Amy Sample Ward: #23NTC
The 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference is in April, hosted by NTEN. Come in-person or join virtually. Nonprofit Radio will be there. Amy Sample Ward, NTEN’s CEO and our technology contributor, tells us what’s in store.
Tamra Ryan: Is A Social Enterprise For You?
What are these and how do you decide whether to take one on—or even consider it—at your nonprofit? What kinds of businesses lend themselves to social enterprise and how do you structure the relationship? Tamra Ryan makes sense of it all. She’s CEO of Women’s Bean Project. (Originally aired December 13, 2021)
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Transcript for 632_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20230320.mp3
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your Aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with Orrico my Adonia if you paint me with the idea that you missed this week’s show 23 NTC. The 2023 nonprofit technology conference is in April hosted by N 10, come in person or join virtually non profit radio will be there, Amy Sample Ward N Ten’s CEO and our technology contributor tells us what’s in store And is a social enterprise for you. What are these? And how do you decide whether to take one on or even consider it at your nonprofit? What kinds of businesses lend themselves to social enterprise and how do you structure the relationship? Tamara Ryan makes sense of it all. She’s ceo of women’s being project. This originally aired 13 December 2021 on tony state to get in people’s faces again. Again, Here is 23 NTC. What a pleasure to welcome back, Amy Sample Ward as it always is, you know who she is. But she deserves a proper introduction. CEO of N 10 and our technology and social media contributor. Their most recent co authored book is the tech that comes next about equity and inclusiveness in technology development. They’re at Amy sample ward dot org and at Amy R S ward. So good to welcome you back. Good [00:02:04.79] spk_1:
to have you. Thanks for having me. I’m excited that in a few short weeks, we will not be over Zoom. [00:02:13.64] spk_0:
That’s indeed true. We will, we will, we will be hugging. So let’s talk about what’s coming up, this little thing. 23 NTC, the nonprofit technology conference in Denver. [00:02:26.74] spk_1:
Yes. This little thing [00:02:27.68] spk_0:
that you’ve been uh just occupying a couple, a couple hours a week, I suppose, [00:03:14.81] spk_1:
Right? Couple of concurrent hours in my mind at all time. Yeah. Yeah, I’m excited. This is, this is the first nonprofit technology conference that’s happening back in person since 2019. However, it is also our first hybrid NTC. So people are going to be participating in Denver. People are going to be participating, you know, from their homes or offices virtually and a number of sessions where both of those people are in the same session at the same time. So we’re really trying to push, you know, push the limits of our own planning to push the A V team’s abilities, all of those pieces, see what Zoom can do all of that and make a conference that feels really great and dynamic and has different options for different people, regardless of how you’re joining or where you are or what comfort level or care needs you might have right now. [00:03:37.84] spk_0:
So the in person people will be eligible for hybrid or for, for virtual presentations. And the virtual audience is is welcome to join in person presentations, work, working, [00:04:45.58] spk_1:
not all of them but so at any given session block, there are sessions that are only happening in Denver. You have to physically be in the room presentation or the presenters are all in the room. Then there are sessions that are only happening online if you’re in Denver and you really want to see that session, you can also go online and, and watch it. Um And, and there will be spaces where you could do that as a group to um and there are hybrid sessions which mean there’s a room in Denver, there will likely be presenters in Denver, but there’s also maybe a co presenter online and an online audience. And so we have session hosts and facilitators in both places to make sure that the speakers are confident and comfortable managing all of that and they’re not trying to, you know, watch the chat or see what’s going on in the room. So, yeah, I think it’ll be an experience. I’m sure we will learn a lot. We are open to learning a lot but like, you know, true intent fashion, we will learn out loud with everyone else along with us, you know, [00:05:07.68] spk_0:
you’re making all the permutations available across, across in person and hybrid. Alright. Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, like how many sessions are we looking forward [00:06:19.31] spk_1:
to? Oh, my gosh. 100 and 50 some, I forget the, The, the single digit number there, but over 150 and really incredible keynotes which of course, you know, will be in both places that will be a hybrid. Um and I’m not sure if you’ve never been to the NDC what your uh experience with conferences or sessions are, but we also have different types of sessions. So we have 30 minute sessions which we try to plan during the day for when folks are in the you know, you couldn’t take more than 25 minutes of talking before your brain shuts down. So there’s short kind of tactical sessions. That’s where we see a lot of great um content, like do these five things to your website tomorrow, right? Like really clear to the point and then we have longer 60 minute sessions and workshops um and lots of diverse options in the longer session. Um It’s not just, you know, some conferences are very panel heavy. We do have co presenters so that there’s multiple perspectives and opinions that are being shared, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that a session with two or three presenters is going to be a panel in its presentation, right? It might just be three people facilitating it together. [00:06:41.88] spk_0:
Uh, the dates, let’s make sure everybody knows when we’re talking [00:07:06.77] spk_1:
About. Yeah, April 12 through 14th, which is a Wednesday through Friday. Um, we totally know and can just say up front, we know that it conflicts with passover and Ramadan and we welcome the millions in legal fees that we would have had to pay to get out of it. Yeah. Well, it was a product of the pandemic rescheduling where we did have a contract before it felt like people could really come back. And so it got pushed to 2023 and, and we didn’t really have a choice of what that was. So [00:07:26.09] spk_0:
When was Denver supposed to have been, was it supposed to be 2020? [00:08:51.96] spk_1:
It was supposed to be 20, early, 2022. Yeah. But we pulled the community and folks just weren’t ready for a big conference yet, you know, which is totally understandable. Lots of folks still aren’t, which is why we have the hybrid and the virtual options. But um at least moving it to 23 meant all communities could have access to vaccines. You know, we have people coming from lots of different countries to the conference traditionally. So I really wanted to make sure that it felt like folks were at a place where they could be ready if they wanted to be to come to the conference. Um, and we have various options in place for folks who may either be feeling like this is their first conference. Um And the pandemic is still happening and it feels really stressful or overwhelming there. You know, we’re asking folks to wear masks, we will have masks available. I have already ordered them to the advanced warehouse, you know, but we also have um more lounges than we’ve ever had so that people can go to a smaller space um and relax or we’ve talked to the Convention Center about having different ways that people can eat, even smaller areas, eat outside, take their food wherever they want to go. So we really are trying to think both of impacts for folks who maybe are trying to um you know, they have observances for whether Ramadan Passover etcetera and we can support how they engage through that or COVID concerns and how we can help them, you know, navigate a big conference with those as well. [00:09:07.74] spk_0:
I intend never afraid of filling up their [00:09:09.65] spk_1:
plate. I know technology [00:09:12.71] spk_0:
wise, accommodation, wise, equity, etcetera. It’s all you take it all on. Yeah, I always admired, I admire it, not admired passively like somebody admires it, I admire it. I [00:09:57.83] spk_1:
appreciate you saying that. I think, you know, it feels to us like we want to do the work to honor all the wholeness of the community so that everyone in the community feels like they are welcome. It also is the kind of thing where you don’t even realize like how much work it is to make thoughtful accommodations until you really open that door, step through it. You’re like, oh, this is a whole room. This is not like a closet, right? I wasn’t just grabbing a coat. I just went into a whole walk in clause opposite of, of options. So I really just shout out to the accessibility committee which is all community members and they work year round with staff to think about ways that we can make the conference even more accessible and support more community members. [00:10:47.18] spk_0:
All these are the reasons why I always bring non profit radio to the two N T C. This, this is my eighth or ninth or something like that. Um And so we’ll be on the exhibit floor sharing a booth with our sponsors Heller Consulting. So come see us at 4 20 for 4 20 for a, I’m the A non profit But yeah, so come see team Heller. Very grateful, grateful for their sponsorship of us at NTC. And I’ll be capturing Oh a dozen or 15, roughly interviews that will be on non profit radio in the coming months after April 12-14 and Amy, of course, we’ll get you, we’ll get you in the schedule. [00:11:00.46] spk_1:
I’ll stop by the booth. Well, yes, I gotta get, I [00:11:06.95] spk_0:
gotta get you on the schedule because you’re the, you know, you’re all over. So I gotta get, you gotta get you nailed down for for an interview. Yes. Um Why don’t you share with folks? Awesome, awesome keynotes. [00:11:17.81] spk_2:
Yeah. [00:12:16.22] spk_1:
Yeah. So on the first day we have Sophia Noble who just launched a new race and gender and technology program, which is so awesome. She’s at U C L A and on day two, we have Messiah Burciaga Hamid who has been a staff and is now the board chair of native land, a tool that folks have hopefully and likely already used when you are looking up whose land you are on. Um And then on day three on Friday, we’ll have what I can only imagine is going to be the most high energy exciting keynote at nine in the morning from Evan Greer. Um She’s the director at Fight For the Future. Um an organization and 10 has partnered with on some of our um advocacy on save dot org, et cetera. So action packed keynotes, lots of great ideas. It’s going to be really good action [00:12:43.56] spk_0:
packed centering diversity, admire it, admire it. I want to remind folks that N 10 is also known for wonderful food. They spend a lot of time thinking about what the menus are gonna be. The food is always excellent. So if you’re a foodie, you might say, you know, it’s a conference. All right, we’ll get some, we’ll get some rubber chicken, you know, but we’ll tolerate it. No, it’s not. It’s not gonna be the case. That’s not gonna be if there’s chicken. There will be chicken cordon bleu also be vegan options. There will be vegetarian options. There will be [00:13:29.63] spk_1:
only have 11 day or at least one full lunch menu that is all plant based. Um, and then we have, you know, lots of options. Everything is labeled the full menu in every ingredient is in the conference app. So you can see whatever dietary needs you might have how those are or are not met. Um, and we actually just met yesterday with the catering rep. Um, and slowly watched his eyes kind of glaze over as we were saying, you know, not just, oh, could we have a sandwich instead of this salad? We were saying inside the menu, we see that you’re using this ingredient and we’re changing this specific ingredient and we would like, you know, we don’t need brisket at nine in the morning for our attendees. What’s a plant based option? And every time he said Tofu and 10 staff were like, we’re going to challenge the chef to come up with something better. [00:13:53.71] spk_0:
Yes, you pay attention to the food. It’s [00:14:40.73] spk_1:
exactly. And if you’re spending your time in a session, feeling kind of anarchy because you didn’t like what you ate or feeling hungry because there wasn’t food for you. It takes away from your opportunity to learn. So we want folks to really feel taken care of so that however whatever big needs they have and sometimes they’re not learning needs. We know, sometimes come to the conference just to like, find those two other people who have done the thing that they’ve done and feel like they could hear somebody say to them like, yeah, it’s really horrible, you know, but you can get through this project or you can find a new vendor or, you know, whatever it might be. Like, you also have the, the emotional capacity to go take on finding those conversations because again, you’re not spending all your time worrying about. Are you gonna have food or where is a bathroom in this giant convention center or whatever else? You know, [00:14:54.99] spk_0:
you take care of the, you take care of the whole person, you do the whole people. There’s more than one person attending. Yes, [00:15:22.68] spk_1:
There is more than one person, which is part of why it feels a little overwhelming because we’ve spent, you know, of course, in 2020, there was no conference and then in 21 and 22, it was a virtual conference, and and there were lots of people registered, which was great, but you never had to necessarily feel the Kind of um feel the size of that many people registered right? The way you do when you see everybody from the stage and you look out at a big room. But we’re, I mean, we’re on track to have close to 2000 registrants. Of course, some of those are virtual. But um that’s a really big number, you know, so we probably have 1500 in Denver um and 500 online. [00:15:50.85] spk_0:
A lot of people. Yeah, but you’re, you’re, you’re curating us, you’re taking care of [00:15:54.82] spk_1:
your, we’re gonna take care of. [00:16:20.92] spk_0:
And finally, I want to remind listeners that this is called the nonprofit technology conference hashtag 23 T C. But it is not a conference that is exclusively for technology folks that, that are, you know, C T O s and technology majors and computer science. It is not, it’s for anyone who uses technology in their social change work. And isn’t that all of us? I mean, unless you’re still on index cards and legal pad and [00:16:38.18] spk_1:
we welcome you. If you’re still on index cards, don’t be overwhelmed. Come to the NTC. Someone will sit down with you and they will get all those cards into a database for you probably for, for free with like the first month of the CRM for free. Like we just need to get you off those cards. [00:16:43.23] spk_0:
Alright, hopefully not. But yeah, it’s, it’s not only for technologists for anybody who uses technology. That’s why I love to capture a ton of tons of interviews to share, to share with listeners. All right, [00:16:56.01] spk_1:
