Tag Archives: board

Nonprofit Radio for November 2, 2020: Boards And Asking Styles

My Guest:

Brian Saber: Boards And Asking Styles

Brian Saber returns with his new book, “Boards And Asking Styles.” Your board’s Rainmakers, Go-Getters, Kindred Spirits and Mission Controllers all need to work with each other, your CEO and your staff. Brian shepherds you through how to make that happen. He’s president of Asking Matters.

 

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[00:02:12.84] 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 is non profit radio your favorite abdominal podcast? I certainly hope so. You know there are seven days in a head, Ahmad, Of course, that’s the noun form. I’m so proud of myself. When I discover a new word that I have to open with this on. I want to thank Miriam Webster for sending it to me that I can discover it and be so proud. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. Id Bear the pain of leishmaniasis If you bit me with the idea that you missed today’s show boards and asking styles, Ryan Saber returns with his new book, That’s It. That’s the title boards and asking styles. Very straightforward. No fluff in the title reserved all the fluff for the book. We explore how the asking matters work that he pioneered will help strengthen your board responsive by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives, raise more money changed more lives. Tony dot m a slash dot for a free demo and a free month non tony steak to a November webinar. I’m very pleased to welcome Brian Saber back to non profit radio. He’s president of asking matters home to the asking styles which help people understand and embrace their unique strengths. As fundraisers, he’s spent his entire career asking for money for nonprofits. I’m gonna telethon, Caller. I made your gift officer and executive director and now as a consultant. His first book was asking Styles Revolutionize your fundraising. His latest book We’re Here to Talk About Today is boards and asking styles. A roadmap to success. Asking matters is that asking matters calm and he’s at Brian Saber. Brian. Welcome back to the show. Congratulations on the new book.

[00:02:21.54] spk_0:
Thank you, tony. Thanks for having me back. I’m glad to see that Cove. It has indulged your wit at all.

[00:02:28.16] spk_1:
Thank you for recognizing that I haven’t undoubtable wit. I’m, uh I’m floored by that s oh, what a way to launch. Tony is wit. Uh, it’s not dull. It’s definitely not dull. No,

[00:02:40.64] spk_0:
it is not. We can use all of it that we could get these days.

[00:03:24.74] spk_1:
Yeah, we could use even even my just barely a Ndlela wit. Thank you. Uh, no, you gotta have fun. It’s my show, you know, whatever the hell I want to do, I mean, I just, you know, we’re gonna We’re gonna learn. But if we’re not gonna have fun, I’m not gonna bother personally personal. So lets you Mm. Let’s start out with the asking styles. We gotta lay the groundwork for the for. The handful of listeners don’t know aren’t well acquainted with the asking styles. Let’s lay that framework for folks. Then we’ll see how it helps your board. What’s his asking styles thing? Great.

[00:04:30.64] spk_0:
So the asking styles were developed a decade ago. Now by my co founder, Andre kills dead and myself. We develop them because everywhere we looked in the field, we saw people who said I’m not a fundraiser. I’m not this. I’m not that in particular. We saw it with the boards. Most board members have come onto boards. Will say I’ll do anything but fundraise. I’m not a fundraiser. I hate fundraising. I can’t ask my friends for money and so forth. And we knew how critical boards were to fundraising and that the type of fundraising. We were talking about the more significant gifts that come from developing relationships one on one, that that fundraising was all based on personality and relationship. It was much more art than science, and we had to help people understand where they fit in it so they could be comfortable. So we went about figuring out what makes someone’s asking style. We felt two characteristics. How one interacts and how one thinks were most important, how one acts on the extrovert introvert spectrum, how one thinks on the analytic, intuitive spectrum, and based on that there would be four basic styles and that you fall into one quadrant or another, but with a little bit of another style that no one felt cleanly in one box. There were some people who were uber this or uber that so such analytic introverts, the type of people who sit behind a computer writing code all day and such intuitive extroverts that, you know, creative just floating all over the place. You could never pin him down with massive ideas, but that most of us were somewhere in between had a little bit of this and that and we wanted people understand that. So we created this rubric for the field for the field of non profit to help everyone feel more comfortable and understand how to fundraise more successfully. How to tell their story in their own way from their own strengths. Not to worry about an elevator pitch, not to worry about reciting lots of outcomes measurements if they want to speak from the heart and a different, passionate, visionary way not to worry about that piece of what really sold them was outcomes and goals and plans that they had to speak in the language that was authentic to them. And that would be compelling, uh, to the donor, Teoh, a prospect or a current donor. So that’s that’s what we developed and meeting

[00:06:25.34] spk_1:
meeting board members. I realize this is not only for board members, but that’s our conversation today, and that’s you’re saying that’s where you found it. Most relevant, and then where they where they are, what worked with what you are type of person that you are in the quadrant will identify the quadrants and versus trying to make you something that you’re not, makes you uncomfortable

[00:06:29.20] spk_0:
right, and we started with boards than spent a number of years, much more focused on staff, developing a lot of materials in depth courses in a membership in such a brother. I bought Andreae now seven years ago, which is hard to believe. So I

[00:06:44.65] spk_1:
was going to say Now this started with you and Andrea Kill Stead, who’s been on the show. And then what? You pushed her out. You took her expertise on, then pushed her out for a nominal buyout.

[00:09:47.96] spk_0:
I broke her kneecaps and said, That’s it. Off you go. Um, you know, Andre is a She is a huge go get her. She’s a big ideas person and she has brought a tremendous amount of the field. But it was at her instigation because she said, You know what, Brian? I like really building these things. I have these big ideas. They’re running. It’s not really me, and I can see where you because my secondaries mission controller and I could do this plan full stuff where you would be better at running it and and and Andrea is significantly older than I am. I don’t think she would be bothered by my saying that. So she within a different point in her life and she said, Let’s let’s do this So I took it over. And as you may know, she went on to then build capital campaign, uh, toolkit with Amy Eisenstein. That’s been another great thing in the field. Yeah, so I took it over in, uh, 2013 and have spent the last seven years really developing the styles. Everything from the iconography you see now Thio the application of the styles in many ways, and I’ve got done trainings across the country and lots of conferences that are mostly for staff. And interestingly, I’m now circling back to board. And I’m doing a lot of board work, a lot of board trainings. And out of that came this idea that my second book should really be focused on board. When I started, it was pre now with this and and the the additional complications of being the board member and of running a non profit in many ways, they asking styles or even more important, because boards have to be at their best. In order for the organizations to survive, everyone has to be at the table. Helping to build resource is and everyone has to work together in a collegial way that create some synergy and makes everyone feel like they’re part of a team. And it’s hard to get to know board members anyway, when all you do is meet every two months for two hours and maybe you’re in a committee or two and that those meet once in a while. Now it’s all by zoom. Everyone’s overwhelmed zoomed out, and yet it’s more important than ever for people who feel their team and you have new board members I’ve seen. I’ve been delighted to see a number of announcements lately of organizations that have brought on new board members during this time, which is, you can imagine is challenging. You think of a board member coming thio their first board meeting, sitting in a room and getting to meet and experience other people and see how things really work. And now it’s all by zoom, which is much harder in a very different dynamic. So so, understanding the styles and how everyone interacts is even more important for on boarding a new board member. Look, you work, you get

[00:09:50.28] spk_1:
to recruit when we talk about recruitment to exactly but so Let Tze identify the styles. So you have things to spectrum. You got the analytic, intuitive spectrum, and you have the extrovert introvert spectrum. So if you know, put the extrovert introvert on the vertical and the analytic intuitive on the horizontal, you get four quadrants. So what are those? What are those for?

[00:10:14.26] spk_0:
Eso top left. You get the analytic extroverts. The rainmaker always goal oriented. Uh, driven, competitive. Keep their eye on the prize. Knows they’re succeeding based on the numbers, right? Did I reach this goal? Did I bring this money? Gets to to raise as much money. Then you have the intuitive extrovert top, right? The go getter, big vision thinker. Lots of energy brings people along with their enthusiasm on always sees the opportunities. So is bringing that big passion and excitement about the future. Anything’s possible. Then you have your intuitive introvert, your kindred spirit. Feelings oriented. I am primarily kindred spirit were our hearts on our sleeves. Everything is personal for us. No matter how hard we try to make it otherwise. And because we have that, uh, sense of sensitivity, we are sensitive to others. We tend to be very accommodating. We want other people to be heard and feel good and such. Also good skills for fundraising, different from the core rainmaker skills. And not to say a kindred spirit can’t be goal oriented. And a rainmaker can’t be compassionate and attentive on then mission controller. The analytic introvert bottom left. The Eagle Scout who always gets the job done. Very methodical, systematic plan ful and best at sitting back and listening and absorbing what’s happening. Great listener and observer, which, as we know, is so key to fundraising. So those the styles and they all complement each other and work well together can sometimes frustrate each other. But, um, but those are the styles,

[00:12:01.78] spk_1:
okay? And we each way each most likely have ah, primary and a secondary correct. So you’re you are kindred spirit and mission controller.

[00:12:13.21] spk_0:
Yeah, I am pure introvert. They which surprises people since I do so much public speaking and training. So people who know about the acting profession of lots of actors actually are shy or introverted, and you get in front of an audience and you do your thing.

