Tag Archives: Allison Fine

Nonprofit Radio for October 10, 2022: The Smart Nonprofit

 

Beth Kanter & Allison Fine: The Smart Nonprofit

That’s Beth Kanter and Allison Fine’s new book, revealing the potential of smart technology and artificial intelligence for your nonprofit, and the entire sector. Beth and Allison are with us to share their thinking.

 

 

 

 

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[00:00:44.94] spk_0:
Oh, I neglected to mention, you hear me, you hear me do an intro to the show and then we’ll chat uninterrupted and then I’ll do the outro and then I could say goodbye Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of infra occlusion if you made me chew on the idea that you missed this week’s show. The smart non profit That’s Beth Canter and Alison finds new book revealing the potential of smart technology and artificial intelligence for your nonprofit and the entire sector.

[00:00:56.53] spk_1:
Beth

[00:00:56.87] spk_0:
and Allison are with us to share their

[00:00:58.74] spk_1:
thinking

[00:01:28.01] spk_0:
on Tony’s take to debunk those top five myths of planned giving, sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by fourth dimension technologies I. T infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper.

[00:01:32.30] spk_1:
What

[00:01:32.54] spk_0:
a pleasure to welcome

[00:01:33.29] spk_1:
back

[00:01:41.59] spk_0:
Beth Kanter and Allison Fine to the show. Both been on multiple times, although you know them uh they they they each deserve their own special

[00:01:47.79] spk_1:
introduction.

[00:01:49.33] spk_0:
Beth Kanter is an internationally recognized thought leader and trainer in digital transformation and well being in the nonprofit

[00:01:56.46] spk_1:
workplace.

[00:01:57.94] spk_0:
She was named one of the most influential women in technology by fast company and received the N 10 Lifetime achievement

[00:02:04.82] spk_1:
award.

[00:02:05.48] spk_0:
She’s at Beth Kanter and

[00:02:08.97] spk_1:
Beth

[00:02:30.78] spk_0:
Kanter dot org. Alison Fine is among the nation’s preeminent writers and strategists on the use of technology for social good. She’s a member of the National Board of Women of Reform Judaism and was chair of the National Board of Naral Pro Choice America Foundation and a founding board member of Civic Hall. Allison is at a Fine and Alison Fine dot

[00:02:34.94] spk_1:
com.

[00:02:36.18] spk_0:
Bethan Alison welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:02:40.69] spk_1:
Thank you for having us. tony

[00:02:43.75] spk_0:
congratulations on the book.

[00:02:47.60] spk_1:
It’s very exciting. The response has been tremendous so far.

[00:02:52.45] spk_2:
So both of our 4th book and 2nd collaboration together.

[00:02:56.91] spk_1:
Second,

[00:03:20.05] spk_0:
yes, you’ve co authored the network non profit if I’m not mistaken. Alright and fourth book for both of you. Congratulations all around. I would actually like to start with the last sentence of the book. If every nonprofit in the sector can transform itself into a smart non profit we can transform the world end quote. Uh does anybody want to claim authorship of that particular sentence? Is it possible for co authors to remember who wrote each each sentence throughout the

[00:03:28.19] spk_1:
book?

[00:03:29.76] spk_0:
Not, no,

[00:03:31.30] spk_1:
not possible, but so

[00:03:33.14] spk_0:
then All right, Allison, what what uh what does it take to become this uh ideal. Smart non profit

[00:04:33.67] spk_1:
So a smart non profit tony is an organization that understands deeply how to stay human centered and by that we mean putting people first, internally and externally using the most advanced technology organizations have ever had at their disposal. This this, you know um family of technologies like ai machine learning robots and so on and by doing that tony we can stop the incredible hamster wheel of business frantic business of organizations just playing a daily game of whack a mole with email and telephone and ongoing meetings. All of that road work can be done by the technology, freeing up people to build relationships and tell stories and build communities and solve problems and do the deeply human work that most of us came to the sector to do in the first place.

[00:04:45.71] spk_0:
And you you used the word business that was not business, that was business

[00:04:52.15] spk_1:
in the U.

[00:05:08.43] spk_0:
S. Y. Yes. Okay. Um Alright. So there are many uh considerations for becoming a smart nonprofit and some some important roles of leadership that that come out in the book. Um Beth anything you would like to add to the to the intro to our conversation.

[00:05:25.86] spk_2:
Um Sure. What Allison laid out so beautifully is the key benefit of that nonprofits get from embracing this technology and that is the dividend of time and that time can be reinvested either in building better relationships with donors or or clients or stakeholders or also could be reinvested in the staff to free up time. So we’re not. So as you said, the busy work takes up a lot of time but it also takes up a lot of cognitive overload and maybe if we had more spaciousness we would be less exhausted. Um and and more inspired and less burnout.

[00:06:15.66] spk_0:
Yeah the that that dividend of time is throughout the book. And uh well except that hypothesis for now I have I have I have some questions about that, some little skepticism about that, but for now we’ll accept that the dividend of time will indeed accrue to people who work in in in smart nonprofits and to to the to the organization generally. Um Are

[00:06:18.75] spk_1:
you skeptical that it can be created or are you skeptical that people will know what to do with it once they created it? No,

[00:06:27.95] spk_0:
well I don’t wanna I don’t I don’t want to challenge right off the bat but

[00:06:33.36] spk_1:
uh

[00:06:52.52] spk_0:
skepticism that that it that it can be realized. Not not that people will know what to do if it does get realized, but um yeah well let’s come back to it, let’s leave the hypothesis uh as as as perfectly fair and and uh something to truly aspire to because there are as you say, and as you lay out mostly in the last chapter, um there are great places that the sector can go when we realize this uh this dividend of time. Um

[00:07:10.37] spk_1:
let’s

[00:07:19.93] spk_0:
talk a little about, you know, some of these elements of being a smart non profit Um beth let’s stay with you for you know, human centered. What what do you what do you all mean by by that?

[00:08:00.23] spk_2:
Well I guess we use another term in the book um called co batting and really with that I like that because it’s like figuring out what the machines can do best. Right that the automation technology there’s certain tasks that the technology is really good at doing. And those are things like analyzing large amounts of data and automating kind of rote tasks. But there are there’s stuff in our jobs that humans should do and always do. And that is the relationship building, taking the donors out to lunch. Like you were telling us you took a donor out to a nice restaurant recently. You know that’s not something the automation is going to do for you. Um and being creative having empathy, making intuitive decisions. And so when we use this technology leaders really need to understand like what is the right workflow and always keep humans in

[00:08:19.06] spk_1:
charge?

[00:08:21.28] spk_0:
What what’s the what’s the

[00:08:25.05] spk_1:
how

[00:08:25.33] spk_0:
can we how can we make sure that we center humans in in adopting this this smart technology?

[00:09:29.83] spk_2:
Well I think the first step is to ask to talk to them and get their feedback and their input in before you even like grab the software off the shop? It’s not about that at all. Um you really have to start with. Um you know, what are the points of pain? What are the exquisite pain points that we want to address by adopting this technology and getting feedback from the end user’s whether that staff clients donors and then, um, setting up a, you know, an understanding of what the journey is, what the workflow is and where you divide things. And then you begin to go look at software tools and uh, and and find vendors that are aligned with your values and once you’ve, or technologists that are aligned with your values and then once you’ve done that, you can begin to start with pilots and uh, an iteration on it before you get to scale. This is so different tony than social media, which both Allison and I have talked to about where we’re encouraging people to just jump in experiment fail fast. What we’re saying with this technology is that it’s really important to, um, to go slowly and to be knowledgeable and reflective about it.

[00:09:53.74] spk_0:
And reflective. Yes, reflective is, uh, something else I wanted to ask about. So what you read my mind fantastic being reflective Alison, what is why, what’s that attribute about for the, for the smart non profit

[00:11:37.25] spk_1:
So this is, um, something I’m deeply passionate about tony Um, I don’t know if, you know, I had a first career as a program evaluator and uh, it’s very, very difficult to get, particularly smaller nonprofits who are so busy and so under resourced to take a step back and not only think about how is what they’re doing, Getting them closer to the results that they want to do, but how can they improve over time and we need them to understand not only the human centeredness that beth just spot on, you know, outlined, but in particular tony how are we making people feel internally and externally about our efforts? Are we making people feel seen and known and heard or and this is particularly important when we talk about smart tech, do you feel like a data point, just you know, a cog in large machinery? Um that’s just getting lost um and we know that feels terrible, everybody has experiences of feeling being made to feel small by organizations and nothing is more important in our work, particularly in the social service and human service areas of making people feel known and heard and yet it is just the sticking point for the sector that it is the thing that gets left off and again we’re back to the business of work, so we want people to be reflective of. Is this the right technology, are you solving that exquisite pain point that you had? How are you making people feel when machines are now doing what only people could do until just a few years ago, you know, through smart tack and is it solving the problems that you set out to solve?

[00:12:00.50] spk_0:
Uh Yeah, I I admired that idea of, of reflective because you know, it’s it’s closely related as you said to being human centered uh you know, thoughtfulness um and it goes to like preparation to um it

[00:12:23.51] spk_1:
also goes to leadership right? You have to have a leadership within an organization that isn’t so brittle that they are open to learning about how to improve and there are too many organizations that are so fearful of being seen as not doing something well that they won’t openly and wholeheartedly be reflective about their activities.

[00:12:42.57] spk_2:
And it’s also about the culture too, and we’ve used this word a lot dizziness and when we have a culture of business and people are multitasking and there’s back to back meetings. They don’t have that space to be reflective. So um and and that’s so required to um to make the changes that you just read about the last line of our book, you know, to get to that place

[00:13:23.79] spk_0:
and we’re gonna talk some about the leadership. Uh you talk about being trustworthy and empathetic, we’ll we’ll we’ll get there. Um Another, another attribute you you mentioned um beth is being knowledgeable, knowledgeable about the tech and I think it’s limits too. But what would you you say it you’ll say it more eloquently than I will.

[00:13:33.54] spk_1:
I

[00:13:33.74] spk_2:
think we can both say that both Alice and I can say both eloquently, but I’ll kick off with um when we say knowledgeable and we’re and we’re saying this to leaders, we’re not saying that you need to know how to code. Um you know, roll up your sleeves and write the code but you need to understand um

[00:13:51.97] spk_1:
what goes

[00:13:57.94] spk_2:
into the code and whether it’s biased um the data sets it’s been trained on and you need most of the time. A lot of leaders in the nonprofit sector when it comes to technology it’s kind of push back, you know sent down the hall to the I. T. Department and we’re really asking leaders to lead in because there’s you know potential challenges which Allison is really great at explaining.

[00:14:16.56] spk_1:
Alright

[00:14:18.19] spk_0:
well Alison explain those but then maybe you can tell us a story too about

[00:14:22.12] spk_1:
uh

[00:14:22.80] spk_0:
about like the degree to which a leader needs to be knowledgeable.

[00:15:38.16] spk_1:
Uh So we’re talking about um this family of technologies tony that is very quickly becoming embedded in every single part of organizational life. Right? This is not a you know fundraising software, smart tech is going to be embedded in the finances and the back office and the coms and development and everything. And the idea of having machines automatically paid for things or screen resumes or screen people for services is a fundamental shift in who is doing work and how it’s being done. Right? So when you understand that premise, you have to have the C suite leaning into this to underst and what it means when your staff is doing different things than they used to do and when people on the outside are engaging with machines instead of people, these are fundamental shifts. So one area. Um Well too I just mentioned that are so important is if you are automating the screening of resumes, then the assumptions that some programmer put into that system and the resumes that were used to test it for looking for certain kinds of employees with certain kinds of skills are going to be biased. I can tell you that right now, right. They are going to have a bias. And largely that bias is going to be against, you know, people who are black and brown or or women.

[00:15:57.35] spk_0:
It’s gonna be in favor of white men.

[00:16:40.39] spk_1:
Exactly. Because that is what employment looks like. Those are the questions we use those are the expectations that we have and the programming was done most likely by a white man. Um So if you don’t know what to ask. The creator of that software that you’ve just bought that is going to quote save you a ton of time looking at resumes. Um but also screen out um people of color and women then you’ve just an incredible disservice to your organization and the same if you are providing housing services or food services to people in need, the same kinds of biases are going to be found in these systems, right? This is a systems problem. And that’s why as Beth was saying, this is not a technical problem. This is not something where you say go I. T. Guys go find us a good product. You know, they’re not looking out for your organization’s interest in equity. That’s what leadership is for right, setting those moral standards, setting that compass and making sure that your values are aligned in everything you do and how you do it as an organization.

[00:17:59.64] spk_0:
Yeah. You both are very clear in the book that this is a leadership issue, not a technology issue. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They have another interesting newsletter this week advocating for the use of cliches. Their argument is that cliches shouldn’t be ruled out entirely but used judiciously. Like not don’t go overboard either. Whatever you think about cliches, my point is they’re thinking about them. They’re thinking about how best to communicate your story because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. Now back to the Smart non profit any any stories, can we can we tell a story at this point? Alison

[00:18:23.00] spk_1:
sure there are, there are social services agencies around the country um that we’re using smart tech systems to provide um food assistance. And only after the system had been in place for several years. tony did they find out that it was literally leaving out black people from the system. In the opening chapter of our book, we talked about a screening tool called V. I. Speed at uh

[00:18:39.80] spk_0:
three times.

[00:18:40.55] spk_1:
I

[00:18:42.50] spk_0:
just kept saying it. V. I. S. P. D. D. Yeah.

[00:18:50.81] spk_1:
Yeah the I stood at that was programmed by um why white man with very good intentions that unintentionally was leaving black people out of getting priority housing in hundreds of communities around the world, four years before the social workers finally got heard saying, we know this tool doesn’t work on the ground, we’re using. It, it is not screening people correctly because the questions were biased against people of color who have so much trouble getting into public systems.

[00:19:32.89] spk_0:
You you have three caveats sort of that that you uh you make very clear and bias is one of them. So we’re just talking about that um responsible use is another another of the three beth can you can you talk to uh what you’re thinking about responsible use and sort of thinking through problems?

[00:19:59.01] spk_2:
Um Sure. Uh it’s kind of like taking a Hippocratic oath that you will do no harm. Right? So the example that Alison just laid out, obviously there was harm done by keeping people screening people out for important services. Um so so it it who’s um non profits to do uh something that we call threat modeling? I know it’s a big scary term and word and it comes from the internet cybersecurity but

[00:20:11.51] spk_0:
didn’t frighten me.

[00:20:17.94] spk_2:
Okay, well it might frighten some people we have had that reaction, um but it’s just basically

[00:20:19.33] spk_0:
not profit radio It’s very savvy listeners here.

[00:20:21.72] spk_2:
Absolutely,

[00:20:23.24] spk_0:
this is this is a higher echelon audience than you’re

[00:20:25.77] spk_2:
right, of course, your

[00:20:26.90] spk_0:
other podcast. So please

[00:20:28.49] spk_2:
threat

[00:20:29.80] spk_0:
modeling is not intimidating to us.

[00:20:31.51] spk_2:
Okay, so threat modeling is actually having a brainstorm of all the possible things that could go

[00:20:36.33] spk_1:
wrong.

[00:20:42.33] spk_2:
Um if you uh implement this technology um what what harm could be done to the end user um if they if they were given um let’s say you have a buy right? And in fact the Trevor project is an example of an organization that did this threat modeling. They wanted to they had a problem. Um they had, you’re familiar with the Trevor project,

[00:21:02.88] spk_0:
explain, explain what what

[00:21:04.80] spk_2:
okay, so they provide uh

[00:21:07.10] spk_0:
counseling

[00:21:23.42] spk_2:
to yes to L. B. G. T. Q. Youth, you know through text and online phone, if you will. And so they’re dealing with kids who are in crisis and a whole, you know, um continuum of issues and they have councilors that there who are volunteers but they’re trained in this very specific, very sensitive type of counseling, especially when young people are coming to them in crisis. And so um so the problem was, you know, they needed to scale um and get more counselors in there so they could help more clients. And so they decided that they wanted to use a bot,

[00:21:44.37] spk_1:
which

[00:22:33.01] spk_2:
is, you know, automated response. We’re all familiar with thoughts, you know, buy a pair of sneakers online or trying to make a doctor’s appointment and you encounter a bot. And so rather than replace the counselors on the front line with this technology that won’t be human center, it could be potentially dangerous. Um especially with a sophisticated self learning bot, which could learn through, you know, and learn through interactions and say the wrong things and that could be devastating to an end user who’s in crisis. But what they decided to do was to use the bot for training simulations. So they took data from real conversation, stripping all privacy information and they use this to train their bot, which was a highly sophisticated software that was self learning. But they said that this spot will not be on the front lines with anybody, will only interact with um for training simulations. So what this did was free up a lot of time from the staff in terms of delivering trainings to more quality control. So they were able to get more counselors on the front

[00:22:51.82] spk_1:
line, so

[00:23:01.15] spk_2:
it’s an example of being human centered, but it’s also an example of that dividend of time and and repurposing it um and also uh making sure, you know, so it’s doing no harm. Yeah,

[00:23:15.16] spk_0:
and that and that responsible use. Okay, okay. Um the other the other caveat you have, so you have, you have three caveats bias, responsible use and privacy. Talking about ethical standards who’s uh, who’s who’s most interested in talking about privacy Allison Fine, raised their hand first.

[00:25:08.25] spk_1:
Yes, I did. Um so this is not a new issue, right, We’ve been dealing with digital privacy um for a long time, but as a sector haven’t really ever gotten our arms around it. tony right in that we has a sector have just subscribed to. I think we think the lowest expectations from the commercial side, which is you try to get as much personal data as you can write. You ask for those emails and you leave. You might let somebody unsubscribe from a newsletter, but you don’t delete their emails. Right? And a much, much more ethical model we feel is in the european union, the G D P R. I can’t remember what that stands for. But the idea is that, um, the people, the consumers, constituents, donors, volunteers are in charge of their data and they get to tell us how they want to be engaged with us, right? They get to tell us that they want to be forgotten entirely from our systems. They don’t want to be on any of our list. They don’t want to be in our systems. And that flipping over of the model we think is very in keeping with being human centered, right? It’s very in keeping with the values that we’re trying to, uh, in view in this whole concept of smart nonprofits, right? That we shouldn’t fear, um, asking people what the value we provide to them is. Right. Do we brought enough value in having their email for them to want to stay with us or are we just turning through again, as we said in the beginning, turning them through systems like the cogs in a great big machinery. So we think the smart tech is going to generate even more data than the last 10 years of digital tech, which is astonishing to think about kind of mind blowing to think about

[00:25:18.86] spk_0:
Because I think didn’t you cite 90 90% of the data that we have is in the past two years?

[00:25:34.41] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah. It is remarkable to explode. And so we need to be, we need to raise the bar on our ethical considerations on the use of data and the relationship that we have with our constituents. They need to trust us more. The fact that the nonprofit sector along with other sectors, the degree of trust is going down. tony is, is not good and we ought to hold ourselves to higher standards of privacy and data protection.