thanks so much, tony I can’t wait to see you in Denver. It’s gonna be so fun. [00:16:59.82] spk_0:
Absolutely. My pleasure. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Good luck with the conference planning and we’ll see you in about a month [00:17:08.64] spk_1:
so soon. Thank you, [00:22:19.99] spk_0:
Amy. Folks. You’re suffering a lackluster host. 15 minutes talking to the CEO of N 10 about the conference that they’re hosting. And I forgot to ask, where’s all the information? Where do folks go to register? You go to N 10 dot org, N 10 dot org gives you all the information. Of course, it’s very prominent on their site. Sheesh. Now it’s time for Tony’s take two last week. I was listening back and I talked about being in person with people again and, you know, I gave you a bunch of superficialities and generalizations. But why I think where’s the detail? Why, why is it joyful and pleasurable and so much better and authentic and real? You know. So I’m listening, I was like, Okay. Yeah, but why, but why I’m asking myself as I’m listening. It’s a good thing I have guests because otherwise the show would, would crash guests who provide substance and detail. Uh otherwise you’d have 45 minutes or an hour of superficiality. Okay. So why this is why a bunch of reasons as a, as a the guy, you know, um the presenter at a webinar, I don’t have to scroll. If it’s a big, big audience, you have to scroll and zoom to see everyone. Not so they’re all there. They’re all right there in front of you. It’s a beautiful watch, the generality that beautiful, watch the generalities trying to give detail and also when I’m sharing my screen, you know, Power point, everybody gets reduced into a little like a 1.5 by 1.5 box. And you can see even fewer people then when I’m not screen sharing. So no tiny boxes, everybody’s visible. I can, I can see the screen, my slide up on the screen, the nice big screen and I can see the people there you are. It’s wonderful. Watch the generalities, conversations, of course, conversations so much easier. Not once. Did anybody have to say? Okay. Well, you go first uh to parse out the delegate out the conversation we’re face to face. It’s just, it’s natural, the natural ness of it. Natural. Nous, the word, the hands, you see the hands immediately, you don’t have to scan the, scan the screen to see a little uh one dimensional hand going up real hands right there in your face. It’s fantastic. We’re generalities. Watch that, watch that the laughter, the groans. You can hear them. People aren’t muted feedback, live live and in person so much easier for the audience to cross talk. It’s, it’s doesn’t work in, in zoom, especially if it’s particularly large. People can’t talk at all. Everybody’s the questions are in chat. There’s another, there’s another reason you can the questions dynamic back and forth. Well, I don’t quite understand, you know, this chat, chat typing and, and audience members were talking to each other. This was I’m going back to uh conference. I did in a Long Island. Yeah, people could talk to each other and, and help each other. I, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. So those are all my reasons. That’s the detail. That’s what you, that’s what you listen to. Non profit radio for detail, not superficiality and generalizations. So if you can, if you get the opportunity and then of course, the lunches, I didn’t even mention just two face to face lunches and of course, natural conversation, not, not delayed. You know, it’s, it’s not no problem if you interrupt somebody’s talking. Well, you know, somebody jumps in, it’s not an issue, everybody can be heard natural, natural. So if you get the opportunity face to face, please take it. Don’t make virtual your default. Don’t go there. That’s Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the uninterrupted is a social enterprise for you. Sit back and get comfy. It’s a pleasure to welcome Tamra Ryan to non profit radio She is CEO of women’s bean project, a social enterprise that provides transitional employment to women attempting to break the cycle of chronic unemployment and poverty while operating a food manufacturing business. She’s a former partner and board member for social venture partners, Denver and currently serves as part time interim CEO for the Social Enterprise Alliance. She’s at Tamara Ryan and the enterprise is at women’s bean project dot com. Tamara, welcome to non profit radio [00:22:29.12] spk_2:
It’s great to be here. [00:22:33.07] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure, pleasure to have you. Why don’t you first explain what women’s being project is all about? Because it’s an example of what you and I are going to talk about for a while. [00:23:32.84] spk_2:
We are a food manufacturing business. We started with Bean Soup in 1989 and that’s where our name comes from. But today we have 50 different food products that we sell all across the country. What makes us Different is that we employ women who are chronically unemployed. So a typical woman we hire hasn’t had a job longer than a year in her lifetime. Though the average age is 38, they come and work for us as for a full time job for 6-9 months. And during the time they’re with us, we teach basic job readiness skills. And then we also, in 30% of her paid time, we teach her life skills, we teach problem solving and goal setting and budgeting and planning and organizing. And so this whole thing is her job for these 6-9 months. At the end, she graduates our program and moves on to mainstream employment in the community. So we’re kind of two businesses were running a food manufacturing business and a human services business, [00:23:50.43] spk_0:
which is exactly what, what the type of model will, will, will be talking about what I admire about that I found very interesting is that you said it. Um, Well, you’re used to saying it but I want to call it out for 30% of their paid time. The women’s paid time is not spent working. It’s spent learning the soft skills of employment. [00:24:02.42] spk_2:
Yeah, we call it the you job, the Y ou job. So, she has the bean job and she has the U job and she’s paid for all of it. [00:24:13.14] spk_0:
Uh, yeah. So I see the value and you’ve had, uh, you’ve had a lot of success with folks, women having jobs longer than a year after they’ve, they’ve, I’m gonna say graduated. But [00:25:04.10] spk_2:
the project, yes. So we track them at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months and we track them. What makes it easier to track them is that we pay them for those check ins. So we pay them $50 to check in at six and 12 months, $75 at 18 months and 100 bucks at two years to check in with us. And what we found that is that at a year, uh, 95 plus percent of the women are still employed. And I think what makes, what’s significant about that is that again, the women we hire haven’t had a job longer than a year in their lifetime before they come to us. So, what we really want to know is, are we setting them helping them on a path for long term employment? You know, being able to sustain that employment. [00:25:20.79] spk_0:
So what kinds of nonprofits are? Our listeners are all in small and mid sized nonprofits. So I, I think there’s an ideal subject for listeners, what, what types of nonprofits could consider having a social enterprise as part of their part of their work? [00:26:38.22] spk_2:
I think organizations that are serving people who are on use, you know, by necessity on public benefits and really who for a variety of reasons, whether it’s because of a felony background or it’s because of uh low education levels or because of the history of addiction, you know, a variety of things that get in the way of, of getting and keeping employment. And so if you’re serving those people anyway, one way to help them in addition to helping them with build their foundation of, of soft skills is to employ them in a social enterprise. So that’s just one way that a social enterprises run. But it’s, you know, it as adults, we learn by doing so it’s a really great way to work with the people that you’re working with anyway, to create a business where you’re helping those same people in the long run. Be able to be successful. [00:26:41.55] spk_0:
You were a partner of social venture partners in Denver. What, what did you look for when you were investing in these types of organizations? [00:27:20.17] spk_2:
Well, we specifically in S V P, Denver, we’re looking for small organizations that both needed some funding, but also needed some technical assistance. And the reality is that we don’t, if you’re, if you’re running a human services organization, you don’t necessarily have somebody on staff that has the skills to launch a business. For instance, you know, even to do that market research, to figure out what kind of business that might be um have the operational skills. You’re, you’re running a business, human services business, but you’re not necessarily running say in our case of food manufacturing business. And so S V P really looked for organizations that needed the skill set of our partners and also could benefit from the funding that we were providing that. And then svp’s model, the funding and the, and the technical assistance go hand in hand. [00:28:14.48] spk_0:
So what, what about organizations that, that uh don’t have the expertise that they need? Uh Let’s, let’s assume most of our listeners are not in Denver. So they don’t have access to S V P. Denver. What, how can they, how can they fill that void? And even just start, like you’re saying, like initial market research, how do they know where to get, how to get started? [00:30:19.38] spk_2:
Well, every nonprofit has a board and I would venture to say that most nonprofits have business people on their board. So there are a lot of resources either through board members or through people that board members know the one great thing that I’ve observed and I didn’t come from the nonprofit world for my entire career. I was in the private sector before. And what I love about being in the nonprofit world is that there are lots of people who want to help and, and just need to be need, they need help knowing what you need. And so I’ve been, I’ve seen lots of ways we’ve been able to engage uh professionals in, for us in, in food manufacturing, um who have expertise that we need to sit on, say a business development committee and help us look at uh new product ideas. And I think that same concept could easily be applied to any organization that’s trying to figure out what kind of business they might run because that’s the key, you could decide to start a business, but it still has to be a viable business. The just, just starting a business, you’re not gonna get the halo effect of, you know, you’re doing it as, as a non profit and therefore it’s going to succeed all the same market. Um factors come into play that do for any business. And so you, you really do have to still find a viable business that makes sense that is needed that you can price appropriately. Um One of the things about the research for social enterprises or whether or not consumers are going to buy from a social enterprise, whether it’s a product or service. One of the statistics is that all other things being equal. So in other words, quality price, etcetera people more and more have a tendency to purchase products and services from a mission based organization or mission based company. But the most important part of that statement is all other things, other things equal, all other things [00:30:26.35] spk_0:
being equal. Right? Yes, you have to, you have to be able to compete with your private, enter strictly private enterprise, market driven, profit driven competitors. [00:31:37.05] spk_2:
Yeah, you have to be able to compete and yet at the same time, you also need to figure out what your Um competitive advantages yourself. So for instance, in our case, we are able to um we’re right now in the holiday season, you know, September to December for women’s Bean project, 70% of our sales are, are made. So, you know, we really peaked during this time of year. One of our competitive advantages is we can bring in volunteers to help us say pack boxes or help us, you know, get shipments out the door or, you know, help with, with prep of product. And um that’s something that is a bit of a competitive advantage because if we were just, you know, in the, in the private sector running a regular food manufacturing operation, we really, I don’t think we could, you know, look somebody in the eye and get and get that kind of assistance. But for us, yes, it’s a way to engage donors to get people really invested, get new customers. You know, there are so many ways that, that bringing people from the community in to help us is advantageous, not just to get the work done, but to get additional support for our organization. [00:32:13.43] spk_0:
So you’ve opened yourself up to a whole new set of metrics as, as having a social enterprise and we’re gonna get to what, what the relationship is between the company and, and a nonprofit or, you know how that could be set up by different, by different organizations. But, but you’ve, you’ve got to measure, you’ve got to measure the company’s profit and the company’s output and productivity, productivity per employee hour or, you know, whatever, you know, the, the, the key metrics for the business are as well as the social outcomes of, of your graduates and your employee members and your, your, [00:33:00.64] spk_2:
it’s, you know, I joke sometimes it’s a horrible way to run a business, right? Because we intentionally everyday hire women. We don’t know if they’re gonna come to work every day. I mean, that’s part of their barriers to employment and we work with them and they help, we help them become great employees and as soon as they become great employees, we let them go off and become somebody else’s great employee and we start all over again. Uh and it’s so it’s super inefficient and we also over higher. So if we were a for profit company and we were trying to be as efficient as possible and, you know, squeeze every penny out of our margin. We absolutely would not hire as many women as we do, but that’s not the point. The point for us is to use our business to advance our mission. So we hire as many women as possible as we can justify based on what our sales are going to be. [00:33:33.96] spk_0:
So, what are some of the things that nonprofits need to think about beyond? Alright. What’s, what’s a viable business? What other, what other factors are important? [00:33:47.78] spk_2:
Well, maybe the biggest thing is it’s hard. I joke sometimes with our, our team, like if this were easy, everybody do it [00:33:53.59] spk_0:
do. We really want to do. It is an important threshold. [00:36:14.38] spk_2:
