Tag Archives: Amy Sample Ward

Nonprofit Radio for March 8, 2021: Domestic Terrorism and Your Nonprofit & 21NTC

My Guests:

Mickey Desai, Heidi Beirich & Pete Clay: Domestic Terrorism & Your Nonprofit
Insurrection at the US Capitol. Insurrection by redditers against hedge funds. Our nonprofit community is also at risk of domestic terrorism, regardless of mission. What are those risks and what can you do to minimize them? In collaboration with the Nonprofit SnapCast podcast, my guests are Mickey Desai, SnapCast host, Heidi Beirich at Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, and Pete Clay with CyberOpz.

 

Amy Sample: 21NTC

Amy Sample Ward

Amy Sample Ward returns to reveal what’s planned for NTEN’s virtual 21NTC on March 23 to 25. Many of their smart speakers will be guests on Nonprofit Radio over the next months. Amy is NTEN’s CEO and our social media and technology contributor.

 

 

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[00:02:22.74] spk_1:
Yeah. 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 get slapped with a diagnosis of synesthesia if I sensed that you missed this week’s show. Domestic terrorism and your non profit insurrection at the US Capitol Insurrection by Reddit Ear’s against hedge funds are non profit. Community is also at risk of domestic terrorism, regardless of mission. What are those risks and what can you do to minimize them? In collaboration with the nonprofit snap cast podcast, my guests are Mickey D’s I Snap cast host Heidi Barrick at Global Project Against Hate and Extremism and Peat Clay with Cyber Ops, also 21 T. C Amy Sample Ward returns to reveal what’s planned for intends Virtual 21 NTC on March 23 to 25. Many of their smart speakers will be guests on nonprofit radio over the next months. Amy is N ten’s CEO and our social media and Technology contributor. On Tony’s Take two podcast pleasantries. We’re sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o. Here is domestic terrorism and your non profit. It’s my pleasure to first welcome Mickey D’s I. Mickey and I are co hosting this week’s show. His podcast is non profit snap cast. He invented the nonprofit snapshot, a micro assessment and dashboard for nonprofits. His past includes work at IBM Tech Bridge and Southern Crescent. Habitat for Humanity. Mickey is at NP Snapshot and the company is at nonprofit snapshot dot org. Mickey. It’s a pleasure to co host with you. Welcome. Thank

[00:02:25.39] spk_4:
you, tony. Glad to be here today.

[00:03:30.24] spk_1:
Absolutely. Thank you for coming up with this idea. Thank you. It was a team effort. That was good. It was your idea. I adopted it immediately. I’ll give you that. But it was your I was very I jumped on it. But it was your idea originally, right. Heidi Beirich, also with us. She is co founder and chief strategy officer at Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. She’s an expert on American and European extremist movements, including white supremacy, nativism, anti Semitism and anti government movements. She has appeared repeatedly on major television networks and in documentaries and radio programs and now a podcasts exploring extremism. Had he led the Southern Poverty Law Center’s intelligence project, the premier organization tracking hate and anti government movements in the United States, she’s at Haiti. Barrick, B E I. R I, C. H. And her organization is at global extremism dot org. Heidi. It’s very good to have you. Thanks for being with me and Mickey.

[00:03:32.94] spk_2:
Oh, I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me

[00:04:03.74] spk_1:
a pleasure. And Peter Clay Pete Clay has a 25 year career in cybersecurity. He has served as chief information security officer cso for three very different organizations as a consultant to large international financial organizations, including the World Bank and multiple U. S. Federal agencies. He’s founder of cyber ops at Cyber Ops. That’s oh, pz cyber OPC dot com. Pete. Welcome to thank you, Tony and nonprofit Snap guest.

[00:04:11.54] spk_0:
Thank you so much. Glad to be here.

[00:04:37.14] spk_1:
Pleasure. Thank you for doing this with us. Hey, I got a first question for you. Um insurrection at the U. S. Capitol Insurrection by Reddit Ear’s against a Wall Street hedge fund. That bet against Gamestop and AMC stock. These two things monumental happened within a month of each other in January and February, Our nonprofits potential targets of insurrection.

[00:06:05.74] spk_2:
I don’t think there’s any question that nonprofits could ultimately be targets in this kind of mob action like you saw in particular off of Reddit related to the Gamestop stocks. Uh, you know, when nonprofits right about advocate about things that folks don’t like, This is probably the most likely way that you’re going to see an attack. Come. And I can just tell you from my years at the Southern Poverty Law Center, my work now at the Global Project Against Hate and extremism. We while I was at SPLC, and now we write a lot about the kinds of people that were involved in the insurrection at the Capitol. And when you do that, you are absolutely going to get harassed. Online. Doxed Online Targeted online. Fake news Produced about you Online. You can have mass hits to your Twitter feed from people attacking you, and, you know, there there are a lot of other things that can happen, including attempts to, you know, disrupt your Web services. Attack your payment systems so it’s more serious than just somebody saying you know that I’m a communist liberal and and should die, right? They can actually attack the systems that the nonprofit relies on to function. And there are real world effects because sometimes there is a need for security in real life, as if these things become threatening enough. And and it can include up to death threats, which we received many, many times, especially while I was at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

[00:06:45.84] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah, it’s incredible. And you’re right. The physical attacks could be physical. That could be virtual. That could be reputational. Uh, and I want to broaden it to I I think I want folks to realize that it doesn’t have to be that you’re doing controversial work like you are, you know, fighting extremism and nationalism. White supremacy. Um, I mean, it could just be something that a group or even a person just doesn’t like. Like you could just you could be doing environmental work. Or you could be you could be feeding the homeless, and somebody in your community feels that your your efforts are your your work is worthless and and should be devoted to something that that that that that person thinks is important. It doesn’t even have to be controversial. Like like gun violence or gun control or or planned Parenthood or something, right? I mean,

[00:08:00.04] spk_2:
no, I think that’s exactly right. I mean, nowadays, with this technology at your fingertips, right, the ability to zoom bomb people, you know, send them direct, hateful, direct messages reply to tweets online that any person really can have access to this and and engage in it so quickly. Before you could even report it right to like a Twitter or Facebook, anybody could be maligned this way. Also, it’s very easy to put up fake websites, right, That targets someone with a bunch of falsehoods. You could you know, a YouTube video can go up in seconds or on TIKTOK. So, yeah, anybody who doesn’t like what you’re doing And I suppose this would apply to corporations and all kinds of things has at their fingertips the ability to to smear you, smear your work, you know, liable You all kinds of and threaten you. So that’s right. You don’t even have to be doing something controversial. If one person or a group of people like you saw with the coordinated activities off of Reddit. Decide you’re their target. Well, this is very easy to do to somebody.

[00:08:21.84] spk_1:
Yeah, and the one person we can look at Walmart, Walmart in El Paso. The synagogue in Pittsburgh. Um, other examples, Uh, the black church, the black church. Mass murder in South Carolina. All individual individual actors. Um, Mickey, I want to turn over to you. What? What do you What do you want to do? What do you want to ask? Well,

[00:08:43.14] spk_4:
I have a number of questions, actually. But let’s listen, I’m trying to actually narrow it down to one. Um, and I don’t know who exactly to address this too, because I think it applies to both Heidi in your experience, Um, that the two questions that I kind of wanted to touch on briefly are, uh do you have any quick insights and to into what leads people to extremist behaviors? And, um, is there a way to to separate and quantify the odds of real life crime versus cybercrime?

[00:10:52.64] spk_2:
Those are good tough questions, Vicky, Uh, honestly, we don’t really have great research on what causes one person to become an extremist who is exposed to a whole bunch of terrible ideas and somebody else doesn’t necessarily go down that path. You know, Tony just mentioned the attacks in Pittsburgh and in El Paso and in Charleston. In those cases, each of those individuals had imbibed a bunch of white supremacist ideas. That’s what led to them to commit those attacks. But those particular ideas, sadly, are rampant across a lot of different social media and websites. So the question becomes, Why Dylann roof in Charleston, right? Why? Why the guy in Pittsburgh? Why does this particular individual snap? You know, there are a lot of theories, especially coming out of the FBI’s behavioral unit, on people who collect grievances, perhaps have domestic violence in their past. Or alternatively, in many cases come from broken families. So they look to white supremacy as a way to sort of replace that in a way that’s similar to maybe kids joining gangs, right kids of color. But it’s the data is not very sophisticated, and we don’t know a lot about it, And this is part of the reason why the federal government looks like it’s going to be pouring some serious money into research on this front so we can tease these things out better. Uh, and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done with, you know, big online data sets to try to figure out what are the triggers. Look, the one thing we know is that in the last few years, the ranks of white supremacists have grown, and the age of the people joining them has been falling. So very young, particularly white males are getting sucked into this universe. And so, you know, there’s something about the online thing that has more of an impact than when you used to experience these ideas out in the real world. There’s something going on there that’s particularly dangerous. Okay, Mickey. Now I’ve have forgotten what your second question was. Can you tell me again?

[00:10:58.90] spk_1:
I do that all the time. I’m so glad to questions like, write it down or I have to do the exact same thing. What was the other part?

[00:11:11.94] spk_4:
The other part is, um, is there a separation? Can you measure the fractions between real life in person? Crime versus cybercrime?

[00:11:16.34] spk_2:
Uh, what motivates it is that we,

[00:11:18.53] spk_4:
uh, frequency of incidents.

[00:11:21.44] spk_2:
Oh, gosh. I mean,

[00:11:23.06] spk_4:
that’s kind of redundant, but

[00:12:44.64] spk_2:
Well, I mean, the big thing that I spent time studying is how the online moves to the offline. Right? So how is it that it triggers domestic terrorist attacks? Basically, And so we’ve already mentioned a few of the big ones here. We can also talk about Christchurch, New Zealand attacks. There were two attacks, uh, in Germany in the last year, driven by white supremacy. I mean, the one thing I can tell you we know is there’s a particular type of propaganda. It’s called the Great Replacement. What it argues is that white people are being genocide in their home countries. I know this sounds lunatic, but this is what these people believe and being replaced by Muslims, immigrants, non white folks, often Jews are blamed for orchestrating this whole business. That particular ideology has motivated a ton of terrorist attacks. So we know that. But, you know, we could say the same thing about Cunanan, right? This cookie conspiracy about Democrats involved in child sex trafficking, no basis in reality didn’t exist five years ago, and last year, the FBI labeled that particular conspiracy theory as violence inducing, and we saw a lot of cute non supporters at the Capitol on January 6 during the insurgency there. So we know something’s trigger more violence than other things. But again, I think all of this requires a lot more research. And, you know, we’ve only had this social media capability for a very short period of time. So it’s not surprising that we’re kind of behind the eight ball and figuring all of this out.

[00:13:10.84] spk_1:
Heidi, I want to follow up with you on, uh, acceleration ism and what that’s about. But let’s bring Pete Clay in. Pete. What? What worries you on the on the cyber side? I mean, I’m not sure nonprofits are properly invested in cybersecurity thinking about it. Uh, have a plan. What? What? What concerns you on the around Nonprofits and and cyber

[00:16:55.54] spk_0:
tony. Let’s let’s keep it focused. First of all, on on Heidi, right? I Heidi. I live 10 miles outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. Um, so I kind of understand, um, and it’s fascinating to me because exacerbating that is, one person can appear to be 10,000 right online. And so when you start to look at what accelerates in these groups, you know, it’s there’s There’s several fascinating studies that were done about the early days of Wikileaks, where it looked like there were tens, hundreds and thousands of people that were working on Wikileaks and it was two guys, right? And the same thing with these movements and one of the attractions of the movement is I’m with people that think like I do. You don’t know if it’s one person or 10 people or 1000 people, right? It’s just people that think like I do, So all of those things and and highly, you know, Please protect yourself. You know how to do it. But protect yourself online, right? Because what we’ve seen and I’ve gotten pulled into several of the conversations here locally, people long after Charlottesville were over. We’re getting doxed and having fake news done. And as the trials played out locally and the Antifa supporters would show up at the trials, is this stuff just kept going on for years here? And so it’s so important to understand, Even before you talk about organizational protection, it’s so important to understand how to protect yourself, right, and it and it really starts from a personal protection standpoint of understanding that basically everything that you do online is tracked somewhere by someone. And and if that sounds really big brother ish, I don’t mean to alarm people. But, you know, I was just reading an article a little bit earlier today that says, now that two thirds of all emails have, um, tracking software tracking pixels built into them so they know when they were open. They know how long somebody looked at them. They know where the I P address was and all of those sorts of things. And so for anybody in Heidi’s line of work, it’s so incredibly important to practice good information, security protection because, first of all, the work that she’s doing is so incredibly important. But then, second of all, just to protect herself from online hysteria and nonsense turning into real world threat. And so all of those things can apply to, particularly for for nonprofits that engage in in Let’s call them that the anti hate approached to the world. If you’re going to annoy somebody, you have to have more than just antivirus and, you know, a cousin Bob that kind of does something for somebody, um, to kind of protect you because it is so simple. The vast majority of attacks today are automated attacks that somebody launched days ago. They may not even be pointed at you, but because you have a weakness they can exploit, they’ll run the attack through automatically. They’ll pull the information and then figure out what to do with it and how to monetize it later. And that goes for individuals or small nonprofits or big companies. So all of those things kind of kind of come into this one space together,

[00:17:27.74] spk_1:
so you need to have protections built. I mean, you need to have someone in your organization focused on this, Um, and again, it’s not just it’s not only the, you know, the folks doing important work like Heidi is doing. I mean, it could be an organization that’s to any to 99 a half percent of us would be just mundane work helping in the community. But somebody in the community doesn’t like it.

[00:17:30.54] spk_0:
Well, big, big,

[00:17:32.05] spk_1:
the potential threat is broad.

[00:18:00.24] spk_0:
The potential threat is huge, because again, what Heidi is doing in and Heidi, I I’m not trying to use you as an object lesson, but but you are a lightning rod in this sense. Right? Because the vast majority of non profits aren’t going to be specifically targeted. It doesn’t. You don’t have to annoy anybody to be the victim of a cyber attack. You just have to have the wrong configuration in place to be the victim of the cyber attack.

[00:18:30.44] spk_4:
It may make sense to describe exactly the difference between an opportunistic cyber crime versus a targeted cyber crime. You know, we’re Pete. If I’m not mistaken, you’re talking about someone who is basically just pinging tons of i ps to figure out where the vulnerabilities are, and then they can come back later and exploit them versus an activist or an extremist out there who is specifically targeting an entity that they don’t like in order to damage their system or to take their money or something like that There. Is there a difference between the way those two things are perpetrated,

[00:18:49.14] spk_0:
tony, Mickey, and again decide right there, man, I’m just going to use that. I’ve been decide right there. Um, I can scan the entire Internet every connected device on the internet for vulnerability in 45 minutes from the desktop that I’m sitting at

[00:18:59.44] spk_1:
can,

[00:22:48.24] spk_0:
right? Yeah, Anybody can you can. Any of us can write every 45 minutes? What that means is if I have knowledge and can do some very, very simple things. And in fact, you can actually buy kits for ranging from a couple $100 for not very good, one to a couple of $1000 for some pretty good ones that will actually take the information from that scanning and plug it into and just automate an attack that just works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And it just runs continuously. It’s completely non personal. If you have this vulnerability that it can exploit, it will exploit it, bring the information back and do whatever it’s going to be done with it, right? That’s a very different thing. Then when you see somebody you know the Southern Poverty Law Center. Um, I was doing some research about 10 years ago, and the Southern Poverty Law Center website was one of the top 15 most attacked websites on the entire Internet, and it was continuous. It was a continuous barrage. It was a continuous everything Yeah, that’s got those automated attacks in there. But it’s far more dangerous because people that understand how to break into systems are actively trying to take the information that they get from the Southern Poverty Law Center or from a website that they don’t like. And they’re actively using it to try to break in, to deface the website, to change messaging on the website, to get inside the system, to exploit um, sensitive information. And so all of those things are happening on an ongoing basis and where the cybersecurity markets have not done a good job is there are way too many products that are being sold out there as just buy our stuff and don’t you don’t have to worry about this anymore. There is no product in the world that actually that’s a true statement, for you have to take multiple products and kind of put them in the right position with the right architecture to be able to protect yourself. There are some that can cut a lot of risk, a good firewall. It’s almost worth its weight in gold if it’s properly configured and monitored, because the other thing that we see all the time is when we go in and we look after these great big data breaches, you can almost right. It’s almost like a metronome at this point. Such and such company had a data breach. I don’t know what happened here, the suspects that possibly broke into it because we all want to think some nation states actually breaking into everything when most of the time it’s honestly, something like one of those automated attacks that did something. Oh, the alerts all went off. Nobody responded to the alert. If your fire alarm goes off and you don’t respond to the fire alarm, it’s kind of on you at that point, right? So what’s really critical in cyber security is not just buying some products, but it’s having people that are at least understand how to respond to the alert and are responsible for protecting the organization. As it stands. It also gets a lot more complex because a lot of those services that Heidi talked about earlier are hosted and served by a different company, and you have to understand where their security stops and where your security has to begin.

[00:23:21.34] spk_1:
Pete, what kind of person is a nonprofit looking for, uh, I know the listeners to nonprofit radio, and I imagine that’s true for Mickey Show as well. Non profit snap cast. You know, there’s small shops they’re not going to have A. They may not even have a director of information technology, let alone. They’re certainly not going to have a chief information security officer. What are they? What are they searching for? What kind of expert are they looking for to to help, to advise them.

[00:25:19.74] spk_0:
So what they’re looking for is, First of all, one of the fastest growing areas right now in cybersecurity is for the first time in my 25 year career, cybersecurity experts are starting to show up on boards of directors, right either as advisers to boards or as board members themselves, because it’s considered to be critical. This is happening in the Fortune 500 as well as for much smaller companies. The second thing is to sit down and talk to your managed service provider. If you don’t have any of your it done in house, talk to the people that are providing your manage your manage security. If there are managed service provider, if they’re providing your your laptops and your endpoints. Chances are they’ve got some stuff that they can help you with at that particular point. What we found and the gap that we’re really filling in that market is we take big company information. I don’t want to turn it into a commercial. We take big company, enterprise level cybersecurity capabilities, and we deliver those two small companies at a very effective price. And so we are trying to make it as simple as possible for people to do the right thing. But before you go hire anybody before you go do anything, there is one thing that you can do that will take a ton of risk out. And that is train your people in cybersecurity. There’s a ton of stuff on YouTube. There’s a ton of free training out there and point after point after point. Before you buy firewalls and anti virus and endpoint protection and all of this stuff. Train your people because training your people has the most positive impact on reducing your cybersecurity risk that you can possibly imagine.

[00:26:13.94] spk_1:
It’s time for a break turn to communications outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS Market Watch and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Do you want to be in places like that? Do you want them talking to you and quoting You turn to has the relationships with outlets like these and others. So when they’re looking for experts on charitable giving, non profit trends or philanthropy or something related to the work, you do the call turn to turn to, we’ll call you turn hyphen two dot c o Now back to domestic terrorism and your non profit. Mickey, you got you got something I don’t want to.

[00:26:14.94] spk_4:
Yeah, no, that’s cool. I want to ask Heidi again. There’s there’s a number of questions I think I want to ask you that sort of hinge upon. How did you get into this area of interest? How what inspired you to to get into, uh, intelligence of this of this nature?

[00:30:18.24] spk_2:
Sure. Let me just say something about what Pete just said on the training your people. I got to tell you that, uh, especially especially when I was at SPLC. That’s where we found a lot of the major attacks coming in. Like in other words, if people hadn’t been known, don’t click on this thing. Don’t go open this thing, Don’t do this thing. It’s like we would have just been opening ourselves up to. And you’re right, these many, many attacks that that we were constantly sustaining. So I’m just I’m reminding myself of all the little trainings that made me do there and actually, how smart it was, even though I might have been annoyed by them at the time. Okay, Mickey, how did I get into this? Uh, it wasn’t entirely planned. I was working on a PhD. I’ve been studying fascist movements in Europe for a really long time and in Latin America, and I actually I was at Purdue University, and I thought I was going to become a professor and in my sort of job hunt that first year, um, I ended up for a bunch of not interesting circumstances taking an internship at the SPLC. And, uh and so I was I literally, during my time there, I did every single job in the department that I was in, right? Started as an intern, then was a staff writer, you know, up, up and up. And what I found when I went to work there is First of all, I’d always had this, uh, you know, visceral dislike of fascist movements, of white supremacy of what it does to people, perverts, democracies. You know, Obviously it’s one of the worst ideas ever come up by humankind, and and I found the fact that I was in doing activist work. In other words, I was there to expose these groups right about them. Let the public know about the law enforcement, know about them. And if I could do something to tamp down their activities, I found that just so much more satisfying than writing academic publications. That may have been important but didn’t have that kind of real world impact. So I sort of got hooked on. You know what good non profit student, no matter what they’re into, which is impact right? Whether that’s feeding people or housing people or it’s trying to, you know, break up white supremacy is a threat. Two Americans, in this case at SPLC. So that’s what really hooked me on it. And because I had a lot of background on these kinds of people, these movements, these groups, it was easy for me to hit the ground running and and and that’s why I stayed. I mean, I just It was that satisfaction of knowing Okay, we’ve just written an expose on this really vile group that celebrates the Confederacy, is growing at a very fast clip. This is slowing down their membership drives or we have found information on criminal activity by a particular group, and we’ve handed it off to law enforcement and they’re going to take care of it. And that means fewer domestic terror incidents or hate crimes or whatever the case might be down the road. And the other thing, that was really interesting about it. And I should say the Anti Defamation League does a lot of this similar kind of work. There are other groups that do. It was that at that time, So I got to the law center in 1999 in 2001, of course, where the horrible terrorist attacks 9 11. At that time, people weren’t really watching white supremacy and it was metastasizing and growing as we all focus, understandably so on the threat coming from, you know, the Middle East and Al Qaeda and so on. And and I think back to that time And I think if the splc and the HDL and some others weren’t doing that work, we would have known nothing about it. I mean, there would have literally been nobody paying attention to these movements at that time, and that would have been an absolute tragedy. So, you know, I’m really proud of having been able to do that work and keep doing that work now. But it was the impact part, the ability to make something happen that would make life easier on others. That really kept me and kept me in the game.

[00:30:31.34] spk_4:
The reason I ask is, you know, coming from my own background in mental health, we learn early on that if you’re in a position to be touching the darker side of human nature, the shadow side, as some people call it with any sense of regularity, then that is a good recipe for burnout. Unless you know how to really deal with that, you’re in a position to see the same thing on a societal level. How did you not burn out?

[00:32:05.34] spk_2:
Well, I took. I did take a lot of vacations, will admit, and sometimes you just have to take a break from the material. I mean, for some people, it’s harder than for other people. Right when you’re watching racist material all day long or anti Semitism, whatever the horrible thing, maybe it can. It can get to you. I will say that once. I made the decision last fall to, uh, leave the center and start this new organization to focus on transnational white supremacy is what? Which is what it is. Um, I took, like, four months off. I mean, I just It was it had been I felt like I’ve been running a marathon in particular since Donald Trump ran for office in 2015, and I did take a chunk of time off, and it’s a legitimate thing. I mean, I think a lot of organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center and others who monitor this information are starting to realize that maybe this isn’t something you should be doing 40 hours a week, right? The key to have breaks, you need to have access to therapy if you need it, and that it would be good to spend some of your time working on something positive, right? As opposed to viewing negative things all all the time I’ve actually heard questions I’ve had a lot of people ask me, Um, like, for example, there’s an organization called Hope Not Hate in the UK that tracks the same kind of extremism over there. And we’ve all had conversations in the last year saying, Well, what is it that you do for your staff, right? How do you protect your staff? How do you make sure it’s It’s, you know, sustainable, that you don’t want burnout? So it’s It’s really important, Mickey. And honestly, it’s a conversation that I never heard the first decade, decade and a half that I was doing this work. It’s as though the issue didn’t exist, right? Or at least in this sector, it didn’t exist. And now I’m glad that it has talked about

[00:32:28.14] spk_4:
right well, and you let up exactly to the point that I was hoping you’d make, which was at least we kind of touched on it. You know, the acknowledging that the burnout is there, but being burnt out can make you a little more vulnerable

[00:32:34.66] spk_2:
to harm,

[00:32:46.64] spk_4:
especially if you’re in a little a personal position where your your actual physical safety is on the line because I think it does. I think it dulls your awareness, and I think it makes you a little bit careless in the way that you might conduct yourself and I don’t know, correct me. If I’m wrong, I could be completely

[00:33:45.84] spk_2:
off base with that. No, I think that’s right. I mean, I don’t think there’s been enough sort of thinking about what the impact is of being exposed to this. What’s interesting is that you’re now seeing it. For moderators on the big social media sites, right? There was a big lawsuit announced yesterday by Facebook moderators, who feel that they’ve suffered considerable harms. Now they unlike what my experience was. They don’t get the positive experience to know that what they’re doing is probably helping people right there. Just looking at heinous material of all kinds, right involving Children is not just about hate material and taking it down and not really maybe getting the satisfaction of feeling like it’s achieving something, but But we just haven’t talked about it enough. There’s probably a callousness that gets, you know, it probably reduces your empathy and sympathy in many ways, so there’s a lot of side effects that we need to know more about, Especially when it comes to really gross content. And and there’s a lot of parts of the world where you know, nowadays and nonprofits you’re seeing that stuff. Even if that’s not what you’re monitoring, you may be subjected to it.

[00:35:13.84] spk_1:
Right? I d I experienced something like that myself in the I guess in the in the days when Richard Spencer and white supremacy were more talked about than they are now, Um, what was that like, I guess 2017 2018. Something like that. I started listening to a podcast called The Daily Show. Uh, what you say? Yeah. Yeah, the show. Uh, nobody knows. There are very few people know there’s the show is the Hebrew word for holiday for the Holocaust. So it the name of the show is the daily Holocaust. And and I wanted to get to know you know what? These people what do they talk about? How do they rationalize their thinking? What do they who Who are these folks besides Richard Spencer and and I after, um, I guess I binge listen for, like, a weekend or something, but I had to I had to put it down for a for a couple of weeks because it’s it’s so hateful and hurtful. Um, I experienced that. Personally, I I as much as I was still curious and I did go back to it. But, you know, like you’re saying, you know, you took a four month break. Your work is a lot more intense than mine. But just on my little microcosmic way, listening to one podcast for a bunch of ours, I couldn’t take it any longer, Had to put it away for a couple of weeks. Uh,

[00:36:09.13] spk_2:
I had a colleague. I have a colleague, not not name to be mentioned who have suffered some serious post traumatic stress. After watching, you might remember the Christchurch attacks at the two mosques where 51 people were killed were run on Facebook live, right? The guy livestream this and I have a friend who was, of course, we were monitoring these attacks as they were happening right at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and he told me for weeks and weeks after because we watched the video multiple times right to figure out what we could see what’s going on here, where they’re more Attackers, etcetera, etcetera. He said he was having nightmares. I mean, it really deeply, deeply affected him, which we shouldn’t be surprised by, right? I mean, and there’s probably I mean, I think about the victims and some of these attacks or the populations who are targeted by them. What that must feel like I can’t even imagine. Mm.

[00:36:22.93] spk_1:
Let’s go back to the to the nonprofit threat. I I did want to ask you about acceleration ism what, what, what that movement is and and how that could potentially be a threat to to the nonprofit order,

[00:38:27.22] spk_2:
well, acceleration ists who are typically neo Nazis. There’s a couple of big groups that people may have heard of the base. That’s the English translation for Al Qaeda. Actually, you know they’re Nazis, Autumn wife in which is a group named that means atomic weapons in German. What’s the What’s problematic about these groups in particular? Is that what they mean when they say they’re acceleration? Ists is their goal is to accelerate the end of democracies or social systems or social orders. They want to actually blow them up, rip them down, destroy them, replace them with, you know something neo fascist or whatever They’re fancy. They’re dark fantasies might be. And they’re involved in a ton of violence. A ton of violence had dozens of them arrested for plots involving murder, attempted murders, murders, killings. I mean, it’s really, really bad stuff. If you get in the if you end up in the sights of somebody like that, Um, you know it, it’s going to cost you. I mean, and the and the and the These are online movements. I mean, one thing I’m thinking about when Pete was talking about being targeted. These are not numb schools when it comes to Web technologies. These are people who are early adopters. They understand their messaging has to get out online. They know how to use tools and all kinds of things to affect the work of nonprofits and others who they don’t like. They dislike everybody that they perceive to be on the left, right. So this isn’t just about doing anti hate work. It could be any kind of entity that’s doing what I would consider social justice work or or, you know, work for the public good, especially if you’re something like black lives matters. You could easily be a target of these people, and they’re and they’re pretty scary. Um, you know, probably one of the ugliest websites in the country. It’s kind of they advertise. The Daily Show is called Daily Stormer, Right, named after a Nazi newspaper. Their Web master is on the run, living in Transnistria, part kind of an unregulated part of Moldova. And he runs a bunch of American websites, and he orchestrated attacks where he took over fax machines in universities around the world and put out anti Semitic propaganda. This guy’s clever. He’s clever, and he’s probably capable of doing just about anything. If he sets his mind to it online,

[00:38:44.12] spk_1:
we should we should go back to, you

[00:38:46.38] spk_0:
know, you shouldn’t what Heidi is talking

[00:38:49.65] spk_1:
about. You

[00:38:51.10] spk_0:
know, I tony, I appreciate it, man. I really do.

[00:38:57.72] spk_1:
It’s important for groups to know that, you know, they got to protect themselves online and how to do it.