[00:26:52.20] spk_0:
Two weeks ago, Gene Takagi and I talked about that exact subject in a show that I called in nonprofits do we trust? It was just, it was just two weeks ago. It’s time for a break. 4th dimension technologies, your tech is an investment invest wisely. What’s the state of your office infrastructure? Should you give remote or hybrid employees tech allowances or just give them the equipment outright or both or neither. How’s your disaster recovery plan? How’s your backup working? four D. Can help you with all these investment decisions, check the listener landing page tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But you know they go one dimension deeper. Let’s return to the smart non profit Do we know what the impact has been on, on business? Uh,

[00:27:02.62] spk_1:
coming

[00:27:13.65] spk_0:
out of the G D P R has, it, has it had the devastating effect on business that the business community in europe was, was claiming when they were, uh, lobbying against it or trying to, you know, trying to weaken it. Do we, do we know I’m putting you on the spot. Do either of you know, whether that’s had such a devastating impact on european business?

[00:27:25.95] spk_1:
It’s been fine. And, and look, companies, commercial companies here have had to put, uh, more effort into privacy issues when they do work in the european

[00:27:37.36] spk_0:
union,

[00:27:40.59] spk_1:
you know,

[00:27:40.96] spk_0:
California

[00:27:41.82] spk_1:
for Nya are holding people to the same standards now. Um, but it hasn’t had a huge negative impact on business,

[00:27:50.70] spk_0:
you know,

[00:27:51.44] spk_1:
it’s fine.

[00:28:01.23] spk_0:
Okay, okay, now this, this smart tech artificial intelligence we’re talking about, this is widely used commercially, Right? I mean, isn’t this, I don’t know, fundamental to amazon google the 24 hour chatbots that beth mentioned, you know, you see a little about 24 7, the likelihood of that being a live person at four in the morning is very, very small. This, this is, this is ubiquitous in the commercial sector,

[00:28:22.79] spk_1:
isn’t it?

[00:28:23.82] spk_2:
Yes, it is, but I think we’re at this point um, uh, Allison likes to call it the heel of the hockey stick where it’s going to the cross of this technology has come down. It’s becoming democratized and it’s becoming more accessible to non profits of all sizes.

[00:28:41.29] spk_0:
You

[00:28:42.67] spk_2:
don’t have to be nasa to use this.

[00:28:51.56] spk_0:
All right. Now to keep yourself out of jargon jail. You’re gonna have to explain the, uh, the hockey stick on a graph metaphor. So go ahead, tell us what X and Y are and why it looks like a

[00:28:54.63] spk_1:
hockey stick.

[00:28:55.50] spk_2:
Okay. It’s okay. So imagine a hockey stick, right. Or I should do it this way. I’m looking at my

[00:29:02.71] spk_0:
nobody can, nobody can see your hands, but we all know what

[00:29:04.91] spk_2:
happened, but

[00:29:05.98] spk_0:
not sophisticated enough to know what hockey sticks.

[00:29:20.11] spk_2:
It basically shows. And this happens with technology. Um, is that, you know, early adopters use it because it’s very expensive, experimental. It’s unproven. And as it, the technology improve and the cost comes down and it becomes more accessible to consumers and small businesses into organizations. The adoption rate starts to skyrocket. So it goes up. So you see sort of a flat line and then a steep hill or steep mountain increase in

[00:29:35.49] spk_0:
X’s time. And why is technology adoption?

[00:29:39.42] spk_2:
Yes.

[00:29:40.76] spk_0:
Yeah. You’re better at

[00:29:41.91] spk_2:
charts than I am.

[00:29:43.65] spk_0:
Okay, well, you, you, you invoked the metaphor of the hockey stick. You gotta, you gotta be able to stand behind it now.

[00:29:48.41] spk_2:
Oh, I guess I guess I should.

[00:29:50.13] spk_0:
All right. All right.

[00:30:31.21] spk_1:
It’s not just nonprofits adopting this now. tony I would say that it’s all medium and small sized organizations in every sector that now has available to them, technology that they couldn’t afford just a few years ago. And that’s, that’s what the difference is. The technology is a brand new, it’s just become very affordable for smaller organizations. However, as I mentioned before, just because it’s available and just because it’s affordable, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right stuff to grab off the shelf. And that’s the part that’s that’s the impetus for us to write this book. You need to know what you’re grabbing and using, Yeah,

[00:30:42.60] spk_0:
the availability to small and midsize shops, I think is through is throughout your book. Um, let’s tell another good story. The one with the, uh, uh, the repurposing of the school bus routes to deliver food instead of drop off Children during the pandemic because Children were no longer going to school. So they repurposed school busses to drop

[00:30:55.43] spk_1:
off meals.

[00:30:57.87] spk_0:
Who knows that story best.

[00:30:59.76] spk_2:
Yeah. So, you’re, you’re talking about research at Carnegie Mellon University and you’re talking about Pittsburgh school system and

[00:31:07.96] spk_0:
Pittsburgh school system.

[00:32:38.23] spk_2:
United Pittsburgh school district or whatever it’s called. Um, so this was at the very beginning of the pandemic when we were in the shutdown and um, and kids that are in schools that are in poorer areas relied on the school lunch program to get their meals right. And so if schools were shut down and, and, and students were tele community, there’s no way to get this food. So they used a machine learning algorithm to re engineer the must routes to take the food to the kids in the most efficient way. It’s really interesting how during the pandemic, you know, there was a little bit of a silver lining. I know it’s awful. But there was a silver lining for some nonprofits to really push and to innovate. And I think food banks in a way we’re forced to do this. Um, there’s another example in boston of the boston food bank completely automating its inventory and it’s stocking to become a lot more efficient. And at one point they even were experimenting with having robots come in and stock the shelves because most of the food banks, volunteers are older and they were told not, you know, during the very early part of the pandemic, not to, you know, come in because it could be dangerous to their health. Um, and that’s also a great kind of idea story, use scenario to think about to do the threat modeling that we were talking about earlier. So let’s just say for example, food banks. So let’s let’s bring in the robots and have

[00:32:38.99] spk_1:
them stock

[00:32:40.47] spk_2:
the shelves, you know, so, but you also have to think about that volunteers who are coming in, um, to do this type of work. Those were their lifeline in terms,

[00:32:50.89] spk_0:
yeah.

[00:32:51.75] spk_2:
How are they going to feel and how are we going to redesign the volunteer job and how are you going to encourage them to come back in and make them feel safe and welcome into the food

[00:33:02.13] spk_1:
bank. Right.

[00:33:02.86] spk_0:
Less feeling less unless they feel useless and replaced by machinery. And this is all the organization thought of us. And now they now it’s just a bunch of metal replacing us metal and plastic parts. So yeah. Alright. Also being human centered, reflective,

[00:33:59.75] spk_1:
but that that’s that’s the dividend of time, tony if you can say all right, we used to have these uh, you know, two dozen volunteers who came in and were stocking shelves all the time. And now we’ve automated that task. What is it that these, you know, lovely people who wanted to help could do that would be so, you know, deeply human and centered as you say, and uh, you know, in in improving our relationship with our clients. Maybe they could be calling clients. So what else do you need? You know, what else is happening for you or just saying hello to somebody, Right. I mean, there are all sorts of wonderful human things that those people could now do if they want to um that they never had the time to do before. That’s the that’s where this is again, a leadership issue of really thinking about how do we want to use our human capital in the next chapter of organizational development?

[00:35:40.16] spk_0:
Okay, I think that’s an excellent example of the dividend of time that we’re we’re about a half an hour in or so. So let me uh let me try my, my skepticism out on you that we I’ve heard this before, that there was gonna be, there were promises of increased productivity and increased time. I’m thinking of smartphones, we’re going to give us more time and they certainly make us more productive, but I don’t I don’t I don’t see studies saying that we we have so much more time. I see that time being absorbed now you might say, well maybe I’m making your case for you that time being re allocated. Unthought feli unwisely. But I don’t I don’t see people walking around feeling that they’ve got so much more free time since the widespread adoption of smartphones 10 years ago or so. Um Another video conferencing, you know, whatever teams uh zoom, I hear more about zoom burnout than I do about feeling that I’ve got so much more time available because I don’t have to go to meetings. I don’t have to go to the office. Um You know, so those are a couple of the paperless office. That was another paper, the promise of the paperless office was going to be so much so much more efficient for us and I think that was gonna save time because we wouldn’t have to file papers and it was gonna save office space because we wouldn’t need storage and these promises. Um I sound like a whining 60 year old, but these promises have not come

[00:35:44.78] spk_2:
to not

[00:35:46.09] spk_0:
come to fruition in the

[00:35:46.96] spk_2:
past. So I’ll take what I’ll tackle the zoom fatigue thing and, and then Alison can kind of related to smart text. So

[00:35:56.32] spk_0:
I guess I should say uh, it’s not whining. I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeonly 60 year old.

[00:36:00.94] spk_2:
Well you’re not a curmudgeon and you never whine.

[00:36:03.79] spk_0:
All right, Thank you.

[00:36:52.45] spk_2:
So, so if you take zoom fatigue, right? Um, and that came from stanford University and basically what is causing it is the flight or fight response that is going on in our bodies when we see the grid. I mean, there’s some ways to mitigate it. But what happened is is that nonprofits like many businesses all of a sudden were forced to pivot to becoming remote distributed teams. We never really work like that. So the idea was, let’s just all make, get a zoom meeting. Let’s just take everything we did in person and just plop it online. And what happened because everybody was doing this there was, we didn’t really evaluate how do we collaborate effectively. What do we need, what can we do? Like a synchronously so we can make use of our synchronous or real time experience. So we can make meetings shorter. There’s research from Microsoft that shows that if you have stacked back to back meetings without taking a break your level of stress just stays the same throughout the day. And so if organizations were reflective, knowledgeable

[00:37:07.39] spk_0:
and kind of prepared, they

[00:37:16.17] spk_2:
Would have looked at and said, Okay, so let’s look at how we can, you know, stick to a culture of maybe a 20 minute meeting with 10 minute break in between or have a zoom number per day that we know that we’re not going to schedule more than x number of meetings, which would then think to how do we rethink our work? Um So it’s not just the technology, that’s true, the technology doesn’t create the dividend of time. It’s a combination of the technology with thoughtful leadership, reflective leadership as we’ve been saying, that can then change the culture.

[00:37:41.25] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:37:51.31] spk_1:
And let me let me let me build on that tony So we have an entire generation of digital technology That was intended to make us go faster, right? That was that’s what it has done. We are at a point now, we’re checking your email on average, 74 times a day is quote normal, right?

[00:38:04.53] spk_0:
We’ve gone from uh let’s say facts to email, to texting to to to um slack.

[00:39:36.27] spk_1:
We we we get that this technology, smart tech ai automation is not that technology, it is a fundamentally different kind of technology that’s intended to do things instead of people not to have us do more, But as Beth just said, it’s only going to do that. If we implement it thoughtfully, right, if we end up in the same place where we are checking on the box 74 times a day shame on us. The stuff has the potential to relieve us of so much administrative wrote work that just eats up everybody’s day. And if we can co bott well and have the bots do what they’re supposed to do and the people do what they they’re supposed to do, we can actually re humanize work. But as you know we’re just at the beginning of this process a lot of this is theoretical and that’s again is why we wrote this book instead of jumping in and grabbing the stuff and adding it onto your existing dizziness, frantic nous culture, we need you to stop and think and figure out how to do this. Well you know

[00:40:34.55] spk_2:
there’s some research that’s from M. I. T. Sloan school that looked at the effectiveness of this technology and um and where it is effective is if people don’t just focus on the efficiency of it that is to, okay well we can get all of these tests done way more efficiently because people aren’t cutting and pasting from different spreadsheets. Um But we’re not gonna fill up people’s with more work to do so it’s not to go faster, it’s really to be more effective and so if this technology can be implemented and it can kind of relieve some of that stress and pain of overload then that has an impact on morale and people feeling good about where they work and there is a synergistic impact that the study found that where efficiency and kind of effectiveness, let’s work together. So there’s so that can have more people feel better about their work, they do better, they get better results, they’re less likely to quit, there’s less likely to be turnover and the organization moves forward in a in a better way with better outcomes.

[00:41:09.01] spk_0:
Right, Okay. Alright. And that’s that’s if if it’s adopted with leaders consciously being human centered, knowledgeable, reflective, prepared. Uh and we’re gonna get to trust and empathy. Um All right, well you may have moved me from skeptic to uh cautious optimist.

[00:41:16.14] spk_2:
I was gonna say, what are you still are you still a little uh

[00:41:34.32] spk_0:
you know the history, the history has not has not borne out that leaders have adopted the new technology reflectively thoughtfully and prepared. Lee um It’s just so I’m just basically,

[00:41:36.18] spk_2:
pardon

[00:44:17.51] spk_0:
Me, they never had its 2022. Now they have the book, they didn’t have it when we went from facts to email or email to slack or email the text and text. Alright, Alright. No, no it’s okay. Um so leaders please uh keep listening. It’s time for Tony’s take to debunk the top five myths of planned giving, that’s my free webinar coming up. It’s Tuesday october 18th at 10 a.m. Pacific one o’clock Eastern I say free webinar but it’s not free for everyone. It’s free for you because you’re gonna use checkout code tony T. O N Y couldn’t be simpler. I think you have to put it all in caps too. I’m not sure about that part but do it all in caps to be safe. So I’m gonna be talking about debunking these insidious, pernicious top five myths of planned giving, I hate them, I loathe them, they are loathsome, that’s why I loathe them because they keep people away from planned giving like the one that says plan giving is gonna ruin all your other fundraising. It’s going to take away from your annual gift and your major annual giving and major giving. Debunk. We’re gonna debunk that and for others as well. So join me very simple to sign up. Of course. You go to our gracious host site. We are thoughtfully hosted by N. P. Solutions. So you go to N. P. Solutions dot org. You click workshops, you’ll find me in the list and then when you’re checking out use that code tony do it in all caps and it’ll be free for you. Not for everybody, but for you, I hope you’ll be with me. Let’s debunk these Hateful Top five Myths. That is tony stick to we’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the smart non profit with Beth Canter and Alison fine. Let’s let’s talk some about the leadership. That’s perfect. So you mentioned the three things I really want to talk about trustworthy empathy uh, and curiosity and I have to get this in. If you had an H then you could have spelled out tech trustworthy empathy, curious, high minded

[00:44:18.40] spk_2:
human, human centered,

[00:44:26.89] spk_0:
human centered. You need, you got the T. E. C. In the book. I was looking where’s the H. All right. Uh, what does it look like for leaders to be to be trustworthy? To adopt Trust?

[00:44:34.88] spk_1:
Who

[00:44:38.64] spk_0:
who who’s the best, who’s the most trustworthy explainer of of trust?

[00:44:43.00] spk_1:
I

[00:44:43.18] spk_0:
don’t care. It could be either one. Okay, Allison Trust is yours. We got to go in order and then if we can come up with an H uh centered, but that you already have that in the in becoming a smart non profit That’s that. You already covered that one. So you can come up with another one. Um Herculean, heroic, heroic, Herculean, Right. Trust Alison, Why why is this trust?

[00:46:58.76] spk_1:
Important? So organizations are making a bond with people in their communities, right? We are, we are asking them to come along on a journey with us, uh, to be clients to be donors, to be volunteers, to engage with us in some way and trust is the stuff that’s sticking us together, right? It is social capital. It is thinking that an organization has your best interests at heart, not just their best interests at heart. And um, I feel like for 20 years, so many organizations have been going moving so quickly on this hamster wheel advised by people who make a lot of money off of transactional fundraising and transactional engagement online and have lost sight of the fact that unless and until people out there trust that you are doing the right stuff in the right way, nothing else matters. And we’re all trying to scale way too quickly, tony without really understanding the fundamental D. N. A. Of making sure that we are entirely values aligned from what we want to do to what we’re actually doing to the outcomes. And again, you know, beth and I feel so strongly that the nonprofit sector is such an incredibly special place, right? We are the epicenter of the world for you know, providing human services and doing advocacy work and it is such an incredibly brave, difficult work and yet we still have a ways to go in asking are the leadership of organizations both C suite and the boards to raise the bar to be more transparent uh to to ask more questions about how they’re doing, to measure their outcomes, to uh take care of their people internally and externally better. And so that’s why we put trust so high up on the scale of what we want organizations to be focused on.

[00:47:19.32] spk_0:
I think leaders feel when they’re there

[00:47:24.02] spk_1:
falling

[00:47:24.70] spk_0:
short in in in in in the aspirations that you just described. I think I think folks feel it it’s just but they’re on that hamster wheel and it’s, it’s hard to take, it’s hard to take that step back and and acknowledge what you’re feeling and be introspective as an organization.

[00:49:01.87] spk_1:
Let me, let me, let me describe something though. That’s really important. tony that we as a sector don’t talk nearly enough about. And that’s what Beth and I called the leaky bucket in fundraising. Right? So year one, you get 100 donors by year two, you’re down to 25 of those. You’ve lost 75% of those donors Because you’re so busy filling up the bucket again because you’ve lost 75% the year before and all you’re doing is this transactional fundraising, the email, the direct mail to fill up the bucket again. All of the measures of fundraising success are front loaded, right of did we hit those, you know, revenue targets for this year? Very few organizations are really focused on donor retention and how to increase it. It’s never been at a board table for discussion that I have been at in many, many years, many, many organizations of being on the board and that is where the panic comes in. And it feels terrible to staff and you know, my heart just goes out to all of those people who are in a panic about hitting those revenue numbers knowing that what they’re working with is hemorrhaging donors every single day and that’s where, you know, just in my heart of hearts tony I just want everybody to stop, just stop and take a step back and figure out how to improve your relationship with donors more. So they stay longer with you and you’re not in this panic every day.

[00:49:25.83] spk_0:
Allison, we’re gonna come back to you for for curiosity beth let’s talk about empathy,

[00:49:29.41] spk_1:
I’m

[00:51:40.41] spk_2:
sure. And I think the empathy is, needs to be turned within first before it gets turned outside to the donors to solve um, what what Alison was just talking about. But so empathetic leadership means the ability to understand the needs of others and being aware of their feelings and thoughts. And unfortunately it’s viewed as kind of like a soft skill. Um, and it’s not always linked to performance, um, indicators, right? And so I think it’s really important, especially with what we’ve been through in the pandemic, um, that organizations really need to have clear expectations with their managers to lead in a way that is supportive of, of employees and that supports and contributes to their overall well being and they can do that and still get work done. Um, and I think that like don’t get me started on well being, but um, well being has to be put center and it has to be raised up and given as much importance as fundraising metrics or, or other financial metrics, especially given what we’ve been through. And so this includes checking in training people to like actually observe on their staff and making sure that their, um, you know, caretakers for each other’s well being. And it’s, you know, like a one on one check in isn’t just about, hey, where’s that report? Where’s that proposal? But it’s also how people are feeling what their energy is. Like what their job experiences like what could be improved, which gets us closer to that conversation around technology. So, um, the types of skills and competencies that make for a culture of care or empathy or self awareness and self regulation, adaptive skills, active listening coaching with powerful questions, observing for signs of burnout. Being able to give and receive feedback in a way that doesn’t cause stress, disrupting microaggressions, inclusive facilitation, having those difficult conversations sometimes, which is too nice. But there’s ways to have those conversations that aren’t devastating and genuine perspective, taking. Being able to see it from other people’s points of view. And it doesn’t, I don’t think that makes us weaker. I really think it makes us stronger.