[00:13:37.94] 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 what happens when you have the existing relationship. And then when you want to be heard, the newspapers, the outlets, they take your calls. But you gotta have the relationship set up ahead of time. That’s what turn to is gonna help you do build those relationships. They specialize in working with nonprofits. One of the partners, Peter Pan A. Pento, was an editor at The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The right turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to boards and asking styles. Perfect example of that. Aside from Brian Saber, uh, I’m seeing a lot of interviews with Sasha Baron Cohen because he has a Borat sequel out, and he has said, I’ve read it in online and I saw an interview with him. Eso he said a couple times. He’s primarily a shy, shy guy, but you know, he has characters who are obviously grandstanding. No, it alls, you know, it’s off, but s Oh, absolutely, And I and you people can go to asking matters dot com and you could find out which one of these you are right. You right. You could just do three minute little three minute quiz or so right?

[00:14:03.18] spk_0:
Exactly. Thank you. Yeah. You want it to be true. False questions. True. False? Yes. No, you know.

[00:14:10.12] spk_1:
And you The site admonishes us. Don’t spend a lot of time e I already did it. I didn’t just do it last night knowing we’re gonna prepare. I already know that. I’m, uh I’m primarily a kindred spirit as well. By birth. I’m a kindred spirit by birth but a go getter by practice and

[00:14:28.55] spk_0:
teach your primarily kindred spirits secondarily. Go getter.

[00:14:31.79] spk_1:
Yeah, secondary. Go get e No. Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:34.64] spk_0:
Pure, pure. Intuitive is what it’s saying. Massive, intuitive. Yeah, a lot of gut on the idea. Not a lot of planning percent. That’s a problem. A problem you got a plan ful person to about right? Yeah,

[00:14:49.44] spk_1:
I know. Now we need all four. But that’s why that’s why I’m not on any boards. Just do it. We’ll look back in six months.

[00:14:57.59] spk_0:
I’m not on any boards either. As a matter of fact, it seems it feels like a busman’s holiday to me. And I’m going when they’re gonna want me to fundraise. Andi. I’m not a big process person. Like go getters are much more into process. So Andre and I, over the years had to figure this out because she was pure process. Idi ated out loud, you know, lots of ideas. She could sit for hours and my eyes would plays over like I can be very cut to the chase. The Mission Control. Okay, let’s just do it. Let’s just lay it out. Let’s just get to the details and do it. And we finally realized that our meetings could only be a certain length of time. And I say all that because that been a challenge for me, with boards and any groups at all where I’m sitting there and I’m a little impatient, like Okay, let’s I just want to move to the next thing. I don’t want everyone talking and processing. I’m happy to go with someone else’s idea. Let’s just move it along. Three.

[00:15:52.31] spk_1:
Our brainstorm session is such a three hour brainstorm session is such a bore?

[00:15:57.24] spk_0:
E identified something in the 1st 10 minutes way Had something in the 1st 10 minutes. What? What did you say? Say it again the idea seemed pretty good to me exactly three

[00:16:11.09] spk_1:
hours ago. We could’ve had lunch and dinner by now.

[00:16:13.21] spk_0:
Exactly. Caught a good movie and come back just for the conclusion. First

[00:16:27.74] spk_1:
it sounded pretty good to me. Oh, right. Exactly. Contrary. Thio Brainstorming ideation session. All right, so, um all right, so let’s apply this to the board. So, as you had said, it helps if we know who is what. What is who on the board. What do we have? Do we have a imbalance of rainmakers and no process people to back them up, you know? Right. So we need tohave way. Need to have a balance,

[00:19:11.44] spk_0:
right? I mean, think of any planning session. Let’s let’s say you’ve got right now. There’s so many issues nonprofits, air facing. So let’s say it’s an issue of Well, what programming do we go forward with knowing that the current conditions are going to probably last into next summer? Okay, let’s make that assumption is aboard. Here we are. What are we going to do? Is an organization so the rainmaker is going to say Okay, well, what’s the goal? Right? What’s the goal of all of this? What outcomes. Do we want what we want to? Um, you know, we want to maintain We want Thio, serve our clients as well as we can. We want to stay fiscally responsible that then you have the go getter. Who’s saying the visionary who saying, Well, this could be the opportunity to pivot right opportunities, not problems, solutions, not problems. Let’s think out of the box. This could be the chance. We were looking for the kindred spirit. The very heart oriented person is saying, Well, we can’t forget the clients. We can’t forget the staff, you know, we need to you know, it’s really important that we come through for everyone, whether it makes the most financial sense or long term sense or not. And the Mission Control is saying Okay, great. I agree that we have that goal. I agree. You know, we could be something different. I agree. We have to care about people. But how are we going to get it done? It has to be realistic. And you can see where If you have an entire board of one or the other, you’re you can’t get the work done, right? Right. You need someone to check what you’re doing. We all need checks and balances and we need different voices. So once you look at the style so that you can see where if you’re going to do strategic planning, you need to have the four styles around the table to come out with a strong plan. Otherwise, you’re gonna have a plan that’s missing either the goal and outcomes or the big picture or the heart or the structure. And then and then you’ve got to fund. Then you’ve gotta work your way back into it Too late. Okay, way made a plan. But now Wow. Turns out we don’t know how toe executed because we didn’t have any mission controllers in the group or, you know, we didn’t think big enough. We went right into the weeds because we didn’t have our visionary in the group and so forth. So

[00:19:39.34] spk_1:
let’s talk about recruitment. If we’re, uh we’re gonna bring folks onto the board. Uh, you want this to be one of the factors I mean, there, there, obviously, you know, we need accountants. Maybe, you know, whatever. Whatever skill sets, you have gaps. And of course, those those really are predominant in your board selection. But you’d love for folks to find out what these potential board members asking styles are. Yes. So send them toe asking matters dot com as your recruiting them.

[00:19:44.29] spk_0:
Yeah, right. Wait three

[00:19:46.87] spk_1:
minutes. They print the report. Okay,

[00:20:13.04] spk_0:
Sorry. We don’t want you any go getters by you know, the reality for almost every night fucking is. We don’t get to pick and choose that much when we’re looking for board members. So some organizations really can. Others, at the very least, though, can say, Okay, we’re looking at our board, and we really seem to be missing kindred spirits. That’s bad. So lets

[00:20:15.89] spk_1:
you gotta have your You gotta have your kindred spirits. That’s

[00:20:18.26] spk_0:
bad. Absolutely. Eso eso when we go out, let’s keep that in mind, right, Because we might have more candidates and way might have more candidates, and we could put on in any one point. We might be bringing people on in classes, and we might want this first class to include another kindred spirit or two, and we might put off other people for a year. So it’s another factor. It’s not just a factor in who to choose, but how to understand who you’re choose, right? How to understand maybe what they’re saying and where they’re coming from. And to be ableto envision how that person would interact on the board, given that person style and the style of the board to get a sense of whether the person fits in or how the person would fit in. So it it not only helps you choose but helps you understand what you’re

[00:21:20.83] spk_1:
and you may not have. As you said, you may not have the luxury of selecting from half a dozen, you know, potential board members. So at least the one person that is before you know what his or her style is. And, as you said, how they’ll how they’ll work with the rest of the board. Right? Okay, okay. And and this applies for the for the CEO to write mean CEO board chair relationship. Don’t we want to know where those were? Those two folks stand

[00:21:40.34] spk_0:
right? I mean, you’re not going to choose one based on their style, but based on their style that they’re going to have different strengths and challenges and in their in their roles as the two leaders and in terms of how they work together. Because you, if you’ve gotto generally, the CEO is reporting to the board share most regularly. If the relationships going well, they’re meeting regularly. The chair is, in a way, guiding the CEO. The CEO is guiding the chair, Um, and so if you’ve got a chair, who’s a go getter and you have a CEO who’s a mission controller, especially when you have people who are diagonal to each other on the grid? Okay, who are you might call them polar opposites. There could be a challenge working together. One wants all this detail, the others flying by the seat of their pants. Ones, you know, very sensitive to criticism. The others just throwing it out there, vice.

[00:22:50.24] spk_1:
Because because if there if there, uh, diagonal diagonal to each other, then you’ve got You’ve got an intuitive extrovert. Uh, no. An intuitive introvert working with an analytical extrovert,

[00:23:15.24] spk_0:
right? I know. As a kindred spirit, intuitive introvert, that rainmakers, thes analytic extroverts can challenge me. I can get a little anxious because they’re very assertive. And for may I read assertive sometimes to personally, they’re not doing anything wrong, right? They’re just they’re being themselves. They’re bringing certain traits to the table, and I’m reading them a certain ways of kindred spirits. So now if I know, uh, this is why we might be having that challenge. We could talk it through and and at least understand each other better, like in any relationship. Um, in any personal friend relationship, any relationship, understanding the other person helps you depersonalize what’s happening.