[00:41:22.31] spk_0:
Yeah, but I’m also telling you that the map over my back right there, right is Oxford University. I spent my junior year there, Right. Um, my fascination was Germany 1923. Where did all this stuff starts and you know, also as a transplanted, grew up overseas and grew up other places. And so when we moved to the American South kind of adopted the whole mythology of the Confederacy and states’ rights, Not the slavery part of it, but the whole mythology of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and all the rest of that. And I’m such a history freak. I won all of those arguments for 30 years, right? It was all about states’ rights. It was all about this stuff. And I ran into a You have a professor and over the course of about a three hour meal just got totally demolished in every argument that I made. And so it’s a fascinating concept that suddenly we have the Confederacy, which morphed in about 18 90 because they basically rewrote it in the Arthurian legend, right? Which is what we all learned in high school and college growing up. But now it’s been grafted onto nothing but pure Nazism, right? Moving forward and how that happened and and how that’s happening online, I think is it is at uh huh. Actually, one of the great stories of the data the military been talking to friends. They can’t tell the difference between the recruitment techniques used by Isis and used by Al Qaeda and used by by the white supremacists. The techniques are exactly the same with the same result. So what? Heidi? Heidi, I got your back. I’ll protect your organization wherever it is. You just got to tell me what you need. I got you. Okay, that’s that’s not the problem. Um, please don’t include that in in in the piece. But I’m just saying there’s no more important. This is what’s going to determine the outcome of our democracy in the next 2025 years.

[00:42:25.40] spk_4:
That’s it. If I can. If I can steer us back to some practical things that nonprofits can do to contend with this, you know, we’ve we’ve we’ve sort of been dancing around the issue of awareness of the magnitude of the problem and the various things that nonprofits might experience. Uh, Pete and I did a really excellent, uh, short snap cast episode on doing cyber security on a budget, so I don’t want to rehash that, but maybe it does make sense to sort of touch on some basic things with, uh, you know if we’re if we’re talking about nonprofits, that probably the vast majority of non profits are not going to be specifically targeted for their work of their ideology. Uh, probably the vast majority of non profits might become a victim of opportunistic crime. Um, but is the is the effort to defend themselves Are the steps that those nonprofits can take the same.

[00:46:22.78] spk_0:
The steps are the same. Now, Heidi, this is the part where you need to tune out. Not listening because you’ve got a different set of a different. You’ve got a different risk profile, Shall we say to use that term of art? Okay. But we can take care of you to we’ve got you covered. Um, first of all, figure out what is the least amount of it you can use to do your job and do it well and do it effectively. Right? So if you don’t have to turn everything on with your machines, the idea is is what is the minimum I can use because of the less you use, the fewer of those automated attacks you’re going to get hit with. Okay, The second piece of it is passwords aren’t terribly useful anymore. Okay? We used to think we used to be really, really silly people and we would run around and tell people You have to have a 12 character password with upper and lower case and special characters and all the rest of the stuff, and you have to change it between every 45 90 days and all the rest of that stuff and what we realized was we drove people insane and they quit listening to information security. People like me talk because we were snatching their lives away from them. What the bad guys were doing was they were capturing those password files and just replaying the entire hash. They don’t even decrypt them anymore. So you need to have two factor authentication for your bank account and for any of your communications, right? Any of your personal communication because that’s where those risks are. And if you’re multi factor authentication, in some cases now with really good stuff can be biometric where you type in your password, and then they just use the biometrics on your phone or whatever other devices out there, or cameras and everything else, and we’re seeing huge leaps forward in that stuff movement going on. Finally, you have to get past the idea of thinking that hackers are these hoodie wearing geniuses that can get into anything at any point at any time in the world, Right? There are people that work for nation states that what they do looks like magic, right? They’re all backed by huge research departments and huge capabilities that it takes a nation state to do that level of research. This stuff that’s come out about the solar winds attacks for the last in the last couple days. Make no mistake. Yes, they may have found a very simple password that an intern left years and years and years ago. By the way, that’s the most terminally stupid excuse ever given by a CEO for losing a major hack. Right? Let’s blame the intern. Um, but the guys that did that attack and the ramifications of it were backed by literally hundreds, if not thousands, of very highly trained engineers. Those guys are typically not coming after you unless you’re Heidi. If you’re Heidi, they may be coming after you. Um, but if you use multi factor authentication and you use and you patch your machines and you use good any virus and things like that. Do those things that are available to you. You’re going to stop the vast majority of those attacks. And then the way you deal with those attacks that just standard tools aren’t going to stop is you become what’s called resilience. Okay, resilience. Which means I have good backups of my system. You want to take over my laptop? Great, erase everything. Restore from backup. I’m back up and running in a couple hours. You haven’t stopped me. Okay? And that’s those are the important steps for any any, um, non profit out there to to kind of put together and to really think about.

[00:46:31.48] spk_1:
That’s cool. Pete, I’m not taking out the part where you pledge to have Heidi’s back. Your the information security guy with the heart. How can I take that out?

[00:46:47.68] spk_0:
Uh, I’m just telling you, I I got it. I got to meet one of my heroes today, and I didn’t even know Heidi’s name it. I’m dead serious. It’s, uh it is critical

[00:46:49.97] spk_1:
evidence of humanity. We’re not cutting that

[00:46:51.77] spk_0:
out. I’m a cybersecurity guy. I’m not human. We need to bite your tongue.

[00:47:01.98] spk_1:
You know all the evidence we can get for humanity. So, No, I think

[00:47:03.87] spk_4:
you’re right. I think Pete has the vapors, and we need to keep that in. Okay.

[00:47:08.27] spk_0:
No, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, it’s appreciate you got a fan and a follower. Um, and and dead serious. If you need help, just reach out. We got your back. Okay, Um,

[00:47:22.98] spk_1:
it’s just but, uh,

[00:47:29.48] spk_0:
it’s hiding my only challenges. I know how they do it. So it’s really hard for me not to do it to them.

[00:47:33.18] spk_1:
That’s vindictive. Wow. He’s got a heart. But he’s vindictive. Double hedge, hedge

[00:47:42.32] spk_2:
effective. Not predictive,

[00:47:44.01] spk_1:
right. Friends stay friends with him. I

[00:48:04.77] spk_4:
have I have one quick question for Heidi, though. I mean, we’ve we’ve sort of talked about a ton of cybercrime and how to prepare for it and deal with that. But what if you become the target of of in life offline physical violence? How does a nonprofit decide to decide that their risk for that is significant enough that they should do something about it, and then what should they do about it?

[00:50:28.36] spk_2:
Okay, well, I’m not the expert at where the threshold exists. But I can tell you that when I was at the SPLC, there were a handful of people who were the targets because we were sort of the faces of the organization, right? Anybody who was doing media would be in that position, including my colleagues who are still there right now, right that are doing media against these kinds of folks. We brought in outside security experts with our security team to take a look at the volume of threats and the level of threats they spend a lot of time looking at, sort of almost like when you hear the chatter and Al Qaeda is increasing right and that would be a time when there might be a possible terrorist attack. You know, you hear the government say that we looked at those same sorts of trends and we had a very close relationship with the FBI field office in Montgomery, Alabama, and where other offices were so that we were constantly sending in threats and material and and we had very good protocols around bomb threats and other kinds of threats. These were just we had to train people just like he was talking about about protecting yourself with all this stuff online. There were trainings that were required for that. And if if somebody was, you know, very prominent, maybe this is a lawyer in a case right against a hate group, and so their faces plastered everywhere at a particular time. And the chatter was growing up. Going up. There were times when we actually had to put physical security on people as a measure. But I wasn’t really the expert who decided where that threshold was, but it was a proactive thing to do. And I think anybody who’s involved in activities that are seen as controversial or hated by a group of people, you know, I don’t know if it’s right, left or center. I don’t care where you’re coming from, but if you’re in that kind of basket where you’re going to, you’re going to face those kinds of threats. You really have to think about that physical security and there are differences between material posted online that’s demeaning or ugly or vile and what is a direct threat, and you have to really keep your eye on that. Like I remember at one point I got mailings at my home in Montgomery from Klansmen that were very cryptic and weird. That was a far more serious situation than people, you know, saying mean things about me on, you know, on Twitter. So you know, those are all. But I would say, you know, you need to talk to security professionals or at least local law enforcement, have a good relationship with local law enforcement. Um, if you’re doing work that could could lead to offline harms basically.

[00:50:32.86] spk_4:
So I should invite my beat cops over for breakfast every once in a

[00:50:36.53] spk_1:
while. I was going to ask about not only local, but FBI or Department of Homeland Security. I mean, on your depending on your visibility.

[00:51:59.26] spk_2:
Well, FBI is probably your best bet when it comes to threats in the world that I was in, because it’s also their responsibility to take care of domestic terrorism and extremism and whatnot. Right? So they had a knowledge like the local sack knew, knew a lot about the movement. It might be different depending on where you are in the country. We also did you know Well, I still do. Did law enforcement training on extremism, So we had a lot of contacts in federal agencies. We had good access, actually, to the people who knew these movements and understood the threat, which was lucky. But, you know, I’ve known people. I knew some folks were working in immigrants rights in Maryland who got vicious, vicious threats. Um, you know, by people who despise immigrants, despised Latinos and so on. And they didn’t have as good of access. And there were many, many times, many times over the years I’ve been reached out to by groups like that saying, What should I do? And it’s shocking, actually, that people don’t even know that the first thing you should do is pick up the phone, call your local law enforcement, call the FBI and preserve the evidence. It’s amazing how often people delete threatening emails threatening everything direct messages and voicemails. And you should never do that. You’ve got to collect that evidence and you’ve got to let law enforcement know.

[00:52:08.55] spk_1:
Honey, what’s a sack you mentioned? I’ve jargon jail on nonprofit radio. What’s your

[00:52:12.62] spk_2:
special agent in charge? Sort of. The head haunt show in the Montgomery FBI

[00:52:20.45] spk_1:
in a regional office. Special agent charge. Okay. Thank you. all right,

[00:52:21.35] spk_4:
jargon. Jail. That’s interesting.

[00:52:25.65] spk_1:
Yeah, we don’t like jargon. What do you think, Mickey? We tap these tap. These two experts.

[00:52:34.55] spk_4:
Yeah. Uh, you know, I don’t think I want to abuse them anymore. Um, but it’s up to you. I’ll defer to you if you have any other anything you want to touch. I think this has been a really good conversation.

[00:53:12.85] spk_1:
I think we I think we covered it. I think they covered it. Um, I’ll let you take us out. I just want to remind folks that they are Heidi. By Rick. She’s at High Heidi Barrick and her organization is at global extremism dot org. And Pete Clay, the chief information security officer who’s who’s a human being, has a heart. You’ll find his company at cyber ops dot com. Cyber oh, pz dot com. And so I want to thank Heidi and Pete and Mickey. Thank you very much again for thinking of this. Let you take us out.

[00:53:18.05] spk_4:
Thank you, Tony. It’s been a pleasure to work with you on this episode. Uh, that is tony-martignetti non profit radio, and I am Mickey. Decide with the nonprofit snap cast. Thank you for being our audience today. We’ll see you with another episode soon. Be safe.

[00:55:33.64] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s Take two. The podcast. Pleasantries Sometimes I’ve slipped up. I used to call podcast Podcast Pleasantries. The podcast Pleasantries are going out. They are. And they went out last week and they’re going out again. So So there you go. I’m grateful. I’m grateful that you listen to the show. I know the show helps you. I get emails saying I’m a board member. We listen, I listen, we talk about the stuff at our board meetings, I send it to the CEO. I get emails from C. E. O s saying they’re having their board members. Listen, I know it’s helping you fundraisers as well. Board members, consultants. I know we’ve got a smattering of consultant listeners. I’m grateful. I’m grateful that you’re listening, and I’m gratified that nonprofit radio helps you do your work. You’re bringing it to your CEO. You’re bringing it to your board. That’s terrific. It’s just raising conversations, right? Ideas, conversations and maybe often, I hope, action items. I’m glad. I’m glad. Non profit radio helps you do your work. So pleasantries to you, our podcast listeners that is Tony’s. Take two. We’ve got Boo Koo, but loads more time. Here is 21 NTC. It’s my pleasure to welcome back Amy Sample Ward. You know her? She’s the CEO of N 10 and our social media and technology contributor. Her most recent co authored book is social Change Anytime, everywhere about online multi channel engagement. She’s at Amy R s Ward for Renee and Anton is n 10 dot org. How are you, Amy? Sample words. Good to have you

[00:55:36.04] spk_3:
back. Yeah, it has been a while somehow. I don’t know. Time. Time is an accordion, and

[00:55:42.05] spk_1:
I don’t know how it

[00:55:43.07] spk_3:
works.

[00:55:56.94] spk_1:
Time is that that’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that, but yes, I agree. I do agree. And, uh, yeah, it’s been a few months. It was. I think it was late, late, 2020 when you were last on and we chatted. You doing okay out there in Oregon? In Portland?

[00:55:59.64] spk_3:
Yeah. We are doing okay today. It feels like

[00:56:03.71] spk_1:
today That’s an important qualification. That

[00:57:30.03] spk_3:
today Yeah, they feel like we’ve had from fires to win to ice to pandemic. You know, it’s certainly been, uh, rough and unpredictable Number of months But we are just, you know, just short of the conference being live, and it feels so great. Because last year, of course, we didn’t get to have the conference. Um, but it also feels so weird because normally, uh, you know, we kind of call this the cupcake panic. I think folks who do events may understand this term of you get so close and there’s, like, so much to do and, you know, fun sponsors and committee members are like sending cookies to the office, And you’re just like, Well, I guess I’m eating five cookies right now. Like this is my lunch. I’m just in this time, I’ve got to do everything. And normally we would be doing that in an office filled with, you know, two pallets worth of boxes that we’re shipping up to to send to the conference. And you know, Stafford. Oh, my gosh, I just got through this person who can help me and kind of getting into it with each other. But now, of course, everyone’s just in their home quietly typing away on their computer and feeling like, Gosh, it feels like there’s a whole lot to do. Am I the only one that feels that way because you don’t really get to see each other in the same way. So

[00:57:42.33] spk_1:
all right, so let’s talk about 21 NTC. It’s coming up. Let’s make sure everybody knows the dates. When is it?

[00:57:46.43] spk_3:
It is March 23rd through 25th.

[00:57:48.87] spk_1:
Thank you. So

[00:57:50.02] spk_3:
a Tuesday through Thursday

[00:57:52.83] spk_1:
and we go to n 10 dot org to register

[00:58:06.02] spk_3:
yes and 10 dot org slash ntc is everything you need. Program registration, information about community events, anything you want.

[00:58:17.32] spk_1:
Okay. And 10 dot org Yes. And 10 dot org slash and TCC. Alright, So what are we facing this, uh, in this pandemic Virtual 21 NTC. What are we looking at?

[01:00:35.91] spk_3:
Well, you know, I think, um even though this is our first year doing an entirely virtual NTC, we’re really trying to take the same approach that we’ve taken and I think been known for for the 20 previous years, right, that the NTC is a conference, but it’s not like other conferences you go to, you know, it is it is about community and connection. And you know, the things that make you who you are not only your job title. You know, the lunchtime tables to find other people who like West Wing or, you know, whatever it might be. We’re trying to really design the conference from that as the center. So, um, at an in person, NTC we actually have, you know, had around 125 or more sponsors and exhibitors, and people can engage with them or not. I mean, quite honestly, because it’s in an in person conference. You walk wherever you want to walk, right? Um, and this year we’ve actually limited it to just around 30 because we didn’t want to have to give up so much of that virtual space to sponsors honestly. And that was our one way of thinking. Well, how can we really make this feel like this? Is those community conversations? Of course, technology providers, platform providers, consultants. We still want to register and be part of the conference. But like also join that West Wing conversation. Don’t just feel like you need to talk about the service you provide, or the product you provide, right? So we’ve really focused on the community peace, and there’s, I mean, there’s like different folks limiting meditation sessions Every day there’s live bands every afternoon. There’s all those community conversations, you know, folks that want to connect on different things and still 150 breakout sessions. So, um, and you know that desire we’ve always heard from the community of I wish I could have my clone and go to multiple sessions at once. Well, one benefit of the virtual is all the sessions are alive, but they’ll also be recorded and then on demand. So you can attend one of them live, and then you can can attend the other, like 17 concurrent sessions at your leisure.

[01:00:56.11] spk_1:
You’re okay, so your registration includes attendance at all. The all the recordings that you want to consume.

[01:01:00.32] spk_3:
Okay,

[01:01:02.51] spk_1:
cool, cool. Cool. Um, NTC Beer is always a big deal. That’s always an event. It’s one night. It’s usually it’s usually the first night.

[01:03:06.10] spk_3:
Yeah, I think it’s usually, um, NTC. Beer is one of the only NTC events that intend staff have nothing to do with planning. Um, community members do that, and it’s usually, I think, the night before the first day, and we actually had a call with the NTC beer organizers. What’s going on with, You know, what does that look like in this virtual space? And, um, you know what? What is encouraging people to have a drink on camera together? You know, it’s very different to attend NTC beer, whether you choose to drink or not, because everyone’s like in one big room together, and it’s like a fun kind of entry way. But in this virtual space, I don’t know that there’s a way to do it. So instead, we’re thinking about just making very clear community members who have come to the conference before so that they can be there to help welcome folks into some of those more community conversations. And one way we’re doing that each morning, before breakout sessions start, there’s going to be a group of community members that are not intense staff, just like chatting, You know, like when you go to a conference and you get your coffee and you haven’t spoken out loud yet and you’re still waking up. But you get to listen to those other people at your table who are already having a conversation. We’re basically just broadcasting that, so there will be, you know, four or five people talking about what’s ahead on the agenda, what they’re looking forward to, what they great tip they heard yesterday in a session. Whatever. That kind of warms you up for the day. So even just moments like that, where we can make clear there’s community members that you can talk to, There’s folks who have been here before, um, and not try and do a direct 1 to 1 to the in person conference because it just felt like it won’t be as good if we’re trying to just compare it to the to the in person style. Okay,

[01:03:42.70] spk_1:
okay. And you start with a lackluster host. Of course. You know, rather than focusing on the sessions are the keynotes and I asked about the first thing I asked you about is NTC beer. So we should talk about the we should. I guess we should talk about the sessions and the key notes. Um, the sessions are gonna be outstanding. Of course I’m gonna be capturing. I’m hoping to get another 30 or 35 as I do as I have for the past six years or so. Um, interviews, which will be a lot easier to do because we don’t have to bunch them into 2.5 days. So

[01:03:43.10] spk_3:
we’re going to We don’t have to do them while we’re tearing down the exhibit hall.

[01:04:01.19] spk_1:
Exactly. The NTC has come down around my last interview a number of times. The lights dim the barrack, the not the barricade the, uh, the drape drape. Things are coming down. Those polls that the drapes are hanging on are coming down. There’s a forklift backing up in the

[01:04:02.94] spk_3:
background. We could recreate those sounds if you want to have to get,

[01:04:38.99] spk_1:
I have to spend a fortune on sound effects. Um, yes. So it has often come down around my last interview, but, um, so we’re not constrained this time, So there’ll be there’ll be easily 30 or maybe 35 interviews of smart NTC folks. So yes, So there’s 150 sessions. Um, let’s make the point that this is not only for technologists, we say this year after year, but you say it more eloquently than I do. This is not only for technology people who have technology on their business card,

[01:05:52.29] spk_3:
right? I mean, we just we’re hitting the 12 month mark on a pandemic that has forced everyone to work from home. So if if the last 12 months have not made the case to you that everyone in your organization uses technology, then I don’t know what could make that case. You know, the NTC is people of every job type every organization type every budget size, you know, and people of all different backgrounds, people that have a computer science master’s degree and people who have never had the opportunity to have that kind of education in any way. So everyone is welcome. And ultimately, I think the thing that makes it really accessible regardless of what your job type is is for the most part. Sessions aren’t trying to tell you. Here’s how to do X, y and Z with some product or some very specific type of project because they’re saying, How do you think about fundraising in an online environment? How do you think about program delivery? You know, using different tools? What does it look like to use mapping technology? They’re really about decision making and creating a plan to do something well with technology, and they’re not about any tool that you might already have at your organization.

[01:06:20.18] spk_1:
Okay. Right. Thank you. So it doesn’t matter whether you, you know, or don’t know drew people from WordPress from Jumla from C plus plus from HTML from https. And, yes, you don’t have to know that it’s a technology for its a conference for technology users as well as technologists who have master’s degree in computer science. Okay.

[01:08:16.27] spk_3:
And this year, I’m also really excited because in addition to getting to have 100 and 50 sessions like we have in the past, we’re having three key notes instead of just one. So, you know, that is maybe great in this virtual world because I don’t know that we could have gotten these three amazing people to all fly on the same, you know, in the same three day window to a location to do three key notes. But maybe now we’ve set the bar for ourselves, and we have to always have three going forward. But, um, there’s information about all these folks up on the site, but I’m sure when I say their names, you know, folks listening will recognize them. Rouhani, Benjamin, uh, wrote the new Jim Code. If you have read that book. If not, I recommend to read it. Nokia Cyril, founder of the Center for Media Justice, and Nicole Hannah Jones, of course 16 19 project from the New York Times. So just incredible people thinking and talking and working at the intersection of technology and media and data and race and equity and justice. And what what is happening when we’re using technology for good, for better, for way, way worse. You know, how are we building our tools to replicate the things we’ve already harmed each other with? And how do we kind of get out of that and use technology in better in different ways, which I think as a whole, you know, the thousands of NTC attendees we have every year? That’s the conversation they’re showing up for right every day in their work, not just at the NTC. So I’m excited for the opportunity to have kind of three different takes on that conversation from these folks. And I think that again will really kind of set the bar for NTC s in the future. Now we’re going to have to have three people every time.

[01:08:54.27] spk_1:
All right? Well, you can compromise somewhere else. Maybe in the future, we can compromise somewhere else. Um, I will confess. I only know Nicole Hannah Jones. Okay? Right now. But she’s a luminary. Uh, when that 16 19 came out in the New York Times, whatever was the magazine? What? I mean, I subscribe online, so I read it, and she’s she’s a luminary. She’s on, she’s on, lots of she’s done. She’s done lots of lots of media. Um, and I’m sure the others are very, very well known as well in their in their field. I just I just know Nicole Hannah Jones. That’s all three. Terrific. Excellent.

[01:09:45.17] spk_3:
Congratulations. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I think it will be really awesome. And part of building a virtual conference with the community in mind is we’ve We’ve kind of shrunk the number of hours in the day that we’re saying is officially ntc time. Um, back in the in person conference, it was like registration opens at 7. 30 in the morning. You know, today, 30 we’re doing a reception all the way until 5. 30. Then we’re going to some party. You know, it’s like just so many hours, But now, knowing that we’re across time zones knowing that so many participants are going to have other people in their house off of their video right that they are needing to coordinate with in some way for life. And we kind of shrunk the number of hours in the day. And then we’ve also like, each day the keynote is at a different time, so that if folks really can’t join in the morning their

[01:09:58.09] spk_1:
time,

[01:10:47.46] spk_3:
they on a different day, they could join the keynote live, you know. So first day there’s a morning, middle day, there’s a middle, and last day there’s an end of conference keynote. So folks across times and honestly, we are really hoping that folks, you know, unplugged their headphones and kind of turn the computer to their whole family. And, you know, these are conversations you should totally invite your kids in to listen to or your partner or your parents, you know, whoever you live with, um, both for these awesome keynotes. And like I said, at the end of the day, there’s going to be art sessions live bands like sit down for dinner and just, you know, unplug your headphones and let the band play while you have dinner. We really wanted to feel like the NTC

[01:10:48.39] spk_1:
family. It’s a family affair.

[01:10:50.00] spk_3:
Bring your family.

[01:10:51.35] spk_1:
Bring your family for no extra cost. No extra

[01:10:53.57] spk_3:
cost. Exactly.

[01:11:12.66] spk_1:
Yeah. All right. All right. Cool. Um, it’s exciting. Well, all right, the last thing I gotta ask you about this is how can is there was there anyway, would you were able to conceive of any way to replicate the food experience of an in person NTC. That’s such a great all registrants being shipped a food item to share. How could we or it just It just wasn’t possible.

[01:11:50.86] spk_3:
Yeah, it’s such a good question because we did actually talk about it, and I have no part that’s a challenge or that presented. The biggest challenge for us is the food expectations that we share with our partner. And whatever Ben you were working with is, you know, very high percentage of the food is allergen free is, you know, can match various both, like religious or allergy needs all of these things

[01:11:53.14] spk_1:
and you do gluten free, right? So being

[01:12:55.25] spk_3:
able to find, like a packaged product that was packaged and could be shipped and still not be bad, it was like, what would we send, you know, just like dehydrated lettuce or something like, I don’t know what could match everything and be packaged. So instead, we have put together an attendee kit that if you register by early next week, you’ll receive yours before the conference. After that, you’ll still receive one but shifting this on you, who knows when it will arrive? But it’s got, you know, all all kinds of, like, the fun, great, reusable, environmentally friendly kind of swag that you maybe would have picked up in the exhibit hall. And so instead, we’ll ship it to you so you can still join And, you know, hold hold up your stuff with the logo on video, but no food, because that felt like I felt like a real gamble.

[01:13:05.15] spk_1:
I understand. I understand. All right, well, we’ll have to look, we look forward to 2022 because the food is exemplary. So I had exactly absolutely. All right. All right. Um, I think we just leave folks with the u R. L go to n 10 dot org slash ntc, but you just go to n 10 dot org. It’s right on the homepage to its right up top and

[01:13:30.15] spk_3:
registration. I mean, it’s a virtual event. Registration doesn’t have to close before the event, so come on over. We have decided to keep the member rate low and not raise it for late registration. So, pro tip. Just get your membership, which is on a sliding scale of the amount you can pay. And then you get the low conference rate any day.

[01:14:15.04] spk_1:
Okay, Prototype. Thank you. All right. And 10 dot org slash ntc. I endorsed the conference year after year. This is my sixth or seventh, Um, and you’ll hear lots of smart folks from, uh, from the NTC Speaker roster on on nonprofit radio, but attend the conference. I mean, for no other reason. Well, there’s lots of reasons, but part of it is supporting in 10 support the community. It is. It’s a It’s a diverse, supportive, in itself fun community. And that is a type of community that we should be supporting.

[01:14:22.44] spk_3:
Awesome. Thank you, Tony. You are always an amazing supporter.

[01:15:34.24] spk_1:
Plus, you’ll learn a shitload. There’s that. Thank you. All right. My pleasure. Absolutely. Thank you. Amy. Good to talk to you. You’ll find her at Amy at Amy R s Ward. And, of course, n 10 and 10 dot org. But you want to go to intent dot org slash ntc. Thanks, Amy. Good to talk to you. Thanks, tony. Next week. Relationships with Funders by Shavon Richardson If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o. 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, You with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Special Episode: Tech Equity

My Guest:

Amy Sample Ward: Tech Equity

Amy Sample Ward

NTEN has a new guide on equity for nonprofit technology, to deepen the racial equity conversation. To explore and reveal intersecting inequities between technology and nonprofits. You know who my guest is. You know who it has to be. Amy Sample Ward, NTEN’s CEO and our technology contributor.

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[00:01:31.24] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. This is a special episode of non profit radio to help you be the change around racism and white privilege. Tech Equity and 10 has a new guide on equity for non profit technology to deepen the racial equity conversation to explore and reveal intersecting inequities between technology and non profits. You know who my guest is? You know who it has to be. It’s a me sample ward and tends CEO and our technology contributor response erred by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives, raise more money, change more lives for a free demo and a free month. It’s my pleasure. Always a privilege to welcome Amy Sample Ward to the show. She is our social media and technology contributor and CEO of her most recent co authored book is social Change Anytime everywhere, which is actually running a little old Now you’ve been resting on that laurel for a while.

[00:01:34.73] spk_0:
I was gonna say the same thing. I was gonna say, Gosh, I just looked at the book the other day and saw how many years ago that came out. I think we have to like, we gotta find some other filler sentence for that intro.

[00:01:48.29] spk_1:
Oh, you don’t want to write a new book. We just

[00:01:50.23] spk_0:
What? What? What is there? What would I write a book about? You know?

[00:01:56.14] spk_1:
Oh, you’re a bright person. Oh, there’s more to say about technology. You could go deeper into technology subject, but it’ll be a lot easier if tony-martignetti just changed your intro.

[00:02:06.05] spk_0:
Yeah, then there’s no like writing.

[00:02:16.94] spk_1:
Alright. No six months of writing, collaborating, finding publishers. None of that imagine. Imagine the eat that I could let you off the hook with on Dhe. You’ll find her, of course, at Amy Sample Ward dot or GE and at a me RS ward, the not so recent author. Any simple words?

[00:02:26.34] spk_0:
How you doing

[00:02:26.76] spk_1:
out there? Portland,

[00:03:27.24] spk_0:
You know, after feels, I think it feels kind of moment to moment in Portland. Whether it’s Portland, especially inspired or scared or motivated or ready to just hunker down in the house and never leave again. You know, it’s kind of Ah, a many front situation happening in Portland right now between fires and protests. And cove it, of course, and so many things. So you know, it’s it’s interesting to visit as a team, and 10 has 15 staff and nine of us are in the Portland metro area and six are all over the U. S. So, um, you know, we’ve got staff in Seattle in San Francisco and New York and all these other places, so it feels like every day when staff meet, you know, there’s there’s kind of, like our correspondents out in the field reporting in from all the different the different corners of all these different issues, you know, And it kind of helps everybody feel connected and informed in, like, a real way versus Oh, I saw this random article that got tweeted. You know, it’s like, No, you’re really in that city. What’s it feel like? You know,

[00:04:02.44] spk_1:
you’re the 1st 30 minutes of your staff meetings were probably what’s happening in San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Right in Portland for those outside. Yeah. Um, okay, let’s talk about equity equity and technology

[00:04:06.94] spk_0:
sounds again.