[00:51:54.81] spk_0:
You know,

[00:52:05.03] spk_2:
it’s not a bunch of, you know, reaction when I wrote the happy, healthy. Yeah. Right. We get the, you know, that’s a bunch of hippie crap. Yeah.

[00:52:07.04] spk_0:
I didn’t say that when I talk to you. You

[00:52:08.92] spk_2:
didn’t say that. Of course you wouldn’t say that. You’re too smart.

[00:52:25.83] spk_0:
Thank you. Well, you hardly know me, but thank you. I’ll take it anyway. Um, I know a lot of what you’re describing to is vulnerability. And I think vulnerability is a sign of uh is evidence of confidence that you’re, that you’re strong enough to be vulnerable where lots of people think it’s a sign of weakness that you’re showing, you know, you’re, you’re showing your human side and you know that I think that’s terribly misguided. Um alright, if we’re gonna, we’re gonna, I’m gonna keep you uh not beyond our allocated time. Let’s go to Alison for for curiosity.

[00:52:48.83] spk_1:
Why is it important?

[00:52:50.46] spk_0:
Yes. Why is, why is curiosity a valued trait for leaders?

[00:54:31.33] spk_1:
Uh, you know, the world is moving really fast tony and we have um, a lot of organizational leaders who think tech is not their thing, right? Tech is for somebody else and it can’t not be your thing. If you’re running an organization right now, it’s too important. It’s threaded throughout everything that your organization is doing and you can’t just lean back, You need to lean into it and to do that? You need to be genuinely curious about in our case for smart tech, What is this stuff and why is important and how is it different from the last generation of technology and what could we actually accomplish if we didn’t spend three quarters of our day responding to emails? What is possible out there in the world. And you know, my heart breaks for so many of the nonprofit folks that beth and I talked to who have such good intentions and are so deeply unhappy with how stressful their jobs are or how unrecognized they are by the C suite um or how um pressurized they feel. So it is just uh innately important for organizational leaders to be genuinely curious about, where do we go from here? Right. The world broke two years ago in so many fundamental ways the political economic stress of this moment is wearing people down but we can’t stay here tony we need to go somewhere and we genuinely believe that the family of technologies we call smart tech creates an opportunity to be different in the future to make work joyful and much more meaningful and rewarding and you can only get there if you’re genuinely curious and engaged in understanding the technology

[00:54:58.39] spk_0:
and I think curiosity and empathy are interrelated to curiosity about your people as beth was for all the, in all the ways Beth was describing. That’s

[00:55:08.56] spk_1:
exactly right

[00:55:12.54] spk_0:
alright. Um I don’t suppose the beth I don’t suppose you on the fly came up with an H for to spell out tech for us. Did you?

[00:55:23.89] spk_2:
You

[00:55:24.77] spk_0:
Have that one already?

[00:55:27.02] spk_2:
Humility

[00:55:28.26] spk_0:
Humility is a good one. There you go.

[00:55:29.86] spk_2:
So let’s riff on that humility in

[00:55:31.81] spk_0:
the second edition, you can add, you can add humility and spell out

[00:55:35.20] spk_2:
text and then we’ll footnote and say suggested by tony

[00:55:44.65] spk_0:
Thank you. Yeah, humility. Right. Isn’t that simple? Yeah, related to being empathetic leaders don’t need to know everything, do they?

[00:55:49.85] spk_1:
Oh gosh

[00:55:50.62] spk_2:
no listen

[00:56:15.01] spk_1:
we you know the reason why we wrote the network on profit tony was to take that idea of the hierarchical model of leadership and organizations out of the equation and say the point is somebody else in your network has the answer. You don’t have to have the answer yourself. You just have to know how to go about getting it right and and that of of flattening your organization and your worldview is so important to being able to survive all the uncertainties of what’s happening right now.

[00:56:52.37] spk_0:
Since we started with Allison, Beth I’m gonna let you wrap us up please. There’s so much more in the book. There are use cases, you know, we don’t the book, we can only scratch the surface here. You gotta get the book. That’s the point. You get. They talk about increasing program capacity, fundraising, back office automation, including a lot of talk about human resources. Um you just you gotta get the book which is the smart non profit but beth why don’t you leave us with inspiration and wisdom?

[00:58:30.19] spk_2:
Okay. Um we’ve been through a lot the sector has been through a lot. I mean the world’s been through a lot in the last 22 plus years with the pandemic and accompanying other crisis is and as Allison is outlined and I think we’re we are like at a precipice where we could just either go down the rabbit hole of you know a human capital crisis and spiraling out and people leaving the field and organizations just, you know, stopping business and, you know, leaving lots of people who are vulnerable who need their services. I mean, that’s we can’t go there. We have to pivot. And I think that um, smart tech is part of the tools that can help us get there. But again, their tools, they also need this empathetic leadership that we’ve been talking about and we who can also steer and change the culture to put people first. Um, and um, and I think if we can have all of these things together, working for the organization, the Smart Tech plus the culture plus the leadership, uh, we’ll be able to move forward in a post pandemic world with much better outcomes with happier staff, with staff doing a better job with donors, feeling seen and heard and wanting to, you know, um write bigger checks if you will with clients who are receiving the services that they need and we’re on a path to a better world. It’s not gonna be easy, but uh, we believe that non profits can do this.

[00:58:48.89] spk_0:
That’s beth cantor at Beth Kanter and Beth Kanter dot org co author Alison Fine at a fine and Allison Fine dot com. The book is the smart non profit you can find it in either of their two sites,

[00:59:00.00] spk_1:
Beth

[00:59:00.35] spk_0:
and Allison, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing

[00:59:03.70] spk_2:
genuine

[01:00:00.00] spk_0:
pleasure next week. Eric Sapperstein returns after many years. Let’s talk about waking up excited and going to bed fulfilled. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech You find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O and by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff showed social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, Thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty, you’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for May 30, 2014: Matterness And Churn & Net Neutrality

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Allison Fine: Matterness and Churn

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Allison Fine returns to continue our discussion of how to show people that they matter to your organization. Plus, what’s the churn and how does it hurt your matterness efforts. Allison is co-author of “The Networked Nonprofit.” We first talked about matterness in January. df

 

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Amy Sample Ward: Net Neutrality

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Amy Sample Ward, our social media contributor and CEO of the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), explains what net neutrality is; why it’s important to your nonprofit; and how you can have your voice heard on this very timely internet management issue.