[00:25:34.41] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Tony is take two. I’ve got a webinar coming up It is. Start your plan. Giving in 2021. It’s a quick shot is gonna be just 50 minutes in and out. We’re gonna talk about what plan giving is how to identify your best prospects, where to start your plan giving program, how to market and promote your new program. And then I’m gonna leave plenty of time to answer your questions, which actually is my favorite and arguably the most important thing. Getting your questions answered. So there’s plenty of time for that. That’s it. Join me. It’s Thursday, November 19th, three o’clock Eastern time, which means two o’clock central, which means one o’clock mountain, which means noontime Pacific. No discrimination here by time zone. I do not discriminate against time zones. Everybody’s everybody’s. Everybody’s got a time. That’s the way it is. So, uh, quick shot. How to start your plan? Giving or start your plan giving start your plan to giving in 2021. You sign up for the webinar at planned giving accelerator dot com slash webinar. I hope you’ll be with me. That is, tony is take two. We’ve got plenty of more time for boards and asking styles You have, ah, formula. I don’t want to scare. People were math, math phobic, but very simple formula. You say teamwork plus camaraderie equals synergy. Yes, what’s behind that involved? There’s no there’s no regression analysis. You don’t have to know absolutely sine or cosine or tangent or or anything

[00:25:34.89] spk_0:
like that. Absolutely nothing. I was thinking. I was trying to think through as I was developing this book, what I wanted to say and why. And I came up with that, that that having the best board a board that really is on fire, if you will to me involved, uh, involves two things or is dependent on two things one teamwork, the ability teamwork is respecting everyone being able to hear other voices, uh, respecting decisions that come out of committee and so forth, respecting everyone sitting around the table and having an equal voice and things like that. That’s teamwork. And, um uh, Michael Davidson who? I do a lot of work with his quote in the book. He’s

[00:26:25.70] spk_1:
He’s been on the show

[00:26:26.81] spk_0:
e adore Michael and I’ve learned so much about governance from him over the last two decades. I’ve known him actually about almost 20 years because we met at Hudson Guilt. He was doing work for them, and I was working for them. Uh, and he talks about teamwork a lot because he’s a rower, as you know, and you have to be a strong team, you’re not gonna get anywhere.

[00:26:52.84] spk_1:
His company logo is is a right right,

[00:27:25.04] spk_0:
the board coach and it’s rowing and he talks about so he talks about teamwork. He talks about how you can do your job. If you don’t know what it is, you won’t do it. If you don’t think everyone else is doing it right, you have to be a team. It’s one of the reasons why I think everyone has to fundraise on the board because that’s what makes the strongest fundraising team. Not having a fundraising committee and saying over those five people are responsible for all the fundraising board is going to dio, so teamwork is very important and camaraderie. You also have to like each other not to be friends, but to you need to find it worth being in someone else’s company. And even if someone is very different from U. S. O. U. And that comes from getting to know people, not Onley sitting around the board table. But in a more familial way, it’s That’s the reason why some of these social engagements just before, after a board meeting, having board members go out to dinner together. All of that is really important. That’s why they do it in the corporate world, right? That’s why there are all these team building events. They build camaraderie, not just on the camaraderie helps the team work. But

[00:28:08.93] spk_1:
I don’t have Thio build the comrade. I don’t have to walk across hot coals barefoot

[00:29:29.74] spk_0:
E No, I wouldn’t do that either way. Okay? Yeah, No way could just have dinner together. We can have dinner together at one organization. I I had. I had board members in rotating groups of 4 to 6 go to dinner after a board meeting. So there were six board meetings during the year and twice a year each board member went out with a different group of people. So everyone got to have dinner with everyone during the year and such. It helped, Um, so when so looking at the asking styles, you can understand better how to work as a team. And you can also understand what, what types of activities would help build camaraderie? Because we’re all not going to like the same things. I, as a kindred spirit, don’t want to go to a big party with the whole board. I’d much rather go to a small dinner or just have a one on one coffee, right? If I could do that with a few board members, over time, I’m golden. I build that relationship if you send me Thio. The board president’s house to schmooze with all the other board members doesn’t work as well for me. Given my style, it doesn’t mean you don’t do it, but just a ZX with training and other things, you have to have a variety of activities to appeal to everyone. Just like you have to let people have a variety of stories to tell their own stories because everyone’s gonna go to tell the different ones. So eso building camaraderie, um, you do have to proactively work it. It part of that it overlaps both is making sure everyone has a voice right that everyone feels they are part of this group, that they’re integral to it, that people hear them see them. And so it goes back and forth, the teamwork and the Senate and the camaraderie. And that’s what gives you the synergy. So that’s how I came up with that concept. Okay? Yes. Okay.

[00:30:38.54] spk_1:
You you talk about Well, actually, before we talk about some process for meetings like making sure voices get heard, you have some concrete ideas. How about a story? Can you, uh, can you share something? In the 20 years of asking styles where you’ve seen a team, whether board or not, I mean, board would be ideal improve their outcomes because they became asking styles aware they became they were red pilled and finally e saw the saw the wisdom of asking styles.

[00:32:40.04] spk_0:
Wow, we’re going there. You? Mm. Well, I constantly hear stories. There’s someone on the website I often hear from from executive director slash CEOs who have these ah ha moments about their board chairs for sure who have these Ah ha moment about their boards, Whose then see the challenge, why their board is so challenged in some way and can address that. Who? Who realized g. I’m providing staff often say I’ve given the board all this information. I don’t know what why they why they keep asking the truth of matter is have they read it all? And if they’ve read it, have they interpreted it all and stuff? And the truth that matter is that we’re not necessarily giving every board member the information they need. So I constantly hear these ah ha moments from staff who say, Now I know what this board member needs. If I’m going to engage this board member effectively in fundraising, this is what I have to give this board member. I’m giving them the wrong information. So I hear that a lot that that has really helped. I did some work with Esperanza Academy, which is a private 100% tuition free and privately funded girl school north of Boston. Um, it might be in Lowell. I’m trying to remember where they are now. On. I worked with their head of development and then did a training herself and said it was extraordinary how how the asking styles moved her board ahead. There was a fundraising in terms of working with each other. It just took it, took them to, Ah, a whole new level. And I think I’ve always felt the beauty of the styles is that she point before you don’t have to know any big logarithms. There’s no jargon or anything. It’s very simply put, e don’t use fund these words and and all of this stuff e talk very plainly about it in the styles are very plain. I don’t try to make this scene like, uh, you know, like the you know, what is it? The theory of relativity, The theory of relativity.

[00:33:20.95] spk_1:
That’s where you get into cosign on C can’t

[00:33:23.16] spk_0:
exactly or pie or whatever Very straight

[00:33:27.13] spk_1:
first, unjust non jargon.

[00:33:29.54] spk_0:
Yeah. And so yes, so tons of ah ha moments. Um uh, respecting people to work with each other differently, working harder to make sure all voices are heard. Um uh,

[00:33:43.66] spk_1:
let’s pick up on that. Voices are heard. You have some. As I was saying, you have some concrete ideas about board meetings, making sure some folks you gotta check with them in advance, etcetera. So what? Her voices get heard at board meetings,

[00:34:04.24] spk_0:
Right? Well, I, for one, virtually never talk in a large group as a kindred spirit of mission controllers Air similar. I don’t often give my opinion in front of a large group. I don’t often ask a question. I don’t take up a lot of time in a group like that. Um, so I might have a very valid and important point that the group needs to hear that the chair wants everyone to hear. And I’m simply not going to express it in the group. And you see the people I trigger. I train all the time. You have guests all the time. You know which guests you have thio work harder, thio, or give the or wait longer to allow them to pull their thoughts together. That’s happening around the board table. And it’s happening even more so now with the video that with Zoom because everyone does tend to talk over each other. It’s hard to know when to stop. It’s harder than it was in person. Looking around the room where you feel it, you feel who’s going to talk next, Right here. You’re not sure. And then two or three people blurt out at the same time. So someone like me is going to be even less likely to participate because that blurting out and talking over someone is more awkward for me. Yeah, so

[00:35:20.44] spk_1:
you get into that rhythm where everybody stops on, then you beats and everybody talks. Everybody stops to more beats everybody, you go ahead. So then they all go ahead to beats later, right? Yeah.

[00:35:31.89] spk_0:
Dance, right. It’s a and I’m not going to do that dance. Necessarily. A lot of people won’t. So So if

[00:35:42.34] spk_1:
I promise that I won’t be, uh, talking over you, I’m just being a smart ass.

[00:35:46.35] spk_0:
Me to s o a chair. A smart chair who really wants everyone’s voice heard and taken into account needs to either reach out to those board members in advance and solicit their opinion or specifically call on them, make time for them right When I train, I look around that room and we’ll actually in advance of training. I will ask the CEO or whoever engaged me. Who should I be watching out for in one way or another who’s going to talk too much? And I’ve got to make sure that person doesn’t monopolize, are training who’s not going to talk because And regardless of what I’m told in advance, I see who’s not participating and I make sure everyone’s participating. It’s not that they don’t want to, or that they don’t have anything to say. It’s just that this is a tough venue for them. Be in a room with 25 other people and all the noise and people talking over each other. So you either have to solicited in advance or solicited in the room or solicited afterwards or send out a questionnaire, asked people by email to tell you in advance, you have to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard,

[00:37:12.83] spk_1:
and that’s a part of teamwork and camaraderie to ZX respect. Yes, yeah, that you’ve become aware. Now you’re red pilled. You know, some people are not gonna speak at the meeting or being very. It’s gonna be uncomfortable for them to do it. You have to make allowance for that. And that s so that builds up your That builds up teamwork and camaraderie. People feel respected there, literally being heard

[00:37:51.73] spk_0:
right now. Some people just, you know, talk a lot and don’t mean to cut anyone else off and want to hear the voice. And then there’s some people who just want to hear their own voice. And actually, one of the pieces of board membership is it’s not for everyone. You have to believe in teamwork. You have to believe that the team comes first. I’m not saying that the styles in any way can identify who would want to be on a team or not, because it’s much more complicated than that. But but there are challenges to group work, and those challenges impact certain styles more than others,

[00:38:12.92] spk_1:
Right? So yeah. All right, let’s talk about fundraising. How does this out of the styles impact board? Fundraising? Yes.