[00:04:11.64] spk_1:
So how did N 10 get into this guide.

[00:06:35.54] spk_0:
Well, since we’re talking about this for the whole show, I’ll tell you the long story version and that is that a number of years ago, actually, in 2016 a tw the end of that year you may remember something of note happened that has shifted some of the direction of our country and we twice a year. All staff have, like, come together in person. If you could remember what what being in person with other people was like on the board also has to in person meetings a year and at the staff and the board in person time. At the end of 2016. We did this kind of like a visioning exercise, But it’s not the type where we were trying to create a new strategic plan envisioning specific toe intend, but mostly saying, like, What do we think is gonna get worse in the sector? What is there anything that’s going to get better? Are the things they’re going to stay the same just like what? What’s the environment we’re working in? And then from there, what kind of role could we play in service to that? Because then 10 really sees our work as community centered in service to the community and the number one opportunity that came out from both the boards work and the staff’s work. Waas being a leader in talking about or putting forward information about that intersection of ethics and equity and what we are doing. We’re using technology tools that are also being used. Bite people holding kids in cages were using technology tools that are making a ton of money off of us were you know, like all of these pieces, that whether we can change those things or not, we can at least name those things and equipped folks to better understand them and talk about them and make decisions to kind of navigate what all those implications are for their staff and for their community. So we started really elevating that type of content in articles and, you know, within the community a lot of NTC sessions on Dhe. Then last year in 2019 it was like, Okay, it’s really time for something that folks could like, you know, print and hold in their hand and say, like there’s a lot of ideas here for me to work with, you know, something more than individual sessions or articles. So we put together really diverse and honestly, just like super cool. Like I loved getting to talk to all these people working group of community members, folks that work, you know, in in building tools and using tools that, you know, all all across the spectrum. There have.

[00:07:23.00] spk_1:
Ah, a lot of the work group members were We’re have been guests. Oh, really? That’s awesome. Raj Aggarwal, Tracy Krohn Zach Tristan Penn who works for in 10 Jason Shim Ruben Sing. And they have all been guests. Yeah,

[00:07:25.21] spk_0:
well, look at you. You’re pulling the right people. You know,

[00:07:28.79] spk_1:
we are. I am. We are. Yes.

[00:07:33.54] spk_0:
So we had this big working group on dhe. Really? Just went through a lot of, you know, idea intake and try and kind of synthesize that and then regroup and talk it through and brainstorm or things. And, you know, I think what ultimately came out is a guide. I know we kind of talked about this before, but just to name why we named it that. Yeah, Report

[00:07:59.24] spk_1:
versus guide. Okay. We’ll talk about that.

[00:08:06.84] spk_0:
Yeah, we I mean, we really wanted to create something and make clear that even this thing we’ve put out is probably gonna look different six months from now as the sectors that were working in change as we as organizations changes, people change, you know, there might. We might feel there’s more things we can add to it. There might, because it feels like it becomes the standard and we don’t need to name it anymore, and ADM. Or, you know,

[00:08:32.42] spk_1:
right it sounds artificial to say it’s a report on equity racial inequity in technology used by non profits. E think of the conversation.

[00:09:39.44] spk_0:
The other piece that we really wanted to acknowledge in this is that it is not like it’s not comprehensive. This, like in so far, is like this is not the list. You know, there’s nothing else to dio that would improve equity. Um, and you know, it’s not the things that are included there. We really are like bumpers or directional guides. They don’t tell you what the policy should be, because ultimately the specifics of the policy you’re gonna be based on your organization and your staff. And how many staff do you have? And where do they were? You know, there’s all these other pieces that we don’t know, But we can tell you like Don’t go past this bar, you know, stay within these bumpers on dhe that will get you going in the right direction. So ultimately downloading or reading on the on the website, the Equity guide is just like the jumping off point to a lot of work. It is not already the work for you. You

[00:09:53.84] spk_1:
know, I was very careful to when I was writing the description, I wanted to say to reveal intersecting inequities, not reveal the intersecting inequities again. A ZX If it’s if it’s the finally

[00:10:03.32] spk_0:
the only ones. Yeah,

[00:10:37.54] spk_1:
right. This is all. There’s no more exploration to do now. You’re like like the entire white privilege. Racism, conversation. It’s a It is a It’s a conversation. It’s a journey. You know, Every guest I’m talking about these issues with says the same thing. No, of course. And I know you and I have talked about it. It’s long term. It’s not a check off item, it’s it’s maybe never done, but it Z it’s consciousness. It’s working through policies. It’s having difficult conversations, so there isn’t going to be a definitive guide and definitive report record, right?

[00:11:06.34] spk_0:
You want this to, of course, be used at organizations that maybe haven’t done a lot of investing specific Teoh Mawr Equitable outcomes internally or with their community as well as organizations who feel like they really have, you know, and 10 has really deeply and across the organization invested in equity work. We look at this list and are like shit, man, there’s a whole lot of work to dio, right? Like any organization, No matter how much you’ve already started or gone down that journey, it is forever work. So there’s tons on within the guidelines where we think, Oh, that’s we We’ve done something there. But now that we’ve done something, we can see how much more we could do there, right? We could see what even further down each of those roads could could be for us. So and this has to

[00:11:36.79] spk_1:
be continuing work because, right, it’s just as just the same as your um propagating your values, the organizational values when so when, when racial equity becomes a value, you don’t say your values have an end game. The value of, um, I’m trying to separate it from

[00:11:58.03] spk_0:
before. I mean, I think it’s a really great way to think about it, thinking about racial equity, the value, because all the other values you may have, you know, whatever they are, joy, you know, whatever. You also don’t see them as having a singular definition. You don’t say old equals this. You say, Hey, in this decision we’re trying to make right now, what would bold look like? Bold is our is our value. What would bold look like? Right. So why why wouldn’t we also say the same thing about equity and say, hey, in this situation in this decision, whatever we’re working on, what is that what you look like here? You know?

[00:12:35.84] spk_1:
Right. Okay. I just had the servant Ah ha. Moment around naming equity as a value of the organization on dhe. Therefore, and as you just described, all the other values don’t have in points checkoffs. Yeah, completion statements. Why would racial equity? Uh, okay. It was a bit of a moment for me. Sorry.

[00:12:58.65] spk_0:
I’m glad I could be here. I’m trainable, e.

[00:13:08.54] spk_1:
I swear I’m trainable. All right. Um, so equitable technology. So you talk about, um, inequities that intersect between the non profit community, non profit work and technology. That’s that’s the That’s what we’re trying to elucidate here in this in this guide that the way those two circles intersect

[00:16:42.54] spk_0:
Mhm. Okay, you know, I think that a lot of in equity, especially in equity related to our technology, gets overshadowed. Like every other instance in organizations, we kind of look less at the technology because we’re focused almost exclusively on programs. And so we’re saying, you know, just like we do in budget conversations or anything else. You know, there’s this focus on programs, and so equity looks like how racially diverse are our participants or something like that, which is important. And I’m not saying Don’t look at that. But that’s not the end of what equity means in your organization, especially when we start talking about technology. Because if you’re providing service is or programs to a racially diverse group of community members and you’re using a technology tool, you know you’re using ah database, for example, where they register on your website for those programs. And it requires they enter certain data that some groups either don’t have or feel really untrusting trying to give that data to you. And you’re not thinking that through that right there is already a nen equity, right you are. You are trying to discourage certain people even though you don’t maybe recognize it, or or unconsciously making the decision to do it. You are discouraging groups of folks from participating in your programs just because of that technology decisions, you know, So technology doesn’t operate just visit’s itself. You know, it’s not just the hammer sitting on the shelf. It is what’s allowing you to do your work to communicate with people. Thio Get them registered for that program, whatever it is, And we can’t let go of technology being that instrumental to all of our other decisions. Otherwise, we’re not going to acknowledge, like, really what’s influencing the outcome there. And, of course, then we think about, you know, non profits and the the technology sector. I think one big area that we talked a lot about in the working group WAAS organizations aren’t inclusive in the ways they make decisions, so so often we see non profits, not including community members in decisions about the way the program might run or the way the website might be redesigned. Those air, anything that involves the participants should have have those participants in the same process for the decision and the planning. But organizations so rarely do that. And then, on the technology side, we have a really not diverse group of people building these tools. So we’re having a real lack of inclusivity of any kind in the building of the tool, then being used by an organization whose not including all of the participants in the decision to use it or how to use it. Of course, it’s gonna enter some problems, right? Like there’s no way that that can’t be the outcome here. A very small group of people made it, and now an organization is using it kind of without their eyes open to it.

[00:17:21.84] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They help you build relationships with journalists because of a relationship built by turn to the New York community. Trust got to features in the Wall Street Journal. That’s how well it works when you have the existing relationships turn to specializes in working with nonprofits. One of the partners, Peter Penna Pento, was an editor at The Chronicle of philanthropy. There are turn hyphen two dot c o Now back to tech equity. So let ZX spend a little time. Let’s let’s talk about the the guide itself. Oh, you you haven’t You haven’t organized for for users and for builders of technology and for funders,

[00:17:36.64] spk_0:
which is profit. Could be all three of those things, right?

[00:17:51.74] spk_1:
It certainly could, Absolutely. If you’re building technology and you make and you provide grants, you you fund fund people or organizations, of course, equitable text. So, you know, there’s a lot of you gotta look for listeners. You just got to get the guide. I mean, waken doom or than weaken then I can with authors, Right? Because those air 250 page books, this is not a 250 page guide. It maybe, maybe maybe in a couple of generations it will be,

[00:18:10.42] spk_0:
but so we can currently Currently I think it’s 27 pages.

[00:18:25.04] spk_1:
Okay. All right. So you got to get the guide. If you want to do this work, if you wanna be making be centering equity among all your other values as you make your technology decisions as you think about technology and the way it’s used in your organization or purchased in your organization, or maintained or used by those who you’re serving or any of your other constituents. And, you know, you gotta get the guide, obviously, which, uh, the guide we could just get the guided and 10 dot or ge right?

[00:18:46.24] spk_0:
Yep, totally free up on the website. If you go to end 10 or GE and then you click on resource is listed right there.

[00:19:09.44] spk_1:
Okay, so let’s talk about Equitable Tech Not assuming tech expertise. Yeah, training, you know, having equitable policies around use, um, providing money where a lot of organizations wouldn’t typically What? What? What are our concerns here? What do you what? The group

[00:19:17.49] spk_0:
we’ll talk

[00:19:18.24] spk_1:
about here

[00:22:23.24] spk_0:
that, you know, hiring folks whenever they think about having a more diverse staff. Racially diverse staff. They always think thio hiring new people because the place they’re coming from is a staff that isn’t diverse. Writer is predominantly white, and there’s this feeling that, like, well, so we’ll just not change any of our higher being process or change. Our organizational culture will just hire people of color through that process somehow which, if that If that was all that was gonna happen, then you wouldn’t be in the situation, right? Especially when it comes Thio technology roles. And that doesn’t mean that it’s like the I T director, as we talked about before it, you know, communications director is the technology staff person, right? Like they’re making lots of technology decisions all the way across an organization. So recognizing that the folks who have had all kinds of systemic access and encouragement to go to college to graduate from college, to graduate from college with a computer science or some other technical degree like guess who those people are super well resourced white men, right? Like that’s just been the reality we’ve had for decades. So if you’re hiring for roles that use technology and you’re saying that you require a college degree, you require a degree in some specific field that you, um, are expecting folks to apply and already have experience or knowledge of specific products, your you are signaling in that job description. We are looking for that well resourced white man, right, because while of course there’s like exceptions to that reality, that’s not you’re not going to necessarily find the exception in there, right? So what? What’s the difference in saying that someone has a college degree or not like, Are they having to write term papers for their job? Like, I don’t know that that isn’t necessary In 2020. I don’t know that we need to rely on those kind of outdated expectations. Nor do we need to say you already know how to use all the products that we use. Well, did all of your staff know how to use them when you bought them? No. You trained them. Why wouldn’t you train a new person? You know, so really investing in hiring great people who love your mission, want to do your work are from the community you serve and knowing that regardless of the position, regardless of the title, once you’re hired, we give you all the training you need to succeed. Not somehow. We think that you should magically already have all of that training. And that makes you the perfect candidate because the folks who would have had historical like jobs before that also use the same tools. Like all of those things are filtering towards the most privileged people. When you let go of all those expectations and say no, Like, we wanna hire great people who care about our work. And once you’re hired, well, make sure you’re successful. Like who wouldn’t want to work in that environment? A. And B, you’re opening it up for anyone, regardless of what their past jobs, maybe, or what tools those other nonprofits use. Like they could have great experience with databases just because that organization used a different one. You know that that shouldn’t preclude someone from getting a job.

[00:23:03.94] spk_1:
So let’s let’s flush this out more and and explore more. Uh, and I guess, I mean, I feel like I’m playing Devil’s Advocate. I didn’t intend to, but the

[00:23:04.37] spk_0:
devil doesn’t need an advocate. E think the devil’s okay? You just ask what you want to ask

[00:23:51.44] spk_1:
you. Uh, and the report, the guide is, um, even drills down to like, operating systems. You know that. Why would you have to say, Why do you need to say familiarity with or or proficient with the Microsoft Suite, Microsoft Office Suite of Tools? You know, because you could you could train that. I guess I’m thinking a little higher level a college degree college degree. So I’ve, you know, I’ve had this conversation with other guests to it might have even been Raj. Um, so this isn’t the first time, but it’s been a while. Yeah, a college degree. There’s certain skills and expertise that’s presumed from a college degree. So let’s not quibble about whether you know one college degree has means that the person can write and read and speak articulately and different. College degree means it doesn’t. That means they can’t. It doesn’t necessarily mean that. Let’s just assume that there’s that there’s a certain skill and expertise level and

[00:24:17.48] spk_0:
eso can you just skills.

[00:24:18.73] spk_1:
I mean, can you just commemorate the skills that you need without having to say you have to have a college degree to have acquired them?

[00:24:25.84] spk_0:
Right? Totally Skills E. I think that there is

[00:24:29.56] spk_1:
advocate really just flushing it out. So

[00:26:25.14] spk_0:
on there is a time and place. You’re saying you have this specific degree or specific certification because the job you’re applying for is a mental health worker, and you need to be certified in our state social work that keep those instances very specific and very separate from we’re hiding, hiring a communications director. We’re hiring a program manager. What does a college degree make or break for that role? Like I have a bachelor’s degree in literature like I in creative writing and I am the CEO of the technology organization. Like what? What’s the correlation there like? Yes, I’m very proficient at writing emails, but that’s not because I have an English degree. You know, like just name, name those skills. And I think it can also be very. I think organizations try to equate the tiered education system with their organizational tear. So they are reliant internally on a very archaic, perfect pyramid shaped or chart. And so they’re thinking, Well, if we’re gonna hire anyone you know in that leadership tier of the triangle, whether it’s see sweeter, you know, directors, whatever their title structure, as then those folks need to have like a master’s thio. Others people have, you know, only a bachelor. Why, I would argue someone who spent even longer in school versus out in the community or in the work force has less personal expertise, right, because they haven’t been doing it. So to try and like map to that, you know, and that then rolls into Well, then who gets those jobs? Also gets paid more because that work structure is also reliant on saying that people a different titles make a different amount of money

[00:26:38.43] spk_1:
forces the privilege of having

[00:26:40.78] spk_0:
exactly, exactly, exactly, it’s just a permanent circle. You know,

[00:26:47.14] spk_1:
some of the details like providing money for Internet connections, not assuming that people can afford that giving technology, not expecting it to exist when it’s required for work.

[00:27:08.22] spk_0:
Those things have certainly come up with these air like these are so many

[00:27:22.84] spk_1:
things that air sort of innocuous. I mean, like like asking for a college degree. It z well, it’s become so commonplace. Everybody has a cell phone. Everybody can afford Internet and high speed WiFi. But another of those things are true. So

[00:27:36.54] spk_0:
and and just because one has a phone that you have a staff of 10 people and all people when they were hired said they had a smartphone. What smartphone they have, what data plan they have, what, how many minutes they have, even like what functionality is available for That type of phone is probably not the same, and the idea that it’s just on them to use their personal phone. If there’s something that you you need someone to use, then you need to give it to them. We can’t operate in this world where whatever you personally already had or invested in is going to make or break your professional success. That’s that’s not going toe ever end inequitable way

[00:28:19.94] spk_1:
data, data usage you touched on it and you start to touch on the collection part. And while you were talking about collection, I was thinking about the individual questions that you ask, Do you have quickly binary male female? First of all, you need to even ask Do the gender matter. And But how? How narrow are the choices that you’re offering in that lots of other places. What do you What do you want to say about data?

[00:29:10.44] spk_0:
I feel like data is so tricky for organizations, you know, it’s It’s something that I think from, you know, a decade of the greater sector, talking about how organizations need to be data driven and data informed, and you know what data do you have? And you know, there’s just been such a focus in in a kind of a more FIC way that nonprofits need to really care about Jada, that they now really care about data. They don’t know why they care about it or necessarily, like what to do about it. There isn’t.

[00:29:18.64] spk_1:
Well, they’re gonna

[00:29:19.08] spk_0:
mind data practice,

[00:29:21.04] spk_1:
get a lot of data, and then we’re gonna mine it

[00:30:40.24] spk_0:
on. Then we’re gonna use We’re gonna upload it all into this like a I machine, and it’s gonna tell us who’s going to donate to us, who’s going to do whatever. Who’s gonna come to our programs? Yeah, but I think the very first piece, I would say, is not just acknowledging but truly accepting and making all of your decisions around data from the perspective that it is not yours. It is each of those people’s data and you, for a temporary amount of time, have access to it. If that is the place where you can make your decisions from that, you need to be doing everything in your power to protect it. To Stuart it to make sure they know what data you have that it’s clean and updated. Your your relationship to that data changes. And I think even just in that relationship change will get organizations on a better path, you know. And then once you’re in that mindset, it’s so obvious to say, Well, of course, those people should be controlling their data and able to edit it at any time or request that we delete it, you know, and don’t keep the record anymore, like you kind of roll out from there so many of the things that are in the guides just because it’s obvious. Once you have the mindset that it’s not your data,

[00:30:48.70] spk_1:
you know they own it, they own.

[00:31:16.84] spk_0:
And if it’s, there’s of course, you shouldn’t just offer binary options on gender or anything else, right, because you don’t know it’s not your data, so you can’t have already decided what the option is. You know, I think that mindset shift really influences a lot and open the door for you to say, Hey, the outcomes of this program aren’t ours to decide. Participants benefiting from our programs and service is actually get to decide what the outcome of that program was for

[00:31:31.04] spk_1:
them. Yes, that was a very interesting winning the guide that that who sets the metrics for success? What is success in our program or programs. What is it? How is it defined? Right, right,

[00:31:52.74] spk_0:
which I don’t think is is far from ideas that you have certainly thought about whether or not they’re They’re super like widely accepted now, But even in fundraising, right that like someone participating in that in a fundraise e or ah, donation relationship with you like you don’t necessarily have to say. Okay, well, your donating $10 and it’s specifically going to this, But what kind of thank you they want? What kind of recognition they want isn’t for you necessarily to decide it’s Do you want to be recognized? Do you want to be acknowledged? You know? So I think once we remember that as organizations, we are essentially the facilitators of change making. We’re not the ones who owned the data. Who owned the program? Who owned the success, who owned the impact? Like we let go of essentially a lot of a lot of pressure. Teoh be like fortune tellers or something and and future tellers and instead say, we’re facilitating this program. These participants air coming through and look, they’re like five different outcomes that were achieved. And it’s great not every single person had one outcome. They liked it in the same way. They’re gonna use it in the same way, like it’s all humans that were interacting with. And we need to We need to bring back that human focusing.

[00:33:15.84] spk_1:
This is related to funding. So you have a whole. You have several ideas for funders to think about to act on. What do you want to say to our institutional funders?

[00:33:18.74] spk_0:
Uh, you do have some work to dio

[00:33:54.14] spk_1:
time for our last break dot drives dot drives Engagement dot drives relationships. Dot drives is the simplest donor pipeline fundraising tool. It’s customizable, collaborative, intuitive. If you want to move the needle on your prospect and donor relationships, get the free demo for listeners. There’s also a free month. You go to the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. You know what we’ve got we’ve got but loads more time for tech equity.

[00:36:06.83] spk_0:
I think funders air in a tricky spot because not on Lee do all of the same Inequitable outcomes happen as faras using technology like there’s still a kind of non profit using technology and doing work, so they’ve got, like, all of that section of work to Dio, and they also have the relationship where they are investing in the sector. There’s there’s some shifts that I think need to happen there, especially for funders who are saying that they don’t invest in technology, not investing in technology. Like I think the last six months have shown what has happened to a sector that has been chronically under resourced and technology, and when a lot of organizations or getting donations or grants, that’s a You can’t use this on technology. Guess what? The outcome of that ISS the last six months. It is organizations who cannot continue to function, who I’ve already started closing their divorce, who cannot transition programs online and don’t know don’t have the internal capacity to do that. So we we just can’t any longer have grants that say, you can’t use this on technology like you can’t have a program without the database that stores all the participants in it. Why would the grant for that program not include the database? Right? It’s just ridiculous. Thes air these air, the necessary tools for programs success. They have to be part of every gram on dhe. I think the other piece that we’ve seen, We’re gonna We’ve seen funders try even just over the last number of years. And during the pandemic is we have solved this for you. We’ve chosen the tool, or we’ve chosen the consultant. And now, if you apply for this grant, what you actually get is for free. We’re going to give you this product that we, as the thunder have decided that you all will use. Or we’ve paid for this consultant who’s gonna go set this thing up for all of you. Why in any world would that be a successful strategy? You know, a single technology be known in advance to be the right tool for all this?

[00:36:17.45] spk_1:
Sounds like something that a company would do. And it would be more for a ZX the guy brings out. It would be more for visibility. That impact, right? If

[00:36:25.37] spk_0:
it’s such an easy route, right, its

[00:36:27.80] spk_1:
ability is your goal. Then that’s the I mean, I’m giving an answer to your rhetorical question,

[00:36:47.33] spk_0:
right? I mean, it’s honestly, like a lazy way to approach capacity building. You’re not accepting that there’s nuance in any of this work and that there would be differences and needs and you’re just saying like Here’s here’s one giant hammer. I hope it works for all of your work sites by you

[00:36:57.13] spk_1:
know, what about for technology creators? Way said earlier. Non profit could be. It could very well be a builder of technology as well.

[00:38:10.72] spk_0:
Mhm. Yeah, there are. I think it’s more common than, you know. Maybe the broader us really thinks about how many nonprofits are building technology because it may not even be technology that they sell, or even that they share or distribute. It could just be technology that they built for themselves to do something. But all the same kind of guidelines apply. You know, how are you building tools for unending use or an end community and not including those people in the process? There’s There’s just no way that it’s going that you could never assume it’s gonna work for those folks if those folks are not part of the process. Um, that doesn’t mean you need to have you know, 50 different people trying to be in the code on your website or something that you know, we’re not. We’re not saying that, but there are plenty of ways to include folks in scoping out what you’re gonna build testing it, piloting it, um, you know, making it over time. And the more of those folks that are included, the better the product will be. And and in the world of technology, I mean, success equals adoption. So if you really want it to be adopted, you really want people to successfully use it. Then you better be including them so that when it gets to them, it does work, and it is what they needed to be. Andi, I think

[00:40:12.86] spk_1:
I was talking about this in the early 19 eighties when when I was when I was getting the degree that I don’t use, which is from Carnegie Mellon degree, uh, information systems. I asked Economics and Information system, and we had to develop a creative build a project our fourth year. Our our senior project course was an inventory control system for the maintenance and Facilities Department. So we brought the users in who were not I mean, these guys. This is the guy who runs the inventory room, right? College degree. He wasn’t even white, but he was gonna be the he was gonna be. He’s one of the prime users. We were building this for it was a bunch of white. Mostly, I don’t know if it was mostly male, probably probably Waas, but this mostly male white group, you know, bringing this thing this man of color in tow help teach us how he does his job and how what we’re scoping out is going to impact his his work life on and teaching us, you know, teaching. But so we were talking about this in 1984 you know, bringing users. And that’s just the end user. There’s also the people who are entering data maybe not as users, but or not as recurring users, but as new users as benefit from your program as they check in for the meal or the overnight stay or the bag of uh huh of food. You know what, so right, Inclusive e. I mean, it was just called inclusive design,

[00:41:47.81] spk_0:
right? And how do you compensate those people? How do you acknowledge those people? How do you give them actual power in the process? You know, like again if we if we think about this as we’re just here as the facilitators of this work then it is clear that they should have our They should be able to influence our plans. You know, this isn’t just for the sake of saying we had some user group come in and five of five people and they gave us the feedback. You know, like, this isn’t This isn’t to check the box. This is to say, Hey, we’re the facilitators of change of the process and we’re here for you. So, like, let’s find the path. And I think, of course, that’s, like, so counter and scary to the old white dominant way of managing technology managing organizations, you know, Why would you ever give up control willingly? But I guess I’d argue. Like, what control do you really think you have? You know, like the idea that you’re giving up control. Well, right now, if you’re really trying to, like, hold everything in and make every decision internal. Are you having a tonic success? Like, have you met your mission? Is your mission all done like I don’t know that it’s something you really need to try and hold on to. Because if you can be far more centered on the community, you also have the benefit of Of likely accelerating that impact and more, more rapidly meeting your mission. Right? Because

[00:42:32.30] spk_1:
another word for controllers power. You’re giving up your surrendering power, which which so many people think you know, it’s it’s zero sum. So whatever I lose, you know, whatever I give up, I don’t have any more. But that’s like that’s like finding time. Well, you find the time. No, you make the time. Otherwise the time Or, you know, uh, you know, it’s time. It’s it’s a It’s the same abstract concept. It, um So the surrender of power, they and I would even hesitate to say the delegation of power. But it’s because then it’s

[00:42:36.73] spk_0:
just acknowledging that actually, these other bodies,

[00:42:40.35] spk_1:
these other, like I’m making a sign of across I give you power,

[00:42:44.40] spk_0:
right? No, it’s it’s just technology that everyone already had power. It was just power. You denied before. And now you’re saying, Oh, I’m gonna like actually listen to that You’re not getting ready of any of yours. You’re just technology that everyone else also has power on dhe. What does it look like? All work together and put all of that power towards the same direction.

[00:43:06.77] spk_1:
And then, you know, sometimes you hear well, that’ll be anarchy because they’ll be Everybody will have all

[00:43:13.96] spk_0:
the same power jurisdiction. So

[00:43:38.00] spk_1:
you know, your ruled by Antifa? Uh, that was purely sarcastic. Uh, no. I mean the the authority is still gonna be recognized. It’s not like it’s not like by by giving voice to other folks, you’re no longer the CEO of intent or, you know, you’re no longer people don’t no longer recognize you as the chair of the board. It’s not. It’s not that way. It’s not anarchy. It’s tze just inclusivity,

[00:44:40.39] spk_0:
right? I mean, if you’ve always relied on defining your job, is the CEO as being the only one allowed to make decisions? A. You probably put a ton of pressure on yourself. Be You were likely never the best person to make those decisions. So were they ever that great? Anyway, you know, it’s like remember, you’re just the facility. You’re the facilitator. Is the CEO of your organization being successful? That doesn’t mean you make all the decisions. It means you’re the facilitator. You make sure the right staff were making decisions or the right community members got to be part of things like let go of again. It’s not the power or the control. Just let go of these really outdated definitions of who we need to be in these roles so that we can get out of the way of all of this inequity, right? Like, create or make that space so that people are in this work together because then it’s gonna be better work.

[00:44:56.19] spk_1:
Yeah. Get out of the way of the inequity. No! Get out of the way of the equity. Out of the way you want. You want to stand out of the way so that equity can come through? Yes. Don’t want to get out of the way of the inequity.

[00:45:04.83] spk_0:
Car

[00:45:05.87] spk_1:
inequity would prevail. You want to get out of the way of the equity? Alright, stand clear and the equity will emerge. Okay. Um So what else? Let’s let’s start to wrap up. What else you wanna tell us about the report? That the guide, the guide? I’m sorry. The guy that we didn’t talk about, I

[00:46:16.78] spk_0:
think the thing that I would love to say is, you know, it’s all, um it’s all it’s all practice, right? Like you’re not going toe. Read anything in the guide and have it be like word for word, something you copy paste. And now that’s your policy or anything else. And yeah, and also there’s nothing in there that you’ll that you’ll, you know, be directed or inspired to put forward in your organization. That’s gonna be like quote unquote right the first time. Because there is There is no right on Lee Path in this work, and it’s really committing Thio, the practice of of focusing on equity and trying Thio identify and make clear where they’re inequitable outcomes so that you can again practice how to get to a better place on dhe. In that vein, you know, the working group isn’t done. The working group is still the working group. They are excited to continue working together to find places to add or adjust things in the guide. And we really, really want to hear from organizations who read the guide and, you know, try and do something in their organization with it. They, you know, have ah, internal committee that looks at these ideas and tries to make recommendations or whatever. Like if you try and use this guide. Let us know. Let us know how it goes. If if you’ve got things that you wanna share, we gladly publish them on the in 10. Um, you know, publish an article from you on the intense site. Um, you know, whether it was, like, a learning process or something, that well, whatever it is, we really just want to hear from folks that are using it so that we can find, you know, is there more that we could put in here to help you translate this into your work? Is there Are there places that you’re finding? Ah, lot of challenge that we could address with more guidelines. You know, um, And if you’re really into this and you want to join the working group, you can also let us know, and we’ll just add you to the working group. And you could be part of this work as well. So ultimately, just go use it. Read it, share it with your funders, share it with the vendors you’re considering buying technology from, you know, and be in conversation with us, so that we can kind of learn from how you do it.