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host and you know that i’m glad you’re with me because i’d be forced to endure acute qatar yl sinusitis if i learned that you had missed today’s show matter-ness and churn allison find returns to continue our discussion of how to show people that they matter to your organization, plus what’s the churn and how does it hurt your matter-ness efforts? Alison is co author of the network to non-profit we first talked about matter-ness in january and net neutrality. Amy sample ward, our social media contributor and ceo of the non-profit technology network and ten, explains what net neutrality is why it’s important to your non-profit and how you can have your voice heard on this very timely internet management issue on tony’s take two oh my voice just cracked don’t take too like i’m fourteen years old, show your love and raise more money. We are sponsored by generosity, siri’s hosting multi charity five k runs and walks very grateful for their sponsorship, very pleased also, i’m grateful to them and very pleased as well to welcome back, allison fine, because she’s, the co author of the bestselling the non-profit sorry, the networked non-profit and she’s, author of the award winning momentum igniting social change in the connected age. Allison find blog’s about the intersection of social media and social change at allison fine dot com. She also hosts a monthly podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy called social good. You’ll find her on twitter at, eh? Fine, allison find welcome back. Thanks, tony it’s a pleasure. Oh, i’m glad it’s a pleasure to have you back and we wanted to keep talking about matter-ness it was so listeners khun maybe acquaint themselves with the past. It was january tenth when alison on and i last talked about matter-ness and we didn’t really finish it, and i was very disappointed that that you weren’t on for the full hour. So here you are back. What do you what do you just remind us? What? What? What matter-ness is what’s concerning you? Oh, sure, so, tony, we’re in the the beginning of the second decade of the social media revolution, i’ve been writing about it for ten years and the biggest shift that has happened as a result of everybody having access to this amazing tool kit tool set is that people can do only what organizations could do before, right, we can publish. We can dahna treyz money, we can organize large protests, we can help instigate revolutions. We have this amazing power. And yet as we have developed this power organisations haven’t embraced our ability to do this. Now some of my social media brethren will say with great confidence, who needs organizations anyway? The heck with, um and the fact is we do need organizations we need their ability to generate resource is their ability to organized over time and their institutional memory, among other things. So there is this gap between the need of people to matter. We all need that as individuals. We need our voices too. We heard we need to know that we’re that we exist that that were cared for and about, and the inability of organization so many organizations to do that and that’s where i came up with this word matter-ness it is that face that needs to be filled with good stuff. When we last talked about it, you left us with several excellent ideas and but one of them i wanted to pick up on was that we don’t have to look perfect that non-profits don’t have to look perfect and tangential to that was be willing to go out to your community and ask them for help, right and way beyond just money help, exactly. So we had gotten ourselves boxed into a place, you know, in the second half of the last century, tony, that organisations, and therefore the people inside of them need to be not only buttoned up but buttoned up perfection and it’s not possible one thing it never was possible, but certainly now that we have social media and we can the inside of organizations much more than we could before and anything that happens is instantly bread and scaled by all of the connections. The idea that we would want to continue to pretend that inside of our walls we can solve all of our problems is an exhausting way to work and it’s ironic because we’re sitting amidst an enormous, resource rich ecosystem. They called him big, small town that have that air filled with people of goodwill who are waiting to be asked to help and yet the default setting of so many organizations and the people lead them is that we need to present the world with our ten point three years strategic plan and ask people for money over and over again and that’s. Just a ah, really unfortunate and sad way to work when there’s so much other creative help out there for people it’s the difference between working from the inside out and looking from the outside in that’s just it had. How do you experience your work? Right? Is your work all about what you need internally or is about what people feel and know and can contribute from the outside in? How do we get it? How do we get to the outside? Wait outside ourselves in our office? Yeah. Uh, so, like any good ten step plan, their first has to be recognition. That there’s a problem. We’re helping with that right now. Hopefully. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right. So, uh, the problem begins with a personal set of assumptions that leaders have. Everybody comes to their work, tony, with this invisible set of prescribed default settings about how the world works. And it was, you know, in the in the waters in the millions last century to assume that the world out there was a dangerous place filled with ah wacka doodles and jobs and wing nuts. And all of those folks who just mean you harm. And when you put place yourself in an ecosystem, that’s just filled with all sorts of threats like that very, very difficult to unlock the doors and come on out into the sunshine and play with other people. So it really needs to begin with conversations internally about what are the assumptions that we have about the world about our place in the world? Do we believe that people a matter out there do we want to trust their judgment? Do we want to ask for help? I have a whole, you know, set of questions that people need to start to ask themselves and the best way to do it because it’s very easy, tony, if i asked you to, people matter and you being a person of good will would naturally say yes, of course people matter you’re right, then if i pushed you a little further and said, ok, do they matter if they come onto your facebook page? And criticize you in a way that feels uncomfortable or unfair. Well, now we’re getting into a, you know, a different kind of place, right up until what point do people matter and what happens when it makes us uncomfortable? Right? So we really need to push ourselves through a series of scenarios of conversations about, uh, what our relationship with the world means in practice, not just in theory, and also then how do we show our communities that they matter to us? Yeah, i find that just fascinating that so much time and energy is spent by organizations showcasing what they do and why they should matter to other people. And so little energy is spent in conversation with people out there. On what do you know why they matter? So here’s here’s a fun example? Tony, how many times have you walked into a restaurant and you see the photos up of employees of the month? Right? Right. How many times have you walked into a similar kind of business and seen customers of the month? Uh, right, we don’t we don’t really celebrate those people out there and show them that they matter to us, that’s. Right, how bout a non-profit coming onto their facebook page, and instead of talking about how much you know, money they raised on their last campaign and how great they are? What if they told the story of one donor who gave twenty five dollars, and why this cause matters to her? Yes, a donor of a modest level donor in-kind twenty five dollars, right, who clearly has been moved by something here, right, her feelings, her matter-ness i need to be shown to matter to the organization. We have to go away for a couple minutes. Of course, alice is going to stay with us, and we’re going to keep talking about matter-ness we’ll move to the churn, and i’m going to ask her to tell her. Good post office story, hang in there. I didn’t even think that shooting, getting, thinking things, you’re listening to the talking alternative network you get in. E-giving. Good this’s. The same way we’re hosting part of my french new york city, guests come from all over the world, from mali to new caledonia, from paris to keep back. French is coming language. Yes, they all come from different cultures, background or countries, and it common desires to make new york they’re home. Listen to them. Share this story. Join us. Pardon my french new york city every monday from one to two p. M. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent we’ve got lots of live listener love love sending live listener love to hamburg, pennsylvania, new york, new york no that’s cool new york, new york. Welcome arco, idaho. Welcome, marco. My voice cracked again. Tampa, florida, new bern, north carolina, atlanta, georgia live listener love to all of you let’s go abroad. Briefly. Teo kyoto, tokyo and osaka, japan konnichiwa live listen love to the asian peninsula there feels good to be back in the studio. It’s been it’s been a few weeks. We had a bunch of pre recorded shows i love doing alive. Listen, love and of course, the podcast pleasantries for everybody lift listening on the time shift you nine thousand plus allison tell you little post office story you’re a little run in with your mailbox or somebody had a run in with your somebody else had a run in with your mailbox ongoing poor mailbox fell off its post a couple of weeks ago. Got you thinking about the post office? Yeah. Fell off sametz. You know, i didn’t really think much about it. I ordered a new one, and it came. I didn’t like it, so i sent it back, and and that was kind of getting delivered, you know, i figured tony it’s just bills and junk mail, right things that really brought but my husband, who was traveling during that time, he really likes his mail, so he came home and and quickly realised that our mail had stopped being delivered. So he went down to our post office, and, uh, he went up to the counter and said, you know, are our male has stopped being delivered into, though you yes, you need to talk to the postmaster. Zoho every post office has don’t you are elevated to the postmaster, you’re in trouble, but you can’t be good. Yeah, so postmaster comes out and she asked my husband, what is, you know, what is interesting is and he says they’re male stopped and she said, oh, yes, that’s right? I stopped the mail and yes, why? And she said, because delivering your mail is a safety hazard, and this is, you know, it’s, not like the mailman had to get out the car, he didn’t have to walk up anything if you just bend down a little bit. Put it in the box, your mail boxes on the floor is on the ground now, right on the ground platform, though it’s not, you know what a tree. And so he said, well, how, exactly is a safety hazard? And she said, well, bending down is a safety hazard, and it won’t be delivered again until we got a new mailbox. And so my husband said, well, why didn’t you tell us? Yeah, and she said, well, i don’t have your telephone number to find a little ironic, since they continue to deliver the phonebook, right? Yes, and you’re listed you listed in the phone, my list, okay? And then he said, well, so why couldn’t you at least put a note in the mailbox that you stopped delivering the mail? Because it’s. Yeah. Now listen, that wasn’t quite the end of it in terms of matter-ness clearly, anybody who most people who engage with the post office feel a sense of not mattering and that’s just but, you know, cliff, we’ve just come to expect mediocrity from the post, yeah, yes, mediocrity and and just a lack of caring altogether. But here’s here’s what? I think the story actually gets a little bit interesting because i posted the story my block and then on twitter and ah, ah, person on twitter came back to me and said, well, have you ever shown your mail carrier that he matters to you and then maybe stop in my tracks? And i thought, no, you’re right, i am too chief at christmas time. It’s uh, it’s just a bad habit. I know, and i did not apologize to the mail carrier when the bucks first dropped off, right? It didn’t occur to me that this could be inconvenient for him in some way, andi, i was rude and and it hadn’t really hadn’t occurred to me, tony, of how much matter-ness goes round around with people who really isn’t a one way street, right? That’s. Outstanding. Yeah. Yeah. Well, have you had a little conversation with your mail carrier? I did. I came out after this twitter exchange. I came out and i flagged him down and he looked very wary. I think he thought i was going to yell at him about the whole faster. And you probably heard from his post master. Yeah. Ah, and, you know, he’s, a very large man in this little truck, and we haven’t met in person, tony, but i’m a very small person, and i thought, well, why would you be afraid of me? But i went down and flag him down and said, i really wanted to apologize for the inconvenience we caused. I hadn’t thought about it, and i wish i had thought about it more and he was absolutely startled and said, please, please it’s fine, i’m you know, i’m sorry got to that level. Uh, and and we then had a very pleasant conversation, but his surprise that my willingness to step out and talk to him about it was very moving. Yeah, he probably was expecting a confrontation and certainly not an apology, but so matter-ness brought the two of you. Together on dh. Now, you each appreciate each other’s sensitivities to this. Yeah, i also need to tip them better at christmas time. Okay, well, interest. Okay, introspection is good. All right, all right. Let’s. Say it’s. A touching story. What about the churn, alice? You’ve been thinking about the churn. What? What? What’s that. So, tony, look, the turn is the bane of everybody who works right. It is the stuff of all of those dilbert cartoons, it’s. All of that business that goes into getting work done. It’s all the process. All the staff meeting all of the memos, all of the e mails. Uh, and with social media, it’s been extended, you know, outside of the office to every waking moment of the day. And the problem with the churn is that it, um, energized by a couple of really bad things, uh, it’s energized by the risk aversion of organizations right to the the volume of the turn gets turned up when organizations become so nervous about something going wrong somewhere. So that’s, where you end up in the meetings where people are playing devil’s advocate and those never ending conversations about what happens if somebody says this and what happens if, you know, we deliver late and what happens and what happened and what happens is that just takes up an enormous amount of time and energy. The second thing that energizes the journey, the churn is the unwillingness of managers and leaders latto let staff people do what they’re hired to dio it costs upwards of twenty thousand dollars, tony for a typical organization toe hyre a typical manager all of the time and direct expenses of, you know, advertising and interviewing and and training somebody. And yet, as you well know, almost the first thing or so many organizations do when somebody hired is to say, don’t use your brain, just follow our rules, right? Here’s the plan and here’s the formula and go step by step, and even when they do have people working by formula, so many managers and leaders feel a need to watch people work so much time on not just supervising, but literally watching where and when people were, and that just creates an enormous bureaucracy and bureaucracy is the turns best friend? They’re b f f f forever, chernin, bureaucracy and it’s what keeps organizations hold inside? Right, if it makes us inside out and that the whole effort becomes obsessed with internal process and therefore antithetical to matter-ness antithetical to matter-ness antithetical to being out there, talking to people, to building relationships with people, to asking for help with people asking me that a problem solved with you. I have had a heck of a time, johnny. I’ve been looking for an organization that went out to their community on facebook, on twitter, on their block, wherever and said we have a real problem, not a window dressing problems like you know what to wear to the gala next saturday night, a real problem. Can you help us solve it? Because the idea of taking problems out publicly is just too frightening for people and that’s a real shame because there’s so many people out there, somebody smart people who want to help it keeps us from it keeps us from looking at an abundance perspective, it’s, and keeps us in that scarcity mentality and that’s related to the risk aversion and the and the bureau bureaucracy and the internal the intern this internal turn. Yeah, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, right that you look at the world is a scary place, you know it, it creates a need to self protect self protection creates a need to be overly careful. Um, which then creates the need to to try to control everything internally, and that is just an enormously self defeating way of working. Ah, and yet, you know, we see organizations that are able tto let their people go the container store does a great job of hiring smart people and training them and then letting them do their jobs well, feeling a need to look over their shoulder every minute of the day. Sametz have you found examples of that in our non-profit community? Not so much now you mentioned that you hadn’t seen examples of non-profits going out to their community looking for help, but in terms of this training and then delegation, so there are i don’t want to be teo slip there certainly, organizations like the national wildlife defense that trains their focus to be on twitter and has nearly a hundred staff people out there speaking every day they get some guidance, but they don’t have to approve tweet, you know they trust them to be out in public speaking about the work and who best to be your ambassador than your staff. People who know, you know, what’s happening. So their organizations like that, like the humane society increasingly great cross mom’s rising, which does a beautiful job of letting their people out onto social media channels to be in conversation with their communities on a distributed basis, not just social media manager that’s exactly right? So it was for the organization to do the best job with social media. Tony, it is not centralized with the manager, but they have is a manager who’s building the capacity throughout the organization for everybody to be on on channels in talking, right? It’s a distributed media you can’t undistributed internally. And and if you’re willing to look from the outside in you make the point that this helps us tio access mohr of that sharing capital it’s out there? Uh, that’s just right, you know. So one of the things that you want to test with your organization is what do you look like from the outside in? So for instance, if you were a stranger, coming to your website would be clear hyre who asked what questions? Too, right? Are their faces that go with names? Are they accessible to you? Because otherwise it can feel like a great big fortress very hard to get in? Uh, and and the other thing is that as we’ve said before, there are a whole bunch of different kinds of capital out there, you know, certainly money, but, uh, intelligence and empathy and, um, all sorts of goods that people can donate, ah, and it’s a question of getting out there in conversation with people once you know what you need, you can’t just go out there, you know dahna with no, no thought in your head about what you need, but you have to go out, you have to ask it and there’s a lot of help out there say something more about empathy. Capital? Yeah, yeah, i don’t want to put you in jug in jail years rade organization called benevolent run by making cashner in chicago and rake it making is a social worker by training and she thought one of the worst things that happened in our society with the growing income gap is that there is no interactions between the haves and the have nots. We don’t bump into people at church or on the subway, you know, in public places the way we used to a couple, you know, just two generations ago, so megan built the website benevolent as an opportunity for people who are trying to get traction out there in this economy, tell their story and asked for just a little bit of help. She’s doing this in partnership with non-profit organizations who can, you know, help folks down and out a bit to tell their own stories. Uh, but it’s phenomenally successful and tony it’s it’s remarkable how difficult it can be to try to get situated and get some traction with your first job, right? So things i had never thought about that megan told me about was, for instance, a new waiter, each his own clothes, you know, his own black shirt, black pants, black shoes get started, and that may not seem daunting to a lot of us, but it’s enormously daunting to other people, or somebody could finally get their first department and have nothing to put in, innit? Or another thing is that dental health is an enormous problem for low income people and if you don’t have dentures, you’re not going to hired by anybody. Ah, and it’s just problems that most of us still think about, and when we hear these stories, we can’t help it the empathetic and and want to help. Megan has given us an amazing mechanism for doing that. And what does the sight again benevolent dot or ge? Excellent. We have a couple of minutes left, and i always enjoy our conversations. I’m so glad you’re back, yeah, share share what it is that you love about the thinking you’re able to do and the work that you do. So am i, you know, next to lou garret, tony, i’m just the luckiest gal around. I get to think about how people can help one another, and one of the things that i love most about where we are collectively right now is that we have so many different ways for people to express kindness and generosity. I’m not suggesting that social media make people kinder or more generous, although i do know that the reverse that the assumption a lot of people have that social media is escalating, bullying and mean spiritedness is simply not true people. Are what they are, wherever they are. But the difference now is that we can see it, right. So when it’s something unfortunate or mean that happens online, you know, which would have just been a private thing before hedley, we all have to see it. But the flip side is, you know, if if all the social media channels were filled with all of that yucky stuff, tony, you and i wouldn’t be there were there because the overwhelming number of right engagements and communications are positive. And when you see day after day somebody just saying to somebody else thattaboy, right, keep going. I know it’s been hard or sharing a lovely, warm hearted story. There was that story last year of the fella on the subway who let a young man sleep on his shoulder and it just went viral. This picture of ah, lovely man with a stranger sleeping on his shoulder. And it was just evidence to all of us that that kind of loving kind of active, random, loving kindness exists all around us. Yeah, and i am so fortunate to be able to, um, observe those things and chronicle them and share them. And make people aware and recognize the fact that we are living in an amazing time filled with abundance, and there are lots of opportunities to do things that were good at doing, which is taken care of one another, and by doing that it makes you feel great. We have to leave it there. The luga rig of the intersection of social media and social change, you’ll find her thoughts at allison fine dot com you’ll find her on twitter at a fine, so glad you’re back. Allison, what a pleasure. Thank you very, very much. My pleasure, tony. Anytime. Thank you. You know about generosity, siri’s, because they sponsor non-profit radio and they helped me to bring outstanding guests like alison fine and like amy sample ward coming up generosity siri’s hosts multi charity peer-to-peer runs and walks if you are thinking about including a runner, walk in your fund-raising i’d be grateful if you would check out generosity siri’s just see what they’re about and see whether you can work with them, see if it makes sense for youto be one of their charity partners they are at well, you know, i always prefer the phone and s o the person to speak to is dave lynn who’s, the ceo, and they are at seven one eight five o six nine triple seven they are, of course, also on the web you, khun certainly check them out at generosity siri’s dot com either way, if you’re thinking about a run or a walk in your fund-raising i’d be grateful if you would listen to what devlin has to say and see whether it makes sense for you to work with generosity. Siri’s, show your love and raise more money. That is my video blog’s this week. I want to see more love in the fund-raising business it’s that simple, and i don’t mean that you love working with people. I mean, showing your love to your communities and there are really very simple ways that you can do that in the social networks and email and then just every day interactions, everyday things. I would like to see more love in the fund-raising business and that’s going to be my message on monday. I’m speaking to the gift planning council of new jersey opening up their their conference monday morning, and my message is going to be show your love and raise more money there’s a video about that on my blogged, which is tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, thirtieth of may twenty second show of the year. I’m very pleased that amy sample ward is with me back back with me with me back. What is that? She’s, a ceo of non-profit technology network and ten our most recent co authored book is social change anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement her block is amy sample, war dot org’s and she’s at amy rs ward on twitter. Of course we know that the r stands for money. Welcome back, amy rene sample ward hi, tony. How are you? I’m doing okay. I’ve been traveling a lot, but i am actually in portland. In my office. In my chair. Your own phone today? Very comfortable. Yes. I’ve seen you checking in. I think you were in warsaw, poland. I know you’re in. Poland was at warsaw? Yes, in warsaw. Okay, i know. I think i think my four square account, which if people are listening and don’t know what four square is just a kind of place based checkin tool. So you can share with your friends where you are. I’m pretty sure that it is on ly airports now i’m getting in that to make sure, you know, because actually i’ll i’ll check in in an airport and and it’s very regular that someone says, oh, i’m in this city, you know, are you going to the same conference or can we meet up? So i get enough, enough positive reinforcement to keep checking in at airports that i continue to do it that’s outstanding and have you actually met people that have have hit you on foursquare? Oh, yeah, i mean, i’ve even you know, i’ve even had friends that are based somewhere else, and they see that i check in at an airport in fourth grade, they say, hey, i’m in this airport with a five hour lay over let’s get lunch and we d’oh it’s terrific, but but you also you know, it shows you other folks who are are currently checked in there, you know, that you may may know or may want to meet up with so definitely that that kind of more new new people to meet sequence has happened as well, yeah. I have a lot of fun with four square i like to drop friends notes occasionally, too, when i see them check in. Yes, i have. I have been the recipient of many of your notes. I always like it. I know. Someone’s paying attention. Thank you. Ok. I have fun with it. You know, i’m amusing myself if no one else s o ah, atleast you remember so, yeah, i’m glad i’m glad i’ve hit you with a couple notes. Yeah. It’s fun. Well, the problem for me often, if if someone comments on i don’t see it right away. Well, i checked it in an airport. I’m probably on a plane, you know, shortly after i checked in. So now i don’t have internet access on my phone and i missed i missed the comments. Sometimes i’m too slow, too slow to reply. Ok, well, i’m never looking necessarily for a reply. I’m just it’s just, you know, working teo people live. Yeah, yeah. And it’s just it’s a fun spot. You know, people don’t really expect too many comments that you get you get, like once in a while, but you don’t really expect to make comments. So being a little bit of an anarchist, i’d like to comment on foursquare from time to time. Good, keep it up. Thank you. Um, net neutrality we are we’re facing the possibility the real possibility of sort of a, uh, privileged class and the internet, aren’t we right? So buy-in in knowing that we were going to talk about this today, i was trying to think, ok, do we just kind of lay out some history? You know, do we really try and make a call for people to take action? And i and i think we can you know, i’m happy to share a little bit of history now, and we can talk about how people can take action based on what they feel about the issues, but i also i think if you’re up for it, maybe we could just spend a couple minutes after we share some of the background for listeners and just have a conversation and encourage folks if you are listening live to go ahead and tweet in some of your thoughts or or your reactions, because i think it’s i think it’s an important issue, but i also think it, you know it’s not a black and white issue it it has so many different angles and perspective and, you know, we’re just two people, so we’re probably not going to cover every single one of those, you know, every one of those perspectives, so just a quick shout out if you are listening, live tweet in some of your thoughts or if your organization has actually made a statement about some of what’s happening with the fcc right now go ahead and tweet out those links to your organization’s statements. It would be great to collect those and see how organizations feel standing yes, let’s, please use the hashtag non-profit radio. Andi, we’ll see what we get. All right, okay, so let’s spend not too much time on the history, but because i do want to focus on where we are now and different proposals that are out there. But but let’s define what net neutrality is right. So this issue net neutrality, of course, has longer definitions, but really, in the most simplest terms, net neutrality is the concept that all traffic on the internet be treated equally, regardless of what kind of, you know content it is or you know what you’re accessing, and some of that comes from historical issues around a service on internet service provider and i s p, you know, wanting to slow down service sabat competitors so one i p not wanting, you know, netflix, tio have really great service for their users because they don’t want their users may be using that that competitors services. So so that’s what? I mean, when i’m saying, you know, all all traffic be treated equally, that you’re really an internet service provider, you’re not, eh, moderator, moderator of that content, does that make sense? It does, and and there are proposals out there now that will put this that concept of net neutrality, that everyone is equal on the internet, which i think we all take for granted right now, but there are proposals out there that would put that, um, that neutrality at risk, exactly. So so back get back in. Earlier in may, um, the fcc released that it would entertain eso so at least discuss and here feedback on the proposal, too introduce to two different lanes of traffic essentially so a fast lane in the slow lane, and that would mean cos or, you know, people willing to pay a higher price for that faster service would essentially have a very different internet, you know, then then people that could not pay or would not pay that hyre price and just for a bit of contacts, we were really glad to see some of intends a long time technology partners and, you know, sponsors of the conference and thunders of some of our work, like google and microsoft and twitter very publicly saying they don’t support that. So i throw that out there, justus context, because i think a lot of people think, oh, well, those big companies can pay for it, and i’ll share it with everyone. But even those big companies recognize that just because some people or some companies could pay for a faster lane that’s not that’s, not keeping with an open web, and wouldn’t this filter down to us as users, whether where organizations or individuals that we would pay mohr and have i have a faster lane on the internet? Yeah, or or we couldn’t pay more maybe, you know, as as individuals or especially non-profit organization. So i posted on posted on the antenna block. Of course, but i also posted on lincoln, and i just was asking for people to share some of their feedback or what this could potentially mean to them. And i have just a couple really short, quote, if that’s okay, i wanted to highlight a couple other people’s perspective on this. Yeah, i i’d like to know what this means for non-profits is as content as a cz content producers and also his users of the internet accessing other content, right? Well and then there’s that third piece, right, which is us trying to provide services often times to people who, you know, are at risk for many different things, including for not being able to pay for faster internet, right, but there’s their kind of three perspectives? They’re so delusional. Karen graham who’s that long time and ten member from map for non-profits up in minnesota, she she shared this quote with more and more non-profits virtual izing their infrastructure and more data management happening in software is a service. The web is everything. Everything is in all caps slow lane means lower staff productivity’s i fear a disproportionate effect on the organizations that are doing the world’s. Most important work that really touches on what you shared, tony, you know, staff trying to do work on a slower lane of the internet go on, then lorry full past shared, she said. My two cents internet access is becoming like a utility sort of internet access khun give low income or otherwise disadvantage folks an avenue to greater opportunities, but not if we start making high speed internet access something available only to those who can pay so that really touches on that last piece. You know, those end users that non-profits air trying to serve, if if they don’t have, you know, a very good internet access and we as an organization don’t either the probability that we can get good content to those people that need it is just so much more unlikely. And you know that it just reinforces for me the divide that we that we’re facing and alison mentioned it, um, you know, this this income divide that we have and now you know, there now there’s the potential of dividing the the internet access along along income long income lines. It’s really bothersome know anything else you want to share from the inten block any other quotes? I can certainly no, no that’s, no, no. That’s what? I thought a couple would be a good start. Yeah, you raise and you bring in the interest of very interesting point to the people we’re trying to serve. So many of them are accessing our services through the web. I mean, and ten is a perfect example for god’s sake, you’re the non-profit technology network if you’re if you’re if you’re ten thousand or so members can’t mike, my voice cracked again, i’m very sentimental today. I’m very moved by every thing today that’s the third time, i would like a fourteen year old if you’re if you’re ten thousand members can’t access at a good speed all the content that you have available to them webinars, or whether they’re just reading bloggers something that’s going to hurt me, really, you know, as the web is moving to this very rich media centric photos and videos, and and even just, you know, kind of really time content updates if and ten isn’t able teo participate in that fast lane and neither are the non-profits were serving, you know, the idea that we could be delivering really quality, you know, video training, i don’t know that that would no work quite as well anymore, and at the same time we’re maybe an organisation, because we’re so focused on technology that could actually, you know, broker a relationship with technology providers and get ourselves somehow, you know, through through, ah trade, partnership or whatever, you know, into that fast line. But that doesn’t mean that we’re still able to connect with all those other organizations who aren’t there. So even if there’s, you know other ways around some of these pieces, i don’t know that there, you know, a sustainable work arounds are reliable as an alternative. Okay, we got to go out for a couple minutes, we’ll come back, then you and i’ll talk about what what to do about this, i think, was laid it out pretty well and how important it is to stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Lorts have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Lively conversation. Top trends. Sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m ken berger from charity navigator. That’s ken berger, ceo of charity navigator. He’s. Too modest when he does that, does that recordings for us? Yeah. We’re just talking at the break. Sam and i about how that this all could affect non-profit radio. I mean, yeah. What were you saying? Yeah, well, i’m a content producer. You know, sam is concerned because he’s he’s unconference content producers well, this happens to be the best show that he produces, but or are but there’s a few others like it, doesn’t others now there’s sometimes good, but no it’s it’s. Well, we’re just concerned about would we even would we fit in the class of people that can afford the faster lane? I don’t know, i don’t know what those numbers are gonna look like. And i hope it never comes to that where i have to look at a pricing chart and figure out whether i’m on the i’m on the fast lane side or the can’t afford the fast lane side, especially because, you know, i think the piece that’s important to remember here, and i and i have definitely seen comments in certain, you know, block post comment threads and things like that that this isn’t this isn’t entirely a conversation about the infrastructure, you know, of course people are going toe bring up, you know, that they live in a city with a certain access and then there’s, you know, all that talk of google fiber coming to cities and all those, you know, various infrastructure conversations, this is really not about infrastructure, this is about, you know, going back to that original definition where we’re saying they could have, you know, keeping keeping traffic at as, ah equally treated thing, they could be shifting the content that is getting paid for a cross across your channels, so not just not just oh, well, we live in a city that doesn’t have fiber or or wii d’oh it’s not just the infrastructure that we’re talking about here. We’re really talking about those internet service providers piece being able to decide who’s getting the fastest tickets on their network, and to me, this is also it’s tze political itt’s, a conversation about class, division, class, division, and we see it in so many other realms of our on our society. Aziz alison was talking about, you know, we don’t we don’t see each other. Across the class is the way we used to in places like churches and stores anymore, and, you know, it could it could be here in the internet. Okay, yeah, i mean, especially as you look at the pieces, you know, there’s a there’s there’s a tons of data out there provided by the platforms themselves about, you know, the age, demographics, the race and ethnic breakdowns of people on facebook or on twitter, you know, all those pieces that you and i have even talked about on the show on the show before. And so if you think about, you know, one of those platforms that maybe predominantly has on audience of a certain geographic area or ethnic background and they are not able to pay, but you know, they’re they’re still on the same, you know, i s p then people are just naturally never going to go to that sight again, never going to go to that, you know, social network again because there’s this other one that loads really quickly but it’s, just not for them, you know, it’s it’s, not where maybe their peers are, so i think that just trying to illustrate that nuance. It isn’t just everything on the web that you’re experiencing it. It could be that kind of site. Specific accessory specials place to you? Yes. Okay. What are we going to do about this? A cz individuals as organizations i know you have ways we can express our opinions. Yeah. I mean, i think part of it is is trying tow have some conversations with your staff or or with your friends because it is, you know, we’ve almost in many places in the u s started taking the internet is just a thing that oughta magically appears for us. You know, whenever we open our computer, turn on our smartphone on go, i think trying to have a conversation about how interval it is to your work to your life so that you can start to appreciate it. But also you can then articulate that back to the fcc. So at this point, they have opened it up for public comments, and they’re really simple ways to send. Send your comments in and the one piece i wantto wantto share. The caveat to this is sharing your story, saying this is how much an open web means to me. Or or this is how a web that is no longer open would impact my organization being able to meet our mission or my organization, you know, serving this community. That is not, you know, advocacy that’s going against all of your, you know, lobbying percentage is a nonprofit organization. You telling a story you informing the world really about how important and open web is to your daily work is not something that anyone is banned from doing by any kind of tax status or organizational, you know, level. So i i really do encourage people tio don’t think that your comments are not helpful in this and that your comments are not something that you know you can share because you are a non profit organization. Excellent on brovey reminder that you really can and should be doing this. Yes, you can. It’s. Just not going to tell you what to say. But if you just go to dear fcc dot org’s so d e a r fcc dot org ff has created a very simple little letter format so you could just drop in your ideas. And really again, the point here is not just that you as a person, you know, i don’t like this, or maybe you do, but as an organization is an open web critical to you, meaning your mission, i think that the most helpful and illuminating story that non-profit staff can share because, you know, i think so often conversations about net neutrality or other, you know, larger internet issues come down to those big companies and then all of us tiny little users, you know, at the other end, and we forget that they’re all these organizations relying on on the internet to do their job. I want teo reinforce something that you said about being concerned about this. Whether you’re posting your organizational story is political activity and whether it’s banned by your your five or one c three status, jean takagi and i are going to be on next week talking about political activity and what’s permissible, and this is certainly outside, you know that so every i’m agreeing with what you said, but if listeners want even more detail on what is permissible political activity, gene and i are going to be talking about it next week. Um, i think it’s a very common question, i’m glad. You guys, you and jean are goingto spend time talking about it. We get that all the time from organizations, just what can we say or just what can we do? But as you said, this is outside of that. This is you educating the fcc and anyone else that will listen about the tools you need to do your job. We have a question on twitter is, is there a petition maybe that you’re aware of amy or no, i’m not aware necessarily of any petitions that’s because the fcc is processed for public comments is kind of a specific process that it’s not really, like just sharing a petition. I’m sure that there are some, but i would recommend the deer fcc dot orig letter because they’re sending those as public records as comments against the ruling. Okay, got a d a r f, c, c dot org dot org’s yeah, i’ll tweet it right now. Okay, thank you. And anything else you’re recommending that we do are is is there anything on the intense? I mean, the last the last piece there is, you know, having those conversations with your dafs so that you can start to understand and recognize potential impact from this thie effects that it that it could have on the organization, really going online and sharing your story it dear sec, dot or ge, and then making sure whenever you’re talking to your community that you start educating them, too, and not like freaking anyone out, are you or, you know, trying tio tell them that anything has been decided but really encouraged them? Just as i’ve just encouraged you is you and your team to talk about internet access to think of it more than just something that kind of got set up when you moved into your apartment? Are you know where you got with your phone, but really think of it as this access point to education, to information so many public services, and they can also share share their story about what it would mean to them as a user of non-profit services as a citizen in the us, whatever that may be. All of those perspectives are really critical right now. Agree critical is exactly the word i was going to use to wrap up. Thank you. Excellent, excellent topic. Thank you very much, amy. Yeah, course you’ll find her on twitter at amy rs ward and her sight is amy sample, ward dot or ge she’s, also the ceo of and ten the non-profit technology network and ten dot org’s, thank you very much. Yep. Next week, labor attorney tom was self rum new york on employees versus contractors and the laws around volunteers and interns in your office. Very interesting, and we will keep it interesting, and jean takagi are legal contributor. As you heard me say, we’re going to talk about the bright lines project, which is a movement to have greater clarity on political activity rules affecting non-profits we’ll talk all about that next week. Bicoastal lawyers, jargon jail sentences are possible, i won’t say imminent, but very possible. If you missed any part of today’s show, please find it on tony martignetti dot com remember also we are sponsored by generosity, siri’s at generosity siri’s dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell social marketing and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules are music this music right here is by scott stein. You with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. They didn’t think that shooting. Good ending thing. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. E-giving e-giving are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping huntress people be better business people. Dahna hi, i’m lost him a role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m we’re gonna have fun, shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re gonna invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com, you’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking. Dahna hyre