[00:40:53.41] spk_0:
So that we’re working on the whole decade, obviously. Uh, yes. Since they asking style started from a fundraising bend. It’s a very critical ways. The first one which we talked about earlier which is the number one way, is in terms of the story that each board member is going to tell. What is a board member going to stay in the in the most? In the simplest format, you run into someone, and the person said, Well, tell me about X y Z organization. What is it? You is a board member going to say to try to excite that person? What’s your story that is going to be impacted by your style? Whether, as we talked about it, whether it’s very goal on, strategy oriented, visionary oriented, hard oriented plan oriented? Okay, then you have Well, how is each of you going to go about this process of identifying and cultivating and maybe asking for money? And I say, maybe asking because the most important roles Board member, the most important role of board member can have in fundraising in my mind is the identifying, cultivating, thanking, recognizing piece everything but the ask. When it comes to the ask, some board members will ask on their own or with other board members. But in most organizations, you could bring the executive director and head of fundraising or someone else, to sit there in the room with you and actually say, tony, would you consider a gift of $10,000 for X y Z? Um, it’s all the other work that’s so important Thio for board members to help with. And that’s where style really matters. How are you going about going to go about cultivating as a board member? What’s comfortable for you? You have to take into account to some extent what what works for the donor? We don’t know. We usually don’t know the donor style, but if we don’t ask board members to do things they’re comfortable with, they’re going to be reticent about doing them. And they may not do them well, right? Well, I don’t want I don’t want to send my board members out out to slaughter, basically, by sending them out to do things they won’t do well and it doesn’t serve the organization well, so eso I will would think through if I have ah, big special event. My extroverted board members ago ended be better ambassadors of those events than the introverts who don’t tend to go up to people they don’t know and engage them in such. They’re going to be better at one on one effort. Uhh. Some people are going to be better at communication written communication, writing lovely emails with lots of great information in them. Some are going to be better at picking up the phone and having a quick chat on dhe. People will partner in different ways based on their styles.

[00:41:41.91] spk_1:
Time for our last break dot drives that 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 is also a three month. You know that you go to the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. We’ve got but loads more time for boards and asking styles.

[00:43:06.10] spk_0:
So if I would like, um uh, I have a donor in mind and I bring something. The table is the CEO or the chief fundraiser, a za kindred spirit. I may look around to see who compliments me on the board, right? Or if I’m let’s say I someone has a relationship, OK, Soo is a go getter, and Sue has a relationship to this donor, so I want to go with Sue? Well, I’m a kindred spirit and Susan go getter and whoa! It turns out that our donor is a mission controller. So now how am I going to engage? So what is the best role for Sue? Is the go getter to play? And what might we have to watch out for? Right? How would we wanna make sure Sue doesn’t trip over herself? A za go getter going with me to see a mission controller? So it gives me a road map as the staff member, or certainly is the board members to how I could be effective, what my challenges might be. Even in the initial contact, we talked about this all the time of asking matters that from kindred spirits and mission controllers are much less likely to just pick up the phone and call someone out of the blue, even if it’s just calling to make an appointment. I don’t I never liked the phone, and I feel lucky that most of my career has been in the age of email. I will almost always email first if I know. I don’t know. Well, and I know the donor just wants me to call It is different, but most of the time we don’t know who. Uh, we don’t We don’t know people that well and I’m going to I’m going to write first by email. And if I know a board members that way, I’m not gonna push my board member to pick up the phone. I’m going to say, Do what’s comfortable for you If it’s comfortable to send an email, Do that. If you know the person well enough to send a text and the text. If calling and trying to catch that person is what works for you do that, so I help the asking styles help bring fundraising to the board member in a way that’s palatable.

[00:44:01.99] spk_1:
Got some ideas about you. Caption it. Under keeping board members committed, exposing board members to program Share your ideas there.

[00:44:57.99] spk_0:
Most board members do not experience or or view programming often enough. Board members come to organization excited by what you’re doing. They have a lot of passion. Yeah, I’m on the board now. I’m so committed. I love what you do and then end up spending almost all their time in board meetings that are mostly about procedure and budget and can be very dry the most organizations today or bringing program staff for program participants to board meetings on a regular basis. I hope everyone listening today is doing that, and so board members get some exposure the 10 or 15 minutes every two months. But that’s minimal. Board members have to C programming ideally, in person right now. That’s really hard. Maybe through zoom through video, maybe through a Q and A with various program directors and such. And again, the asking styles will impact what type of interaction will keep board members committed. So if I want to keep my mission controller board member committed, I need to keep focusing on the plans and making sure the board that board member feels good that we’re going about our work in a very methodical, systematic, well thought out way. That’s what and to share all the information about plans because the Michigan that that is the material that the Mission controller board member can absorb and appreciate. I’m not gonna do that for the go getter. The go getter isn’t gonna look at those plans, right? The go getter is gonna wanna have a telephone call with the program director with a or Or meet lots of participants and engage those participants and maybe participate in programs, whereas some people might feel it a little awkward to do that, the go getter will jump right in. So for my go get a board member, I might do that for my rainmaker. You know, a ZX. You can see the same themes keep coming up with this idea of strategy, vision, heart and plan strategy, vision hardened plan. So you got it. You have to bring that to each board member and then bring that into the It’s the meeting.

[00:46:43.30] spk_1:
I would rather you say the heart first. Uh, that’s the kindred spirits. I’ll fix it in post production. I’ll move.

[00:46:55.26] spk_0:
You do that. You do that. The only way I can always keep everything straight is to always go go clockwise. Yeah, no matter what I do, I’m always saying Rainmaker, go Gator. Kindred spirit, Mission Control and using my hands to remind me now that everything is vision is Elektronik. I’ve actually the vision. The image is reversed on the screen. And now that ever you could see my hands, I’ve had to learn like yoga, teachers and others. Yes, you gotta be. Oh, right. Yeah, exactly. So it’s a new skill I’ve learned the last seven months

[00:47:23.99] spk_1:
you’ve got. You’ve got the benefit of no video here. Yeah,

[00:47:26.58] spk_0:
exactly. Like my hands doing anything.

[00:47:34.08] spk_1:
Audio podcast. Yes. Mm. Alright, What else? What else do you wanna? You wanna talk about that? We haven’t talked about around asking styles in the board

[00:47:39.82] spk_0:
asking styles. And

[00:47:41.33] spk_1:
you wrote a whole book, for God’s sake.

[00:47:42.97] spk_0:
Yeah, I can imagine

[00:47:43.91] spk_1:
more. There’s more than what I asked you what

[00:47:48.45] spk_0:
it is, though, you know, though, I don’t want to scare people off either. And as you know, tony, it’s not a big book, and it’s purposely not a big look. It’s actually only 16,000 words. If people know anything about books, it’s only 100 pages because there are lots of beautiful full color photos and graphs and things like that. It’s a book you can read in a two sitting,

[00:48:06.04] spk_1:
which I appreciate. I like all the photos, something the pictures I sometimes have authors on. I’ll say, you know, there’s no pictures or there’s not enough

[00:48:13.77] spk_0:
well in my books. The only book in full color. I want to say that cause I’m really proud of it. It costs a lot more to make it, but, uh, but the styles Aaron color right? The graphics are so so. It’s actually very pleasurable book. And the reason for that It’s really important for every board member to read it right.

[00:48:29.73] spk_1:
Easy read. Do it over a weekend easily. You could do it in a day if you had to, but yes, so we hope

[00:48:52.16] spk_0:
to say, you know, today we covered a lot of the major points in it, about about recruiting, camaraderie, teamwork, telling her story, leadership and such. Those are the major piece in the book. The one thing I’ll say is that you’re pushing the book, I guess, is that it has a bunch of exercises and questions to ask yourself is Well, and the important thing is not is not to believe that G if I if I’m going to address the challenges on my board, it’s got to be some big project I need to bring in a consultant or boy, this is gonna be a lot of hard work. There are lots of small steps you can take.

[00:49:15.92] spk_1:
Yes, you finished the book with the next steps?

[00:50:03.86] spk_0:
Yes and yes. And all along the way there are some exercises the next time you have zoomed called do a breakout room and just ask. People spend five minutes saying, Okay, my style is this. What does that mean for how I work with you or something? You’re going to build teamwork and camaraderie. And so I want people to take away that that make improvements toe how your board operates, which is so vital to how your organization gets through this and thrives in the future. Uh, does not have to be a big, overwhelming project through the asking styles and lots of other means. You can take small steps and get there. The

[00:50:08.46] spk_1:
book is a pleasure. It’s a pleasurable pleasure to read. It’s an easy read. You want to know your style. You goto asking matters dot com. Do the three minute survey. Send your board members as a little fun exercise chat about it. That’s you know, that could be a next step, but

[00:50:18.71] spk_0:
absolutely that

[00:50:24.46] spk_1:
a whole chapter of next steps and, like you said questions throughout. Okay, Brian Saber, Thank you very much. Uh, have you. Actually, Absolutely. So the book. Get the book. There is more depth. There is more depth in those 16,000 words than than a lackluster host can cover with, even with an exemplary guest. Eso. The book is boards and asking styles. A roadmap to success matters that asking matters dot com and Brian is at Brian Saber and Brian. Thank you again. Real pleasure. Thank

[00:50:52.97] spk_0:
you. Don’t have a great day. Good luck to everyone.