[00:48:03.17] spk_1:
And the report explicitly asks for folks to join the working group. Your email AMIA 10 10 or GE.

[00:48:05.77] spk_0:
Yep. So yeah, email me in time.

[00:48:24.94] spk_1:
Did you want me? Oh, you want Meteo? You want me to blank out your email address? No, you don’t mind, folks have no. Yeah, right. Okay. Thank you. Brava! Brava! Uh, in your simple word and 10.

[00:48:26.77] spk_0:
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for elevating this and helping us share it with more folks.

[00:49:31.17] spk_1:
Absolutely a pleasure on Thank you for doing it. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for helping next week Volunteer engagement and artists. Sunday. Yes. There’s someone taking over looking to take over the Sunday after Thanksgiving for artists. Artists Sunday were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives. Raise more money. Changed more lives. Tony dot mus slash dot for a free demo and a free month. Ah, creative producer is clear. Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy. And this music is by Scott Stein with me next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

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[00:00:57.60] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the unlearned. 95%. I’m your aptly named host. That live music can only mean one thing our 5/100 show. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I did get slapped with a diagnosis of Corretta Conus. If I saw that you missed today’s show the 5/100 it’s non profit radios, 10th Anniversary and 5/100 show. It’s also our last live stream. After today, we’re gonna be podcast only to celebrate all these milestones. We’ve got the whole gang together. Claire Meyerhoff are creative Producer is co hosting. We’ve got the live music from Scott Stein, composer of our theme music. Each of our esteemed contributors will be with us. Jean Takagi, Maria Simple and Amy Sample Ward, and we have a bunch of surprises.

[00:01:44.64] spk_2:
Our 5/100 show is sponsored by Cure Coffee connecting coffee lovers with coffee farmers and their families. Kira coffee dot com. We are also sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Visit tony dot m a slash Cougar Mountain for a free 60 day trial. And we are also sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn Hyson to dot co. That’s turned hyphen two dot co.

[00:01:50.24] spk_1:
That professional voice can only be one. It’s clear. Meyerhoff. Claire Meyerhoff, Welcome,

[00:02:01.24] spk_2:
tony-martignetti. This is the first time for us on Zoom. But I feel like you’re right here because you’re right there on my laptop.

[00:02:14.71] spk_1:
It feels it feels close. Yeah, Every every anniversary show has been, ah, in the studio. This one, of course, can’t be. But we pull it together because it’s the 10th anniversary and I’m grateful to you because you’ve been creative producer of this show since, like Episode one before that Episode zero You were creative producer.

[00:02:20.81] spk_2:
Yeah, about a little over 10 years ago, you and I had a dinner and you said, You know

[00:02:24.64] spk_5:
what I want to do. I want

[00:02:25.37] spk_2:
to do a radio show and I said, Do

[00:02:27.19] spk_5:
you have any idea how hard it is to do a radio show? And you’re like, No, I don’t care. I’m doing a radio

[00:02:32.22] spk_2:
show. Will you help

[00:02:33.62] spk_5:
me? And

[00:02:33.97] spk_2:
I said, sure. And here We are 10 years

[00:02:38.63] spk_1:
old playing love it, love it and you have that professional radio training to so that. But also

[00:02:43.96] spk_2:
I have a background in radio

[00:02:45.39] spk_1:
indeed, indeed. So how have you been? How are you managing what’s going on at the PG agency?

[00:02:51.53] spk_2:
Well, you know, I help. I help nonprofits of all shapes and sizes with their plan giving. And so that’s been fun. And I’ve been honing some of my skills at home like learning GarageBand and some different things that I didn’t have time to learn before. So that’s been that’s been quite interesting of a few new little endeavors, and I have some nice clients. It’s been interesting because I started out 2020 with this list of five clients I was working with, and then all of a sudden in March, like it all just changed and some went away, and one that was like a little project turned into now, like my main client, because they were in a different situation. So it’s really shown us sort of the fluidity of things in the nonprofit

[00:03:31.95] spk_1:
world. Well, that’s very gratifying. They love your work so much that they brought you in to do more.

[00:03:38.24] spk_2:
Yes, well, they had they had more need, and then other people had less less need and less money. So, um, I like more. More money and more need. That’s always That’s always good. When you’re independent person like we are,

[00:03:49.44] spk_1:
money follows expertise. That that’s you. And you. Um hey, Scott’s dying. How you been? I’m good. How are you, tony? Oh, fabulously Scott Stein, of course. The composer of cheap red wine, which you’ll be performing shortly. What’s been going on musically for you since, uh, late march?

[00:04:37.11] spk_3:
Uh um, Well, it’s certainly been a little slower than usual, as you can imagine is not a whole lot in the way of live music. Um, but finding ways to stay busy. Um, I teach and said my teaching it just has just gone online. Um, I have a couple of choirs that I conduct, and we are finding new and creative ways to stay active and stay connected and keep making music online. Ah, we all miss each other very much, but this is a good way to stay connected and, um, actually doing a couple of gigs here and there, mostly via zoom occasionally have been able to do an outdoor, socially distanced concert, Um, doing one a week from Sunday in Brooklyn, where I live, and, um so that’s always good. It’s just it’s just you just have to stay busy and stay active and and And that that keeps you motivated keeps you moving

[00:05:01.47] spk_1:
the online concerts. That sounds like an interesting idea. Yeah,

[00:05:10.88] spk_3:
it Ah, it works. You know, Um, it’s, um I think it’s probably gonna be with us for for a while, and but

[00:05:14.84] spk_5:
it’s, you know,

[00:05:47.00] spk_3:
it’s a nice way to play. It is a little weird. You finish a song and you’re used to hearing some sort of a pause and you just hear nothing. And so I mean, you hear you see people on mute clapping. It’s very And also when you banter, that’s the thing. Like, you know, we try to keep things light. And if you make a comment that you think it’s funny and you don’t get a response, it’s like I don’t know that was funny or not. I have no idea. I’ll just assume it was It’s strange, but it’s ah, you know, it keeps us making music, and that’s you know that’s the main thing right now.

[00:06:34.57] spk_1:
I attended a couple of online stand up comedy shows, Onda 1st 1 The producer kept this audience muted because he was afraid that people would be charming, intimate. But that was very disruptive to the comics to not know your I’ve done some some stand up, not to the caliber that these folks have, but you’re playing to the audience when the audience, when the laughter starts to subside, you know, you start talking, you don’t you don’t want a dead zone of no laughter, you know, and you got a time it. But they couldn’t do that because they don’t have the feedback. So but the producer learned, and then all the other shows. You know, the audience has been un muted, and they’ve been respectful and no hecklers. But it’s important for that. That feedback, you know, for a comic, just like you’re saying for a musician to get feedback.

[00:06:46.34] spk_3:
Yeah, And the best part about about doing this via Zoom though, is you do get a heckler. You can mute that person. Yes, you can. You can do that in a club. So? So there is that advantage. The

[00:06:57.07] spk_1:
equivalent would be like cutting off their head or having having I think security bounce there bounced their ass out, right? Yeah, In a live setting,

[00:07:05.47] spk_3:
it’s It’s a much less it requires a lot less aggression to just hit mute. Yeah, I kinda like that.

[00:07:20.24] spk_1:
Claire, did you do any any, um, performances by type, like your You void with that professional voice of yours, you have a podcast.

[00:07:21.77] spk_2:
I do have. I have a new podcast and I’ll be happy to chat a little bit about it. And that’s appropriate because the name of my podcast is charitable chitchat with Cathy and Claire

[00:07:34.91] spk_1:
considerations as much as I do. Well,

[00:07:36.54] spk_5:
it all works out

[00:08:23.10] spk_2:
cause it’s also Cathy with a C and clear with the sea. So we really like all our C. So I do it with with my friend and colleague Kathy Sheffield from Fort Worth, Texas, and she’s a very experienced, planned giving person, and she and I have talked about doing it for a while. And then when Cove it hit, we said, Well, we have no excuse. So I learned how to do garage band and record stuff, and I do all the editing and production, and Kathy and I do a podcast and it’s planned, giving focused. And each episode we have one guest, and we’ve had some awesome guests on from the California Community Foundation and North Well, Health Um, Nature Conservancy and a wonderful volunteer from the Girl Scouts of America who’s helped bring their plan giving program in less than 10 years from 400 plan giving donors to 4000. Yeah, nine years, so very successful programs. So we have a lot of great shows coming up, and, uh, it’s charitable. Should check dot com with Cathy and Claire.

[00:08:34.27] spk_1:
Is that that’s Is that what prompted the GarageBand learning that you talked about?

[00:08:43.04] spk_2:
Yes, it definitely prompted the GarageBand learning, and I had plenty of time to learn that. And, you know, I have a production background, but I had never worked with GarageBand, so some of it was intuitive and others. I was looking all over YouTube for tutorials and found some really helpful things. And hey, if I can do it, anybody can do it. So it’s It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s, you know, it’s nice to have a new project during Cove it because there’s nothing new, right? It’s like the same same house, Same different day.

[00:09:05.24] spk_1:
I did something similar. Other and audacity.

[00:09:07.64] spk_2:
Well, that’s great. Yeah, Audacity is a great A

[00:09:29.43] spk_1:
comparable GarageBand s. I knew so little about audacity when I started. I was ready to write a big check. I figured this is such a popular program app. It must be like 200 or 250 bucks. And that’s how little I knew about it. It’s free. Yes, audacity is absolutely. But I didn’t know that’s how little I knew. Right now I’ve gotten familiar with it.

[00:09:30.72] spk_2:
Well, there’s a lot to do when you learn like podcasting on your own. There isn’t sort of one solution out there That’s kind of like, Oh, the podcasting solution. No, you have to like, you have to record your interview on something like Zoom and get that into an MP three. Then you jump that into GarageBand or audacity. You cut that up, you add your music. That’s another situation, and then you have to up. I uploaded to Buzz Sprout after I’ve produced it, and then from Bud Sprout, you have to subscribe to the different service is like apple podcasts and Spotify and I heart radio and do that and and then you do it over and over, and it’s It’s a lot. It really is a lot to learn. There is a learning curve with do it yourself podcasting.

[00:10:21.69] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, You said you said you bring in the music. Let’s let’s bring in the music. Hey, Scott, remind us. Cheap red wine. Now, this is Ah, been our theme song for many years at ATTN. Non profit radio. Remind me the genesis of rind us the genesis of cheap red wine, please. And then and then play it for us.

[00:11:10.94] spk_3:
Sure. Ah, song Ah, I recorded it on a record back in 2009 record called Jukebox, and I’d wrote it probably about a year before that. Um, I like to describe this is coming from my angry young man phase. You wouldn’t know it from maybe from listening to it, but ah, yeah, I was. I was living, um, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and, um, social circles that Iran in when I wasn’t playing, which was to say, my roommate’s friends Ah, there was a lot of people who worked in law and Finance. And I think they didn’t know quite what to make of me. They didn’t kind of understand that you could play music for a living, and, um and so and it’s also a big single scene up there. And I was single at the time, and I got a little cynical because I sort of felt like I was just in the wrong profession to be dating. So this some kind of grew out of that? Um I will add that I have been happily married for seven years now with, uh, with a wonderful son. So it all worked out, but anyway, so that’s where the song kinda had its origins.

[00:11:34.88] spk_1:
Alright, Please, Scott Stein. Cheap red wine.

[00:14:43.24] spk_0:
Just keep on talking sooner or later off around. What you mean a TV screen way in each other? You know, I used to find a charming can hands now promise diamonds. They won’t tired of the cut of clothing that I will wear good stuff too easily distracted. Teoh, I got too many options, so I’m gonna My goodness. But maybe you have some competition with radio. A wealthy man. I got used promises on the way for Heaven’s national victor Sound. Nobody else. No way You used a charming but

[00:14:45.88] spk_2:
I can’t

[00:14:46.43] spk_5:
think

[00:14:49.46] spk_0:
how. Never mind it.

[00:14:50.32] spk_5:
Don’t matter now

[00:14:56.71] spk_0:
Your time promises.

[00:16:03.74] spk_1:
I love that song, Scott. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks. There’s nobody waiting in line. We’re just, like, cheap red wine. Thank you. I love it.

[00:16:07.77] spk_3:
I I remembered those lyrics

[00:16:14.04] spk_1:
I don’t worry about that happens. So, Claire, I got this. I got some new venture planned giving accelerator

[00:16:19.38] spk_2:
s. It sounds very, very exciting.

[00:16:21.78] spk_1:
You in the plan? Giving space. So, yes,

[00:16:23.44] spk_2:
I am

[00:16:31.68] spk_1:
in the, uh, arena of shameless self promotion. Uh, okay. Planned giving accelerator. It’s, um it’s a membership community. I launched it two weeks ago. Nonprofits joined for an annual membership on, and I will teach them everything I know about starting and then growing. Yes, Land giving programs.

[00:16:45.73] spk_2:
That sounds great. So is it a month? Do people come on a webinar monthly or how do what do What do people get for their yearly subscription? How does that look to the to the non profit person hoping to grow their plane giving program?

[00:17:04.08] spk_1:
No, I hadn’t thought through that? No, they, uh, like tony get we’re gonna have ah, got

[00:17:05.89] spk_5:
a nice

[00:17:08.43] spk_1:
poster. There’s exclusive. Yes, there were exclusive webinars. We’ll probably get to a month. Will be exclusive podcasts. One or two of those a month. I’ll be doing small group asked me anything. Sessions on zoom Very nine. Talk through individual potential donor challenges, Suspect challenges or Doctor, you’re marking materials in their small groups. Um, there’s a Facebook community. Very nice. All exclusive, Just two members. It all kicks off. October 1st 1st group starts October 1st, and that’s what we’re promoting for. And it’s that planned giving accelerator dot com.

[00:18:07.44] spk_2:
Well, there’s a lot of Nate out there. A lot of non profits are not in the plan giving game or in the playing giving space. They think it’s too scary. They need technical knowledge. They can’t do it. They need too much staff, whatever. But frankly, any non profit can do something with plan giving and bring in those all important planned gifts. Also, I think you’ll be helping to educate people about like asking for non cash assets and things as well, like how toe you know, do more a little bit more complex gift giving.

[00:18:25.51] spk_1:
We will eventually we’re going to start off with getting bequests, Yes, but there’s only the whole groundwork. As you’re suggesting, there’s old groundwork that’s got to go before you start. Before you start promoting, you gotta promote to the right people on. Then give them the right message.

[00:18:43.84] spk_2:
Yes, and you have to have a back end. That’s the first thing that I help my clients with. It’s like, Well, what did they have? Do they even have information on their website? Like some plate people have nothing on their website and in, um, our most recent episode of our of our charitable chitchat podcast. We had a great this volunteer from the Girl Scouts, and she got started because she had updated her estate plans about 10 years ago, and she included the Girl Scouts. And then she happened to be in New York City not long after that, where the headquarters are. So she went to go meet with the development person, just a drop off like a copy of her, whatever her paperwork and the development person wasn’t there. So she met with the CEO and she sat down with the CEO and she said, Well,

[00:19:09.89] spk_5:
you know, I was updating my estate

[00:19:11.77] spk_2:
plans and I went to go find someone for

[00:19:13.81] spk_5:
I couldn’t find any information

[00:19:38.64] spk_2:
on your website about that. Why is that? And the CEO was like, I don’t know why. And then they from there they created a whole good, great plan giving programs. So, you know, the back end is first off. You need to have some information on your website. You need a dedicated page with some request language with your contact information with your tax I d. Just a couple of things. And if you have that Web page, then you can start getting in the plan giving game.

[00:19:40.37] spk_1:
That’s the beginning. And that’s the kind of stuff we’re gonna be talking about. Easy promotion.

[00:19:44.49] spk_2:
You gotta get in

[00:20:01.38] spk_1:
identifying the right people to promote to and giving them the right message and how to do that. And then how to follow up how to talk to your board about planned to give an all important, all all to get planned giving program started in the audience that I’m always most interested in. Small and midsize shot

[00:20:12.57] spk_2:
Me, too. I love I love the small nonprofits and there’s you anyone can get started in plan giving. So I think that your program is is really great, because if if you have, don’t your small non profit you have donors and they’re gonna leave. Some charities in there will, but they’re not gonna leave your charity in their will if you’ve never promoted the idea. And you’ve never communicated the idea

[00:20:25.96] spk_1:
absolutely right that absolutely, you need to be asking. So we

[00:20:28.95] spk_2:
need to be asking

[00:20:32.04] spk_1:
if you’re ready to get plan giving Started, Planned Giving accelerator

[00:20:33.77] spk_2:
call. Well, I’m looking forward to seeing the evolution of of this, and I think it’s a great it’s much needed in the space, and I think you’ll be successful and help a lot of people along the way. And that’s that’s what we’re all about. Helping helping nonprofits, especially the little ones,

[00:21:09.74] spk_1:
and someone who’s helping me toe promote planned giving accelerator is is with us. These Peter Panda Pento is part of a partner in turn to communications just renewed their sponsorship for a second year, which we are very grateful for. I’m very grateful for Peter. Welcome to the show. Great to be here, tony. Great to be back

[00:21:13.06] spk_4:
here. Tony, we’ve been checking in very regularly over the years. Excited to be part of this milestone episode.

[00:21:29.48] spk_1:
Oh, thank you. Yes, 500 shows. 10 years on. I’m grateful for your sponsorship. You and your partner, Scott turn to what? What? What’s on your, uh, what’s on your plate these days? We’re doing a

[00:22:07.83] spk_4:
lot of media relations work these days. A lot of nonprofits and foundations that we work with are really looking for to try to break through the clutter right now and get their stories told in the media, which is a really challenging thing right now during Cove in 19. I mean, it’s always challenging, but right now we have so many media outlets that are, um, operating with with furloughed staffs and with people kind of playing out of position, covering different beats. And, ah, nonprofits are really looking for extra support and trying to figure out who they need to connect with, how they can connect with them and how they can connect what they’re doing to the prevailing story lines of our time, which are Cove in 19 and racial justice and equity. And so we’ve been spending a lot of our efforts there, in addition to working with you on the plane, giving accelerator and other things tell

[00:22:33.19] spk_1:
indeed, yes, challenging times indeed, to get your voice heard. But it’s doable. As I say in the sponsor messages. You know, if you if you have those relationships with journalists, if you have the right hook, you can you can be heard even in the in the Corona virus cacophony.

[00:23:06.21] spk_4:
Absolutely, absolutely. And the relationships are really important. And, um, what I think a lot of nonprofits and really all organizations still make. The mistake in doing is thinking they can kind of spray and pray their way to, ah, success with media relations by spray and pray Amin kind of spraying out press releases to everybody and hope and praying that somebody picks it up. What really works is when you have some relationships with journalists who really cover the topics you care about and that they’re actually thinking of you when they’re looking for sources rather than the other way around.

[00:23:12.07] spk_2:
Yes, and as a former reporter, I wholeheartedly agree, because back in the day, as a as a news reporter for working in all news radio and working in television. You would get these, like, spray and pray, kind of like press releases and stuff that had nothing to do with anything you normally cover. And you know, you really need a more targeted approach and build a relationship. And I think nowadays it’s easy to build a relationship with news people because they’re all on Twitter and they’re all on Facebook and you can follow them and comment on their on their things and get to know them a little bit that way.

[00:23:41.84] spk_4:
Absolutely. I think investing in in a handful of those relationships and really trying to make sure you’re nurturing the journalists who actually care about what and and reach the people you need to reach. There’s so much value in doing that. You’re absolutely right.

[00:23:58.68] spk_1:
This and Peter, thank you again for your sponsorship of non profit radio.

[00:24:03.74] spk_4:
I love the partnership. I’m really glad to support her head, and I really believe strongly in what you do, tony. So we’re happy Teoh to be sponsors and to be part of this great community.

[00:24:13.75] spk_1:
Thanks so much. Turn hyphen to you. Want Check them you want? Check them out. Turn hyphen too dot ceo. Thanks so much, Peter.

[00:24:20.79] spk_4:
Thank you very

[00:26:11.18] spk_1:
much, Peter. Thanks, Claire. I have a story I want to read from from one of our listeners milled, uh, Mildred Devo. I’m the founder and executive director of Penn Parental, a small literary non profit that helps writers stay on creative track after they start a family. I got into non profit work because I had the idea for this collective of supportive writers running programs to defy the stereotype, which was rampant in nearly two thousands, that having kids would kill your creative career. I was already running a salon, Siri’s, that featured the diversity of work by writers who had kids. And I wanted to do more to prove to women and men that parenthood was just a life event and not an alternate alternate career. I self funded a fellowship for writers who were new parents and a lawyer approached me and asked if I had considered turning my ideas into a non profit I never had. She helped me pro bono. Now it is 10 years later, and pen parental has helped countless writers finish their creative projects despite the challenges of raising kids issues heightened to epic levels during the pandemic. We have one arts grants from New York City as well as New York State Council for the Arts. As a writer with two kids, it makes me laugh that all the encouragement I give to other writers has just now finally come home to my own career. I finally finished writing my first novel. I Want to Thank You. This is the touching Thank you so much. I want to thank you and and your non profit radio feel that inspiring. I feel that listening to recordings of past live streams, I’ve been exposed to some of the top minds working in non profit. Today. It’s like having an M B A in arts administration right at your fingertips, or at least the faculty of one. I’ve gained a lot by listening. So thank u s touching and, uh, milled, uh, milled is with us. Well, welcome to the show.

[00:26:18.21] spk_5:
Thanks. Thank you so much. It’s really exciting to be here. Did you see me taking notes?

[00:26:22.49] spk_1:
I was already took. I was like, clock town

[00:26:26.09] spk_2:
milled. I love milled his hair. That’s beautiful. Thank you. It looks very nice.

[00:26:54.44] spk_1:
That’s got beautiful bang. Great. Did I pronounce your name? Right? Okay. Have you been listening to non profit radio for a while? I have For forever. Yeah. Yeah, I frequently when I googled something that I don’t know, I will find a link, you know, on Facebook or somewhere, I’ll find a link to a show, and

[00:27:00.51] spk_6:
it s so it works like I don’t know, because I really, really, really learned

[00:28:37.84] spk_1:
this from the ground up, just sort of as I was doing it and Ah, yeah, it’s really so we’re gonna put on a plan giving page pretty much, yes, but it’s really it’s really wonderful that you bring all these experts together and when you interview them so so many of them are so generous with their time with their contact information, like it’s kind of spectacular, But I really kind of got into your show after you did the foundation center. I love the foundation center and motivated that can with them all their candid now candid. Well, they were there were the foundation center. You’re not wrong to call them that. They were that they were that back then when But for the you did I think four sessions or some Some amount of sessions, please. And you could go there and be a live audience, or you could watch it after it. So, yes, it was. It was non profit radio month at the Foundation Center and the Foundation Center month on non profit radio. That was very cool. Very cool partnership with the Roman. Thank you. I also like all the partnerships that you have with all the different companies. Like everybody said. Just what? Um, the guy that was just on Peter was saying that you develop these relationships. Well, I think I feel like I learned something from that from you. Outstanding Milton. That’s why I do the show. Thank you so much. So, for your for your generosity, do non profit radio and for sharing your how I got into nonprofits story we have Ah, we’re gonna send you a bag of cure coffee. Uh, I love coffee. Bring me coffee. It’s

[00:28:40.70] spk_2:
a wonderful prize. How you want to hear more about it? Cure a coffee directly connects coffee lovers with farmers and families who harvest the finest organic coffee beans. With every cup of cura, you join our effort to expand sustainable dental care to remote communities are around the world. We are direct trade coffee company with direct impact brought directly to you creating organic smiles beyond the cup cure coffee dot com. And that is your prize. Thank

[00:29:22.78] spk_1:
you. Listen, thanks so much again for sharing your story and for being a loyal listener. Really? It’s touching. Thank you. It’s so kind of you. I’m really grateful. And I love how you’re Musician nodded when he when I talked about having kids at home and being creative. That’s why I run a non profit for that reaction. I

[00:29:26.56] spk_3:
e that so much? Yeah,

[00:29:30.78] spk_1:
creatives are trying to create. So anybody who wants to pin Prentice said word we’d love the Have you come and find out what we dio and thank you again. So much for having me on the

[00:29:40.42] spk_5:
show was a

[00:29:50.34] spk_1:
place. Enjoy your coffee. Yeah. Yes. Pen parental as got or thank you. Thanks along, Claire. You’re You’re creative. You you’ve been writing.

[00:30:56.94] spk_2:
Yes, I am. I am, I am. It’s a It’s a blessing and a curse being a creative person because the brain just never shuts off. So we’re always making stuff from a tender age. I was like sitting on my front lawn with a basket of crayons and my mother register like an old egg carton or something in a pipe cleaners. And before you know it, we had, like, costumes and putting on a show. So that’s that’s my childhood. So I have written for you a special 1/10 anniversary problem for non profit radio. So would you like me to read it? Toe. Okay, here we go. Let’s celebrate a decade of the show by tony-martignetti. Here’s my poem. It’s goofy, so you better get ready. Tony had an idea. Tony had a vision. Tony wanted a radio show, so he made a decision. He started his show. He booked his first guest. He worked on a format, and then all the rest production with Sam Music with Scott sponsors and quizzes Man, that’s a lot Top trends and Tony’s take to non profit radio We love you. 10 years later, and 500 shows your silver anniversary, your listener ship grows your tony-martignetti non profit radio top trends. Sound advice. Should I end this poem? Yes, that sounds nice. Happy anniversary, tony.

[00:31:13.55] spk_1:
Should I send this up our mess Sounds like Thank you. Clear my raf. Sweet. Thank you very much.

[00:31:18.82] spk_2:
You got in somewhere.

[00:31:20.32] spk_1:
What a creative. I love it. Thank

[00:31:21.94] spk_2:
you. You know, it’s fun. Thank you. Something to do? It’s coverted.

[00:31:24.34] spk_1:
That’s very sweet. I am not gonna keep doing things that silver anniversary. I don’t think I thought of that. That’s right. The silver silver anniversary. Well,

[00:31:31.63] spk_2:
you know, I was thinking of ideas. I was like, What can I do for tony? Silver anniversary. And I was like, I was like, Well, it is the silver anniversary. That’s 10 years. It’s silver. So maybe I should send him, like, an engraved set of silver candlesticks. Or maybe I’ll write him a poem.

[00:31:45.52] spk_1:
Well, you could do the candlesticks to know they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. What?

[00:31:59.08] spk_2:
Amy, like those? I could do like 11 Right. You could do it for your in Amy’s tent. That wins your 10th anniversary. Did you have it? You missed it. Yeah, I missed. Okay. We’ll catch on the next one.

[00:32:00.28] spk_1:
Catch me on this one. It’s not

[00:32:01.43] spk_2:
old. Wait for your gold wedding.

[00:32:08.99] spk_1:
Oh, no, no, no. Wait. Office engineering by mere numbers it, Z, I’m gonna send you

[00:32:13.50] spk_2:
something really funny.

[00:32:22.95] spk_1:
That silver gift. I will. Then the expensive silver gift. Don’t don’t be constrained by by the artificiality of numbers. So, you know,

[00:32:24.04] spk_2:
I’m gonna go to Bloomingdale’s and register you.

[00:33:04.44] spk_1:
We got we got all our all our contributors there. Will our esteemed contributors air here? Nice. Yes, Absolutely. I see. Um, I see them. Indeed. I see Amy Sample Ward, our social social media technology contributor, and Jean Takagi, of course, our legal contributor and the brains behind the wildly popular non profit law block dot com and Maria Simple, the Prospect Finder at the prospect finder dot com. Welcome, Maria. Gene and Amy. Welcome. Hey. Hey, there. Thank you very much, Amy. See also Amy, of course, besides being our contributor and technology and social media, CEO of N 10. I was intend doing. How you doing, Amy?

[00:33:14.94] spk_5:
Um, I’ve recently been answering that question by saying that I am alive and awake in 2020 and all that that means on

[00:33:24.57] spk_1:
being in Portland, Oregon, as well,

[00:33:26.23] spk_5:
being in Portland, Oregon being at the intersection of, I think, a lot of opportunity to positively change the world

[00:33:36.84] spk_1:
Well, you three have never been on a show altogether. So I want to say

[00:33:45.34] spk_5:
I know Jean and I have definitely been on at the same time before, but I don’t think all three of us

[00:33:56.54] spk_1:
no threat. No. All three have never So. Maria, meet Jean Jean Maria. Amy, meet Amy. Meet Maria Maria, Meet Amy. Gene already knows Amy. Amy knows Jean. Oh, meet each other. Welcome. Welcome. Hey,

[00:34:03.54] spk_6:
you know, tony, I had suggested a long time ago that you should fly us all into that New York studio at some point, and so

[00:34:10.82] spk_5:
we would not have fit altogether.

[00:34:12.98] spk_6:
Since you never did that way

[00:34:16.41] spk_1:
are fly you all to the beach Now it’s much, much safer down here.