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s hard because you have to have the ability to entertain two opposing ideas at the same time, right? We need to run an efficient manufacturing business and we also need to deliver on our mission and those two things actually often don’t go together very well. And so being able to both entertain those ideas and acknowledge that perhaps today the business wins, maybe we um the women instead of um spending 30% of today’s time in a class, say financial literacy there on the production for, for the whole day because we have a lot of work to do. But tomorrow, maybe it’s the, it’s reversed and they’re spending the whole day in some sort of training and not making any product at all. And so our job is every day to, to balance that out. Uh And so that’s, I think one of the hardest things is uh is having that ability to understand that if not for the mission, your business doesn’t really exist, but yet your, your business has to be profitable in order for it to make sense and contribute to the mission and, and that, you know, balancing act, you know, is a constant. So that’s part of what makes it hard. I would say another thing is that you, you still have to find all the other. I mentioned this before, all the other market forces still prevail. So if you have a product that nobody wants to buy, you’re not going to have a successful business and there’s no amount of mission that’s gonna forgive that, at least not in the long term. And, you know, at this point, women’s bean project is 32 years old. And I think in a lot of ways, we’ve just been lucky. There was no initial market research that said, you know, being, I think that’s the key to success. No, nobody, nobody did any kind of research at the beginning. Our founder just noticed she was in her late 50s, she’d gone back to school to get her master’s degree in social work. And she noticed a lot of her friends who were around her age were eating bean soup for health reasons. And so she invested $500 of her own money. And bought beans and put two women to work making 10 bean soup. The crazy thing is that still 32 years later our best outing product. Alright. [00:36:32.19] spk_0:
That’s a terrific story but it’s it’s it’s it’s more or less in what not to do in in determining what, what, what businesses gonna survive because you know you said it, I’m just gonna amplify it. No amount of mission is gonna forgive bad, bad marketing or a bad, bad entry choice or, or any of the, any of the market forces. [00:36:39.48] spk_2:
Yeah. And I think you also have to have either a product or service that has a decent enough margin margin to sort of forgive the inefficiency. And I also wouldn’t choose food for that reason. Ships sailed for us, but, you know, that’s not the highest margin, um, you know, product category for sure. Right [00:37:09.12] spk_0:
now food is notoriously low margin. Um, but, you know, you said you gave an example of hiring many more women than you need, then you would, well, maybe then you do need, then you would if you were strictly market driven. [00:37:15.63] spk_2:
Exactly. [00:37:23.01] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, before, before we move on any other advice about the, the opening questions to talk about with your board, with your leadership. [00:38:57.18] spk_2:
Well, another aspect of balance I think is, um, it is balancing being opportunistic and, and, um, and not being um, so bullish on an idea that you ignore, um, other signs. So as an example, uh years ago, we were approached by somebody who had a whole bunch of equipment for canning and they were willing to give us all the equipment. Let us have access to the facility a whole bunch of things. But what we really had to analyze and I think this happens actually a fair amount to organizations that are thinking of starting businesses. Somebody thinks I’ve got a great idea. I’ll just give this to them. But the thing was we weren’t in the canning business. We are a dry food manufacturer and what it would have meant for us to start, you know, pivot and, and create another business, you know, really wasn’t worth that. What seemed like a super generous donation. Um It was forgive the pun, but it was a whole can of worms that we didn’t necessarily need, need to open. But that’s an example because when you start talking about this, all manner of people are gonna surface who are interested and willing to help. And one of the most important things you might need to do is say no thank you because, you know, sometimes gifts are not always gifts in the, you know, when it really comes down to it, it’s maybe not the best strategy and it’s sometimes hard not to get all, you know, um starry eyed about something that seems like a fantastic gift. And the next thing, you know, you’re in the canning business and you never intended to be in right now. You’re [00:40:34.02] spk_0:
doing wetsuits instead of, instead of dry suit. That’s a, that’s a huge pivot. Um And yeah, I mean, that’s, and that’s in the nonprofit, the straight uh nonprofit sector as well. You know, there, there are gifts that come sometimes with strings. You know, if you’ll, if you’ll adopt this, create this program or women’s school, but if you start admitting boys, I’ll give you the seven figure gift. You know, that’s, those are the gift size can be transformational, but that doesn’t mean you, you sacrifice your mission and transform your mission to accept a, you know, a million dollar gift. Um So, all right, but you know, interesting, you know, you, you, you evaluated from the nonprofit perspective, but also from the market force perspective, you know, now we’re entering a whole new business. Now we’re going to be competing with uh Campbell’s, you know, Campbell’s and Hunts and Hormel, you know, whoever, wherever the big, whatever the soup manufacturers are. Um Alright, so value, right? Uh Important lessons sometimes the better answer is. No, no, thank a gracious. No. Alright. Alright. Um Advice on types of businesses that that could lend themselves to this. [00:41:51.05] spk_2:
I’ll start with um service businesses because sometimes those can actually be really great support for um really great social enterprises and supports for human services organizations. Um The nice thing about service businesses is our very localized so you could serve one community and then an example of a service business might be a uh landscaping business or there are several social enterprises around the country that do uh go to business districts and clean up trash and snow removal and leaf removal and those kinds of things. Again, those are very localized. And what’s nice about that is that you could do it in this city and then maybe you pick it up and you do the same thing in another city. Those are really cool ways to be able to employ a lot of people and engage in, in multiple communities. Uh And there are, you know, other businesses um like uh has control is another one where, you know, that’s a pretty expandable business, um cleaning services, especially in offices and things like that. Um So those are some examples of businesses that actually could be really great businesses for people. And, you know, when you’re selling a service, that’s a really different dynamic than say, you know, consumer packaged goods where, you know, you’re competing with marketing dollars from companies, it’s just much more challenging um area to be in. You [00:42:21.11] spk_0:
also, you also have the advantage of being able to, as you said, start local. So you can say initially the impact of our work is local. And so there’s a, there’s an appeal to an appeal to the mission with your caveat that uh lots of mission is not going to overcome bad, you know, uh not being competitive market, market wise. But you can say that you have that you have that local impact, at least as you’re, you know, as you’re getting started. And then as you’re suggesting, you know, you can expand. [00:43:31.94] spk_2:
And I think, you know, if you’re making a product, one of the potential challenges is that if you make a product that in our case, our products consumable, so we can have repeat customers, you know, of course, it has to be a, you know, good quality and taste good and all of those things. But we have customers we’ve had for 30 years and who keep coming back over and over again. If you end up making a product that’s not consumable, the challenges that, you know, say you’re making um uh cutting board, there’s only so many cutting boards, somebody needs or only so many gifts you can give, you know, to other people. And so you always have to be finding new customers to be able to grow your business. And that said, there’s, you know, when you start out, your customer base is so small that the, the world really is, you know, is pretty large of possible customers. But there’s a point at which um without spending a lot of marketing dollars or advertising dollars to get noticed that you really sort of tap out the people you can access. And that’s, you know, so that’s an interesting challenge of making a, a product where you could teach some really amazing skills. But at the same time, you know, you might have a limited customer base. [00:44:07.91] spk_0:
Can I get these, can I get these meals and just add water? Are they, are they that, that simple from women’s bean project [00:45:06.25] spk_2:
pretty straight forward like that? So, a soup mix, you would add water, you put it in a safe crock pot and let it cook for the day. And at the end, you are 10 bean soup. You just add a can of tomatoes or you could add, you know, vegetables and a whole bunch of other things if that’s what you wanted. But just to finish off the recipe, it would just be adding a can of tomatoes. We also have baking mixes. And so in that case, it’s everything that you need. You, you would add an egg and some oil or butter and you’ve got brownies or cornbread or stones. Um, so it’s a, the nice thing about like a baking mix, for instance is you don’t have to buy a bag of flour and buy a bag of sugar and all of those things and then have them left over. You can use our mix and use the eggs that you have and the butter that you have. And next thing you know, you made these yummy brownies and you look like a total baker And No 1’s The Wiser, Right? [00:45:08.39] spk_0:
You don’t have, you don’t have four and three quarter pounds of flour [00:45:11.61] spk_2:
leftover. Yeah. [00:45:13.14] spk_0:
Okay. A little digression. But I was interested in and how simple the meals are. Okay. [00:45:26.97] spk_2:
And they do have an instant. We have, yeah, we have instant beans and rice cups also which literally are adding water. Um And then, and we also have some ready to eat snacks. So you know, just keep them in your desk and you know, nosh on them whenever you feel like it. Okay. So we have a pretty wide variety of different products. [00:45:39.62] spk_0:
Okay. Well, I’m gonna check. Yeah, women’s bean project dot com. Um So yeah, so service businesses, you’re suggesting service businesses, what else, what else could folks consider? [00:47:21.99] spk_2:
Well, there’s some great social enterprises. Again, these are pretty localized that do screen printing. So, you know, you think about your inner city and you have your screen printing business, you’re able to employ people and, and you’re able to serve all the companies locally for, you know, their employee T shirts or, you know, races or things like that again, very localized but also scalable as well. Um There’s a really awesome social enterprise out of Boston called More than Words and more than words serves youth 16 to 24 who are either aging out of the foster system or justice involved. And they sell books, they sell books have been donated from the community and the the youth learn the skill of, you know, scanning the I S B N number to make sure it’s marketable and they recycle the books that don’t have uh aftermarket value and then they sell the books that do and they sell both online. They have a couple of bookstores. The cool thing is all these youth, um, are, you know, they’re helping them find homes, they’re helping them with their academic goals, helping them sort of adult, you know, into the community. Yet, at the same time, they’re also learning these skills of running a book business. So they have measurable um uh um outcomes that they have to achieve. They have certain sales goals that they have to meet for their various channels. It’s a really amazing business that um that they’re operating and the youth stay with them for a couple of years. It’s called more than words [00:47:40.07] spk_0:
back on the service side. I’ve seen copy, copy services, copy and print and print shops. [00:48:45.73] spk_2:
Yeah, a bank of America actually has their own social enterprise that they operate in the house and they serve people with developmental disabilities or they employ people with developmental disabilities, but they do all the printing for their own needs. Um there’s also electronics recycling. Uh you know, the statistic is that people who are on the autism spectrum have an unemployment rate of about 85%. And, and yet they are uniquely talented to disassemble electronics. So there uh there are electronics recycling organizations that employ people on the autism spectrum to just disassemble and um and then they part of, so they’re providing the employment, they’re getting the donations of the electronics. Um, and in some instances they’re being paid by the companies to take the electronics and then they also, they sell the commodities of all the things that out of those electronics, metals, plastics. Yeah. So, you know, when you think about that as a, you know, we use the term triple bottom line, it’s helping society, it’s helping the environment and it’s um you know, it’s, it’s making money. That is a really awesome example of, of a business that hits at every level. Yeah, [00:49:07.97] spk_0:
excellent, excellent. Another, these are good, another example or category, [00:49:39.32] spk_2:
well, there are some social enterprises that instead of employing people provide employment services. So there is a social enterprise that here in Denver that specifically helps people who are bilingual, English, Spanish, get jobs in the community with employers who need people who are bilingual, but that could apply to kind of any language or not even be bilingual, you know. So they, and so companies come to them when they need people who, maybe it’s customer service, people who can speak another language other than English. Um And so again, a service business, but not where they are employing people. [00:49:58.16] spk_0:
Right. Right. And, and so companies pay for the, for the referral for the screening. Yep, the placement, basically they’re paying a placement fee. [00:50:51.24] spk_2:
Yep. Exactly. But there’s, you know, there’s just so many different kinds there are cafes that’s a fairly popular kind of social enterprise. Um Here in Denver, we have a cafe called um same cafe and same stands for. So all may eat and they, it is a pay what you want model. So you walk in and the menu is listed for the day and you decide how much you’re going to pay. Yes. And, and so you might be sitting down and having, you know, decide that you want to pay $10 for your lunch. But you also might be sitting next to somebody who is, um, experiencing homelessness and didn’t pay anything. And if you decide if you don’t have any money to pay for your lunch, then you work in the kitchen or you clean or, you know, do dishes and, and so again, it’s a really cool concept that serves people all, you know, it’s beneficial to the community at multiple levels. [00:51:24.99] spk_0:
Um So, all right. So we talked about services, some, some product. I love the recycling example too. Any anything else before we, before we move on to organizing these, these entities? [00:52:56.39] spk_2:
Um, well, the last one I’ll mention is one that’s been around for a long, long time, like women’s bean project. It’s called Grace and Bakery there out of Yonkers, New York. And they make the brownies for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. So a big, the bulk of their business is brownies for Ben and Jerry’s. They also have now gotten into doing some retail sales and corporate sales. So you might see your, your listeners might have seen them in some, for instance, Whole Foods at sort of a point of sale or point of purchase with a little brownie. And it says these brownies changed lives, but Grayson is a for profit company. So this is a nice segue into the next part of our conversation. They are actually a B Corp, a benefit corporation and they, they have an open hiring model. So instead of specifically going out and trying to recruit people experiencing chronic unemployment, like we do, they are always accepting applications and when they have an opening, they just hire the next person on the list. So they hire, they don’t, you know, interview or, you know, look at qualifications, they just hire the next person and, uh and you know, so they will have more turnover than a normal company would, but they’re also within that community in Yonkers. They’re, they’re really changing people’s lives give by giving them an opportunity for employment that they might not otherwise have had. [00:53:42.47] spk_0:
Okay. That’s interesting. Now, first that’s Grayson Bakery. These brownies save lives. Okay. So listeners, we might, we might see those at, at checkout sounds like point of sale places. Okay. Um But then, you know, there’s the issue of, you know, giving a job versus teaching job skills in addition, like, like, like women’s being project is doing, it seems to me that the, the uh the training beyond the skills for the job is more empowering than then giving a job and, and just giving a job. [00:54:13.22] spk_2:
Well, I think that’s consistent with our philosophy at women’s being project that there are because we acknowledge that there are lots of things that get in the way of somebody being able to um get and keep the, and keep, I think is the important part, right? Like, you know, we prior to the pandemic and I think we’re back to a um there’s a lot of jobs but um and so you could go from job to job to job in an environment where there are lots of jobs. But the important thing is, are you going to a job where you are a contributor where there’s opportunity for advancement and benefits and all the things that make it more of a career than just a job? That’s what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to change the are the women we serve, that’s the trajectory we want them to be on when they finish. [00:54:41.79] spk_0:
All right. So, you know, of course, different missions just like nonprofits that Grayson has uh has a different model but, but their, their generously hiring, they just hire the next person on the [00:54:49.63] spk_2:
list. [00:54:53.20] spk_0:
So, alright, so yeah, as you suggested, and I want to talk about the, how to organize and structure these, we know what’s the relationship listeners already are in non profits? Most of our listeners are, uh you know, how would, what would that relationship look like if they did start a social enterprise? Well, [00:55:11.40] spk_2:
I know as, um as the interviewer here, you, you will hate to hear this answer but it depends. [00:55:18.35] spk_0:
Listen. Now, don’t hold back on, don’t, don’t, don’t tell listeners of nonprofit radio What you think they want to hear? It’s an educated self selected group. So, yes. So it’s nuanced answers are, are very [00:58:28.78] spk_2:
welcome. Well, it, it does depend and it depends on what you want to do and how you might want to structure it and, and honestly tolerance, risk, tolerance of your board and you know, of your team. So, um women’s Bean project is a 501 c three. A big reason for that is because we were founded in 1989. And if you wanted to do good, that was the choice, right? That’s all you had. Um Today, there are lots of different structures you could or opportunities, you could be a for profit company. Um and, and become a benefit corporation B Corp, you could be a subsidiary of a nonprofit. Um You could be an LLC, you know, there are just so many different ways. And so generally what I tell people is first figure out what you wanna do, then figure out what the corporate structure makes the most sense. What I will tell you is that I wouldn’t necessarily change our corporate structure because we’ve made it work for ourselves. Our, the way we have structured ourselves by having sort of everything under one roof. The huge job and the being job is that we’ve, what that’s done is that it has allowed us to have a mixed revenue, uh pie, so to speak. So, about 60% 60% of our operating budget comes from our product sales. What that does is it supports the business, it supports women’s time while they’re working in the business. And it’s, you know, gives us the ability by the beans and the flour and all those things and makes a small contribution to our program operations. And then we fundraise to SAPO program operations because again, when a woman is in a financial literacy class or working on a resume or even in job search looking for the next job we’re paying her still. So we fundraise to both support those classes but also to be able to pay her and, and because we’re 501 C three, we have the ability to do that. It also probably gives us a little bit of wiggle room in terms of our inefficiency. You know, I would, if we were, if, if all of our revenue had to come from our product sales, we would probably have to compromise the mission a little bit and hire fewer women because we have to run, you know, a business with much better margin than we currently do. Yeah, but I will also say that there are plenty of situations where the a board of a nonprofit, they might be interested in this idea of having revenue, that’s basically unrestricted revenue. But they don’t want to risk the larger organization or they do or they wanna just sort of run it on the side as sort of a separate entity and maybe not have it be a distraction within their main business, so to speak. There, there are risks in that as well though. I’ve seen lots of uh non profit big human services organizations that run social enterprises and they sort of treat them like the red headed step child and, and look at them like, what have you done for me lately? Little, you know, business. Why are you not contributing more when the reality is they’re kind of stifling the growth of that, that business? Um And, and perhaps, um you know, causing it to, you know, not prosper um [00:58:55.69] spk_0:
like a mistaken, well, not only organization but just in, in culture, you think that the way board members and I guess the organization collectively thinks about its, its social enterprise as, you know, as, as uh the ugly step [00:59:22.60] spk_2:
child. Yeah. And that’s the risk, right? If of creating a structure where you sort of set it off to the side, I mean, I understand that sometimes that’s done to avoid risk, but sometimes it creates more risk for the survival of the business one of the things I worry about having been in this field for a long time is that, you know, uh, we’ve now come to a point where social enterprise is kind of cool. It’s kind of come into its own. I joke that it’s like women’s bean project has been wearing a velour tracksuit for 30 years and now suddenly velour track suits are in. But, you know, so, yeah, exactly. [00:59:49.52] spk_0:
Long enough they’ll come, they’ll come, my dozen bell bottom suit will come back. [01:00:16.43] spk_2:
It turns out that’s happening for social enterprise. But what I worry is that organizations will start a business and do that and sort of cut it off at its knees and not even maybe recognize that and it won’t survive and then they’ll look back later and say, yeah, we tried that. It didn’t work. But I, I can tell you that if it’s not always because it’s a bad idea that it doesn’t, it could be because you just didn’t give it the opportunity to flourish. We in the nonprofit world are notoriously risk averse. That’s not a news flash to anybody. I know. And, and so the challenge is to be willing to take some risk and balance that risk. You know, it’s a risk reward ratio in the business and balance that risk a little bit. Um With um with what the benefit could be long term, [01:00:44.61] spk_0:
You started to transition again. I love it the way you segue easily uh, lessons, you know, lessons learned things to look out, for things to be sure. You, you’ve considered, you’ve been doing this for 30, what, 32 years? 32 [01:03:17.35] spk_2:
years. Well, I, I often say we have 32 years worth of mistakes. We could totally help somebody else avoid and leave them free to make all their own mistakes. Um, you know, it’s, it’s, I would say the lessons learned are consistent with what I’ve been saying, which is you really do. Um If you want a social enterprise to survive, you really do have to embrace it as, as being a means through which you’re going to deliver on your mission and not set it on the side and say, well, you know, someday you’re gonna make me some money and I’ll be able to use that money to advance my mission. They have to be interwoven. Um So, you know, we don’t exist to make bean soup yet we can’t exist without it. And that idea that the two are inextricable um is the probably the most important thing. And the most important, honestly, lesson that I’ve seen, I, I watched a social enterprise um be formed out of an organism um that was providing initially providing the same service for free. And then they formed the social enterprise to monetize the service, but yet they kept offering the service. So they had this business and they kept offering the service for free. So yes, and um and then eventually decided that the social enterprise wasn’t working and the, the problem I thought, you know, it’s, it’s easy. Monday morning quarterback, admittedly, but um you know, was that they set it up to be, you know, be its own competition. So of course, it was, there was always going to be that tension and that conflict. You’ve got enough tension and conflict just trying to advance your mission and advance your business without setting yourself up for failure. So um you know, that’s another lesson which is be prepared for there to be tension between the business and the mission, but be okay with that because that’s part of what you’re doing is you’re, you’re trying to change the world by using market forces. Uh And you know, we are, we’re a country of consumers. So let’s take advantage of the fact that we are a country of consumers. Everybody needs to buy products and services. So what a great opportunity to um to to for lack of a better word, exploit that [01:03:32.91] spk_0:
I love the way you say you’re working to change the world by using market forces. Um Alright. Any anything else you wanna, you wanna leave folks with anything that we didn’t talk about that you feel is is important. Anything I didn’t ask about, [01:04:43.97] spk_2:
you know, I would say that the last thing would be that if you are thinking about um starting a social enterprise, start looking at other models and seeing what other groups are doing and especially if they’re localized, there’s, you know, there’s no reason to that, that you wouldn’t be able to learn from their mistakes. Um So, you know, we have, I’ve been asked often whether or not we would expand women’s bean project out of Denver across the country. What we have chosen instead is to be more open source where we look forward to sharing the things that we’ve learned. Because I think ultimately, if we want to lift up the whole field, not just, you know, a grand eyes, women’s bean project, that’s not our goal. Our goal really is to help other organizations create or prosper with their social enterprises, not just, you know, have us get bigger and bigger. There’s enough need to go around. What [01:04:46.67] spk_0:
about social enterprise Alliance? Is that a resource for [01:05:01.69] spk_2:
folks? It absolutely is. And that might be a great place to start to figure out what is out there. They have um Social enterprise Alliance has uh you know, members all over the country who are involved at various levels of social enterprise. So they might be running social enterprises that they might be consultants. So social enterprise, um if you need an attorney to talk with, for instance, about what your corporate structure might be, there are resources there. Um But the nice thing about that is if you’re in the initial stages of just doing research is a great place to start. [01:05:31.38] spk_0:
Okay. Good value. You can have conversations with folks. You can, you can, it’s a good place to start your research and, and, and grow. If you decide to mean, you might start your research and decide it’s not really, you know, you can’t tolerate the risk or the tension. Uh It’s just something you don’t want to take on, but at least you do it, make that decision informed. [01:06:43.52] spk_2:
Yeah, I always think that fear is not a reason not to do something, right? Like you can acknowledge the fear and sort of do the things that, that you need to do to um to try to overcome or, you know, address the fear. But um staying noticed something just because you’re afraid, it’s maybe not the best reason. Um And I think also, you know, we have a tendency to sit at the, at the starting line and try to anticipate all the problems we’re gonna have and, and I guarantee, first of all, we’ll be wrong about what problems we think we’re gonna have and, and whatever solution we decide is gonna not be appropriate for whatever problem you end up having. And so ultimately, you just gotta start and, and have faith that you have gathered the resources and the expertise enough that you can address the problems as they come up. But I think that that tends to be and in my experience just going to lots of, you know, speaking on lots of panels and talking with lots of organizations that are thinking about starting social enterprises is they, they often get stuck at that starting line and have a hard time pulling the trigger. Um The reality is it might not work. But think about, I, I think you learn more from failure than you do successful. A lot of times. [01:08:06.92] spk_0:
Yeah. Too much ready aim, aim, aim and, and, and no firing. All right. Outstanding. Thank you, Tamara. Thank you very much. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing the women’s bean project story and and beyond. Uh Tomorrow Ryan Ceo women’s bean project. It’s at women’s bean project dot com. You want to look at their dried foods and other products, especially now around the holidays. And Tamara is at Tamara Ryan. Thanks so much Tamara. Next week, Rio Wang with Money Mindset. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows. Social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.