[00:51:31.56] spk_1:
Thank you Next week next week. I got it here right next week is Oh yes, next week is low cost fundraising software and what’s really happening with non profit revenue. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com. Responsive by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives, raise more money, changed more lives tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for a free demo and a free month for listeners. 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 non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. Remember, it’s your favorite abdominal podcast. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for March 6, 2020: Board Members As Relationship Builders & Maria’s Free Resources

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[00:00:24.99] spk_3:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. We have a listener of the week, read Stockman

[00:00:26.02] spk_0:
in Fairfax Station, Virginia. He shared the show by tweeting. Tony-martignetti has an awesome radio show. Give a listen. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Reed. Thank you so much,

[00:00:39.94] spk_3:
folks. You share, I shout, Reid says in

[00:00:44.74] spk_0:
his profile. Job leads welcome. So he does philanthropy, tech fundraising, research and curation. If we can help read out, please do what you know of a job that would be right

[00:00:53.28] spk_3:
for him. He’s at Reed. Stockman read

[00:01:37.74] spk_0:
Congratulations on being this week’s listener of the week. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. You’d get slapped with a diagnosis of metastasized, a phobia if you missed our sixth show in the Innovators. Siri’s board members as relationship builders, there’s more to board fundraising than parlor evenings and give get. Your members can engage your networks and build relationships around giving. Peter Heller shows you how he’s the latest in our innovators. Siri’s he’s principal of Heller Fundraising Group and Maria’s Free Resource is their candid dot org’s for foundation Research and FTC dot gov for campaign contributions. Maria Semple unlocks their treasures. She’s our Prospect research contributor and the Prospect

[00:01:48.79] spk_3:
Finder. Tony Steak, too. Planned giving relationship stories were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding

[00:01:51.08] spk_0:
you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com

[00:01:54.44] spk_3:
But Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund

[00:01:56.83] spk_0:
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 to dot CEO.

[00:02:14.29] spk_3:
It’s a pleasure to

[00:02:33.47] spk_0:
welcome to the studio. Peter Heller. He’s Principle of Heller Fundraising Group. The staff of six consults with nonprofits for capital campaigns, feasibility studies and major gift programs. Before founding the company, he was a fundraiser at Columbia University and four universities before that. The company is at Heller fundraising group dot com, where they have free tools for fund raising.

[00:02:40.03] spk_3:
Welcome. Peter Heller.

[00:02:41.54] spk_4:
Hi, tony. It’s great to be here.

[00:02:42.89] spk_0:
Yes. I’m glad you made it

[00:02:44.71] spk_3:
back. You were You were just in Costa Rica.

[00:02:47.34] spk_0:
I was just got back yesterday. Is that right?

[00:02:49.18] spk_4:
I did

[00:02:49.67] spk_0:
tonight and last night

[00:02:50.71] spk_4:
I got lead. I got back last night.

[00:02:53.14] spk_0:
House. Costa Rica for a vacation.

[00:02:54.71] spk_4:
It’s amazing. I want to go back.

[00:02:56.85] spk_0:
Why? Why is it so amazing?

[00:03:09.67] spk_4:
Beautiful jungle flowers and trees. All my house plants actually air their e. Got to visit all of my house plants. And And there’s a beautiful Yeah, they’re they’re cousins.

[00:03:11.58] spk_0:
And then, of course, to beaches. Yeah, because

[00:03:13.96] spk_4:
I only got to the Caribbean Coast, but it’s it’s wonderful. Uh, yeah. Beautiful place to be. Great people.

[00:03:20.05] spk_0:
Glad you made it back in time. I came just for you. Thanks for doing this on. Not quite, but I did talk you into doing your first day back. Thank you. Um,

[00:03:28.81] spk_3:
okay. Board from board

[00:03:34.19] spk_0:
Fundraising Difficult, difficult, Difficult for board members to be successful at. What’s the What’s the trouble?

[00:03:39.14] spk_4:
Very true. So, you know, I was thinking about the title of our of our talk, which is board members as relationship builders. That was mine. Yeah, and yet very good night. Are

[00:03:49.61] spk_0:
you Are you okay with that consent?

[00:03:52.45] spk_4:
And the

[00:03:53.00] spk_3:
reason I

[00:04:39.64] spk_4:
was thinking about it is that relationship builders For what? Now I’m a fundraiser, a fundraiser, consultant, and but if you take a step back, it’s really we want board members to think of themselves as relationship builders, for the organization with people in the community and that those relationships, if you’re a fundraiser, you really want those relationships to net money. That’s true. Let’s not pretend, right? Yeah, let’s not pretend that that’s not true. And the the reason is called Relationship Building is you want strong relationships that are going to extend beyond money and be way more than just transactional so that you and the other people that you’re building relationships with as board members help your organization make your community stronger, Not just the organization, but that’s the key point that I’m going to get to but really make your organization.

[00:04:51.60] spk_0:
This is all that does. That’s aspiration, right? Absolutely. What? Where are we falling short? Well, in working with our board members as fundraiser.

[00:05:03.79] spk_4:
So first, let’s say there are organizations that are doing a great job engaging their board members as advocates for their organization and where, believe it or not, they’re board members air actually enjoying their board service because a lot of times when I go in the board rooms, you get this feeling that there’s just this this heavy weight on everybody’s shoulders like, Oh, my God. Why did I sign up for this volunteer? You know what I mean? Yeah, It’s like you’ve worked with some of the words like that. Like, why did I sign up for this? You

[00:05:26.66] spk_0:
don’t get a real sense of excitement about

[00:05:47.92] spk_4:
Yeah, Yeah, how You know, how frequently can I check my phone in the meeting without, like, you know, being seen? Some people don’t even care that they’re seen so But the whole idea that I’m going for here is that u um, you want to turn that relationship around with the board members so that they’re really excited about their board service and they’re advocating on your behalf and, you know, you said, What’s the current state? It’s usually not that. So when we go into an organization, were usually called in to help with a capital campaign or to build a major gift program. Sometimes we do one off board training events. But regardless of the scenario, what we find is that we train board members to get excited about what’s going on in that organization and in the community, and it’s really it’s like a mindset difference. It’s not. It’s like a switch you just got to turn on.

[00:06:32.28] spk_0:
So you want them to be more grounded in the in the mission and and the vision exact, More conscious off,

[00:06:34.29] spk_4:
right? Well, there’s really, like, there’s a two part thing Ah, that we tend to tend to talk about. And it may sound kind of like highfalutin or just kind of.

[00:06:44.75] spk_0:
All right, try us. Okay,

[00:07:52.44] spk_4:
um, you know, just philosophical. Traditional, aspirational. But so here. Here’s what it is. Isn’t it negatively inspirational? Yeah. So, really, what happens is that non profit staff leaders and non profit board members, often just by the fact that they have to get some really hard work done day after day, week after week in their community, they don’t step back and see the bigger picture. And what we’re talking about here is simply the bigger picture. And what that is is helping board members to see two things. One what? What is a really positive future for the organization that they’re serving on the board of Tau actually spend time in board meetings talking about that I can give you a few tips on howto actually make that happen in a board meeting a little later. But to get real clarity on what is an even more powerful future for organization look like. And the step after that, which is like the uber powerful thing is what is an even more powerful future for our community Look like.

[00:08:08.07] spk_0:
And you want the board energized and activated, conscious of all this, and then they convey this to the folks that they’re gonna be talking to. Exactly. That’s the That’s the basis of the relation that becomes the basis of the relationship, not a transactional. We need $50,000 this year.

[00:08:21.59] spk_4:
Exactly. So And let me emphasize that point again. In a

[00:08:32.40] spk_0:
way. Let me take a break. All right, on, Ben, I want you to reemphasize. Okay, let me take this break for wegner-C.P.As so that your 9 90 gets filled

[00:08:35.79] spk_3:
out on time so that your audit is finished on time so that you get

[00:08:54.04] spk_0:
the advice of an experienced partner. You Each tomb just on, uh so recently and affirm that has a nationwide non profit practice with thousands of audits under its belt. Um, let’s go. Let’s go back to board members as relationship builders because I was gonna do the live listener love, But I have something on the tip of your tongue. It’s a rite of water on the Ted

[00:09:05.79] spk_3:
Hold off on the live load. I’d like to do live love.

[00:09:08.75] spk_0:
Now I’m doing something else instead of that. All right. I want you. I want to get this out. We’ll do the love. Don’t

[00:10:58.38] spk_4:
worry. Okay? Gotta gotta spread the love shared especially. Okay, So here’s what I’d like to ask you to picture is when we work with nonprofits and they we ask them to show us and tell us how they’re typically communicating about their organization to their community. However, they define that community, including their donors. We find that usually they’re very me, me, me, central centric. And what we encourage them to do is to take themselves out of the equation and talk about their community and the impact that their organization is gonna have on on their community for a better future. So, for instance, um, if we’re working with a, um, thinking of in Westchester, we’re working with ah, child care and Early Education Center, and we’re doing Ah, almost $20 million capital campaign if they go to all their donors and they say, Hey, we need a new building. Can you give us some money? They’re going to get some money. But if they go to their donors and say, You know, the future of our community is gonna be so much stronger if we’re able to have a building that houses Maur young Children and allows more working families to put their kids in a high quality education, Early childhood school and goto work. They’re talking about the future of a community being stronger rather than me. Me, mia Central. So So basically, just we encourage board members and non profit leaders to get into that mind set and then go talk to current donors as well as potential donors from that point of view.

[00:10:59.64] spk_0:
Got okay. Now we need to drill down toe how to. So how are we going to reorient our board’s thinking to get this from aspiration toe action?

[00:11:34.61] spk_4:
Right. So there’s a number of things. The first is that, uh, you know, we do trainings for boards and generally when we’re not there and somebody’s just like you’re you’re asking Hey, how are we gonna do this? We advise that every board meeting should have something on the agenda A that has to do with fundraising and not make it like the last item when everybody’s like, Oh my God, I’m ready to go If philanthropy

[00:11:36.27] spk_0:
What about fundraising? On the I know there’s two things. First of all, what are they? Fundraising and

[00:11:41.59] spk_4:
and exercises that engage the board members and conversations around this topic of a stronger future for our community.