[00:34:19.80] spk_6:
Yeah, well, until this coming storm, that is. But

[00:34:37.43] spk_1:
uh huh. Yeah, Well, not this weekend. Let’s not get carried away. Like cat seven or something. We’re not doing it this weekend. No, it’s not that bad. It’s Ah, it’s like a to the one that so far it’s a one or something. Some of it’s we live, you know, that’s that’s part of our life. Living at the beach hurricane season,

[00:34:41.46] spk_2:
coming straight to your house. Tony,

[00:35:05.25] spk_1:
I got I got a metal roof. They’re gonna finish tomorrow’s good metal. Rudy’s air. Great. Two days before the hurricane, they’re gonna finish my metal roof. What color is it? It’s Ah, it’s a gray. It’s a pale grey. Very nice. It z neutral, neutral tone. Nothing. Nothing outlandish like those Clay. You know, there’s red clay colored anything but getting to cocky. How are

[00:35:05.99] spk_5:
you

[00:37:07.47] spk_1:
doing? San Francisco? It’s Jean. I’m pretty. Well, all things considered Azamiyah kind of reference does. Well, a lot of folks hurting. So happy to. To be in good health with the my family is well and good to see all of you and congratulations, toe. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Gene. And your practice has been very busy of late as nonprofits. Ah, non profit struggle bit. Yeah, a lot. A lot to deal with, obviously the pandemic and a lot of racial equity movements, which is a very positive sign. So, like Amy and trying to see some of the the silver linings and what changes and re imaginations may come out of this indeed. Quite a bit. I was I was talking to somebody earlier today that Ah It’s a good time for introspection. No. And that maybe on an organizational level two. And it may be that it’s Ah, not all. It’s not all voluntary, but, you know, some things have been foisted on us, so it seems like a good, introspective time, like on an individual level. And on a organizational level two seen a lot of that. Yeah, Absolutely. Um, and, uh, I think it’s really helpful for organizational leaders to sort of get together and start to think, um, sort of back to basics and say, What’s why we hear? What are we doing? Who are we serving? What are we trying to do? And how are we really walking the walk and not just talking to talk? Yeah, for sure. Right back. Back to basics mission for important for the board to focus on. I love actually adding values to that as well. So just saying we further admission that the mission, of course, that that’s important. David. Mission focus. But I think it’s now equally important to be Valdez focused. What we stand for. Yeah, Amy. You feeling that it Ah, 10. 10.

[00:38:18.12] spk_5:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think just gonna extend what Jeanne was saying. I think we see a lot of organizations, at least historically, Um, who hide behind a mission statement that doesn’t name inequity. Of course, mission statements are often like aspirational where you’re going and like, why you exist and because it’s those things aren’t named. They use that to sidestep accountability to those issues, right? Like because racism isn’t named in their mission. They don’t have to talk about racism. And maybe they get to say that they don’t perpetuate any of it. Right on Dhe. Now, this moment kind of. I think what you’re alluding to tony with, like it being foisted upon folks, is people understanding or at least demanding, that organizations don’t get to sidestep that, that there’s no way any of our social missions could be advanced if we aren’t ever talking about racism, right? Like that’s a root of why many of our issues even exist that we have a mission to address. So there needs to be less fear of that because the fear has really just got us to a very entrenched place of oppression. So can folks be willing to talk about that so that they can move forward and actually address that emissions and serve their communities and really be part of the change that our communities need.

[00:39:02.76] spk_1:
And we’ve had ah, good number of guests on lately talking about all those subjects on and more toe. There’s more to say about it. There’s more to the organizational journey to achieve racial equity and social justice. And I’m glad that we’ve been ableto have a good number of guests on, and I’m always looking for more on those kinds of subjects. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. Maria Semple. What’s going on? Your practice? The Prospect Finder?

[00:39:15.16] spk_6:
Well, you know, you still have no profits who are thinking about their major gift programs, obviously. And, um, it has been a good time for some of them to kind of sit back and do some research on those donors that make you know, maybe they haven’t really focused on quite a ZX much, Um, and thinking about, you know, how is the the approach to them going to be different? And so you know, a lot of a lot of interesting things going on in the prospect research and major gift

[00:39:39.16] spk_1:
world. Very simple. Of course she’s about six miles away from me or so maybe it’s a little more. I’m not sure. Except

[00:39:46.48] spk_5:
some. I didn’t realize you to work.

[00:39:48.48] spk_1:
We’re on. We’re on the same island, different towns. But we’re on the same island. Thanks. Same barrier island in North,

[00:39:54.98] spk_6:
same Barrier Island that’s being targeted by this

[00:40:01.16] spk_1:
story. Support of life, Any of us

[00:40:02.67] spk_6:
pronounced story is, you know, but

[00:40:05.62] spk_1:
what’s the name of the name of the storm? Had Allah wishes? It’s like

[00:40:09.36] spk_2:
it’s with an I

[00:40:10.94] spk_1:
I I z o or

[00:40:12.53] spk_2:
something? Yeah, I don’t know.

[00:40:13.91] spk_6:
How does that help

[00:40:18.78] spk_2:
broker? Al Rocker said it really nicely today, but the job he gets paid, like $3 million.

[00:40:22.28] spk_5:
What the Who’s so seen?

[00:40:39.85] spk_1:
Some, uh, some interesting, Which could be, ah, good or bad, I guess. Funny, like Zoom Zoom backgrounds. You’re all we’re all talking. Yeah, we all have lots of zoom meetings. All of us. He’s got He’s got a good zoom background that you saw. Wow, like I see Scott Stein right now is curious. George,

[00:40:45.21] spk_2:
he’s got That’s the best one, and I just I just put that up on lengthen, so

[00:40:48.69] spk_3:
that’s not a background. This

[00:40:53.28] spk_1:
is not about. Well, it is now my toddler’s part of your background. It’s

[00:40:55.57] spk_5:
part of your

[00:40:55.92] spk_2:
background or your back. Oh, I think you should sell that to Zoom.

[00:40:58.91] spk_3:
I thought that curious George would just lighten the mood a little

[00:41:01.88] spk_1:
bit. Absolutely. Does

[00:41:03.44] spk_2:
my love curious George

[00:41:04.92] spk_1:
is inspired me to ask. Well, who else has seen something funny?

[00:41:09.25] spk_5:
Are you saying that the virtual backgrounds are you talking about just people having things in their background?

[00:41:13.38] spk_1:
I mean more like people in their backgrounds, in their home,

[00:41:18.14] spk_2:
their real backgrounds? Well, I’ve really enjoyed watching, like I watch the Today Show on NBC Watcher And so I really studied the backgrounds, and I like to read the titles of the books on the shelves behind the people, and that’s kind of interesting. And then sometimes, like if they have their own book that they wrote, there’s like 10 copies of it. So they have, like, four other copies, and there’s like 10 copies of their book and in a couple of more copies. So I like to look at the titles like Colbert has it, and it’s funny cause Colbert’s like in his basement and non allaying and It’s just, you know, nothing fancy. And it’s like an old desk and stuff. And so I like to look at the stuff on his on his shelf. Everybody likes, you know, history books and biographies.

[00:41:54.60] spk_3:
I was you were mentioning People’s books like You can always Tell the sign of an independent musician because somewhere in there place they have boxes and boxes of unsold CDs. Right? Right. It’s, Ah, one of my band mates referred to them as a very expensive caught coffee table.

[00:42:12.29] spk_2:
Well, that’s funny.

[00:42:13.00] spk_3:
It’s kind of what they’re doing,

[00:42:14.42] spk_2:
right. You could do Wall Art with them. Like to a whole.

[00:42:17.52] spk_3:
A tribute to me.

[00:42:29.02] spk_2:
Yeah, I my one narcissists. Come on. You got plenty of time. Don’t just got the’s. No. Now with the baby and curious George.

[00:42:33.65] spk_1:
Anybody else? I’m missing Something funny. Mark Silverman just had Mark Silverman is our web guy. He just had his, uh Well, that was That was a fake background. His driving. He’s driving background, but nothing. Nobody’s, uh I don’t think I sauce. I’ve seen good lighting. People have. I see people using light to good effect. I think people have realized that turned on light makes a much nicer back. Have

[00:42:55.26] spk_2:
light on your face to like this. There’s a lot of things for when you’re lighting an interview. You know, you put light on the person’s on the person. Stay so you’ll notice Everyone has diesel around rings, and sometimes you can see it reflected in their glasses. Yeah,

[00:43:06.93] spk_1:
that’s a problem. Light rings right. The glasses. You got it. You got to be careful with the glasses, because even just your screen will reflect into the glasses,

[00:43:13.38] spk_2:
right? Like, right now, I turn that way. Exactly. Turn that way.

[00:43:24.40] spk_1:
Yeah. Now your alien, your google eyes. Yeah. Yeah. Um uh Well, what else? I feel like I feel like it’s a cocktail party.

[00:43:28.30] spk_5:
Didn’t you say we were supposed to all answer some questions? I didn’t write down the question, Waas. I don’t like what? I didn’t think about the question, but I did make the mental note of tony Has some question we’re supposed to answer. Well, how you got into nonprofits? Yes, I like that. Like, what was your reverse non profit job? You know what I like

[00:43:45.85] spk_2:
to know? What did people do before they worked in the non profit because everyone has a different story. So what did you What was your last job before you entered the non profit space? And what was your first job in the non profit space?

[00:43:59.20] spk_5:
I only have one job, not in a 1,000,000 profit space. And that’s what I was 15 and I worked in a coffee shop. Okay.

[00:44:05.52] spk_2:
And then So your first job was your non profit job.

[00:44:08.63] spk_5:
My first job was working in the in the coffee shop?

[00:44:10.82] spk_2:
No, but I mean, your first non profit job was your current Is your current job?

[00:44:14.19] spk_5:
No, but I just always worked in a non profit sector.

[00:44:16.31] spk_1:
Right? At 16 years old, she was CEO event in its inquiry. I

[00:44:20.34] spk_2:
know. Easy. That’s

[00:44:24.10] spk_5:
cool. That’s a good idea. Jean, what do

[00:44:25.46] spk_1:
you do? Before you were a non profit attorney, you were hung fancy fans. Now I bounced a lot iced. I sold insurance. I worked in a beauty salon. No retail, but the last job I had was I was operations manager for duty free retailer in San Francisco. So we’re about a $50 million a year business in the early nineties, and I had to lay everybody off cause, uh

[00:44:48.98] spk_2:
oh, man,

[00:45:11.59] spk_1:
But Bender purse ity on. So it’s 150 people gone. I continued to work doing sort of national expansion for this huge global retailer, but, uh, it made me decide I wanted Teoh work. It’s something more meaningful. So I saw this little newspaper ad for what I believe was the first non profit graduate degree program in the country at the University of San Francisco. And so the two year program in the evening. So I jumped, shipped them, left my job, work for a tiny social service organisation. Azan office manager. And, yeah, that’s schools.

[00:45:30.32] spk_5:
That’s a

[00:45:30.56] spk_2:
great story. How about you, Maria? What did you do before you got into nonprofits?

[00:46:25.21] spk_6:
I was working for a French investment bank in Manhattan per five years out of college and, um, buying and selling and trading securities and French and, um, so very different from working in our profit space. Um, didn’t enjoy it very much. Was having dinner at my father in laws who owned a fundraising consulting firm based in Nutley, New Jersey, and complaining about my job and hating it. And, um, he said, Well, I am looking for a campaign manager for a Salvation Army capital campaign Wow in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and I raised my hand. And, like you said, who said to Jean just said, Jumping ship right, I jump ship and, um, landed in the non profit space that way and in consulting for him and then branched out on my own when I started a family and decided I could do prospect research from home. So I’ve been doing I’ve been doing this home based thing and yes, for long Talking’s yes, since, uh, since the early nineties,

[00:46:48.38] spk_2:
that’s cool. So, tony, before you worked in nonprofits, you’re in the service, weren’t you?

[00:46:59.88] spk_1:
Yeah, that was That was long before I was in the Air Force left. There is a captain, and then I went to law school and hated practicing law. And then I started my first business, which did mediocre. So I ended it and became director of plan to give him at Iona College.

[00:48:12.37] spk_2:
Everyone has a great non profit story. I worked in broadcast journalism. I worked in all news radio in Washington, D. C. I worked at CNN as a news writer worked it except satellite radio in D. C. And I covered a lot of nonprofits when I was a reporter. Because you you know, if there’s this, it’s cold and you do it. Music historian. A homeless shelter You end up at a non profit. You interviewed the director, that kind of thing. So I was like the non profit space and then later started doing like a little PR for non profits and things like that, and then eventually worked my way into the wonderful world of plan giving. We That’s how I met tony-martignetti because I read an interview that you had done, and I was needed some content for another publication. I was editing and I said, Can I take your article and turn it into a Q and A. I emailed you and your like sure, and we talked on the phone. And then if I had questions about planned giving stuff for this writing I was doing, I recall tony and he was so generous with his time and we became phone friends, and then, ah, then he wanted to do a radio show, and I’m a radio person. So 10 years ago, tony started that

[00:48:16.84] spk_5:
I can’t believe no one else spent years making espresso drinks and serving sandwiches to people like What kind of non profit group of people are waiting? The only person that did that? Well, if you

[00:48:24.52] spk_2:
go that far back I worked at Roy Rogers on Long Island and you know I said, Howdy, partner. May I help you? Thank you very much. Happy trails. I worked at Friendly’s. I was an ice cream scooper it friendlies. I was awake.

[00:48:34.37] spk_5:
Nice, nice.

[00:49:16.64] spk_1:
My only espresso experiences. Where? When I was waiting tables when in my restaurant the waiters had the create the oppressors and I always cringe when people ordered them because I could never get it right. Allow when one table order an espresso, everybody else was Wait. Everybody else was late. Their entrees. Cold salads didn’t come. I cut out the suit to get to the entree and tell him I Telemann was through the kitchens. Fault I couldn’t get a Nespresso built was never right. It was too foamy, right? Old Mr Hot. There was too much steam. There wasn’t enough steam. The coffee grounds were to compressed. They weren’t compressed enough. Wow, the curses. Espresso was a 20.

[00:49:17.49] spk_2:
Tony has nightmares about espresso. Hey, that that was an Italian restaurant.

[00:49:21.63] spk_1:
It wasn’t Italian restaurant. Yes. Had to been in the example. Ward, You did many more espressos. Like I’m sure you have it better down much better down there. She’s

[00:49:28.90] spk_2:
great at it.

[00:50:36.51] spk_5:
Yeah. I mean, looking back, it just seems so interesting. I mean, you know, I grew up in a very small town, so I guess that came with dressed. But like, you know, to 15 year olds, we were alone in the shop, running the entire shop, closing it, doing all the bank deposits, you know, like so I guess it helped instill from a very young age like responsibility, this and all of that. But it also was like we we didn’t have anyone else. They’re telling us, you know? Oh, you have to do whatever this customer says or whatever is just like, you know, to 15 year old people. And we were like, No, you don’t get that thing. That’s not fair. You just demand. Like I saw you put your gun. This person did this regularly. Take their gum, put it on the side of their play, eat their food, and then mix the gum into the rest of their salad and then come up and say there was gonna salad. I’m not paying. No. Yeah. And so we would just say Like Like, we don’t know. For adult manager telling us, the customer’s always right. No, no, that’s your gun. Back to your gun. You start getting your money back, you eat.

[00:50:54.51] spk_2:
We’re gonna swallow that gum. I’m 15 and I’m in charge. Yeah, well, that’s good. You learn assertiveness. You learn responsibility. Yeah, that’s great. That’s a That’s a great story

[00:51:00.08] spk_5:
we learned far better than tony. How to make espresso drinks. That was my first exposure to people. Like to melted cheddar cheese on top of their cold apple pie. Like, you know, I learned a lot about humanity in that

[00:51:12.53] spk_1:
herd. Yeah, I’ve heard of that one.

[00:51:14.67] spk_2:
Yeah. Yeah. I worked at Marie Rogers on the island man there. I learned a lot about humanity.

[00:51:21.92] spk_1:
We get into before we get to gross beef stories. Way we got to move on. Neighbor Maria, Maria, Amy and Jean. Thank you so much for what you contribute for you. I don’t want you to go stay if you can stay because Scott’s gonna perform another song, but I want to thank you. Thanks. Thanks to each of you. For all the years you’ve been contributors. Many, many years for each of you. Thank you so much for what you give to our listeners.

[00:51:47.11] spk_5:
Thanks for having a platform that’s open toe. Lots of people. Tony.

[00:51:56.98] spk_1:
Yes. I’ve seen the regulations on 500 100. It’s amazing.

[00:51:59.83] spk_6:
Amazing mission, you 10 More wonderful years.

[00:52:02.14] spk_1:
Thank you. I will do it. I’ll do it. It’s got Let’s get Scott back. He’s got ah, that’s gonna do singing Spanish blues.

[00:52:18.84] spk_3:
I am got starting. All right, here we go. Uh, this song, like the other one, has a lot of words for me to remember. So here we go.

[00:55:58.52] spk_0:
Morning with New York. Finishing way. My doctor asked for his Is it son? I think it just man. It’s somewhere in the east of Spain where Jonathan here requires a voice like church bells rang Way No way, man Stature way to my hotel. Try to rest my head with a familiar voice Reverb woman from my bed I jumped up and ran to the window. I could not believe my ears. I believe my eyes. Neither. She stood there in the clear now had no weapon type romance. This was much downstairs. And now there’s a lady in waiting way drains. Booth door process is an engineer. And when the Paschen shots last, she went back to back way missing in this gots time.

[00:56:04.70] spk_1:
Wow. Amazing. Thanks. Outstanding singing Spanish blues. Thank you. Thank you. I love Scott Stein. Thanks so much. Scott. Yes. Scott Stein music dot com. Right. Do have that right?

[00:56:11.81] spk_3:
Yes. Yeah, that’s correct. And and thanks again for having me, tony. And congratulations on 500 yeah, always always a pleasure to to do this with you. Here.

[00:57:45.03] spk_1:
Thank you, Scott. I love I love having cheap red wine is part of our show. You’re with me every every hour. Every intro, every outro, every show. Cheap red wine is with us. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. Check him out. Scott stein music dot com. So I said earlier this is gonna be our last live show. Friday 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern has been my slot at talking alternative. Now, talking radio dot N.Y.C. since July of 2010. And this is gonna be the last one. We’re We’re going to be live streamed. The show is just gonna be a well, not just gonna be the show is gonna be a podcast only from from here on. Um, and what that has meant for these 10 years is working with Sam Liebowitz Every show I’ve credited him. Sam Lever, which is our line producer. Um, and so it’s been just Ah, wonderful run with Sam. Hundreds of shows in the studio every anniversary show, which is every July, every 50 shows in the studio before this one. Um, and I’ve just been grateful for the partnership with Sam and and the network. The talking alternative network, which is again talk radio dot N.Y.C.. Sam, you’re not able to join us by audio. It doesn’t. I see you, but Ah, you can’t, um you have

[00:57:53.07] spk_7:
to keep switching. I can come on, but I have to switch back. Otherwise the rest of the audio doesn’t go out. But I don’t think I’m being recorded right now.

[00:58:04.60] spk_1:
Okay. All right. So, Sam, just Sam just spoke. Yes, we hear him, but he thinks he’s not being recorded, and we see him. So what? He said was tony has been an outstanding host, has been exemplary. He’s so handsome. I’m blushing on the

[00:58:16.77] spk_2:
ledge of color like notion on, um,

[00:58:18.88] spk_7:
and tony does remain the into the honor, having the honor of being, besides my own show the longest running show on work. Um, there was a period of time when we had several shows that have been with us for about five years. But out of all those shows, tony is the only one who has stayed consistent over all this time and to stay with this this long. Thank you so much, tony. I appreciate you know, all of the time that you’ve spent with us. I appreciate all your support and I love your mission. And I wish you the best of luck and only the best things moving forward.

[00:59:32.36] spk_1:
Thank you, Sam. I hope listeners were able to hear that we’re not. Sam said he’s not sure if if it was recorded, but, uh, I hope it was. Thank you, Sam. It’s been just Ah, lovely, wonderful fun collaboration for these 10 years? Absolutely, absolutely so. But where, Of course, the show continues. As I said on podcast every Friday, I’m gonna keep Teoh every Friday schedule. There’ll be a brand new show every Friday. Um, available to ah are 13,000 listeners a lot of this out of. Thank you. Thank you, John. So we got to wrap it up and I want a sky. I want to thank very much Scott Stein so much. Scott stein music dot com Scott, Thanks so much for being with us.

[00:59:43.45] spk_3:
Thank you for Thank you for having me.

[00:59:47.12] spk_1:
I want to give a shout out to our our web guy. Uh ah. I always I’m always crediting him on our Mark. Silverman is our Web guy. So Mark Silverman has been has been in the background for the show. I want to say hello. You’re not You do speak. I love the background on the background guy, but you know, I made if you will, tony, don’t make me stand up alive. But here I am, tony, it’s been great. I’m there every friday for you. I put the podcast up on to the website. It’s been a long and wonderful relationship. And 10 more years make it 20. I’m happy to be there for you and congratulations. Thank you, Mark. Thanks And thanks for all your help. It’s been many, many years. You’ve Well, you’ve been since the beginning. Yeah. Being doing the back end for us. Thank you so much. I wish I was on that submarine

[01:00:35.10] spk_4:
with you when you were the captain. That would have been even

[01:00:46.84] spk_1:
more fun. Submarine? I was underground, but I was close. I was I was underground, not underwater. But you were. So Yeah, I was subterranean. Claim Meyerhoff. Thank you so much. 10 years collaborating, creative producer, co hosting every single anniversary show.

[01:01:16.17] spk_2:
Thank you. It’s really, really been a joy. And, you know, normally I come up to New York and we did this great New York show in Sam Studio and Scott lugs in is you know, sometimes I meet Scott at the door and I carry in some gear for a minute. It’s always such a tree. And then afterwards we go out and we get a bagel or something in the city and Ah, but this on Zoom was really, really nice. And I’ve enjoyed it greatly. So if you needed a guest sometime, just hit me up and zoom away. We will. I’d love to. It’s been really fun,

[01:02:19.09] spk_1:
Thank you. Our 10th anniversary 500 show. Thank you so much for being with us. I’m grateful. I’m grateful for all of each of our listeners, and I’m glad that non profit radio helps you in the important work that you are doing. The feedback I get is, um, it’s touching. I know, I know. We’re helping nonprofits with their missions and their values. That’s why we do the show. Great job. Next week we’ll return to our 20 NTC coverage with more of anti sees smart speakers. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com Like Coca mapped in software Denali Fund, is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant er, Mountain for a free 60 day trial and my turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo,

[01:02:32.87] spk_2:
and we’d like to thank Sam Liebowitz. He’s our line producer. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy and this delightful, fantastic, marvellous live

[01:02:45.51] spk_0:
music by the Super town, too. That’s mine on

[01:03:06.49] spk_1:
your creative producer. That’s me with me. Next week. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go up and be great. Great show. Thank you. So

Nonprofit Radio for May 15, 2020: Leadership & Donor Advised Funds

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Amy Sample Ward

Amy Sample Ward: Leadership
In two recent shows, guests agreed that Amy Sample Ward represents a shining example of vulnerable leadership. So who better to speak to about leadership—whether in a crisis or not? She’s CEO of NTEN and our technology and social media contributor.

 

Maria Semple

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[00:00:11.14] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit

[00:00:16.08] spk_2:
ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly

[00:02:03.74] spk_1:
named host. I’m continuing with a dizzy production, audacity and zoom. No studio. I don’t know if you can hear that ocean. I hear the ocean. It’s not digital. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of ridiculous senioritis if you unnerved me with the idea that you missed today’s show leadership. In two recent shows, my guests agreed that Amy Sample Ward represents a shining example of vulnerable leadership. So who better to speak to about leadership, whether in a crisis or not? Then Amy Sample Ward. She’s CEO of N 10 and our technology and social media contributor and donor advised funds. Let’s relieve the misery of donor advised funds. There may be a lot you cannot find, but you’re not helpless. Maria Simple has advice, and resource is for finding and reaching the funds. She’s our prospect research contributor and the Prospect Finder. Last week I did say we’d have a 20 TC panel with Maria. Leadership just felt more timely on tony steak, too. Take 1/3 breath were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As. Guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com But Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant mountain for a free 60 day trial. And by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen. Two dot ceo Here is leadership with Amy Sample

[00:02:13.94] spk_2:
Ward. It’s always a pleasure to welcome you, Amy Sample Ward. And there you are. This is not like you have to wait until I say, you know, there you are. You’re already here. You’re here,

[00:02:15.53] spk_4:
you know? And I get to see you, you know, normally shows or like, over the phone or whatever, So yeah, I can see you. Um, thank you for such a kind intro.

[00:02:33.34] spk_2:
Love it, actually, yes. That, uh, uh let me also remind people that, uh, you your you’re you blogged at, uh you still blogging any sample ward dot or

[00:02:44.50] spk_4:
ge? I mean, I do have the website, but normally, if I’m writing something that’s either for in 10 or yeah,

[00:02:48.53] spk_2:
I’ll scratch that no more. Aimee Semple ward dot org’s is still at a me R s board. Always very good. Okay,

[00:02:52.40] spk_4:
Yes. Happy to tony.

[00:03:04.54] spk_2:
So? So Yes. Two different panels, at least one of which is a special episode. So people have already heard it. Maybe both of them. But, um, you, Ah, I brought you up, actually, as an example of vulnerable leadership. And the panels agreed immediately. So it wasn’t just wasn’t only me saying it.

[00:03:13.90] spk_1:
And then

[00:03:14.30] spk_4:
we’ll have to go find those people. Send them in. Thank you. Guessed

[00:03:32.64] spk_2:
it was about one is about leadership. And the other one was about team care. I think I’m pretty sure those were the two. So that was the leadership. One was leadership number one for our special episodes. But here we are, the ship to so vulnerable leadership. What does that does that mean to you?

[00:04:00.34] spk_4:
Um, you know, it’s not necessarily a phrase that I would use because I guess maybe the phrase I would use and what that term means to me is just authentic leadership. You know, I think you can’t be authentic if you aren’t being all sides of your emotions. You know, if there’s only like, 11 version of how you are, then I don’t think it creates a lot of space for the folks that work with you, whether inside the organization or outside to feel like they’re allowed to have multiple emotions or thoughts. You know, if you’re kind of setting the precedent, that that’s the way you expect others to be When when you hold yourself to that,

[00:04:22.44] spk_2:
Okay. Authentic, I think.

[00:04:24.15] spk_4:
Yeah. I mean, we can see we can use vulnerable. That’s just, you know, maybe not the language that I think of myself.

[00:04:32.94] spk_2:
Okay, Um, authentic ce Fine. Yeah, but it z it suggests Ah, on honesty on open. Right. Ah, collaboration.

[00:04:52.04] spk_4:
Totally. And I don’t think, you know, I love that you use the word collaboration because that’s what I think about. A lot is like, if you really collaborating with other folks, you’re all kind of joining unequal space, right? To share ideas or talker. Come up with whatever the work is your your collaborating on and the same would be true in leadership and tough times, right? Like you have to really meet and create a space where everyone can have all those emotions and work through it together. Otherwise, you aren’t really in partnership with each other. Right? You are. You’re somehow separate from everyone.

[00:05:36.94] spk_2:
Yeah, right now there are There are leaders who are not of this ilk. They would say that, you know, emotions, emotions in the workplace. Um, they don’t that they really don’t belong. You obviously

[00:06:57.64] spk_4:
don’t agree with that. You you know, I think if you don’t have, if you don’t have the kind of emotional intelligence Teoh experience those emotions identify those emotions, understand where they’re coming from and where they’re trying Teoh lead you or what they’re telling you about how you’re taking an information, then you’re not really using all the tools that nature has given you, right? I mean, a big part of being a leader is developing a really strong gut, right? Being able to like, go do your research but also have, like, you know, in the moment where things should go right, like that’s I always think a great sign of someone that, um has strong leadership, regardless of the job title, is that they’ve developed a really strong gut. And the way you do that is 100% pure emotion. By understanding like how your body is reacting in the moment, Teoh an idea or two. A conflict and understanding. Not just best. Oh, I’m having this emotion. But I know why I’m having this emotion. I know where it’s leading me. I know what my gut is telling me to do right now, you know? So if you feel like emotions aren’t welcome or not professional or shouldn’t be in your workplace, I really worry that that has hampered the ability for both you and your staff toe like truly use all their skills

[00:07:03.74] spk_2:
and then but in the same but same talking, you have to be empathic right t to recognize the emotions in others through, um, official expressions, body language, tone. Right there. I start watering, were smiling. Let’s not keep it all negative. You right there smiling there. Um, so you have to see the emotion. I

[00:07:26.04] spk_4:
think that’s the piece that takes,

[00:07:27.76] spk_2:
you know, a

[00:08:35.74] spk_4:
lot of takes a lot out of people you know is is being able to not just read and understand how others are feeling, but kind of react to that. I don’t see manager because it’s not your job to, like, manage their feelings, but be able to react to it and and both of you have a strong interaction. You know, um, I also think there’s something I see a lot in the nonprofit sector that leads to burnout us folks truly being so empathetic that they’re taking on that emotional burden of either their staff for their community that they serve. You know, it’s something to be able to read and understand and operate within emotions. And it’s another to feel like you are carrying those emotions for your staff, you know, And it’s a lot to carry our own emotions alone, like 20 more people’s emotions, you know, And you ultimately can’t do that at least not very long without burning out. You know, so understanding how you can except and address and engage those emotions that your staff maybe having whether again, whether they’re positive or negative, and and then move forward so that you aren’t just feeling then responsible for every feeling that that person has, you know.

