistributes time and leaders need to reinvest that time into more mission driven, important tasks which are really about relationship building, right? With our donors um within, with um the people we’re serving and, and within that as staff begins to use this and, and they have acceptable use policies and we’re taught how to use it well and carefully. Um and time shifts, they’re going to need to be reskill right there gonna be reskilling and there’s going to be an emphasis on soft skills, they’ll become way more important, like creativity, empathy, communication, interpersonal communication, those things are going to become all the more important. Um There’s been some and um uh linkedin data recently, I don’t know if you’ve seen their, their economic graph but they actually crunch some numbers related to nonprofit jobs and the use and adoption of A I. And they’re saying that um 12% of nonprofit job skills will change and 39% will be redistributed. So leaders need to be thinking about this in terms of their talent retention plans, talent retention plans, Philip, what can you add, please? What, what should we be grappling with? Well, so I think one of the things that I’ve sort of appreciated about working together with Beth is that, you know, there’s been, there’s such a body of work there to consider and then sometimes what I find myself doing partly just, you know, to, to make sure that I’m, I’m not getting overwhelmed with all of the information is to step back and try to come up with maybe sort of memorable or, or um uh tactics to, to see the forest again uh when you’ve lost them for the trees. So where Alison and Beth coined the term the dividend of time. So basically what you get back from using one of these smart tools, I think one of the uh a rough formula that I’m kind of playing around with is that the idea here is to use generative A I to create a dividend of time. And one of the things that I think we have to practice is to use as much of that time as we can as we can manage to build trust. So, uh Beth was just talking about how a lot of soft skills and, and relational work is going to become really important. I think, you know, thinking back to before so much of our work happened within the, the digital world. We were out there doing the work and running into one another and a lot of that relational work was done just as a matter of fact, that’s no longer the case when we’re sending a lot of emails or having A I, right? A lot of our communications from now from now on. Um So I think what we have to do is be intentional about saying, hey, some of this time that we’ve gotten back, we actually have to allocate it thoughtfully back to going out into the world and forming these relationships because the thing that uh the A I lacks most of all relative to, to people is the context of our work. There’s an incredible amount of data in these models. They are really amazing at certain tasks. They don’t really have any idea of what, what the world is that our work exists in. So that context I think is absolutely crucial. And it’s actually the understanding of our work paired with as Beth and Alison say Cobo, that’s where the magic really happens is when you pair your human intelligence, your understanding of the situation, the nuance of your work and then know how to leverage a really powerful technology like generative A I to do that work more efficiently. And of course, in a, in a human centered and, and values align kind of way you mentioned building trust, say more about that. Do you mean trust of the tools? No, I mean trust between us as humans. Yeah, I definitely mean between us as humans and between organizations as stakeholders within a community or within a movement. Um I think if you use A I in a way just to say, give yourself some time and maybe just throw that time back into more productivity. Um Beth and I talked a lot about um a a few cases where folks kind of rushed A I chat bots out into the world into front line situations, really sensitive ones where people in crisis were reaching out at one point and getting a human being. And then all of a sudden they were talking to an A I model and the A I was giving out really, really problematic advice. Um And that is an instance where the tech was used to save time or money, uh you know, in terms of human resources and it harmed the, the very people that the organization was trying to serve. So in that case, it wasn’t used to, to build trust, the, the time was saved, but it wasn’t reinvested in strengthening the relationship between the organization, the community, the stakeholders, the donors. So when I talk about trust, I mean, good old school person to person, uh stakeholder trust. Uh Beth, can you share one of those uh one of those anecdotes, of course, um I think the one that a lot of people know about because it was got quite a lot of media attention is the National Association of Eating Disorders Nita. And uh they put what was happening because of the pandemic, there was an increase in eating um disorder because if you’re by yourself, you’re more pro you know, you’re more prone to that, right? Um So, and they, for many years had a hotline, you know, actually humans answering the phone and um, and what happened was they were completely overwhelmed. They went to senior management said we need more help. Um um the staff responded, we’re going to organize a union if you don’t get us more help. Um And what happened is they put a, they rushed a chatbot out to answer questions of people reaching out for help and pink slipped a lot of staff. Ok. So first of all, they, they, they saw it as a cheap replacement for staff, which we, which is doing harm and we don’t not human centered and then it wasn’t thoroughly tested, there weren’t enough guard rails on it and it was dispensing harmful information. So they’re, they were in the middle of a media crisis, um, reputational damage. And I saw a, um, article even a couple of months later, they had a bill into one of the state legislators, um, to get more funding for, uh, to support people with eating disorders. And it was turned down because of the, the lack of trust based on what happened. So their community was harmed on a couple of different levels from, from the, from the firing of some employees from the poor advice from a, from a chat bot and the legislative funding was, was refused and the reputation as well. Ok, disaster. Um So what do we take away from that? Uh ok. So, uh well, don’t do those things, but are, are there larger lessons Philip that we can, you can see from that? Yeah. Um Another thing that I was thinking of when you were speaking with Beth earlier was one of the ways that I advise leaders that are contemplating bringing A I into their to their toolkit is to come at it from a sense of playfulness, a stance of playfulness. You know, a lot of people do pretty dangerous things for fun. You know, if you’re mountain biking or rock climbing or skydiving, we, we do a lot of stuff that, you know, is, is fast paced and there are real risks involved. But because we’re in this mindset where we, our senses are heightened, um We’re very aware of danger and failure, but also motivated um in a, in a way that is honestly kind of enjoyable. Um I think it’s a really great place to start just, just as a mental framing for taking on this task of learning about generative A I, some of these technologies are really fun to play with. I mean, if you, if you interacted with the language models or the image generators, if you do it in a safe way, in kind of a sandboxed way, like Beth was saying where you aren’t starting off with anything sensitive or mission critical, you’re doing it in a way to honestly play around and explore the limitations of the tool doing so with sort of a playful mindset, almost the child’s mind, as some people say, I think it’s a really great way to make yourself attuned to uh the, the risks, the rewards uh in sort of a game like format, but also to reframe failure. If you don’t get it at first, if you, if you don’t get the right results in a game, what you do is you try again, it’s the next round, it’s the next shot. Um And kids just get back up and try again. And I think that’s a really, really good way to become uh very aware of generative A I to know what it is to, to feel it and become fluent. So I often tell people think about that or, or watch a kid playing, uh, think back to memories of, of learning a sport or an instrument or, or some, some kind of art that, that you have. I don’t think it’s terribly different from that. So, uh it feels different and we oftentimes speak about this really powerful tech in terms that are overwhelming or sort of uh difficult to relate to. But at the end of the day, I think the the people that I see excelling a lot of them, I think a disproportionate number are having fun. And I think the reason that they then get so good is because there’s a nice feedback loop there. Um So that’s what I tend to tell people. 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 a step back on artificial intelligence with Beth Cantor and Philip Deng. I love the, I love the idea of having fun with it, treating it like a sport safely. Yeah. Yeah. Um You all have advice around um an ethical use policy and, and guidelines for training practical tips and examples and processes who who wants to start with some, some of the practical tips, strategies, tactics for for ethical use policy. Um Sure. So let’s just break down quickly what’s in an ethical use policy, right? So there’s four sections, there’s our values and that should be the easy part, right? Um Most of nonprofits I know have a value or vision statement and it’s kind of relating that to the use of the tech. Uh the next step are norms, how are we going to use it? Um What and where are we not going to use it? Right? And those are things like thinking about the use cases and not just the use cases and the tools, but about there is a conti of risk with different types of uh use cases at the lower into the spectrum. We have individual use to do a task like a writing task or create an image or analyze some data, right? So it’s under what are the potential risks? And I think one big one is if we’re interacting with public um uh uh generative A I writing tools and models, chat, GP T Copilot. Um You know, what’s our point of view about putting data into those? Right? Are we gonna put, we gotta be careful, we’re not going to put any personally identifiable information into the prompt that then goes into a public model. Um like someone’s email address or God forbid their social security number. Um There’s another principle about like what is confidential information, right? Like do you want to be uploading someone’s performance evaluation as an example of our, our organizational tone written in this tone and here’s their performance about you just bring up a very good sort of tactical thing that, that your prompts are part of its learning universally. It’s not only is this, it’s not a private conversation, you and chat GP T well, with public models, right? The free public models that where we start. But if you have an enterprise model and you’re using your own data, then that’s safer. OK. That’s a different story. So it’s understanding that difference and also um you know, you can redact, right? Think of it. Um This comes from Rachel Kimber, great person to follow on linkedin. Um Like maybe you do have some information, you redact the organization’s name and you redact the person’s name so that there’s no association of it, but you could get an a summary. So that’s lower risk individual task, move to the middle, we have it for internal purposes like internal communication, hr operations financing. There are medium sized risks there. One example, um, let’s say someone in hr uses a generative A I tool to write the employee handbook, right? And they fall asleep at the wheel, they proof the first paragraph or two and say this is fine and they, it’s there, you know, a couple of years down the road, there’s a sexual harassment issue and they go to the employee handbook and oh, this doesn’t protect anybody. So you, you really need to audit the output from it. You can’t trust it. It makes, makes stuff up, mix facts up. It’s hard to believe and that’s the medium risk. You’re still in the middle of the spec it does that with at the low risk too, we get to the high risk and we do what we described before. We’re having it on the front line interacting with our stakeholders. And I think that’s where we need to have at the board level. We need to have a data privacy governance, you know, discussion, we need to have, we need to operationalize that. And if we’re testing something that is running on AAA large front tier model like open A is Chat G BT or whatever, we need to have the appropriate guardrails in place, right, to prevent it from going off the grid and you know, preventing and providing information that’s potentially harmful or excluding people from our services. Philip, anything you want to add? Is there more about the ethical use guidelines? I think in general there are a number of really great frameworks coming out. Uh N 10 has one that just came out yesterday. Um I’m part of a group fundraising dot A I, that’s the website. Um That’s also coming up with ethical and responsible use frameworks for this sector in particular. I think what I would just say is the important part is to have the continuing conversation. And when you have a reputable framework, that framework is a tool to guide that conversation to make sure that you’re being systematic and thorough. Um I think what it’s going to come down to though is a posture of the organization that you understand that this is a tool that can help but that the seriousness of the work, which was there long before A I demands that you approach it with care. And so everybody in the organization needs to be looking for the risks, the benefits kind of just being aware and then when something seems beneficial, get together and have that conversation using the framework to say, OK, this is what we want out of it. But let’s go through this framework, let’s assess it step by step and see if there are risks that we can spot as a team and then to make the approach course correction. So the frameworks are a tool for the continuing conversation, which is going to have to continue. Because every time one of these new step up models gets released, there’s an incredible new amount of landscape that we have to analyze because these models are gaining capability so quickly. So it really is changing what it means. I mean, the terminology itself is almost a placeholder and we, we really have to go out there and have our eyes open and understand what is generative A I in 2024 it’s gonna mean something different in 2025. I think I’m so glad we’re having this conversation to step back. And I realize as you were speaking, Philip, I, I’m sorry, I fucked up. Uh You were, you were, you were only in two out of four. You said there were four. I, I moved on, we were only on number two of your 44. I at least I realize but, and then I said, you know, and then I deferred to Philip and no, sorry, I apologize for that. We’re only on number two of your four elements of the, the, the policy for use. You were very gracious and not saying Tony, you’re fucking up. So you told me not to swear anymore. No, I, no, I, no, you said you said fuck shark. And I said you could say that and I almost said shit, but I didn’t say it. I said chat G BT makes up shit. I said sh stuff in New York City once you were talking about. So now we can say fuck sharks and that I admitting that I fucked up. And so let continue with the four elements that belong. People listening are probably thinking like, why did the guy move on after she’s only on number two? Why did he move to Philip? When Beth is only halfway finished values? We talked about values, right? We talked about nor nor do and don’t and that’s where we talk about use cases and that’s where we were and then we were on the spectrum. We’re on the cases. We completed the spectrum. We’re at the most risky, the forward facing the outward face. That’s the most risk requires the most testing, the most guidelines around the boundaries around the use, right? And that’s what’s called guard rails, right? Rules like don’t fall asleep at the reel at the wheel, read the output and check the first two paragraphs of the, don’t fall asleep at the wheel and don’t disclose personally identifiable information or whatever comes up through your organization’s conversation. And then the other piece kind of relates to what Phil was talking about earlier is the playbook, right? Um How do you share information within staff about prompts or what you’re learning? So that’s an important piece. And there was something actually, wait, say a little more about that, wait, say that one more time because I’m only hearing this the first time. Say that last sentence again. OK. So I call it the playbook section, right? So there’s a lot, you know, sharing, not knowledge and skills on staff so that there’s a shared playbook and it could be a Google Doc, right? Where people share. I tried this prompt. It produced a really great fundraising appeal. Uh I had to work with it but here it is, if, if somebody else wants to try it. So that kind of ongoing learning is really important. Um There was something else while Phil was talking but I forgot it with the fuck sharks thing. I derailed you. Alright. Well, we had fun. It’s, it was, it was worth it, it was worth it. And it may very welcome back to you. Um What’s the board’s role? Uh Beth, you mentioned the board but you just kind of been passing what’s the board’s role here and that the CEO should be bringing the board in for, for conversations about, about what two things. All right, I think, you know, while we in this sector understand responsible and ethical use, we don’t necessarily have that expertise on all boards of nonprofits. Hospitals do cause possible uh hospitals have to navigate ethical situations, right? So they might have ethicists on their board. So it’s also important to think about maybe we want to recruit some board members with that type of expertise with a grounding in ethics. And we probably also want to bring some members in who have an understanding of the technology and we also want to be having um some governance level policy discussions leading to our policy around that. Um, as well. It’s not just something that happens on the staff level and for senior leaders, it’s not something that gets punted down the hall to the IT department, it should, you know, leaders need to be thinking about it as well. Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s systemic, right? It doesn’t, it doesn’t belong in the IT department. Um The idea of uh recruiting ethicists or I guess if not that bringing a consultant to help, to guide the discussion by, facilitate the discussion, raise the issues that we’re all talking about here. Um Because board members are not, you know, they may be all in or they, they may not even be paying attention, you know, depending on their work status, they may not be paying attention to artificial intelligence. So the issue, the issues need to be raised. I don’t know, I’m finding at least with the, the boards that I’ve been brought in to speak with and maybe Phil, you’ve also seen this um that it’s either they’re really concerned about it and never put their hands on it and have all these perceptions or misperceptions about it and that might be holding them back or they want to move full in this is transformative. We need to change with the world or we’re going to be left behind what else? Uh We have a couple of minutes left. What else did you talk about in your session that we haven’t covered in as much detail? I don’t know, maybe other cases or we talked about the dance floor and the balcony. Ok. Go ahead. Ok. So um this comes from the, the leadership lab at Harvard, um that leaders have to have the balcony view, which is seeing ahead, the big picture. But you also need to get on the dance floor and get in, you know, get into those steps. So for uh from a leadership perspective, you need to think about the ethics responsible use, move slowly know the use cases, all the things we’ve been saying. But you also need to put your hands on it as well and really understand do it playfully make the time for experimentation. And I think that’s a mind sh shift in our sector, you know, to make you happy, the time to actually experiment and learn. And that’s the kind of shift that our cultures are going to go through. If we free up time that we’re going to be, we’re going to make space for innovative thinking and make time for experimentation because hopefully we will release some of the busy in our busy cultures and make space for that. And that is the typically the promise of new technologies that there’s gonna be uh extra time, there’s gonna be greater productivity. But, but, well, well, your point was let’s not, let’s not apply it directly to productivity. Let’s, let’s apply it in relationship methods, uh, relationship building things that humans do uniquely that I, I, I don’t know, maybe I’m being risky here but I’m presuming that robots will never be able to do bots. Uh, artificial intelligence will never be able to have the depth of relationships that we have human to human. And is that you think that’s a risky statement? Any, anybody, you think you think we’ll get there. So not that I, not that I aspire to it. But I mean, I like to think that there’s, there’s some things that separate us from artificial intelligence. Are there, are there reliably like 10 years from now? Well, that’s the thing, that’s why I don’t like to read all the being risky. Yeah, I don’t know, 10 years from now for the time being, we are uniquely positioned. Uh We can say that right in, in 2024 and probably 2025 I think we’re uniquely positioned to have relationships. So that’s where the, the time ought to go in. The things that we’re uniquely qualified to do. Versus more office productivity is the point that both of you made. I would maybe uh come at it from another angle as well that we have never maybe appreciated how important human choice is. And I think one of the things that differentiates this technology from the software that we’ve been using for decades now is that increasingly it’s making decisions. I mean, that really is one of the, the Hallmark, uh you know, distinguishing features of these intelligence systems, more and more they are making choices for us. If they write something for us, they’re literally choosing every single word and then, you know, we added it, but a lot of decisions, tiny, tiny little decisions are being made by these smart systems. And I think what we have to really come to appreciate and not take for granted anymore is that the human choice, the, the decision making, power and responsibility that we have in the world, in our teams, in our organization, in our communities. That’s really what I think we need to, to focus back on and say, how do we choose to use this technology in the right way because once we do, the technology is going to start making choices for us. So human choice, uh I think is maybe one of the things that, that I’ll be meditating on a lot for the next uh the foreseeable future here. I’d like to leave it right there. That’s a great step back. Thank you. Thank you, Cheers. That’s Philip Deng Ceo of Grant. And with Philip is Beth cantor, author, trainer and facilitator, Philip. Beth. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate, I appreciate. Did you just say fuck shark? I might have, I hope you don’t hear from the shark folks. Thank you for sitting through this uh this raucous uh provocative session uh where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Really? Thank you very much. It’s time for Tony’s take you. Thank you, Kate. I’ve been enjoying uh a week and a half and I have another several days of meetings with um uh my client uh visiting nurse service of New York uh in New York City. And just, you know, as I think about all these meetings or as I’m, as I’m having them, I’m just reminded how much this is the real joy of, uh, for me, planned giving. But I think for any type of individual fundraising, it’s, it’s just the getting to know people. It’s being curious about people. Of course, we’re talking about the, the, the work that VNS health does, but I, I always make sure we go deeper than that and it’s me getting to know the person, all these meetings are, um, with folks in their seventies, eighties and nineties. Uh, most of them nearly all are, are women and it’s just getting to hear their stories, you know, what, what they did in their careers, what their husbands did because most of them are widows, their, what their Children are doing where they used to live, what was school, like, what was growing up like, uh, you know, these, these are the, the, this kind of, you know, deepening of, of understanding of people that is, um, is, is really a joy in individual fundraising. So, uh, I hope that you have relationships at, at that level. Uh, it doesn’t have to be about planned giving. That’s, you know, that’s the work I do. So, those are the conversations I’m having. I just find it really, uh, sort of uplifting, having all these meetings over breakfasts, coffees, lunches, uh, a couple of dinners, but a lot of folks, those ages, uh, this time of year don’t want to go out at night. So it’s uh not too many dinners, but I hope you’re enjoying relationships like that because they are the real heart of individual fundraising, getting to know people and working with people on the, on that level. And that is Tonys take two Kate. I think we really take for granted the face to face connection that we make with people, you know, by storytelling or just getting the wisdom from anyone really. Not just the older generations. Yeah, I think you’re right and we, you know, we obviously lost it during the pandemic. Uh I see more people getting back to face to face in person, events, meetings. Uh And I, and I hope folks are, are open to that and not just open to it, but, you know, looking for it, seeking it out because, uh I think, you know, that just, it’s human connection and virtual connection can only go so far. It’s, it’s just, it’s not the same thing, not even, not even close for sure. No, I completely agree with you. But anyway, we’ve got buu but loads more time here is get your team to the next level. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference. We’re coming to you from the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. We sponsored at 24 NTC by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits with me. For this conversation is Kim Chang. She is independent strategic communications campaigns and an operations consultant. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Kim. Hi, nice to meet you, Tony. You got a big portfolio there. It is a mouthful strategic communications campaigns, not stopping there. That’s only two out of three and operations consultant. It’s true. I’ve played around the title many times. It’s like, how do I explain to people what I actually do? Is there a company name that you can compact all that into or have you? No, presently just Kim TRONG consulting. Yeah, letting the name speak for itself. But it’s simple, but it says it all your session topic. Have you done your session? I did do my session yesterday. All right. Congratulations. That’s over. So we can recap a little bit. It is work smarter, not harder, easy tips, easy. That’s, that’s an important qualification, easy tips. She promises to get your team to the next level. All right. Um What was the genesis for the session? What brought this topic to you? Oh, this is funny. Honestly. I kind of ended up at NTC on a whim. I quit my job last July 2023. I met up with an old boss and she mentioned to me, I was telling her about some of the things that I’ve been doing around project management, strategic operations, just helping um you know, folks at my old company get to the next level, managing their team ironing out some of the issues. And she said you need to do this with nonprofits, you need to go to NTC and you need to present on this. And I don’t know if I have much expertise to share, but sure, I applied to be a speaker and here I am, it’s my first NTC and it really does already feel like I’m coming home to the topics and the people I care about. So that’s really the genesis of this. It’s very touching your first NTC. You feel so comfortable. Yes, I do. It’s a great community. It really is. It’s a welcoming, supportive community. You know, folks living their values. I mean, we certainly see that in, in, in 10, living their values of equity centered. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Smart use of technology, but also um the conscious use. Absolutely for good. Right. Maybe not necessarily for growth. Indeed. Yeah. All right. So um should we just start talking about some of the easy tips? Let’s dive in? Ok. OK. What do you, where do you like to start Um Well, I always like to say that, you know, the basis of a really well functioning team is um how you staff the work and whether or not you are using your individual staffers and teams capabilities, their strengths to the best of your team’s abilities. So, one of the practical ways in which you could operationalize this and that I recommend it to folks is simply to put together a roles and responsibilities, matrix, right? And when you put together roles and responsibilities, matrix, you’re identifying, not just the role, I think a lot of times people start with just the role that folks are supposed to take on a team. And then they don’t actually quantify the responsibilities that are in the act, the weekly, daily activities that are associated with those roles. So making sure that those two are aligned. So that’s the first thing I flagged. The second thing is once you notice that those two things are aligned, you don’t want to match them up with your staffs. Um you know, existing personality traits, work personality traits as well as the hard skills that are required in that role to be successful. And once you do that audit, you have a clearer picture of the gaps that remain. And whether or not you need to train folks, you need to hire people in and how folks can work with each other. So you’re seeing the gaps between the skills that are needed and the skills that exist? Is that yes, am I oversimplifying? No, that’s great. And then also how those skills or the activities you take on because you have those skills complement each in a team, right? Because you don’t want folks stepping on toes, right? Let’s say you’ve got two people who write social copy, right? Or two people have been asked to write social copy. Maybe you want to split the two and have someone write a press release and someone write social copy instead. So folks aren’t stepping on toes, but all of this can be illuminated in a roles and responsibilities matrix and help you make better decisions about how to manage your team. What else we got? Well, that’s just the first one. And then the second thing is I love the word matrix. I use it a lot and I probably need to stop. But the second thing is just making sure that you use the time that you have with your team effectively. So that’s coming up with a recurring meeting cadence that you codify in a, in a meeting matrix. That’s the second one. Um And then making sure that each of those meetings comes with an agenda that everyone like a standing agenda that doesn’t change every week, but covers the general main topics that everyone needs to be read in on or be aware of or action on. And then once you have these agenda templates available and folks see them every week and it’s just a standing agenda template. You’re actually creating accountability and ownership over some of the pieces that, you know, someone who’s maybe more entry level in a team might be uncomfortable sharing, right? So it’s when you create a standing agenda, it creates predictability, it creates regularity, it makes people feel confident. It uh also reduces a lot of the anxiety that folks have when they’re like, oh, I don’t know when we’re going to meet or I don’t know when we’re going to talk about that, right? Just put it right into the standing agenda. Um And it also helps to reduce a lot of these slack and email noise sometimes, right? Sometimes we’re trying to do a lot of work, especially if you’re managing a team, you’ve got lots of things that you need them to do, but you’re pulling them into these meetings all day, right? Let’s simplify a lot of that and maybe meet just twice a week. And folks know that during those times you get a chance to ask your lead all the questions that you need to ask. So it’s just creating this predictability and the way that you use your meeting time and how often you meet goes a very long way in keeping your team running well and keeping your team feeling at ease and empowered in doing their job. What are some of the things that belong on that standing agenda? Well, it depends i on when you meet and what the purpose is of each meeting. But I’d say, for example, if it’s the start of the week meeting, and you just want to make sure that everyone’s on the same page at the beginning of the week, then I would say a couple of things. The first is you want to make sure that any updates you hear from leadership or at the C suite level that are relevant to your team are shared in that team meeting. So anything that people need to know so that they can do their work for the rest of the week should be shared. So any important updates, action items, sorry, not action items, but tasks, right? If there’s something that you need to get done that week, you want to start there, you want to have a conversation in that meeting and you also want to share how you say, ok, I want you to write the first draft of this communications plan, right? Um You want to actually use that meeting to explain. OK, well, this is what I want out of it. These are the goals, these are the audiences, these are the tactics. And then the last thing is actually discussing and recapping those action items at the end of that meeting. So people walk out and they know this is my remit for the week, right? So that’s one type of meeting I would say is really valuable and that’s how I’d run that meeting every week. Um, another meeting that’s really valuable is a risks. Meeting. People don’t like the term risks. I think to them it signals looming problems. But I think what’s really great about having a risks meeting and the fact that it is a looming problem is that it’s looming, it’s not actually a problem yet. It’s not actually an issue yet. And when folks get into the habit of regularly identifying and logging risks super early, a lot of the times they’ll resolve it within two or three weeks before those risks actually become issues that derail your team dynamic, your team progress your delivery against a certain timeline or deliverable. All right. So deal with it while it’s a risk before it becomes a crisis. Well, have you seen examples of that where folks have teams have successfully dealt with risk, like you’re saying, maybe over a couple of weeks or maybe even a few months and, and then they, and then they, they just feel better. I mean, there, there may be other, there certainly are other risks. There’s always something out there but it, they put their minds at ease over something that was kind of had been looming, but they never had dealt with. Have you seen of that? I mean, I see that, you know, every day in our work once you start identifying and codifying a lot of those risks, but I think a really good example probably is, um, during the 2020 census when I was working at my old organization, a company called Fenton’s, the US, one of the US oldest social impact communications firm had an amazing experience there. One of our clients was the California Community Foundation and they were working on 100 organization. Get out the census campaign in Los Angeles County. It is one of the hardest, it is the hardest to count region in the United States. Just super diverse. Um Lots of languages, um lots of barriers to actually getting an accurate count. And a lot of those, when you’re trying to reach a lot of those communities, you’ve got to go right into the community, you’ve got to reach, talk to, talk to them, you’ve got to knock on doors, right. Um What do you do when the world goes virtual and shuts down? Right? When, during the 2020 COVID crisis? Right. So, it was amazing because we started to see one of my vice presidents. Now, he’s a senior vice president at Fenton. He could see the writing on the wall. Right. And you can see we’re going to have to pivot to virtual strategies soon. Right? Because it’s opening doors, no one’s going to grocery stores, no one’s going to grocery stores. No. Exactly. Exactly. No one’s out in the community. And so what we ended up doing was we had to completely pivot and we pivoted early, which allowed us to actually take resources like the funding that we might have allocated to door to door canvassing or allocated to, you know, ads at bus shelters or ads in grocery stores. Right. We pivoted a lot of that into virtual tactics where you can actually just reach folks right on their phones or as they’re scrolling through at home where they were in front of the TV. So we completely pivoted. Oh, we also did a lot of peer to peer texting. So you couldn’t speak to a here in person about getting out of the count, but you could text them about it, right. So we were able to identify that the crisis was coming and it was going to come early. And as a result, we were able to reallocate funding and resources and our activities accordingly. And I think if we had waited a little bit too late, we would have wasted a lot of money and resources. When you were talking about the meeting matrix, you talked, you mentioned the uh the meeting cadence, you know, something is that um I mean, it’s, it’s, I’m I’m sure you can’t say, you know, how often should a team meet that depends on the size of the team, the responsibilities of the team, the experience of the team, the, the comfort of the team, you know, but uh what about, what about um engaging virtual team members in meetings where some folks are not virtual, you know, some are, it’s a hybrid meeting, somebody some half a dozen are in the office and three or four are, are virtual. You have strategies for engaging those, those virtual folks so that they don’t feel left out. I mean, they, they’re one dimension on a screen in the meeting room. And meanwhile the other, the dozen people or so are chatting pleasantly among themselves and essentially ignoring the one dimensions. See, it’s interesting because I’ve had a couple of conversations about hybrid situations and at 10 and at NTC right now, and I think the there isn’t really a consensus on it, but there’s an, um, there’s a reality in which to be completely honest that the conversation, to be honest with nonprofit radio listeners. Ok, perfect. There is a reality in which the conversations that you are having virtually, if other people are in the room, um, you know, in person, the conversations you’re going to be having with them are just simply not going to be as rich. That’s just what I’ve noticed so far. And, you know, in talking to a lot of folks at NTC, you know, folks are saying, you know, I think that sometimes it just makes better sense all the conferences that they’ve been to over the years, especially after COVID, they’ve been most successful when they are all virtual or all. Um, we’re all in person, the hybrid ones are challenging to facilitate. Um So I guess I don’t have a great answer for that. But, um, it is, I think just caveat that with the reality, right? The conversations you have are probably just not going to be as rich and consciousness raising. You know, you bring in those folks whenever you can. It’s just, and I’ve been on the virtual side, um, it feel, it feels a little excluded. You know, it’s nothing intentional. It’s just that there, it’s not the same experience, you know, it’s just, you know, you’re not there, you’re not there, you’re there virtually, but that’s not there when people are, people are in the room, not when it’s all virtual. I mean, that’s a different dynamic. And how do you get your hand up and, you know, you get your voice heard, make sure everybody speaks and that’s a different dynamic. Uh Yeah, I’m talking about the hybrid meeting. It doesn’t feel so good on the virtual end. OK. Well, at least you’re, you’re honest. I mean, there isn’t really a great answer. It’s just not the same. So that’s, you have to be intentional to bring the team together, you know, whatever, semiannually quarterly. So that, so that the virtual folks do feel included just maybe not in the interim meetings, but they don’t feel excluded 100% of the time. Yeah, I think I would feel irresponsible saying, you know, you can make the experience amazing because, you know, there are just nuggets of conversations you have by the water cooler or when you go to Happy hour after something that just enriches the conversation you simply can’t have when you’re virtual again. But that’s why you need to be intentional about bringing the team together in person. I guess, to me, if I was a CEO at least annually, but even that doesn’t sound like I feel like enough, but semi annual, I mean, obviously there are budget constraints around that too, but it’s a challenge. I mean, everybody’s struggling with it. I think still, I think, I mean, things are emerging, you know, we have emerged and models have emerged. I’m just not sure that they’re uh they’re as successful as they could be. In some cases. I think some of some of the choice we’ve made, you were kind of getting at it. Um But I think you wanted to ask you or you kind of assume, you know, there probably isn’t like a strict, hard and fast rule for how often, you know, team should be meeting. And I would agree, I think it really comes down to the needs of the organization. But what I will say is paramount is creating that predictability, creating that regularity, you might not meet as an all staff, um except for once a year, but maybe you have a quarterly virtual three hour meeting strategy meeting every quarter, right? And that’s something that people look forward to, they’re aware it’s happening. That’s when you’re going to get to strategize, that’s when you get to the bigger picture Exactly. And it’s on the calendar. People are aware. Yeah. So I’d say creating confidence in how you use your meeting time is really more valuable than, you know, all the bells and whistles of an in person meeting or all the bells and whistles of a virtual meeting. Just get the basics right first. You know, more tips. Oh, my goodness. What, let’s see. I talked through the ways of the roles and responsibilities, Matrix, I talked through the meetings, the risks. You know, I think a really great tool that folks can use is any kind of infrastructure tool, documentation that your team feels like is the master hub. And when I say master hub, it just means it’s this one key resource that you redirect folks to over and over and over again. It’s probably got to be a little bit more robust than your slack channel. Um For certain teams, you know, Google Docs with your running notes, with your roles and responsibilities, your project plans could be sufficient, especially if you’re in a smaller team. Um And then if you’re on a bigger team, a cross functional team, um you might want to invest in a dedicated project management tool like a Sauna or Trello or click up. But I wouldn’t necessarily jump to a tool to solve some team management problems right away. I think just really, especially if folks are, for example, if folks in your team have low project management tool literacy right. It just makes more sense to get them comfortable. The most basic Google sheets or basic trackers in Google Docs to start, right? So you really got to evaluate your needs. But the key tenant here that I emphasize is just redirecting folks to this one place, keeping it updated every week, right? So that everyone knows this is where you go to get your information shared. I mean, that becomes part of a shared culture, even exactly expectations, you know, everything that that document covers, everybody knows that they can rely on that. It’s a, it’s a common resource culture. Yeah, but uh important to talk about. Alright. Alright. Um You had something in your session description about codifying best practice, best practices in a simple team ways of working guide that sounds related to what we just talked about is that is that essentially is that it? Yeah. So the team ways of working guide and when I did my presentation, I essentially split up the tools that I was recommending in two different categories. There are foundational operational tactics, tools, resources that you want to use that simply maintain the function of your team week by week. So that’s the foundational operations and there are project specific tools that you want to use, right? And so for the project specific tools, that’s when we get into work plans, that’s when we get into um you know, who is the manager, the owner? It’s called the Moca matrix manager, owner, consultant, helper approver on a specific project on a specific deliverable, but you need the basic foundation. Yeah, I know, I it’s actually from the Management Center, I can’t take credit for that, but you need the basic foundation in place before you you can activate for these different big projects, right? And so the ways of working guide is such an example and that to me is the baseline, you codify, this is who’s on my team. This is what they are responsible, this is how we work together, this is how often we meet. So all the resources that I mentioned are in that way, working guide. All the resources that I mentioned that are foundational operational resources, not necessarily project specific resources are in that way as a working guide because it sets both the expectation, but it also sets a culture as well for how you’re going to work together and that’s not project specific that is about managing your team. Yeah. Hi, Kim. So why don’t you leave us with some final motivation and uplifting thoughts about, you know, these, these easy tools for getting your team to the next level? Yeah, I would, you know, I think I started my presentation saying this um the 2023 report from the Center for effective philanthropy, I think they say 63 or 68% of nonprofit leaders, you know, they’re really concerned with burnout. Um And I think that has only been exacerbated by the economic downturn. COV ID 19 folks really need the services that folks in our nonprofit sector are providing. Um And I think when we do mission driven work, um we feel this need to just spend all the time that we can and work the long hours that we need to because our work is so mission critical, it’s so important. And I think the biggest thing I’ll say is social impact does not have to come at the expense of our well being. We do our best work when we are our best. And when you are a manager, a team lead, a department leader, you have the, you have the opportunity, but honestly, also the responsibility to set that team culture around well being around operational excellence, right? And so that’s what I would really encourage every nonprofit middle manager, department leader to walk away doing. You got four or five tips, four or five tools you can use to really set your team up for success and um you know, improve their well being. That’s it, Kim, independent, strategic communications campaigns and operations consultant. I make sure that folks understand that it’s the three, the three, the three legs of your tripod, the three legs of your stool, the uh the three sails of the three masts on your uh on your schooner of your schooner, the three TYS on your fork. I don’t know. Everybody knows you got a big portfolio. Alright. Thank you very much for sharing. Thanks so much for having me, Tony and thank you for being with our coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10 where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us next week. Matching gifts. 101201 and 301. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com. We’re 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. 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 July 10, 2023: 10 Easy Ways To Boost Your Fundraising On A Budget & Personalized Fundraising At Scale