Nonprofit Radio for January 10, 2014: Matterness & Program Your Board

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Allison Fine: Matterness

picture of Allison FineAllison Fine, co-author of “The Networked Nonprofit,” reminds us that people matter. But nonprofits often don’t show the love. What can you do to show people how important they are to your nonprofit?

 

 

 

 

 

Gene Takagi: Program Your Board

picture of Gene TakagiYour board probably recognizes its fiduciary responsibilities, but does it know its role in overseeing programs? Gene Takagi is our legal contributor and principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO).

 

 

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i’m your aptly named host. Oh, i very much hope that you were with me last week. I’d be seized by acute epiglottis itis if i had to hear that you had missed in front of the media in twenty fourteen janet falk principle of fall communications and research shared what belongs in your twenty fourteen media plan on how to execute so that media pay attention to you and social sites to watch in twenty fourteen amy sample ward had the social media sites that will take off this year. She’s, our social media contributor and ceo of intend the non-profit technology network this week matter-ness allison find returns, co author of the network to non-profit she’ll remind us that people matter, but non-profits often don’t show the love. What can you do to show people how important they are to your non-profit and program? You’re bored. Your board probably recognizes its fiduciary responsibilities but doesn’t know its role in overseeing programs. Jean takagi is our legal contributor and principal of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group neo between the guests on tony’s, take two our fan of the week were brought to you by rally bound peer-to-peer fund-raising for runs, walks and rides. And by t b r c cost recovery getting your money back from phone bill errors and omissions. Very grateful for our two sponsors, allison find you should know me. Uh, hello. I didn’t give you a proper introduction yet. I was just i was just saying your name. But but hello, how are you? I’m fine. We’ve been introduced before, though way have but it was a year ago and some people may not remember there’s been a lot of shows since then. So let me let people know. Besides, you deserve you know, is it from some recognition for your work, your body of work? Because you study and write about the intersection of social media and social change. And you are the author of the award winning book momentum igniting social change in the connected age. And of course, your more recent book is the network non-profit co authored with beth cantor who’s. Been a guest on the show? Yes, allison find you also. This sounds like this is your life. I don’t know. Because usually i’m not talking to the person but that’s, the way it got set up so that’s the way it happened. Of course, you also host the monthly podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy, called social good. Um, i have one of those two, did you? I think you knew that. Sure, on twitter, you are at a fine and your site is alison fine dot com. Welcome back, allison, thanks so much for having me. Tony it’s. A pleasure. I enjoyed talking to you. Thank you. Do you still have your you don’t still have a fine blawg. What happened to a fine blanc? A fine blogging is on my website. Oh, at allison, fine dot com. Correct. Okay, very good. Okay. People matter, but non-profits don’t show it what’s your concerns around matter-ness so i’ll tell you how i stumbled on this word. Tony good. I recently completed a three year term as president of my congregation. I made it. And where was that uncertain whether you would survive your presidency? You never know in the middle of one of those things, but, you know, it was a great honor, okay? When i began in that role, i was inundated with emails of concern from congregants, and i would diligently try to answer every single one, you know, i’m i’m so sorry the doors were locked when you showed up, so sorry you didn’t get it think you know as quickly as you wanted, i’m so sorry, you know, that i would agree to do when you came in. Whatever the issue wasn’t, um am tinkering with things and trying very hard to be responses. And about a year into that role, tony, i got the ultimate email from somebody. It was a long time congregant who said she was in the hospital for the week before, and she was very upset that nobody had called her, even though she didn’t. Tell anybody she was in the oh my goodness. So i got that even i sat back and said, what in the world is going on here? There’s some other stuff. She must have some other. This this doesn’t make any sense at all. And then going back through the other complaints, i saw this pattern and the pattern was right across the board, which wass i joined here because i wanted to belong to be a part of something important to may and whatever you have just done has made me feel like i don’t matter at all. All right. I thought i was important. I thought i counted. I thought you cared about me and what you just did show me that you don’t. And it takes a lot of work to undo that hurt for people, you know, feeling like they’re insignificant. Tony is not a an insignificant problem for any organization, any business, much less social service or human or research organization. Uh, because it really hits to the core of people. We all want a matter somewhere. Alison let’s. Just make sure that everyone understands the congregation is ah, this is a jewish congregation. Is a jewish temple synagogue human-centered new york. Okay, okay, just making sure that you understand. It’s it’s, it’s we’re talking about religion and faith based on dh because that may have special meaning for the for the members they may they may hold you to ah hyre standard than they would be average charity that they’re they’re affiliated with. I think there certainly is, you know, a depth of feeling on the part of a lot of people when you join a religious congregation. But when i went, i went on to facebook and then i asked people win when have you felt in your life? Like you don’t matter to an organization or company and got a whole slew of responses. Tony of i don’t matter when i’ve asked the organisation changed my name on appeals and it doesn’t get changed. You know, i don’t matter when i make a contribution and instead of a thank you note, the next thing i get us, another asked for a contribution, right? I don’t matter when i go to the gala of the organization and don’t get greeted by anybody. It was an across the board feeling of i am trying. To contribute somewhere this is, you know, very particular to causes on non-profits i care about a cause, and i feel like i’m a cog in a great big direct mail machines, yeah, technology and our fast paced work lives and personal lives, these things cut both ways. I mean, there are efficiencies and productivity that are important, but we have to treat people like they matter is right. I mean, we’re we’re going to come out in this, so this is this is a cutting edge, you know, the two side of that coin of technology on the one hand, right? It can make the wheels turn very quickly. On the other hand, it could make us all feel like we are, you know, far on the outside. What happens with organizations, tony, is that they become enamored of efficiency internally, right there is the the mantra of daily work is basically, how quickly can i finish my to do list? We’re trying to cross things off my to do list, which is never ending. You know how it would make a great progress. That’s, right? Yeah. There’s. Always things added. Yeah. Oh, it’s. Not like that. And i got one in my heart, you know, goes out i go and see non-profit folks who have pages and pages of to do list and what they become it is what i call they become inside out organizations they view the world from inside this, you know, little case of trying frantically to get all of these things done because they’re always under resourced. And in that doing in that drive to try to make some progress on the to do list, they forget that they’re actually individuals out there. So we we engage on a transactional level rather than a personal relationship type level, right? And so what happens is you begin to view the world in in buckets, you know, you hear organizations oh, all the time, tony, talking about buckets of people right here are our empty nesters, and over here are people who live in this part of the city and over here are direct male donors, constituents way to manage the work, to try to organize people and in some kind of cluster that way constituent groups, constituent groups, right? I don’t like that. One day you are a constituent. Ah group like that you’re not a person anymore. Yeah, this is this is interesting. Well, it’s, interesting, because we’re you’re giving thought to something that on dh voice, to something that i think a lot of people feel dahna it’s, also just very topical for timely ideas, i should say for me. Yeah, there’s just there’s been some guests who have been encouraging us to humanize the world the way from the perspective that day that they bring to the show. Whether that’s, the example i’m thinking of off immediately is ah, instead of calling people prospects, you know, potential donor ours, but the prospect, you know, prospect research that’s the one that just comes off my head. But it’s very interesting. You’re you’re a bit of an anarchist, you know that? Oh, yeah, thank you. I appreciate that you’re a troublemaker. You sister told you i’m a pot stirrer, tony. Their pots out there to be stirred. Your pot stirrer. Okay, i like anarchist plot stars that same. Okay, you know why? Because somebody has to remind organizations that have become too enamored of systems too enamored of, you know, paradigms and all of that stuff that at the end of the day, it all boils down to people, right? And if you’re making people feel like they’re only value, teo is the check that they could write or have written, uh, that’s. A terrible way to do your work to meet your mission. It will. You know, you might the financially better off you will not. Your soul will not be fulfilled. Your work will not be fulfilled that way. But even financially in the long term, i think you’re going to suffer. We have to. We have to. It kills me, but we can’t take a little break. We’re definitely coming back. I’m already regretting that alison fine is not with me for the full hour this time. Not not that, not that are not that gene takagi is a crummy guest gene gene, maybe listening. Is anybody from california, san francisco, but he could be traveling. I don’t see him in san francisco listening right now, but gina, i love you, too. I do love you. I’m just we’ll have to have allison back, okay, let’s, take this break and we’ll come right back. I didn’t think that shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, waiting to get a drink. Cubine do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth seven and seven will help bring the changes you need wear small business consultant so we pay attention to the details. You may miss our culture and consultant services a guaranteed to lead toe, right groat for your business, call us at nine one seven eight three three, four eight six zero foreign, no obligation free consultation checkout on the website of ww dot covenant seven dot com oppcoll are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping huntress people be better business people. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Latto welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent time for live listener love we got kendall park, new jersey, seattle, washington, irvine, california, new bern, north carolina live listener love to you, you matter, but, you know we do live listen love all the time, and everybody knows that not just because alison fine is reminding us that people matter live listener love is all the time podcast pleasantries, of course, if you’re listening in the time shift, i love you, too. We’ve got the netherlands, we’ve got inchon, korea and seoul, korea on your haserot for our korean listeners and there’s more live listener love coming, lots more live listener live listeners out there. And allison friend of yours, i guess maybe on twitter. Jennifer flowers says that she wishes you were on for the full hour. Also that way. Thank her for me, jennifer. Alison says thank you. You just think to yourself, but you’ll come back of course, right. Absolutely way. Love you on non-profit radio. Um okay. So where this this process orientation? This? Yeah, right. I mean, it’s a turn process? Yeah, but okay, so we have to strike the balance. Yeah. Okay. This is very hard, you know, you make this is this love that you were talking about this. You make people want toe, take a step back, you make people take a step back and want to be better in there. I think day two day relationships, not not just only in their non-profit roll, but i think just day to day i i admire that. I admire that. You you think these thoughts? Well, i think the key tony is trying to remind people and help them to figure out how to make relationship building primary in their work life and their whole life, right? Because it is so overwhelming life right now, there’s so much information were clicking and tweeting and picking and poking and all of those things. But what doesn’t change is our need to connect with people personally on the need to be connected in really meaningful ways. And so i take it as my responsibility to keep reminding people of that that you can use this technology technology that can potential like next to you with hundreds, thousands, millions of people. But at the end of the day, i hope you’ve touched one person in a meaningful way, sametz oppcoll let’s get into some detailed ideas that you have about being able to go about doing this better. Yeah, so one of the things that organizations particular non-profit organizations don’t do well, tony, if they don’t tell stories well, uh, which is astounding because their work is so important and so good. Ah, and yet when they tell stories, they tend to do it again inside out, they do it about the process of something, you know, people showed up less thirty two people showed up last tuesday night for a movie night, and it was fabulous on we made fifteen hundred dollars, fifteen hundred dollars, and we had cookies out, right? Right? Or a testimonial, right if they asked someone else’s falik it’s about how this is the best organization in the entire world, hands down and what they’re missing is an opportunity to enable the people who were touched by their work to talk about what it meant to them. Oh, and we have all the tools to do that they could do a one minute youtube video, right that when i came to this singles program, i wasn’t alone. For the first time, i didn’t feel alone, right? That is so much more powerful than you know, the singles program is the top ranked blah, blah, blah, you know, in the metro area, which doesn’t mean anything to anybody, but you talk about touching people in a way that they don’t longer feel lonely. Wow, now you really have something, right? Everybody has what i call up these iconic stories buried within their organization and it’s the job of everybody in the organization, not just staff, but bored and volunteers as well to try to look for them. So, for instance, if we are a let’s, say we’re ah, a school on we might even be devoted to the catholic education tradition because i believe there’s such a school that may be listening in in westchester. Actually, we might empower the students. Teo do ah video with their phones. You can absolutely do a video and talk about how does it feel to them to go to this school? Right? What makes it different? A lot of kids who come teo religious education. Where in secular schools first, this difference, it feels different should feel different. Uh, what does? It mean to be connected to the teachers here? How do you feel about your classmates? Do you feel like people care about you here? And e? I don’t want to hear that from principals and teachers and parents. I want to hear that from kids, right? Yes, and they’re right there and they have all of these tools, he’s said. To be far better storytellers than kids twenty years ago could have been please we have. We have recording studios in our pockets, it’s, exactly right, everybody pull out your phone and tell us one thing that makes you feel good about being here. I love it, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yes, of course the technology is empowering. Yeah, this is the asking for testimonials, that’s true, you know, jeez, you’re touching me. You’re killing me. You know i love you and i hate you at the same time. You’re annoying the hell out of me, but you’re not even married to me, tony. You’re close enough, you just in westchester. I feel it anyway. No, you know, i hate it because you’re making me want to do things differently. You know how annoying that is, it’s it’s not so far away from where people are right it’s changing the lens, right? It’s saying we have to stop just talking about us as an institution and start talking about us as people who are engaged here, right? How does it feel to be touched by us to be touched with us? To be part of this, um, effort, i’ve talked often with people who are running addiction programs or mental health programs, and obviously they aren’t going to talk about individual clients without their permission. But i say perhaps there are parents ah, in your community, uh, who could be asked to talk about what it meant to you to find a safe place for your child, even if you don’t use their real name, right? Thinking about how powerful that is, tony. Finally find someplace that cared as much about your child and your child difficulties as you did that’s the place i would want to take my kid not not, not the place that has the latest drugs are the most, you know, mds on staff. It could be enormously touching and and informative at the same time. Yeah. What jury is just one part? Okay. Yeah, i know. What’s what’s, what’s something else. You know, i like to leave listeners with things they can think about and execute. Right? So we need to take a good, hard look at the social media communities we are building. I know that. You know, amy sample ward is your regular social media guru. Rest as she should be because she’s fabulous. I know she speaks about this as well. But thie idea tony isn’t just about the flashy numbers, right? I can’t tell you how many times have been in board rooms of the past two three years and listen to the recitation of social media, transactional numbers and everybody fantastic. Ten percent up on likes on face. The vanity metrics knew i was missing a phrase it right? We’re all all the bells and whistles, and it means nothing, right? So everybody in an organization one i hope that they are using the channels and that the organization is comfortable with lots of people speaking about the work, um, and to the people, are learning to become calm, rotational on the channels. That’s, a big jump organization, right? So we’re so again, we’re back to like testimonials. But the default setting in organization is to talk about your organization to people out there. So you’re just using social media is a great big billboard and losing all the power of the conversational ism of the tools that make them so powerful, that that’s, why they’re ubiquitous, because you can talk and somebody conduct back to you. I love twitter for that. I have i’d say i have the most fun on twitter talking toa listeners. Yeah, yeah, i love i love love love twitter, right? So you can you can engage with people you can feel like you’re having a conversation and when you do that, tony, when you move from billboard to conversation, what happens is other people who are watching and most people are lurking and watching, not engaging, which is fine, but they can see and experience how you think about and treat people that’s really important. I sent tweets sometimes, and i feel a chill or i or my my eyes get watery because someone has told me how much they you know, usually it’s tze not much more, much deeper than love love non-profit radio loved the show, thanks for doing what you’re doing, you know? And i’m sending back gratitude and thank you so much appreciate that and i’ve gotten away from saying, check us out on facebook trying stop doing that and just be gracious but and grateful and just and stopped there with just gratitude, but sometimes, you know, i click that send and i really i feel like i feel something physical in my body that really the marrow eyes were getting a little water here. I feel a chill going through me thie emotions we have when we’re connecting with people anywhere, it doesn’t matter what the vehicle is our real right we are there, you know, emotionally, um, reaching out and feeling the love from somebody organization see to do two things in their engagement’s much better. They need to be much more gracious in there thinking a cz you were just saying and just they need to thank a thousand times more than they do you know that the churning out the thank you letter it’s just not good enough. Why not take to the channels and every day just think a donor on the child’s right for a modest gift, right? You could take the channels and thanks sally smith in missouri for the eighteen dollars, contribution, we are so grateful to have her support and other people are watching you be grateful. That’s. One thing and that’s the easier one hears the hard won. He ready, tony? Yes. We’re all buckled up. Ready for the hard one. You’re already pissing me off. Go ahead. No, no it’s going to get worse. Part one is taking a problem to the channels and asking people to help you solve it so we’ve heard from people that they’re tired of getting four uh fund-raising requests a month from us now we are trying to meet our budgetary demands. Here are our annual budget and to date that’s been our best strategy for doing that? Help us sell the problem. What do we need to do differently to one make you feel like he really matter and you’re not just an atm machine, but two to help us solve our financial problems, help us figure it out. I worked with one organization that had to get rid of that got rid of their snail mail news monthly newsletter, which fourteen thousand dollars a year they couldn’t afford it anymore, and they began to hear from people that they missed it. You know that getting an email with a pds and it just wasn’t the same thing, and they had the courage to take it to their face, the group and they help us solve the problem, and a donor came through and gave them a donation hopefully will continue to in the future. But it wasn’t about the donation it’s about the stop looking like you have everything perfectly down pat because you don’t and start engaging your people in real problem solving on twitter. Lynette singleton is with us using the hashtag non-profit radio, and she says that clark howard once labeled customer complaints as free many customers satisfaction surveys it’s related to what you’re saying, people are when people are communicating, they’re doing it for a reason. They they’re they’re sharing their feelings about what you’re doing that’s, right? If they didn’t love you, tony, they wouldn’t bother complaining. We wouldn’t tell you they just right they would they would just go away, right? And your job is to say, if somebody complains about something it’s likely somebody else has the same complaint and just didn’t make it. So what is the possible harm of going out and saying we heard about a problem and way need your help, your input? I think organisations particularly non-profits work way too hard to try to look perfect, tony and i think it’s to their disadvantage to continue to do that. I think that’s absolutely true, they don’t want to reveal that they’re having trouble with the budget as you mentioned, or maybe staffing or maybe volunteer revels or maybe the facebook pages not engaging i don’t mean just metric i don’t just mean numerically, but really engaging wise and they don’t want they don’t want anybody to know it that’s, exactly right and pretending that you’re not having problems. It’s just keeping people at a great distance. We have just a couple of minutes left. Damn, um okay, so all right, don’t be afraid to ask the questions of the of your community, of your of your folks. All right? Can we leave people with one more idea before we have to go? Uh, so one more idea, it’s more of a concept than an idea. Tony, is this concept i’ve been writing about this year working on a book on this called big small towns, and the idea is that everybody is physically, geographically located somewhere. We’re all living on land somewhere, and we will for the foreseeable future, going to school and going to work and go into the doctor. But at the same time, we’re also citizens of communities on online, and these aren’t separate dichotomous places. These are integrated places. Write that i will go online, get an idea, bring it down to the ground and work on