[00:08:51.78] spk_2:
So when you’re feeling emotional about something, getting feeling an emotional reaction or you’re sensing it in the person you’re talking to, you make it explicit. Do you? Yeah, comfortable enough space that you start talking about. You know, you raised the fact let’s put aside what we’re talking about. I’m getting a reaction from you or I’m feeling this reaction to what? Your Let’s talk about how we’re feeling.

[00:10:27.84] spk_4:
I mean, I think it’s hard to put anything aside. So in the moment, you know, just saying I’m really feeling this or how are you feeling about this conversation? You know, I think, and that as adults we have, especially in this sector, we have very complicated feelings. Sometimes often the feelings are like personally feeling challenged by something and at the same time knowing how much we might have to do it, you know? And it creates like an emotional conflict within ourselves. Teoh, hold two things that are maybe opposite at the same time. You know, um and just letting folks have the space to say how they’re feeling. Not just Do you know what your next steps are? Please go do them, you know, like, how do you feel about them? Because I feel like if folks don’t have space to maim and share and address how they’re feeling about things when they go to to move forward with those next steps, they’re either not going to go as maybe effectively or efficiently as they could because they’re still like, caught up in processing how they feel about them, you know? So just spending that probably shorter amount of time undressing how folks are feeling together essentially like speeds up them being able to go do the work. You know,

[00:11:10.80] spk_1:
it’s time for a break. Wegner-C.P.As We received our P PP funding. Now what? That’s their latest recorded webinar. What about loan forgiveness? How do you get the max forgiven? It sounds like this is sounding abs, religion, absolution. I absolve you. You are absolved. Um, but it is just forgiveness, not absolution. Wegner-C.P.As dot com Click Resource is and recorded events to find out more about these p p p loans and forgiveness. Now back to leadership with Amy Sample Ward.

[00:12:17.54] spk_2:
I identified you as AH vulnerable leader because of the video that you posted on the Internet website that was announcing the decision to cancel the to cancel the 2020 NTC, the non profit at the conference. And there were I think there were two times in that video that we saw you wiped tears from your eyes. And not only that, but you opened up to the fact that the conference represents 62% of and tens revenue for the year. So you’re not only gonna be without that revenue, then you also had penalties that have to be paid on. So new and additional expenses penalties paid for contracts that had medical. Um, so the I guess the parts where you were teary, tearful, you didn’t. Or did you think about taking those out of the video or or doing a take to where you will be showing less emotion to the public?

[00:12:25.74] spk_4:
Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, at that point in the day, I didn’t know that there were tears left. I’d already cried in in every in every phone call I had for that day, you know? So I kind of thought I was dehydrated enough. Do not have that you bore

[00:12:42.07] spk_2:
about just just last month. I mean, yes, maybe our recording on April 28th it was Yeah. It was just last month that this will happen.

[00:12:53.50] spk_4:
I have goose bumps with you, just describing the day and having to make the video

[00:12:56.85] spk_2:
by our watering a little bit thinking about you.

[00:16:58.34] spk_4:
Yeah. I mean, I think the I mean, you know me, like I’m usually a one take person like, Well, however, that went is how it went, you know, But I guess that’s back to the authentic piece. But, you know, I also I mean, I got to the end of the video. I felt pretty good for, like, being able to continue talking. I never had to stop and cry. That felt that was kind of my bar, you know, like, I continue to talk the whole time, so that wasn’t success. And then, you know, I do it Thomas, our communications director, and said like, I cannot watch myself say those things again. So you watch the video. If you think I’m not holding it together enough, you know, I can try and do it again. And he was like, no thistles sign. You don’t have to try and do this again, you know, um but I think I have had a lot of seen back. I mean, I’m someone who cries. There are lots of people that cry, you know? Oh, and crying is great and healthy. And to me, feels like a clear sign that I I opened up the channels so that my my heart and my body can tell me when I’m feeling certain things, you know? And, um, I always cried the NTC, you know, because there’s such incredible, passionate folks. They’re sharing their stories. There are really wonderful people. Well, that we’re highlighting our awards. You know, I just get sad. That’s the last day, and everyone’s gonna leave. So, um e I have gotten feedback in the past, especially from women or non binary folks in the community that getting to see said someone willing to cry has made them feel like bay themselves. As someone who has those emotions is not unprofessional, you know, and is not doing something wrong, and she wouldn’t be who they are. So I appreciate those folks giving that kind of generous feedback. Like I you know, we don’t necessarily have a relationship. You have to tell me that, you know, So that’s a huge gift. But I also thought about that in the video after, you know, after Thomas said he was gonna use that and he said, like, it looks like you’re crying. Are you OK with us putting that out there and it was just like, this is really effin hard. Yeah, like I held it together. So I’m buying with with that. And like, maybe people won’t notice that don’t know me are paying this close attention to the video, you know? So I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, but it is really hard to say those things especially, you know, of course, we all the world is different now, and all these weeks later, we know a different truth. But at that time, these things were not known, you know? So, um, there’s there’s no reason that saying something hard has to be, like, straight faced and going No emotionless. Yeah. Um I mean, it was just just like a few, like the following sunday. Maybe after we canceled staff a staff person posted in our slack account that the Baltimore Convention Center, where we were meant to hold the conference was gonna be in Baltimore, was being transition to be a field hospital for Kobe patients. And it was like it was just a ah, huge emotional release for so many of us. Not necessarily sad, but just all those emotions, you know, that like we had put so much work into planning what we would do in that at space. And now, instead of us being there, there’s patients, you know. And what is that? How does that reflect on everything that we must have just gone through? So I don’t think there’s any way to have made that video or to have talked about that decision or those times without with without a lot of emotions, you know?

[00:17:33.84] spk_2:
Well, I admire the the willingness to share emotion and also to accept it in others. I I can’t only see how that would create a more collaborative, cohesive team, closer relationships with each individual team member on then and then as a result of a more cohesive team Overall, Uh, I can’t see. You know, I don’t I don’t understand people who, um, think that vulnerability is a sign of weakness, right? No, that makes you somehow makes you weak, and you have to be stoic. All

[00:19:41.06] spk_4:
right, very. It’s a very like white, dominant capitalist, patriarchal, even mode of thinking, right, because emotion and those paradigms is feminine and feminine is bad. Where we all have all of those traders, you know, and that emotion is uncontrolled, and that’s not good right, Those air, those air bodies of thought that want control. Um And I guess I also just would love a world where those air, not the bodies of thought, were operating with them. Right? That like we’re not We’re not here. T get the last dollar out of everything that I believe as a community, we have all the resources we need for the rural we want. It’s about working and really station ship with each other so that we can use those resources in the right ways, you know? And I think that piece about being in relationship with each other is the piece I think about. You know, when you’re talking about vulnerable leadership like if you’re in a relationship, you expect to be vulnerable with that person and have that person be vulnerable with you, right? That’s but so much of of kind of the U. S. Culture is like relationships are Onley romantic relationships like there are partner or spouse. Relationships are every person that we interact with, right? And if you’re really entering those conversations, those friendships in relationship with each other, you should be vulnerable with each other. You should be comfortable being vulnerable with each other. You know, like you and I have had off camera off camera, off audio, very vulnerable conversations, right about, like, personal growth and things that we want to work on. And that means that other craft conversations we have that maybe oranges emotional or art is vulnerable are better because we’ve also been able to have those other types of conversations, you know? So I think seeing leadership as maybe the person who stewards those relationships within the organization changes again the role in the dynamic of emotion there that you’re almost the one that has to be even more vulnerable because you’re the one saying we are in relationship here, you know? And we really should have have these connections with each other.

[00:20:39.84] spk_2:
See, this is why you’re the person who writes the books because you see, you take this from the microcosm that that we were talking about. And then you extrapolated to the broader community that has sufficient resources to achieve the missions and the goals that we want. If we could just channel those and work together. Yeah, you have ah, way of seeing the big picture. Thank you. I admire which I’d mind. Yeah, that’s a Europe. Yeah. You’re the book writing people. You know, things. If you have the books in you and those of us who have the more I don’t know, maybe more.

[00:20:42.74] spk_4:
The area is

[00:20:51.54] spk_2:
where the grounded worth the grounded level. But you take it to the next level. Um, well, so

[00:20:52.32] spk_4:
what? So can I, like, reverse the interview and s

[00:20:57.27] spk_2:
so I don’t like when, uh, you know,

[00:20:59.06] spk_4:
you don’t. That’s why I e

[00:21:02.05] spk_1:
ever turned you down. Maybe I did in the beginning.

[00:21:19.64] spk_4:
So? So just as like, a thought experiment. Not that you have toe, you know, share something that you don’t want to share on the air. But you know it. There are there examples when, like, what’s your anti? See a video? What’s what? You had to share something. It is not to being broadcast with the world like our video, but you know it. Is there something that wasn’t wasn’t bound within a romantic relationship, but was an example where you were having to share information or news or ask a question that required your vulnerability in relationship with someone professional?

[00:22:13.04] spk_2:
Yeah. The ones that come to mind are a couple of a couple of shows. A ah show on diversity equity and inclusion with Jean Takagi. Where we, you know, we talked explicitly about white male power. Yeah. Ah, and history. Um, and then another one that you and I did I don’t remember Was that it was at a d I conversation? No, it was when you and I talked about poverty. Porn?

[00:22:19.29] spk_4:
Oh, yeah,

[00:22:25.44] spk_2:
that was, uh, that was a moving one for, um, So those are those are a couple of those mind. Yeah.

[00:22:31.06] spk_4:
Thanks for sharing. What is Iris? Yeah, I know. You want to turn it back around?

[00:23:51.94] spk_2:
No, no, because I there there are There are people who have, you know, have this format, But going back decades, um, who I admire like Dick Cavett. Cavite is ah, seems to be a very vulnerable and authentic host of his show. And there’s hundreds of clips on YouTube of him. Yeah, and he opens up, and I you know, um, there are other folks as well. Ah, maybe lesser known, you know, but that I take cues from yeah, producing the show. But in being a host, like the host guest interaction, Dick Cavett is is my number one because he because he is so authentic. Yeah, so it doesn’t, you know, Yeah, I think those were sort of breakthrough moments. I would count those. I don’t know if you count your in 10. You know, the NTC cancellation video is a as a highlight of your career, but when those conversations happen, it’s completely organic. You know? I know D eyes a sensitive topic, but I didn’t know that I was going to get emotional with g discussing it. Right. But

[00:24:41.44] spk_4:
I think part of that reflection that you’re having is also the acknowledgement that whether the topic is sensitive or not, it’s that you feel personally responsible for your actions within that topic, right? Like I think about, um, I have some friends who have had a history with cancer, and, you know, when they share stories of Dr that was like and here’s like the news, blah, blah, blah, it’s so hard. And somehow it is easier when the doctor is also sad, you know, and feeling like this is really hard. We’re gonna talk about this. We’re also gonna talk about treatment and and whatever, but you don’t have to not share the news, But you also don’t have to share it in a cold way. You can be. You can you can share in that kind of personal space of that topic with someone, and I kind of hear that in your reflection. You know that? Yeah. Is it? It’s a hard topic, but you were willing to be kind of responsible for yourself in that topic, you know?

[00:26:02.35] spk_2:
Um, all right, So how does it let’s bring it back this back to the leadership, then? Yes, Um, where we’re talking about being open emotionally, being authentic, Um, empathic, I think subsumed in all this is listening, active listening as well as feeling emotion, hearing words as well as as well as taking in the full person. Not just not only what they’re saying, but listening to their words. Um, curious minded, sometimes in leadership, uh, one of the at least one of these, uh, previous special episodes. The idea being curious minded, you know? Yeah. Asking questions, not just taking what said. And I guess, you know, ignoring your own questions about it, being willing to admit that you don’t understand something that someone has just explained you know, maybe you’re hearing it for the first time. It doesn’t have to be a technical subject. You know, it could be a to be a very emotional subject, but you just don’t You don’t quite you don’t grasp. But you’re curious enough and authentic enough to ask, you know, could you flesh it out more?

[00:26:21.08] spk_4:
Yeah. Being curiosity is

[00:26:25.60] spk_2:
I just don’t understand what you’re all

[00:28:31.24] spk_4:
right. I think curiosity is something that folks could use so much more. I feel like I don’t hear folks talk about curiosity very much. And I feel like it could be a pass for all of the times When you’re like, I don’t get what you’re saying instead of having to say or fight and some nice way to say, like, can you please repeat that? Because I don’t understand. You could say I’m really curious, you know, like, can you keep talking about it because I’m just very curious. And using curiosity as Urine road both for understanding and kind of letting folks further explain themselves is such a kind of positive neutral entry point instead of you’re not making sense, right? Or you did not explain that to May right. It’s like I’m curious. Please just keep keep explaining. You know, um and I think the other part of what you’re saying there is acknowledging that as a leader. And again, I don’t think a leader is only someone who has, like, CEOs, their job title. Anyone in any moment is maybe the leader right of their project on their team or whatever, but acknowledging that you don’t already know everything in my experience, that looks like not knowing how to do any certain thing that pops up as an organization. It’s so much more freeing for me as an individual t just openly say, Well, it’s certainly never canceled the NTC before. So, like, I don’t have answers to your questions about what we’re about to do. But I know that we’re gonna stay in relationship. We’re going to stay in this room. We’re gonna stay in this together, and collectively we will figure out the answers to those questions. We will figure out what it is we need to do, and then we will do it, you know. But, um releases myself of having to, like, anticipate every single question to know the answer. When, of course, I don’t know those answers. I’ve never done this before. A lot of people, you know? I mean, we’re on our, uh, you event planners association list. And everyone in March was like, I’ve literally never canceled an event What we stole student yet saying, because that’s not the world that we’ve ever lived in. So getting to let go of that expectation for yourself, Let’s your staff again. Let’s hold it for themselves. You know? And I think more deeply creates unauthentic relationship where staff could say, wow, Amy openly admitted that she had no idea what she was doing. Now, I don’t feel as much pressure to say I don’t know what I’m doing. Can you help? You know, and

[00:28:52.24] spk_2:
coming from that creates, I think, builds confidence in the team that can. None of us knows now, but collective 20

[00:28:59.63] spk_4:
four hours later, collectively, we figured out

[00:29:02.08] spk_2:
we’re gonna figure it out. Yeah,

[00:29:03.39] spk_4:
Yeah, totally. I think it builds a lot of the like resilience muscles, you know, because people have experienced Whoa, I’m up against the wall. I don’t know what to dio. We set out loud that we don’t know what to do. We came up with a plan together, we implemented the plan. Look, now we’re moving forward, Okay? Next time I’m up against that wall of I don’t know, I can say, Oh, I’ve been here before Like I have the muscle memory to say, Hey, like, even faster this time I’m gonna raise the flag that I don’t know what to do. And I need help, you know? And it cuts down on all that shirt, You know, Um and it makes it less emotionally trying, I think because you’ve already done it Waas, you know, And now you could say, Oh, it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t Is that as I thought? So it’s not gonna sting when I say, hey, I don’t really know what

[00:29:47.89] spk_3:
to do. Yeah, through

[00:29:49.37] spk_2:
that NTC cancellation in 21. Wait,

[00:30:00.54] spk_4:
do anything now? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:30:01.74] spk_6:
Um let’s talk a

[00:30:28.89] spk_2:
little about self care, as as a leader Teoh to be authentic and vulnerable. Um, I think there are things you have to do for yourself when you’re when you’re not. You’re not the CEO. Um, how do you know if you think about it explicitly is I’m gonna take care of myself. you probably don’t. That sounds that sounds too. I e take care of myself so I can take care of intent and the technology in the non profit space now. But

[00:31:38.30] spk_4:
I think about it. More regeneration. You know, whether I need to have energy again for tomorrow. Or sometimes I’m looking at my calendar for the day, and I think, like, what do I need to have the energy I need for for those other meetings I see coming up, Like, I might see that there’s a meeting that I know is gonna take a lot, you know, And there I’m sure many people listening to this understand, like sometimes you wake up and you look at your calendar you like, how do I have literally eight hours straight of back to back meetings like this is not a human’s schedule. So I will bump some of those meetings and give myself okay. I think I need this pacing. I think I’m gonna need a break before this other, you know, discussion or whatever. Um, and move those meetings, but so there’s like the tactical calendar management. I really do think it’s self care if you are setting yourself up to have days that aren’t sustainable. You’re not gonna make it through, you know? And yes, we all have demands on our time, But we’re also in charge of our time and we can say actually, have two minute insisted I’m gonna be present with you. So why should we even bother talking? You know, let’s move to me.

[00:31:42.81] spk_2:
You are in control of your own calendar.

[00:33:24.54] spk_4:
Yeah, and the other thing that I have found, at least for me, is having a really strong meditation. Practice helps on a daily or multiple times a day place because for me and you know, this is just what works for me and my personality and my mind, this doesn’t like prescriptive. And of course, if you don’t do this, something’s wrong. But for me being able to sit with how I’m feeling with how I’m reflecting on actions or conversations, being able to like, kind of come home and be accountable to myself is the hardest judge. It’s a lot easier, I think, people, I think it’s easier for folks that I work with our relationships with Teoh Teoh, give me a pass out of things that I know. I’m gonna be harder on myself than someone else. What? I think that’s true for many of us, right? We’re always our harshest critic, so accepting that in creating space where I’m really just sitting with myself and having to accept and let go or process or or make a plan for something has helped me tremendously because I can then let go of something instead of, you know, kind of keeping it in the doctor, my mind haunting May as I move forward, I could say, actually, like, clearly that didn’t go the way I wanted it to go. I wasn’t the version of myself I wanted to be. And, you know, there’s been whatever restoration I’ve apologized or I’ve talked to that person. But that piece is done, and the peace with myself is still there. And using meditation as a process for kind of accepting myself on letting those things go has has really created a lot of space, I think, for growth in my in myself and in my job,

[00:33:36.34] spk_2:
its authenticity with yourself. Yeah, comfort with yourself.

[00:34:06.24] spk_4:
Yeah. Yeah, And I think the biggest lesson honestly is, except like I’m someone who loves to learn. I think that if you already know everything about what you’re doing, you’re probably quite bored. You know, I’m glad that I show up to work and like what I do, What I have to do today. Let’s get this out. You know, that feels great. It’s like I get to stretch every day. Um, but it also means that I have to learn things the hard way, you know, because I didn’t already know them. And so having that meditation practice, just sit with myself and say like, it’s OK that I didn’t know that it’s okay that I learned it in a real rough way, you know, and and really think about what? Out of that experience I did learn and back to what we were saying earlier. Like all of those pieces of acceptance and acknowledgement and and reflection kind of get filtered in to building a stronger and stronger gut, you know, so that the next time I’m in that situation, I can hear and listen and say, Oh, I know what’s happening here. Like I’ve got all those little puzzle pieces telling me this is the same as that one time, you know and know how to move forward in the moment,

[00:34:57.24] spk_2:
I feel like leaving it there. Is there anything? Is there anything you wanna you want to leave our listeners with?

[00:35:36.84] spk_4:
I guess I would say, Of course, everything I’ve shared is my own experience in reflection, and we’re all different people. But if there’s part of you that’s wishing that you had done something differently or could be more vulnerable with your staff, or just operate Maurin relationship with the people that you collaborate with, you can just start doing that. There doesn’t have to be like announcement that’s rolled out that today you will start, you know, operating differently or communicating differently. You don’t You don’t need to save it because you’ve operated a certain way. You have to stay in that way like we’re humans, and we’re meant to change and evolve and grow. So if you want to be more open, just start being more open. Even if it feels awkward at first. You’ll get better at it cause your practice, you know, and then you can can have that be your default,

[00:36:08.08] spk_2:
every sample ward. Love it. Thank you CEO and our social media, social media and technology contributor and you’ll find her at a me R s Ward. Thank you very much.

[00:36:11.93] spk_4:
Thank you, tony.

[00:36:17.33] spk_2:
So good to talk to you. Yeah, like here. Keep

[00:36:17.65] spk_1:
taking care. Yeah. Keep taking care of yourself.

[00:36:19.83] spk_4:
Yes. Stay well.

[00:36:22.12] spk_2:
You too.

[00:39:28.11] spk_1:
We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain Software. Their accounting product Denali is built for non profits from the ground up. So you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and the exemplary support that you can count on and that understands you. They have a free 60 day trial on the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Now it’s time for Tony’s Take two. Take 1/3 breath. I’m tripling down on my relax ation advice. It is not merely okay for you to put yourself first at some time each day. It’s essential you have to do it. Make time for yourself each day. Make it the same time each day. If that helps you remember to do it. Hopefully you don’t have to forget you don’t forget that you come first sometime. But I understand working through your in a you’re gonna flow. I understand that. So maybe making it a definite set time. Each day helps you to put aside that time for yourself. But you’re being asked to do stuff that you hadn’t done before in ways and in a place, your home. But with, you know, circumstances around that you haven’t been asked before. And if you have Children, then you’re being asked to do all this while your kids are home. It takes toll on you, so you need to take time for yourself to rejuvenate its not just relaxing. It’s rejuvenating its recovering time recovery time. So please take that time for yourself. For me, I go outside. Um, like I said earlier, I don’t know if you can hear the ocean in the background, but it’s there. Um, I got this ocean across the street every day. I wake up it ZX still there, so I go outside 2030 minutes. Maybe it’s Ah, lunch, uh, or just sitting. If it’s not nice enough outside, then I sit inside and have lunch inside, looking out of the ocean or just watching sitting on the sofa watching. So whatever it is for you, you may not have a notion. Ah, what can you do for yourself. A walk, a trip to a park? Uh, it may be It may be listening to music. Um, if that’s if that’s good for you, whatever it is that can help you to rejuvenate Recover, do it. Take the time for yourself each day, please. That is tony. Stick to now. It’s time for donor advised funds with Maria. Simple.

[00:39:45.22] spk_6:
My pleasure to welcome back Maria. Simple. You know who she is? She’s the Prospect Finder and our Prospect research contributor. She’s at the prospect finder dot com and at the Prospect Finder. Reassemble. Welcome back.

[00:39:47.12] spk_3:
Thanks, tony. Good to be here.

[00:40:22.91] spk_6:
Yes. Well, I’m sorry you can’t be with me at the beach. I don’t know if the video is gonna turn out okay, but I just decided that any schmoe could record on zoom and put an ocean background, uh, behind them. But, uh, any Schmo can’t just walk to the beach and get unauthentic ocean background. So I’ve got one good using card. I’m tired of being in just any Schmo. No, I’m breaking out now. No, no, no. Most smiles. You know, most smoke for may. You’re doing a okay, right?

[00:40:24.71] spk_3:
We’re doing just fine. Thank you. Yeah. Like you were blessed to live near near the water and can get out for a beautiful walk. Clear your head and get some fresh air.

[00:41:05.01] spk_6:
Yeah, I’m looking East, Uh, in your direction. Right now, you’re several miles up or over, actually, not up, but, uh, looking east. I’m looking in your direction. Nice point. Puffy clouds you got there. So we’re talking about donor advised funds. What? Yeah, you know, they’ve been around for years or nothing new? Uh, no, that it could be a source of headache for non profits. Why do you feel like now is a good time to talk about it? Well, you know, I’ve been hearing a

[00:41:38.77] spk_3:
lot of discussion about them recently, and I think that, um, about sure if that’s because in this period of cove, it a lot of people are using their donor advised funds to make some contributions to organizations to help them out. But I started doing a little bit of digging to see really just how large feet I’m going to say the industry because the come and what I found was this report that’s put out annually by something called the National Philanthropic Trust. And they dio a donor advised fund report every year. And I couldn’t believe when I saw that the, um the rapid growth that they’ve had, that they had an 86% increase in contributions in the last five years to donor advised funds.

[00:42:02.40] spk_6:
Okay, that’s money. That’s money into donor advised funds. How about money coming out of them getting into charities hands

[00:42:50.68] spk_3:
so that that number was 23.42 billion with a B. No, I feel very significant number. And so, anyway, it’s just something that I thought we hadn’t covered really in the show and something that we probably shouldn’t ignore. Um, it’s really vexing for fundraisers for prospect researchers because, um, donors will often set these up as a way to perhaps give Anonymous anonymously in some cases, although, according to Fidelity, about 90% of donors go ahead and say, you know, release my name and contact information to the non profit when I make this gift. So I thought it was something we could at least explore talking about.

[00:43:34.80] spk_6:
Yeah, I think vexing is ah, good way to describe it, because I’ve been hearing this for years, that charities get frustrated when ah, get these gifts and they they have to then follow up with the company of the administrator for the for the of the fund and and plead for donor information, sometimes to get it. Sometimes they don’t wait. You just said about ability. Um, I don’t know that older people I know all the times don’t do that because we’re hearing these frustrations for years. So, uh, all right, so you got some ideas about what we can we can do to overcome these vexations?

[00:45:42.01] spk_3:
Yes. So I thought we talked about some prospecting. Resource is, you know, to do some proactive prospecting. Obviously, if you have the name of the donor advised fund, you would do some additional research on it. But you can also, um, just try and do some proactive prospecting. Your resource is you can use for free. Um, and fee based resource is as well. So let’s start with free, right? You can certainly try and Google, right? You can google the ah donor advised fund and maybe your state and see how maney come up in maybe articles or listing somewhere in a state listing. But I thought guidestar had some some pretty good information for for the nonprofits to start doing some proactive prospecting and list building of donor advised funds that might be in their in their area. Um, so one example that I that I pulled waas um, I just went ahead and searched just on the term donor. Advised I left off the word fund. I just you know, sometimes less is more when you’re doing these these types of searches. Okay, So I typed in the word donor advised in guidestar. Um, and this is under a free account, and I, uh, down nationwide, it came back with 527 search results. Um, I was able to sort by gross receipts. That was interesting to me. Just to kind of see, you know, largest to smallest type. Um, and top top number one, As you might expect, we’ve already mentioned it with fidelity. Um, so number one came up its fidelity number two Jewish Communal Fund number three, Goldman Sachs, Philip Philanthropy Fund number four, Silicon Valley Community Foundation and number five. You guess number your

[00:45:42.97] spk_6:
your community trust.

[00:45:48.99] spk_3:
Actually, no, it’s Ah, vanguard. Okay. I want to be able

[00:45:52.72] spk_6:
to guess that New York community profound spotless that for? Well, I just want to stay. Keep the guests. That newest community trust

[00:45:57.81] spk_3:
actually didn’t even make top 10.

[00:46:19.23] spk_6:
Alright, Alright, alright. So if we have these, all right, we have we have We know that we know all the players now. 520 some, uh, but there still is. The individuals control the money in the funds. What? What do we do now that we know the names of the funds? So one of the things

[00:47:11.38] spk_3:
that you could consider doing is seeing if the fund is somewhere nearby or whatever. Try and, um, you try and develop a relationship with some of the personnel at at the fund itself, right? So these would be employees don’t eyes front and not necessarily the family. Ultimately, if you see the family’s name attached so it might say something like, um, the Maria Simple Fund at Fidelity. Right? That might be the formal name that ends up coming through. So then you would research on that person’s name as much of a hand and using a lot of the research talked about here on the show minimum Coble, especially first time you’ve ever received a gift from EPA. Wow. That’s why.

[00:47:31.06] spk_6:
Wait. All right, So So you’re saying you first you search the fund in searching the funds and guidestar individual names come up. Is that what you’re saying? Well, I’m gonna be o

[00:47:54.88] spk_3:
of the big funds, but the smaller don’t recognised may have the person’s name as well, right? So you want to make sure that you’re just doing some in depth research, So even on the big ones you’re able, Teoh, you’re able to see a list of gifts, and they give how they paid out. Even look at every gift. Fidelity’s the Fidelity investment charitable gift, but is make, um and say you’ll have

[00:48:37.87] spk_6:
Okay. Okay, So you going todo and that. Okay, you look at the 9 90 of that funding. You can see the gifts that came from there. Right. Okay, right away. That’s down for Ah, a couple minutes before that. Was the Beach patrol going by one. Make sure everybody everybody knows this is an authentic background. I don’t want to be any any, uh, questioning of my integrity on background. That was the beach patrol girl by Okay, um, all right, So? Well, yeah, you could. You could start a cross match The larger fund names that you find with your with your own. Crn You could do that too,

[00:49:17.21] spk_3:
right? Right. Absolutely, Absolutely. Okay. Um, and and so, you know, like I said, for freight, somewhat limited as to what you can search for. One of the fee based resource is if I might just mention that people can take a look at and also get a free trial to, um is I wave, so you could definitely try it. Try that one out. Um, I had done a search nationwide to see just on the terminology advised fund and yielded over 16,000 results. Now, some were duplicates, right? So some were mentioned with months. Um, I just

[00:49:28.74] spk_6:
What? What is I wave? What is that? What does that have to do?

[00:49:33.17] spk_3:
So it is, um, It’s similar to, you know, we’ve talked about some of these other fee based resource is before, like, wealth and so forth. So it’s a tool that prospect researchers will use. That is a fee based resource. Um, and so you’re gonna get your yield a lot more surgeries, adults, and you can manipulate the data and export spread meats and so forth.

[00:50:03.61] spk_6:
So you could also use waiting for individual prospect research. Well, yes, absolutely. Get get out what people would get for their see if you have a struck tie with any idea what the seas are. Do you remember?