 

Rosalind Zavras & Julia Toepfer: 10 Easy Ways To Boost Your Fundraising On A Budget

Relationships; storytelling; thanks; impact; consistency; and more. Rosalind Zavras and Julia Toepfer share tactics you can use right away to increase your fundraising impact without busting your fundraising budget. Rosalind is CEO of Aropa Consulting and Julia is from the National Immigrant Justice Center. (This was recorded at the 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by NTEN.)

 

 

 

 

Joe Frye & Peter Yagecic: Personalized Fundraising At Scale

Here’s the 11th easy way to boost your fundraising! First, adopt a better definition of personalization, beyond first-name emails. Then, understand the many types of personalization available. The advice comes from Joe Frye and Peter Yagecic, both with Town Hall Agency. (This is also from 23NTC.)

 

 

 

 

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[00:00:25.58] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of Jerome Erasmus if you dragged me down with the idea that you missed this week’s show.

[00:01:55.47] spk_1:
10 easy ways to boost your fundraising on a budget, relationships, storytelling. Thanks impact consistency and more. Rosalind Taveras and Julia. Temper share tactics you can use right away to increase your fundraising impact without busting your fundraising budget. Rosalyn is CEO of a rope a consulting and Julia is from the National Immigrant Justice Center. This was recorded at the 2023 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10 and personalized fundraising at scale. Here’s the 11th. Easy way to improve your fundraising. First adopt a better definition of personalization beyond first name emails, then understand the many types of personalization available. The advice comes from Joe Frye and Peter Logistic, both with Town Hall Agency. This is also from the 23 and TC on Tony’s take two, got feedback. We’re sponsored by Donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is 10 easy ways to boost your fundraising on a budget.

[00:02:24.58] spk_0:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 NTC 2023 nonprofit technology conference. We are sponsored here at the conference by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. With me now are Rosalind Taveras who is CEO of a rope, a consulting and Julia Tepfer, who is senior marketing and digital engagement strategist at the National Immigration National Immigrant Justice Center, Rosalind Julia. Welcome to non profit

[00:02:37.12] spk_2:
radio.

[00:02:39.25] spk_3:
Alright,

[00:02:54.52] spk_0:
pleasure, pleasure. Your session. Uh is 10 easy ways to boost your fundraising on a budget and it’s already, it’s already in your past. You can relax, relax. All right. Um Leslie Rosalind, why don’t you get us started with just, you know, some like 30,000 ft overview of why this is an important topic.

[00:03:04.46] spk_2:
Well, I will and one thing that we really emphasized is there technically are no easy ways to boost your fundraising. But our strategies were how to make your fundraising easier and your processes, especially for small teams. How can you leverage different tools so that you can fundraise effectively? Even if you are resource

[00:03:53.83] spk_0:
strapped, there is no easy way. There is no panacea. Okay. Okay. Um Julia, you wanna, you have, I’m just looking at the the learning objectives or learning outcomes. I think they call the list of fundraising tactics. Start right away. You wanna, we have 10. We don’t necessarily, it’s not ping pong. We’re not gonna go Julia Rosalind. Julia Rosalind. But Julia, do you want to kick us out with some, some of the

[00:04:18.70] spk_3:
strategies? Yeah. Um I mean, one of the things that we talk a lot about um in the session is relationship building and how important it is to establish a strong relationship with your donors. Um and um some of that comes from talking directly to them, um comes from thanking them often um knowing what their needs are and why they are connected to your organization, why they’re passionate about what you do. Um And so a lot of the tips and tools that we talked about really stem mostly from, from some of the that initial relationship

[00:04:45.47] spk_0:
instead of transactional treating KTM communicating when we want something. Alright, so I’m gonna make, I’m gonna make you drill down. I want to, I want to hear the 10. So start us off with number one.

[00:04:51.33] spk_3:
Um Do you remember what exactly number

[00:04:54.35] spk_0:
one, I’m not going to know

[00:05:33.15] spk_3:
the number 11 that we talked about in the session was thinking your donors and doing it in, in creative and different ways. So um making ensure that you particularly thank them after the um the transaction receipt, you know, an auto response email is not a thank you. Um So making sure that you really build that relationship through thanking them. Um And using some really creative methods um to continue that conversation with them and thank them for their, for their donation. Ross had a had a great um tip of um writing letters to them and um doing it through a method called Punk Post which send

[00:05:42.91] spk_0:
letters and you have some of these creative, I don’t want you to just say we talked about creative ways. I want to hear what the creative ways are

[00:05:59.04] spk_2:
really interesting service that has cards and then they employ artists to give creative designs and handwritten notes within the cards. So especially if you’re not an artist and you or maybe you don’t love your penmanship, you can use punk Post to send these really beautiful cards and they’ll do the stamp, they’ll do everything for you. So you just pick the card type in your message and they’ll send it and you can do big groups of these for donors as well. So you

[00:06:24.92] spk_0:
post dot com. Is that easy? Okay? Okay. Alright. If you don’t like your own hand, but people do like handwritten notes, they love them, but if they can’t read them, then they’re not very valuable. So if your handwriting is that bad, but people do love, respond to handwritten notes. They really do another creative way. Rosalind creative way of saying thank

[00:06:51.13] spk_2:
you. And this also goes back to our second strategy which is segmenting your donors. So understanding who your donors are and why they got connected to you and then creating a thanking strategy from there. So you wouldn’t thank someone the same way for coming to your house for dinner as well as giving you a birthday present, right? Those are two different interactions. So your donors should also have two different types of thank you, depending on how they come in to your organization or maybe what they’re interested in. Okay.

[00:07:34.95] spk_0:
Okay. So thank you, segmenting. Um segmenting, I guess, you know, also by what their interests are, what they’ve given to. Okay. And technology helps with these things, right? Tags, attributes we can segment in your CRM, you can segment in your email, uh app. Okay. Okay. You wanted to keep going wrestling some more, some more of the 10. We’re gonna hit all 10. So we’re not letting, uh letting you hold out on non profit radio listeners. Okay. What else? What else do we have?

[00:07:53.88] spk_2:
Another great tip is to talk to your donors and this is one of my favorites. So that’s why I’m jumping to this one. A lot of us are nervous to speak to our donors. Don’t really. No. Should we call them? Yes. Call them, text them, email them, get to know your donors because they are excited about the cause that you’re working on and they want to get to know you and they’re excited if you want to get to know them as well as we were saying earlier. Fundraising is relational. So build a relationship, the same way that you would build a relationship with a friend or colleague.

[00:08:13.12] spk_0:
What are some things you could talk to folks about if you’re picking up the phone, talking, how

[00:08:18.14] spk_2:
they got involved, how they found out about your organization, things that they’re interested in, you could tell them about the programs that you’re working on and things that are coming up. And also it’s a great way to gauge what they’re interested in and maybe they’ll say in that conversation, oh, I didn’t realize you do this. I’d love to hear more about it. And then now you know which emails to send them because they’re most interested in this one particular program. Okay. Okay.

[00:08:52.30] spk_0:
Um And even, I think even if you’re calling and even just leaving a thoughtful message, even if they don’t call back, you still made a valuable, valuable contact. I think

[00:08:56.89] spk_2:
we also talked about you could potentially use volunteers to help out with this as well. Like you don’t have to be the only one calling all of these individuals, but just make sure that whoever is calling knows the verb that you want to use, knows how to talk about your programs, the way that you want them to,

[00:09:14.31] spk_0:
that can be a good exercise to for boards. I mean, it’s an easy, I’ve made lots of thank you. I do plan giving, fundraising. Nobody’s ever turned, turned down or been upset at a thank you call sometimes you have to reassure them. Actually, a lot of times I’m only calling to say thank you,

[00:09:32.67] spk_3:
thank

[00:10:02.91] spk_0:
you. Yeah. You know, because I work with plan giving donors to, to the non profits, but sometimes they make an outright gift to and since I might be the relationship manager, I’m calling to say thank you, I think, you know, but I just gave, you know, and I might say tony-martignetti from so and so charity I just gave, you know, or something like I’m calling to say thank you for that. Yeah. And then, then they let their guard down like instantly, but sometimes you do have to reassure folks, but for both, that’s a really easy call to make a thank you

[00:10:06.73] spk_2:
call. It makes everybody feel good, especially if you have a board that doesn’t exactly know how to fundraise or maybe they’ll say we’re uncertain. Start with

[00:10:27.57] spk_0:
the first one. They’ll see how easy they are and who wouldn’t love to hear from a board member of an agency that you just gave to volunteered for. All right. Um Julia, let’s go to you. What else?

[00:11:11.45] spk_3:
Yeah. So one I really like a lot is telling personal stories. So sharing um the victories of your clients, your staff, um really creating a personal connection between your donors and the cause that you um that your organization represents or the service, the services that you provide. Um We talked about um making sure that, you know, if you’re sharing a human’s story um to make sure that they have control over the way that story is told, um to make sure they have that they have consented to the way that you’re sharing that story. But it’s a really great way to really connect donors to the actual impact that, that they are having and tell

[00:11:24.40] spk_0:
the stories in what ways.

[00:12:21.13] spk_3:
Yeah. So um we shared a few examples actually um on, you know, you could do it through written stories, right on, on emails or in letters um but also on social media and through images and videos. Um Roz has um some great examples of um organizations that might not provide direct services to people. Um um but can still share pictures on social media platforms that still really tell a story of the work that their, that their organization does. Um In this particular case, it was um food in the back of a, of a minivan um from an organization that uh does food reclamation and delivers food to organizations that then distributed and it was still really sharing the story of the work um but didn’t necessarily involve people. So we really stress that like there are lots of different ways that you can share and tell stories. They don’t have to involve um people or animals. Um that it’s possible for all organizations to, to do that effectively. Rosalind

[00:12:42.23] spk_0:
sounds like it looks like you may want to amplify that some definitely.

[00:13:18.30] spk_2:
Well, and this woman also after the session came and asked a similar question, you know, she has an advocacy organization. So a lot of what she was working on is how can I tell a story when our stories numbers and, and one of the things that I spoke with her about was I’ve seen organizations in similar spaces tell the story about why the advocacy is so important. So you can connect your organization to. Okay, we’re working on this issue and pedestrian safety. So maybe we tell stories around why pedestrian safety is so important and how people have felt, walking on roads without sidewalks and you know, doing short videos and things like that. The other point that I like to emphasize is only use platforms that you’re comfortable with and that your donors use. You don’t have to be on a specific social media platform to share these stories if that’s not where your donor base lives and if they’re all, if emails really effective, then you can do a video and send it in an email,

[00:14:08.61] spk_0:
okay, meet them where they are not where you would like them to be. Uh okay. Alright. Um Anything more on anything more on that one on one personal stories? I mean, the point is everything, everything, all the work we do affects, impacts people somehow climate change, you could say, well, how do I reduce that to a story? Uh But that’s a, that’s a great example of a of an advocacy organization that personalizing, able to personalize anything more on that one before we know,

[00:14:13.74] spk_2:
I think we can. Yeah. Well, another good one is

[00:14:18.13] spk_0:
okay, Rosalind both. I like them both. Okay. Okay, I’ve been using now, I’m using both. Alright, thank you.

[00:15:02.29] spk_2:
Thank you. Another great one is to convey impact and so and convey impact in everything that you’re doing. Not just your emails but your social media campaigns. When a donor does give, how can you connect their gift to the impact of their dollar? Right? And that’s more than just saying. Thank you for your gift. You donated $5 to the education program. It’s rather this $5 allowed kids to come in and you know, gain access to new books uh so that they can now read after school, right? Um And a huge part of that is donors are excited about the cause. It’s not about your organization, it’s about your community and the work that you’re doing so center them in what you’re talking about so that they know that they’re part of the solution. Their donation affected change in an area they’re excited about that could

[00:15:17.25] spk_0:
even go back to personalizing the story. Enabled a student like tony to buy a book, attended school, whatever. Yeah,

[00:15:26.43] spk_2:
exactly. A lot of our tips work together.

[00:15:29.36] spk_0:
Okay. Very good. Yes, they don’t stand alone.

[00:16:16.64] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Donor box. It’s the fundraising engine of choice. For 50,000 organizations from 96 countries. They’ve got something new. Now, you can accept cashless donations anytime and anywhere with donor box live kiosk, turn your ipad or Android tablet into a kiosk to boost in person giving. And with their new additions to donor box events, you can sell tickets in 43 currencies and ask your buyers to cover fees, put these two together and you’re in person events will take off donor box helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Now back to 10 easy ways to boost your fundraising on a budget.

[00:16:23.23] spk_0:
Ross. Let’s stick with you. Give us another one.

[00:16:40.13] spk_2:
Another good one is to test your online donation experience. And so a lot of us, especially in the fundraising space, we know what an online form looks like. We’ve filled them all out, we know them really well and we don’t really have an outsider’s perspective into what it looks like to donate. So a really good and I think this one is actually pretty easy and simple. Ask somebody who isn’t in fundraising to try and make a donation and give you feedback and even give them a little rubric to say, you know, here’s some questions that we would like you to answer as you’re trying to give this donation and let us know how it looks and feels and if there are ways that we can improve the experience.

[00:17:06.84] spk_0:
Okay, easy. Yeah, and do it from the outside easy. Okay, Julia, you got something, it’s getting harder now because we’re down like number seven or so. So there are fewer and fewer left for you to choose

[00:17:31.96] spk_3:
from. Yeah. So testing your assumptions is an important one. Not assuming that, you know, what works well with, with people and with your supporters and donors, um making sure that you really use um hard data to look at what it is that, that works for you.

[00:17:39.97] spk_0:
Assumptions like what, what assumptions are people, organizations commonly making?

[00:18:08.56] spk_3:
Yeah. So I think um like the way that they interact, the way that they interact with um with your donation page, I think was something that we touched on. Um and A B testing different messages, um different ways that people respond to um to your messaging. Um but also not testing, trying to test too many things at, at one time but um doing some A B testing with, with messaging and subject lines and, and things like that.

[00:18:31.67] spk_2:
Yeah. So really to piggyback off that if you’re going to test um do A B testing on emails, change one thing per email, right? Change the subject line. Maybe you have a subject line with emoji and one without emojis and see which one gets opened more and same with your social media, right? Post on a Monday and then maybe next week post on a Tuesday and see if you’re getting different engagement. It doesn’t have to be fancy you don’t need to use all these analytics tools, just create a plan and say, okay, we’re going to test this thing now and we’re gonna test something else later.

[00:18:55.05] spk_0:
And uh is there a minimum size that you should have before your testing or minimum, let’s say number of emails for, for validity.

[00:19:05.02] spk_2:
Um There are plenty of content specialist that will probably tell you yes and give you a number. I think you could test with five people personally. You can always um understand your donors more and understand how they communicate. So I’m a big proponent of no matter your donor base, how big it is, how small it is. You can, you can test and get valuable information.

[00:19:28.15] spk_0:
Um Go ahead Julia, you were, you were taking off some, it’s getting harder now. Yeah,

[00:19:48.39] spk_3:
I think so. I think we can remember um timely calls to action is a really important one that is actually really pretty rich because there are a lot of different ways that you can use that effectively. But um a lot of it relates to urgency and making sure that you’re conveying urgency um with donations, whether that is um around a campaign deadline or an event um or a holiday or something really tying it back to urgency and making sure that people know that it’s very important that they give right now. And creating that sense really helps to, to um encourage people to donate.

[00:20:18.94] spk_2:
It really also helps with donor acquisition when you have a current event that is directly affecting your cause to then try and create uh campaign and language around that as well. Uh The classy why America gives report is really interesting. And according to their survey, um and their, their data collection, 60% of donors were likely to give when asked in, in relation to a current event.

[00:20:42.82] spk_0:
So using a news hook or something right? Related to your work? Okay. Okay. Did you all have stories or cases that you shared like examples of these in real life?

[00:22:12.31] spk_3:
Yeah, I mean, we, we showed some examples in particular of the way that we um show the or quantify and show the um the impact of that donations will have like on a donation page really equating the um the way that people’s donations, what they’ll actually fund and the impact that they’ll really have. So um we showed some examples of how um Rose mentioned this too but how um you know, for our organization, $35 provides translation services for a refugee or $100 provides a legal consultation for a family. So we showed some examples of how you can come to those numbers and conclusions and figure out how to um determine the value that donors will see of, of what their donation actually does. And, and that really is about starting with numbers and making sure that you can see what it is that um, what value as relates to your mission and services, what, what dollar value might equate to something.

[00:22:20.65] spk_0:
Exactly. Exactly.

[00:22:27.49] spk_2:
And also within your organization you’ve been able to do timely calls to act because you work in immigration and unfortunately immigration has been in the news quite a bit. Right. Do you see also that cycle of when a news cycle happens, you’re getting more engagement. Yeah.

[00:23:17.18] spk_3:
Yeah, for sure. And I think, um, the, you know, when not only using the sense of urgency, but when you ask people is also really important, yes, using things that are happening in our communities and in the news is something that we do quite a lot. Um because our organization does respond directly to some of those on some of those issues. So yeah, that’s something that’s really important. Um We also pretty effectively um can use light boxes and notification bars to really amplify messaging that we’re sending out. Um and making sure that people really see that it, you know, when there’s a particular campaign, not all the time, but in a rapid response situation, that can be a really effective strategy for not only donor acquisition but also donor retention.

[00:23:34.03] spk_0:
Okay, who’s up to naming the last one or two? I have not been counting, but we’re who’s up to naming another one or two that are remaining

[00:25:24.06] spk_2:
a consistent communication is definitely remaining. Um And again, when I was reading different surveys of donors, you can range anywhere from 53% to 75% of donors will not give again if they receive inconsistent and unclear communication. So it is this is incredibly important uh to get right. And it doesn’t have to be complicated. One of our best strategies is, you know, create a calendar for communicating with donors and it doesn’t have to be on, you know, fancy social media planning calendar. It can just be in your Google calendar, your outlook calendar and share it with everybody on your team that communicates with donors. Because this is also really important if someone in the program team communicates with all of your volunteers who are also probably a good number of number of donors and sends them a bunch of emails in a row and then you tack on and the last email is about a giving campaign, they’re going to have email fatigue, right? And so let’s make sure everyone in the organization who does talk to donors are on the same page about what our calendar is and that everybody is using key language that you want. Another really good strategy is to look at all of your platforms online and make sure that the language and the logos are all the same. You know, I can’t tell you how many organizations that I start working with. This is one of the first things I do and then maybe I’ll go to a Facebook page and it has the old logo and it has language that doesn’t correspond to their website at all. And the nonprofit says, oh, well, that was just someone in development and we lost the password and we’re not, you know, we’re not on Facebook. So we’re not going to change it. And I say you need to change it because it is a public part of your persona and because these social media platforms are all seo linked, they’re going donors are going to find it and you want to make sure you control the narrative.

[00:25:42.12] spk_0:
Okay. Excellent. Is there more any other strategies? Yeah.

[00:25:44.21] spk_2:
Well, we had a bonus tip if we’re

[00:25:46.24] spk_0:
at. So it was you got 11 for 10? Oh, cool. Alright. Give us a bonus.

[00:26:46.27] spk_2:
Yeah, so it wasn’t counted in the original 10 because it’s not as quote unquote easy to do, but it can be very effective and it’s creating a peer to peer fundraising campaign. Uh And one of the reasons it’s not necessarily easy is because it requires a tool, right? It’s not necessarily a lot of our tips and strategies you can implement without needing some sort of fancy technology. You can use the systems you already have. But peer to peer really relies on having a peer to peer fundraising tool that people can easily access, set up their own campaigns and get ready to go. It’s also the really important to arm the um to give the donors that are participating in this campaign a ton of marketing material and a ton of training on what it looks like to fundraise for your organization. Just as I was talking about consistently communicating, you want to make sure that your wonderful, well, meaning donors are using the same language that you would use when they’re going out to um talk about their organization with their friends and

[00:26:49.21] spk_0:
family, give them resources. We’re talking about brand, you know, consistency you were saying, so give them the logo and the colors,

[00:26:56.41] spk_3:
tool kits, messaging, messaging,

[00:27:00.01] spk_0:
consistent messaging.

[00:27:19.37] spk_3:
Yeah. And we’ve even done um you know, starting off really with a small core group of folks. Um we started it with our board. Um but even doing a webinar with them to make sure that they understand the process of setting up the peer to peer page and, and how they see in the system who donated to them and how they think them and how they keep track of all of that. Um So really one of the things that makes it a little bit more of a complicated tip um is that it does require quite a lot of effort, at least to get off the ground.

[00:27:39.29] spk_0:
Um As I said, you need a platform. Is there a platform that the two of you like to use? Is that one of them preferred over the others? You can shout it out. What’s the diff?

[00:28:18.25] spk_3:
Well, I think one of the things that we talked about that’s really great is um if you are just getting started to, to piggyback off of foundations or other um organizations in your community that are doing giving days, um they often will provide the infrastructure for you to use and you can test out the tool and you know, a peer to peer tool in the process that way. So you don’t necessarily have to have your own in order to participate in those ways um through a community giving day or something. So that’s, that’s a really great one.

[00:28:26.64] spk_2:
And I like to stay as platform agnostic as possible because it depends on your team and your donors as to which one makes the most sense. Do you have very tech savvy donors who are really excited to go in and make changes or do you have donors that want something that’s plug and play because they don’t really understand how to use these tools and they’re just excited to go out and fundraise for you. So, you know, there are amazing platforms out there, but I really always start with who is your team and who are your donors?

[00:28:58.84] spk_0:
Okay. I did

[00:29:28.60] spk_3:
remember, I did remember one about, about matching matching grants and um matching gifts. Um And so we talked about how, um you know, a lot of it’s not great to leave money on the table. Um We talked about employer, particularly employer matching gifts. But then also, um if you, you are, again, this is a little bit more complicated. But if you are equipped for uh kind of recruiting matching grants from donors or companies or foundations, that, that, that’s another thing that can, that can work really, really well. Um particularly in um a campaign situation where you can say, you know, all donations up to $20,000 will be matched dollar for dollar until midnight. Thanks to XYZ donor.