[00:11:48.76] spk_0:
What do you want to see around fundraising in Sword Agenda?

[00:11:57.01] spk_4:
I first of all, I want it not to be like the what it’s like, You know, in grade school, when you’re the the bad kid that gets sat in the corner like philanthropy is usually sat in the corner.

[00:12:07.04] spk_0:
OK, right, that’s what it’s not. What is it? What did this conversation look like? So for these topics, starters going

[00:13:19.34] spk_4:
right, So you wanna have conversations? First of all, let’s talk about the fundraising before we talking way our community. So you want every board member toe, understand how fundraising works in the organization? Not for it to be some mysterious thing that the development director comes to the meeting and gives ah quick report or even the chair of the development committee gives the report. And and then everybody is kind of like, OK, I sort of know what you’re talking about, but it really people need to understand how much it costs to raise the money, What, all the activities there that are happening, what the various sources of revenue are, what they can do to get involved and when they understand things, just like you and I, we’re like, if we’re, you know, there’s something that we’re not sure about. Like I typically look things up on Google the time, right? Wikipedia, Mike. Oh, I don’t know What. So you need to understand, because what happens is that I’m sure you’ve seen this because you’ve been in board meetings is that when there’s a vacuum of knowledge, board members just like all of us, other normal human beings fill that vacuum up with misconceptions. Yeah,

[00:13:25.92] spk_0:
all right. And

[00:13:26.39] spk_3:
you want to do this at every meeting? I’m trying to drill

[00:13:43.91] spk_4:
todo eso, so I want I want every meat. Every meeting has to have an agenda item on there. That’s something like building our culture of philanthropy. And then there’s specifics There’s there’s, you know, reports on not just Hey, we raised

[00:13:46.11] spk_3:
You always start with what? It’s not. Tell me what it is. Okay. Damn it. Damn it. I want to know. What is

[00:14:49.39] spk_4:
it? Uh, now you got me on the spot. Yeah. So that’s good. Um, you want to have in that meeting a discussion of the specifics of how fundraising works? Okay, give some examples. Right. All right. So first, I’ll give you a really good example. We just finished a campaign in Falls Church, Virginia. It’s amazing. Ah, Director of development there. Actually, she was really smart. When she took her job. She insisted that she be called the director of philanthropy. I thought that was was really smart, right? And so their campaigns done. And now they’re looking at How do we keep this culture of philanthropy going? Well, they need to keep talking about it. And people don’t even understand what she does. Has her job. So she, you know, she’s faced with having to explain to her board and her senior staff. Yeah, I got through all this campaign. I, like struggled. I raised $60 million but here all the things that I do week by week, and that’s something that you have to keep talking about. Okay, so that’s a great agenda item,

[00:14:54.30] spk_0:
okay? And the other agenda item what each month is.

[00:15:54.72] spk_4:
So we’re talking about building how to increase board members, understanding of their impact on community on the community that they’re okay. And for me, that’s, um Hey, does it have to be in every board meeting? I don’t know, But you need to have a period of time where you go through exercises and I like to use very simple, like index card exercises were simply literally hand everybody an index card. And you ask them a question. So, for instance, you could have two questions. What’s, uh what would an even stronger future for our organization look like? And what would any even stronger future for our community look like? Because those are two different things. Sure, and and sometimes it’s really interesting to see that that they match up when people So you give everybody in the next card, you say, you know, right? Right down these questions, Then you can do it a bunch of ways, of course, But I like to say you have 20 board members before people share it with the whole group. You have them turn to each other. So you have 10 groups of to

[00:16:04.69] spk_0:
stop hitting the mike stand. Sorry.

[00:16:20.33] spk_4:
Non. No. Well, maybe, Uh okay. So I’m so I’m so, like, emphatic with my arms. I am too. So you got 10 groups of two and you have them share with each other. Okay. Hey, what’d you write? What would you write? Go and do that for, like, two or three minutes. And then one person from each group shares their experiences with the whole

[00:16:40.14] spk_0:
group. Now, the purpose of this again sounds to me like we’re trying to ground board members remind. That’s just remind board members of the importance role that our organization plays in this community.

[00:16:43.18] spk_4:
Right? And the

[00:16:43.67] spk_0:
air. We so important to it.

[00:16:45.32] spk_4:
Yeah. And that there’s a real power in making the organization even stronger to build an even stronger community.

[00:16:59.39] spk_0:
Now we do these, so we’re constantly engaging, reminding board members. How does this convey to board member fundraising went there. Now, there now going out to their network, etcetera. Right. What’s the That’s the action step we want next

[00:17:39.94] spk_4:
right, so that’s excellent question. So here’s what we do is that hopefully, board members through those index card activities and those conversations, they’re beginning to see that there’s a bit of a shift of focus on on how they’re relating to the organization. And then what we do is we train them. Two, take a list of prospective donors. So say, Just let’s say, for instance, you’ve got this board of 20 people that we just talked about. They paired up and say four of them have agreed to go and do some really major fundraising.

[00:17:44.59] spk_0:
Let’s make it a board of six or eight. Okay, More, more. I think that’s more appropriate for our listeners. Okay, it stick with six.

[00:17:50.06] spk_3:
I mean, there are some

[00:17:52.49] spk_0:
20 born. Okay, okay, let’s keep it.

[00:18:24.54] spk_4:
You got eight people on eight people on your board. They’ve gone through this thing exercise, and let’s say three of them have agreed that yet, you know, I’m really excited about trying to do fundraising for the organization. And let’s just assume that for some reason the organization is new to this. They haven’t been doing it before, and so those three people are going to need to contact people in the community and ask them for money. It’s pretty obvious, right? Okay. So, uh, often the way it happens, not a good practice, I think is, you know, they’ll call them up, they’ll send them an e mail. Whatever we’re looking at, identifying the people who can contribute the most money in the community and having these board members actually go and sit down and talk with

[00:18:40.13] spk_0:
them. Okay? You prefer face to face. Some people won’t take a face to face me, right? At least initially.

[00:18:45.04] spk_4:
So So there’s a lot of strategies that we use with people. Regardless, whether we’re helping with a major gift program or a capital campaign on breaking through that, you know that silence on the other end of the phone or on the other end of the email,

[00:18:57.98] spk_0:
right? That’s something that is valuable to have.

[00:20:22.94] spk_4:
Yeah, that’s another. Okay, so let’s assume that the board member is able to sit down with somebody in the community and talk about, you know, have a conversation that hopefully is gonna lead to fundraising. Yeah, And so that same shift of perspective that we talked about in the board meeting is what we want to see happening in the meeting with a prospective donor. Okay, in that the right from the moment that they set up the meeting either on the phone or through an email. They’re talking about the future off the community, not hey, I’ve been assigned to raise money in our community for organization. Can I sit down with you and ask for some money? That’s a pretty weak opening. Yeah, so poor, It’s pork. So we But we shift that perspective in terms of, you know, the future of our community is so important to me that I’m hoping you would spend a few minutes talking with me about that so that I could learn your views and it It’s not so much, actually A, by the way, but we try to make the next part of its sort of, by the way. And you know, my organization is now in a in a fundraising campaign. If you decided to at some point contribute, that’d be great. But first I really want to talk about the future of our community and hear your views. That’s it may sound simple, but it’s a radical change of perspective on the way that fundraising is usually done, particularly by board members who who have this image. I don’t know where it came from, but, like the fundraising equates to arm twisting.

[00:20:41.15] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, all right. Very onerous. I gotta tap all my friends.

[00:21:12.58] spk_4:
Yeah, and it’s gonna be awkward. I don’t want to do it. So again, it’s not for everybody. There’s different jobs for other board members, but those who are willing we can set them up. And this concept can set them up so that they can have, first of all, better success at the at the end of it where they’re gonna get more money. But also that And tony, this is the really exciting part is that they’re actually gonna enjoy these conversations. Like, can you

[00:21:13.22] spk_3:
imagine that?

[00:21:16.60] spk_4:
Board members enjoying conversation.

[00:21:17.20] spk_0:
I’m sure it happened. I’ve been in some that were not so good, but

[00:21:20.84] spk_3:
I’ve I’ve been somewhere

[00:21:22.07] spk_0:
the board, the board members, pretty motivated and and and aware of what the organization is doing, you know? Yeah.

[00:21:29.25] spk_3:
So I’ve seen

[00:21:56.64] spk_0:
both. Yeah, but it certainly needs improvement, because I don’t think you’re I don’t think your average board is particularly motivated about fundraising. Your average board member is really into what they consider to be like you said, arm twisting. Okay, so we drilled down. All right. Thank you. All right, so now we got a couple extra minutes, all right? I want to get to Sometimes I know you. It’s hard to get to the core with you. OK, But we did good notes. So, um Okay, now let’s embellish a little bit. We got electric. We got some time. A few minutes. So what else? What else do you want to fill in around this process?