[00:50:13.60] spk_3:
Um, I don’t know right now, You know, I usually don’t like to try and get into that on your show because it lives forever. Right on your

[00:50:21.56] spk_6:
Well, yeah, I was, I would say it was from 2020 or something. Okay.

[00:50:25.74] spk_3:
Yeah. Yeah. So I would recommend because normally what will happen is you’re gonna Also it’s a screening tool. So you could also do it on entire screening of your database. So usually they’ll bundle it in, Um, you get a screening done, and then access to the to the search tools for, like, a year or something like that. So very often the fees are gonna be based on your dad.

[00:51:13.70] spk_1:
Time for our last break. Turn to communications. They’re former journalists so that you get help getting your message through. It is possible to be heard through this Corona virus cacophony. And you want to be heard other times beyond this. Of course, they know exactly what to do to make that happen. They’re at turn hyphen two dot CEO, you’ve got but loads more time for donor advised funds.

[00:51:23.90] spk_6:
Okay, so you’re you’re against your cross referencing your search results with your own C r m.

[00:52:04.04] spk_3:
Right? Right. So, you know, I like the fact that you can exported into the spreadsheet again. You cross check it with your own C R M. Maybe circulated with Lauren Development Committee are other staff members And have a discussion. I started getting curious, you know, out of all those house. Well, how many of those funds donor advised funds are in North Carolina, right where we’re both residing and actually tries to order 177. Results from Dr Guys funds. It came up just in the last five years or so. Um, so

[00:52:08.25] spk_6:
that is it. Right? That doesn’t sound like very many. 177 donor advised fund gif ts the whole state of North Carolina for five years.

[00:52:16.56] spk_3:
No, those were a donor Advised funds.

[00:52:25.44] spk_6:
All those in the funds, not the gift from the OK, Those aren’t the individual accounts in the funds. Okay, There are almost 600 funds in North Carolina. OK, got you

[00:52:29.83] spk_3:
170 7

[00:52:34.65] spk_6:
177 OK? Yes. Yeah.

[00:53:13.42] spk_3:
Anyway, there certainly something Teoh look for. Especially if you’re trying to reach out to more regionalize families. And, you know, that might be concentrating there. They’re getting in your particular state because then you can see exactly where the gifts on. You know, the types of organizations that A that the owner of my sons have been looking for example. So you can see, you know, there that the gift that here was here, the gift was made. Ah, you can see the where the gift was made, the type of non profit that it is. It’s you. No, you can’t. Yes, You get a lot of data.

[00:53:39.99] spk_6:
Okay. So you could see the charities that they gave Teoh for those similar to your your work. Okay. Exactly. So maybe so. Maybe I waves worth the extra extra money. Whatever it iss. All right, just, uh I wave dot com or yeah, yeah. Oh, um, so couple other things

[00:54:44.24] spk_3:
I wanted to let everybody know about, um I learned that there’s a site e a f not award. Okay, DF direct and what they what you can do there is. It’s a great tool for non process use, and it facilitates giving, um, through donor advised funds. There’s a widget that you can add as a non profit chili gordo so that, as people are, you know, maybe research on their own and, you know, for non profits to donate to in their community, if they stumbled on your organization in their own search, right, maybe they’re using GuideStar or another similar tool to research nonprofits. If you come up and they get to your website, why not make it is easiest possible to connect directly from your website to their donor advised funds. So it’s a widget that connects don’t raise funds and to the donors.

[00:54:52.74] spk_6:
All right, so people are browsing your site. They can click on this and give

[00:54:53.29] spk_3:
him a

[00:55:01.74] spk_6:
group, right? But they have to have a donor advised fund at one of the one of the entities that coordinates or that’s affiliate with this ridge. It right?

[00:55:17.96] spk_3:
Yes, but so many of them are right now, so it’s definitely something that that actually was. I was doing my research for this show that came up multiple. Bless you.

[00:55:19.24] spk_6:
Told you I said I was gonna sneeze, but you’re that’s you’re talking.

[00:55:23.93] spk_3:
So it definitely is worth looking at that site and seeing if that’s a widget. You may want to add to your own website because it’s gonna cost anything.

[00:55:45.67] spk_6:
Okay, Okay. And they’re affiliated with some of the top ones. Okay. All right. Um, you could also be talking to your You know, you could always reach out to your donors. Um, through Europe, you’re here. Whatever your channels are to remind them that they can make their own donor advised fund distribution. You know, technically, it’s a recommendation. But 99.9% of the recommendations get accepted. Approved. But, you know, you could just be directly reminding donors that they can give to you through their donor advised fund.

[00:56:09.13] spk_3:
That’s right. That’s right. So make sure that Burbage is on your website and any other marketing materials and communications that you have.

[00:56:24.73] spk_6:
Yeah. Yeah. Just remind you people. Um okay. I mean, that that was an easy one. Just what else? Ah, you’ve been thinking about this longer than I have what else will?

[00:56:28.98] spk_3:
So the other thing, too that I think some people forget to ask for is to set up recurring gif ts to your organization. So if you’re already getting some money from a donor advised fund, why not approach those that family and see if they’d be interested in setting up recurring donations to your organization? Supposed to a one once a year gift. So very often it’s very easy for the fund administrator to set that up for you. Um, so that would be a great way to bring in some additional, more consistent cash flow here, or there you

[00:57:02.20] spk_6:
go. Yeah, right. Sustaining sustainer gifts from donor advised funds. Okay.

[00:57:07.97] spk_3:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Absolutely. Um, and then, you know, finally, you want to think about success successor gifts, So you can have, um the organization can be named as his successor after the donor dies. So you you know, as you know, tony and plan giving and so forth the language has to be set up properly and so forth, so that might be a discussion to have with people a swell to breathe. The organization to be named as the successor to the fund

[00:57:43.01] spk_6:
Okay. Very good. Just wait. Same way donors can name your organization to there as a beneficiary of their life insurance policy or pension IRA. Any any. Any financial asset with, ah, people on death or a transfer on death closets called. But you don’t have to know that. Just you have to know this is a death beneficiary possible and that can apply to your donors. Donor advised funds as well.

[00:58:08.29] spk_3:
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah.

[00:58:13.62] spk_6:
All right. Very simple. Cool. Um, anything else I don’t want to cut. You don’t cut you off? No,

[00:58:16.80] spk_3:
I I’m looking at my last Avenger. I’m looking at my notes, and I think that I think we covered all the bases that I want to touch upon And, you know, just making sure that people understand that even though they can be vexing, there are some things that you can do to research them and to build relationships and definitely thanking and stewarding those that are already donating to you through a through a donor advice fund.

[00:59:53.37] spk_6:
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. Don’t don’t be put off by these things And there’s enormous amounts of money in them. Is enormous amounts of money coming from them to charities. Um, everything you said? I agree. Just like yeah, they’re not going to Calgary. Oh, yeah, you can’t be. You can’t be put off by the vexations. You may not find out whoever who every gift came from, but you can make efforts best efforts and you’ll find out a good number of them. And you will be able to thank your donors. I remember, you know, and some don’t just want to be anonymous. No, they just don’t want to be. No. So that’s your donor’s choice. It’s not the administrator deliberately frustrating your purpose. Your donors. Some of the donors may just want to be anonymous, and that’s their prerogative. So except that move on to the donors that you can find and thanking and well, solicit for the future. So definitely look into donor advised funds. Don’t be put off by them. There’s enormous wealth in them. There’s enormous wealth coming from them. Okay, Thank you. Very simple. Alright, Maria Sample. She’s the Prospect Finder. The prospect finder dot com our prospect research contributor our doi end of their cheap and free. Uh, you’ll find her at the Prospect Finder. Thanks very much. Foria. Thanks.

[01:00:09.12] spk_3:
Have any good to see you

[01:00:48.58] spk_1:
next week? 20 NTC panels. Most likely if you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers. Wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Our

[01:01:28.50] spk_0:
creative producer is clear, Meyerhoff. I did the postproduction Sam Liebowitz managed The Stream shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy. In this music is by Scots. He was the next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great talking alternative radio 24 hours a day.

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[00:00:14.14] spk_2:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit

[00:00:16.74] spk_0:
radio big non profit ideas for the

[00:00:19.67] spk_2:
other 95%.

[00:00:44.44] spk_0:
I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown in taquito amino acid E mia If you brought me down with the sappy idea that you missed today’s show CEO chair relationship, your CEO and board chair need to forge and maintain a strong partnership. Alex Counts shows us how he’s a consultant and founder of Grameen Foundation on

[00:00:48.09] spk_2:
Tony’s Take. Two planned giving for the decade were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As. Guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali

[00:01:18.14] spk_0:
Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant er Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. Now let’s, uh, meet Alex counts Pleasure to welcome him. He’s adjunct professor of public policy at the University of Maryland and a non profit consultant. He’s founder of Grameen Foundation, which has grown to become a leading international humanitarian

[00:01:31.93] spk_2:
organization. He’s got a book Changing

[00:01:41.95] spk_0:
the World Without Losing Your Mind. Leadership lessons from three decades of social entrepreneurship, which is a chronicle of philanthropy. Editor’s pick. He’s at Alex counts dot

[00:01:47.38] spk_2:
com and at Alex counts. What was your name again? Alex counts. Thank

[00:01:49.06] spk_4:
you. It’s great to be here.

[00:01:53.22] spk_2:
Pleasure. Thank you for coming into the city on the studio. Um, tell us about the founding

[00:01:58.65] spk_0:
of Grameen Foundation. Interesting roots in Bangladesh.

[00:02:00.69] spk_4:
Yeah, I was is a college student. I was taken with the work Mohammad Yunus was doing to empower the destitute women of Bangladesh through micro credit, and he would go on to win the Nobel Prize. But I kind of it was Grameen Bank. That was Grameen Bank. And I had this vision in college of If we could take his model and exported to other countries where there is poverty, that would be could be a real breakthrough. It was simplistic, but and I But it was basically a good idea. And so I went in, apprenticed with him for about a decade in Bangladesh, and then I Then I said at one point, it’s time to start kind of an international hub for helping people apply the Grameen Bank ideas to other countries. And so he said, Well, here’s $6000 which I thought was a lot of money to start an organization with. It wasn’t but we were just kind of on a wing and a prayer started What became growing foundation in 97 on Guy was completely unprepared and all sorts of ways to run a non profit and start one. But we went forward and it worked out.

[00:03:07.30] spk_0:
You you say sort of hastily because you’ve got a lot going on. You had a lot going on 10 years living in Bangladesh. You fluent in de she Bengali Bangla. Is it Bangalore? Bengali? Is it? It’s It’s

[00:03:11.32] spk_4:
Bengali and English. It’s Bangla in being Ali.

[00:03:14.13] spk_3:
Okay, Um,

[00:03:15.10] spk_2:
I’ve been

[00:03:21.23] spk_0:
there. I spent I spent two weeks between Bangladesh just in Dhaka and Sir Lanka, which is also a beautiful country. Yeah,

[00:03:23.50] spk_2:
my sense of Bangladesh

[00:03:24.46] spk_0:
was ah, lot of poverty and a lot of very hardworking people. Thes tiny businesses in the micro stalls is I’m thinking of old DACA, but people working hard and you know, whatever their niche was, uh I

[00:03:39.12] spk_2:
saw a lot of hard working, dedicated people,

[00:04:10.25] spk_4:
Absolutely both in the cities and in the rural countryside where I spent a lot of my time and learn. That’s why I really learned Bengali well, but it is my mentor and board chair, Susan Davis. So I met in Bangladesh. She was a Ford Foundation representative and I was, Ah, Fulbright scholar initially, and she said, Listen, Alex, she’s a lot of these pithy statement She said, In a country that doesn’t have enough jobs, by far doesn’t have a social safety net. You have two choices. You work for yourself tiny undercapitalized business in most cases or you starve. And so people, whether they’re intramural ability, is robust or more limited. Starvation is not a great option. So people try to start these tiny businesses.

[00:04:22.68] spk_0:
That’s when I saw yeah, s O. That’s the micro micro lending. And then Mohammed as and all I can imagine, what someone could do with it isn’t even $1000. Is that too much?

[00:05:00.83] spk_4:
So the loans for the first decade of Grameen were typical. Loan was about $70. So your way you’re buying, you know, five chickens and you know you know how to raise chickens. But you never had more money to have more than one u five chickens. You sell the eggs, you pay off the loan with the sales of the eggs. And at the end of the year, you have five chickens that air your asset maybe more assets than you’ve ever had a productive assets you’ve ever had in your life. And Mohammad Yunus is in sight. Was but build a banking system that can actually be viable through making $70 loans and then $100 loans if they pay back and later, larger amounts on and and And that was the essence of his brilliant innovation.

[00:05:15.94] spk_0:
And you were, You were how many years that Green Foundation as founder and CEO

[00:05:21.27] spk_4:
18 years s. I ran it for its 1st 18 years. It was a It was a fantastic ride. And again when we finally started, get some headway is when I realized that a couple things that I need to be fundraiser in chief. That wasn’t something I could delegate and that I needed to craft a very important relationship with my board share.

[00:05:40.90] spk_2:
And those

[00:05:42.86] spk_4:
two insights probably where the, you know, helped us reach kind of escape velocity and get it to erase 10 $2025 million in the year, as opposed to remain a little tiny, non

[00:05:51.46] spk_0:
profit. What a skilled guest you bring in the board. The board chair relationship so smoothly. So not like the boorish host of the show. We’re just abruptly changed course.

[00:06:04.48] spk_2:
All right, so, uh, yeah, so we’re here to talk about Well, you know, we’ll shout

[00:06:08.30] spk_0:
out your book a couple times, uh, changing the world without losing your mind. But

[00:06:12.67] spk_2:
we want to focus

[00:06:23.81] spk_0:
on something that I saw an article that you had written in The Chronicle of Philanthropy about the CEO board chair relationship. Susan Davis was one of your one of your chair. Was she your first? She’s my

[00:06:28.99] spk_4:
third chair. But when we finally I finally got the relationship right was with her, and I give her most of the credit for that. I kind of fumbled it with the 1st 2 board chairs, mainly my fault on dhe. She helped me kind of figure out how to make that just a magical relationship

[00:06:43.90] spk_0:
on dhe critical to the success of an organization you saw Grameen on. You felt it. You saw it and felt it in your relationship with Susan. You saw the organization benefiting and you felt it personally.

[00:07:44.00] spk_4:
I had an ally. I wasn’t so alone. She gained my trust on She would sometimes, you know, step in and do things that I was either incapable of doing or just didn’t have the skills. I mean, it’s just a perfect relationship on. And, you know, she wasn’t the prototypical white male businessman in their sixties with a lot of money, but she brought other assets, and and then, you know, we were ableto have a more traditional board chairs coming after her. But she was in the roll for six and 1/2 years, and she, you know, the the article you mentioned in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The origin of that was I was giving a talk at The Chronicle about my book and about how I went from a completely underprepared non profit executive director, succeeding on some level. And I just kept coming back to my relation with Susan on then the couple of four chairs that followed her, and they said, Would you write an article on that on that you you mentioned so many times you’re talking? I said I’d be thrilled to, and It was a pretty narrow topic, but it got a good response and got me here to be talking with you.

[00:08:10.38] spk_0:
Your life has led you to this moment. All points of it’s all downhill from here. Pretty much non profit radio. I feel bad after our lunch, then

[00:08:11.79] spk_4:
downwardly mobile life.

[00:08:13.24] spk_0:
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Uh,

[00:08:19.52] spk_2:
all right. So let’s talk about, um Well, the let’s get into some of your some

[00:08:22.27] spk_0:
of your advice around this around this relationship, you siphoned it down into 10. I don’t know if we’ll get time for 10 because we want to talk a little about Cem Cem, General governance. But

[00:08:32.03] spk_2:
why don’t we, uh why don’t we just

[00:08:39.14] spk_0:
tease the 1st 1? We got a minute before before first break about, um, respect the chair needs to earn respect if that the

[00:09:14.59] spk_4:
chair is seen is just a kind of a defender of the CEO, uhm, and someone who’s just tryingto make his or her life easy and keep the bored out of their hair or in any other way doesn’t really have the respect to the board. Then his or her job is much harder because the board chair is kind of a liaison between the staff and the executive director and the rest of the board. And that board share has to earn the respect of both parties in order. Play that bridging role effectively. And Susan did it. Sometimes people do it by writing $1,000,000 checks, but Susan didn’t have that at her disposal of time. So she did it in other ways but was able to get earn the respect of me and the staff. But very importantly, the the rest of the board.

[00:09:24.62] spk_0:
All right, I’ve seen board chairs that were wealthy and wrote big checks and still didn’t have the respect of the board. So if there’s respect based on that, I think it’s kind of shallow and it doesn’t necessarily follow even. Okay, let’s take our first

[00:09:38.40] spk_2:
break wegner-C.P.As They go beyond the numbers. They’ve got videos, effective governance.

[00:09:43.61] spk_0:
For starters. We’re gonna talk a little about that toward the end of the show. Um,

[00:09:47.70] spk_2:
also i nine

[00:09:51.74] spk_0:
tips. If you happen to have immigrant employees, they’ve also got a video on high impact grant

[00:09:53.83] spk_2:
proposals, sexual harassment awareness, way beyond the numbers. This is not just

[00:10:16.94] spk_0:
your average accountancy, for God’s sake, on other videos, you gotta wegner-C.P.As dot com, Click Resource Is and recorded events. I just got late breaking news that Amy Sample Ward will be calling in around the bottom of the hour. Onda will spend about five minutes talking about 20 NTC, the 2020 non profit technology conference, which is in coming up in March in Baltimore. So I know you wanna hear her at the bottom of the hour. Um, in the meantime, let’s go back to ah CEO chair relationship.

[00:10:33.01] spk_2:
Yes. Oh, I don’t I don’t think

[00:10:40.81] spk_0:
money first necessarily creates respect, And if it does, I think it’s a kind of a shallow Well, it’s one

[00:10:42.10] spk_4:
thing to earn. The respect is the board share. You have to show that you’re invested. Ah, and so Susan would show that by showing up prepared by doing her homework. Talking with Helio money and writing a check that is meaningful for someone and meaningful for the organization is another way. But you’re right. It’s no way incomplete. You need to be a fair minded. You need to kind of promote the right kind of dialogue of the board level craft agendas that makes sense that you know, Don’t don’t let the board becoming their micromanaging or rubber stamp, but occupy that really nice middle ground. Yeah, it’s All I’m saying is, is that it’s possible to earn the respect of the board, even with bored with some wealthy people. If you’re yourself aren’t personally wealthy by doing other things on that, some people I think some people just regard it is you know you need the board. Share is just absolute mandatory to be made your wealthiest person, the board and I might have thought that. But I saw that. It doesn’t need to be.

[00:11:38.93] spk_0:
Yeah, I would reject

[00:11:42.13] spk_3:
that. Um, by

[00:11:42.47] spk_0:
the same token, you do want the board chair tohave the back of the CEO in times of crisis. Well,

[00:11:56.76] spk_4:
right? I mean, people, you know, have all non profit CEOs if, unless they’re completely risk of hers, make mistakes, mismanaged things mismanage external relationships on dhe, you know, it’s it’s, I think when our new chairs in place, how they react to the first time that happens on whether they both publicly and privately support the CEO on dhe make them feel secure in the aftermath of their bungle eyes. Probably a lot will determine. A lot of everything will go after that on Susan. You know, a time would come maybe six months later, where Susan would talk with me and her successors, who are also very good and say, you know, that thing that you did in six months ago? They didn’t work out, you know? What did you learn from it? Andi? Are we Do we have things in place to prevent that from happening again? But at the time when you’re at your low point and at risk of making further poor decisions in the aftermath of trying to cover up or deal with one bad decision, having the board share be empathetic and supportive and not pointing a finger is I found a central

[00:12:54.10] spk_0:
is the board is looking to them for leadership. You know howto way still behind this CEO or are we not?

[00:13:19.11] spk_4:
How do we digest this, right? And then that’s where the board chair’s leadership did not gloss over. It does not say this mistake was meaningless, but also not to say panic, but to say I’m on top of this. I’m gonna disclose to you the board what’s going on in a level appropriate to your role. I’m working with the E D. And

[00:13:19.32] spk_2:
now if it’s

[00:13:19.72] spk_4:
a life endangering mistake for the organization that it might go under,

[00:13:24.10] spk_2:
then I think

[00:14:07.87] spk_4:
you need to take a little different tact. But if it’s just a setback and embarrassing though it may be, you know you need to really inspire confidence in everyone. But also just, you know, to get the best out of the CEO of the executive director. You know, first and foremost is have them feel like you’re their ally, not someone who’s trying to, you know, embarrassed. And I’ve seen this. I’ve served on boards for all you have and others listeners have board shares to whatever. There’s a mistake. They feel it’s kind of a public embarrassment for them, and their job is to avoid blame themselves. Maybe they have public standing, and then that that has on and particularly that could kind of poison the relationship with the E D. You know, nothing flat. Yeah.

[00:14:09.12] spk_2:
Do you? You have a

[00:14:20.00] spk_0:
preference for executive director versus CEO? I’ve had guests prefer the CEO. Others say it doesn’t really matter much. Do you have ah preference, you

[00:15:06.71] spk_4:
know, in the organization’s I’ve served in. It’s been I’ve been the president and CEO. There’s some executive directors that aren’t the chief executive officer that sometimes is the chair in executive chair. That’s interesting. So Esso and again I’m not. I’m not a super techno person on this, but I think smaller nonprofits tend to be. You talk about AIDS on, and sometimes they don’t have a vote at the board level, whereas in large organizations, that tends to be a president CEO with a non executive chair. And I’m just, you know, and even when grooming Foundation was small, somehow we adopted that nomenclature, which at the time I didn’t care about or think it all about. I was just trying to raise enough money to pay this, you know, costs the next month. But anyway, that’s that. That’s what we adopted. Yeah,

[00:15:10.49] spk_2:
okay, but now you have the

[00:15:13.66] spk_0:
luxury of looking back and snickering. That’s right! And admitting that the first to board chairs the relationships warrant as robust, as supportive as they could have been made

[00:15:22.92] spk_2:
at the time,

[00:15:26.10] spk_4:
I viewed the board and managing my relation with the chair, and fundraising is kind of necessary. Evils not, is not as something to be the cornerstone of building the organization. That was That was my fundamental mistake until I finally got it right.

[00:15:37.80] spk_2:
Let’s talk a little about

[00:15:46.84] spk_0:
selection of, ah, board chair. Do you like to see it come from? The board would like to see. I’ve seen organizations that have a assistant assistant chair, rice chair, vice chair, executive vice chair, and then it’s presumed that they’re gonna move into the chair. You like to see that kind of

[00:15:56.58] spk_2:
ladder? Well, first,

[00:16:44.61] spk_4:
I think every rule in terms of building aboard you should be, you know, willing almost every really should be willing to break. So one point. We had a very well known, very wealthy person joining our board, and we thought about installing them his chair for more or less the moment that joined the board. And that might have worked. But we didn’t didn’t come to pass, but in general I think you want someone of your chair who served on your board with distinction for, you know, three or four years at least. I like the idea of a vice chair, but I’m a little out made out of the mainstream on this I don’t think that vice chair should necessarily be the chair elect. I’d like to see a vice chair in that role really perform so that they earn the chair. Roll a za po. And that’s why sometimes having to vice chairs, I’ve seen that work nicely. But oftentimes the vice chair is

[00:16:47.08] spk_0:
the two vice chairs are sort of competing to be that really like we friendly competition for the chair shit. German ship.

[00:16:53.76] spk_6:
It’s a

[00:16:56.00] spk_4:
secondary aspect. Yeah, it’s Ah, a TTE The point We had our vice chair on the West Coast and I thought that having a second vice chair who was quite busy when entered a And

[00:17:05.04] spk_5:
that’s what one

[00:17:05.41] spk_4:
things that happens. You can’t predict a vice Jared chair can enter the role in a semi retirement, have a lot of time to put in. And next thing you know, they’re appointed as happened to me, a CZ the as the CEO of a publicly traded company and their ability to put time in is changed. So we we had a vice chair who was the dean of ah of a university in a university on the West Coast. I said, Well, what if we had a vice chair on the East Coast also to kind of cover this part of the country and on. So that worked.

[00:17:34.62] spk_2:
But in another way, was

[00:17:35.89] spk_4:
a kind of let’s, let’s see, between the two of them, which one of them, you know, is it inspires the confidence of the board on shows the commitment that would make them the ideal. You know, successor chair.

[00:17:48.14] spk_2:
How do you like to

[00:18:10.16] spk_0:
break in? I think my voice just crack. How’d you? 14. Huh? How? Let’s give some authoritative. Ah, tony. Er, how do you like to, uh ah, inaugurate the relationship? New chair? You presumably. As you’re suggesting. You know, if you worked with him 3 to 4 years, So the non new person to you. But I knew in that relationship. You in that position.

[00:18:12.91] spk_2:
How do you like to

[00:18:13.67] spk_0:
kick off the that new relationship? Well,

[00:18:17.02] spk_4:
in an ideal world and running a nonprofit where you never have enough resource is and you’re always trying to cram 14 months of work into 12 months and you can always do this.

[00:18:26.54] spk_2:
But an ideal

[00:18:26.99] spk_4:
world. I’d like to spend a good kind of a good day with the person you know, both with a structured agenda and somewhat unstructured, maybe going to a baseball game together just to really get to know them and bond with them, if that’s possible. On

[00:18:39.97] spk_2:
the other

[00:18:40.21] spk_4:
thing that kind of evolved. This is, you know, I’m thinking back what work is that each board share wanted gonna put their stamp on the their leadership not to not to just contradict or do something different than what the prior wanted done, but

[00:18:55.72] spk_2:
something that

[00:18:56.11] spk_4:
they had seen. Maybe work in another non profit or in the corporate sector. And

[00:18:59.91] spk_2:
I would just

[00:20:59.49] spk_4:
say, unless it didn’t make any sense to me. I said, Let’s let’s do that Let’s you know this person didn’t kind of imposed this idea when they were, say, vice chair, just to give you two examples. You Bob bike Feld, who succeeded Susan in the role he thought that it was. It was a very important from a governess perspective to gather a couple board leaders and the head and our general counsel on me every six months to basically evaluate the performance of each and every board member in person and on, and so and you know when people were doing really well. So well, let’s let’s prepare a resolution commending them at the next meeting. Will we draft that if the person wasn’t referring? Well, well, who’s gonna take them aside? We’ve never done that before. But it was just something he thought you know would work. And I just said, You know, you want to bring that in. This is gonna be one of your signature things that comes in your first year. I’m totally behind it. Let’s make it happen. Or another thing he wanted is for me to bring in that. Susan wasn’t kind of didn’t That wasn’t her style, but it’s like let let Bob lead the way he wants to. And let me not just grudgingly say, OK, I’ll do that if you want, But I think this could be a great idea. And you, Bob also pushed me to write for the first time emergency succession plan, which I embarrassed to say that, you know, 10 years in the Grameen Foundation, I had never even know what that was. But and he said, you know, write, write up a memo for those of your listeners and aren’t aware you know, what should we do if you’re suddenly incapacitated or killed? And and so I put it off for a while, it was more confronting than I thought, but I finally did get it done. And that was something he achieved in his first year. Um, and again I was I was just kind of trusted that that was something of useful. And I put my full attention to kind of implementing a couple of ideas that he had and and when every new board chair came in, they kind of had a few ideas. And I would just unless they sound crazy to me and I I need to get the convinced I would just, you know, not just back from kind of half heartedly, but fully

[00:21:01.64] spk_2:
say some more about

[00:21:02.28] spk_0:
the semi annual board evaluate individual board member evaluation process.

[00:21:07.64] spk_2:
Well, you know,

[00:21:19.90] spk_4:
we would gather on a table. I think we did it a few times. That can recall, and it was no one ever called in. Our vice chair flew in from San Diego for it. We did it in Washington and literally, you know, it was just it was sickness. See,

[00:21:22.95] spk_2:
one of the

[00:21:23.40] spk_4:
things I’ve come to believe that came from Susan. The Before Bob is that term limits are

[00:21:29.14] spk_2:
kind of

[00:21:31.76] spk_4:
a quick fix kind of mandate, and that really what you want board members to do is to is to kind of go through their orientation and

[00:21:37.70] spk_2:
then to go

[00:22:09.31] spk_4:
into a period of what I call High Performance is a board member where they’re giving it their all their money, their time, their reputation, their con connections, etcetera. And then ultimately, all board members, I think, ultimately go into what is called coasting, where they’re just they’re not really giving their all because their interest is in another organization. And so Bob’s this term limits air saying, Well, most people go to coasting after six years, so let them just term out at six years. But the truth is, some people term out. Some people go into that mode after 18 months, and some are going strong in 18 years. So this was a mechanism to just evaluate the kind of the wherein the life cycle was each individual on the board where what should they be commended for? On what should they maybe be taken aside and said, you know, board member ex. You know, if you could get back to performing like you did four years ago in terms of showing up prepared, participating discussions, your committee assignments, raising money, giving money, You know, we think you should re up for the board when your turn comes up. But if not you, maybe not. Ah, and that can’t be done. The blunt instrument of term limits or other things. This

[00:22:42.14] spk_2:
is this. We would

[00:23:01.77] spk_4:
spend 34 hours together evaluating every single person aboard. And how might we support them better. But how might we ask them to support us more? And you can’t? You can’t take a cookie cutter to that. And so it was. It was a pretty rigorous process, but it was. It worked, and it made the team that was at the table. They’re just feel like they were in a position to, and it had them participate differently. This is the vice chair chair of the Governance Committee and the general counsel me in the chair. You know, we would then pay attention. More panel, evaluating each number individually, correct. And

[00:23:17.25] spk_2:
and then once you start

[00:23:54.67] spk_4:
that, then you know, you kind of observe the board in a different way. When you know you’re gonna be six months later doing that again and you start to think, Gosh, might I pull this board member aside even now and commend them or redirect them a little bit even if I’m not the chair? Because I know that this evaluation and it creates a kind of accountability because we told the board that we were doing this. It wasn’t done in secret eso it was rather than have ah, this kind of straitjacket of term limits. We created this kind of culture of accountability, of board that just brought out the best in people. And when their interests moved on, they kind of voluntarily said, You know, this will be my final term and thank you all for whether I served for three years or 13 years on it. Just for me. It worked a lot better.