[00:29:58.95] spk_2:
And when we say leave money on the table according to um, double the donation, they researched this and 4 to $7 billion a year goes unclaimed in matching gifts. And that, that is money that is just left on the table by all of

[00:30:20.81] spk_0:
the company. Let your employer know that you donated their simple form. Exactly. And they’ll send the same or whatever they are match, match.

[00:30:23.06] spk_2:
And even I’ve seen reports that up to 40% of fortune 500 companies now have a volunteer match program as well. Which means if you have a volunteer base, maybe they haven’t donated. But they work for one of those bigger companies. You should also talk to those volunteers and see if they can talk to their company and if they’ll match some of the time that they’ve donated.

[00:30:43.51] spk_0:
Oh, so it’s the company providing another volunteer to piggyback on the employee that’s already volunteering for the organization. No,

[00:30:52.59] spk_2:
it’s the company writing a check equivalent to that person’s time.

[00:30:55.69] spk_0:
Oh, it’s giving cash equivalent to the

[00:30:58.24] spk_3:
volunteer time.

[00:31:10.84] spk_2:
Oh, and this has been a very effective strategy for one of my clients because they have a mentor program and all of their mentors are volunteers from large tech companies. And so they get often written checks from those employers saying, oh, I’m so happy my employee participated in your program. Here’s a check for their time.

[00:31:20.12] spk_0:
Damn. So 20 hours in a month or something, or 20 hours in a year, it was more like like somebody donated 20 hours in a year and the employer will pay the nonprofit, the value of that 20 hours. Okay. Excellent. I’ve never heard that. What is that called?

[00:31:36.85] spk_2:
Volunteer?

[00:31:42.17] spk_0:
Aptly named? Alright. Um okay. So anything else anything we probably, well, I don’t want to let you off the hook. We may have named all 11 but did we I think

[00:31:51.06] spk_2:
so confident. Well, like I said, they’re all super intertwined. So um we covered them all. I don’t know if we named

[00:32:05.19] spk_0:
one way or another. Okay. Alright. Alright, fair enough. All right. Um You, you’re one of your outcomes, tried and true fundraising tips from other nonprofit professionals do that that does come from the audience or, or, or I mean, you two are already a nonprofit. So is that redundant? I don’t know are the tips coming from you to or from the audience?

[00:32:24.46] spk_2:
And we had really good audience participation and they gave some of the tips that they use. So let’s bring them in.

[00:32:29.97] spk_0:
So share some,

[00:32:32.17] spk_2:
please. One organization mentioned that they have a threshold over $350. That’s when they start calling people. And that for them has also been incredibly effective. They just pick up the phone and they give donors a call um if they’ve reached that amount and that also helps them manage it a little bit because then they’re not necessarily calling everybody, but they know that that’s their threshold. My recommendation though is even under that 3 50. Take a sampling maybe and occasionally call them as well

[00:32:59.36] spk_0:
or like whatever you whatever you think you have the bandwidth for. If $50 is a big donation for you, then maybe that’s your threshold if you can manage it. Okay. Alright. You got another one came from the audience,

[00:33:48.57] spk_3:
another one that somebody shared was that they crowdsource stories from their participants and um collect them and share them out in monthly emails and they share a few stories in each email um in that the person’s words who submitted the story and it might include a photo, but it’s all coming pretty much directly from the participants themselves. And they mentioned that they put um a fundraising, a donate button, not even a hard ask, but just to donate button in the bottom of those males. And it generates quite a lot of donations just from this one email that shares these impact stories from, from folks who have participated in the services. Um and even with the soft ask, they get a great return on those.

[00:34:15.28] spk_2:
That also reminds me another tip. Um, and an audience member echoed this was around lapsed owners. So going back to segmenting your donors, if you can segment who has lapsed, then reaching out directly to them and talking to them and saying hi, we’ve missed you or, um, you know, here’s information about our programming. Again, targeting lapsed owner specifically has had great returns both for my clients as well as the woman that came and spoke

[00:34:30.72] spk_0:
and targeting them more digitally

[00:34:42.00] spk_2:
email, just having direct language to them that says like, thank you for your support. We miss you. Can you come back or here’s what we’ve been up to, especially if you have lab donors that have been away for five years, 10 years. You can use that as a great opportunity to say, this is everything that’s changed in the organization in that time and sometimes they just forgot, but they haven’t donated. And so reaching out to them and communicating with them in that way will help jog their memory and say, oh yeah, I love what you’re doing. Yes, I’ll donate again.

[00:35:08.71] spk_0:
And I didn’t realize that I had stopped and you found success even going back that far, going back 10 years, very successful. Interesting because that’s typically, I think folks will like do one or two, maybe three years lapse. You found success going back as far as 10 Okay.

[00:35:36.05] spk_2:
Okay. And again, it’s about targeting the communication, right? So you would target a 10 year lapse donor differently than a one year lapse donor. The one year lapse donor might have just credit, credit card expired or something changed. And that’s why they haven’t given, whereas the 10 year lapse donor is there, probably aware they’re not giving to your organization anymore. So use this as an opportunity to talk to them again about what may be their life has changed? What are their priorities again? Get to know them and say, hey, you know, we love your support. Is there something that we can do to get that back?

[00:36:02.00] spk_0:
Awesome. Any other area? The pros from tips from either one of you to professionals or that came from the audience trying to immerse listeners in the in the session experience.

[00:36:10.04] spk_3:
Okay. Those are the ones

[00:36:12.30] spk_0:
we’re not gonna okay. Put you on the spot. Um Rosalind, why don’t you leave us with inspirational thoughts around easier ways to boost your fundraising, the value of all these things we just talked about.

[00:36:36.33] spk_2:
Well and again, donors are excited about the work that you’re doing. So when we talk about tips to boost your fundraising, it’s about honestly just connecting with them and having them connect with your organization in fun, interesting and personalized ways.

[00:37:12.31] spk_0:
Rosen is a CEO A Ropa consulting and Julia Tepfer, Senior Marketing and digital Engagement strategist at National Immigrant Justice Center, Rosalind Roz Julia Thank you very much. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing. Thank you for being with nonprofit radio coverage of 23 nt see where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us.

[00:37:20.87] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:38:25.11] spk_0:
Thank you, Kate. Have you got feedback? You know, I’m always interested in your opinion of nonprofit radio. It might be an individual show or a guest or topics that resonate with you or some topic that you think was off topic, didn’t, didn’t really belong on the show. You know, it might be this week’s show, it might be next week’s next month, next year. Anytime I’m I’m interested in your opinion, I’m interested in your feedback. I welcome it. Positive, negative, good, bad. I can take it. It’ll be okay. I’ll be fine. I am genuinely interested in what you think about what you’re listening to week after week. And the best way to get feedback to me is either the contact page at tony-martignetti dot com or just email me tony at tony-martignetti dot com. Eight

[00:38:26.57] spk_1:
that is Tony’s take two. We’ve got Boo koo, but loads more time here is personalized fundraising at scale.

[00:39:06.50] spk_0:
Welcome to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 NTC. Our continuing coverage of the 2023 nonprofit technology conference at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits with me. Now is Joe Frye Account, group director for nonprofit and Cause at Town Hall Agency and Peter, Vice President of Innovation at Town Hall Agency, Joe Peter. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Thanks

[00:39:14.64] spk_4:
for having us. Thanks

[00:39:15.42] spk_0:
tony and my welcome also to the, to the teams at Town Hall Agency. What Peter, what is Town Hall Agency about

[00:39:33.06] spk_5:
Town Hall agency is an agency that is focused on the non profit and higher education sectors and it’s a full service digital agency. We have been uh kind of evolved and grown out of our parent company, which is, which is Situation Group and Town Hall. We, we have really brought a lot of folks on board to grow that brand for us. Uh And Joe can speak a little bit more to that, but it is, it is an outgrowth of the work that we’ve been doing for a lot of our uh clients that care about creating passionate communities and really making sure that we’re making impact in the work that we’re doing.

[00:39:59.55] spk_0:
Your session. Topic together is personalized, fundraising at scale a how to discussion. So we’re gonna talk about the how to of personalized fundraising at scale. Joe, what what could nonprofits doing a little better? It sounds like with

[00:40:29.38] spk_4:
personalization. Yeah, it’s, it’s a great question. I mean, you know, I think when we look at the data already, about 60% of non profits are doing some sort of personalization, right? It’s the at scale that we’re really talking about. Um And it really, to me and to Peter, we were talking about this, it doesn’t necessarily start with the tech stack. It’s more of a mindset. Um And how do we break down the silos within nonprofits? Um So that we’re not personalizing one channel at a time, but we’re personalizing the whole ecosystem.

[00:40:46.94] spk_0:
And so you’re encouraging us to go beyond the hello, first name, email, personal and, and assuming that we were personalizing, we use people’s first names and

[00:41:12.30] spk_5:
emails. It’s not a bad place to start, but it’s really growing from that and kind of thinking about the subtle ways that you can do personalization across multiple different channels. So not just saying okay, one and done, we do it here, we’ve ticked that box. But how can we always be thinking about increasing that level of personal is a because we see that constituents respond to that. They actually, they have a tendency to give more when personalization is done, right?

[00:41:20.13] spk_0:
So Peter, how, how far can we go? And what’s, what’s a better definition of personalization?

[00:42:03.02] spk_5:
Well, I, I think there’s a lot, there’s a lot that’s coming out right now in, in thinking how this is going to impact every single part of our lives. I think we’re being personalized to, in ways that we do don’t even realize every single day. And, and one of the things that we talked about in our panel was how can we make sure that we’re always doing a feedback loop of the data that we have, we have first party data about the people were communicating to. And then that the second piece is really making sure that all of that data is consistent, cleaned up, de duplicated, not the most fun part of the job, but that really allows you to then take action what you know, and then always be listening when you’re continuing that conversation with your constituents, they’re giving you feedback on how they open their emails when they do that and the kinds of things, the things that they’re reading on your website. So always make sure there’s a feedback loop to not just rest on your laurels about what you think, you know, but how are you continuing to learn about those people as you evolve in that relationship with them?

[00:42:28.54] spk_0:
You mentioned that we’re always being personalized to, I mean, I’m thinking of any of the, any of the online retailers, you know, customers who looked at what you looked at, looked at these other things, people who bought what you bought these other things, people who bought what you bought, bought these other things with those. I mean, these things paired together, right? We know this is your preferred address, you know. So in those types of ways, is that what you mean? Yeah,

[00:42:48.46] spk_5:
the example that we used

[00:42:49.50] spk_0:
in this is one example, retail and online

[00:42:57.29] spk_5:
retail. Yeah, the example we used in our presentation was about kind of online streaming platforms. They’re all vying for our $8 a month right now. And the ones that are making sure that they know what we like and giving us those recommendations from their content library. Those are the ones that are going to have that competitive edge. So I think we see it a lot in the for profit world that, that personalization is kind of survival of the fittest. But then, you know, the challenge is how do we adapt that for nonprofits when we’re not putting those up against each other in a competitive way? But we’re hoping that we can just make sure that we have the best relationship with our constituents.

[00:43:26.43] spk_0:
I just got an email yesterday that HBO Max is becoming Max. That that’s an interesting branding. I would have thought HBO Max would be better uh keeping their name, front center, but

[00:43:39.27] spk_5:
there’s a lot of money to make that

[00:43:54.59] spk_0:
decision. Okay. Um So look for that big change. Uh So, so do we need some infrastructure, we need to be able to capture and preserve and then coalesce the data that you’re, you’re talking about? Either one of you need infrastructure back in before we can personalize that scale. I

[00:44:26.70] spk_4:
mean, I think one of the things that Peter and I spent a lot of time thinking about is what you do actually need, right? You need data, you need a tech stack, you need a website, you need an email platform, you need something like that. But really it’s organization, right? It’s, it’s a little bit of time. And in our panel, I talked about an example of the client a couple years ago where we spent two hours a month, tagging their data for four months and we had enough data to then personalize everything to them two hours in a month. Yeah, it wasn’t much time at all. Right. And we didn’t ask them for new technology we used what they were using. Uh And so I think there are ways to do it. It’s why we like to say that yes, it can be a tech stack, but really it’s a mindset.

[00:44:45.53] spk_5:
And I think unless you’ve built your own technology from the ground up, chances are there are features within the tech that you use today, you don’t know how to use or that you’re just not using to the extent because those platforms are always improving

[00:44:57.88] spk_0:
tags, attributes, segments, segments. What else are these things commonly called across different platforms? Anything else that

[00:45:31.73] spk_5:
mark that there’s a lot that falls on like marketing automation. Um You know, I think there are more and more platforms that can identify the best time to send, not just for your entire audience but based on you, you know, when do you tend to engage with those emails and then when I hit send for that, you know, maybe it’ll hold that email until it knows when tony is going to open it and it will deliver to you at the right time. So it’s just scale being able to exist. It does exist,

[00:45:34.73] spk_0:
just describe something that you’re dreaming of

[00:45:37.16] spk_5:
that exists. Otherwise I’m going to go off and trademarks but know that exist today. Absolutely.

[00:45:41.67] spk_4:
Existing tools kind of upstream and downstream, right? Like not just the really expensive tools but also the more achievable approachable tools. Okay.

[00:46:13.92] spk_0:
So folks may already have this these resources, you just have to exploit them. That’s right, because I’m thinking of, I use male chimp for my company, emails and uh blasts for the podcast. There are, there’s, there’s like send time optimization. Um I don’t know if it’s including optimizing for me, but it’s including optimizing for the folks I’m sending to and I’m not even thinking about segments, I could set the audience and then segment and then send time optimization for the different segments. I’m just doing it in one

[00:46:37.85] spk_4:
group. Alright. And right, that’s, that’s part of when we define personalization. That’s part of what we’re talking about, right? Like a lot of people think personalization, 1 to 1, ultimately, we’ll get there. But like let’s start in a smaller phase of personalization, one to a persona, one to a group of people. Let’s build our confidence there. And I think a lot of it is kind of, it sounds so big and intimidating and you know, we have all this data and we’re gonna get lost in that data. But when we break it down and we really try to crawl, walk, run a personalized approach. We can do it in ways that everybody gets on board. We can start to break down some of those silos and barriers inside of organizations, bring everybody to the table know clearly.

[00:47:00.10] spk_0:
And then it just become awareness because we’re reassuring folks that a lot what they need is already in place. It’s just exploiting it.

[00:47:22.34] spk_5:
And I think the subtlety of how you approach it and how you start that, that crawl phase. I think we’ve all gotten that email that was personalized to us, but maybe it had the wrong name or it had the first name tag instead of our actual name. And you may I equate that to, uh, if a romantic partner calls you by the wrong name, you might forgive that, but you’re never going to forget that moment. So, so how can we be thinking about personal, personalizing things in a subtle way where it’s just enhancing what we know about you? But we’re kind of mitigating that risk of maybe, you know, as all technology does from time to time, you know, makes a mistake. But, but that’s really where that second stage we were talking about before of making sure that your data is constantly sanitized up to date, clean and consistent. Are there

[00:47:47.25] spk_0:
other examples that we can, we can give folks a different types of personalization. Yeah.

[00:48:56.61] spk_4:
So I like, I think there are a couple of things we can do personalization wise. One is we can personalize to the content. So um right, hubspot came out a couple years ago now with the stat that they have dynamic CTS built into their platform. Uh And so essentially the CT A changes based on your data uh and they came out and said it converts 202% better than a static one. That’s a huge number. But what are we actually personalizing that too? Is it the story that it appears underneath? Right? So our ask is based on uh whatever the blog post topic is and like what was able to help that person and that impact story or we personally personalizing it to the fact that tony donated $100 last month. Now we want them to donate 100 and 20 because we want them to donate 20% more. So, what are we really personalizing too is a good, a good place to start. Um You know, one of the things that I’ve spent a lot of time with is working with organizations have gift catalogs and how to activate a gift catalog across a blog to then have a CT A that isn’t even dynamic. It’s static, but it’s written in the same way that the ask and the gift catalog is so that way everything ties together. So regardless of which channel somebody’s engaging with you with or what the ask is. Everybody’s on the same page about what that actual ask is going to be. And it feels more personal to the donor and the potential donor.

[00:49:09.98] spk_0:
Peter. Other examples. Yeah.

[00:49:32.43] spk_5:
Well, I think one of the things that Joe and I were having some conversations around, uh and I know he’s done some, some campaigns with this personalized video is something that’s becoming more and more attainable without, you know, breaking the bank. Really, there are a lot of services that you can work with to have different videos stitched together. They could include things like your donation history or, or just an appeal to you or, or really just includes segments, you know, as part of that B roll that of things that we know that are important to you. So when you’re thinking about a video campaign or an end of your appeal, you can actually start to use more and more to uh tools that, that every piece of that campaign have some level of personalization going

[00:49:50.42] spk_0:
on. Are there any video platforms that you can, you can shout out recommend as a potential resource

[00:49:56.18] spk_4:
we like item, you spell it. Idomoo

[00:50:01.90] spk_0:
idomoo

[00:50:05.18] spk_4:
dot com dot com. They do a great job really connecting in um to a database or uploaded Excel docs. Um

[00:50:14.18] spk_0:
So the video, so Peter, you’re saying like the B roll can change based on the data that’s in your CRM.

[00:50:30.45] spk_4:
Yeah, B roll the music, the ask everything, right? So everything is a data point. Um And it doesn’t really change your production process that much. They, their system has an after effects plug in that. A lot of producers and editors are already using after effects to produce videos. Um And so you define what the personalization is, what the element is and then you create all the different assets to that. Um But to your

[00:50:45.40] spk_0:
point, both of you, you could start with, maybe, maybe start with first name and maybe giving history or something like that or start simple. Don’t, don’t, you know, you’re not, you don’t have to be Martin Scorsese to produce your first one. But explore

[00:51:32.04] spk_4:
and I think like also, right, if you, if you even wanted to explore it at a higher level, um when somebody makes a donation, right, you, you know what they clicked on before they donate it typically, right? You’re gonna know if they came from an email article from a blog post from something. And so if you take that and you say, you know what, I’m gonna follow up with a personal thank you from somebody that benefited from a donation like this or from our president and CEO or from somebody on our team. Uh And I’m only gonna show them stories and content around the topic that they actually donated to. Um It’s a nice way to personalize in a very subtle way. So it’s not actually saying, thanks Tony for your donation of X, but it’s saying thank you for your support with a personal uh personalized aspect and then also showing them other stories, other impact that you have in that that segment

[00:51:48.01] spk_0:
related to what they gave to. Yeah, he’s a great example. Any other what other examples that we

[00:52:37.21] spk_5:
got on the media buying side? There’s a lot of conversations we’re having around dynamic creative. So this idea of dynamic creative that you when you’re building out your, let’s say it’s your display ad, you have a few different versions that you upload into a system. And then that system can based on targeting as media has always done. But it can also, you know, know where you are geographically and it can say, uh you know, here’s, here’s an opportunity for you in your area and it will show you something different because you’ve set up the rules to do that. It takes, it does take a change of workflow, the tools are getting cheaper, but it does require your team to maybe work in a way that they haven’t done in the past. And the non waterfall way of saying, okay, we’re going to put this ask out to the designer to get back the assets and then we’re not going to talk them again. Well, we may need to go back to that designer and say, you know what we need another variation that can achieve this thing that we’re trying to target. So can we get a few more from you? And it’s just really about making sure that, that the team is, is having that communication. It’s, and there’s a muscle within the organization to be able to adapt to that.

[00:52:58.92] spk_0:
And you were talking about media buying. What are some examples of your, your think? Um

[00:53:00.28] spk_5:
Well, just like the ads that we see,

[00:53:01.81] spk_0:
search, search, search,

[00:53:04.06] spk_5:
search ads

[00:53:28.70] spk_4:
and search ads. It’s, it’s built into Google Google ads from from the start, right? They have the dynamic ads and they optimize for you using AI but you can also optimize by location and, and some platforms allow you to kind of put together other assets. Um I mean, I also think about, you know, as just another example, thinking about communication channel preference and frequency. Um for some reason, I don’t know why my mom will not text me but she Facebook messages me. I can’t get her to text me, but her preferred channel is Facebook messenger. Um And so, you know, with donors, they all have a preferred channel um and a communication frequency that they want to hear from you. And it’s okay to ask for that. Uh

[00:53:47.61] spk_0:
Simple surveys. Yeah. How do you, how do you like us to be in touch with you?

[00:53:52.43] spk_5:
Yeah. And you mentioned Male Chimp a little while ago, tony is something that you use. The survey tools are built into that platform as well. So you can, you can deploy an email that links, you write to a survey on the same platform and then that survey will automatically update those tags on that constituent that you already have. So it’s, it’s, it’s both you can, the tools have never been better to integrate those different tools. But some of those tools are actually adding within themselves to give you even more.

[00:54:19.99] spk_0:
Any other examples you want to share? Did you do your session already or it’s coming up? Any other examples that came from maybe questions or that you shared? No, holding, holding out on non profit radio.

[00:55:10.27] spk_4:
No, we um you know, we talked a little bit about a little bit about chat, lots, a little bit about automation or across social platforms, right? Um I’ve used in the past multiple platforms, but I really like many chat as an example where you can actually set up triggers. So somebody that likes a post or somebody that comments on one of your post gets a message sent to them through whatsapp or any of the Facebook ecosystem messenger wise. Um And it’s just a nice way to kind of build that communication back and forth in that network uh in a not really creepy way, right? Like everybody wants to be engaged with or if they don’t, they tell you, they don’t want to. But it’s often a nice way to kind of automate some of that when we’re thinking about how we can do it. It’s,

[00:55:18.26] spk_0:
it’s interesting. Alright. So somebody liked or commented on a post. Yeah, I don’t know. Just a like and then they get something

[00:55:21.21] spk_4:
they could, I mean, you can set up whatever rules you want. Right. Maybe it’s three likes, four likes.

[00:55:26.33] spk_0:
Yeah, maybe a couple, a couple, a

[00:55:42.20] spk_4:
couple of engagements. And I think that’s where like, you know, I think a common theme, especially at this conference but that we often see is always be testing and it’s what really is that, you know, is it after five likes, somebody is likely to want to engage with you more and they’re looking for feedback from you. Um or is it after 10, like what really does that donor journey look like? And I know everybody is a little bit different. But, and

[00:56:25.31] spk_5:
I think Joe, you, you alluded to this in our panel, but when you’re engaging, when constituents are supporting a nonprofit, they see that relationship is very personal. If they’re going to give you their money, it’s usually because it’s something that they believe in, they support your cause. So, so we find a lot of times people are looking, you said it might seem a little creepy, but we, we find that people that are willing to give often want to engage in a dialogue. So it’s just about making sure that we’re engaging with them in the right way. They don’t just hear from us, you know, once a year when we need money, we’re making sure to, to put information in front of them that we, that we know is with them for them based on what they’ve said to us

[00:56:28.08] spk_0:
before. It was just that one example of the single, single lake, single thumbs up. And then I get a message on what’s

[00:56:47.03] spk_5:
happened. Well, yeah, and you know, we touched very briefly, uh you know, on A I what AI is going to be doing to the world of personalization. Uh I was at a talk recently from Amy Webb from the Future Today Institute and she said we used to search the internet and we’re getting to a point where the internet is now searching us. So just everybody buckle buckle your seatbelts in terms of what’s going to be happening in our worlds around uh the kinds of messaging that we’re hearing from all the new AI that’s coming online.

[00:57:03.11] spk_0:
What does she mean by that? The internet searching us? Well,

[00:57:16.74] spk_5:
that all the signals that we’re putting out into the world about our preferences, what we like that, that, you know, in the best case scenario, you have a dedicated team that’s looking at those making sense of them and, and figuring out a strategy that works to communicate. But when you just, you know, we’re getting to a point where a lot of tools are being unleashed that haven’t been tested before. So, you know, what was the micro response time from how someone moved their mouse from the bottom of the screen to the top. Does that have an indication of maybe a health issue that they’re dealing with? And you just, it doesn’t take long to go into some, some really black holes around this conversation.

[00:57:41.43] spk_0:
Trillions and trillions and quadrillions. We’re all,

[00:57:44.88] spk_5:
we’re all putting out data. Yeah.

[00:58:12.73] spk_4:
And I think that’s the thing, right? Like data, the amount of data can be scary, right? Like I have to analyze all this data um from a personal standpoint where Peter and I I kind of start is you don’t have to analyze everything. Let’s make a hypothesis, right? Like do people care more about where you do your work? Do they care more about the aspect of what you’re doing? Like what do they really care most about? And let’s try to just collect data around that and organize that data first and see if that’s actually what they care about and then move on from there. Yeah.

[00:58:14.74] spk_5:
And don’t be afraid to act. I think it’s possible in an overwhelming sea of information to become paralyzed. But, but you know that at the end of the day, the goal is to try something and see what impact that has. See if it moves the needle and make sure you’re paying attention to those performance indicators to make sure what you want to do is actually happening.

[00:58:32.04] spk_0:
So staying short of the micro seconds that it takes to move the mouse, how can we collect on our own? Some of this, some of this, some of the data that we can be then used for uh personalization at scale.

[01:01:07.08] spk_4:
Yeah. Um Well, to go back a little bit about the data piece, right? Like let’s let’s take a step back and think about why personalization really matters and like why it started in in the more commercial world first. Uh there’s a data point out there that says every second it takes me to, to think about where I’m at on a website and to act, take the next step, there’s a 10% drop off for every second. So 10% plus 10% plus 10% right? And so it’s easy to see how somebody can go from clicking on an ad, a search at Google Grants, add something like that to a website that takes a couple of seconds to load to where you went from, somebody who was going to give to you. So now there’s a 50% chance, right? Because you’re 567 seconds in by that time. Um And so personalization really started as a way to remove friction, uh which is what people often are looking for. And we know that people are really interacting with organizations across channels across platforms. Maybe it starts with uh friends um post on IG or linkedin sharing a success story and you click on that and you’re interested and you sign up for a newsletter and then you get a newsletter and you kind of read another blog post and you kind of build your relationship over multiple channels. Um But when we think about the data that you can collect, right? It’s what if you’re, you’re collecting like the last step. Um Google Analytics has a previous step metric. So everybody that goes to your donation page that converts, what was the previous step that they were on? What was the content? Um Let’s analyze that content. Let’s see what, what looks good about it? Is it 1000 word blog post? Is it a video that was embedded? Is it the ask itself was $50? And we know you actually only gave 25. Why did you only give 25? We can start to look at some of that data. Um And with an email, right, we can see what you’re clicking on open rates, uh platforms like mail chimp and hubspot and in constant contact, they all do that on an individual email record. Uh So you can actually start to see and when we do these uh and we start tagging me. So let’s start with email, right? And let’s figure out if we’re tagging around topics. What tags are people clicking on? Like are people only clicking on an article about X or are they only clicking on articles about why? And let’s start to segment those and build out more detailed personas just from an email engagement because they’ve given you their information, they’ve said they want to hear from you. They’re going to engage with you likely. Um, and it’s just an easy way for us to start there and then expand it out to multiple

[01:01:11.11] spk_0:
channels. Everything you just named is eminently doable if you’re using the most basic email, email service. Yeah, Peter

[01:02:33.78] spk_5:
to go back to, I think the idea of being a good steward of that data um treating it responsibly. Not only because legally you have to and more and more laws are coming out to say, you know, this is, this is how governments are protecting all of our data every single day. But also listening, listening to your constituents letting them know, we alluded to this earlier, letting them know why we want that information and how we intend to use it. We really just want to deepen our relationship with you. We want to make sure we’re landing your in your in box at the right time when we have something to say and when we think this is going to be important to our relationship and we’re listening to you, if you want to come to us and say, you know what? I need a break, I need to, you know, I want to change our relationship and being responsive to that. It’s not so that’s not just the technology and you know, all of the check boxes we’re all familiar with when you hit the unsubscribe button on an email and it takes you to that form and it’s like, why are you leaving? That’s kind of very cold. You have to do that. But also because privacy laws require outreach and you have to be listening to that you have to have in most states, a phone number and an email address where people can reach out to you and say, tell me what you know about me and in our organization, we listen and, and we look at every single one of those and we treat them with respect and we treat them as we would want to be treated if we were reaching out to somebody else who had our data.

[01:02:40.14] spk_4:
And again, that’s, that’s process, right? That’s not, that’s not necessarily technology, it’s, it’s a process internally and that’s part of the reason we say personalization is a mindset.