[00:22:22.81] spk_4:
Well, you know, you you cautioned me about what? It’s not. But you did also ask me before we started for some examples of what didn’t work. Well, so

[00:22:23.63] spk_3:
okay, now, well, that’s different. Yeah. Yeah. So So let me

[00:25:01.32] spk_4:
give you there’s two examples that but they also have good outcomes. So let me let me give you a couple of real concise and you’re okay, So just the 1st 1 is a board that I worked with. There were a lot of people who were in the real estate business, and on this board there were probably three real estate guys and there were other people, too. And I went through this training with them, and their insistence was, you know, like everybody we know is transactional, they’re just they’re not gonna be interested in this. What’s better for the community and growing our community, and they’re not gonna wanna you know, we had identified some people who would join our board, and they’re not gonna want to do this. So two things happen. One is, I explained to them that you three guys are actually here. Something happened that you decided that this organization was important. So you would join the board so that it’s not impossible that other people might get excited beyond writing a transactional check to make you go away. And the second thing that happened was more kind of Ah, I don’t know if it was more for me or for them, but I was like, You know what? I’m not gonna push you. You want it? You believe that your people are transactional. I’m gonna let you just go and get a transactional gift. Let’s see if you get that first and then let’s build upon that. So it’s like meeting the board members where They’re at not insisting that it has to be another way. Thea. Other thing is I actually had success with that. Yeah, they did well, and they built their board and it actually turned around. Okay, I brought this is a two sentence email that a board member for an organization are go ahead and two sentences. Not Yeah, it’s not so bad. Right? So not a page. No. And this is an E mail. I use this in my training’s now because this was sent by a board member. What gets me is it was after they went through our, like, three hour long training on how to do this. And they did this thing that I’m gonna read you anyway. Okay, So this was trying to get a meeting for a, uh, for campaign to discuss a gift, you know, to discuss a gift for a campaign. So it’s like, Hi, Gail, I hope you’re continuing to enjoy the summer. I would love to meet with you at your convenience to discuss our capital campaign. Can you drop us a note as to sometimes That would work for your schedule. Best Rhonda And then So she sent that email. Then I got that. I’m not gonna read you the reply, but it’s basically says we’re gonna make a $5000 contribution. No need to meet. But she’s like, Well, what should I do now? You know, I mean, it was laughable because it was like, Well, you know, you should have come to a sooner. Why don’t you pay attention in the training and have us help you write an email that was talked about the community first. So all of you listening there today, don’t do this. Focus on your community. Figure out what’s exciting about the future of

[00:25:28.25] spk_0:
yours. That $5000 gift that’s called the peremptory gift. Exactly. This is 5000. I’m not really interested in what you’re asking is this is what I’m giving you. No need

[00:25:28.66] spk_4:
to meet, right, because I mean, $5000 from from some people is an amazing stretch gift, right? And for certain organizations that that’s a nice

[00:25:37.26] spk_0:
I’m guessing in this case, this was this

[00:25:39.31] spk_4:
was from somebody who could have given to be asking significant multiples of that in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[00:25:56.21] spk_0:
Right? Peremptory. Okay, So, uh, good point. Why Didn’t you ask us? Seek our advice sooner about how to write? Ah, um, a broader based and more engaging

[00:25:59.40] spk_4:
email, right? So there’s there’s

[00:26:01.61] spk_3:
one other

[00:26:20.01] spk_4:
point that I think is worth making, which is that when organizations are in a capital campaign, which is usually a multimillion dollar project for physical plant door or programs or endowment, or sometimes a combination of all those it’s a time that a lot of this stuff comes up for board members because it’s a time when the organization is forced to train people to do things. However, it’s not necessary that you have to be in a capital campaign for these best practices to come up in terms of relationship building for

[00:27:06.14] spk_0:
border just happens to be when they that’s it’s a common time. Engage a consultant around the campaign around the feasibility study before that, Yeah, right. But you’re the point you made earlier. If you want to continue this culture of philanthropy, way beyond you’re successful campaign absolutely to be ingrained routinely absolute, and that will help set you up for the next campaign. Whether it’s two years later or five years later, or 10 years later, you’ll have this culture and you’ll have these relationships long standing, helping you get into the next next campaign,

[00:27:24.32] spk_4:
right? And the challenge we find often is that when organizations start campaigns, they haven’t been doing this beforehand so that the work to get to the gold they need for a building project or for whatever is it’s harder because

[00:27:30.71] spk_0:
I asked you, stop doing that. It’s harder but monitored. I gave you a free pass to sit. I’ll sit on my hands way got about two minutes

[00:27:33.69] spk_4:
left. So if they can, if you’re not in a campaign and you can build up your culture of philanthropy and your ability to engage your board with community members, then when you need to have a campaign, everybody including your board, your leadership and your community is not gonna be so foreign to this concept of talking.

[00:27:56.67] spk_3:
And that is not rushed for pizza. You know, don’t wait for the campaign

[00:28:00.06] spk_0:
because I’m being more effusive about it. Don’t wait for a campaign to start building relationships through your

[00:28:05.37] spk_3:
board members. Absolute. Do it. I mean, you want you want supporters and you want, uh, engaged community members throughout the life

[00:28:13.28] spk_0:
span of your non profit, not only when you’re in the in the in the 12 months or 36 month

[00:28:18.88] spk_3:
campaign you wanted at all

[00:28:20.43] spk_4:
times. Absolute. Don’t wait. Don’t wait. That should be our slogan. We’ll make T shirts.

[00:28:45.74] spk_0:
All right, We got to leave it there. Peter, how are you? Thank you so much. My pleasure. T shirt, T Shirt Factory. That’s Peter Heller principle of Heller Fundraising Group. You’ll find the company at Heller fundraising group dot com, no aptly named Helen Fundraising fundraising group dot com And they have free tools for fund raising their All right, Thank you again. You’re welcome. Thank you. I need to

[00:28:46.00] spk_3:
take a break. Cougar Mountain Software.

[00:28:48.38] spk_0:
Their accounting product Denali, is built for non profits from the ground up so that you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and the exemplary support that understands you. You’ve heard the testimonials about that that I’ve read.

[00:29:11.94] spk_3:
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 planned giving relationship stories about relationships runs through it because that’s what it that’s what this is all based on its relationships not only fundraising, but all the

[00:29:23.32] spk_0:
support for your organization in whatever form it comes, not just money. It’s

[00:29:26.81] spk_3:
all around relationships.

[00:29:45.74] spk_0:
So what am I talking about in this week’s video planned giving relationships that stand out for me? There are scores of them. Um, the ones I tell on the video are, Ah, Eleanor, Evelyn, Barbara and Jim. Um, these

[00:29:46.07] spk_3:
were stories that are touching.

[00:29:57.64] spk_0:
Um, they’re they’re not always joyful, although overall planned giving relationships to me are enormously joyful. If there’s something that’s the really that one thing that I would say I miss about being an employee versus a consultant because you don’t have the depth of relationship.

[00:30:06.45] spk_3:
But there are still some, even as a

[00:30:12.27] spk_0:
consultant, which I’m grateful for. So it’s

[00:30:12.52] spk_3:
about the relationships,

[00:30:33.84] spk_0:
you know, and then the relationships lead to support, and that is not necessarily money. It could be, but it’s not always, um so I share, so I share four stories on the video video is at tony-martignetti dot com, and that is tony. Take two. Now let’s do the live love. There’s

[00:31:14.91] spk_3:
loads of it. Oh, my goodness, gracious, Look. Boston, Massachusetts Madison, New Jersey, Washington, Virginia Morehead City, North Carolina Woo Um, that could be Maria. Simple possible. Let’s see staying domestic. Tampa, Florida New York, New York, Indianapolis, Indiana Falls Church, Virginia, Los Angeles, California, Seattle, Washington Who the love goes out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Yes, wonderful. The live love. Thank you to each of you, including Miami Lake, Florida. Look at that. It’s just coming and coming. I can’t stop them. Um, the live love goes out. So glad you’re with us. Let’s go abroad. Knows Aillagon leg long France.

[00:31:22.59] spk_0:
Uh, bonsoir, I’m not sure, but the live love goes out. Um,

[00:31:32.64] spk_3:
Beijing, Of course. Beijing. We haven’t seen you for a while. Where have you been anyhow? So glad you’re with us. Tokyo, Japan. Tron. Oh, that’s our Austria. No. But Tokyo, Japan!

[00:31:34.95] spk_0:
We got to do. Of

[00:31:52.24] spk_3:
course. Konnichi wa. Thank you so much for being with us. Tokyo trout on Austria. That’s brand new. Welcome, Austria. Live love to you. Tehran! Iran. Welcome You’ve been. Now you come through loyal. Thank you, Tehran. Live love out there. Very. Varga knew

[00:31:54.03] spk_0:
Brazil. I know I messed that up. That’s terrible. I just don’t know, really how to pronounce it. But I can’t say over Delgado. Thank you for being with us.

[00:32:04.10] spk_3:
That’s the live love. Thanks so much to each of you and ah, the plot. The plod class I’ve been I’ve been bad about this recently. The plod classed pleasantries. Very bad. Um, it’s supposed to be the podcast pleasantries going out to our over 13,000 listeners through that

[00:32:21.63] spk_0:
medium. Thank you for being with us. Pleasantries to the podcast listeners. Thank you,

[00:32:27.39] spk_3:
Maria Semple. I almost forgot her name.

[00:32:29.35] spk_0:
That’s been since so long she’s been on. She’s the Prospect Finder. She’s a trainer and speaker on Prospect research. Her latest book is Magnify Your Business Tips, Tools and Strategies for Growing Your Business or Your non

[00:32:44.90] spk_3:
profit. She’s our doi end of dirt, cheap and free, and she’s gonna live up to it today. She’s at the prospect finder dot com And at Maria Simple. Maria Semple. Do you recognize my voice?

[00:32:51.59] spk_6:
I absolutely d’oh you.

[00:32:53.99] spk_0:
Thank you. You’re better than me that

[00:32:55.54] spk_3:
I almost forgot your name.