[00:24:20.39] spk_0:
Your ah contrary and in terms of the mainstream, thinking about board term limits, yes, but you have this important semi annual evaluation as well, so that a CZ your nerves, you said people will either recognize that they’re not performing, or they’ll bluntly be told that they’re not performing TX stations,

[00:24:27.96] spk_4:
right? That’s and it takes effort on

[00:24:29.76] spk_2:
because this is a lot of time

[00:24:30.60] spk_0:
commitment. How big? I’m sure the Grameen board grew over time when you left. How many people, you

[00:24:36.52] spk_6:
know, I like

[00:24:37.33] spk_0:
value waiting. Yeah, I’ve heard of much

[00:25:10.86] spk_4:
smaller and much larger board’s working, although I’m not quite sure how. But I think the optimal number aboard if they’re one of the responsibilities is raising money. The optimal number is between 15 and 20 and that’s what it was for almost the entirety of my time there, I think over 20 you get some negative dynamics, including, you know, people don’t show up. They’re not even noticed because the numbers are too big. And if you get under 15 you know, you really need a lot more fundraising muscle than you unless you just have a bunch of billionaires on the board. And so it was always. It was always in the high teens on, though I gave myself authority to have up to 25 on the bylaws, but gave us authority. But we never we will always, always between 15 and 20 right?

[00:25:23.08] spk_2:
So this is a big time

[00:25:23.82] spk_0:
commitment because Now you’re doing between 30 and 40 evaluations per year because you’re evaluating each person semi annually and several hours devoted to, ah, a conversation with each one twice a

[00:25:46.59] spk_4:
year. And the follow up that you promise, saying they’re there that after each board member would just say so what feedback or what? Commendation or accolade or redirection, Do we need to give this board member based on our discussion and that that would mostly fall to the five of us in the room

[00:26:01.15] spk_0:
and there was implicit in that s o. Some board members are getting commended on brothers or not, but we all know that we’re all being evaluated. So when it comes time for commendations, some names air left out, that’s where it was only,

[00:26:06.05] spk_4:
um, you know, it was

[00:26:06.63] spk_6:
only twice

[00:26:55.17] spk_4:
in our history where we actually had to take a board member side and urged them, not Thio run for re election. So if when this works well, it’s really becomes an informal accountability process where people opt out before they have to be kind of pushed out. And, uh um, and yet you need to be willing to do that if the time comes, and in one case, you know, way took a board member aside and we just said, It’s you know, it’s time for you to step aside and is interesting He said it that years later he told me he said, Well, as mad as hell at the time, but you and the chair were right. I just couldn’t see it then. And eso it’s that magical thing where people basically, whenever there flames, starts to be not so bright for in terms of the, you know, being a champion of the board, they just they know it and they and everyone knows it. And they just say again, Allah, I’ll serve out my term and I’ll step down and again whether that’s three years into their service or 15 years, it’s just based on. Are they giving it their best? And

[00:27:10.43] spk_2:
not

[00:27:10.61] spk_4:
everyone you know people’s interests move on. I mean, it’s a natural human phenomenon. Yeah,

[00:27:17.33] spk_0:
yeah. Very interesting. Interesting process. You mentioned election of board re election of board members. That was that not managed by an executive committee just deciding whether someone would remain Who were the electors, the whole board, the

[00:28:36.84] spk_4:
whole the whole board Now there’s a nominating what we close it in our model. We had both the governance committee that worked on our kind of internal governance, and the nominating committee was merged in the same committee and another boards I’ve been on Those are two separate things and on and, you know, when you only have 15 18 members. There are only so many committees you can have when your larger boards could have more. But yeah, it, in this case, the default was when someone’s three year term came up. Um, you think the default is that they’re gonna be reelected if they want to be. But there is a process that again the governance committee chair is part of that group that is, that meets every six months on day would take what are our discussions and bring them into the governance committee. Um, but Maur, I think that committee was more about adding new people to the board more of the nominating committee, but But ultimately every board meeting or every other board meeting, if someone’s three year term was up, they would be reelected or more than likely, or they would prior to that announced that they weren’t seeking re election and it would be handled that way. Okay.

[00:28:38.92] spk_3:
Okay. Um,

[00:28:40.17] spk_2:
let’s ah, let’s take,

[00:29:30.12] spk_0:
uh, let’s take this break. And, uh, if you wanna you got a little longer in this break, And now we’re gonna talk to Amy Sample Ward as well. So, uh, stand by. Don’t go anywhere, though, Okay? You don’t have time to go to the bathroom. Just drink water, bathroom breaks or later, uh, his break quote. We’ve been very happy with Cougar Mountain. It’s rare to encounter a problem with the software, but they’re always there to help walk. Help me walk through it. End Quote that Sally Hancock in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Maur raves about the Cougar Mountain customer service. Cougar Mountain has a free 60 day trial, which is on the listener landing page, which is at now time for Tony’s Take two. Your decade plan for planned giving. Um, this is not only the beginning of a new year, which is now close to 1/12 over already, but that means that we’re nearly 1 144th of the way into the new decade. So my, uh, belief is my It’s more than a belief. It’s almost Fact,

[00:29:49.25] spk_2:
if you start

[00:30:01.17] spk_0:
your planned giving program this year, you are gonna be astronomically ahead, and you’re gonna be you’re gonna be shocked at where you are by the year 2029. Those 10 years

[00:30:07.79] spk_2:
you’ll be you’ll be at

[00:30:21.72] spk_0:
a point where you can be projecting planned giving revenue for future years based on the revenue that you will have had in like years. 6789 That’s how far ahead you will be in plant giving and you think plan giving that. You know, people die. The gifts come, but we don’t know when those when those episodes air gonna happen. Yeah, but once your file is large enough, once you have enough planned giving donors in your file, you’re gonna start to see trends. And of course, you can’t predict to the dollar amount.

[00:30:46.78] spk_2:
But you can give yourself some comfort with a range that you expect to receive in cash each year,

[00:31:22.81] spk_0:
going forward from really like your 789 and forward, but certainly from your 10 on. So my urging is that you if you are not doing plan giving fundraising 2020 is the year to start the beginning of the decade. I say a lot more about this in a video, which is your decade plan for playing, giving. I lay out the plan. I don’t just say where you’re gonna be in a decade. I show you how to get there step year by year in the video, which is at tony-martignetti dot com. And that is tony. Take two now. Uh, late breaking. Let’s bring in Amy Sample Ward. She’s the CEO of and 10 and our social media and technology contributor. And

[00:31:44.64] spk_2:
we’re going to spend a few minutes talking about what’s coming up at 20 NTC. The 2020 non profit Technology conference. Welcome back, Amy. Sample Ward

[00:31:46.85] spk_7:
Bake. I’m happy to be on happy 2020.

[00:32:02.29] spk_2:
Thank you very much. Yes, indeed. First time we’ve talked this year. Um, it’s not too late to say Happy New Year because we know each other so well. And, uh, I haven’t seen you Haven’t talked to you since January 1st. So happy New Year. Happy, happy, Happy decade as well.

[00:32:05.44] spk_7:
Well, And where we’ve just started the Chinese New Year. So

[00:32:10.41] spk_0:
indeed, Yes, Yes, indeed. Balloon. You’re here. Um,

[00:32:13.04] spk_2:
so we’ve got this little thing coming up. It’s not

[00:32:24.41] spk_0:
so little, um, being snarky. It’s in Baltimore in March 2020. Non profit technology conference hosted by and 10 non profit radio will be there on the exhibit

[00:32:29.49] spk_2:
floor. But before we get to that, you tell us what? What? Why should

[00:32:31.89] spk_0:
we be attending?

[00:33:07.15] spk_7:
Oh, my gosh. I am really excited for this year because I think, as you know, you’ve You’ve been a handful of times now, so you can probably speak to this yourself too. But every year we’re always trying to make it better than it was, of course, the year before. And each year we feel like, Okay, this is the best we’ve ever done it. But how could we make it better? And I think we’ve got some really good plans this year that do that. Of course we have. You know, this is a big three day conference there, 2200 plus people altogether. And it doesn’t have to be, you know, just one type of non profit or one type of job in an organization. If you are listening to this, you are welcome at the number of

[00:33:17.73] spk_2:
probably

[00:33:18.57] spk_7:
that you could learn and do there

[00:33:19.84] spk_0:
It is not only for technologists, not only for technologists,

[00:35:24.80] spk_7:
right? Well, I mean, it’s 2020. Everyone in a non profit is using technology, right? Like it doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter how what your job titles has on your business card. There’s pieces of technology you need to use or make decisions about to be effective in your job on. There’s folks from every job title and people who have been in the sector for a year, and people have been in it for 40 years. You know, it’s it’s really like a cross section of everybody, Um, and we have over 150 sessions, so plenty of opportunity to go learn. But outside of that, something that we feel makes the NTC really specialists. How many opportunities there are for you to meet other people and share ideas or come to the conference of that one burning question like you just wish you could find somebody that’s figured out a way to get mail chimp to do that One thing you know, like we want to make sure you really do find that one other person. So we have a lot of kind of community based programs that happen as part of the agenda, and we have even more of them this year. We’ve We’ve always had what we call birds of a feather. So you know, funny things like people will do. You know, people who love watching a certain TV show or something as a table topic at lunch. But other people will do things like, you know, they use a certain tool or something so they can all meet each other and chat. But in the afternoons we’ve started this year what we’re calling knowledge swaps where they’re Maur intentional. They are about, you know, something work related, something you want to do something You’re having a challenge with, something that you just did really well And you want to make sure you can share that knowledge with other people so folks can sign up to basically, like, find other folks and hosted a conversation together on the topics a little bit easier than saying you want to present for 75 minutes for a session, right? Like maybe you just want to find four other folks and share ideas. So we built that into the agenda each day on and we’ve also expanded our career center. That isn’t just for people looking for jobs. A really big part of the community of the career center is mentorship. So being able to sit down with somebody for happen our and share feedback, whether it’s about their resume or it’s about, you know, the evolution in your own career. So what? Whatever side of that coin that you would be on the career center has lost of opportunities for you, um, and would love for folks to be a part of that.

[00:35:51.11] spk_0:
Okay, um, we just have, like, a minute in a minute or so left, so details of registration. Where do we

[00:35:58.54] spk_2:
go with the dates? Radio? Don’t even say the day everything. But the date is today.

[00:36:10.72] spk_7:
Yes, the dates are March 24th 26 it’s in Baltimore. At the convention center. There’s hotels of all the various price points, whatever place you have, a membership number two, whatever, all around the convention center, and you can go toe intend that orc Slash and T. C. You can see the full agenda. You can review some of those community programs I was talking about. We’ve got Rachel Affinity Spaces support for folks who want prayer room, meditation spaces, lactation access. All of those things are part of our conference. So we really want it to be something that folks are ready to learn and meet other people and talk. This is a resource for you. And if there’s a way we can make it easier support you being able to participate, we will do everything we can to do that. So please Goto intend that work slash NPC. Check it out. If you need anything, let us know. But hopefully we see you in March.

[00:37:05.76] spk_0:
This is an excellent conference. Yeah, I’ve been there. I think this is the sixth year.

[00:37:10.06] spk_2:
Do you think I think it’s the 60

[00:37:20.04] spk_0:
year I’ve brought the show, so we will be on the exhibit floor where were sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software at the conference. So we’ll be side by side. We’ll be getting. I’ll be getting 30 plus interviews. Last year I got 32 interviews in two and 1/2 days, and then we air them. That

[00:37:28.44] spk_7:
must have been a record. 30.

[00:37:45.78] spk_0:
32 is the is the largest I’ve gotten. Yeah, it had been like 25 27 or so, but so were booked up. Eso. When you’re at the conference, come on the exhibit floor. I believe you’ll see us in boots 5 10 and 5 12 On DDE comes he’s come Say hello will be the noisy one with probably with spotlights, because we might shoot video. So but very smart, very smart speakers in lots of different topics around technology. And Amy’s Point is, I want to drive home. We’re all technologists. It regardless of what it says on your business card, you’re no longer using index cards and transparencies. You know, the overhead projectors. They’re gone. We’re all using technology, and this conference is for people at all different levels. Whether it’s on your in your job title as C I O. Or You’re just a user of technology

[00:38:22.71] spk_2:
and you have to say good bye. Thank you very much.

[00:38:24.45] spk_7:
Okay, thank you so much. And I will see what your booth. Because I always loved getting to do an interview with you.

[00:38:29.16] spk_2:
Absolutely. It’s our only time to go face to face. Yes, we’ll see you. I’ll see you in Baltimore.

[00:38:36.00] spk_0:
All right. Thank you for that indulgence. Alex Count. It’s usually

[00:38:38.44] spk_4:
a great conference or close to where I live. Yeah, it is fabulous. Maybe I’ll see you. There is

[00:38:49.80] spk_0:
really a very smart place. Hundreds of brilliance because I wish I could interview more than the 32 or so whatever I’ll get. Um so just remind listeners Alex counts. Ah, consultant, founder of Grameen Foundation. And his book is Changing the World without Losing your mind. Leadership lessons from three decades of social entrepreneurship. We’re just scratching the surface. You know, where we’re We’re focused on the CEO chair relationship today, but obviously the book goes way beyond

[00:39:11.33] spk_3:
that. Uh,

[00:39:24.52] spk_2:
lots of lessons in 30 years. Now it’s Ah, you got a good You got a young face. You got a baby face. Check out, check out his, uh, check out his headshot tony-martignetti dot com’s gonna baby face. Um, So let’s, uh we divert a little bit, but these are all valuable topics.

[00:39:28.92] spk_0:
I mean, this board evaluation process is semi annual thing is really very interesting. I hadn’t heard anything

[00:39:35.22] spk_3:
like that. Um,

[00:39:36.96] spk_2:
let’s talk Thio. Let’s talk to

[00:39:43.47] spk_0:
communications. You like you like frequent regular communications between the CEO and the chair.

[00:40:28.73] spk_4:
Yes. I mean, there’s no. You know, when you when you talk with someone, you come in. Mike, come on with an agenda of what you think is going on the organization, but especially if you’re not rushed on your in person, where that’s possible, you know, you stumble upon in the process of just kind of ruminating on what’s going on the organization, some opportunities and assets and some kind of dangers and risks that you didn’t even go in thinking about because you’re you know, you’re with someone who’s also internalized. The organization is smart, is committed on DSO. I always, you know, I would wouldn’t want to talk with Susan or Bob or Palm or it’s, you know, have have kind of regular calls, you know, maybe two or three a month, but also in with a strict agenda but also sometimes has really unstructured. You know, it’s been a long dinner with them and, ah, a mixture of bonding and just kind of, you know, thinking out loud brainstorming and and just really kind of creative ideas can come up there. And if you’re I did tell a story. One of my board shares went from being semi retired of a very demanding job three years into his role. And while he did stick with it for another two years, which surprised me my ability to spend time with him, quality unstructured on rushed time was compromised. And and that was and I missed that. And our partnership suffered a little bit. As a result, he was still very good and because of his job, had more money to put into the organization. But his ability to kind of have that Maur kind of on structure brainstorming time was severely constrained.

[00:41:16.49] spk_0:
Yeah, Yeah, it was more just a formal time together. Yeah.

[00:41:21.06] spk_2:
And you think about think about friends, you, How much just happens

[00:41:28.85] spk_0:
in free conversation over over a meal in a glass of wine. You

[00:41:47.13] spk_4:
think of some something to do together that just you hadn’t even thought of and just being in their presence. You’re like, Well, why don’t we try that, um and and so that that time together again, so many of these things Fundraising, managing board relationships. They’re very time consuming. But when you do them well and invest the time, it’s just they pay back many, many times, but you need to be able to kind of spend the time on what you know, my wife and I call the important but not urgent on If you invest in that, just magical things can happen.

[00:42:01.10] spk_2:
And then this kind

[00:42:01.89] spk_0:
of thing you have to make time for you aren’t gonna find the time when I when I find the time will, will have an unstructured meeting. But today we’re having an agenda. When I find the time when we find the time to get

[00:42:12.38] spk_2:
time is not gonna tap you on the shoulder and make itself apparent that you have to make the time. There’s never gonna come in timers. I’ve got two free hours today. Let’s have a meeting with meeting with. I’ll have a call with my board chair. It’s not gonna happen. You have to make the time consciously

[00:43:04.04] spk_4:
and you know, and it’s also becomes something, if you know is it can’t became with each my board shares, particularly Bob like Failed and Susan, where I just enjoyed being around them. They had a lot of grace for me when I made mistakes. They kind of puffed up my ego. When I was doing well, we found common interests or developed them on. They never took cheap shots at me, even in private. If they were going to be constructive, they tried the most sensitive way to do it. That didn’t deflate me. And so it just it ends up being. Gosh, I went. When do I get my next time with Susan? Tony Learn Thio kind of, you know, to commiserated, to celebrate. It’s just always like a special thing. And so you know, they make more time for it, and you developing that personal chemistry. Even if you’re very different people like we were, you could develop it, but it it it needs to be a, you know, a high priority

[00:43:19.30] spk_0:
on. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows in the C e o chair relationship. Like any relationship, let me take this last break and we’ll come back to Gilling with tension points.

[00:43:31.35] spk_2:
Turn to communications. Do you find yourself scratching

[00:43:39.57] spk_0:
your head, wondering how some nonprofits always seem to get mentioned in the news? It’s not because they’re big here. We are talking about relationships. It’s because they have relationships with journalists when they don’t want to be quoted, they just have

[00:43:48.44] spk_2:
a relation. They’re not looking for something they have a relationship

[00:43:59.65] spk_0:
of standing relationship with journalists turn to can help you do that. Their former journalists, including from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. So you want to build those relationships in advance. So when the news breaks and you can contribute to it and want to be seen on an issue, you’ve got the standing relationship. Your call, most likely more likely than not, will be taken over not having that standing relationship. They return hyphen to dot CEO.

[00:45:00.25] spk_2:
Let’s do the live listener love and there’s quite a bit of it we are in. Ah, it’s the start. Domestic Woodbridge, New Jersey Tampa, Florida New York New York multiple. Glad to see you. Thank you very much. New York, um, live love to each of those cities as well. A Seattle, Washington in Chicago, Illinois, um, as well as Lincoln’s in North Carolina. Well, cool North Carolina. I’m in Emerald Isle, not today, but, uh, live love. I’ve loved to each of our domestic live listeners. Now let’s go abroad. Seoul, South Korea. Always so loyal. I’m always so grateful. Seoul, South Korea Multiple listeners Annual Hasso comes a ham Nida Woodbridge, New Jersey

[00:45:05.27] spk_0:
No, I’m sorry. That’s not fair. Not that’s That’s, uh that’s not foreign. That’s not very funny.

[00:45:07.74] spk_2:
I’m from New

[00:45:08.17] spk_0:
Jersey. So you know, I’m from I grew up in Rutherford Multiple,

[00:45:44.57] spk_2:
Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan. Often we have Japanese listeners. Thank you, Japan. Konnichi wa um Chapultepec de Chapultepec Day. Hinojosa, Mexico When I started this when you start this France Rahm bouquet that was the same city was with us last week as well. Rambo. Yea. And I apologize if I’m not pronouncing it right. But live love Thio out to our for listeners officers in France, um, Oxford in the United Kingdom and also in Korea Sue on Oh, someone else. Besides, uh um besides soul thank you. Live love out to you. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Moscow. We’re, uh not quite Everyone say every hemisphere I mean every continent, but we’re close live love

[00:46:45.55] spk_0:
to each of our live listeners. Thank you so much for being with us and the podcast pleasantries toward over 13,000 listeners. In the podcast Pleasantries to you. I thank you for being with us week after week, whether you binge it all and listen to eight episodes on a weekend or you’re spreading it out. Pleasantries to our podcast listeners. Um, that was our Ah, live. Listen, love in the podcast pleasantries. And now back to, uh, CEO chair relationship, which we’ve got butt loads more time for. Ah, and Alex counts. Okay, Moments of tension. They’re gonna crop up

[00:47:51.47] spk_4:
inevitable in a certain way. Healthy. I remember. And in the article I talked just referenced in passing that, you know, one time I had some tension with Susan Davis and I went to the vice chair kind of probably overreacting to that and wanted to try play Mommy off against Daddy or something, you know. And Yvette Dyer, who is our vice chair at the time, said very profound and basically said, You know, the tension is an inbuilt part of that relationship, even when it’s the healthiest. And as I thought about that more I thought about you know, your non profit executive directors. Sometimes they’re too aggressive, they need to be reined in, and the board feels it. But it’s really the responsibility that share to give that feedback. On the other hand, some this wasn’t so much my fault, but some executive directors and CEOs are too cautious. I need to be pushed to be more aggressive and had Ah, And again that will come, uh, probably is the sense of the board, but often best conveyed by the chair. And initially, that may not be that well received, um, and and may create some tension. But again, there’s in all healthy relationships, especially this one. That’s that’s one of the aspects of it. And once I realized that and you see, I had the benefit when I was working with Susan, that I’d already been the chair of another non profit board. She had previously been the executive director of a nonprofit, so we kind of understood you

[00:48:12.53] spk_0:
had been in each other’s roles. Very important, always

[00:48:15.15] spk_4:
possible. But but but actually quite it valuable it You’ve kind of sat in that person’s, you know, chair and and you can understand a little bit more why they’re doing what they’re doing on DDE. And so that that tension just was, you know, was really part and parcel of a healthy relationship. Is, as I came to see, not didn’t see that you immediately

[00:48:36.62] spk_2:
too timid sometimes CEOs in what respect? Not aggressive. Just

[00:50:05.15] spk_4:
say, you know whether it’s setting their annual goals for, you know, whatever societal positive impact they want. Or some CEOs want a stockpile money rather than spend it on their programs of their team star of the organization. Just because they just they’re always worried about running out of money. So or sometimes it’s about, for example, keeping it a non performing employees on giving them one more chance that could go on for four or five years and on. And, you know, there was one case where I probably stuck with it. A chief operating officer longer than I should and a board chair came in and said, You know, when you’re gonna ease him out. You know, he’s creating a lot of dissension in the organization. Even that was raging, reaching the level of the board. And I needed to be pushed Thio to recognize that this person wasn’t performing and so get my errors would tend to be more about being too aggressive, too much of a risk taker, and I would need to be reined in. But like I had my examples where I was foot dragging and on the board. If the board doesn’t tell you that your your staff probably won’t directly on dhe. You know they’re the ones that to be a kind of observe your performance and push you. And of course, ultimate decision usually remains yours. But if you don’t follow that enough, you’ll find yourself out of a job at some point. And so if there’s a there’s a kind of a creative tension there,

[00:50:06.72] spk_0:
particularly staff won’t tell you if it’s the c 00 that we’re talking about. Yep, that’s the source.

[00:50:13.58] spk_2:
You liketo have staff participate, attend

[00:50:21.06] spk_0:
and participate board inboard means and not just the C suite. Yeah, that’s what

[00:50:21.61] spk_4:
I did something that people who it

[00:50:24.35] spk_2:
kind of

[00:50:51.40] spk_4:
naturally evolved in Grameen Foundation, where from when we had a very small staff initially is you know, I would have some staff that would present to the board. Maybe they weren’t as good at presenting his. I was. Maybe they were better, but but to give them that experience, to demystify what the board is by having them, and the board could see the quality of staff I had, whether it was, hopefully they were impressed. Sometimes they’re, like, you know, realize that you had why I had to step in and do this, but I ultimately not only had the senior staff as we grew, you know, sit around the board table and either present or observed, but I would say any available staff member quite radical. Could you sit in an outer ring and observe? And it just it had this kind of ability to demystify the board where a lot of non profit employees like

[00:51:08.63] spk_2:
What is

[00:52:23.45] spk_4:
the board do and they’re not doing enough. And what’s their role? And why do we have to work so hard to prepare these board meetings and when they can actually sit there and observe the board deliberating and we would we would go one step further, which is where a t end of the board meeting the board would all leave board members except for the chair, and I would facilitate a debrief with all the staff who were present. Summons might be 2025 staff members, and they could all say, I thought the board had a really intelligent conversation about that. I thought that they totally avoided this topic and had a really, you know, bad discussion about it, and we would just we wouldn’t try to argue them. And so it because a lot of people came to work for me, as I learned is that the board was this mysterious thing where the CEO would go off in a room and maybe the CFO would make a 45 minute presentation and then be ushered out of the room. And it just felt like a this kind of secret society that was making decisions about them that they had no visibility into. And I kind of went the other way of just absolute transparency, including sometimes the board. My staff would see the board grilling me, and they would see me sometimes perform well and defend their interests. You know, some board member wants a new program that made no sense, and I would say, No, we’re not gonna do that makes no sense. And sometimes they’d see me stumble. But again, it just made it more of a human, just just just a group of people trying to help us in a different type of role than you have and let them watch you at times and you get to watch them perform and evaluated and and so it just took all that mysteriousness out of it, and I thought was healthy. Now, at times, you know, I did. I have an occasional board member say, Well, what

[00:52:43.95] spk_2:
if we What if

[00:52:47.15] spk_4:
we close down this whole project? You know, maybe that would be a good idea. And then the people running that project sitting in the background Does it cause anxiety that you need to manage? Yes, there were. There were problems with that. But the benefits way far outweigh the costs in my mind.

[00:53:01.32] spk_0:
Okay. Interesting. Yeah, The typical is staff member of presents, and then is, as you said, ushered out. Yeah.

[00:53:12.65] spk_2:
All right. Awesome. Opening our minds. Um, you have some thoughts

[00:53:13.51] spk_0:
about upgrading aboard where we have, like, two minutes or so left or something. So

[00:53:18.60] spk_2:
we got a good

[00:53:19.21] spk_0:
Okay, we have about three minutes left up the timeto upgrade first. What do you mean by upgrading aboard? Well,

[00:54:16.61] spk_4:
I I believe that I’ve studied it. That about 80% of non profit boards in this country or some version of dysfunctional either micromanaging or only 80 or well, you think that low occasionally I say that I ask people who challenge me and more often it’s that they think it It’s more than that. But whatever most up a solid majority and the reason s O I. What I say is, Is that it? You know, if you’re upgrading, I’m saying, if you want to take a dysfunctional board to mediocre or a mediocre board too high performing it could be done. But you need to do a couple things. One. Is there no quick fixes? If anyone tells you they can turn a board materially increase their performance in 90 days, adopting you know, four techniques. It’s not gonna happen if if you want to increase the quality aboard materially, significantly mark your calendar 3 to 5 years in the future. And one of the things I most often hear from executive directors is, Well, I’m gonna wait for my board to start performing, and then I’ll really engage them on and support them. But they need to prove to me, and I said, No, that’s the wrong way. Look at it. You need to start treating them now. Whoever is on that treat them now is if they’re high performing, bored, invest in them that way and then given a couple years of lag time, they’ll emerge to be the board that you deserve. But you need to treat them now like they’re the board that you deserve, even though they’re not yet, um, and so

[00:54:47.20] spk_2:
that may just

[00:54:47.78] spk_4:
spending intensive time, helping to create real wins for them and a great experience of being on the board, which is gonna be different for each board member

[00:54:55.99] spk_0:
and challenging them to spend more time to get more responsibility.

[00:54:59.46] spk_2:
That’s right, but also

[00:55:00.20] spk_4:
making it making it pleasurable and enjoyable for them to do so not because their guilt or manipulation, but just out of a sense of opportunity. So again I go into in the book, I talk about how once that once I kind of got that at the care and feeding of board members. I think most executive directors and CEO spend probably could spend 3 to 4 times Maur of their time and effort in cultivating these board members. And the payback is immeasurable. But it’s it’s not gonna happen 90 days if if you’re if you’re gonna just read an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, apply a few techniques and then you know are they performing better in 90 days. It’s just not. That’s not how groups evolve and function. But if you do it over an extended period aboard, and then you just add one good new member a year. Ah, and they raised the level of everyone a little bit, and that’s that’s how this goes. But if you stick with it for a couple of years, it could be miraculous.

[00:55:59.64] spk_0:
We’re gonna leave it there. That’s outstanding. Is Alex counts his book again, changing the world without Losing your mind? Leadership lessons from three decades of social entrepreneurship. You’ll find him at Alex counts dot com and at Alex,

[00:56:14.52] spk_2:
counts. Thanks so much, Thank you Pleasure. Next week, our Innovators,

[00:56:30.41] spk_0:
Siri’s continues with the return of Peter Shankman on neuro Diversity. What that means for you as an employer and for your employees, the those who are New road divergent. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com

[00:56:41.16] spk_2:
by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is

[00:56:59.82] spk_0:
there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. Our creative

[00:57:00.60] spk_2:
producer is Claire Meyerhoff.

[00:57:41.08] spk_5:
Sam Liebowitz is the line producer on the board shows. Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein of Brooklyn, New York, with me next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great talking alternative radio 24 hours a day.