[01:03:04.77] spk_0:
Yeah. Um Peter, can we go further? So Joe identified um you know, like I was saying, data, that’s eminently collectible. You, you can start tomorrow, just turn on some analytics or, or just go back and look at data that’s already been collected. What will be the next step in terms of data that we could collect or methods that we could use to collect data for more personalization?

[01:03:50.19] spk_5:
Well, I think the way we think about it is may be reversed a little bit. We want to start with what, what is the outcome that we’re looking for? And how do we get there? Because I think it can be really tempting to just say, let’s plug another data source into the machine and see what happens. And I think that’s what you’re seeing a lot with a lot of the large language models that are pervading and coming out in the AI world right now. It’s, let’s just hook up everything that everybody said on reddit and see what happens. And I think as an organization, we don’t want to be, we don’t want to collect something that we don’t need to have to make the relationship better. It’s very tempting um to say like, oh, look, we can get 50 more data points. But if you don’t have a plan for that, then, then you’re just kind of bloating your systems and you’re, you’re risking having more than you need. Um So I think it’s, it’s, how do we, what is the end goal that we want? How do we want that constituent to feel at the end of this relationship? And then what do we need to get there? And, and let’s not over indulge.

[01:04:20.35] spk_0:
Yeah. Very good point. All right. Um What else? Um What else from your session that we haven’t talked about yet? We still have some time if, if there’s more we can talk about.

[01:04:27.75] spk_5:
Well, I think we, we were really encouraged by the, some of the conversations we had after the session. Questions.

[01:04:33.89] spk_0:
Yeah. What, what questions came or what Yeah, I think, well, he can come

[01:04:40.51] spk_5:
anytime you want the vice president. I’m just here to make Joe look good. That’s my job today. I don’t know.

[01:05:09.64] spk_0:
I see Deray vice president and group director, so Peter is the vice president. All right. Um, no, I’m not trying to create a tension within, within town. Yes. Right. Right. Um, what else came from? Yeah. Get Joe Rogan’s numbers. Right. I start going to fisticuffs. Um What else came from this audience feedback, whether questions or comments after privately, what stuck with

[01:06:25.03] spk_5:
you? I think one of the things that stuck with me was going back to what Joe was saying. It’s, it’s not just about the technology and making sure the gears are spinning, but oftentimes in organizations, it’s about the human work of getting teams that are all focusing on their own individual piece of it who are very proud of the work that they do to come together and have a conversation and understand what the bigger goal is. So there were, we all have egos. We, we all want to be told we’re doing a good job and if my part of the machine is working, I’m going to call it a day. Don’t bring me into a meeting to tell me how I have to change something because now some and so what I’m doing is working, but to really achieve something like personalization at scale, it does require getting people into a room together and almost having kind of like a professional therapy session and saying this is where we’re trying to go with our, imagine if we had a system that looked like this. Now, we’re not saying anybody in the room is preventing us from doing that, but we know that we’re only going to get there together by cooperating and finding a new way to break down those silos that exist today and, and how we do that needs to be respectful of everybody who wants to show up and it’s gonna be key to making that happen. Okay. Very good,

[01:06:26.01] spk_0:
very good perspective. Anything else that for anything struck you from the questions, anything else, audience related questions, comments

[01:07:58.00] spk_4:
that yeah, I mean, I think um I think there were really two things, one kind of piggybacking a little bit on that. We spent some time talking about making sure that when you’re collecting KPI S to see if personalization is a success, right? When you’re starting small, like what are you actually looking at? Um if you personalize the subject line of an email, the primary KPI shouldn’t be a donation, it should be an email open, right? And so when we start to have these leading indicators um that are kind of micro metrics that we’re looking at, we can start to get more people on board because we’re then sharing the same language with them, right? Uh We spend a lot of time talking about uh just how different people perceive different words, uh awareness, for instance, right? Like when we run an awareness campaign as an agency, we’re thinking it’s brand lift, right? The action is, does somebody remember your organization name and what you do? Um But oftentimes when organizations come to us and they say we want an awareness campaign, they actually mean they want somebody who doesn’t know them to take an action. Uh and it’s a, it’s a small difference but it does change one, the metrics that we’re tracking and to the type of, of media by that we do. Um And kind of how we message that. Uh And so I think it’s important, like all teams have slightly different language are slightly different connotation of a certain word. And so getting everybody, like Peter said in a therapy session at the beginning to kind of define everything that we’re gonna talk about. Everything that we’re gonna do is a really important key step. Um And it starts with a pis

[01:08:21.76] spk_5:
and, and just because you think something may seem obvious, don’t assume that everybody in that larger group when they get together is necessarily going to click on everything. And an example I often use is in the world of technology, a developer means one thing, someone who codes software in the world of nonprofits development is raising money. So just that assumption, if you’re going off on a tangent about something, and there are people in the room who maybe haven’t worked together before. Don’t assume that everybody is using the exact same dictionary

[01:08:27.75] spk_0:
work in development, right?

[01:08:29.90] spk_5:
Good website. No, no, no, not that kind.

[01:08:45.51] spk_0:
All right. Leave it there. Does that sound good? Alright, they are Joe Frye account, group account, group director for nonprofit and Cause Town Hall Agency and Peter president of Innovation at Town Hall Agency. Just to foment a little more dissension back at the

[01:08:50.47] spk_5:
agency. Thank you very much for

[01:08:53.45] spk_0:
sharing. Thanks. Thanks Peter. Thank you very much. And thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of the 2023 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with me.

[01:09:21.77] spk_1:
Next week, we wrap up our 23 NTC coverage with communications and development teams working better together. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I

[01:09:24.73] spk_0:
beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com.

[01:09:43.62] spk_1:
We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster, helping you help others donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your announcer, Kate martignetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez, Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

Nonprofit Radio for June 12, 2023: What Power Really Sounds Like: Using Your Voice To Lead & Using Your Executive Skills

 

Mary ChanWhat Power Really Sounds Like: Using Your Voice To Lead

Our coverage of the 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference continues, as Mary Chan encourages you to own your voice story to reclaim your powerful voice. She also shares strategies for speaking with confidence. Mary is CEO of Organized Sound Productions.

 

Dana Emanuel & Skye Tyler: Using Your Executive Skills

What are executive skills, how do they develop and why do they matter to achieving your goals? Dana Emanuel from New Moms and Skye Tyler with Attain Partners explain. This is also from #23NTC.

 

 

 

 

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[00:00:09.31] spk_0:
Oh,

[00:02:04.32] spk_1:
non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite Abdominal podcast. I’m traveling this week without my fancy desktop Mike. So if I don’t sound quite so good, that’s the reason. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d come down with met hemoglobin anemia if you turned me blue because you missed this week’s show. What power really sounds like using your voice to lead our coverage of the 2023 non profit technology conference continues as Mary Chan encourages you to own your voice story to reclaim your powerful voice. She also shares strategies for speaking with confidence. Mary is ceo of organized sound productions and using your executive skills. What are executive skills? How do they develop and why do they matter to achieving your goals? Dana Emmanuel from New Moms and Sky Tyler with attained partners explained. This is also from 23 N D C tony stake to, to give butter webinar. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is what power really sounds like using your voice to lead. Welcome

[00:03:02.67] spk_0:
back to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C the 2023 nonprofit technology conference in Denver, Colorado, hosted by N 10 where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. With me now is Mary Chan podcast, strategist, voice coach and CEO at organized sound productions. Welcome to non profit radio, Mary Chan. Thank you so much, tony. My pleasure to have you as a podcast strategist. I guess you’re welcome to tell me anything that I do wrong in the next 20 to 40 minutes however long you spend together, uh Your feedback is welcome. As listen, all listeners feedback always is your session topic is what power really sounds like using your voice to lead. What are we, what are we talking about here? Power voice, what’s been changing? What, what do we need to know?

[00:04:20.39] spk_2:
So, basically what I’m saying is that what do you think of when you think of someone who has a strong or powerful voice? You know, do you, do you get a certain image in your mind? Do you have someone who might think? Well, someone who presents and doesn’t say um or they have this quote unquote broadcast voice? That’s what a lot of people might think of. They might not think of. Oh, I shouldn’t be leading. I don’t want to do the speaking. I, I don’t know what to say. I, I, I stumble on my words a lot. But nowadays today, because that is an old concept, that is something that somebody made up hundreds of years ago, this broadcast standard voice. So today, the voices that truly lead our voices, like you creating your own podcast voices. Like all these amazing attendees, people of diverse backgrounds and different accents. A lot of people might think, oh, I have an accent. People won’t understand me, but that’s not true. Power is the voice, your voice. And I want you to be able to use it to share your message your cause what it is that you want to share with the world and you can only do that intimately and to connect with someone through the power of your voice. So the

[00:05:19.68] spk_0:
authentic voice, our, our authentic voice. Yes. The only thing I would challenge is I don’t think you’ve heard non profit radio in the past. So you don’t know how bad it is. Uh listeners know. I don’t know why they stay. Um No. Okay. So is it an authentic voice? I mean our, our, our own, each of our own individual, authentic voices. You mean instead of some, some, I don’t know, pedagogical um aspirational type who, who’s a broadcast? I don’t know, I’m trying to think of some famous broadcast I can’t even think of because I don’t watch TV News or you know, I don’t know Joe Scarborough, like some Joe Scarborough type morning. Joe for those who don’t know Joe Scarborough that like instead of trying to aspire to some, to sound like something else, just be authentic to ourselves. That am I oversimplifying your message? I don’t want

[00:07:01.08] spk_2:
to know you have the main point. And I find that what happens is a lot of people when they do come to me for voice coaching or they want to start their own podcast for their non profit organization or what have you, they’ll say, oh, I, I need, I need to work on my voice and I’m like, yeah, but what do you need to work on? What do you feel in your mind? That is a disconnect. And I’ve had people say, oh, well, someone once told me I need to, if I have my own podcast or if I’m going to be doing a speaking thing, I need to sound like someone from CNN and I’m like, well, take a look at yourself. Do you look like someone who would be on CNN? And, you know, specifically the person I was speaking to was a young woman of color and she was like, no, I don’t look like what I would perceive as a stereotypical CNN voice. And so that’s where I come in. It’s like we all have these preconceived ideas and they might be something that was taught to us at a young age. It might have been something that was absorbed through media, through our culture, through our society that we’re told that we’re not good enough or that we need to be quiet when we were little girls, things like that, they still get ingrained into us when we are a full fledged adult and trying to be a person in the world. Some of those things are still tied to our voice. Why are we holding onto

[00:07:08.18] spk_0:
these antiquated notions of what voice should be for us? Why, why do we cling to

[00:08:13.11] spk_2:
this? A lot of it is subconscious and a lot of it is still society. It’s antiquated. Yes. But we’re still not at a point yet where we have moved on from that. We are still saying that oh, a woman’s voice gets judged so much more than a man’s voice, especially in traditional media, radio TV. Criticized so much more. Oh, she sounds so shrill or um there’s another uh phrase called up speak. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that where you, you end the sentence more like a question at the end. And so women and men do that, but women get picked on so much more that oh, it makes you sound like you have no idea what you’re talking about when that’s not true when that could have been something that we had learned from a young age to create safety within ourselves. Because we were always told that you’re not smart enough. Your voice is not something that we can trust or believe in. And So we’re like, so

[00:08:20.14] spk_0:
you’re so you’re so you speak as if everything is a question. That’s because you’re not, you’re not right? Because you’re not an authoritative voice. So, so you, so you need to, you need to accept your voice position as non authoritative and so learn to speak up speak.

[00:08:38.30] spk_2:
But that it’s not,

[00:08:40.53] spk_0:
I’m not advocating that people do that. I’m saying that I’m not advocating that I’m saying that’s the teaching that there, that there is happening there that gets perpetuated,

[00:08:49.71] spk_2:
perpetuated this idea.

[00:08:51.56] spk_0:
Did you think I was advocating that? Yes, women need to speak more because your voices are not authoritative and you shouldn’t be in leadership roles at all.

[00:09:27.88] spk_2:
But there is also a lot of research now going into, where did this come from? How is this playing a part in our society that up speak actually becomes an authoritative part of people’s speech? And it is because of the younger generation, they are hearing that up speak is happening with women in authoritative spaces. And so people think, oh, if I hear that, that’s actually a marker, a sound marker of someone who I can trust. So the generations are shifting all these things

[00:09:37.94] spk_0:
180 degrees from what we were just talking about. Exactly.

[00:09:41.11] spk_2:
So it is shifting its slow. But we are seeing as you know, the signs, signs that things aren’t what they’re meant to be.

[00:09:52.38] spk_0:
You talk about voice story, own your voice, story. What does that mean

[00:10:31.78] spk_2:
I loaded a little bit to that before. About my personal story is when I was a little girl, I came from a family that immigrated from Hong Kong and China. And so when they came here, they brought their traditions, right? And their, what their culture was and being the youngest of three and a Chinese household, I was always told to shut up, be quiet. You wait, your turn to speak. Basically, I wasn’t of importance. My older brother was important. My middle sister was important, but me, you’re the little one, go and be quiet over there. And so that is my voice story. It’s been ingrained into me and every now and then it still pokes out because it’s part of my nature. It’s part of how I grew up. And so everyone has some sort of a voice story and that plays a part in your voice today.

[00:10:54.96] spk_0:
How do you get in touch with what your own voice story is? And, and how, well, let’s stop right there. Stop at that point. Not about trying to be something different. But how do you, how do you get in touch with your own voice story?

[00:11:02.92] spk_2:
It’s not about being something different, right? It’s

[00:11:04.59] spk_0:
only how do you get to know, recognize and appreciate what your own voice story is

[00:11:47.33] spk_2:
and that’s a whole path that you, you have to go on. But one of the things that I would take a look at is I always ask questions. So where are, where were you when someone first said something about your voice, that’s how you can start uncovering it. So, for me, it was, I always remember my dad telling me to shut up, uh, for other people, uh, that I’ve worked with, somebody had said, oh, I remember vividly in university I was supposed to give a presentation and my professor was like, oh, gosh, you’re putting everybody to sleep. So it’s things like that that has traumatized people’s voices and they’ve internalized it. So when you start thinking back about, okay, what is my voice story? What was that first time that somebody said something about my voice that I’ve internalized now that I recognized what that is. Again, I can bring it to light, I can work on that and I can be accepting that. Okay. That happened. That was in the past. It’s not who defines me today.

[00:12:14.29] spk_0:
And how does this relate to having a powerful voice?

[00:13:54.81] spk_2:
The power is shifting. So that’s what I mean before about how, you know, women’s voices were told, you know, you’re shrill, you’re up speak, you have vocal fry. That’s when you quiver or like shake at the end of your voice. When that happens. People think I’m not authoritative but that’s not true. That power is using your passion, using what your message is and focusing on that too. Then two then energize your voice to showcase your personality and who you are and that becomes the power people are then drawn to what you have to say. Not specifically the words that you’re choosing, but the tone of your voice, how you pray present yourself that all comes together when you know what you want to talk about and you have that passion for the cause that you are speaking on behalf of, of your organization that you want to share with the world of the people that you work with that becomes powerful. When you stop thinking of all the other things like I have to stand up on stage. What am I gonna wear? Will my hair look good? Why? What am I specifically gonna say? If you just hone in on how the person is going to feel, the person that you’re talking to, how they will feel and what they’re going to get across from your message that will change the power dynamics because it’s no longer then going to be about the vocal fry and the up speak and the shrill voice because when you’re excited, you can be really high pitched and when you need to pull back and be quiet and have a little bit of slower speech that really pulls people in. So it’s not going to be about the, the shrill or what have you. It’s going to be about the emotions behind your voice. That’s the power.

[00:14:09.86] spk_0:
You’re a speaking coach to write a voice coach. So I know that someone might think, well, everything she’s saying means we don’t, we don’t need voice coaching. There’s no value in it because I just have to be in touch with my own, my own voice story, develop my, uh, take advantage of my own authentic voice. And so I don’t need any coaching. So how does, how does voice coaching fit with everything that we’re talking about?

[00:14:37.47] spk_2:
I mean, you can do it your own if you want to, you can.

[00:15:06.21] spk_0:
But I mean, I think there’s great value. I used to have a voice coach. I have a speaking coach, public speaking coach. And, uh, yeah, so I’m, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t, but, but just for the folks who might think, well, so there’s no need for any coaching. As long as I have my own authentic voice, it doesn’t need to be coached. So allay those or not allay those fears. But, um, uh, you know, enlighten those, those, uh, naysayers, let’s put it that way. Enlighten those. First of

[00:16:03.76] spk_2:
all, it’s, you don’t hear what everybody else is hearing. Your voice comes out of your mouth and a voice is actually a sound wave. So it needs to come out of your mouth, hit the airwaves and then reach somebody’s ear drums and how they hear that sound wave is going to be different from how you yourself hear that sound wave because your sound wave when you listen to it is reverberating in your skull in your palate, your mouth, palette inside your mouth and you’re hearing it not from the outside, you’re hearing it from inside your own head. So it’s very different and you may not hear things that other people are hearing and they may not, you may not pick up on the subtle cues. The facial expressions, facial expressions can create a different tone in your voice. You can’t see that unless you’ve got, you know, you’re doing a selfie video or your friend of a mirror the whole time having that outside perspective can really elevate your voice and to help you just reach that next level that you’ll be looking for when you want to be a great leader. Okay.

[00:16:25.18] spk_0:
Okay. Um You have some effective strategies for speaking with confidence. Can you share some of those ideas? Have you done your session yet or no, it’s coming up tomorrow. Okay, tomorrow. Can you share some of you? I need you to share some of your strategies with our listeners for confident

[00:17:18.52] spk_2:
speaking. If you take away nothing from all of this, the main goal is take yourself out of the situation. A lot of people start focusing on again what I was saying, what are you going to say? How do you prepare all this stuff? Take that away and start focusing on the listener? So whether that is you’re doing a presentation in person, you are pitching to a whole board or you’re doing a podcast, like with you, if you just focus on your listener and what they will feel that will change the game, that’s like bare bones. If you don’t get anything out of this, it’s how do you want the listener to feel? How do

[00:17:26.48] spk_0:
you want them to feel?

[00:17:28.16] spk_1:
Right.

[00:18:32.73] spk_0:
What are some examples of how, I mean, I would, I’ll offer mine, you know, I want listeners to feel that I’ve channeled their questions or their thinking because they’re all in small and midsize nonprofits. So I want them to feel actually taking a step deeper, a part of our conversation, but they can’t be here with us. So hopefully, I would like them to feel that I’m channeling them. So if someone says something that’s kind of uh academic sounding, let’s drill down into some how to 123 or what can we bring back to our board or our CEO or my vice president or, you know, whatever. So I, I want, I want people to feel that their voice is represented in the conversation so that they feel a part of the conversation, although they can’t really be a, be a physical part, but they can still be channeled. That’s how I’d like people to feel. But so what, what, what are some other ways of what are some other feelings that you might, you want your, your listeners to take on?

[00:19:00.69] spk_2:
Right. I’m just gonna go back to you as the example I offered it up. Yeah. And I did notice that before when we were talking about, you know, uh what is up speak, I don’t know, explain that the listeners might not know. And you’ve already focused in on that. And that is how you are doing this interview without actually fully being so over prepared. You know, you, you don’t have miles of questions written out. This is more about

[00:19:05.39] spk_0:
being I’ve been on, I’ve been on those podcasts where the questions are out of the blue. Okay? You want me to pivot to this new subject because you don’t want to ask me anything about what I just said for the past two minutes. Okay. Here we go. Yes, I’ve been on those. Yes. And

[00:20:28.74] spk_2:
you can take that essence into the pitch into the boardroom into, you know, working with your staff. You don’t have to be 100% fully prepared. If you know how you want them to feel, you will get into their mindset and you will always be advocating for them. And so you take yourself out of that bubble, you then know exactly what you’re gonna say each and every time because you’re an advocate for your listener. Uh It happens. Same. There is a nonprofit podcast host that I work with creating their show and he then asks, well, I should write up a script. I should write up questions. What should I, you know, what, what should I say on the show? I don’t know. And it goes back to okay, who is your ideal listener? Who is the one person you’re talking to? Because in the podcast, at least that you don’t see your listeners. So focus on that one person. What are their challenges? What are their pain points? What are they looking for in this podcast? And how can you help them answer those questions for them? And he was like, oh, so I don’t need to write out a script. I’m like, no, because if you do, then it sounds like you’re just reading a script, I can tell. But if you go with the feeling and the emotion, you will always answer their questions because you are being an advocate for that person.

[00:21:32.68] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Over 50,000 nonprofits in 96 countries, 50,000 use donor boxes online donation platform and why not? It’s four times faster, checkout easy payment processing and there are no set up fees, monthly fees. There’s no contract. How many of your possible donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your donation page? Stop the drop, just stop it. Donor box helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Now, back to what power really sounds like using your voice to lead with Mary Chan.

[00:21:45.65] spk_0:
You have another strategy that you’re going to share tomorrow that you can share today with nonprofit radio listeners. One of the things is I don’t want you holding back on because they can’t be all be here. Some of them. So I don’t, don’t hold back. Yeah.

[00:24:03.26] spk_2:
So a lot of this I’ve talked about is mindset, but we also talk about the literal voice as well. Like your vocal voice box, your vocal cords and all of that. And so one of the ways to get into your literal voice is through your body. So we’re gonna work on some breathing because without air, your vocal cords actually don’t work. It’s a rare that pushes through the two chords that actually vibrate to make your vocal chords work. So if you don’t have enough breath, and I’m talking about breath in your belly. So your diaphragmatic breathing. So that’s the area like right below your rib cage and right above your belly button, that whole circular area of your torso when you breathe, I want you to breathe in through there, not through your chest. If you’re breathing high in your chest, then that creates more of a fight or flight. If you are in danger, you’re constantly breathing in your upper chest area. So if you’re getting ready to speak and you’re breathing in your upper chest area, that creates a lot of anxiousness, anxiety. So we wanna breathe lower in the belly. We talk a bit about that. We will also talk about the other physical aspects such as your um nonverbal facial features, body language that totally ties into your voice. Because if you, you know, think about it just if you’re sitting down, fold your arms, crunch yourself over. First of all, my diaphragm is being locked. I can’t breathe very well. And so my voice is going to be a bit more shaky sounding. I’m not gonna be very confident, but if you can open up your body, so now I have my hands out to the side. My diaphragm has more room to breathe. If I were standing, I may have been, my feet would be shoulder width apart and I would be able to sway a little bit back and forth. So I’m not just standing stick straight because that affects the tone of your voice, that affects how you’re feeling yourself because however you feel is then express through your voice and then the listener will pick up on that as well so that you want to make sure however you’re feeling is what the listener is going to feel. So if you can hone in on what the listener feels, then you won’t be so focused on your own feelings. Does that make sense? Yeah.

[00:24:22.46] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, it sounds to me like you need to be comfortable. We’re talking about voice, be comfortable in your own voice and that will create comfort in your listeners.

[00:24:27.27] spk_2:
Yes.

[00:24:28.60] spk_0:
No,

[00:25:12.51] spk_2:
no. Yes and no, because you, you can be comfortable in your voice. But then when you stand up on that stage or you’re in front of people or what have you, then that anxiety sometimes can come up right? That oh my gosh, there’s all these people staring at me. I need to talk now. So then you get into, okay. What are the foundations? I said breathing. So if you start breathing, calm yourself down and then once you get into that calmer state or opposite as well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be about calm. If you just want to feel more energized, then you could be, if that breathing will help with your energized state. However, you want your listener to feel you need to get into that space yourself. Is what I mean,

[00:26:17.29] spk_0:
I can think of it from the negative side because I’ve done stand up comedy and improv also and, but specifically stand up comedy when you’re there by yourself in the spotlight. Um The audience can sense nervousness, anxiety, you know, they, you know, like comics will say I’m not a professional comic, but I’ve been around them and I’ve done some of my own, you know, like the audience can smell it. They can smell if you’re nervous and that’s going to ruin their laughter because they’re nervous for the nice people feel bad for you. So they don’t want to laugh at you. And then the, the harsh, harsh people are either gonna heckle you, which can be very difficult, especially very new comic or they’re just gonna not respect you as a comic because they can, they can smell your nervousness. So on, like on the negative side, people can tell it is the pauses. I think some of it’s the facial expressions you were talking about. It’s probably is also your body language. It’s your timing. It’s your timber of your voice, the tone of your voice. Is it shaky? And you know, people can smell that. So I guess that, like I said, that’s on the negative side. You don’t want people sensing that out about you.

[00:26:42.39] spk_2:
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But again, if you, I’m just gonna harp on it one more time. If you focus on how the listeners gonna feel, right? You will not then focus on your own nervousness, right? It’s not about you. It is about the person and that makes you a

[00:27:08.85] spk_0:
giving speaker. You’re, you’re giving to your audience, whether it’s stand up comedy or a 60 minute presentation at N 10, like you’re doing your, your, your audience is counting on you and you’re giving to them by, I would say channeling them, you know, you’re saying, recognize how they’re, how you want them to feel. You’re giving to them either way you’re, you’re giving speaker. Yeah,

[00:27:38.63] spk_2:
because people don’t also like if you’re, if you’re doing a speaking big, people don’t want to come here to not learn something. They’re, they’re here for a reason. They have expectations. Yeah, they want to learn, they want to be entertained what, you know, doing the stand up comic stuff. So you’re here to serve them in that way. It’s not about you. It is not about what specifically you’re going to say you are here to help them. And so if you channel a bit of that, then it doesn’t really matter what the exact words are. And if you forget your notes, you know, there’s always slides to help you out to remember a little thing here and there. I remember

[00:28:16.15] spk_0:
seeing lots of speakers like changing, revising their notes in the last five minutes and then they don’t even look at them and you can’t, you can’t see that thing. You wrote up the side of the page because there was no room left in the last five minutes. I’m going to turn the page and read that. But if it makes you feel comfortable fine, but you’re never gonna be able to turn to it. Um, what else, Mary Chan, what we haven’t talked about that you’re gonna share with folks tomorrow anything? I haven’t asked you, uh, anything you want to know.

[00:28:19.15] spk_2:
Well, the fact that this, it’s participatory, I mean, I’ve gone to most, you know, conferences. People just sit there, they take notes on their laptop and all that stuff, but it is a session about your voice. So it’s going to be participatory. I’m not forcing

[00:28:34.85] spk_0:
anybody.

[00:28:41.73] spk_2:
Yes. You know, so I, I would love people to interact and to get out of their comfort zone. You know, if they’re afraid to speak in front of people coming up in front with me. Let’s give it a try, make it,

[00:28:53.90] spk_0:
you’ll make it a safe space. Of course.

[00:29:06.84] spk_2:
Exactly. It will be a safe space. We are all here to learn together. And so I want to provide that opportunity for people and have that stage for them. I

[00:29:24.45] spk_0:
don’t want to spend a little more, a little more time. Do you mind? What were your thoughts about, like last minute preparations? Do you have advice about the last five minutes before you go on the last 60 seconds before you go on? Let’s, let’s take a, not a podcast, but let’s take a little little. What, what I would consider a little higher pressure live audience? 75 or 100 people coming to a conference session. Okay. Maybe it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. Last five minutes, last 60 seconds. What do you, what do you recommend

[00:32:08.15] spk_2:
before you get ready to speak on any stage? Whether you’re just talking one on one with someone could be a big arena, doesn’t matter. You need to be centered on your message. So finding a quiet space, if you like to meditate, meditate on that, if you are someone who likes to be energized, do what it is that you need to do. I had someone once was like, I need to do some push ups before I get on stage. Great. Go do that because it’s not always about to calm myself. Down my nerves or? Oh I need to calm myself down. How are you feeling in that moment? And what will serve you? So, for me, sometimes I need to shake my hands. I need to shake my body. Uh This other person that I worked with whenever she gets nervous, her left leg very specifically shakes. So she knows I need to shake up my leg beforehand. I need to move my body in a certain way beforehand. So getting out those body nerves, however it c fits for you, make sure you have time to do that and then breathe the diaphragmatic breathing, making sure that you’re breathing through your belly to calm your your nervous system, not necessarily your nerves because if you want to be high energy, then you want to have some of that to play off of but to calm your nervous system. Um and uh vocal warmups, here’s one that could be fun and you know, if you’re in a room and you’re not in a private space, it could be a little embarrassing, but it doesn’t matter who cares. Pick a vowel, any vowel will say ah and start thinking of your voice like an elevator. So an elevator has a bottom floor. So we’re gonna talk about like your chest is the bottom of the elevator here. Uh And I don’t really care what tone you’re using just uh and then you’re gonna go up the elevator, you’re gonna go a little bit up higher into the throat and then higher up into the nasal cavity, uh, and high up to the top of the elevator, which is the rooftop garden, the top of your head. And you are gonna probably sound really weird and crackly, which is all great because you’re warming up and go up and down that elevator. So you’re figuring out what is your vocal range for that particular day? And you’re gonna sound terrible. You’re gonna, um that’s just a vocal warm up to get you your, if you’re gonna speak high because you’re so excited, you can get up there. If you want to bring it down low, you can get down there as well. So just make sure that you prep your voice beforehand.