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Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your Aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with Orrico my Adonia if you paint me with the idea that you missed this week’s show 23 NTC. The 2023 nonprofit technology conference is in April hosted by N 10, come in person or join virtually non profit radio will be there, Amy Sample Ward N Ten’s CEO and our technology contributor tells us what’s in store And is a social enterprise for you. What are these? And how do you decide whether to take one on or even consider it at your nonprofit? What kinds of businesses lend themselves to social enterprise and how do you structure the relationship? Tamara Ryan makes sense of it all. She’s ceo of women’s being project. This originally aired 13 December 2021 on tony state to get in people’s faces again. Again, Here is 23 NTC. What a pleasure to welcome back, Amy Sample Ward as it always is, you know who she is. But she deserves a proper introduction. CEO of N 10 and our technology and social media contributor. Their most recent co authored book is the tech that comes next about equity and inclusiveness in technology development. They’re at Amy sample ward dot org and at Amy R S ward. So good to welcome you back. Good [00:02:04.79] spk_1:
to have you. Thanks for having me. I’m excited that in a few short weeks, we will not be over Zoom. [00:02:13.64] spk_0:
That’s indeed true. We will, we will, we will be hugging. So let’s talk about what’s coming up, this little thing. 23 NTC, the nonprofit technology conference in Denver. [00:02:26.74] spk_1:
Yes. This little thing [00:02:27.68] spk_0:
that you’ve been uh just occupying a couple, a couple hours a week, I suppose, [00:03:14.81] spk_1:
Right? Couple of concurrent hours in my mind at all time. Yeah. Yeah, I’m excited. This is, this is the first nonprofit technology conference that’s happening back in person since 2019. However, it is also our first hybrid NTC. So people are going to be participating in Denver. People are going to be participating, you know, from their homes or offices virtually and a number of sessions where both of those people are in the same session at the same time. So we’re really trying to push, you know, push the limits of our own planning to push the A V team’s abilities, all of those pieces, see what Zoom can do all of that and make a conference that feels really great and dynamic and has different options for different people, regardless of how you’re joining or where you are or what comfort level or care needs you might have right now. [00:03:37.84] spk_0:
So the in person people will be eligible for hybrid or for, for virtual presentations. And the virtual audience is is welcome to join in person presentations, work, working, [00:04:45.58] spk_1:
not all of them but so at any given session block, there are sessions that are only happening in Denver. You have to physically be in the room presentation or the presenters are all in the room. Then there are sessions that are only happening online if you’re in Denver and you really want to see that session, you can also go online and, and watch it. Um And, and there will be spaces where you could do that as a group to um and there are hybrid sessions which mean there’s a room in Denver, there will likely be presenters in Denver, but there’s also maybe a co presenter online and an online audience. And so we have session hosts and facilitators in both places to make sure that the speakers are confident and comfortable managing all of that and they’re not trying to, you know, watch the chat or see what’s going on in the room. So, yeah, I think it’ll be an experience. I’m sure we will learn a lot. We are open to learning a lot but like, you know, true intent fashion, we will learn out loud with everyone else along with us, you know, [00:05:07.68] spk_0:
you’re making all the permutations available across, across in person and hybrid. Alright. Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, like how many sessions are we looking forward [00:06:19.31] spk_1:
to? Oh, my gosh. 100 and 50 some, I forget the, The, the single digit number there, but over 150 and really incredible keynotes which of course, you know, will be in both places that will be a hybrid. Um and I’m not sure if you’ve never been to the NDC what your uh experience with conferences or sessions are, but we also have different types of sessions. So we have 30 minute sessions which we try to plan during the day for when folks are in the you know, you couldn’t take more than 25 minutes of talking before your brain shuts down. So there’s short kind of tactical sessions. That’s where we see a lot of great um content, like do these five things to your website tomorrow, right? Like really clear to the point and then we have longer 60 minute sessions and workshops um and lots of diverse options in the longer session. Um It’s not just, you know, some conferences are very panel heavy. We do have co presenters so that there’s multiple perspectives and opinions that are being shared, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that a session with two or three presenters is going to be a panel in its presentation, right? It might just be three people facilitating it together. [00:06:41.88] spk_0:
Uh, the dates, let’s make sure everybody knows when we’re talking [00:07:06.77] spk_1:
About. Yeah, April 12 through 14th, which is a Wednesday through Friday. Um, we totally know and can just say up front, we know that it conflicts with passover and Ramadan and we welcome the millions in legal fees that we would have had to pay to get out of it. Yeah. Well, it was a product of the pandemic rescheduling where we did have a contract before it felt like people could really come back. And so it got pushed to 2023 and, and we didn’t really have a choice of what that was. So [00:07:26.09] spk_0:
When was Denver supposed to have been, was it supposed to be 2020? [00:08:51.96] spk_1:
It was supposed to be 20, early, 2022. Yeah. But we pulled the community and folks just weren’t ready for a big conference yet, you know, which is totally understandable. Lots of folks still aren’t, which is why we have the hybrid and the virtual options. But um at least moving it to 23 meant all communities could have access to vaccines. You know, we have people coming from lots of different countries to the conference traditionally. So I really wanted to make sure that it felt like folks were at a place where they could be ready if they wanted to be to come to the conference. Um, and we have various options in place for folks who may either be feeling like this is their first conference. Um And the pandemic is still happening and it feels really stressful or overwhelming there. You know, we’re asking folks to wear masks, we will have masks available. I have already ordered them to the advanced warehouse, you know, but we also have um more lounges than we’ve ever had so that people can go to a smaller space um and relax or we’ve talked to the Convention Center about having different ways that people can eat, even smaller areas, eat outside, take their food wherever they want to go. So we really are trying to think both of impacts for folks who maybe are trying to um you know, they have observances for whether Ramadan Passover etcetera and we can support how they engage through that or COVID concerns and how we can help them, you know, navigate a big conference with those as well. [00:09:07.74] spk_0:
I intend never afraid of filling up their [00:09:09.65] spk_1:
plate. I know technology [00:09:12.71] spk_0:
wise, accommodation, wise, equity, etcetera. It’s all you take it all on. Yeah, I always admired, I admire it, not admired passively like somebody admires it, I admire it. I [00:09:57.83] spk_1:
appreciate you saying that. I think, you know, it feels to us like we want to do the work to honor all the wholeness of the community so that everyone in the community feels like they are welcome. It also is the kind of thing where you don’t even realize like how much work it is to make thoughtful accommodations until you really open that door, step through it. You’re like, oh, this is a whole room. This is not like a closet, right? I wasn’t just grabbing a coat. I just went into a whole walk in clause opposite of, of options. So I really just shout out to the accessibility committee which is all community members and they work year round with staff to think about ways that we can make the conference even more accessible and support more community members. [00:10:47.18] spk_0:
All these are the reasons why I always bring non profit radio to the two N T C. This, this is my eighth or ninth or something like that. Um And so we’ll be on the exhibit floor sharing a booth with our sponsors Heller Consulting. So come see us at 4 20 for 4 20 for a, I’m the A non profit But yeah, so come see team Heller. Very grateful, grateful for their sponsorship of us at NTC. And I’ll be capturing Oh a dozen or 15, roughly interviews that will be on non profit radio in the coming months after April 12-14 and Amy, of course, we’ll get you, we’ll get you in the schedule. [00:11:00.46] spk_1:
I’ll stop by the booth. Well, yes, I gotta get, I [00:11:06.95] spk_0:
gotta get you on the schedule because you’re the, you know, you’re all over. So I gotta get, you gotta get you nailed down for for an interview. Yes. Um Why don’t you share with folks? Awesome, awesome keynotes. [00:11:17.81] spk_2:
Yeah. [00:12:16.22] spk_1:
Yeah. So on the first day we have Sophia Noble who just launched a new race and gender and technology program, which is so awesome. She’s at U C L A and on day two, we have Messiah Burciaga Hamid who has been a staff and is now the board chair of native land, a tool that folks have hopefully and likely already used when you are looking up whose land you are on. Um And then on day three on Friday, we’ll have what I can only imagine is going to be the most high energy exciting keynote at nine in the morning from Evan Greer. Um She’s the director at Fight For the Future. Um an organization and 10 has partnered with on some of our um advocacy on save dot org, et cetera. So action packed keynotes, lots of great ideas. It’s going to be really good action [00:12:43.56] spk_0:
packed centering diversity, admire it, admire it. I want to remind folks that N 10 is also known for wonderful food. They spend a lot of time thinking about what the menus are gonna be. The food is always excellent. So if you’re a foodie, you might say, you know, it’s a conference. All right, we’ll get some, we’ll get some rubber chicken, you know, but we’ll tolerate it. No, it’s not. It’s not gonna be the case. That’s not gonna be if there’s chicken. There will be chicken cordon bleu also be vegan options. There will be vegetarian options. There will be [00:13:29.63] spk_1:
only have 11 day or at least one full lunch menu that is all plant based. Um, and then we have, you know, lots of options. Everything is labeled the full menu in every ingredient is in the conference app. So you can see whatever dietary needs you might have how those are or are not met. Um, and we actually just met yesterday with the catering rep. Um, and slowly watched his eyes kind of glaze over as we were saying, you know, not just, oh, could we have a sandwich instead of this salad? We were saying inside the menu, we see that you’re using this ingredient and we’re changing this specific ingredient and we would like, you know, we don’t need brisket at nine in the morning for our attendees. What’s a plant based option? And every time he said Tofu and 10 staff were like, we’re going to challenge the chef to come up with something better. [00:13:53.71] spk_0:
Yes, you pay attention to the food. It’s [00:14:40.73] spk_1:
exactly. And if you’re spending your time in a session, feeling kind of anarchy because you didn’t like what you ate or feeling hungry because there wasn’t food for you. It takes away from your opportunity to learn. So we want folks to really feel taken care of so that however whatever big needs they have and sometimes they’re not learning needs. We know, sometimes come to the conference just to like, find those two other people who have done the thing that they’ve done and feel like they could hear somebody say to them like, yeah, it’s really horrible, you know, but you can get through this project or you can find a new vendor or, you know, whatever it might be. Like, you also have the, the emotional capacity to go take on finding those conversations because again, you’re not spending all your time worrying about. Are you gonna have food or where is a bathroom in this giant convention center or whatever else? You know, [00:14:54.99] spk_0:
you take care of the, you take care of the whole person, you do the whole people. There’s more than one person attending. Yes, [00:15:22.68] spk_1:
There is more than one person, which is part of why it feels a little overwhelming because we’ve spent, you know, of course, in 2020, there was no conference and then in 21 and 22, it was a virtual conference, and and there were lots of people registered, which was great, but you never had to necessarily feel the Kind of um feel the size of that many people registered right? The way you do when you see everybody from the stage and you look out at a big room. But we’re, I mean, we’re on track to have close to 2000 registrants. Of course, some of those are virtual. But um that’s a really big number, you know, so we probably have 1500 in Denver um and 500 online. [00:15:50.85] spk_0:
A lot of people. Yeah, but you’re, you’re, you’re curating us, you’re taking care of [00:15:54.82] spk_1:
your, we’re gonna take care of. [00:16:20.92] spk_0:
And finally, I want to remind listeners that this is called the nonprofit technology conference hashtag 23 T C. But it is not a conference that is exclusively for technology folks that, that are, you know, C T O s and technology majors and computer science. It is not, it’s for anyone who uses technology in their social change work. And isn’t that all of us? I mean, unless you’re still on index cards and legal pad and [00:16:38.18] spk_1:
we welcome you. If you’re still on index cards, don’t be overwhelmed. Come to the NTC. Someone will sit down with you and they will get all those cards into a database for you probably for, for free with like the first month of the CRM for free. Like we just need to get you off those cards. [00:16:43.23] spk_0:
Alright, hopefully not. But yeah, it’s, it’s not only for technologists for anybody who uses technology. That’s why I love to capture a ton of tons of interviews to share, to share with listeners. All right, [00:16:56.01] spk_1:
thanks so much, tony I can’t wait to see you in Denver. It’s gonna be so fun. [00:16:59.82] spk_0:
Absolutely. My pleasure. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Good luck with the conference planning and we’ll see you in about a month [00:17:08.64] spk_1:
so soon. Thank you, [00:22:19.99] spk_0:
Amy. Folks. You’re suffering a lackluster host. 15 minutes talking to the CEO of N 10 about the conference that they’re hosting. And I forgot to ask, where’s all the information? Where do folks go to register? You go to N 10 dot org, N 10 dot org gives you all the information. Of course, it’s very prominent on their site. Sheesh. Now it’s time for Tony’s take two last week. I was listening back and I talked about being in person with people again and, you know, I gave you a bunch of superficialities and generalizations. But why I think where’s the detail? Why, why is it joyful and pleasurable and so much better and authentic and real? You know. So I’m listening, I was like, Okay. Yeah, but why, but why I’m asking myself as I’m listening. It’s a good thing I have guests because otherwise the show would, would crash guests who provide substance and detail. Uh otherwise you’d have 45 minutes or an hour of superficiality. Okay. So why this is why a bunch of reasons as a, as a the guy, you know, um the presenter at a webinar, I don’t have to scroll. If it’s a big, big audience, you have to scroll and zoom to see everyone. Not so they’re all there. They’re all right there in front of you. It’s a beautiful watch, the generality that beautiful, watch the generalities trying to give detail and also when I’m sharing my screen, you know, Power point, everybody gets reduced into a little like a 1.5 by 1.5 box. And you can see even fewer people then when I’m not screen sharing. So no tiny boxes, everybody’s visible. I can, I can see the screen, my slide up on the screen, the nice big screen and I can see the people there you are. It’s wonderful. Watch the generalities, conversations, of course, conversations so much easier. Not once. Did anybody have to say? Okay. Well, you go first uh to parse out the delegate out the conversation we’re face to face. It’s just, it’s natural, the natural ness of it. Natural. Nous, the word, the hands, you see the hands immediately, you don’t have to scan the, scan the screen to see a little uh one dimensional hand going up real hands right there in your face. It’s fantastic. We’re generalities. Watch that, watch that the laughter, the groans. You can hear them. People aren’t muted feedback, live live and in person so much easier for the audience to cross talk. It’s, it’s doesn’t work in, in zoom, especially if it’s particularly large. People can’t talk at all. Everybody’s the questions are in chat. There’s another, there’s another reason you can the questions dynamic back and forth. Well, I don’t quite understand, you know, this chat, chat typing and, and audience members were talking to each other. This was I’m going back to uh conference. I did in a Long Island. Yeah, people could talk to each other and, and help each other. I, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. So those are all my reasons. That’s the detail. That’s what you, that’s what you listen to. Non profit radio for detail, not superficiality and generalizations. So if you can, if you get the opportunity and then of course, the lunches, I didn’t even mention just two face to face lunches and of course, natural conversation, not, not delayed. You know, it’s, it’s not no problem if you interrupt somebody’s talking. Well, you know, somebody jumps in, it’s not an issue, everybody can be heard natural, natural. So if you get the opportunity face to face, please take it. Don’t make virtual your default. Don’t go there. That’s Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the uninterrupted is a social enterprise for you. Sit back and get comfy. It’s a pleasure to welcome Tamra Ryan to non profit radio She is CEO of women’s bean project, a social enterprise that provides transitional employment to women attempting to break the cycle of chronic unemployment and poverty while operating a food manufacturing business. She’s a former partner and board member for social venture partners, Denver and currently serves as part time interim CEO for the Social Enterprise Alliance. She’s at Tamara Ryan and the enterprise is at women’s bean project dot com. Tamara, welcome to non profit radio [00:22:29.12] spk_2:
It’s great to be here. [00:22:33.07] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure, pleasure to have you. Why don’t you first explain what women’s being project is all about? Because it’s an example of what you and I are going to talk about for a while. [00:23:32.84] spk_2:
We are a food manufacturing business. We started with Bean Soup in 1989 and that’s where our name comes from. But today we have 50 different food products that we sell all across the country. What makes us Different is that we employ women who are chronically unemployed. So a typical woman we hire hasn’t had a job longer than a year in her lifetime. Though the average age is 38, they come and work for us as for a full time job for 6-9 months. And during the time they’re with us, we teach basic job readiness skills. And then we also, in 30% of her paid time, we teach her life skills, we teach problem solving and goal setting and budgeting and planning and organizing. And so this whole thing is her job for these 6-9 months. At the end, she graduates our program and moves on to mainstream employment in the community. So we’re kind of two businesses were running a food manufacturing business and a human services business, [00:23:50.43] spk_0:
which is exactly what, what the type of model will, will, will be talking about what I admire about that I found very interesting is that you said it. Um, Well, you’re used to saying it but I want to call it out for 30% of their paid time. The women’s paid time is not spent working. It’s spent learning the soft skills of employment. [00:24:02.42] spk_2:
Yeah, we call it the you job, the Y ou job. So, she has the bean job and she has the U job and she’s paid for all of it. [00:24:13.14] spk_0:
Uh, yeah. So I see the value and you’ve had, uh, you’ve had a lot of success with folks, women having jobs longer than a year after they’ve, they’ve, I’m gonna say graduated. But [00:25:04.10] spk_2:
the project, yes. So we track them at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months and we track them. What makes it easier to track them is that we pay them for those check ins. So we pay them $50 to check in at six and 12 months, $75 at 18 months and 100 bucks at two years to check in with us. And what we found that is that at a year, uh, 95 plus percent of the women are still employed. And I think what makes, what’s significant about that is that again, the women we hire haven’t had a job longer than a year in their lifetime before they come to us. So, what we really want to know is, are we setting them helping them on a path for long term employment? You know, being able to sustain that employment. [00:25:20.79] spk_0:
So what kinds of nonprofits are? Our listeners are all in small and mid sized nonprofits. So I, I think there’s an ideal subject for listeners, what, what types of nonprofits could consider having a social enterprise as part of their part of their work? [00:26:38.22] spk_2:
I think organizations that are serving people who are on use, you know, by necessity on public benefits and really who for a variety of reasons, whether it’s because of a felony background or it’s because of uh low education levels or because of the history of addiction, you know, a variety of things that get in the way of, of getting and keeping employment. And so if you’re serving those people anyway, one way to help them in addition to helping them with build their foundation of, of soft skills is to employ them in a social enterprise. So that’s just one way that a social enterprises run. But it’s, you know, it as adults, we learn by doing so it’s a really great way to work with the people that you’re working with anyway, to create a business where you’re helping those same people in the long run. Be able to be successful. [00:26:41.55] spk_0:
You were a partner of social venture partners in Denver. What, what did you look for when you were investing in these types of organizations? [00:27:20.17] spk_2:
Well, we specifically in S V P, Denver, we’re looking for small organizations that both needed some funding, but also needed some technical assistance. And the reality is that we don’t, if you’re, if you’re running a human services organization, you don’t necessarily have somebody on staff that has the skills to launch a business. For instance, you know, even to do that market research, to figure out what kind of business that might be um have the operational skills. You’re, you’re running a business, human services business, but you’re not necessarily running say in our case of food manufacturing business. And so S V P really looked for organizations that needed the skill set of our partners and also could benefit from the funding that we were providing that. And then svp’s model, the funding and the, and the technical assistance go hand in hand. [00:28:14.48] spk_0:
So what, what about organizations that, that uh don’t have the expertise that they need? Uh Let’s, let’s assume most of our listeners are not in Denver. So they don’t have access to S V P. Denver. What, how can they, how can they fill that void? And even just start, like you’re saying, like initial market research, how do they know where to get, how to get started? [00:30:19.38] spk_2:
Well, every nonprofit has a board and I would venture to say that most nonprofits have business people on their board. So there are a lot of resources either through board members or through people that board members know the one great thing that I’ve observed and I didn’t come from the nonprofit world for my entire career. I was in the private sector before. And what I love about being in the nonprofit world is that there are lots of people who want to help and, and just need to be need, they need help knowing what you need. And so I’ve been, I’ve seen lots of ways we’ve been able to engage uh professionals in, for us in, in food manufacturing, um who have expertise that we need to sit on, say a business development committee and help us look at uh new product ideas. And I think that same concept could easily be applied to any organization that’s trying to figure out what kind of business they might run because that’s the key, you could decide to start a business, but it still has to be a viable business. The just, just starting a business, you’re not gonna get the halo effect of, you know, you’re doing it as, as a non profit and therefore it’s going to succeed all the same market. Um factors come into play that do for any business. And so you, you really do have to still find a viable business that makes sense that is needed that you can price appropriately. Um One of the things about the research for social enterprises or whether or not consumers are going to buy from a social enterprise, whether it’s a product or service. One of the statistics is that all other things being equal. So in other words, quality price, etcetera people more and more have a tendency to purchase products and services from a mission based organization or mission based company. But the most important part of that statement is all other things, other things equal, all other things [00:30:26.35] spk_0:
being equal. Right? Yes, you have to, you have to be able to compete with your private, enter strictly private enterprise, market driven, profit driven competitors. [00:31:37.05] spk_2:
Yeah, you have to be able to compete and yet at the same time, you also need to figure out what your Um competitive advantages yourself. So for instance, in our case, we are able to um we’re right now in the holiday season, you know, September to December for women’s Bean project, 70% of our sales are, are made. So, you know, we really peaked during this time of year. One of our competitive advantages is we can bring in volunteers to help us say pack boxes or help us, you know, get shipments out the door or, you know, help with, with prep of product. And um that’s something that is a bit of a competitive advantage because if we were just, you know, in the, in the private sector running a regular food manufacturing operation, we really, I don’t think we could, you know, look somebody in the eye and get and get that kind of assistance. But for us, yes, it’s a way to engage donors to get people really invested, get new customers. You know, there are so many ways that, that bringing people from the community in to help us is advantageous, not just to get the work done, but to get additional support for our organization. [00:32:13.43] spk_0:
So you’ve opened yourself up to a whole new set of metrics as, as having a social enterprise and we’re gonna get to what, what the relationship is between the company and, and a nonprofit or, you know how that could be set up by different, by different organizations. But, but you’ve, you’ve got to measure, you’ve got to measure the company’s profit and the company’s output and productivity, productivity per employee hour or, you know, whatever, you know, the, the, the key metrics for the business are as well as the social outcomes of, of your graduates and your employee members and your, your, [00:33:00.64] spk_2:
it’s, you know, I joke sometimes it’s a horrible way to run a business, right? Because we intentionally everyday hire women. We don’t know if they’re gonna come to work every day. I mean, that’s part of their barriers to employment and we work with them and they help, we help them become great employees and as soon as they become great employees, we let them go off and become somebody else’s great employee and we start all over again. Uh and it’s so it’s super inefficient and we also over higher. So if we were a for profit company and we were trying to be as efficient as possible and, you know, squeeze every penny out of our margin. We absolutely would not hire as many women as we do, but that’s not the point. The point for us is to use our business to advance our mission. So we hire as many women as possible as we can justify based on what our sales are going to be. [00:33:33.96] spk_0:
So, what are some of the things that nonprofits need to think about beyond? Alright. What’s, what’s a viable business? What other, what other factors are important? [00:33:47.78] spk_2:
Well, maybe the biggest thing is it’s hard. I joke sometimes with our, our team, like if this were easy, everybody do it [00:33:53.59] spk_0:
do. We really want to do. It is an important threshold. [00:36:14.38] spk_2:
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s hard because you have to have the ability to entertain two opposing ideas at the same time, right? We need to run an efficient manufacturing business and we also need to deliver on our mission and those two things actually often don’t go together very well. And so being able to both entertain those ideas and acknowledge that perhaps today the business wins, maybe we um the women instead of um spending 30% of today’s time in a class, say financial literacy there on the production for, for the whole day because we have a lot of work to do. But tomorrow, maybe it’s the, it’s reversed and they’re spending the whole day in some sort of training and not making any product at all. And so our job is every day to, to balance that out. Uh And so that’s, I think one of the hardest things is uh is having that ability to understand that if not for the mission, your business doesn’t really exist, but yet your, your business has to be profitable in order for it to make sense and contribute to the mission and, and that, you know, balancing act, you know, is a constant. So that’s part of what makes it hard. I would say another thing is that you, you still have to find all the other. I mentioned this before, all the other market forces still prevail. So if you have a product that nobody wants to buy, you’re not going to have a successful business and there’s no amount of mission that’s gonna forgive that, at least not in the long term. And, you know, at this point, women’s bean project is 32 years old. And I think in a lot of ways, we’ve just been lucky. There was no initial market research that said, you know, being, I think that’s the key to success. No, nobody, nobody did any kind of research at the beginning. Our founder just noticed she was in her late 50s, she’d gone back to school to get her master’s degree in social work. And she noticed a lot of her friends who were around her age were eating bean soup for health reasons. And so she invested $500 of her own money. And bought beans and put two women to work making 10 bean soup. The crazy thing is that still 32 years later our best outing product. Alright. [00:36:32.19] spk_0:
That’s a terrific story but it’s it’s it’s it’s more or less in what not to do in in determining what, what, what businesses gonna survive because you know you said it, I’m just gonna amplify it. No amount of mission is gonna forgive bad, bad marketing or a bad, bad entry choice or, or any of the, any of the market forces. [00:36:39.48] spk_2:
Yeah. And I think you also have to have either a product or service that has a decent enough margin margin to sort of forgive the inefficiency. And I also wouldn’t choose food for that reason. Ships sailed for us, but, you know, that’s not the highest margin, um, you know, product category for sure. Right [00:37:09.12] spk_0:
now food is notoriously low margin. Um, but, you know, you said you gave an example of hiring many more women than you need, then you would, well, maybe then you do need, then you would if you were strictly market driven. [00:37:15.63] spk_2:
Exactly. [00:37:23.01] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, before, before we move on any other advice about the, the opening questions to talk about with your board, with your leadership. [00:38:57.18] spk_2:
Well, another aspect of balance I think is, um, it is balancing being opportunistic and, and, um, and not being um, so bullish on an idea that you ignore, um, other signs. So as an example, uh years ago, we were approached by somebody who had a whole bunch of equipment for canning and they were willing to give us all the equipment. Let us have access to the facility a whole bunch of things. But what we really had to analyze and I think this happens actually a fair amount to organizations that are thinking of starting businesses. Somebody thinks I’ve got a great idea. I’ll just give this to them. But the thing was we weren’t in the canning business. We are a dry food manufacturer and what it would have meant for us to start, you know, pivot and, and create another business, you know, really wasn’t worth that. What seemed like a super generous donation. Um It was forgive the pun, but it was a whole can of worms that we didn’t necessarily need, need to open. But that’s an example because when you start talking about this, all manner of people are gonna surface who are interested and willing to help. And one of the most important things you might need to do is say no thank you because, you know, sometimes gifts are not always gifts in the, you know, when it really comes down to it, it’s maybe not the best strategy and it’s sometimes hard not to get all, you know, um starry eyed about something that seems like a fantastic gift. And the next thing, you know, you’re in the canning business and you never intended to be in right now. You’re [00:40:34.02] spk_0:
doing wetsuits instead of, instead of dry suit. That’s a, that’s a huge pivot. Um And yeah, I mean, that’s, and that’s in the nonprofit, the straight uh nonprofit sector as well. You know, there, there are gifts that come sometimes with strings. You know, if you’ll, if you’ll adopt this, create this program or women’s school, but if you start admitting boys, I’ll give you the seven figure gift. You know, that’s, those are the gift size can be transformational, but that doesn’t mean you, you sacrifice your mission and transform your mission to accept a, you know, a million dollar gift. Um So, all right, but you know, interesting, you know, you, you, you evaluated from the nonprofit perspective, but also from the market force perspective, you know, now we’re entering a whole new business. Now we’re going to be competing with uh Campbell’s, you know, Campbell’s and Hunts and Hormel, you know, whoever, wherever the big, whatever the soup manufacturers are. Um Alright, so value, right? Uh Important lessons sometimes the better answer is. No, no, thank a gracious. No. Alright. Alright. Um Advice on types of businesses that that could lend themselves to this. [00:41:51.05] spk_2:
I’ll start with um service businesses because sometimes those can actually be really great support for um really great social enterprises and supports for human services organizations. Um The nice thing about service businesses is our very localized so you could serve one community and then an example of a service business might be a uh landscaping business or there are several social enterprises around the country that do uh go to business districts and clean up trash and snow removal and leaf removal and those kinds of things. Again, those are very localized. And what’s nice about that is that you could do it in this city and then maybe you pick it up and you do the same thing in another city. Those are really cool ways to be able to employ a lot of people and engage in, in multiple communities. Uh And there are, you know, other businesses um like uh has control is another one where, you know, that’s a pretty expandable business, um cleaning services, especially in offices and things like that. Um So those are some examples of businesses that actually could be really great businesses for people. And, you know, when you’re selling a service, that’s a really different dynamic than say, you know, consumer packaged goods where, you know, you’re competing with marketing dollars from companies, it’s just much more challenging um area to be in. You [00:42:21.11] spk_0:
also, you also have the advantage of being able to, as you said, start local. So you can say initially the impact of our work is local. And so there’s a, there’s an appeal to an appeal to the mission with your caveat that uh lots of mission is not going to overcome bad, you know, uh not being competitive market, market wise. But you can say that you have that you have that local impact, at least as you’re, you know, as you’re getting started. And then as you’re suggesting, you know, you can expand. [00:43:31.94] spk_2:
And I think, you know, if you’re making a product, one of the potential challenges is that if you make a product that in our case, our products consumable, so we can have repeat customers, you know, of course, it has to be a, you know, good quality and taste good and all of those things. But we have customers we’ve had for 30 years and who keep coming back over and over again. If you end up making a product that’s not consumable, the challenges that, you know, say you’re making um uh cutting board, there’s only so many cutting boards, somebody needs or only so many gifts you can give, you know, to other people. And so you always have to be finding new customers to be able to grow your business. And that said, there’s, you know, when you start out, your customer base is so small that the, the world really is, you know, is pretty large of possible customers. But there’s a point at which um without spending a lot of marketing dollars or advertising dollars to get noticed that you really sort of tap out the people you can access. And that’s, you know, so that’s an interesting challenge of making a, a product where you could teach some really amazing skills. But at the same time, you know, you might have a limited customer base. [00:44:07.91] spk_0:
Can I get these, can I get these meals and just add water? Are they, are they that, that simple from women’s bean project [00:45:06.25] spk_2:
pretty straight forward like that? So, a soup mix, you would add water, you put it in a safe crock pot and let it cook for the day. And at the end, you are 10 bean soup. You just add a can of tomatoes or you could add, you know, vegetables and a whole bunch of other things if that’s what you wanted. But just to finish off the recipe, it would just be adding a can of tomatoes. We also have baking mixes. And so in that case, it’s everything that you need. You, you would add an egg and some oil or butter and you’ve got brownies or cornbread or stones. Um, so it’s a, the nice thing about like a baking mix, for instance is you don’t have to buy a bag of flour and buy a bag of sugar and all of those things and then have them left over. You can use our mix and use the eggs that you have and the butter that you have. And next thing you know, you made these yummy brownies and you look like a total baker And No 1’s The Wiser, Right? [00:45:08.39] spk_0:
You don’t have, you don’t have four and three quarter pounds of flour [00:45:11.61] spk_2:
leftover. Yeah. [00:45:13.14] spk_0:
Okay. A little digression. But I was interested in and how simple the meals are. Okay. [00:45:26.97] spk_2:
And they do have an instant. We have, yeah, we have instant beans and rice cups also which literally are adding water. Um And then, and we also have some ready to eat snacks. So you know, just keep them in your desk and you know, nosh on them whenever you feel like it. Okay. So we have a pretty wide variety of different products. [00:45:39.62] spk_0:
Okay. Well, I’m gonna check. Yeah, women’s bean project dot com. Um So yeah, so service businesses, you’re suggesting service businesses, what else, what else could folks consider? [00:47:21.99] spk_2:
Well, there’s some great social enterprises. Again, these are pretty localized that do screen printing. So, you know, you think about your inner city and you have your screen printing business, you’re able to employ people and, and you’re able to serve all the companies locally for, you know, their employee T shirts or, you know, races or things like that again, very localized but also scalable as well. Um There’s a really awesome social enterprise out of Boston called More than Words and more than words serves youth 16 to 24 who are either aging out of the foster system or justice involved. And they sell books, they sell books have been donated from the community and the the youth learn the skill of, you know, scanning the I S B N number to make sure it’s marketable and they recycle the books that don’t have uh aftermarket value and then they sell the books that do and they sell both online. They have a couple of bookstores. The cool thing is all these youth, um, are, you know, they’re helping them find homes, they’re helping them with their academic goals, helping them sort of adult, you know, into the community. Yet, at the same time, they’re also learning these skills of running a book business. So they have measurable um uh um outcomes that they have to achieve. They have certain sales goals that they have to meet for their various channels. It’s a really amazing business that um that they’re operating and the youth stay with them for a couple of years. It’s called more than words [00:47:40.07] spk_0:
back on the service side. I’ve seen copy, copy services, copy and print and print shops. [00:48:45.73] spk_2:
Yeah, a bank of America actually has their own social enterprise that they operate in the house and they serve people with developmental disabilities or they employ people with developmental disabilities, but they do all the printing for their own needs. Um there’s also electronics recycling. Uh you know, the statistic is that people who are on the autism spectrum have an unemployment rate of about 85%. And, and yet they are uniquely talented to disassemble electronics. So there uh there are electronics recycling organizations that employ people on the autism spectrum to just disassemble and um and then they part of, so they’re providing the employment, they’re getting the donations of the electronics. Um, and in some instances they’re being paid by the companies to take the electronics and then they also, they sell the commodities of all the things that out of those electronics, metals, plastics. Yeah. So, you know, when you think about that as a, you know, we use the term triple bottom line, it’s helping society, it’s helping the environment and it’s um you know, it’s, it’s making money. That is a really awesome example of, of a business that hits at every level. Yeah, [00:49:07.97] spk_0:
excellent, excellent. Another, these are good, another example or category, [00:49:39.32] spk_2:
well, there are some social enterprises that instead of employing people provide employment services. So there is a social enterprise that here in Denver that specifically helps people who are bilingual, English, Spanish, get jobs in the community with employers who need people who are bilingual, but that could apply to kind of any language or not even be bilingual, you know. So they, and so companies come to them when they need people who, maybe it’s customer service, people who can speak another language other than English. Um And so again, a service business, but not where they are employing people. [00:49:58.16] spk_0:
Right. Right. And, and so companies pay for the, for the referral for the screening. Yep, the placement, basically they’re paying a placement fee. [00:50:51.24] spk_2:
Yep. Exactly. But there’s, you know, there’s just so many different kinds there are cafes that’s a fairly popular kind of social enterprise. Um Here in Denver, we have a cafe called um same cafe and same stands for. So all may eat and they, it is a pay what you want model. So you walk in and the menu is listed for the day and you decide how much you’re going to pay. Yes. And, and so you might be sitting down and having, you know, decide that you want to pay $10 for your lunch. But you also might be sitting next to somebody who is, um, experiencing homelessness and didn’t pay anything. And if you decide if you don’t have any money to pay for your lunch, then you work in the kitchen or you clean or, you know, do dishes and, and so again, it’s a really cool concept that serves people all, you know, it’s beneficial to the community at multiple levels. [00:51:24.99] spk_0:
Um So, all right. So we talked about services, some, some product. I love the recycling example too. Any anything else before we, before we move on to organizing these, these entities? [00:52:56.39] spk_2:
Um, well, the last one I’ll mention is one that’s been around for a long, long time, like women’s bean project. It’s called Grace and Bakery there out of Yonkers, New York. And they make the brownies for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. So a big, the bulk of their business is brownies for Ben and Jerry’s. They also have now gotten into doing some retail sales and corporate sales. So you might see your, your listeners might have seen them in some, for instance, Whole Foods at sort of a point of sale or point of purchase with a little brownie. And it says these brownies changed lives, but Grayson is a for profit company. So this is a nice segue into the next part of our conversation. They are actually a B Corp, a benefit corporation and they, they have an open hiring model. So instead of specifically going out and trying to recruit people experiencing chronic unemployment, like we do, they are always accepting applications and when they have an opening, they just hire the next person on the list. So they hire, they don’t, you know, interview or, you know, look at qualifications, they just hire the next person and, uh and you know, so they will have more turnover than a normal company would, but they’re also within that community in Yonkers. They’re, they’re really changing people’s lives give by giving them an opportunity for employment that they might not otherwise have had. [00:53:42.47] spk_0:
Okay. That’s interesting. Now, first that’s Grayson Bakery. These brownies save lives. Okay. So listeners, we might, we might see those at, at checkout sounds like point of sale places. Okay. Um But then, you know, there’s the issue of, you know, giving a job versus teaching job skills in addition, like, like, like women’s being project is doing, it seems to me that the, the uh the training beyond the skills for the job is more empowering than then giving a job and, and just giving a job. [00:54:13.22] spk_2:
Well, I think that’s consistent with our philosophy at women’s being project that there are because we acknowledge that there are lots of things that get in the way of somebody being able to um get and keep the, and keep, I think is the important part, right? Like, you know, we prior to the pandemic and I think we’re back to a um there’s a lot of jobs but um and so you could go from job to job to job in an environment where there are lots of jobs. But the important thing is, are you going to a job where you are a contributor where there’s opportunity for advancement and benefits and all the things that make it more of a career than just a job? That’s what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to change the are the women we serve, that’s the trajectory we want them to be on when they finish. [00:54:41.79] spk_0:
All right. So, you know, of course, different missions just like nonprofits that Grayson has uh has a different model but, but their, their generously hiring, they just hire the next person on the [00:54:49.63] spk_2:
list. [00:54:53.20] spk_0:
So, alright, so yeah, as you suggested, and I want to talk about the, how to organize and structure these, we know what’s the relationship listeners already are in non profits? Most of our listeners are, uh you know, how would, what would that relationship look like if they did start a social enterprise? Well, [00:55:11.40] spk_2:
I know as, um as the interviewer here, you, you will hate to hear this answer but it depends. [00:55:18.35] spk_0:
Listen. Now, don’t hold back on, don’t, don’t, don’t tell listeners of nonprofit radio What you think they want to hear? It’s an educated self selected group. So, yes. So it’s nuanced answers are, are very [00:58:28.78] spk_2:
welcome. Well, it, it does depend and it depends on what you want to do and how you might want to structure it and, and honestly tolerance, risk, tolerance of your board and you know, of your team. So, um women’s Bean project is a 501 c three. A big reason for that is because we were founded in 1989. And if you wanted to do good, that was the choice, right? That’s all you had. Um Today, there are lots of different structures you could or opportunities, you could be a for profit company. Um and, and become a benefit corporation B Corp, you could be a subsidiary of a nonprofit. Um You could be an LLC, you know, there are just so many different ways. And so generally what I tell people is first figure out what you wanna do, then figure out what the corporate structure makes the most sense. What I will tell you is that I wouldn’t necessarily change our corporate structure because we’ve made it work for ourselves. Our, the way we have structured ourselves by having sort of everything under one roof. The huge job and the being job is that we’ve, what that’s done is that it has allowed us to have a mixed revenue, uh pie, so to speak. So, about 60% 60% of our operating budget comes from our product sales. What that does is it supports the business, it supports women’s time while they’re working in the business. And it’s, you know, gives us the ability by the beans and the flour and all those things and makes a small contribution to our program operations. And then we fundraise to SAPO program operations because again, when a woman is in a financial literacy class or working on a resume or even in job search looking for the next job we’re paying her still. So we fundraise to both support those classes but also to be able to pay her and, and because we’re 501 C three, we have the ability to do that. It also probably gives us a little bit of wiggle room in terms of our inefficiency. You know, I would, if we were, if, if all of our revenue had to come from our product sales, we would probably have to compromise the mission a little bit and hire fewer women because we have to run, you know, a business with much better margin than we currently do. Yeah, but I will also say that there are plenty of situations where the a board of a nonprofit, they might be interested in this idea of having revenue, that’s basically unrestricted revenue. But they don’t want to risk the larger organization or they do or they wanna just sort of run it on the side as sort of a separate entity and maybe not have it be a distraction within their main business, so to speak. There, there are risks in that as well though. I’ve seen lots of uh non profit big human services organizations that run social enterprises and they sort of treat them like the red headed step child and, and look at them like, what have you done for me lately? Little, you know, business. Why are you not contributing more when the reality is they’re kind of stifling the growth of that, that business? Um And, and perhaps, um you know, causing it to, you know, not prosper um [00:58:55.69] spk_0:
like a mistaken, well, not only organization but just in, in culture, you think that the way board members and I guess the organization collectively thinks about its, its social enterprise as, you know, as, as uh the ugly step [00:59:22.60] spk_2:
child. Yeah. And that’s the risk, right? If of creating a structure where you sort of set it off to the side, I mean, I understand that sometimes that’s done to avoid risk, but sometimes it creates more risk for the survival of the business one of the things I worry about having been in this field for a long time is that, you know, uh, we’ve now come to a point where social enterprise is kind of cool. It’s kind of come into its own. I joke that it’s like women’s bean project has been wearing a velour tracksuit for 30 years and now suddenly velour track suits are in. But, you know, so, yeah, exactly. [00:59:49.52] spk_0:
Long enough they’ll come, they’ll come, my dozen bell bottom suit will come back. [01:00:16.43] spk_2:
It turns out that’s happening for social enterprise. But what I worry is that organizations will start a business and do that and sort of cut it off at its knees and not even maybe recognize that and it won’t survive and then they’ll look back later and say, yeah, we tried that. It didn’t work. But I, I can tell you that if it’s not always because it’s a bad idea that it doesn’t, it could be because you just didn’t give it the opportunity to flourish. We in the nonprofit world are notoriously risk averse. That’s not a news flash to anybody. I know. And, and so the challenge is to be willing to take some risk and balance that risk. You know, it’s a risk reward ratio in the business and balance that risk a little bit. Um With um with what the benefit could be long term, [01:00:44.61] spk_0:
You started to transition again. I love it the way you segue easily uh, lessons, you know, lessons learned things to look out, for things to be sure. You, you’ve considered, you’ve been doing this for 30, what, 32 years? 32 [01:03:17.35] spk_2:
years. Well, I, I often say we have 32 years worth of mistakes. We could totally help somebody else avoid and leave them free to make all their own mistakes. Um, you know, it’s, it’s, I would say the lessons learned are consistent with what I’ve been saying, which is you really do. Um If you want a social enterprise to survive, you really do have to embrace it as, as being a means through which you’re going to deliver on your mission and not set it on the side and say, well, you know, someday you’re gonna make me some money and I’ll be able to use that money to advance my mission. They have to be interwoven. Um So, you know, we don’t exist to make bean soup yet we can’t exist without it. And that idea that the two are inextricable um is the probably the most important thing. And the most important, honestly, lesson that I’ve seen, I, I watched a social enterprise um be formed out of an organism um that was providing initially providing the same service for free. And then they formed the social enterprise to monetize the service, but yet they kept offering the service. So they had this business and they kept offering the service for free. So yes, and um and then eventually decided that the social enterprise wasn’t working and the, the problem I thought, you know, it’s, it’s easy. Monday morning quarterback, admittedly, but um you know, was that they set it up to be, you know, be its own competition. So of course, it was, there was always going to be that tension and that conflict. You’ve got enough tension and conflict just trying to advance your mission and advance your business without setting yourself up for failure. So um you know, that’s another lesson which is be prepared for there to be tension between the business and the mission, but be okay with that because that’s part of what you’re doing is you’re, you’re trying to change the world by using market forces. Uh And you know, we are, we’re a country of consumers. So let’s take advantage of the fact that we are a country of consumers. Everybody needs to buy products and services. So what a great opportunity to um to to for lack of a better word, exploit that [01:03:32.91] spk_0:
I love the way you say you’re working to change the world by using market forces. Um Alright. Any anything else you wanna, you wanna leave folks with anything that we didn’t talk about that you feel is is important. Anything I didn’t ask about, [01:04:43.97] spk_2:
you know, I would say that the last thing would be that if you are thinking about um starting a social enterprise, start looking at other models and seeing what other groups are doing and especially if they’re localized, there’s, you know, there’s no reason to that, that you wouldn’t be able to learn from their mistakes. Um So, you know, we have, I’ve been asked often whether or not we would expand women’s bean project out of Denver across the country. What we have chosen instead is to be more open source where we look forward to sharing the things that we’ve learned. Because I think ultimately, if we want to lift up the whole field, not just, you know, a grand eyes, women’s bean project, that’s not our goal. Our goal really is to help other organizations create or prosper with their social enterprises, not just, you know, have us get bigger and bigger. There’s enough need to go around. What [01:04:46.67] spk_0:
about social enterprise Alliance? Is that a resource for [01:05:01.69] spk_2:
folks? It absolutely is. And that might be a great place to start to figure out what is out there. They have um Social enterprise Alliance has uh you know, members all over the country who are involved at various levels of social enterprise. So they might be running social enterprises that they might be consultants. So social enterprise, um if you need an attorney to talk with, for instance, about what your corporate structure might be, there are resources there. Um But the nice thing about that is if you’re in the initial stages of just doing research is a great place to start. [01:05:31.38] spk_0:
Okay. Good value. You can have conversations with folks. You can, you can, it’s a good place to start your research and, and, and grow. If you decide to mean, you might start your research and decide it’s not really, you know, you can’t tolerate the risk or the tension. Uh It’s just something you don’t want to take on, but at least you do it, make that decision informed. [01:06:43.52] spk_2:
Yeah, I always think that fear is not a reason not to do something, right? Like you can acknowledge the fear and sort of do the things that, that you need to do to um to try to overcome or, you know, address the fear. But um staying noticed something just because you’re afraid, it’s maybe not the best reason. Um And I think also, you know, we have a tendency to sit at the, at the starting line and try to anticipate all the problems we’re gonna have and, and I guarantee, first of all, we’ll be wrong about what problems we think we’re gonna have and, and whatever solution we decide is gonna not be appropriate for whatever problem you end up having. And so ultimately, you just gotta start and, and have faith that you have gathered the resources and the expertise enough that you can address the problems as they come up. But I think that that tends to be and in my experience just going to lots of, you know, speaking on lots of panels and talking with lots of organizations that are thinking about starting social enterprises is they, they often get stuck at that starting line and have a hard time pulling the trigger. Um The reality is it might not work. But think about, I, I think you learn more from failure than you do successful. A lot of times. [01:08:06.92] spk_0:
Yeah. Too much ready aim, aim, aim and, and, and no firing. All right. Outstanding. Thank you, Tamara. Thank you very much. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing the women’s bean project story and and beyond. Uh Tomorrow Ryan Ceo women’s bean project. It’s at women’s bean project dot com. You want to look at their dried foods and other products, especially now around the holidays. And Tamara is at Tamara Ryan. Thanks so much Tamara. Next week, Rio Wang with Money Mindset. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows. Social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.