it or ask a question or meet somebody and in the totality of it, it’s one really big small town, really, really big, small town, and when we begin to think about that integrated on line on land ecosystems, i think it begins to enable us to see a great world of abundance out there, that we don’t always see that we can go to people for help with ideas of capital for volunteers, for a whole bunch of things online that can enormously benefit are on land communities. So i just want to really share that with people that i hope that they can begin to see the world through that kind of lens in the near future. Allison, find magnificent you’re pissing me off, you make me want to be better and i love you love you too, tony. Ok, al, you find her and alison find dot com on twitter she’s at a fine if you’re not following alison on twitter it’s your life, you know what can i say? We’re going to finish, we’re gonna continue this we’re gonna have ahh matter-ness part do re ducks s o i will be in touch, allison or no pleasure. Thank you so much, tony. Thank you. Lynette singleton. Thank you for participating the conversation. Uh, thank you for that one that thank you very much. Other people i need to thank. Rally bound. They are a sponsor of this show. You know, without sponsors, bringing the show is ah, is a lot more difficult than it needs to be. Um, a conversation like this? Um, yeah. I’m grateful to rally bound. They are. Ah, peer-to-peer fund-raising software company it’s friends asking friends to give to your cause a za non-profit radio listener, you will get a discount on rally bounds campaign platform people have been calling already. That’s very cool. I love that. I’m glad. Um really bound helped a camp. It was the first time doing peer-to-peer fund-raising the camp raised nine thousand dollars and got one hundred eighty four percent of its goal. You’ll find them at rally bound dot com or just pick up the phone and call joe magee at rally bound. He’ll answer your questions and he’s gonna help you set up your campaign. I know, joe. Um and i know he’s. Not gonna pressure you. They don’t, they don’t. He doesn’t have to rally bound dot com or triple eight seven, six, seven, nine o seven six i also want to thank and i am thanking t brc cost recovery telephone bill reduction consulting yourself, rabinowitz he goes over your past phone bills, he’s looking for errors, mistakes, services you didn’t order ninety percent of the time he finds a problem, and when he does, he picks up the phone and deals with the phone company to get you money back. If he doesn’t get the money back, then you don’t pay him. I’ve referred yourself many times, and he is also no pressure team drc dot com or two one, two, six double four nine triple xero fan of the week at lays right on twitter it’s, lazy w r i g h t she’s in indiana, she’s in the cornfields of indiana, she loves non-profit radio, a runner and a knitter. Who’s your girl non-profit radio loves you back at lease, right? Thank you so much. If you’d like to be a fan of the show, i’d love to talk about you. Uh, talk to me on twitter or facebook there’s so much. Live listen, love here. I can’t i can’t stand it. Harrison new york east orange, new jersey, san francisco, california. Well, that’s probably. Gene takagi, los alamos, new mexico. Cedar knolls, new jersey. Chung ching, china. Ni hao. Cas ou guy, japan. I apologize if i pronounced it wrong. But, you know, live listener. Love is going out to you in japan. Konnichiwa. Um, goodness, i think that’s tony’s take two for friday, the tenth of january second show of the year. Sam is frantically handing me notes. Huntington station, new york. Welcome where you’ve been. You checking in late. Better late than never, i suppose. But you should have been here a half an hour ago. Huntington station. Now live. Listen. Who loved to hunting the station? New york, of course. Jean takagi he’s, a principal of neo, the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. Gene has been gene has been a regular contributor to show it’s got to be going on three years. Gina i if it’s not three it’s very close. He had it’s, the non popular, that the non popular beautiful he had it’s the popular non-profit law blawg dot com non-profit law. Blogged dot com it’s very popular. And on twitter he’s at gee tak gt happy new year jean takagi. Welcome back. Happy new year. Tony it’s. Great to be on. Thank you. I love having you. How long have you been a contributor? Every month, i think it’s been a little over three years. That is it. Is it over three love make it could be i think we met three years ago at a bar in san francisco. If i remember, right? Oh, for sure. It’s not like we picked up up there where i knew you before. I’m not that easy with contributors. I mean, yes, we we knew each other. And then we certainly did meet that’s, right? With along with emily chan? Yes. That’s. Right. Um, let’s see, our board has our board has some responsibilities and around program you’re concerned that they’re not they’re not fulfilling those responsibilities. Yeah, i just feel like there’s there’s maybe some, uh, lack of attention paid on the boards roll on program oversight? I think so often went, especially when you talk with lawyers or accountants were talking about financial oversight, and we’re saying we’ll make sure you’re solvent. Make sure you have enough money to pay off your debts, they become due. We don’t really talk very much about programs, but certainly the management folks and the funders air talking about programs and whether they’re effective and efficient, that furthering the mission. So, you know, i thought we should explore a little bit about what the board duties are in in that event as well. Can you just remind us first, we’ve talked about this a while ago. There are three duties that board members have. I was faith, hope and chastity, or on the greatest of those is but yeah, the three duties are the duty of care and that’s act with reasonable care in providing direction and oversight over the organization, the duty of loyalty, and a lot of that has to do with avoiding conflicts of interests that are not in the best interest of the organizations, but are more for the best interests of an insider and the duty of obedience which lawyers air very interested in, and that’s a bang with both the outside laws of, you know, that apply to the organization and the internal laws like the by-laws and other policies. That the documents may have said, those are the three to be to be concerned with, ok and and around program program is essential. Man. That’s what charity’s exist for his programs? Oh, my voice just cracked like i’m a fourteen year old exist. That’s exciting stuff. Now that it is, it is that’s. Right? Well, you make it interesting. That’s. Why? I love having you back. You make the what could very well be a dry topic. I think you make it interesting. And listeners do too. Yeah. That’s. What charity? They’re here it’s for a program. Yeah, exactly. I mean, who cares? The indie at the end of the day, if we’ve got great financials, if none of our programs are effective and we don’t do a service to the community precisely. So what? What do we need to be doing? What the board’s need to be doing around around program? Well, i think in meeting those three duties, the critical aspect for boards to make sure they’re reasonably informed. Ah, and just get a program report every month or every two months. You know, a ten minute program report from the executive director or program director is fine and good. But does that mean the board really understands the programs and whether the advance the mission? Ah, and do they understand how the program’s advance emission? And did they ever ask you more difficult questions about are the programs effective at advancing the mission? Or do we have alternatives? Or should we think of alternatives that might be able to advance that mission mohr effectively or more efficiently, given the limited resources that we all have? First up in this is and we have talked about this. Your mission needs to be very clear. Yeah, and one of the things you have to do is make sure you go back. And this is the lawyer speaking. Make sure you go back to your articles of incorporation and by-laws and make sure that the mission statement that years thinking you’re thatyou’re furthering is consistent with what the law says. Your mission is. And that’s that’s how it’s displayed on the governing documents and in figuring out whether we are effective at meeting our mission. Now we’ve gotto identify cem numbers, right? I mean, it’s not just gonna be a ten minute report from the program director we’ve got to be looking at some numbers to figure out whether our we’re having the outcomes that we want, right and it’s such a such a difficult question and that’s, why it’s it’s all about keeping informed? Because, you know, the whole area program evaluation and back cantor and and a lot of institutions like the stanford center on philanthropy, in civil society and mckinsey and, you know, the non-profit cordially foundations, and they all have been writing all sorts of things on program evaluation and how we need more metrics and, you know, but all of that is great, but this is really hard stuff for a lot of non-profits to do so, yes, trying to figure out what what measurements are are important for us to figure out. Are we advancing our mission effectively? And then are we advancing it efficiently is really hard stuff, i think tip typically non-profits will, you know, measure how much money we’ve raised, how many visitors we’ve had or people with served, how many members we have, what is our overhead ratio on? We’ve had discussions on that topic as well, and, you know, those are interesting figures in all important, and i don’t want to downplay that. But what about you know, then, you know, the number of clients served. For example, does that really tell us what impact that’s done? No, before the clients. And you know, the program staff may know that. But how does the board know that if we have? If we served a thousand clients last month, did we did we serve them by giving them one meal? Did that change their lives? Did we do more than that? Did we provide services? What? What and impact are we trying to aim for? And what results are we getting those air really difficult things to try to figure out. But i think the board needs to push the organization in that direction. Of trying to figure out are the programs that write programs? Are we effectively implementing it? And if you want to, you know, evaluate your executive and evaluate your programs. You’ve gotta have a good understanding of that. I feel your passion around this, jean. I really do. It comes it’s it’s palpable. Now, in managing these programs. It’s, not the board’s roll. Teo, be day to day. There’s clearly there’s a delegation that has durney happening? Yeah, absolutely. And and the board certainly has the ability, teo, and should be delegating if they have staff in an executive director, particularly delegating those duties on those people. And especially, you know, holding the executive accountable and tasking executive and making sure the executive has resources to be able to do this, to try to figure out what measurements should we take? Teo, evaluate our programs. What what’s important? What do we have the capacity to do now? And what? What do we aspire to do? What are outside stakeholders wanting? What are the foundations saying we must have? And what are the donor’s expecting from us and how to our competitors provide that type of information back? I think we just need to push. Our executives were lucky enough to have them to figure some of those things out. And none of this has done overnight. Of course, tony, but you know, you you’ve gotto work at this, and sometimes you’re going to move forward, and sometimes you gotta move backwards. But you’ve got to keep pushing, pushing ahead. You just asked five or six really difficult but critical questions. Um, it’s a good thing. This is a podcast. Cause. Now people can listen. Go, go back to the past one minute and listen to those five or six questions. Jean just just named, you know, difficulty, but, but but critical. And and yet the board’s oversight responsibility remains and that can’t be delegated. That’s, right? So you know, the board, khun delegate management, but the board can’t delegate its ultimate oversight of the organization and it’s, you know, it’s responsibility to plan the direction of the organization. So status quo, if you know if that’s all you’re satisfied with and you don’t aim to do anything else with that, you know, that may not that may indicate that you don’t have the best board in place, and i was a little shocked teo learned, i think two days ago guidestar held a web cast, and there was a survey done of executive directors, and seventy five percent said they were unhappy with their boards and there’s a big disconnect there. Seventy five percent proof. Okay, what else? What else, uh, is part of the boards oversight of program? Gene? Well, you know, one thing i kind of want to emphasize as well is that i don’t want to put all of this on the board of directors, and i realized that the vast majority of board members are volunteers and have busy lives otherwise and are doing an amazing job. Trying to contribute to their organizations, the disconnect with the exec director is usually because of communications and a lack of understanding of their respective roles. So i just want to put a little bit of a burden on the executive director as well, to make sure that they are emphasizing board development and helping the board understand its responsibilities and sometimes bringing in experts, even though they may cost a little at the outset. Khun b really valuable to an organisation to try to figure out what these roles are, and again put in a little investment up front, and you can get payoff down the road even if you have some failures along the way. But it’s just that continuing to push forward to trying to understand what you’re doing who’s responsible for what? On figuring that stuff out the metrics themselves again. Our khun b, you know, exceedingly difficult if if i asked you give us metrics on changing laws when we were fighting for civil rights. Um, well, that might take years or decades to get any measurable results per se that might make a thunder happy. And you know what would have happened in the early sixties, you know, civil rights organizations just had their program shut down because boards didn’t get the right metrics that would have been ridiculous, right? So we have to understand the limitation of these measurements as well, but continue to try to figure out what important steps or bench marks were shooting for and what’s important to do, even if we don’t get the metrics on and make sure our funders and donors and stakeholders understand those limitations as well, just a minute or so before before breaking what? What kind of expert would help us with this? What would we search for? Well, there there are some consultants out there who specialize in program evaluation, and there there are definitely resource is out there. I have named a few organizations already, but let me give you a few more the foundation centre and they’re grantspace website has got some excellent resource is on program evaluation, the national council of non-profits also has some excellent resources. They’re they’re definitely resource is out there, and if you look for non-profit consultants who got program evaluation expertise, i think that can be a starting place. This is also a ripe area. For collaboration amongst organizations that are serving similar populations, or have similar missions. To try to meet together and talked about how they’re measuring, you know, their program, results and what would work for maybe, you know, across the sub sector that that they’re serving, all of those things are really important. I think again, executive leadership is really important to get the board in motion, but the board also has to hold the executive responsible for making sure that happens as well. Let’s, take a break. Gene and i, of course, will keep talking about the board’s responsibility around program and the executive director’s, too. Lynette singleton and at lays, right. Thank you for thank you very much. For those very, very kind thoughts on twitter. Hang in there. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s, monte, m o nt y monty taylor. Dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. More live listener love junction china ni hao, the netherlands gary indiana the home of christmas story, right? I’m pretty sure a christmas story that movie took place in gary, indiana live listen, i’d love to gary, indiana, and we’ve got a couple checking in from japan, hiroshima and kobe konnichi wa, farmington, michigan live listener love out to you. We have a question from twitter jean very loyal listener lynette singleton asks, do we know why there’s this lack of love between executive directors with and their boards, any ideas what’s contributing to that? I think i’m sorry, tony, that i think there are a number of factors that make be contributing to that, but i think the first is lack of understanding of the rules that each place and then it’s it’s a matter of communication between the two parties, there are great expectations that that board’s place on executives and the reliance on the executives tio teo, make do with limited resources to produce amazing results, and that can sometimes be a very heavy burden on the executive without a lot of support from the board and exactly what the board’s role is in supporting the executive. Director’s also, i think there many areas where there’s a lack of agreement or understanding between those roles and, you know, fund-raising is actually one of the areas of of ex, actually, some controversy, i think, you know, is the board involved is the board’s role to raise funds for the organisation. From a legal perspective, i might answer no to some extent, from a more operational perspective, i would say, of course, it is so there’s, different considerations, and that was a charity navigator to study, right? I’m not sure. I thought you said i’d start with. I’m sorry, the organization that did the webinar. Okay, okay, god start. Pardon me. Ok wave talking, talking about program meeting the mission, but there’s also legal requirements around program as well. Sure, and then the board should make sure that the executive is ensuring that the program is in compliance with whatever applicable laws might be there, whether it have to do with the facility of the organization or the employees and volunteers working for it, their basic risk management steps that they may want to take a swell, including ensuring that there’s proper insurance for whatever activities are are involved. Obviously, if you’re doing a summer day camp involving rope climbing and like that that’s going to be a little bit more significant in terms of risk management than if you’re just doing administrative work, lots of legal compliance, things, licensing, permitting and in all of those things as well, can boardmember sze be personally liable if laws are being broken and that’s why we have directors and officers insurance, isn’t it? Yeah, part partly why we have that it’s usually, you know, if there’s some sort of negligence involved when the boardmember acting not as a boardmember but as a volunteer for a program, then you’re probably looking at commercial general. Liability insurance to protect against, you know, somebody slip and fall and blaming the volunteer who was right supposed to set it up on the board members, directors and officers. Insurance will really protect against decisions that the board made that ultimately, you know, in hindsight, we’re negligent or grossly negligent, and, you know, if they decided to hold a program in involved involving bungee jumping with six year olds and without adequate supervision that, you know, that would be be a type of negligence that could get boardmember personally liable for something like that. But volunteermatch boardmember czar really, really, really rarely held personally liable absent some sort of malfeasance or self dealing benefit themselves. Okay, i’ve seen some six year olds on the subway that i wouldn’t mind having participating that that bungee jumping off a cliff i could i could give them a little shove to get them started, but not not kids. I know nobody related to me, only only what’s people have seen some hype it that it go well, now they’re real. I’ve seen him in the subway. I just don’t know who they are. I can’t name them, but i could point them. Out easily. Probably on my way home, i’ll encounter a few. Um, what else should we be thinking about? You know, your get before i asked before we do that, you’re an anarchist. Also, you’re making us. I got two troublemakers on the show today. You are making us ask questions that are very difficult, but but critical? Yeah. You know, e think of lawyers and consultants more broadly. That’s what? What we do, we can implement the changes that we talked about, what we want to raise the questions because we want boards and executives to really be thinking about these things and discussing them. And that’ll help break down the barriers and the misunderstandings and hopefully make more executive directors feel that their boards air great, make more executive, make more boards feel that their executive directors are doing a great job as well. As i said, i feel your passion around this. We have just about two minutes. You have another thought around this? Yeah. You know, just tio, make sure that again and i’ve talked a little bit about this is that there are limitations to what metrics can provide to an organization and some things. Just take a really long time to figure out research i mentioned lobbying on civil rights issues is one example, but research as well, you know, for gonna engage in research of a new right and how it’s going to work or developing a new medical device or drug that’s going to be beneficial to developing nations and the people there who might not have the resources to be able to afford these things. We’ve got to be a little bit experimental, and i know you know, there’s been preaching to the choir about embracing failure and sharing it so we can learn in advance, but that really is something that i’ll echo as well, that, you know, we’re going to get metrics and sometimes the metrics they’re going to show we failed, but if we never fail, that means we’ve never really pushed the envelope of making a more substantial change, and we’re just sort of, you know, relying on making little incremental changes, and we have to think about our organizations and say, are we the type of organization that just wants to stay status quo? Do we want to make little tiny, incremental changes year by year? Or do we actually want to look at solving or advancing our mission in a really big way and actually take some risk and then find some programs out there that might be more risky and that might fail and help educate our funders and our donors and our supporters that you have this is what we’re doing, and not everything is going to work, but this is the way to advance, you know, our cause lawyer with a heart jing jing takagi really so grateful that you’re contributing to the show? Jean, thank you so much. Thank you, johnny. And thanks for basing this serious subject may that’s alright, uh, we have a little fun with it. You’re an anarchist is no question you’ll find jean at non-profit law blogged dot com that’s the block that he had it and he’s at g tack on twitter. Thank you again, jean, thanks so much. Next week, female financial literacy alice march returns and personal financial planner sheila walker. Hartwell is with her. Wow, what a show today! Really? I’m just i’m moved. Damn! I love doing this show. Um, about two female financial literacy women need to get up to speed in professional and personal money issues and what’s public on private companies are prospect research contributor maria simple. The prospect finder has tips aplenty for doing your research on privately held companies. Please remember rally bound in your thoughts and telephone bill reduction consulting also tb rc they’re helping to bring the show to you. Valley bound dot com and tb r si dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer. The show’s social media is by deborah askanase of community organizer two point oh, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. We’re gonna be doing a remote more about that next week. A pretty prominent remote and it’s going to live streamed. 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Nonprofit Radio, April 12, 2013: Followship & Social Media Boundaries

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

picture of Allison Fine
Allison Fine
Allison Fine: Followship

Allison Fine, co-author of “The Networked Nonprofit,” has been thinking lately about opening organizational culture to allow nonprofits to be more reactive to the interests and motivations of followers while still keeping Oz in sight. She’ll share her thoughts.