[00:32:24.53] spk_0:
Leave us with some inspiration about voice. Voice, story, power,

[00:33:50.77] spk_2:
confidence, yeah. Voice right now is such a beautiful space to be in because there are so many platforms to get your voice heard, whether that is social media, you know, conferences are back in person doing a podcast, interviewing people like there are so many ways to get your voice heard and we need that diversity in the podcasting space alone. It is mostly white men who lead and host uh top rated shows, women are coming into the space, but they are not in the space as big as the men are and people of color even smaller number. And so we need that voice diversity. People want to be in connection with people who sound just like them. And so if you have a message, and in fact, I was speaking to somebody this morning at breakfast here at the conference, she was saying she has a podcast, she hasn’t launched it yet. She’s done a whole bunch of interviews, but she’s just scared, not ready, it’s busy, but people are looking for that content. Her message needs to be heard. And so if you have a voice, I challenge you to use it in a way that leads and shares a message that you are so passionate about because we need it today more than ever.

[00:34:02.34] spk_0:
Mary Chan podcast, strategist, voice coach and CEO at organized sound productions. Thank you very much, Mary for sharing. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for being with tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 N T. See where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits.

[00:35:47.80] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two to give Butter webinar is coming up. It’s debunked the top five myths of planned giving, debunk these insidious hateful myths. That’s what I’ll be doing. It’s Wednesday the 14th of June at two p.m. Eastern time, but that doesn’t matter. Just sign up, get the video and watch anytime. I think this webinar is going to be particularly fun because the host from Give Butter Floyd Jones is gonna be with me right next to me co located. So we will be uh exploring these hateful myths together and keeping, keeping it light, let’s say, as I debunk them for everyone, you sign up at give butter dot com. Just go to resources. That’s Tony’s take two. It’s that simple. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time here is using your executive skills.

[00:36:15.11] spk_0:
Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 NTC 2023 nonprofit technology conference at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado Day to where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. With me. Now our Dana Emmanuel Director of Learning and Innovation at New Moms and Sky Tyler. She’s solution architect at Exponent Partners, Dana and Sky. Welcome to Nonprofit

[00:36:28.19] spk_3:
radio. Thank you, Tony. Thanks for

[00:36:38.49] spk_0:
having a pleasure to have you. Pleasure. Your topic is harnessing executive skills to achieve your goals. And we’re talking about 12 executive skills. Uh Dana, why don’t you give us like a 30,000 ft overview and why this is important for nonprofits?

[00:37:16.29] spk_4:
Executive skills are the 12 brain based abilities that govern how each individual, everybody with a brain, each individual organizes things reacts to things and get things done. So they really govern how we set progress towards and achieve our goals. And in the nonprofit space, when we understand our own executive skills, our colleagues executive skills, and if we are running human service programs, we do at New Moms, we understand our participants executive skills, we can do a lot to design our programs and products and services in a way that leverages executive skills to help people achieve their goals and mitigate some of the struggles that come up when our executive skills are stretched. And by understanding that we can really, I think accelerate some of the impact that nonprofits have talked about.

[00:37:43.41] spk_0:
We’re talking about individual,

[00:37:45.63] spk_4:
individual,

[00:37:47.27] spk_0:
contribute to organization level goals, talking about our own executive skills and our own goals.

[00:38:10.52] spk_4:
You can imagine it starts at the individual level. But once we understand our own and each other’s like, for example, Sky and I have been working together, she knows my executive skills. I know hers, I understand her goals. I can help her achieve some of her professional workplace goals by understanding her executive skills as well. So understanding individual executive skills and goals helps us achieve better kind of die attic goals in the partnership and the relationship in the workplace.

[00:38:24.90] spk_0:
I understand you’ve been working together for many years, but you’ve never met

[00:38:28.72] spk_4:
in person, not even many years. So

[00:38:37.81] spk_3:
we actually connected through the NTC conference, the session that Dana submitted that got accepted um needed a partner. And I was really intrigued by the content by the information around the executive skills and the idea of how they can be applied. Exactly, as she said, both from an individual basis and also a group or organizational basis. So I just raised my hand and said, please let me help however I can. And it’s been a great working relationship for the past couple of months.

[00:39:18.67] spk_0:
Congratulations on the partnership. And it’s exciting to meet in person. Um, do we need Sky? Do we need to identify the 12? Uh, is that, is that, is that, is that, it sounds like something that’s more appropriate for a slide on the screen? But we don’t have that, do we need, but do we need to identify the 12 for folks to get a full grasp of the subject?

[00:39:45.10] spk_3:
I think it’d be a really great idea. Um One of the nice things is they’re kind of grouped into sections, there’s three major groupings of executive skills. Um And then within each of those, there’s anywhere from, I believe, 3 to 5 per there, I’m definitely going to lean on Dana for this since it is her area of expertise and let her go into it. But I would also say that there’s some great resources that your listeners can find online because we’ll probably go through them pretty quickly. Uh not only on this podcast, but we also do it pretty quickly in the session and being able to have those resources to go back to afterwards are incredibly useful. Okay, let’s

[00:39:56.33] spk_0:
take care of that now. So we don’t forget where, where can folks find those resources?

[00:40:14.35] spk_4:
So New Moms has an extensive um resource bank of information about executive skills at New moms dot org and I’d also encourage people to check out the E F works library dot org. Sometimes executive skills are called executive functions. And E F works library dot org has a lot of information that we’ve relied on to build out our programming at new moms as well.

[00:40:25.35] spk_0:
Okay. So new moms dot org and E F works works library dot org. For the, you can learn about the 5 12 executive functions or executive skills. Okay. Are we able to between the two of you? Can we take off the 12? Okay, because they’re not using notes. Neither one has a note sheet. I don’t know if they didn’t think I would ask. But um okay,

[00:41:09.45] spk_4:
working memory is one of the executive skills. So you’re testing ours now. So in the first bucket that sky referred to, there’s um how we organize bucket and there are three within that. It’s organization skills, time management, skills, and planning and prioritization skills. Time management is less about showing up on time though. That’s part of it. It’s more about estimating time, estimating how long a project might take you, how long something may or may not need to take. And so that’s why it’s bucket id in an adjacent to planning and prioritization. Okay. I can already tell

[00:41:31.67] spk_0:
that that executive skill in me is more like mid level down to work or be skill. I consistently underestimate the time that it will take me to complete something I

[00:41:55.22] spk_3:
want to I want to jump in on that though because you hit on an excellent point here that there’s, there’s not like a winner or loser. So it’s on a spectrum from strength to struggle and to Dana’s earlier point, these are 12 executive skills or executive functions that anybody with a brain has in some level and really being able to identify that without even taking the quiz or the evaluation or attending a workshop that takes a certain level of self awareness, that that’s something that you struggle with. And then exactly. So everybody falls somewhere and just being able to identify that and then I’m sure we’ll get into the part later about how to make accommodations to better support you. Okay.

[00:42:19.03] spk_0:
Thank you. That’s very gracious. Thank you. Alright, thank you. Alright, Dana, continue. Right. Our next

[00:42:36.56] spk_4:
bucket. Our next bucket is how we react and there are five executive skills within that bucket. Now here’s where my working memory is going to get tested. So the first one is stress tolerance. The second is emotional control. The third is response, inhibition. The fourth is flexibility, less physical and more cognitive flexibility, mental flexibility. And the fifth is working memory, I believe. Alright.

[00:42:51.97] spk_0:
That’s the five awesome. All right. Um Anything you want to say, do you want to, are you able to go back now?

[00:43:37.62] spk_4:
Wait. No, it’s meta cognition. Here we are six. No, I was wrong working memories and the subsequent bucket. So meta cognition is the fifth in that bucket. So how we react bucket is emotional control, stress tolerance response, inhibition, flexibility, and meta cognition and sky. And I share a strength in meta cognition, which is reflecting on how we’re doing. For example, how we are doing right now. In the, in this radio interview, in this podcast interview, meta cognition is the ability to step back and assess how you’re doing and maybe even pivot so that you can perform in a, in a way that you want. Um So that’s one thing to know about meta cognition. The other element that people sometimes ask about is the difference between emotional control and response, inhibition and response inhibition is really about knowing the consequence of your action before you say or do something. Whereas emotional control is about in the moment actually controlling, you can have response inhibition, but struggle with emotional control or vice versa.

[00:44:43.74] spk_3:
So I think my mom was a great example of that where her emotional response, maybe anger frustration, uh something like that to a unfortunate circumstance. But her response inhibition uh is she was able to hold back and not, you know, have an emotional outburst or when we were kids, you know, scold or yell at us about something. So she was able to like pull back a little bit, recognize like, okay, I’m upset in the moment. Things didn’t go the way I wanted whatever the case is. But that doesn’t that doesn’t allow me to, you know, have an outburst on my Children. So she still had that, that emotional response but was able to inhibit responding, verbally or physically in the

[00:45:09.66] spk_0:
world. Thank you for sharing about your mom. Is there such a thing as hyper meta cognition? Because I feel like I’m commenting every time but only on select, select executive functions um constantly correcting. And then in the moment saying, oh no, wait, I should go back, go back and do it this way. Wait a minute, I should be doing this other thing. I feel like I’m in the hyper stage of meta cognition.

[00:45:38.71] spk_4:
It’s such a good point. Tony. Yes, absolutely. We can, I would say over use our strength sometimes to the effect that it prevents us sometimes from calling on another one of our executive skills. I too can get really into meta cognition. Um Reflecting on how I’m doing, wanting to do better such that it actually causes me to slow down on the next bucket, which is how we get things done. Um So my ability to reflect on how things have gone prevents me from getting started on something else. And so I have to be aware of that, that even though it’s my strength, it can get in the way of another executive skill. It’s starting to feel like a

[00:45:52.60] spk_0:
therapy session. You know, there’s no fee involved said that immediately. Um Alright, our third or third skill

[00:46:22.33] spk_4:
bucket, the third bucket is how we get things done. This is moving from planning, from reacting and into implementation. And how we get things done includes sustained attention, task initiation, working memory and the one that you working memory, you’re gonna learn y’all. That working memory is my, is my executive skills struggle. There was something

[00:46:30.31] spk_3:
around like um physical mapping. It was like a mental version of organization.

[00:46:37.02] spk_4:
I’m sorry everyone.

[00:46:49.89] spk_0:
I’m not, most folks probably not counting but okay. So we have 11 and if it occurs to you just blurt out, this is not profit radio, it’s totally casual. All right. Um Almost to the state of anarchy sometimes.

[00:46:56.95] spk_4:
Okay.

[00:46:57.73] spk_0:
We, I feel like we should honor that one since we gave a short shrift. So let’s just do a little explanation. Explanation of what goal directed.

[00:47:08.55] spk_4:
Alright. Goal directed persistence,

[00:47:11.84] spk_0:
short term memory,

[00:47:13.76] spk_4:
working memory and I might share some executive skills, strengths and struggles. And this is actually really good for us to know in our working relationship.

[00:47:27.30] spk_0:
Goal

[00:47:34.95] spk_4:
directed persistence is, well, let me ask you if you have ever set a New Year’s resolution. No, I’m not too big on

[00:47:41.82] spk_0:
resolutions. No, I’m not. I mean, ever, yeah, when I was much younger, but I just, I don’t know, I just, I just get things done or I try to just make change like I’ll work out more common, you know, or I’ll whatever take more free time is another good one. But I’m not in the past probably 10 years or so. I’m not too big on New Year’s

[00:49:00.62] spk_4:
resolutions. Okay. I think that’s, that’s interesting. I’d like to talk with you and, like, learn more about how you enact those, those. Okay. I feel like I’m pretty good following through. So I struck with goal directed persistence in that. I’m really excited about planning and organizing and putting into like an idea, a goal that I have and then I met a cog on it. I reflect on how it’s going. Um And I can sometimes get um I lose the momentum and I think many people who have started a big goal at the beginning of the year, a big work goal, a big personal goal where I will, can I identify with this, that the persistence piece of your goal can be a struggle, especially over the long haul, especially when there’s environments that are maybe stressful or you’re tired or other things are kind of maybe having you shift your priority or that kind of motivation for that goal. And goal directed persistence is the ability to really sit down, put your head down and persist with passion and grit towards that long term goal. All right, you can see why some of these skills are really important in the nonprofit space when we talk about persistence and passion, which is great towards a long term term goal, what we’re doing in the nonprofit space to have an impact really does require goal directed persistence. Alright.

[00:49:38.66] spk_0:
So we’ve identified these 12. Um How do we, should we identify the, that you Scott? You said neither one is good nor bad, but there’s a spectrum of, I guess performance for each, for each one. All right. Um What’s our next step toward helping? I use these 12 to achieve our goals?

[00:50:03.08] spk_3:
Well, we’ve, we’ve kind of started already on the first step, which is identifying for ourselves, what are our strengths and weaknesses? And so there’s usually an evaluation process and and there’s not like this is my one good one and this is my one bad one. Again, we all have these skills to a certain level of capacity. So really being able to clearly identify like what are my top three or four strengths and what are the three or four things that I struggle with the most and getting really clear on what that means for you, right? And then you know, task initiation or time management can show up in different ways for different people, both as strength or as struggles. Oh,

[00:50:38.87] spk_0:
so the spectrum is the same for all 12. Strengthen struggle. Yes. Okay. Same spectrum. Alright. Alright. Um So at these places where the resources are but new moms and the other one, the library, the E F works library, there are I guess self tests, self assessments for you to identify your three or four top as you said, Sky and three or four or three or four. That your strengths and your struggle, I don’t want to top and bottom. It doesn’t sound like strength and struggle. Right. Okay.

[00:52:28.16] spk_4:
Yeah. So it’s important that everybody assesses their own executive skills rather than somebody else assessing somebody else’s executive skills, at least for adults. Um I should note that the executive skills, you know, the research, executive skills or executive function really comes from the, the neuroscience research around um A D H D and some of the methodology for supporting people who are neurodivergent and in setting and achieving the goals that they have for themselves and their families. And so a lot of the research, we’ve been able to adapt um new moms for our programming part participants as well as for our staff. Um no matter, you know, if they have um if they are, you know, neuro diverse or not. And so there’s a lot of neuroscience research that backs this up as well. And it’s really also important to know that everybody’s executive skills are normal for their early life experiences, their current circumstances, their resources that they have. And so we really encourage folks not to judge themselves for their strengths and struggles of executive skills and not to judge other people for their skills. Because again, everybody has them and the ones that you have are normal, they show up as behaviors and the behavior is where we like to kind of focus in our support for our colleagues and participants. And that’s really moving from the knowledge that we just talked about executive skills, knowledge, understanding my own understanding, my colleagues and moving into practice. Now, what can I do about it is understanding the behaviors that result from the skills

[00:52:36.00] spk_0:
and that’s gonna vary for obviously, that’s gonna vary for all the 12 skills. Okay. Um In your session, you had your session already

[00:52:44.50] spk_4:
this afternoon,

[00:52:45.05] spk_0:
this afternoon. Oh, this is a great,

[00:52:46.92] spk_4:
okay. Alright. Goal directed persistence carried

[00:52:56.53] spk_0:
away, carried away with. No, we’re not getting carried away. That’s what the topic is. Um You’re going to have our folks gonna take a self assessment in the in the session so they can walk away knowing what their strengths and struggles are. They’ll

[00:53:04.55] spk_4:
do is they’ll do an abbreviated self assessment and then they’ll have the link to the executive skills self assessment which your listeners can take as well. Um And they can do that. It takes about six minutes um to do that and you get an email with your executive skills, strengths and your struggles and the definitions of all 12 that we just went through today. Okay.

[00:53:42.64] spk_0:
What else can we help listeners with in this uh podcast format? Given that we don’t know there’s 13,000 people. So I don’t know, are they’re general generalizations or like trends that you could talk about? Like maybe most people are strong in one or struggling another since we, we don’t have our audience. I’m certainly channeling them, but we don’t have them before us. How can we help our

[00:54:21.72] spk_3:
listeners? I think one of the best things to think about with the executive functions, executive skills is to think about the rightness of fit of what you do. And so if you think about your job, whatever your job duties are the tasks that you are responsible for or how you have to interact with other people. Identifying how well your strengths support those responsibilities and ways that the things that are your struggles may inhibit your ability to perform at your best. And this can be really challenging. Again, especially in the nonprofit space where folks are wearing so many different hats, you might have very, very different responsibilities over the course of a day or a week. And so identifying what your strengths are knowing how they show up in your life as behaviors. And then also reconciling that with the work that you do in the way that you do it to help move those responsibilities and your strengths closer together.

[00:55:28.69] spk_4:
Can I give you an example? Absolutely. So I’ll share kind of how we encourage our staff at new moms to learn about share and then um apply their executive skills in the way that sky is talking about my executive skills, strengths, our time or excuse me, my executive skills, strengths are organization, meta cognition and my executive skills struggles. Our time management task initiation and working memory. And so what I know is when I’m planning a project, I’m really good at getting things organized. I’m really good at mapping it out on a calendar. I struggle with the actually doing of the thing. My job requires the doing of the thing. And I supervised strategy. You’re

[00:55:34.99] spk_0:
learning and innovation. Exactly. You need to be actually innovating. Exactly. Just planning for innovation.

[00:57:13.09] spk_4:
So, um exactly. So we can’t just plan, we’ve got to do. And so my, my colleagues, my peers, my boss, Sky knows that I struggle with task initiation. And so knowing this about me, what can they do to help? Maybe put a reminder on a calendar invite that they have. So it sends me a notification. This is coming. What can I do to know that task initiation might trip me up. And so I need to have a use a piece of technology that helps me get started or I need to use the five second rule to get me started. It’s really understanding how our executive skills struggles for me of task initiation gets in the way of one of my key responsibilities in my job and how that doesn’t hinder my ability to perform in my job because Sky knows and can help me with my struggle. My peers know and I know there’s as well as their strengths. And so I can say Sky, you’re really good at task initiation. Can you help me with this So you’re unabashed about sharing. Absolutely. We encourage that we have a list all 70 staff members and new moms. Um take the executive skills questionnaire, all 400 of our participants and take the executive skills questionnaire and everybody shares their strengths and struggles. So it’s a common language that reduces self judgment and judgment of other people. Because again, executive skills are normal for our early experiences, our current resources, states of stress or environments of stress that we might be in. And so the shared language, the shared understanding of what we can do um to support one another with executive skills struggles, helps us work better together. So Sky and I have been able to work better together because we’ve known each other’s executive skills.

[00:57:30.58] spk_0:
What’s the five second

[00:57:31.68] spk_4:
rule? Five, second rule is if I think of something that I should do and it takes me less than two minutes to do it, I do it right then and I have five seconds to get started. So if I’m like the one

[00:58:11.02] spk_0:
that, that’s the one that you and I share the uh which one was the being in the moment, the one about being in the moment, evaluating yourself in the moment, better cognition, right? Thinking that’s okay if it takes fewer than two minutes and you get started within five seconds, like I could go move the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Otherwise it’s going to sit in the washer overnight. Because the buzzer went off 20 minutes ago and I just now thought about it, um, again and if I don’t do it now I’m afraid I may not remember until it turns to mildew in the washing. That never gets that bad. But I’m a pretty good housekeeper. Things don’t get that. I don’t have military clothes. Let’s just, that was a

[00:58:27.61] spk_4:
joke that I could do

[00:58:31.43] spk_0:
that in two minutes. I could just knock it off. Now. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s very reassuring to know. I don’t have to deal with that

[00:58:58.90] spk_3:
anymore. Well, and if you think about it in the context of like working memory, um, our brains don’t actually work like computers where we can like plug in additional memory, right? We have a limited capacity of what we can hold in our mind at any given point in time. And if you have to do list as long as your arm and you’re looking at your to do list and you think, okay. Yeah, I need to do all of these things, but you don’t actually ever get started on any of them and you’re thinking about it, maybe you’re planning it, it’s taking up more and more mental bandwidth. But if you look at something on your list, you’re like, oh, I need to send the minutes from this last meeting to this group. The minutes are already written in type. I just need to send them and you just go 54321, you open up your inbox, you start typing the message and you click send and now that’s done. Now that’s out. You don’t have to hold it in your working memory anymore.

[00:59:42.30] spk_0:
Calendar is a, is a big one for me. I remember that I gotta have a calendar. A reminder to see. Trigger. Did I hear from someone who I just emailed or I emailed yesterday and I forgot to put it in the calendar. I think if I, if I don’t know if I don’t do it, I don’t hear from the person now. You know, I’ve lost an opportunity or, you know, whatever it is that you’re supposed to follow up on me with supposed to follow up with me on uh, so calendar is one that you just get it done. All right. So it takes less than two minutes to do it within five, start within five seconds. You can do it within two minutes and still more bad way because

[00:59:52.34] spk_3:
if you take longer than five seconds, then your medic cognition is going to start thinking in and you’re gonna be like, oh, well, I also need to do this and I have to remember to do this and you’re gonna get completely distracted by it. Yeah, that happens.

[01:00:05.60] spk_0:
Right. Right. There’s another one too, there’s another reminder that the email reminders, the follow up reminder, triggers a reminder that I got to send an email to somebody else and then I have to calendar the follow up to that. It

[01:01:19.12] spk_4:
does cascades, cascades and you can see how it impacts working relationships and um you know, individual and workplace goals, something that you’re doing naturally, which happens when people explore executive skills, they identify, this comes naturally to me. I’m good. This is strong for me and I can see where this shows up and what you’re doing. Dhoni is identifying how this shows up as a behavior, how this shows up in your daily life, in your work life and in a working relationship, this gives us an opportunity to talk about what we call environmental modifications. What you’re talking about with the calendar being helpful for you is an environmental modification and environmental modifications are the tasks, technology adjustments to process or policies, individuals around us that help to modify the environment to make it easier for us to use our executive skills, strengths and to mitigate our struggles. So like using your calendar for reminders for what’s coming up next is a great environmental modification. Um We have a whole list of suggested environmental modifications that are affiliated with each executive skill. So for example, if I struggle with time management and time estimation, what environmental modification can I do for myself? What can my colleagues do to support me knowing that that’s going to get in the way,

[01:01:38.11] spk_0:
just add two days to every estimate?

[01:02:43.47] spk_4:
Exactly. Exactly. Or for example, um you know, I might be working with a colleague that struggles with time management and I might say, you know, colleague, um I think this should only take about 30 minutes, give them some, some sense of how long that might take. Otherwise, maybe they’ll take five hours on it. Right. So to help one another, using environmental modifications is one of the steps to help leverage executive skills to achieve our goals. Because if we don’t modify the environment and we set a goal that requires us to use our executive skills struggle, it is hard to achieve that goal. It is harder. We might self judge, we might tell ourselves false stories about things that we can or can’t do. It’s really about what small tweaks can we do to our, our work to our process, to our technology. What systemic environmental modifications can we do to reduce barriers to people’s goals? There’s a whole other conversation about equity here. Um That really is incumbent on people in the workplace to, to adapt and modify the environment, to support their goal achievement and to support their colleagues goal achievement as well.

[01:02:54.94] spk_0:
New moms sounds like a pretty high functioning team.

[01:02:58.22] spk_4:
I’d like to think

[01:02:58.79] spk_0:
so. Yeah, high functioning place to work. We

[01:03:00.89] spk_4:
are. Congratulations. Thanks. We’re celebrating 40 years this

[01:03:03.73] spk_0:
year. What can you say briefly what the work of new moms

[01:03:20.43] spk_4:
is? Yeah, new moms engages and partners with young moms under 24 years old as they are setting and progressing towards goals of housing stability, family well being and economic mobility. So where in Chicago, in the Chicago suburbs? Alright,

[01:03:29.63] spk_0:
we’re not done. I just uh sounds like a very uh impressive team, high functioning. You mentioned that there’s an equity side to this in terms of the resources, the processes that we put in place to help individuals and teams. Let’s let’s spend some time talking about the equity side of

[01:03:42.11] spk_4:
this. Um You’re welcome

[01:03:44.02] spk_3:
to, I’ll.

[01:07:16.71] spk_4:
Okay, great. Okay. So executive skills, the way that new moms came to executive skills is really um by learning about the brain science about executive skills in our job training program, we have a job training program for young moms. And in 2016, we were introduced to the idea of executive skills were not familiar with it. And where what we really understood was this is about shifting our human service programming, our job training programming from what we as the program, designers and administrators feel should be the program goals to what the goals are for the young moms in our program and shifting to be participant centered in goals. Really had us think about how do we help and support young moms who are experiencing scarcity. Leverage is leverage the strengths that they already have to achieve those goals. And what are the barriers getting in the way of those goals? And when we started to think about the strengths and expertise and skills that they come to our programs with learned about executive skills, learned about executive skills development in adolescents, which is the population that we work with. We realized that we had really missed the whole foundation of programming, which is understanding brain development and designing our programming based on adolescent brain development and executive skills. So when we shifted our programming to really focus first on executive skills, young moms learn about executive skills. They take the executive skills, self assessment, they identify their strengths and that’s where our program focuses on their strengths, what we can do to leverage their strengths no matter their situation and focus on their goals. First and foremost, before our program goals or a funder goal that radically shifted our whole programming design and environment. And we scaled that approach to all of our programming um over the subsequent few years. And so now, rather than a top down um program design, we have much more um partnership focused program design in our housing and family support and job training programs where young moms are setting the goals, we leverage their executive skills, strengths and coaches work with them to mitigate and modify the environmental barry that they may be facing. This could look like giving moms diapers to reduce the source of stress that diapers puts on a mom. So she can focus on a longer term goal and not have to think about diapers, but rather think about graduating from her college program. This could be something like um supporting a mom as she sets a goal for, um, you know, persisting in applying for, you know, a job and leveraging executive skills, mitigating some that might get in the way by giving a transit pass. So she doesn’t have to worry about how she gets to that interview. There are a lot of ways that we can think about modifying the environment in a way that elevates somebody’s individual goals and that brings more equity into their goal progression and goal achievement. And that’s just one slice of the way in which equity um is central to the executive skills approach that we use at new moms. Yeah,

[01:08:10.25] spk_3:
I think outside of the programmatic service piece, another way to look at this is from the team perspective and what I’ve seen in my, my career personally and, and in conversations with other people is a lot of time at performance improvement reviews. There’s a focus on how can I improve the things that I’m not that great at. And the science has shown that it’s a lot harder to move the needle there than it is to continue to strengthen the things that you already have a natural inclination to. And so when you think about looking at your executive skills and your goals, if you’re able to set goals that are designed in such a way that the strengths you already have are able to help and support the progress of that goal. And then the environmental modifications are put in place to minimize the impact of your struggles. You’re much more likely to achieve and make that progress than if you were to say, I’m going to set you up for a goal that is actually in direct conflict with one of your struggles and expect you to in addition to make progress on the goal, also improve this thing that you already struggle with.

[01:09:29.00] spk_4:
That’s so important. I’m so glad you said that. Thank you. It really also gets to the point that we we uphold in that when we are exploring executive skills and using these strategies and coaching ourselves and colleagues and participants in our programs, we are not trying to change somebody’s executive skills. We are holding that you have a range just like I have a range just like everybody has a range of strengths and struggles. And our purpose behind understanding executive skills is leveraging the strengths that you already have and not changing who you are, but rather modifying the environment so that you can better leverage those strengths that shift in language and understanding moves us away from a deficit based perspective to really strength based perspective in human service design, in workplace culture, no matter the organization or the goals of the organization, it

[01:09:40.93] spk_0:
feels like an ideal place to leave us. Is that alright? Alright. We feel like we’ve covered hasn’t been an adequate preparation for your session. This afternoon. All right. All right. They are Dana Emmanuel, Director of Learning and Innovation at New Moms and a lot of the resources that we talked about our at New Moms dot org high functioning team, I believe, sounds like. And also Sky Tyler Solution architect, solutions. Are you both innovation solution doers

[01:10:00.22] spk_3:
doers helping people do the best work better.

[01:10:29.30] spk_0:
Thank you. Sky helping people do their best work better. Awesome solution architect, Sky Tyler at Exponent Partners and the other resource for the for the 12 executive Skills and the self assessment. And I assume the resources to help you and tools for the skills that you’re, you’re on the struggle end of the spectrum with you’ll also find that E F works library dot org. Yes. Okay. We didn’t talk about the resources because they’re all like skill dependent, right?

[01:10:38.29] spk_4:
Okay. Yeah, there’s a lot of resources on executive skills out there.

[01:10:44.33] spk_0:
Okay. New moms dot org and EF works library dot org for all the resources. Thank you very much. Thank you both. Thank you Sky. Thank you for contributing. Thank you for sharing, sharing. Thank you very

[01:10:55.25] spk_4:
much. Thank you

[01:10:57.01] spk_0:
and thank you for being with tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 T C where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us

[01:11:41.53] spk_1:
next week, feasibility studies. What why and how if you missed any part of this week’s show? I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer

[01:11:42.64] spk_0:
is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez

[01:11:52.29] spk_1:
Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stoddard. Thank you for that information, Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95

[01:12:02.46] spk_0:
percent go out

[01:12:03.81] spk_1:
and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for May 29, 2023: Equitable Project Management & Make Time For Professional Development

 

Rubin Singh: Equitable Project Management

An automated soap dispenser. One of the most innocuous objects imaginable. Unless it doesn’t dispense soap to people with dark skin. How does bias find its way into technology projects and hurt outcomes? How can we implement technology through an equity lens? Rubin Singh, from One Tenth Consulting, returns to help us understand.

 

 

Kelenda Allen-JamesMake Time For Professional Development

Kalenda Allen-James explains the value of investing in professional development and shares a lot of free resources along the way. She’s with Commonpoint Queens.

These both continue our coverage of NTEN’s 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, #23NTC.

 

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[00:01:47.10] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with S A trope AEA if I had to see that you missed this week’s show. Equitable project management, an automated soap dispenser. One of the most innocuous objects imaginable unless it doesn’t dispense soap to people with dark skin. How does bias find its way into technology projects and hurt outcomes? How can we implement technology through an equity lens? Reuben Singh from 1/10 consulting returns to help us understand and make time for professional development. Kalinda Alan James explains the value of investing in professional development and shares a lot of free resources along the way. She’s with common point queens. These both continue our coverage of N Ten’s 2023 nonprofit technology conference on Tony’s take two. Sharing is caring. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is equitable project management.

[00:02:12.99] spk_1:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. We’re kicking off our day two coverage with Ruben Sing. We are sponsored at 23 N T C by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Reuben Singh. My guest now is founder and CEO of 1/10 consulting Reuben. Welcome back to non private radio. Thank

[00:02:21.10] spk_2:
you, tony second or third. This is our third time chatting to

[00:02:26.03] spk_1:
virtual. Yes.

[00:02:27.27] spk_2:
Good to meet you in person. Yes, for sure. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure to

[00:02:44.06] spk_1:
have you next to me, your session this year is managing projects with an equity lens. I think that’s pretty self explanatory. But why don’t you give us a 30,000 ft overview of why this is important for nonprofits?

[00:03:41.07] spk_2:
Yeah. You know, I, I feel like throughout my years of consulting, it’s been about 25 years of consulting. Now, I’ve, I’ve encountered some scenarios here and there that, you know, I, I’ve always thought were odd scenarios, you know, in the middle of the project, you know, working with consultants, working with our nonprofits where, you know, maybe something was borderline, discriminate, discriminatory or, you know, something just didn’t feel right. And, you know, I, when I was younger in the, in the consulting space, I didn’t really pay much mind to it. I said, hey, I’m just following, you know, my mentors and following best practices. Um you know, I’m learning the ropes. Um But, you know, as I got further in my career and I started talking to other technologists of color, other consultants. Um and uh and honestly, spaces like this at NTC where we have very frank and open discussion about race and technology and the intersection. It really um I realized a lot of these things, I was encountering these projects. We’re not, we’re not okay. They were problem at and in fact, we were allowing bias race um and uh to, to really seep its way into projects. Um And, and not only is that problematic in a, in a larger sense, but it also does not lead to good outcomes for the projects and the systems themselves. What,

[00:03:57.93] spk_1:
what does this look like? What, what kind of forms does the bias racism

[00:04:18.07] spk_2:
take? Um Well, let me give you an example if that’s OK. Yeah. So, um you know, I was working with one organization that uh you know, had really said that and actually, I was, I was very impressed with them that they had very, a very strong diversity statement, equity statement and they even extended it to their goals. They say, you know, what we’re, we have a lot of volunteers were a volunteer organization, but we um we realize that we don’t have a very diverse volunteer group. So this is going to be not only a statement of ours that we want to diversify our volunteer group, but we also want to, you know, we want to implement that in 20 you know, whatever the year was. Um, and just, what kind of work were they

[00:04:40.98] spk_1:
doing?

[00:04:42.87] spk_2:
Um, well, I mean, I don’t want to get

[00:04:45.46] spk_1:
to general

[00:05:57.20] spk_2:
social service. They, they were grassroots organizing, grassroots organizing. Let’s put it under that kind of, yeah, I mean, they’re great organization. So I’d hate to, um, I’m not asking you. Right. Right. But, but I think, um, the, uh, definitely in the, in the grassroots organizing and um you know, they kind of found that they are um uh you know, that they need to diversify their volunteer base. And I appreciated that not only was it a statement, but they had taken a step further to make it part of their goals for that particular year. But then, you know, statements aside, once we got into the project, we realized that um you know, there were certain, uh there were certain algorithms that were being that were implemented in their volunteer searches that actually filtered out a lot of criteria. So they said, oh, you know what, we, we have so many applicants, we can’t, we can’t screen everybody. So we implement these filters and the filters will, you know, the filter is kind of looking at them. I realize it’s really going to leave you with very privileged resource to people, you know, gets an education, family, education, household income, so on and so forth. And so, you know, we have this dialogue of, you know, if if these are really your goals that you want to diversify and you want different socioeconomic um groupings in your volunteer base, then you really need to reconsider this. And it was just a perfect example of how with all good intentions with great diversity statements. But even something as simple as an as an algorithm in their search um was was really letting bias find its way into the, into the implementation. And

[00:06:32.57] spk_1:
that’s an ideal example because it’s so buried. I mean, most people that may have been developed by a developer or it may have not even been developed in house, you know, some developer from like could been years ago may have created this algorithm unintentionally let’s assume biased and it just, it just perpetuates and nobody even knows that it’s there, it’s buried in code basically

[00:06:53.31] spk_2:
for sure for sure algorithms live. And if I’m a developer and someone comes to me and says we have too many applicants, we need to filter out X Y and Z to make it easier. Well, as a developer oftentimes, I’m thinking, oh how can I make this better? How can I make this more efficient? Um And they don’t really think about it. So, so this is where I think, you know, um I take it upon myself as a consultant to, to really and D I practitioner to, to raise these things because again, these organizations have great intentions. They’re just not always able to bridge the gaps unless it’s called out,

[00:07:16.45] spk_1:
unless it’s called out. Right. So, I mean, if you have something like this very deep, how would you ever discover

[00:08:06.07] spk_2:
it? Yeah, it, and that kind of goes to really the title of the session is, is managing projects with an equity lens. So the key point there is, is not really separating things. So it’s not about okay. Well, we have this diversity statement, let’s all celebrate it. And now let’s move on to our project. It’s really um taking every single part of the project anytime. In fact, when we start projects, now, I will ask for, let me see your diversity statement. Let me even if you know, chances are you may not be reflecting on it a lot. Let’s dust it off, you know, after 2020 and, and let’s take a look at it. Um And, and, and just like we review missions and visions of the organization before a project. I want to review your diversity statement that way I can make sure every step of the way I’m asking these questions because, hey, it’s your statement, it’s a priority for you. So as a, as a um a trusted partner of yours, I should make held you accountable to that.

[00:08:30.49] spk_1:
I’m just, I’m concerned, yeah, I understand we’re talking about managing projects. So from the outset concerned about organizations that have any kind of bias uh coded in somewhere that, that they just, they don’t know that. I know. I understand. We’re digressing from your topic. We got plenty of time. Yeah, we have plenty of time. You know, you’re, I’m forcing you asking you to digress, you know, but this is, this thing is buried somewhere or these things, these biases are buried. Uh, what’s our hope of ever uncovering

[00:09:23.13] spk_2:
them? Well, I mean, I think, um, you know, it’s interesting even in day one of the conference here at N T C I, I attended a couple sessions. Uh and, you know, the, the narratives are the points that I was bringing up was not just coming out of my session, but, you know, I attended a session that spoke about audience and campaigns and, you know, developing um content that’s, you know, that, that resonates with audiences um that are often overlooked. And, and, and so it was interesting because in their discussion, they were bringing up a lot of the same points that I was bringing up. So, um I’m most hopeful because of to be and I swear that intend to not put me to this. But I, I think like organizations like in 10 forums like NTC, um you know, we’re putting things out there and I think that’s what gives me hope more than anything. Um You know, we’re raising

[00:09:41.57] spk_1:
consciousness, 13,000 people are going

[00:09:43.61] spk_2:
to listen. Absolutely. So, so, I mean, if that’s, if that is, that alone gives me, it gives me a lot of hope Okay. Alright, we can

[00:10:10.60] spk_1:
circle back to your your specific topic about managing projects so that we have equity focus equity center from, from the outset. Okay. Um How are you? I’m just going to your like learning objectives, how bias finds its way into tech project? Well, I think we talked about that. It happens. I mean, I think probably do you think it’s usually innocuous?

[00:11:24.04] spk_2:
Yeah, I really do. Um and, and it finds its way and, and then I think it also finds its way through what we often refer to as best practices. Um, you know, if I can give you an example, um through most of my consulting career, we often use personas as a way of trying to understand our constituents. So, you know, Mary is a single mother of two and wants to attend the museum, but, you know, is unable to afford the, the, the, the, the entrance fee or the membership fee. Um And, you know, again, I kind of sat through a lot of these things with, you know, feeling uncomfortable but, you know, thinking it was just me. Um, but then I started doing a little research and I realized I’m definitely not the only problem with personas. Um And the idea of, you know, a group of mostly, you know, white folks are sitting in a room deciding, you know, what they’re black constituents think, um that, that makes me uncomfortable and, and, um to the point where I’ve, I’ve raised this and, and I think that although I think persona mapping is a good exercise and can and does have merit, it can be done without race, ethnicity, gender. Uh You can take a different approach to it. You can use archetypes, you can use different models, let’s say, hey, you know, so and so is a person who’s never been to the museum before? So and so is the person who is very interested in education, but not so much interested in the advocacy work that we do. There’s different ways that we can get at um persona mapping without having to get into race, ethnicity, gender. If, if I mean, personally, I don’t think it’s very useful, but um but at a minimum, it surely would make people uncomfortable.

[00:12:08.53] spk_1:
You know, I’m saying that these are these things maybe are embedded innocuously, but they come from the fact that so many software engineers, developers, coders are now middle aged white guys, right? I mean, so it’s, it’s, it’s their own inherent biases built into the code that we’re all living with

[00:12:31.70] spk_2:
and, and to be fair, tony, I also feel I’m guilty of it as well. I mean, because I went many, most of my career not speaking out against these things and um you know, incorporated into my own style. So I think, you know, while you’re right, I think like, you know, um it’s, it’s, it’s not, it’s also the onus on all folks, technologists of color as well. Um, to make sure we’re raising our hands when we’re seeing something like this. That, that, that feels, that feels wrong. Um, so, but yeah, I feel like I’ve, I’ve perpetuated this, I participated in this and, you know, starting my own company. It was, it was one thing that I felt like. Okay. Well, now that we’re, now that I understand now that I know now that I’ve seen it, you know, what can I do differently? What are some different, different things that we can do to, um, to kind of right the wrongs that, that we’ve seen in the space

[00:12:55.60] spk_1:
we’re gonna talk about how all this impacts outcomes. I do want you to remind folks why your company is called one

[00:13:53.63] spk_2:
10th. Yeah. You know, there’s a couple of plays on it. You know, we, um, uh, in the, in the sick tradition, which I’m from, we, uh, we have this concept of 1/10 of our, of our earnings that we give through either service or through funding to, um, to charity, back to the, back to the community, um, to help those in need to help humanity. And it was interesting that that’s a tradition that, you know, is, you know, I grew up with, but as I started delving into non profit work and, and consulting, I realized that we weren’t the only ones that, that, in fact, most religions actually have the same idea and the same, um, or faith traditions have this idea of this 10%. Exactly. So, so it was just one of those things I thought was, hey, this is a pretty cool thing about, you know, giving our money, investing our money in communities. Um And it’s something that, you know, so many different faith traditions and communities have in common. Um There’s another play on it also that nonprofits are really working with 1/10 of the resources that they, that they need. So, so it, it has sort of a couple different meanings. So let’s,

[00:14:03.69] spk_1:
let’s talk about the outcomes of these biases, impact outcome.

[00:15:22.60] spk_2:
Yeah. Um Well, you know, I was given an example yesterday in the presentation that one of the, the sort of suggestions I had about, you know, seven or eight different suggestions on how we can address these issues of bias and projects. And one of the ones I brought up was making sure that, you know, as you walk into as you day one or kick off of the, of the project implementation that you have the right team that’s ready for you. Um And when I say right, team oftentimes with I T projects I walk in and they’re like, okay, here’s our team, it’s the I T director, it’s super users and it’s all technical folks and, and okay, you know, I see the merit to that. But if this system is really meant to be for everyone that I’d like to see people, they’re of different age, of different technical proficiency, different ethnicities, different race. Um because we all sort of process things a little bit different based on our upbringing and our experiences are shared experiences. Um So make sure your team is more diverse. Um And, you know, I start thinking about where that has not happened. Um You know, and, and you, you’ve probably heard the stories of, you know, where facial recognition and AI can go wrong. But, you know, it’s still to this day where sometimes in a restroom that has automatic soap dispensers, I can put the back of my hand underneath it and it won’t, it won’t dispense soap until I, you know, put the palm of my hand up and it will, um, you know, I think back about when the COVID vaccine was first rolled out, it’s a real thing, are

[00:15:31.80] spk_1:
biased towards white.

[00:16:36.17] spk_2:
It’s a real thing. Yeah. And one thing to think about it. Yeah, but there’s, there’s so many examples of this and a slightly different one and probably something many people can relate to is when the COVID COVID vaccine was, was rolled out. Um You know, I was, I called my parents. I said, hey, did you sign up for it? Did you register for it? I said, oh no, we can’t fill out this form. And I was like wondering what’s going on. So I looked at the form and sure enough, I mean, and granted, this was in the early stages and perhaps it was just where I lived but it was multiple pages, four pages long. Uh, you couldn’t save throughout, it was medical history. It was health insurance. It was, um, all kinds of information that people may not have readily available when they’re signing up for a vaccine. Um, and then the entire time there’s this timer going where in 10 minutes if you don’t finish, you have to start over like you’re buying tickets. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Maybe this is okay for, for, for lots of people, but for the immigrant community or for my parents are in their eighties, it was not working for them. And then sure enough, you go on the news and they say, you know, older folks and, and immigrant communities are not not signing up for the vaccine. So, you know, here me and my friends are calling all our relatives and, you know, signing them up. Um So it was just yet another example where, um you know, and there’s many examples of this but of just how, you know, perhaps if there was different folks involved in the process of testing this out, um you know, different ages of different ethnicities and different communities, maybe there would have been a better response.

[00:17:48.12] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Stop the drop with donor box. Over 50,000 nonprofits in 96 countries use their online donation platform. It’s no wonder, four times faster. Checkout easy payment processing, setup fees, monthly fees, pasha contract. How many punitive donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your website? You can stop the drop donor box helping you help others at donor box dot org. Now back to equitable project management with Reuben

[00:17:55.13] spk_1:
Singh. Anything else about outcomes before we move to to some, some methodology about being better?

[00:18:05.52] spk_2:
Yeah, outcomes. I mean, I think, um I think that’s, that’s a key one.

[00:18:07.49] spk_1:
Don’t hold out on non proper radio. Did your session. So you want to hear everything you shared yesterday?

[00:19:54.50] spk_2:
Yeah, I, I think um you know, another point we brought out was and I think it is tied to outcomes is uh iterative development. And you know, you may think that’s sort of a deep project management, you know, concept what does it have to do with equity. Um But I, I do believe that iterative project management is key because if you do bring together a diverse set of folks for you as your project team, they’re not all gonna be CRM experts or digital communication experts. So you cannot just um hand the project group 350 requirements and say, okay, approve them by the end of the week or disappear for two months and say okay, here’s the system test in a week and let us know if it’s done, it’s just not gonna work it if you want to do things with equity in mind. Um and you’re trying to get a diverse audience. You need very iterative development. You need multiple proof of concepts. You need uh several demos because they may just not understand all the terminology. They may not understand all the nuances until they see things. Um because that’s what’s most related to their day to day job when they can actually see the systems in place. So I can’t tell you, Tony how many times I’ve finished a project, you know, early in my career and, you know, someone will finally come to me and say, you know, I’ve, we finished the project. We’re on budget, we’re on time, we checked all the boxes, we’re all celebrating, but I have no idea how this is gonna work. I have no idea if this is gonna be successful or not and I don’t want anybody to feel that way. So, so that’s something that, you know, I, I believe we need to consult differently. We need to keep equity in mind and we need to, uh you know, really take them along for the ride and if the ride is not working, we, we change paths. Um And I surely do. I’m doing that right now for a project um where it’s like, you know, things are not sticking the way because, you know, this is not what the project team does day to day to design systems. So let’s step back, let’s figure out what’s gonna work for you and then we, we’ll adjust our, our project accordingly.

[00:19:57.37] spk_1:
Our listeners are not tech folks. Um, they’re C E O S fundraisers, board members. What can they on the, essentially your, your clients, the users, what, what can they and some of the main leadership positions, what, what can they do to make a difference around the projects that they’re hiring, they’re hiring other folks like you to

[00:20:21.33] spk_2:
do? Yeah. Well, I think, I think definitely, you know, going back to the assembling the right team and having a diverse uh team that’s there. So the

[00:20:28.18] spk_1:
project contributing match exactly what the

[00:22:15.36] spk_2:
users group. Exactly. Exactly. Um And you know, and the key thing is if you don’t have the expertise in house, it’s okay there, there’s, there’s, you know, uh consultants that can help you with accessibility, there’s consultants that can help you with Human Centered design. I’ve met several of the folks here, you know, over the last couple of days. So if you don’t have that expertise in house, this is where I think management leadership can, can bring in those appropriate people. Um And also, um I was working with one organization that said, well, you know, we don’t know how are, how are local community feels about our museum? Let’s say we’ll go ask them, you know, and it’s a different, it’s a different way of thinking. And so this is where leadership really comes into play to say, okay, well, you know, can we do something externally, can we do surveys? Can we do focus groups? Can we bring the community and understand why they’re not attending? Um But I think a key thing also and this may not be something that folks always think about is requesting the right team from the vendor that you bring in. So just as you want a diverse thoughtful team internally, you want your consultants or vendors that’s coming in to also represent that. Um you know, I was facilitating some vendor selections for a particular implementation on behalf of the client. And then towards the end of the selection process, they said to me, um well, you know, the last two that we met, they were pretty much neck and neck. I, you know, they seem to have the same delivery model, their prices are about the same, but I did notice that only one of them had any people of color or any women on their team that they brought to us to demo, this is the solution and to talk to us about the approach. And that right there shows us they’re more aligned with our values than the other one is. And so this is something I tell my, my peer organizations all the time, like if, if you don’t care about equity university in your projects, your clients will and that’s gonna affect your bottom line. So if nothing else, you know, look at it from that perspective. So, so that’s, that’s something I think leadership management can do is bring the right people internally, bring the right people in externally if need be and, and, and feeling comfortable enough to um to uh to ask for, for the right team. Another element of that is in leadership as you’re bringing in partners, incredibly valuable, excellent.

[00:22:36.37] spk_1:
This is what I mean, this is what the listeners need. They’re not the developers, so more of it, I appreciate it.

[00:22:42.86] spk_2:
Yeah, I’m trying get all riled up when I talk about. This is something I’m so passionate about. Feel free to

[00:22:46.88] spk_1:
use your hands. We’re not, we’re not, you can even be obscene gestures were

[00:24:15.56] spk_2:
not recording video, definitely walking around in yesterday’s session. There’s a lot, a lot of hand movement going on. Um But, you know, one of the points I mentioned yesterday also was his partner in vendor diversity. And, you know, this is something I feel strongly about I happen to serve on the Salesforce partner equality uh committee. Um And this is something I’ve been advocating for for a while that, you know, you have um these great tools that allow you to search for different partners. But why can’t we have filters on that to say I’m looking for a system implementer that is run by a person of color or someone from the L G B T Q I A community or from the indigenous community or whatever. Um And we should we know the information. So why we’ve been taking surveys for decades and we’ve identified that there’s a problem with diversity. Well, why not give the customers a choice, why not allow them to apply some filters to say, you know what, this is part of our goals to, to bring in more vendors of color, um or, or owned by, by vendors of color. So, so let’s uh so let’s uh make that a priority, but we have to give them the information. Um So this is something I encourage folks even when I’m asked. Um Okay, Ruben, you know, you’re, you focus on this particular area, but, you know, for digital communications, can you recommend someone? I will make sure in any 23 people that I recommend that one of them will represent a community that is often overlooked in this nonprofit technology space and give them the choice and tell them that and give them the choice. Um Yeah, you can work with this person that we’ve, we’ve worked with for a long time or here’s the advantages of working with, with, with this organization. And I think, you know, by us taking that initiative, you know, um and by leadership asking for it, we’re going to slowly start, you know, adjusting that, that, that power dynamic and creating more balance in the space

[00:24:59.02] spk_1:
so much of it. I think it’s just, it’s consciousness thinking about your software development projects, your, your, your new CRM, your new HR system, you know, whatever it is uh thinking about being thoughtful about the vendors that you talked to, perhaps the consultants that you hired to help you select a vendor. Because that um that’s, that’s an important step in the process of actually implementing, you know, choosing, choosing one is who’s helping you to choose.

[00:25:14.68] spk_2:
And I think that um you know, I get a lot of pushback when I bring this up, they say, oh, well, you know, uh you know, account execs, they have their relationships with people so they, they bring in their, their, their person, you know, they bring in their vendor, they bring in their partner, they bring in the person and there’s no real regulation over that. Um, and, um, you know, you take these larger software companies and they kind of leave it to the discretion of the account executive to make their decisions on, you know, what partners they bring in and frankly, you know, I, I, I work with organizations but this is where the client can say, client can

[00:25:43.46] spk_1:
say something. I’d like some choices, not just your, your preferred. Yeah, I’d like some choices and I want at least one to be a woman owned business or

[00:26:12.63] spk_2:
100% 100% because these preferred partners are not always the best and I speak firsthand. I’ve had undo a lot of messes from these preferred partners and I’d say that, um, and when I sit and talk to other partners, um, you know, uh, where that our partner organizations that are women owned or owned by people of color, they say, yeah, you know, we feel left out of this mix because we all know that if you just leave it to discretion, um that is as we’ve seen, you know, throughout history, that’s where privilege, race and racism and bias, you know, end up being the default.

[00:26:21.68] spk_1:
The cynic in me questions questions, why are these folks are preferred partners? What kind of preferences are they giving? Uh Okay,

[00:26:30.17] spk_2:
I’m, I’m

[00:26:39.84] spk_1:
purely speculating, but you know, the way you’re describing it, the preference seems to not be based on uh talent and, and positive

[00:27:29.55] spk_2:
outcome, not, not from what I’ve seen. And I think, you know, our company is an example of that, you know, we, we are often left out of the, you know, the big marketing efforts. Um you know, and, and um but, you know, when we work with organizations, um our business has been 100% referral after that. Um And, and because we, we are mindful of all these things, we, you know, we have a decent success rate. And so, um and so our business has been 100% referral based after that. We’ve stopped advertising, stop marketing, stop all of that. And, and we often find ourselves um uh being connected with other nonprofits that serve communities of color um because they’re like, hey, you know, just the fact that you’re thinking about these things, uh we are, our experiences are different and the fact that you can even recognize that, you know, we want to work with you. Um So, so, and we’ve been very grateful for that and, and, and, you know, take that very seriously when organizations come to us with that kind of approach,

[00:27:37.40] spk_1:
is there anything else you can recommend for our listeners on the, on the client side that, that they can do, You

[00:29:49.46] spk_2:
know, there’s, there’s probably a couple other things that, that I think are important, things like a project charter, which may seem um, well, everyone has a project charter or that’s really just a very, what’s the charter? It’s um it’s kind of like at the very beginning of the project, it outlines kind of who’s who, what the goals are, um how decisions will be made, um you know, the frequency of meetings who are the stakeholders. So it’s kind of like defines bylaws. That’s great. That’s a great way. Exactly. Exactly. And it’s, it’s always recommended that, you know, the project Management Institute recommends project charters has all kinds of templates for it. But I will say that, you know, practitioners don’t always invest a lot of time in it. It feels like an unnecessary step. Um I in the past have not spent a ton of time with it. But when I started looking at things through an equity lens, I said, you know what, this is really important. If nothing else, um definitely the stakeholders part in the decision making process because if we leave, um unless we have very clear ways where decisions are made, oftentimes, it can end up being the most influential person in the room, the loudest male voice in the room is going to sway the decision one way or another or, you know, a lot of sort of um uh you know, nice talk is happening in the larger meeting and then the executives go on a separate meeting to make it, you know, the real decision. Um And so like, you know, a good charter can help avoid these things and say, hey, look, you know, as a project team, we trust each other. So if there’s a executive decision it needs to be made, we’re gonna make it in the group, you know, at least everyone should be listening to it, everyone should be here for it. Um So I think a clear project charter, something very tangible that folks can do. I think having very clear meeting norms. Um and, you know, meeting norms are very common thing, you know, how we start the meeting, how we end the meeting, you know, who takes notes on and so forth. But I think looking at that from an equity lens, um uh is very important also. So making sure that, you know, the person who is leading the meeting or taking the notes or advising that those roles rotate. Um So again, we’re not leaving, we’re not letting decisions be made strictly through the power dynamic. We’re, we’re allowing everybody to participate equally. So if we allow people to participate equally, the outcomes are likely to be more equitable. Um So even something as simple that, you know, many project managers do charters and norms, you know, it’s just about looking at it through an equity lens uh and tweaking those charters and norms accordingly. Okay.

[00:30:03.00] spk_1:
Have we exhausted that? I think

[00:30:04.47] spk_2:
so. I think so. I think so. Yeah, very good.

[00:30:07.33] spk_1:
All valuable. Um What kind of questions did you get? Anything? Uh stick with you from your, from your session,

[00:32:11.78] spk_2:
you know. Um Yes. Uh There was a couple of questions that um one of the questions which I really had to think about was, well, you know, our organization um does projects with an agile approach and that is our, you know, that is our methodology and that is what we promote that as part of our marketing. That’s what we do. And um and then, you know, they said to me, you know, to the group that we’re also finding it’s not working for nonprofits. And I think there’s an equity, you know, foundation to this as well. And, you know, a lot of nodding heads in the, in the audience. And um and this is where I kind of said, well, you’re right, you know, and, and this is where we need to meet the nonprofits where they are. Um, and this is where the extension models or some of the more popular consulting models are just not, not going to fit nonprofits, organizations that may have a light I T staff or no I T staff or you have an event coordinator who’s gonna be your project manager, um, or, you know, a program manager who is going to be your primary contact. You can’t just use the same models as you would with an organization that had 20 people in I T um or an organization, you know, like I work with that, you know, um we’re midway through an implementation and then they said, you know, the governor of Texas just dropped off, you know, 200 people to our, um to our community center and we don’t, we have no plan for them right now. So, okay, we have to take a couple weeks off or, you know, this gala, you know, was, was, um was in person and now we’re gonna have to go virtual. Okay, we’re gonna take a couple weeks off. So most consulting models and especially agile methodologies can’t support this. But this is the reality of nonprofits in 2023. So it was a great question. A lot of nodding heads. In fact, someone came up to me afterwards and said, this is the third time I’ve heard someone say, you know, model X does not work for nonprofits. So, so I think, um that question was great. And it really, um you know, highlighted the point of, you know, kind of how important these forums are um to start realizing that, you know, the tried and true methods, the models that have worked for other corporations. That’s great. We can learn from it. But um nonprofits are a different entity and we have to take that into account and that’s for the

[00:32:23.72] spk_1:
vendor consultant uh community to be.