 
 

picture of Gene Takagi
Gene Takagi
Gene Takagi: Social Media Boundaries

Our legal contributor, Gene Takagi from the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO), suggests rules for your use of social media. It’s not a free-for-all for your employees and volunteers. Gene will help you stay out of trouble.

 
 
 


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Dahna hi there on. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Have you read it to review the show on itunes? If you haven’t, i’d be grateful if you go there. I know you don’t have to go back once you subscribe, but i’d be grateful if you would make the trip here’s what some people are saying in reviews gold for non-profits the best non-profits show period although that person had eclipsys after that period. So it’s period eclipsys i’m amazed at the variety equality and depth of his interviews. That person probably thinks i’m shallow. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been amazed he should just be fulfilled and his expectations being met. You have no idea what the trouble i went through to put those three reviews up their different accounts, i had to go to a public library, use the computer there. So please supplement those three that i put up with with your own one two, five star rating and and review the show. I’d be grateful. This is friday, april twelfth and i very much hope that you were with me last week because i would develop acute pancreatitis if i heard that you had missed talk between the generations. Phyllis weiss haserot president of practice development council, is a consultant and coach in cross generational communications think sixtieth, sixty ish boss and twenty five ish employees or seventy year old fundraiser and thirty year old donor-centric ship, phyllis had strategies for understanding and working across the generations. This week, followship alison find, co author of the network non-profit, has been thinking lately about opening organizational culture to allow non-profits to be more reactive to the interests and motivations of their followers, while still keeping oz insight and she’s going to share her thoughts. Also, social media boundaries. Our legal contributor, jean takagi from the non-profit and exempt organizations law group neo suggests rules for your use of social media it’s not a free for all for your employees and volunteers, jean will help you stay out of trouble between the guests on tony’s take two. The irs is still using form nine ninety to inquire about your compliance with state charity registration laws. Sounds thrilling, but i can make a lot more interesting than it sounds. My pleasure now to welcome alyson find she studies and rights at the intersection of social media and social change. She’s, author of the award winning book mo mentum, igniting social change in the connected age, published by wile e. Her latest book is the networked non-profit co authored with beth cantor, also widely published. She’s, a contributor to harvard business review online that’s at hbr dot or ge she hosts a monthly podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy called social good. I have one of those, too, and she blog’s a fine blawg at allison fine dot com. They’re two l’s in allison on twitter, she’s at a fine allison with two l’s welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Thanks for having me, tony. I’m delighted to be here. Thanks, alison. Um, you work at the intersection of social media and social change. It sounds like a crossing guard. Yeah, what’s their what’s it that intersection well on off a lot of activity, uh, and a reshaping of institutional life right now. Uh, whereas what used to be on the outside for institutions are in use on the insider is out and that’s the kind of changing of the contours in the landscape that i’ve been taking a hard look at the last several years. What do you mean what’s in was what’s out was in what it’s in is out? What do you mean by that? Well, so imagine tony, you’re running a small social service agencies surety and there are bloggers out there and tweeters and a whole bunch of other folks who are interested in your issue and they’re looking hard. So those folks who used to be on the outside not really able to see inside are poking around now, and they’re talking about your issues and they’re talking about your organization and on the other side, the staff of organisations, whether organizational leadership of likes it or not, are on social media channels and talking about the organization. Well, so what used to be on the inside is now on the outside, uh, and what it does mainly for very traditional non-profit leaders gear the heck out of them. Yeah. There’s ah, right. Scaring about scared about losing control. Yeah, they already lost control. Go continue to care that they’re going to lose it. Okay, on dh. What are your thoughts around? Followship? What do you mean by followship? So now we’re looking at an environment and ecosystem where organizations are flatter, some by economic necessity and others because they’re using social media and networks better and, uh, there’s this changing relationship, as i said between inside and outside and the reality is tony, that people who are open toe helping causes and non-profits aren’t sitting back on their couches waiting to be told what to do, they aren’t waiting for the latest press release to come out, so smart organizations are understanding that in this new environment they have to lead by following their crowd and it’s a very different dynamic. It doesn’t mean they’re not leaders right there setting big goals and saying to folks were trying to get from here, there, you know, we’re trying to end homelessness, we’re trying to reduce obesity, whatever the big goal is, but we need you our crowd to help us get from here to there, and you’re going to do that by being creative and energetic and working side by side with us. But why do why does why do i, as the leader of this very well run? Stewart lee run very efficiently run very productive social organised social service. Organisation that that i’m head of why do i? Why do i need to follow? Don’t i know the goal? What you say you like to say, oz and and how best to get there? I mean, i have a strategic plan, i have a board we’ve we’ve interviewed like minded agencies in the town, in the in the community, we’ve included our community in those interviews to produce that strategic plan. I mean, i think i know best i’m sure you d’oh uh, but the bottom line is, tony, you might think you know best, but social problems are enormously complex. We aren’t making progress in a lot of areas, and if organizations are very honest with themselves, they’ll see oftentimes the lack of progress and we can’t do this work alone, we have got to do this work in communities with communities, and the only way to do that is to treat people as part of your effort, not the foot soldiers doing on ly what you asked. So you’re taking a look at the fact that, uh, things like hunger and poverty and homelessness and domestic violence and climate change any literal way economic we’ve been at these things for generations, you know, so look, over the last thirty years, the needle hasn’t moved on these things, not because we’re not trying, not because there aren’t smart people doing the work, but because they are enormously difficult to solve, and institutions alone can’t solve them. It’s very dismaying to me is i think about all those things that we’ve been at for for generations, but don’t be dismayed, tony, because the great news is we’ve got this, you know, very vital, robust, energetic new way of looking at the world using our social media tool kit oh, and engaging networks of people to do great things, but you’re very encouraged, okay? But you’re concerned also, that people are that leaders are not engaging in the right way. They’re more following their their written strategic plan or they’re they’re treating as you suggested constituents as foot soldiers, you know, do this now, volunteer now sign the petition now. Donate now come to our event, uh, and and and they are exhausted. I spoke to over five hundred social service leaders in wichita, kansas yesterday. Lovely, lovely people. And they are exhausted, tony and they are struggling financially and they’re getting burned out and this is a large reason why pushing the boulder up a hill by yourself as a siloed institution is not an effective way of working. Okay, we don’t have to do it anymore. We have an alternative. Okay, followship is our alternative that’s? Exactly right? Okay, i’m not just made anymore. I’m already uplifted and just just ninety seconds you turn me around all right? So you want teo, you say, you know, take down silos, break down walls, open the culture wei have just like two minutes or so before our first break. What’s our what’s, our first step we need to know where these people are, what they want to do. The first step is listening. Yeah, right. So the first step is once you have come to the understanding of i need to work different, like, you know, there was a world out there that i can connect with. But i have to do it in the right way. Then you begin by listening. What are people out there talking about in regards to my issue and regards, maybe to my institutions. And how can i best help them more listening than we did in the interview’s for creating this music plan that’s exactly right? I’m in a more natural wave of listening through conversation like tony, right? This isn’t a science. This is being human and asking people tell me what you think. Tell me how we’re doing. Tell me why you were dismayed last year when we didn’t do act. I really think social media provides an opportunity for us to re humanize ourselves out there. So i, as the head of this social, i’d like to be ceo of a rather executive director. Okay, president, ceo of this social services so i khun b or i should be engaging directly. Well, you know, social media is not a spectator sport contact sport made everybody hands on and in order for you to run your agency, i think you’ve got to be engaged with your community. All right? I don’t want to break my collarbone. No, like that baseball player did just yesterday. That would be bad. That was just too much contact. But you can’t go on injured reserve. We need you on the field. Okay, on doubt. I mean, i could be having face to face conversations with my folks, too, right? Yes, thanks for the reminder. I never, ever want to give anybody the impression at social media, a substitute for in person engagement. It augments it, it never, ever take the place of it. We’re gonna pick up right there. We got to go away for a couple of minutes. I’ll have some live listener love when we come back and continue this conversation with alison, fine about followship. She’ll stay with me, and i hope you do, too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? Hi, i’m ricky keck, holistic nutrition and wellness consultant. If you have answered yes to any of my questions, contact me now at n y integrated ghisolf dot com or it’s. Six for six to eight, five, eight five eight eight initiate change and transform your life. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications. That’s. The answer. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com konnichiwa live listener love to tokyo and support of japan. Konnichiwa. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Live listener love also california. We got san francisco and tustin, california. Welcome, san antonio and clifton, texas live listener love to you as well on dh lots of others to come. All right, alison, what should we be listening if we’re gonna be listening? We need to be asking questions of the folks who are connected to our to my cause. What? What? What questions should i be asking? Well, it’s it’s going to depend entirely on your particular cause, tony and and where you are and your life cycle of your organization you just starting. Are you? You know, more mature. I really strongly encouraged people to actually start by just listening and not speaking. Not something that we are taught to dio anywhere. I didn’t take a graduate course in it, did you? No. And in fact, when i was in the dark days when i used to practice law, i was i was always upset that there wasn’t a billing code for listening or thinking that was another there’s never a code for. Thinking i always had to be doing something, producing some documents, some delivery ble what couldn’t i just bill half an hour for thinking about your case? I couldn’t do it. No, i i understand that. And we, you know, in the nonprofit sector b value, dizziness, a great deal. Uh, but it’s very important to get a feel for what people are talking about, what they’re passionate about, what they’re interested in and then to begin to practice asking questions. There’s a great irony, tony actually have to remember howto ask a good question because organizations aren’t good at it we’re so used to broadcasting, though, used to wrapping up ourselves and talking points that are closed, that learning how to honestly openly, authentically asked a riel question that you want to know the answer to that you don’t already know the answer to take some practice. And, of course, this all feeds into riel engagement in the social networks. Exactly. Exactly think about it, tony, think about the number of times you’ve been approached by a non-profit right that there is a they send you a press release or they send you? Ah, you know, direct mail piece. And those aren’t conversations, right? Those they’re just messages being sent at you. You know, it’s a broadcast broadcast right now think about the difference of if you got from somebody who said, you know, i know that you came to our event last year. Um, how’d it go for you? Would you think about it? What do you think about us? What can we do? Better but that’s a conversation. Okay, okay, now we need to ah, keep our goals in sight. Um, you’re just you want us to be you want me to be flexible and how i get to them. That’s exactly right. There’s a group called epic change epic epic change. Okay, they are raising money to give to for global poverty alleviation. And the way they go into every year is they create a facebook group. They invite their, you know, folks duitz expressed an interest in their cause or rather than few fewer into the group they here’s the goal for the year. We’re trying to raise x amount of money or we’re trying to work in a new country. How we going to do it? How we’re going to get from here to there and people really engaged, it takes those great facilitation skills. That’s what followship is all about right? It’s, not the wild west you’re not just letting it go anywhere it wants to go. You’ve got to be a great cocktail party host to make that happen, right? Keeping the conversation going, but it really is being respectful of the creativity and smarts of your supporters and engaging them in a process of getting you from here to there. What am i going to say to my board that looks at me let’s say this is a five year old agency and i’ve got ah, oh, seven hundred fifty thousand dollars annual budget, right, trying to keep it fairly modest, but, you know, i’d like to have achieved something in five years for pete’s sake. Um, my board expects me to be the leader. What am i going to say to them when i’m asking when i’m asking them to allow the agency to be flexible and taking tio not only take into consideration, but follow the follow the lead of the crowd? Uh, with so if you have a very skeptical board, which would be a shame, right? We really got to think about who serves on board and and why we keep packing them with so many lawyers. Yes, much bigger topics for life, right? Because, lord find on certainly uncertainty very, very unsettling. Yes, you well, now. Ah, so if that’s the kind of bored that you have, what i strongly recommend is that you try followship as an experiment, take one small area in which you work for this year, maybe it’s one fund-raising event, maybe it’s one new program or revamping an existing program and try out the idea you’re not throwing the whole organization out. You’re continuing with the things that work. But you are figuring out a new way to work with people that will be particularly appealing to younger supporters. That’s, i think, is the case you could make any board. Okay, we’ll take it and we’ll take it in bite-sized pieces. Could it be? Could we do this around an event? Absolutely. You had suggested the event earlier. How do we do have a wee look what could have done better? Think about the difference tony of posting on facebook from a group that you’ve liked that says march nineteenth is our gala dinner buy your tickets now from a post echo’s up six months earlier that says we’d like to do a spring event. What kinds of things have you been to lately that you like? What kinds of things do you think we could do and start a conversation about it? Which one do you feel more excited about? Yeah, i’m going to participate in the latter. Mohr you engaged me now i have a pretty sizable ego, though. It’s gonna be hard for me now. All right? So you’ll help me persuade the board. Now, i have to now have to persuade myself that i don’t have all the answers in our community geever so if you feel that you have all the answers, i would suggest social change work is probably not a good fit for you. Therapy is probably wise psychiatry, perhaps even psychotropic drugs i’m already using them. I’m afraid already on psychotropics led me to this delusion. This is really, really hard work now, okay? It doesn’t mean that we don’t need mars confit and people running organizations. Of course we do. But if their ego is so large, they don’t allow other people. To help them solve large community problems, and they’re not going to get very far because these are collective problems that need collective solutions. You’re critical of president obama’s campaign back from two thousand eight what what happened there? I don’t think so much in two thousand eight is as opposed to this last one, so two thousand eight it was great fun, right? They let people come in and gave them a menu of things that you could do and let them go, which is great then they forgot about them once they got elected. I didn’t quite know what to do with a multimillion person proud once they got into the white hot right house because, you know, forbid somebody should talk about marijuana or something that made them uncomfortable. So they put them all into a direct mail, dona base and that’s. What they did this last election cycle was that they had a very clear, tightly controlled, um, ways of managing people as fundraisers and as voters. And that was it. So i found the last cycle enormously disempowering for people. Zamora how they treated the two thousand eight followers. Exactly in two thousand twelve you don’t really think you’re so smart and creative anymore. We don’t really need your help that way. All we need are your checks in your vote. People have a lot more to give them that ego. We know it now. We’ve been in office for years. We know what we’re doing, we know what we’re doing, and we’re going to control this thing to get from here to there. Allison fine is and author most recently of the network to non-profit, which is widely published and that you can find it on amazon. You can also find it on the barnes and noble actually found it a little less expensive at barnes and noble. Um, and i want to send some more live listener love, so to new bern, north carolina, frederick, maryland, and lasalle, illinois live listener love we have listeners in china knee how that’s from shanghai and hei bai, the asian continent very well represented for tony martignetti non-profit radio. Thank you. I’m glad you’re with us week to week. Um, alison, do you think a a presidential candidate could emerge from the social networks? I think what we’re going to see tony is we’re going to see it start at a more grassroots level. We’re going to start to see some layers around the country and then some governors who come up this way. Uh, it’s too hard to try to scale this at a national level first, i think, but you’re going to find somebody who’s very good at this. And, you know, rand paul could be that person because the tea party really get followship or there really are they particularly grassroots organizing online in a way that other people down they are particularly good at online engagement there. Fenton, stick at it. How so? What? What does that they do that you admire? Uh, they allow lots and lots of people to talk very loudly. Right? So being loud doesn’t bother them at all. A part of their dna. Being loud bothers other organizations and awful lot. It scares them. They support local organizing without having a need to try to control all the local organizing. They’re fried or foundation does the same thing right gives you an idea of what you should be doing. So the local p party talk. About these kinds of things, but when and how you do it that’s up to you say the name of the foundation again. You cut out. I’m sorry. The surfrider foundation. Thank you. Surf rider. Okay, they’re fried. Er it’s a non-profit thirty five years old in county started in california to provide coastal cleanup. They have hundreds of, um, chapters around the country. And tony, they basically let them do what they want to do. If you want to mash up our logo, go ahead. If you want teo street cleanup this year instead of coastal cleanup, go ahead. And in the end, the spokes do an amazing amount of work on dh. Just engage thousands of volunteers in this third rider. Like the tea party, i understand that you can provide big goals. You can provide the contours of what we need done and then let people go. Those are excellent examples. I never thought of the tea party as as such a good example of online engagement. But yeah, everything you’re saying is true. They do. They said broad outlines and and then they have hundreds of local activists and i mean and low under the local. Chapters and they’re not worried about descent. They’re not worried about disagreement, they’re not worried about some yelling. You know what happens to awesome with organizations, tony, is they’re so concerned about anything that smacks of criticism that they find it very difficult to step outside in unguarded ways. All right, um, the strategic plan that i’ve mentioned that we my organization spent about twenty thousand dollars on for a consultant to help administer and do the interviews and coalesce, and we had that nice powerpoint deck that they presented to the board a year ago. What am i going to do with my strategic plan? Throw it out. Oh, allison, fine, i said i was being very polite when you mentioned it the first time, and i didn’t bring it up. What a waste of money it was. Well, all right, let’s, talk about it now, because i’ve got my board on board and i’ve set my ego aside. That’s a very big step. Yeah, but it hasn’t solved the problem yet, right? So look how many groups you know that spent all that time and money on a strategic plan. Do everything in the planet at the end. Go the boy. That was the best thing we ever did. All right, maybe one or two over my career. Mainly. What you hear is holy, who spent a lot of time on that thing for sure. And in that process, you know, closer to your community as an organization, right? You had an outside or talk to them a zoho you couldn’t talk to them, which i don’t underst dan oh, that’s interested? Yes, i can’t talk to your community. That’s the core got a scientific approach, tio data collection because that’s the corner of their plan. You know, i was a program evaluator for a long time, tony. So you know, i have respect for people who collect data, but to say that you need an outside to come in and interview stakeholders for your organization, as opposed to the conversations you should be having every day with the people who are most important to your efforts. I don’t get it. And then the worst part, though, is pretending that we can project out years at a time. Right now, when anybody who’s successful in business will tell you right now that you can’t plan out more than a year? You just can’t your troublemaker. I am okay. And i’m small, so people really kind of leave me alone. I admire troublemakers. I like things to be shaken up. It’s a school during you call a pot stirring okay? During, right? Something that pops. Not so much troublemaker. All right, i’ll call you troublemaker. You call yourself a buster? How does the occupy movement do? Just we just have about two minutes left. What’s your assessment of them. I think that, uh, i think it’s fascinating. I think they did a great job of turning out. Ah, lot of people. But i think of that kind of organizing tony like a pointillist painting. It’s one