[00:33:25.96] spk_2:
Right. Right. And, and also sure and also for the client to, to speak up when, when they feel like things are not going, you know, you know, things are going awry or things are not feeling comfortable. So I think it’s, it’s, it’s on both. Yeah. Um There were other questions that I, I really didn’t have an answer for like, okay, but, but they were excellent questions nonetheless. It was, it was like, um okay. So let’s say that you do approach things with an equity lens. How do you, once the project is over? It was an excellent question. How do you know you succeeded? How do you know that, you know, you, you, how do you measure this? And I didn’t have a great answer for that. And in fact said, you know, I want to think about this and because I think there can be a rubric that can be put together to say, you know, even just the things that we’ve talked about today. Um Did we assemble a team that is diverse. Did we rotate the roles in the meeting norms? Did we make clear decision making details in our project charter? So I think there is a rubric that could be put together. In fact, I’m gonna talk to some of my friends here in the, in the intent community to see if that’s something we can, uh you know, we can draft because, because it feels like something that, that this forum can really add value to

[00:33:31.91] spk_1:
it. And what about comparison of outcomes, maybe a year after implementation versus the year before implementation?

[00:33:38.21] spk_2:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I mean, I think all these things can be measured. You know, it’s, it’s just a matter of just coming up with the right rubric or the right scorecard, we measure everything else. Why not measure this? Yeah,

[00:34:01.15] spk_1:
sounds good. You know, it, if you ever are at a loss for an example of where bias and discrimination have entered our culture for folks of color, think of that freaking soap. That’s, it’s, you know, it’s so insidious and so deep rooted yet it’s a soap dispenser. It’s on its face, it’s so innocuous, it just pushes out.

[00:34:19.72] spk_0:
But the

[00:34:21.50] spk_1:
bias built into that technology, that’s

[00:34:31.16] spk_2:
a striking one for me. And there’s so many of this. And if I, if I may highlight the work of Benjamin who um who does has an excellent book called Race After Technology and many books on the same topic that just kind of talks about the intersection of race and technology and so many more examples of this that are, that are so shocking when, when you, when you read about this, about the bias that encourage the technology that we use every single day,

[00:35:03.44] spk_1:
Reuben Singh, he’s founder and CEO at 1/10. Consulting Rubin. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me, tony. Thanks for your honesty. Thanks for sharing. Thank you, appreciate it. And thank you for being with tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 20. Uh where are we? 2023 2023 the nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks so much for being with me.

[00:36:22.72] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two to sharing is caring. Who can you share non profit radio with friends, colleagues, people you used to be friends with, well know people used to be colleagues with. Yeah, uh your social channels possible for you to post on the show there. Certainly, if you tag me, I will give you a shout out. Might even make you listen over the week. I’d be grateful if you would think about who should be listening to non profit radio, who can benefit from our smart guests. That’s what it’s all about. It’s spreading the words, the wisdom of our savvy guests so that more nonprofits go out and be great. If you can share non profit radio, I’d be grateful. Thank you. That is tony Stick to, we’ve got Boo koo but loads more time, the boo koo is back here is make time for professional development.

[00:36:58.30] spk_1:
Welcome to our continuing coverage of 23 N T C the 2023 nonprofit technology conference. We’re at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits with me now is Kalinda Alan James. She is assistant vice President, Information Technology at a common point. Queens Kalinda, welcome.

[00:37:05.39] spk_3:
Thank you for having me. And I

[00:37:07.33] spk_1:
should have asked you, what are your pronouns? She

[00:37:10.46] spk_3:
her? Okay.

[00:37:30.01] spk_1:
She was good. I got, I got lucky. But I, I got to ask in the beginning, this was, this worked out perfectly because I have such a smart social manager who was organizing all these appointments and someone couldn’t make it. And Kalinda was on the wait list and it worked out perfectly that she’s available. So thank you. It’s kind of last minute, but it is last minute, but it’s perfect. Glad you glad it worked out

[00:37:33.04] spk_3:
with technology we worked with last

[00:37:46.76] spk_1:
minute. Yes. As long as the people are, the people are they’re ready for us to. Um So your session topic is making time for professional development. Do you feel like we are short changing ourselves and others around professional development in the nonprofit space? Yes,

[00:37:56.07] spk_3:
we are tasked with learning new things all the time, but we’re not always given the time or the resources to learn those things.

[00:38:06.72] spk_1:
So we need, it sounds like something from the top, from the top down, leadership down needs to be committed.

[00:38:35.02] spk_3:
So you can top down leadership will make it a much faster process. But from the ground level up also works. Um for example, pre pandemic, I was working in middle school technology three years before the pandemic, I became a Google, certified educator and trainer. When I put this information in the file cabinet at hr they were like, that’s nice to know. But once the pandemic came upon us and we had to move all our students online in three days. Having that information in the file cabinet allowed me to become a linchpin for my company.

[00:38:54.23] spk_1:
So let’s not, let’s not take this learning and stick it on a shelf in a file cabinet,

[00:39:23.54] spk_3:
right? And so this is where when you do get the learning, you have to advertise it. If you’re doing it from the ground up and going into the break room during staff meetings, letting people know that I’m a Google certified trainer allowed me to pick up two or three teachers on the staff who didn’t necessarily have leadership support but were interested and I was able to do internal training. And so this groundwork movement that I started three years before pandemic really prepared my environment to be ready when the time was upon us. Alright, love

[00:39:43.67] spk_1:
it ground up as well. Alright. It’ll but it’ll be easier if it’s top down. Yes. Okay. But not to, not to be discouraged if your leadership is uh I don’t know, reluctant. Yes.

[00:40:05.65] spk_3:
And even at the mid level, you know, with my staff, I have a lot of all my staff members to put two hours of professional development on their weekly work calendar to let them know that, hey, we’re giving you resources during the workday. So we’re not adding a burden to your home life. I also have the same two hours on my work calendar. So they know I have focused time. So I am leading by example. And also now that I am a leader in my organization, I am providing the resource of at least the two hours on the weekly calendar for professional development, which

[00:40:52.82] spk_1:
is a perfect lead into your first takeaway, which is we have time for professional development. Yes. So make the time. I mean, a lot of times, you know, you hear is an excuse of what could be for anything, not only professional development, you know, I can’t find the time and I always try to push back that you’re never gonna find the time you’re going to have to make it. So that’s exactly consistent with what you’re saying, two hours a week on your own schedule, as well as two hours a week on, on the schedule for everyone who works for you devoted to professional development.

[00:41:21.41] spk_3:
And that time is flexible like some of my workers are reading leadership books. Some of my workers are doing independent trailheads on sales force. Other people are like reinforcing things that they’ve been practicing on the job. Other people are collaborating with other people on the team who now have time on their calendar for collaboration. So, but just making the time, let the desired outcome have a place to flourish.

[00:41:29.11] spk_1:
What if we get um pushback from above? I mean, maybe they’re just not, not just reluctant but unwilling to let someone devote an hour a week or two hours a week to professional development. What are, what are like? I don’t know. Are there some talking points? We

[00:42:04.88] spk_3:
can? Yes, so we can start with the economics. Okay. If we have to send somebody to away training with airplanes and hotel rooms for one person to go or we can use the built in salary time to keep people in house and learning as a cost savings. It’s thousands of dollars.

[00:42:14.76] spk_1:
Okay. Very good. Right. Travel, accommodations, conference fees, etcetera. Okay. Okay. Um, anything else any other way to push back against our unwilling? See, sweet person

[00:42:45.26] spk_3:
also when we are doing in house development, we are more likely to align our training with what’s happening on the ground with our company. When we’re on the ground floor, we’re literally looking at improvements that we’re seeing every day in the company. Sometimes when we go away for the conferences, we get the big ideas and try to have to retrofit them to what our culture is. And so this way, if we start with the training internally, the learning is built around our culture. That

[00:43:30.47] spk_1:
makes perfect sense. Yeah. And it’s also going to be built around what we’re engaged in because we’re doing it weekly. So I guess we’re more likely to look for development that is consistent with what we’re maybe challenged with, you know, this month, this week or this month or this quarter. Versus as you said, putting the putting the broad strokes from a conference, you know, trying to squeeze your work into it. Okay, perfect. So um anything else you want to share about having, having time making time? So

[00:44:25.19] spk_3:
even in our personal life, because not all professional development is going to the job, sometimes that professional development is going for you to improve your confidence, to improve your skill level, to make you more dynamic for the dynamic job market. You know, and with that case, when we look at our entertainment time, let’s make sure that our entertainment is actually filling us up, there’s a lot of negative television. And so if your entertainment is not filled and you up maybe take one of those one hours from Netflix and chill and put into some professional development um during the pandemic with all the turmoil, one of the things I did when I couldn’t sleep at night was going to Microsoft Learn and just the raw technical documentation. Calm my mind. Let me know things were okay and I learned so much afterwards.

[00:45:00.73] spk_1:
Okay. Use your time wisely. Uh listeners. You may hear the nonprofit technology conference. It’s the opening keynote. There’s a lot of, a lot of audience raucousness in the background. But uh non profit radio perseveres nonetheless, just letting you know what you’re hearing in the background, we’re all on the exhibit floor together along with the uh the, the keynote audience this morning. Um Kalinda, let’s talk about um free resources. I love having free resources for listeners.

[00:45:34.94] spk_3:
Yes. So when I was getting my master’s degree in my small New York family apartment, I didn’t have a desk. So I used the ironing board and I got a whole master’s degree with a four point oh G P A from an ironing board. We must not be discouraged if we don’t have the latest greatest resources, what we have can get us very far. When my arning board was up, my family knew I was in study time and they left me alone when the iron board was down. It was family time resources that I got was

[00:45:43.14] spk_1:
able to. Were you able to fit a chair into your ironing board or you did your studying standing?

[00:46:37.46] spk_3:
So it was a standing desk at times and I did have a folding chair from the card table. And um free resources I used, I Lincoln learning is being offered by a lot of public libraries with your local library card. Once you register with your library card, you get the full breath of Lincoln learning and with the registration, your certificates for completion will have your name on it, which can be used as continuing education at your job. Another free resource is the library. My local library is the children’s library, but they do take book orders so I can look at the full library catalog and have technical books shipped to my children’s library for me to pick them up. Other free resources are um

[00:46:41.70] spk_1:
that’s a great one. By the way, I think, I think a lot of folks have forgotten about their local library.

[00:47:16.00] spk_3:
Yes. And many libraries have a complete schedule on their website, offering different hands on trainings for computer skills, resume writing and you can go to many of these free things and all is needed is your library membership. Other free resources that I have used is many of the major manufacturers like salesforce linkedin Google have a very robust free training for their technology on their website. Many of those websites do have a badge system. So if you would like to do metrics for your employees as a recommendation, you could do like oh in this time period, I want you to have 500 badges or 500 points. So there is still a way to track the free learning.

[00:47:33.90] spk_1:
Okay. Any other free resources,

[00:47:48.09] spk_3:
other free resources is when you’re on your manufacturer website for different skills. Um Places like Microsoft Google Salesforce, they offer challenges. If you can do a certain amount of self paced learning in a certain time, you will receive a free voucher to take their certification exam. And during the pandemic, I was able to become Salesforce certified for a grand total of $45 by using one of these challenges.

[00:48:09.94] spk_1:
What about the linkedin learning? What kind of topics can folks find their around professional development?

[00:49:03.14] spk_3:
So linkedin Learning has an amazing breath of information. They have products like learn Adobe Photoshop, they do have professional management skills like time management um leading from the top, they have different introductory course work on cloud computing and you get interesting information on the breath of the subject to see if you’re interested in the topic before you invest. So linkedin Learning is a great way to get um uh 11 distinct skill or to learn the breath of a topic to see if you would like to go for a more formalized information in that topic. So this way you can go and do five training videos on cloud computing before you sign up for a graduate certificate.

[00:49:12.11] spk_1:
Okay? And all free, all free. So when you said invest, invest time, yes,

[00:49:43.58] spk_3:
we’re investing time. So the first thing we can do that’s available to everybody is we invest the time and then we’ll invest the minimum resources. You can become a Google certified educator for $15 you know. And so there are entryways into technology and other industries that do have a low cost entry point. And these are the places where we explore and a lot of times when you can show commitment and self initiative and you can present how this is going to grow your position at your company. It’s then easier to come back and get funding from your job placement. All

[00:50:00.37] spk_1:
valuable. Okay. Yeah, you make the right. You can make the case so much stronger. Alright. Um Anything else about free resources before we move on?

[00:50:28.27] spk_3:
Um free resources change at all times, so always be on the lookout. Um I have a podcast um study hall with Kalinda the tech and I also have sorry, my podcast to study hall with Kalinda the Tech. And I also have an Instagram at Kalinda the Tech and on there, I post some of the free resources as I come by them. So follow technology leaders who are offering you these tips and always be on the lookout in your free newspaper and your local library for resources as they come by.

[00:50:47.72] spk_1:
And let’s move to um sharing. We have a responsibility you believe, to share what we learn.

[00:51:33.44] spk_3:
Yes. The first thing to do is if you learn something, let your job. No, you know, most hr departments are putting together in internal repository, what type of knowledge they have in their company like I said in the beginning, nobody was interested in my Google certification pre pandemic. But because it was on file with, hr they knew they had internal learning that they could tap when the time was right. Also letting people know what you’re studying because there’s people who are studying in silos and you can become a study buddy. Another thing is when you share what you’re learning, it encourages people around you. Um every day somebody is watching your life, a child, a neighbor, uh business partner, you have a community person that you shop with and when you show growth and change, it gives them hope that they can also have growth and change.

[00:52:01.13] spk_1:
Yes. All right. Um What about mentoring is that is that related to professional development? Having a mentor, mentoring? If you are more senior like you are, yes, you see a role in around mentoring for professional

[00:53:03.64] spk_3:
development. Yes, mentoring does um definitely help and have a place in professional development. But what mentees need to know is they’re going to have to do the work to drive the relationship. So when you show up for your mentor session, you need to come with direct questions, you need to come with focused thought. And if you are given task tools or recommendations, make sure you follow through and report back. Um Mentors generally are at a place in their life where their time is being called in different directions. So entering a mentee relationship thinking that you’re speaking to an oracle that’s going to give you all the answers with a magic wand is the wrong approach. So, entering the mentee, mentor relationship as a mentee, come prepared, come focus and be prepared to work.

[00:53:13.35] spk_1:
What do you see as the mentors responsibilities?

[00:53:42.46] spk_3:
The mentors responsibility is to let them know that they have to be their first advocate that you have to have a direction. And I’m here as a guide and that my blueprint as a mentor came in a distinct time and place in history. So what worked for me might not actually work for you if you’re looking at my life as an exact blueprint, but I do have guiding principles that can help you in any time and place. It sounds like

[00:54:01.19] spk_1:
you’ve done mentoring, formal mentoring. Um any story you can you care to share about mentoring, maybe, maybe something you learned as a mentor or of course a great outcome for a mentee. And

[00:55:24.99] spk_3:
so the thing is we have stories. So the thing is when I started my career way back in 2001 black women in technology, technology leadership was not what I saw. There was nobody like looking like me in the corner office. So my first mentors were black women in the secretary pool. And what they offered me was a deep dive lesson in the company culture, letting me know who the movers and players were explaining the fiscal calendar to me knowing when would be the appropriate time to ask for a raise when people would be having money discussions. And so when we’re looking for mentorship, we have to realize there’s a lot of breath of life experience as well as technical experience that can be shared in these relationships. One of my mentors that was invaluable was a professional woman who had a um personal tragedy in her life. And like what she shared with me was how to grieve on your lunch break, fix your makeup and go back into a board meeting. You know,

[00:55:25.92] spk_1:
that’s, that’s touching and sweet and also enormously practical and

[00:56:39.75] spk_3:
valuable because people are introducing the bring your whole self to work mantra, but not all companies are there. So having mentorship like that about how to read a room, how to understand my company culture is great. I recently had a summer intern that I was mentoring with my company. We offer internships for many of the people in New York City through the summer youth employment program. And so we’re working with young people all the time at the first steps of their careers through internship. And one of the things I remind my intern was when looking for a job, please understand you cannot work for a company without participating in their culture. And he had a secondary internship for the fall and he relayed back to me. Thank you so much for the advice, all the interns who skipped the social gatherings over the summer were not offered full time jobs for after graduation. Um Because at these social gatherings, they were able to meet people throughout the whole company and different departments hire at different times versus being at your internship in one department, not realizing what’s going on with the rest of the company.

[00:57:19.89] spk_1:
Also, the social time is just an opportunity to get to know somebody in a, in a wider breath. You know, I think a lot of hiring is, is this somebody I’d like to have lunch with, you know, that I could socialize with there may or may not be that opportunity once you’re hired. But is it somebody, you know, basically like somebody I like and they’ll get to figure out that they like you if they can see more of you than just your work self.

[00:57:44.89] spk_3:
Yes. And this is the great time to bring up the professional development you’ve been doing that is outside the scope of your every day, you know, this is where, oh, we’re talking about this over the pool table. Oh, I just was taking a geology class online, you know, this fits in so well with that, it just gives you more organic conversations to talk about the things you’re interested in, the things you’re pursuing?

[00:57:53.84] spk_1:
Alright, Kalinda, anything else that you want to share about professional development that we haven’t talked about yet? And you’re gonna, I don’t, I don’t want to shortchange non profit radio listeners. So anything you’re going to cover in the session tomorrow that we haven’t talked about.

[00:58:22.01] spk_3:
So I would also like you to remember that all professional development doesn’t have to be formalized. You know, even taking time to listen to a book on tape that gives you three new ideas or changes your mindset. So you walk into work happier, more fulfilled is also valuable. So not all professional development is going to take a semester long. It could just be a nice beach read in the summer one that includes a professional leadership book

[00:58:57.15] spk_1:
and you know, you should, you should share your professional development formally. Also, I’m sure you said this earlier, but I’m just kind of reinforcing for myself. You want your supervisors to know how you’re spending your professional development time. Yes. What you’ve achieved certificates or even just learning, just learning that maybe not doesn’t come with a certificate. Yes.

[01:00:19.78] spk_3:
And you definitely, it’s always great to let people know what you’re working on, what ideas you’re like, brainstorming that you can bring to the company. And these are like at the water cooler during your official Super Vision’s setting your goal sets for the year. These are all great times to talk about it and self promotion could be self advocacy. So we are not being Braggarts, we’re sharing the information we have so we can be a resource. That’s why I’m telling you that I have a master’s degree that’s why I’m telling you what I’m certified in. So I can be a resource. Like my whole goal is to learn and give back and change my community. Like when I learned that we can do free cover letters in Google and they have a whole online training, teaching you the Google products based on a cover letter. This is going to totally help my neighbor who can’t invest in a $2000 employment coach being advertised on linkedin.

[01:00:50.37] spk_1:
You make a very good point too about self promotion. So many folks are, you know, fearful of that, they feel they are bragging like you said, and it’s not you, you position it very well to say, you know, you’re positioning yourself as a resource to the, to the organization, to your superiors, to your peers, to not only your supervisors, but, um, it’s unfortunate that so many folks are hesitant to talk themselves

[01:00:56.16] spk_3:
up. Yes. And this is where like a good leadership book can help you to help you refine that mindset. You know, in the classroom, we’re not supposed to talk about grades, you know, we’re supposed to keep them secret. We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. But like that mindset doesn’t necessarily work in the work force.

[01:01:43.20] spk_1:
There’s a session here at N T C and I’m interviewing the woman who’s running it about having a powerful voice. What is like, what is voice for power, something like that? I’m talking to her later today. That’s just 11 instance of uh I guess building confidence, you know, sounding confident exudes confidence may be trembling inside, but can you at least sound confident? Yes.

[01:01:45.57] spk_3:
And the thing is it’s much easier to access your confidence when you understand your purpose.

[01:01:53.91] spk_1:
Oh, very good. Spell that out a little. That’s excellent.

[01:02:41.13] spk_3:
So for me, I am a messenger and it is my job to get the message out. Public speaking wasn’t my first choice but public speaking and doing panels at places like N T C allows me to get this much needed information out. There are so many people in these current times who just can’t invest a $10,000 cash payment into a boot camp to change their life. But there are entry point for the free level, the linkedin learning level, the $15 cert certificate level that can get you on the path of change. And those are the messages that I have to get out because my purpose is being a messenger. It’s not being a know it all. It’s not being a brag ID. It’s being a messenger to change people’s lives. And when I know this is my purpose, it’s so much easier to get up and talk on this radio show, to do these panels, to get on the plane and go across the country to have these conversations. Because I know my message is so valuable to my community.

[01:03:26.56] spk_1:
I feel like it’s a perfect place to stop. It’s beautiful. Thank you, Kalinda Alan James, assistant vice president for Information Technology at a common point queens. And she did come across the country. She came from New York to Denver, Colorado and her podcast is study hall with Kalinda the Tech. Alright, thank you very much, Kalinda. Thanks for sharing. Loved it. And thank you for being with our coverage of 23 N T C the nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us

[01:04:44.77] spk_0:
next week, Artificial Intelligence for nonprofits with an esteemed panel, Beth Kanter Allison. Fine, a few Bruce and George Whiner. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box. I’m grateful to Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for May 22, 2023: Multigenerational Technology Teaching & Goals Aligned With Technology

 

Lauren HopkinsMultigenerational Technology Teaching

If you have folks spanning the generations working or volunteering for your nonprofit, you may have noticed they learn technology differently. Lauren Hopkins shares the strategies for teaching tech across the generations. She’s from Prepared To Impact, LLC.

 

 

Jett WindersGoals Aligned With Technology

Step back from your technology decisions before you buy the shiny, new apps. What are your goals for the tech? And how does the tech support your overall goals? Jett Winders from Heller Consulting helps you think through it all.

These both continue our coverage of NTEN’s 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, #23NTC.

 

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Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.


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[00:02:07.29] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. And this is number 641 which means we are just nine weeks away from the 650th show. 13th anniversary coming in July. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of dextrose gas tria if you upset my stomach with the idea that you missed this week’s show multigenerational technology teaching. If you have folks spanning the generations, working or volunteering for your non profit, you may have noticed they learned technology differently. Lauren Hopkins shares the strategies for teaching tech across the generations. She’s from prepared to impact LLC and goals aligned with technology. Step back from your technology decisions before you buy the shiny new apps. What are your goals for the tech? And how does the tech support your overall goals? Jet Winders from Heller Consulting helps you think through it. All these both continue our coverage of N tens 2023 nonprofit technology conference on Tony’s take to share, share. That’s fair. We’re sponsored by Donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is multigenerational technology teaching.

[00:02:29.17] spk_1:
Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. The nonprofit technology conference we are at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation

[00:02:31.98] spk_0:
for nonprofits. With

[00:02:34.41] spk_1:
me. In this meeting is Lauren Hopkins. She is social impact consultant at prepared to impact LLC Lauren Hopkins. Welcome to

[00:02:46.00] spk_2:
Nonprofit radio. Oh, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Pleasure.

[00:02:53.09] spk_1:
I love your topic. We’re talking about teaching to technology skills in a multigenerational workplace on the baby boomer. You’re a millennial. I am and we will try to bring in a couple of other Jen’s as well. We don’t want to exclude Gen X and sometimes it does sometimes feel a little left out or

[00:03:09.88] spk_2:
they don’t think they feel left out. I don’t think so. As long as we provide the tools, I don’t think so. Okay.

[00:03:17.34] spk_1:
Um And Gen Z, of course. Yes, we’re not going any younger than that. Now.

[00:03:21.41] spk_2:
We do have the traditionalist um younger or I’m sorry, older than the baby boomers. And we discussed that in myself. Okay, traditionalists, traditionalists. Yes.

[00:03:33.10] spk_1:
Okay. Because I’m a young boomer at 61 where traditionalists, I

[00:03:38.33] spk_2:
believe the traditionalists if I recall about 78.

[00:03:57.48] spk_1:
Okay. Well, there still are some 78 year olds in the workplace, especially returning to returning to work, perhaps second career. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I don’t want to leave out and I don’t want anybody traditionalists. So uh just give us, give us like overview. Why did you, why do you feel we’re not doing as well as we could training across the generations?

[00:04:45.23] spk_2:
Yeah. Well, you know, so I really enjoy teaching technology skills. I started as a social worker and I started to um teach technology skills in various sectors. And so Department of Social Services, teaching software implementation. And then I went to Aflac teaching the same thing and in the nonprofit field, and I really feel as though we have individuals within, within the various generations that still have a lot to learn and depending on the learning styles, their learning needs are very different. And so the strategies that we use to teach the technology could vary based upon the generations.

[00:04:52.04] spk_1:
So when you say their learning needs you there starting in different places, starting

[00:04:56.47] spk_2:
in different places and their learning styles as well,

[00:04:59.84] spk_1:
comfort

[00:05:01.18] spk_2:
their comfort and um and the tools and strategies that we will use to reinforce some of that learning some of the activities and such may be different based upon the generation.

[00:05:15.15] spk_1:
One of your takeaways is learning how people value training differently, they value it differently. That was interesting what I’m not, I don’t think of valuing training. So I’m obviously not in the mainstream. So that’s why I’m talking to you because I need help. So how do people value it differently

[00:06:12.37] spk_2:
across the ages if you think about it? Um with some of the, with the baby boomers and we the traditional list, they genuinely want to learn. Um They just may need some, some help along the way where we think of millennials and the Gen Zs. It’s sort of as if um they’re just expecting for the information um to be provided to them. And so we just want to make sure that we’re providing the information that they need to be, to be successful. So it really, it depends on how the information is provided that their values may change.

[00:06:20.18] spk_1:
You have some techniques to talk about. Yes, for training across.

[00:06:26.30] spk_2:
Absolutely.

[00:06:28.01] spk_1:
Let’s, let’s dive in. Okay. Don’t sell short now. And nonprofit radio listeners don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t hold out okay. But what’s, what’s the technique? Which, which one, what should we start with?

[00:07:08.68] spk_2:
Let’s start off with the traditionalists. Okay. Yes. So with the traditionalist one, one thing that we do well with the traditionalists and the baby boomers, we want to make sure that we are providing step by step tools and strategies for them to be successful. So if you are training on some technology skills, make sure that you do have the step by steps with screenshots available and really encourage them to, to go ahead and print that out. So within the training, if your training is virtual or if it’s in person, they can follow along really well. Also, we want to make sure to the best of your ability if we do have someone of a younger generation that maybe we can partner them together with someone of the older generation and they can, they can assist in the learning process.

[00:07:31.30] spk_1:
Students.

[00:07:57.50] spk_2:
Yes. Yes, both are learning because we’re talking about a multigenerational workplace. Um And so, um and also with the baby boomers and the traditionalists, they both prefer to learn within a traditional in person classroom setting. But we know that that’s not always possible. And so we want to make sure that we are um making some accommodations to ensure that they are getting the information in the best way that they receive it the best way that we can. Okay.

[00:08:06.56] spk_1:
So in person is better for the older folks

[00:08:11.28] spk_2:
better and well, let me say preferred is preferred for them. Um Research shows

[00:08:19.45] spk_1:
preferred their prey, but it may not be

[00:08:21.23] spk_2:
possible. How do you, how do you like to learn? Do you prefer virtual as a baby? You say your baby? Right. So do you prefer to learn virtually or in person as far as if you’re learning new technology skills? Yeah,

[00:09:01.32] spk_1:
I have a two part answer to that first is I generally don’t like it when guests turn the tables and put me on the spot. That’s the first, that’s the first answer. But the second answer I will go along with you. Is, uh, no, I prefer, I’d much rather be in person. Yeah. I also prefer speaking to in person audiences. Um, I prefer in person into like this. I mean, I have to do most of them over Zoom because the guests are from all over the country and I live in North Carolina. But, um, are you in

[00:09:10.28] spk_2:
North Carolina? I am from, I’m from North Carolina originally. I now live in South Carolina. Where are you, where are you from? I’m from Hickory and then I went to undergrad in high point and I also lived in Wilmington’s.

[00:09:21.44] spk_1:
Okay of those three. I’m the closest to Wilmington’s. I live in Emerald Isle. You know, the little beach town about an hour and a half above Wilmington’s. Yes,

[00:09:30.36] spk_2:
I do love it. Small world. Where’s hickory hickory hickory? It is at the foothills and so it is about an hour from Charlotte and about an hour and a half from Asheville.

[00:09:44.83] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Foothills. Alright. Alright. I’m originally from New Jersey. Okay. Okay, cool. And you’re in South

[00:09:49.70] spk_2:
Carolina? I do live in South Carolina now Columbia, South Carolina settled down there. So

[00:10:30.84] spk_1:
that’s the capital of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. Don’t think I don’t know why. Yeah. Okay. So, um, yes, so I prefer in person, everything, audiences, learning interviews, um, meetings with, I do plan giving, consulting, fundraising. So I much prefer to meet donors in person, but a lot of times phone has to suffice. And for the older folks that I’m working with, they’re usually not interested in being on Zoom, they’ll do it for their grandchildren, but they’re not gonna do it for me, which is fine. So I pick up the phone, I got you. But I’d rather be in person whenever I can whenever I can.