dot and it’s going to take a lot of dots over a lot of time for that thing to mature. It’s. Not over yet. It’s just in its infancy ilsen. Fine. I hope you’re going to come back. My pleasure, i hope. It’s been my pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much. Alison. Fine. Her latest. My pleasure. Her latest book, the network non-profit co authored with beth cantor. You confined it. Amazon. You can find it at barnes and noble and on twitter, she’s a fine thankyou again, alison. My pleasure, tony talking. We’re gonna go away when we come back. Tony’s, take two about some charity registration technicalities and then social media boundaries with jean takagi. Stay with me. Ditigal lending the dude in the good ending, you’re listening to the talking alternative network e-giving. Nothing. Cubine are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re going invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Lively conversation. Top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m janna agger’s, senior vice president, products and marketing from blackbaud. Dahna and i’m tony martignetti tony martignetti non-profit radio time for my take to taxes are on everybody’s mind april fifteenth coming up so i’m talking about the tax form that charity’s fill out the nine, ninety and between that form and one of its schedules, there are two questions that probe your offices compliance with state charity registration laws, which i always think is interesting that’s a federal agency questioning whether you’re complying with state laws. It’s not a good idea too fudge on those questions because you’re nine, ninety assigned by an officer under penalty of perjury. So you want to be conscious of your compliance with those registration laws in each state where you are soliciting donations, it’s not enough to just be registered in your home state if you are soliciting in other states. The post on my block is irs continues inquiry on charity registration compliance the block is that tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, the twelfth of april fifteenth show of the year jean takagi is with me he’s, our regular legal contributor to the principal at neo non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco he edits the popular non-profit law blogged dot com, and he is at gi tak gt. A k on twitter. Jean takagi, welcome back. Thanks, sonny. How you doing? I’m doing well, pleasure to have you back, it’s, good to talk to you. We don’t want to need to set some boundaries around social media. Why do we need more than just sort of usage guidelines? Well, let me first get some of your opening comments, tony, dark days when you’re a lawyer. Oh, yes. So you have a song about just go i jean i you know, i i love that you love the practice of law, it did not do for me what it does for you, but i appreciate that, tony, it definitely isn’t for everyone. And i heard alison’s comments as well about lawyers finding uncertainty unsettling on probably being deal breakers and, well, now i don’t think she said, did you say deal breakers? I know should i sort of added okay, well, let’s, not let’s, not put words in my mouth because defamation is one of things we’re going to talk about your there we go. So part of the reason why you need you need rules in this game. And so i actually agree with ours that lawyers do find uncertain uncertainty unsettling, and we can sometimes be deal breakers, which are my words and part of the reason why is that? Because if we give advice, tio some organizations and, you know what, consultant were to give that advice and has ninety nine percent effectiveness and ninety nine percent of the organisation it works really well, there is that one percent it might not work well point, and they might actually get in trouble using that advice with the lawyer we can’t afford to do that. We’ve got to make sure that we’re protecting one hundred percent, which means we can’t quite be is aggressive in some ways in other ways we can let organizations and our clients know how we can empower them to let them know what is okay to do and that they should feel comfortable doing it, that it may be part of theirs, their duties in terms of furthering their mission in order to engage in those things. So that’s one of the reasons why, why we wantto have rules so there’s a better understanding of how to play this game of using social media. And, you know, i think, tony, when you play any game, we should read the rules first, right? They understand what you’re doing. My favorite game is monopoly. I don’t like other players to read. The rules just, you know, yeah, i know. And then and then, you know, i have a good eye use the rules of sort of guidelines, and then, you know, i’ll borrow a little from the bank and things like that, you know, at below and at below market rates and things like that let’s go actually into a couple of those things that you talked about borrowing money from the bank, okay? Let’s say, you know, we organize this nationwide effort and have our volunteers go out and create different events fund-raising events in, uh, in different locations throughout the country, on behalf of our organization and furthering our movement. Well, let’s say, we’ve got ten of these things going on in seven go really well, can we gene, can we taken example? I’m thinking of ah, move on dot or ge, they are frequently get their emails, attend an event in manhattan or the bronx or, you know, can somebody in well, they know that i’m in new york, so they don’t ask me to host elsewhere, but they’re certainly doing these things throughout the country. Yeah, and a lot of organizations are now using facebook and and other platforms toe mobilize their supporters throughout the country, right? Okay, so, you know, let’s, say it’s an organization that’s like move on that that’s got a nationwide presence with a lot of supporters throughout, and they’ve got some active people in different locations again, let’s say they’re ten events and seven go without a hitch and raise a lot of money for the organization. But one of the things you asked and when the things you talked about your take two is, are they registered in those states in which the volunteers there suddenly engaging in these fund-raising activities? Because if they’re not, that can get them into trouble, right? Tony, i think you know better than anybody it can is the now the volunteer yeah, they’re volunteer is acting as an agent of the of the organization at that point. Or is that? Is that a question? I think that’s a question and, you know, the more that the organization is telling the volunteer on how to organize the event and what rules should apply to the event and how the money should be collected and forwarded to the charity, i think it looks more and more like it the organization’s event and charity registration has got to be something that considered okay. Now i’m skirting jargon jail. We haven’t talked about jack in jail for weeks. I’m disappointed too many. My guests are plain talking, plain language. I don’t like that like abstruse language talks over everybody’s head. So why don’t you help define define for me? Because i said, are they an agent, but that that actually is a term of art has legal import, doesn’t it? Yeah, so generally an agent is acting on the authority and on behalf of the principal. So if i ask, skew tony and you are except that you’re going to make a donation on my behalf, another charity and i give you the money to make that donation. You’re acting as my agent, your not making your own donate donation of money. You’re donating the money on my behalf. You have certain responsibilities by taking on that relationship. I’m the agent and you’re the principal in that example, correct. So if the charity tells a volunteer agent to start fund-raising them and organizing an event on their behalf, then it’s really the charities event and the volunteers acting as their agent, which means the charity has responsibilities in that jurisdiction. Okay, okay, so the other things that you raised is, well, what if somebody just took off with the money? But if you’ve got a volunteer there but you have no staff presents there and you don’t really know this volunteer, you just sort of engaged with them online, and all of a sudden they’re holding this event for you, and they take off with the money. Now, what happened? What did you do? What? What? Showing a reasonable care did you take to make sure something like that wouldn’t happen then the awful thing is, what if somebody gets hurt at this event and right? And now in this case, it doesn’t even have to be an event that is a solicitation event like maybe we’re just we’re just rallying the troops, but we’re not asking for any money we’re not soliciting, just trying to maybe we’re all watching a video together or it’s some, you know, kind of activist activity, but but no money is changing hands. Go ahead. So something else could happen. Yeah, exactly. Right. So whether it’s just being an educational event, uh and you’ve got some people out there, they’re gathered together under the charity’s name and you know, they’ve gotten together and maybe there weren’t any steps, teo, prevent some risks or maybe it’s like a walkathon, so maybe it is a solicitation event that’s part fun solicitation, but there weren’t these risk management steps that were looked at charity. The cherry didn’t really take any step to make sure that no harm’s could be prevented that were reasonably foreseeable possibilities of that. So those are things that charities have to think about when they start to mobilize their supporters are are the supporters holding their own events? In which case do do those people after register in order to fund raise for another charity? That might be an issue as well? Or is it the charity’s own event, in which case the charity’s got to think about registration and also creating rules of the game again that have to do with holding that event to make sure that the people who attend or the people who have money get solicited are protected? I’ve got two troublemakers on the show today you’re a lot of trouble, gene, you’re asking a lot of questions? Let’s, try toe help with some answers. What? What? What do you know? Right now, we know what we have to think about, but what are we going to do should we not be hosting these events? Or is it cannes insurance help or we need we need written regulations about what volunteers khun do in other places. Where we supposed to do? Yeah, i think we’ve got to figure out first two’s event is it? Is it the charities event? Or is it the individuals that are gathering together that are raising funds on their own? And if they’re raising funds are their own? Are they going to get in trouble? And should we try to help them understand what their responsibilities are in what limitations there are for them to start raising money on their own without being under the umbrella, if you will, of the charity so rules of the game, first who’s event is it, and if the charity has authorized and encouraged it, it should try to protect those people who are going teo organize the event as well as those people were going to attend the event and having rules there instead of just guidelines makes perfect sense to me, you know, you you’re not allowed to, uh, you know, serve alcohol to minors may may seem, you know, very simplistic and obvious, but sometimes when you’ve got volunteers who you’re unaware of, you’ve not screamed, not interviewed them. Um, you’ve got to be really explicit about what’s, okay? And what’s not okay, even if you think it’s obvious. So rules of the game and rules of the event, i think there’s something that you have tohave in-kind also have some people, you know, on the charities staff that or they’re volunteers, if they’re in all volunteer organization really think about risk management of that event, what risks are involved? And should we take steps like having a first date? You know, kid available or having some people there are having a written release and waiver of liability form that all event participants find those air things to think about? And then the charity registration thing on top of that, if it’s an event of any significance, i think you have to really seriously think about that and probably by your book, tony. Okay, or have me register for you. There you go. Now what if the agent doesn’t follow the rules, then? Is the organization protected at least? Well, maybe, maybe not, but what could i have got any colonization playing the agent and sue the agent? But whoever got hurt from that if its a charity, that man is going to kind of everybody. And if the charity has a deeper pocket than the agent and if it’s, you know, just day ah, volunteer who may not have ah, a lot of that worth and the charity may have a deeper pocket, and the plaintiff lawyer will go after the charity in that case and if they’re not register stirred on top of all of this in that state, it’s going to look even worse for the charity in terms of saying, well, you know, we tried our best, and we just didn’t you didn’t weigh had rules, but but the the solicitation was illegal because the charity wasn’t registered in the state. That looks bad. Yeah, your insurance company might, even if you have insurance might say, well, you’re operating illegally. We don’t ensure that well, okay, uh, okay. So we we strayed a little bit from social media, but that’s fine, because we’re talking about events which might be propagated through social media. What about more directly, you know, the advocacy advocacy online? Sure, i mean, i guess he’s a big thing for for non-profits and i’m just a big proponent of non-profits engaging in a lot of advocacy to further their their mission, but social media channels again allow, you know, a lot of questions to rise, like whose message is being sent? You know, we’ve allowed staff members and volunteers in this kind of followship model that that alison is describing in and where everybody’s is contributing, are you going to be sending conflicting messages? And are some of those messages going toe actually be attributed to the organization and not be a communication of the type that the organization is allowed to do? Like an election eri and communication worth jargon jail right durney election hearing endorsing a political candidate which a five a one c three cannot do, but an individual can do so it gets a little grey when an individual uses an account that has the organisation’s name somehow attached, whose account is it? And is that communication? Ok, ok, but what about i mean, alison was sort of seeking feedback from from the community, i mean suppose someone uses their own account to post something on the organization’s facebook page or or points ah, address is a post on twitter to the organization that i mean that’s what the person’s using their own account? Yeah, i mean, would that be ok, though? That’s the organization is not responsible for that one, is it? Even if it’s just on their facebook pages, somebody else posted it? Well, let’s think about that. What? What if it was a really defamatory statement against somebody? Or what if it was endorsing a candidate for political office, tony and the organization has control of that facebook pages being able to delete that comment out of there, should they do it? Or should they just let it sit there? My my feeling is conservatively, you’re going to want to delete something that would be illegal if the charity had posted it itself. Obviously, you don’t want to show opinions and participation of your supporters on the facebook page, but you don’t want, you know, people the flame or defame others, and you certainly don’t want, uh, charity metoo attributed with endorsing candidates or engaging in some sort of private benefit that that benefit thie organizations, insiders. Those can all get the organization into a lot of trouble. We’ve got to go away for a couple of minutes. When we come back, jean run, and i will keep talking about the social media boundaries. And i’ve got some live listener love for the korean peninsula. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Latto are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Altum have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Welcome back on io haserot for soul, young son and day, john korea on your haserot. Dahna. As i said last week, especially south korea, in our thoughts, lots of saber rattling, you know, i saw i saw seventy something interviewed, and he said, the north is just like a schoolyard bully. It’s, no big deal. Andan. I saw a twenty something interviewed, who said she was nervous and pays attention to where exits are. When she’s, when she’s in buildings. So, anyway, are our thoughts are with you, south korea jane. Let’s, let’s see about okay, so let’s, continue with this online. The all these questions about online your you think that? Ah, non-profit should delete things that it wouldn’t be able to print or ah, post itself on, say, facebook or twitter? Yeah, i think it depends on the channel that you’re using. Sometimes you’ve got listservs where you’ve got a charity, that’s decided not to moderate the contact content, but put in disclaimers that might be one set of rules that applies. But with your facebook account, i think you’ve got to be be careful, especially if it’s a page that’s under the control of the charity, if their comments on there again, that would be hurtful to the charity or hurtful toe. Others that’s something that you might think about the leading, and if it’s obviously going to be in violation of of laws, you’re going to want to report it. You know, it’s against facebook zone privacy or policies as well, but to protect the organization, i think that’s really important, and that gets into what we were talking about earlier about defamatory statements, um, could also be is like harassment? Yeah, absolutely. So you’ve got to be careful, there’s. Some sometimes employees or even managers will use social media channels now to communicate with their people that report to them and got to be very, very careful that they’re not sending messages that if they communicated in real life or by email. This is not all of a sudden. Better because it’s being broadcast on social media. Aren’t there also issues around posting other people’s content? Either me either an excerpt or even just linking to it let’s talk about that? Yeah, it’s a great question. Tony gets a little bit confusing when we’re talking about copyrights on copyright protection there a lot of non-profits out there that are just accepting from other sites and thinking that as long as you attribute that that source that it’s okay, and that might not just be content written content, but that could be photos and music as well. The company presentation, you got to be careful because somebody else owns that content, and just because they’ve published it on the web doesn’t mean they’ve given free permission for anybody else to copy and use it so that can get organizations into trouble. There are some some exceptions for fair use, uh, which might involve charity or commentary or criticism on sometimes for non-profit educational purposes, but that can get really big. Ah non-profits really want to know what they’re doing when they are borrowing or accepting content from other sites or from other individuals, and then suddenly posting it on their own and again, even with attribution that that may not be sufficient. Yeah, attribution doesn’t hear it. So you’ve got to make sure that either you’ve gotten written permission to use that content or you’re using it in a fair way that would not create an infringement liability issue. Okay, but those fair, those fairways, those those are the exceptions that you were talking about in fair use and they’re pretty pretty well defined. Well, not so well defined. Well, ok, they’re specific categories. Yeah, and they’re definitely enforced in different ways in different jurisdictions. So if you just read, you know, website resource on fair use don’t rely on that, but i do encourage all non-profits if you are borrowing or accepting or commenting on other people’s content and putting it up on your own sites to make sure you understand what the rules are, so do look some good, you know, reputable web resources for that and then move on from there in california, we’ve got an organization called public counsel that’s got excellent information on copyright and fair use, and i think other other states organisations could probably look at that stuff as well, because some of the state laws will be similar and just get a general idea of what the rules are and that’s a public counsel c o u n c l e that’s, right. Okay, just a couple of minutes left before we have to go away. Gene. So if there is a violation or something you’re you’re just concerned about you talked about deleting the post, what else should we be conscious of? Well, i think the important thing, especially on a governance levels way talk about board board duties now, tony is the board to develop a social media policy for the organization, so now they think and delegate the drafting out to management, but to have a social media policy and to make sure that everybody using social media on behalf of the organization understands what the rules are and what the risks are, because those those volunteers and supporters want to do good things for the organisation for its missions, they don’t want to go get the organization into trouble, but what happens is oftentimes they just don’t know what the rules and risks are, so educating them through a policy have guidelines for sure, but also have solid rule in place that don’t allow them to. Do things that would violate the law think that’s critical, just like thirty seconds left. Jean how about apologizing on the site where the violation occurred? Sometimes i can work, some sometimes can get you into more trouble, so you know, sometimes you’re just during the pot even more tomorrow how allison’s, where then? And that can create more more divisions, so it sort of look at it on a case by case basis. Look, a senior management, the american red cross put out a tweet before that says this was a rogue treat that says, when we drink, we do it right getting withered. This was a mistake, somebody using their personal account and thought they thought they were using their personal count. Instead, the american red cross account american red cross immediately came up with an apology that said, we’ve deleted the road treat, but rest assured the red cross this sober and we’ve confiscated the keys, humor, apology and everything worked out just fine. All important points to keep in mind. Social media is not just a wild west gene takagi principle of neo, you’ll find his block at non-profit law blogged dot com, you’ll find him. On twitter at gt a kg tech gene, thank you very much. My pleasure to talk to you again next month. Got some final live listener love teo taiwan we don’t know the city, but taiwan welcome and ni hao next week a conversation with amy sample ward reduction part do we’re talking about her new book co authored book social change? Anytime everywhere we started last month and there’s more to cover about your fund-raising calendar and social media. Andi, i’m hoping for a special appearance by tim amy’s, dad hoping we can get him to call in like to have a little fun with tim sample we’re all over the social web can’t make a click without lador a spark a testa trying to say, smacking your head hard into tony martignetti non-profit radio pinterest for example, i’ve got boards for the show and my blogged my favorite board on pinterest, though that i’ve got is women leading non-profits lots of videos of female non-profits ceos like abby falik of global citizen year and marry in wright edelman of the children’s defense fund. If you can suggest some that are missing, please do our creative producer is claire. Meyerhoff sam liebowitz is our line producer, but not today. Today, the line producer is janice taylor. We don’t have an assistant producer, but we struggled through. Janis filled both roles. The show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday went to two p m eastern at talking alternative broadcasting, found at talking alternative dot com. Duitz found anything? That dude, in the good ending, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Get him. E-giving you could hi, i’m donna, and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream. 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You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what you’re born. Teo you society, politics, business it’s, provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic. I want to go what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? 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