[00:10:36.81] spk_2:
May I ask something? Then

[00:10:38.82] spk_1:
after my first answer to the last question you’re still gonna ask again?

[00:11:18.05] spk_2:
It’s not a question. It’s not a question. But as far as far as baby boomers and the traditionalist, I also recommend providing an option for them to call. That’s what reminded me uh providing them an option for them to call the, the training consultant, whoever’s doing the training in case they have questions. Um If there’s a phone available phone number, because oftentimes with technology, you know, we want them to email if they have questions or send a message. But with those two generations, they prefer to pick up the phone or if there’s an option to meet in person, not sure if that is possible. But um at least the phone option will be great better

[00:11:42.12] spk_1:
than email or text. Makes perfect sense. It’s what they grew up with. Exactly. And an email and text or what the other generations grew up with. Exactly. So follow up phone offer, phone, follow up anything else for dealing with Boomers, traditionalists? Not right now. Okay. What if maybe we’re gonna get to this. What? Yeah. Alright. So you are we gonna be talking about having multiple generations like in the same class? Yes, like you said, pair off somebody younger with somebody older. Okay.

[00:11:57.72] spk_2:
Okay. Yeah. So one of my suggestions is to um in your training plan, look at the learning styles of all these generations, figure out what is best or how each of them learn best and just implement various little nuggets that meet the needs of all of the generations. That is my suggestion instead

[00:12:16.66] spk_1:
of like what give me some sample nuggets.

[00:13:30.31] spk_2:
Sure. Yeah. And so for the, let’s start, let’s start at the top. So for the um for the traditionalist and for the baby boomers, like I said earlier, you may want to have a um a print out of the step by step guides for the Gen Xers. They love independent work. So for the activities to reinforce that learning, if you have some independent work that would be helpful um for the millennials, they also enjoy group work. And so after the session, if we have some group work, that would be great. And um we can reinforce their learning to by pairing them up with someone who’s a bit older and helping to strengthen both groups. And then for the Gen Z’s, they love videos, training videos. 3 to 6 minutes is the sweet spot videos of 3 to 6 minutes. Because remember this is the generation that goes to youtube for answers to almost anything. And so videos will be great. And so um if we can have trainings and then implement just little pieces that are catering to the various generations inside of the learning plan or the training plan, that would be ideal.

[00:13:37.53] spk_1:
Okay. So take a hybrid

[00:13:39.11] spk_2:
approach. Exactly. Touch

[00:13:45.58] spk_1:
everybody with what they need and this is all research based. We know Gen Z does much better. Exactly. Two

[00:14:01.32] spk_2:
six minute video. Yes. Yes. And for those who have attended the conference this year, the learning materials and my slides with the references are online. Okay, so they can pull that

[00:14:03.12] spk_1:
up, walking your talk. Alright. Yeah. Um what else other, other techniques across the generations? We got plenty of time

[00:14:22.38] spk_2:
together. Okay. So let’s go with the Gen Xers. They really enjoy being active and so their activities, if they can be active, that would the ideal um any type of gaming that would be great too. So um in their activities, if they can get up and move, if it’s in person or if it’s virtual, let’s set up a way that the activities can help them to just be active and implement what they are learning. That’s key.

[00:14:43.66] spk_1:
So active, meaning they get up out of their

[00:15:35.85] spk_2:
seats. Oh yeah, that’s good. Let me clarify, let me clarify. Yeah. So for active you could get out of your seat. But an activity. So what I like to do is say for instance, you have a, um, an activity plan for them to, let’s say I used to work at our local United Way, United Way of the Midlands in Columbia, South Carolina. And I taught the homeless management information system to about two huh 100 users. Right. And so what I like to do is after their New Year’s or trainings, I would email them a task sheet for them to complete their tasks. And once they finish that task sheet, go ahead and send me their work and I’ll look over it. So that is a way for them to be active. Now, depending on the resources that your agency have, you may have um some gaming um strategies or tools. My agencies did not have that. So we work with what we have. Um But that is a way just for them to be um to be actively doing something and to reinforce the learning that has taken place.

[00:16:40.97] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Stop the drop with donor box. It’s the online donation platform used by over 100,000 nonprofits in 96 countries. It’s no wonder it’s four times faster. Checkout, easy payment processing, no setup fees, no monthly fees, no contract. How many potential donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your website? You can stop the drop donor box helping you help others donor box dot org. Now back to multigenerational technology teaching with Lauren Hopkins.

[00:16:48.01] spk_1:
What about Gen Z. Anything? Anything further further for Gen Z besides the video?

[00:17:05.26] spk_2:
Yeah, just for, for Gen Zs and for millennials, one thing to note is that they love learning management systems or LMS as most people. Um Well,

[00:17:06.23] spk_1:
I have Jargon Jail on non profit radio. So I’m glad you opened with learning management system. LMS would have to call you out. What the hell is an LMS?

[00:18:48.07] spk_2:
Um So the LMS for learning management system that have a feel of social media. All right. So if we have a discussion board, if we um have some sections that just feel like social media, that you can put together a poster or um share a tidbit or tip of the day that just feels like social media that would be helpful. Now, if your agency does not have those type of resources, that is okay. Another thing that is helpful, especially for the millennials is if there is a blog for um this generation really enjoyed blogs. And so if there’s a blog where you as a trainer can introduce some tips, so say for instance, every week or two, you do a tips Thursday or tips Tuesday or whatnot and introduce or post a tip for them to be utilizing the system. That would be, that would be great also. And another thing as well, remember remember that with these videos, we have to have somewhere to store them, right? And so one thing that I do a couple things that I suggest finding a mutual place where we can store the videos via your, the L M s or maybe it’s a site that is open where you can store those, those videos, a screen share videos that could be helpful as well. Um And also I’m not sure if it’s possible, but depending on your agency, if your company has a, a, a, a company, youtube, see if it’s possible where you can record the screen of some trainings, just making sure that it’s not any confidential information on the screen. But see if we can store it on there. And remember too that the videos should be between 3 to 6 minutes if that’s not possible. 20 minutes or less, but the sweet spot is 3 to 6 minutes.

[00:19:19.53] spk_1:
Yes. Um What kinds of you already had your session? I did. What kinds of, what kinds of questions were you

[00:20:21.73] spk_2:
getting? Yeah. So I got a couple questions. One question that we got was for the baby boomers and for the um traditionalists if they are in this um in the classroom and um we cannot implement in person trainings, how do we teach them? What’s the best way? And so one thing that I really enjoy doing, especially with training software is for those generations, I really like to do one on one training. I love to do one on one training. And so what I offer them is let’s meet one on one now in my um in my work experience, we always use teams. And so, and I’ve also um I use some others too, but mainly teams, but let’s go ahead and share your screen. And what I like for them to do also is for them to drive the training. So I don’t, I always prefer if the learners, no matter what the generation is, if the learners will share their screen and, and drive and I will teach them as they practice. Dr

[00:20:32.68] spk_1:
meaning what they decide what the topics

[00:21:54.58] spk_2:
are, training, training agenda. Yes, we have a training agenda. Exactly. So let’s say for instance, I am teaching um a staff member at a local shelter how to check a client into a bed using a particular software. What I’m going to do as the trainer, if this is their first day, I’m going to ask them to log into the system. Be it the live system or a training system somewhere? They can mess up in and practice or whatnot and share their screen. I’ll give them a login, share their screen and I will teach them. All right. This is where you go to enter in the client’s name. Okay, go ahead and do that. Alright. Next, we’re going to click on such and such. Okay, go ahead and do that. Um And so that’s what I mean by driving. So letting them um letting them navigate and, and play around and see what it feels like also I do enjoy and I do suggest rather having step by step guides like I’ve mentioned before. But if your agency does not have that or you don’t have time to create it or whatnot, because we do know that a lot of nonprofits, they have a smaller staff and such or, you know, smaller department. So that’s okay. Make sure you give your learners no matter what the generation time to write notes, um write notes during the trainings. And so make sure that, you know, you’re taking your time and and can write, allowing them to write some notes that that is a huge tip.

[00:22:06.64] spk_1:
Any other valuable questions you got? Oh,

[00:23:01.81] spk_2:
yeah, let’s see here. I did have a question about um oh, confidential information. Um Someone asked me a question about um confidential information and sharing, not sharing the confidential information. But what if it is a part of the new software? Let’s say that it is an electronic health health record that your agency is in implementing. And so one of my suggestions is to just ensure that the company that, you know, the company’s policies and what can be shared during training and what should be only shared, you know, in, in the real world. And so that, that is um that is huge. Someone said that oftentimes that is the question, should we be sharing this or whatnot? So that’s my suggestion that just look at your company’s policies as far as the training or if y’all don’t have that, um, go ahead and implement something, what should be shared during these trainings, what can be shared or if we need to go ahead and make up some dummy data

[00:23:09.39] spk_1:
beforehand, dummy database.

[00:23:12.76] spk_2:
Exactly. And then sometimes with some databases, um if there’s not a dummy database, maybe that we can make up some data in the live one and just delete it. It just depends

[00:23:25.57] spk_1:
or something. Exactly.

[00:23:29.61] spk_2:
Exactly. Yeah. So that’s part of the pre planning process.

[00:23:34.53] spk_1:
You were going to have folks practice designing strategies. Now, how did you, we can’t practice here but how did you set folks up to? It was

[00:24:37.91] spk_2:
great. Yeah. So what I went ahead and did, I created five different scenarios of agency that are implementing a training, a tech training. And so what we did is we went around the room and we split up the individuals and um they went ahead and I created a pre created objectives for the scenarios for the, for the training plan and they put in place some activities for them. And then also that could be um that could be used to teach the information and then a skills check activity. So how can we ensure that the learner has um understands the information? And so it went really well. And then after that, after um after the groups, we probably spent 15, 18 minutes or so and then the various groups went around and shared with the entire um and with the entire class, their ideas one or two minutes, but they gave us some um some fresh ideas that they have utilized in the past. And then, um as they, as they were working in the team, how they brainstormed then went really well. Now

[00:24:57.73] spk_1:
skills check. Sounds to me like a euphemism for test.

[00:25:26.15] spk_2:
Yeah. Well, it doesn’t have to be though. It does not have to be a quiz. It could be say that that task sheet that I was telling you about earlier, do this, do this and then once you finish these tasks, send me say the client number or the client I D and I will check it out. I’ll check it out before you get access to the life site. I really like to do that or it could be um just do this worksheet and go ahead and write down the responses oftentimes to with these skills checks. They don’t need to turn them into, you know, if you want them to and that could be an evaluation part or evaluation strategy for you as a trainer to make sure, okay, our folks really learning what they need to learn but sometimes it’s a way for them to just practice. Mm hmm.

[00:25:47.36] spk_1:
What did you learn in your session? You know?

[00:25:51.06] spk_2:
Yeah. That’s a good question.

[00:25:52.91] spk_1:
I finally 23 minutes in decent question comes out of this guy. I

[00:28:21.56] spk_2:
love it. No. Um So what did you take away? Yeah, my takeaway was that I really through that activity of the scenarios and then creating a training plan. I actually came, came away and walked away with some good ideas, um, that I could actually use in the workplace or share with others. And, yeah. So, um, let’s see here. Oh, one particular group they stated that they would have a hybrid training, so to meet the needs of all of the generations, they would introduce a hybrid training instead. So virtual for some and then in person for others um that’ll be really helpful. Also making sure that we have a step by step guides um available. That is really good. Um I did have if I could go back to the one question that you stated about um about the questions that some folks asked. So one thing that someone came up to me afterwards, they stated that they work for um they work for Salesforce and they train um the Salesforce Salesforce software with different agencies and because sales force can be so customizable, she was wanting to know what are some suggestions or what is a suggestion that you have for the step by step guide piece, especially for some of the older generations or even the video piece also because sometimes you don’t want to create too many videos because the screens may change because it is customizable. And so um and I did ask her, I said, okay, Well, do you have relationships with these individuals? And she said, yeah, so, so she’s not just going in one day and then just leaving. So over time, I did encourage her to just get to know the learners, um try to figure out what their needs are and to create a video for that agency specifically for that agency that may be helpful. And then as the software changes, she may need to um recreate a video, but hopefully that will last a little bit for, you know, once they’ve been, you know, customize their screens have been customized a bit, but that is one suggestion. She said that was very helpful. Um So, you know, she may not, she said she didn’t have time to do the step by step right now guides. So that’s okay. Um But let’s see if we could do some videos and because the video should be 3 to 6 minutes. She said that maybe, oh, maybe I could do some short videos depending on the topic and go ahead and create those and share them with the agency. All

[00:28:50.26] spk_1:
right, Lauren. Um You want to leave us with some uplifting thoughts about, you know, why it’s important to be all inclusive in your training.

[00:29:29.53] spk_2:
It really is. Well, thank you and thank you for the opportunity. So this subject matter is very close to my heart. I really enjoy training and especially those of the older generation. Um No offense but baby Boomers and the traditionalists. Yeah, they’re actually my favorite generation to teach. And I think oftentimes as we’re thinking about technology, we sometimes leave out um, Gen Xers, baby boomers and the traditionalists and we sort of forget about those learning needs. Now. Um I did not share this and you might not, you might know, but I actually have a doctorate in curriculum and instruction and,

[00:29:37.18] spk_1:
yeah,

[00:29:57.86] spk_2:
that’s okay. And so, um so training and learning is just very close to my heart. So just remember that no matter what the generation is, um just please keep in mind their learning needs and that if they’re in the classroom, they might be forced to be in the classroom depending on their jobs. But they all have various learning needs and they have um they have value at the agency and we need to equip them with the tools to be successful. We really do. And so um so it’s just been, it’s been very, very good, it’s been a good experience and I really hope that folks can take some of this information and use it at their workplaces and in their communities, at

[00:30:53.57] spk_1:
the very, very least rages consciousness. You need to be aware, sensitive to the different values, the different learning styles, learning needs of everybody who’s in your workplace. Not just the folks who are new to the organization or not just the folks who are of a certain age of a certain age, of course, So raising the very bad, I mean, you’re going way beyond just consciousness raising, you have a lot of very good ideas too. But greater consciousness is

[00:31:14.33] spk_2:
absolutely. And one other thing if you don’t mind, the you brought up a good point in saying beyond the new user training, the initial training, remember that just because the users of any generation has completed, the new user training does not mean that they don’t need on going training. So we want to remember that and make that a part of the overall training plan for ongoing training.

[00:31:21.49] spk_1:
Our staff, absolutely, internal professional development. People want to feel supported otherwise, quite quick. Yes.

[00:31:29.61] spk_2:
Yes, absolutely.

[00:31:35.61] spk_1:
I would like to put something on the record that I am a very young 61 born, born in 1962. So very among the youngest of all the baby Boomers is me on the record. I love it. Dr Lauren Hopkins, Dr Lauren Hopkins. Thank you very

[00:31:48.43] spk_2:
much. Thank you. I appreciate it, tony. Thanks for having me. My

[00:32:03.59] spk_1:
pleasure. She is social impact consultant at prepared to impact LLC. And thank you for being with me for our 20 our 2023 nonprofit technology conference coverage where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits.

[00:33:23.25] spk_0:
Mhm. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Hello, who can you share non profit radio with? Maybe it’s among your friends, your colleagues who on your board should listen at least who on your board. Would you like to have? Listen, first step is you gotta share the show with them or who did you used to work with that you’re still willing to talk to. Could you by chance mention non profit radio on your linkedin or Twitter Mastodon? I’d be grateful if you tag me. I will certainly give you a shout out. And I thank you very much for thinking about who you could share non profit radio with and then sharing non profit radio. Thanks very much. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got just about a butt load. More time here is goals aligned with technology.

[00:33:54.88] spk_1:
Welcome to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. You know what that is? You know, it’s the 2023 nonprofit technology conference that is hosted by N 10 and that we are in Denver, Colorado. We are hosted by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. And from Heller with me now is Jet Winders, Director of Sales at Heller Consulting Jet. Welcome to non profit

[00:34:00.76] spk_3:
radio. Thank you for having me, tony. Pleasure.

[00:34:04.57] spk_1:
Absolutely. Your session topic is how to align your nonprofit’s goals with technology. That’s right. Why is this an important session? Why do we need this?

[00:34:24.12] spk_3:
Yeah. You know, for so many organizations and certainly for tech enthusiasts at a conference like this, sometimes we geek out on the and want to jump straight to what system or what tool are we going to use? And it’s really important to step back and think about what is the goal of using that tool. So what is your nonprofits goals to even start with and then align that with the technology? Because the technology is always advancing something the organization is trying to do,

[00:34:52.20] spk_1:
right? The technology is advancing, presumably your mission certainly is stable. Your goals are going to evolve to achieve achieving that mission. But we need to align these moving parts basically.

[00:34:57.38] spk_3:
That’s right. You know, non profits, they spend a lot of time building strategic plans and they’ll outline, you know, what those North Star goals are and then what those specific levers they’re gonna pull, you know, whether that’s increasing fundraising or awareness or patient outcomes. Those are the goals that the technology is driving towards the goal is never let’s adopt a new tool just for the sake of doing it.

[00:35:22.22] spk_1:
So I’m taking from your, from your learning objectives, identifying technology strategies and how those affect software solution. So what kind of technology strategies are we talking

[00:36:13.40] spk_3:
about? Yeah, you know, sometimes we talk about uh organizations, you know, approach to technology, how do they adopt it? What type of relationship do they want to have with it? So for some organizations that might mean we want to be the most innovative in the field were okay taking risks if it’s going to allow us to be a first mover or advanced something or show the sector something they haven’t done before while others might be, you know, we have to be conservative with our dollars. We want to do something that’s tried and true. We want to do what is proven in the space already. And so we want to do what our peers are doing. That’s a totally different relationship with how you might approach technology and the tools you might adopt. And, and that is just, you know, sort of a philosophy that different organizations adopt that can have an impact on what technology they ultimately select.

[00:36:26.61] spk_1:
Okay. Have you done your session

[00:36:28.41] spk_3:
yet? No, it’s to, it’s on Thursday. Okay.

[00:36:31.23] spk_1:
So walk us through, how are you going through it with your in your session? How are you approaching this?

[00:37:30.18] spk_3:
Yeah. So for first, what I like to get organizations to imagine is that changing technology is actually part of a broader operational change within the organization. And whenever you change technology, uh your business processes also have to change along with that. And your people also have to change whether that’s simply training to use the new tools or it could be new roles and responsibilities based on those tools. And so you want to put in contact context, a technology change with the broader impact that it’s going to have to try to make that change. The other way. I like to get organizations to think about it is that, you know, the technology is always advancing those broader goals within the organization. And so we want you to think through the impact that you’re trying to make first and always be. So starting with that impact messaging rather than, you know, again, getting into the nitty gritty of what tools we’re gonna change in systems we’re gonna change. We need to be centering the impact that it’s going to have at the organization for us to actually sell and make that plan for what we’re gonna adopt and what tools we’re gonna move forward. Okay. So

[00:37:58.19] spk_1:
yeah, centering the impact, right? Not centering the tools we’re not focusing on, not focusing on the tools. Um What is there a method of you? I think you have a method of um assessing different options, information systems options. You say what, what’s, what’s that assessment part

[00:39:15.54] spk_3:
about? Yeah, we take folks through a roadmap methodology that starts with, you know, real strategic discovery to understand what organizations are trying to accomplish. Uh you know, get those specific requirements of what do these tools need to do? It’s not about tool functionality. It’s about what do staff actually need to be able to accomplish in their day to day rolls and then from those types of requirements, build out what you need these systems to accomplish for you. So what role will those technology systems play within the organization? And then only then start to put specific names to what those tools are and that’s where you might actually go out to the vendors at the conference to start to fill in. You know, we need a tool that’s going to do this for our organization. Well, let’s find what tool that is. And you know, the way technology has changed over the years, there’s so many options out there. You know, whether you’re going to take an approach that’s based on a platform and build and customize it to meet all those requirements, or if you’re going to try to find more highly special tools and uh take on the sort of integration requirements of using, you know, tools from different vendors. So there’s not one size fits all anymore of, I just need a tool that does X. You really have to think through that broader approach and put the pieces together and make sure it’s all gonna add up to, you know, those, those goals and outcomes you described at the very beginning.

[00:40:14.31] spk_1:
What about the difference between the like sort of the all inclusive, like like a black box solution or Salesforce versus smaller apps that do different things like accounts payable or there’s an accounts payable vendor behind me. Um Behind us, we’re in the same boat behind us. Um or something else does. You know, it is a fundraising CRM is if you’re, if you’re trying to center the goals, there’s, there’s, there’s one, there’s a one, one size fits all system like that really makes sense. Yeah. Well, one can it, I’m, yeah, that’s such a neophyte question. I don’t know.

[00:41:11.54] spk_3:
It’s, it’s a great question because you are centering the goals and then you also want to look at your organization’s relationship with technology. So that is that example I I shared about whether you’re an innovator or you want to do best practices. You know, these are sort of guiding principles on what your relationship is with technology. Another example might be, um we want to build up our own internal capacity to manage tools and systems with a strong I T and operations department where another organization might say we’re first and foremost fundraisers and program managers, and we’re going to leverage experts outside of our organization to manage our technology. So that’s two totally different relationships with technology. So when you start to decide on your own guiding principles at the organization on what your relationship with technology will be that can then help you answer that question of whether it makes sense to use a platform where you’re going to be responsible for maintaining the integrations and maintaining the customization, or we’re gonna look to a single vendor who’s gonna provide multiple tools in the ecosystem because we’re going to use them as our experts and, and not keep that internal expertise.

[00:41:40.23] spk_1:
Is there a case study or story that you can share?

[00:42:06.58] spk_3:
Yeah, tomorrow, I’ll be highlighting, you know, three different examples of organizations that we worked with and, and took them through this process. And so you know, for one organization, uh they were really focusing on having tools that were easy for their users to use. They needed to look across the organization to a platform that could support five different departments within the organization. Um And they were prepared to take on managing that platform but didn’t want to build it all out from scratch. And so that organization chose salesforce as a solution that had built some of the purpose built mission tools that they needed on their platform already working with another organization on the

[00:42:42.44] spk_1:
salesforce. Absolutely. What kind of outcomes did they see that? You think they would not have, they would not have gained if they had done is the way it’s typically done or, you know, focused on focusing on the technology instead of their mission and goals.

[00:43:06.24] spk_3:
Yeah, I think the approach that they might have taken that I, in my opinion would have been a mistake would be to look at each of these departments in the organization individually. So they’d be looking at uh you know, their programs and uh mission support separately from fun raising separately from finance. They might have each submitted an RFP focused on what are the requirements for each of that department? And they might have chosen different systems based on in a vacuum, what looked best for that department and then none of it would work together and I T would never be able to support it. They never get any good analysis of how information is actually flowing within the organization?

[00:43:30.24] spk_1:
Alright, I kept you from another

[00:43:59.59] spk_3:
story. Well, yeah. Well, in uh in contrast, another organization really was looking at efficiency, you know, they were in that state of having different systems within each of the departments and their I T department recognized that they couldn’t support the different systems that had been chosen independently by different departments. And so they really focused on having a centralized I T structure that could manage and develop solutions on behalf of all of these different departments. They chose Microsoft as a platform because it was an extension of expertise that they already had already using Microsoft in some areas of the organization and then building on that. So they have a core competency now as an organization on Microsoft and are able to hire for those roles and maintain solutions across the organization that are sharing from that platform.

[00:44:49.16] spk_1:
If you’re centering your goals, there’s a lot of organizational introspection that’s got to happen first. So are you, are you looking to your strategic plan? I guess if, if you’ve got one that’s current, I mean, how does this, how does this exercise take place before you start talking about technology

[00:44:49.81] spk_3:
solutions? That’s right. You know, when and where

[00:44:52.24] spk_1:
also it’s c suite conversations. Is it down at the user level? You know, so please wear also. Yeah,

[00:45:30.76] spk_3:
absolutely. You know, when we start working with clients, it’s amazing how much work has usually already been put into defining those types of broader organizational, you know, goals, you know what those strategic plans are, those are often already, you know, their year three of a 10 year strategic plan and they may or may not be on track to achieve some of those lofty goals that got put out there. So, you know, technology is really downstream to support those goals. And we’re often, you know, when we’re working with somebody in operations or an I T kind of forcing them to dig up that, that document and, and confirm like this is still the path the organization is, is on, that’s what we’re trying to accomplish so that we can put our recommendations in context of what the whole organization is doing.

[00:45:52.09] spk_1:
Okay. Um And you had a third story.

[00:46:31.72] spk_3:
Yeah. Well, you know, I I shared uh an example of a Salesforce platform and Microsoft platform. We worked with another organization that actually left Salesforce, um really recognized that managing that platform was too much for the organization. They did not want to keep the in house staff to manage that. Uh They wanted to focus on fundraising, but, you know, didn’t really have the internal capacity to, you know, select apps or integrate with, you know, other online tools. And so they actually went to a purpose built solution, they went to virtuous that happened to have a lot of, you know, features and functionality out of the box for them with an easy on boarding process and a lot less ongoing maintenance and cost for them in the long run. And so, uh, there’s no, you know, perfect solution for everybody out there. It’s really about aligning what you need, you know, to work with and the tool and, and finding what’s going to be the right fit for you.

[00:46:57.27] spk_1:
You have some recommendations about evaluating different uh solutions that you might have, you might identify. Okay, they fit your, your, your stated goals. How do we make the, make the decision?

[00:47:28.65] spk_3:
Yeah. Well, one thing I discourage folks from doing is focusing on the old demo with organizations. You know, when we talk with folks, that’s almost the first things that they go to, you know, they wanna see demos of a bunch of different products and the demos only offer a limited insight into some of the usability, you know, how user friendly something might be. Uh people are flying through the

[00:47:33.69] spk_1:
screen, they could never replicate it, you could never replicate it five minutes after it was shown to you.

[00:48:15.84] spk_3:
That’s right. It doesn’t give you the full perspective. And so, you know, what we really encourage folks to think through, you know, once you’ve done that sort of identifying your goals, understanding what types of tools might be appropriate based on how you want to approach and use technology, then, you know, actually identify systems and platforms that could meet those goals. Sometimes there’s only one or maybe sometimes there’s one or two with big contrasts between them. You can actually do a lot more groundwork and understanding whether those are going to be a fit for you or not before you actually see the product, seeing the product is just that kind of final confirmation to see how it works and get a little more familiar. So how do you do

[00:48:22.87] spk_1:
this groundwork in your evaluation? How do you, yeah, what do you do before the

[00:49:07.82] spk_3:
demo? Yeah. So from, from your discovery effort and developing the requirements, the critical step is prioritizing those requirements against the goal. So you know, when you ask people what they need or what they want to be able to do, you’ll hear tons and tons of different things. And so the real critical period is prioritization of what is going to be mission critical for that fundraising strategy. That’s gonna get you double fundraising in three years or what’s that critical requirement? That’s gonna allow you to analyze whether, you know, multiple, you know, whether one of your program participants is actually participating in three programs so that you can actually see, see that rather than it being siloed data in separate program databases. So prioritizing what’s critical for you allows you to then look at different technology approaches and systems and narrow them down before you ever get to the demos. What

[00:49:24.98] spk_1:
else do you have planned for your audience tomorrow that we haven’t talked about yet.

[00:49:59.80] spk_3:
Yeah. You know, the last exercise I’ll talk folks through um is one way to, to map out your systems in sort of a pre work to any technology selection is to track what data is coming in to the organization where that data is stored, how it’s being used by different individuals and what other data folks would want and need. You know, sometimes a mistake that we see organizations make is they just think all data is good. We want to capture as much of it as possible, but that’s actually not the case. You really want to understand what data you’re already getting and where it is, but also what data you need to make critical decisions and who needs to use it. And when, because having that kind of map of where your data is, how you’re going to use it and what you need is really a lens that we can use to look at these technology systems of whether it’s going to support that or not.

[00:50:25.97] spk_1:
Okay. Anything else planned for tomorrow? I don’t know what you’re holding out on nonprofit radio listeners. I think we’re

[00:50:33.15] spk_3:
gonna talk about tomorrow. I think you’ve got the highlights for sure.

[00:50:47.12] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. These Jet Winders, Director of Sales the hell are consulting, which is our 23 N T C sponsor technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Jet. Thank you

[00:50:52.14] spk_3:
very much. Thank you, Tony Blair. My

[00:50:54.11] spk_1:
pleasure and thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C 2023 nonprofit technology conference

[00:51:38.77] spk_0:
next week, equitable project management and make time for professional development. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Check out donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff.

[00:51:41.05] spk_1:
The shows social media is by Susan Chavez

[00:51:43.71] spk_0:
Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by

[00:51:49.46] spk_1:
Scott Stein. Thank you for that

[00:52:00.34] spk_0:
affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.