[00:32:56.52] spk_0:
No, I’m doing great. I’m doing great.

[00:33:01.38] spk_3:
You’ve been on since last September. It’s been well.

[00:33:01.61] spk_0:
There was hurricane time around then and other issues that cropped up. So it’s very good to have you back.

[00:33:08.71] spk_6:
Thank you. It’s great to be here.

[00:33:11.09] spk_0:
Are you in the in fact, in North Carolina today or you will am Okay. Okay.

[00:33:16.90] spk_6:
We need to get together when you get back.

[00:33:18.79] spk_3:
Let’s not get carried

[00:33:32.71] spk_0:
away now, Sze, keep it to the show, okay? Your husband Ah, I don’t want to say anything online. I don’t want to say no. No, Bob, um So we’re

[00:33:37.39] spk_3:
talking about Maria’s free resource is today. You want to start with Candid dot or GE? You love them?

[00:33:40.94] spk_6:
Yes, Absolutely. Well, since it has been a while since I’ve been on I know we’ve We’ve talked about guide star in the past, and we’ve talked about the foundation centers. Resource is in the past. The one thing we haven’t covered is they kind of murder, you know,

[00:33:56.90] spk_0:
They kind of they did. They are together. Yeah.

[00:34:25.49] spk_6:
Yeah, in 2019. So, um, and we have uncovered it on the show. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to focus on that a little bit, Um, and just kind of give folks an overview. It’s too, you know, exactly. what you can do on the fight, especially for free. Um, you know, we all know that that these sources also provide sea bass upgrades. Premium service is as well, but you’ve labeled me. What is it? Dry in

[00:34:29.33] spk_3:
the end of dirt, cheap and free. You got three in the second. I’ve

[00:34:33.64] spk_6:
gotta keep keep it today.

[00:34:35.30] spk_0:
Today’s Maria’s free resource is so Yeah, you can certainly mention the paid, But

[00:34:39.63] spk_3:
what can we do for free?

[00:34:40.59] spk_0:
That’s valuable. A candid dot or GE

[00:36:41.43] spk_6:
So you can still do the 9 90 finder. And what I really like about that is, um, you know, we often have, you know, organizations that you know, sit around in their meetings. You know, Peter was referencing in the first half hour of the show talking about, you know, getting your board together. You’re six people. Eight people tend whatever it is. And when you start having conversations around X spending your your basis supporters in major gift, um, sometimes those folks will be giving to you through a foundation checkbook as opposed to a personal cheque book. Um, and very often you may not even realize that there are folks with a foundation checkbook who may be in your backyard. So what I like about the 9 90 finder is that you can you if you mean it, when you log into the candid site and you you go to look at the various research things you can do on their things, you can do tab. Then you go to the 9 90 finder. You can click on more search options once the search box appears, and it’ll allow you to put in a specific zip code where you want to be able to do some prospecting. So again, we’ve talked in the past about reactive prospecting and proactive. So sure you could do the reactive stuff. You could still go in. Put in the known name of a foundation that you want to learn more about. That’s more of the reactive. But if you’re trying to come up with a list of potential maybe family foundations in your community, this is a great way to do it, and so you can prospect it by a specific zip code. And then when you do that and you come up with your list of search results, what I like to do then is to click on the Total Assets column so that you can actually sort the results. So if you want to see the results by total assets from lowest to highest or highest Lois, it gives you an opportunity to say immediately, Who are those largest foundations right here in our community? Um, and I think that could be immensely helpful for small to midsize non profit who really serve a specific geographic region.

[00:37:07.01] spk_3:
Okay, Okay. Excellent. The 9 90 finder.

[00:37:34.78] spk_6:
Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, you know, once you have that, those lists of foundations, you know, certainly click on them. Ah, and so that you can get to the actual 9 90 itself, which is going to be chock full of information as everybody. I’m sure listening knows, Um, what I like about it is that sometimes I’ve looked at some nine nineties that have maybe zero listed in assets or a very low number, like, I don’t know, $1500 or something like that.

[00:37:42.88] spk_0:
You think?

[00:38:21.92] spk_6:
Oh, well, this isn’t a very big foundation. Why should I bother? Even may be looking at this. And when you did a little deeper and you look at the 9 90 Sometimes you’ll find that they’re the reason why it may have a very low or zero number in The Assets column. Is because it is really being used as a passed through right, so their their their intention is not to have those assets sitting there. It’s really to, you know, bring the money in fund funded that year and then immediately cut the checks out in that same calendar year. My tip, I guess, is just don’t discount those really small or zero asset foundations, dig a little deeper and take a look at those nine nineties

[00:38:33.56] spk_0:
eso. So we’re so so where will you find the grant information? So let’s say it is a pastor the way you’re describing, and they make a 1,000,000 1/2 dollars worth of grants every year. Will you find that information on the 9 90 if so, where?

[00:38:49.22] spk_6:
So just kind of some through sometimes they will have. It is a separate attachment. That’s part of the 9 90 though it depends on how many grants they’ve made. But there will be a section of the 9 90 that will list the grants paid in that calendar

[00:39:03.96] spk_0:
year

[00:39:19.49] spk_6:
and you’ll actually up, you’ll actually be able to see exactly the organizations that receive the money and how much they received. And sometimes if they even have money if approved for future payments, right? So maybe they’ve made a a multiyear commitment to an organization. And so they may decide to list out, um, the future years that they anticipate to pay out to that organization

[00:39:31.04] spk_0:
as well. So that’s a that’s a cool that’s a pro tip. So don’t pay so much attention to the assets as you do the granting that they do.

[00:39:40.02] spk_6:
Yes,

[00:39:40.56] spk_0:
exactly.

[00:39:41.33] spk_6:
I

[00:39:41.50] spk_0:
would pay

[00:40:09.74] spk_6:
much more attention to the grants paid than you know than the other. And also you want I’m able to be able to see. Is this foundation even accepting proposals at all? Because you don’t really want to spin your wheels on approaching foundations and you know, sitting there and writing a grant proposal and you send it off in the mail. And then, you know, you kind of sit there waiting when in fact, this foundation may not accept proposals.

[00:40:13.00] spk_0:
That’s an enormous. That’s an enormous fail. If you’ve spent time, even if you know, if you spent time writing a letter of inquiry. If they’re not accept there, So how do we find this out?

[00:40:22.11] spk_6:
So on generally, it’s on page 10 of the 9 90

[00:40:25.96] spk_3:
going the

[00:40:26.96] spk_6:
way down

[00:40:27.72] spk_3:
this

[00:40:27.88] spk_0:
expertise on non profit radio.

[00:40:29.47] spk_3:
Go to page 10 of

[00:40:31.52] spk_0:
the 9 90 Yeah,

[00:41:23.51] spk_6:
there’s a check box that the number that the the foundation can check off if they’re not accepting unsolicited proposals. So you want to make sure that that check boxes is checked or not? If it’s checked again there, I wouldn’t necessarily discount them if it feels like, let’s say you’re a kn animal rescue group and you see that this foundation has been making, you know a lot of the majority of their grants are two organizations in you know, that fund animal welfare? Well, maybe there’s somebody on your board that knows one of those board members because don’t forget the board members of the trustees of that foundation are gonna be listed in that 9 90 You might be better off just circulating the names of those trustees with your board to say, Hey, do any of you have a connection with any of these people? I’m not asking you to necessarily make the approach for us right away. But I’d like to see if there’s some way we can get an introduction to the foundation because they seem to be a perfect match for our mission.

[00:42:02.97] spk_0:
Okay, Okay. We got to take a break. Uhm we come back, you know, with a little bit more on candid. But then we got to get the FTC, and you also have some conferences you want. You want to shut out. So, um, just setting setting up the agenda, right? Time for our last break

[00:42:06.64] spk_3:
turn to communications their former journalists so that you get help building relationships with journalists. This is what they used to do so that your call gets answered when there’s news you need to comment

[00:42:17.61] spk_0:
on so that you stay relevant in your community and including former journalist one on the

[00:42:24.56] spk_3:
Chronicle of Philanthropy. So they know this community. You want to build these relationships again? Relationships. Look at the theme coming through. My God, it’s incredible.

[00:42:37.26] spk_0:
Um, I’m gonna build these journalists relationships, so you stay relevant. Turn hyphen to dot ceo, we’ve got

[00:42:44.38] spk_3:
butt loads. More time for Maria’s free resource is okay. You want to give us one more for Ah, Candid.

[00:42:49.66] spk_6:
Yes, sure you do. Two quick ones, actually, For candidates,

[00:42:56.43] spk_0:
I say one. She says Do. Alright, FBO Quick

[00:42:57.78] spk_6:
start. Right, which is the foundation directory online. Quick. Start there too. You can search by a city or state, thereby giving you the ability to prospect by, um, you know, by zip code zip code.

[00:43:11.37] spk_0:
Okay. What is this? What

[00:43:12.21] spk_3:
is this called again? What I think

[00:43:14.12] spk_6:
is as much information provided under this under their free plan. Um so I think the fbo quick start is a little bit more limited. I personally I like the 9 90 finder better.

[00:43:26.66] spk_0:
Okay, wait, hold on. Providing

[00:43:28.40] spk_6:
Klippel about is that they

[00:43:29.64] spk_3:
do have

[00:43:30.05] spk_6:
a tab. They’re called request for proposals. And, um, what they do list there are They connects you to grant opportunities that are available through the philanthropy news digest, and it does include deadlines. So what I like there again if you you’re scrolling through that and you know, you see some opportunities for you to apply for a grant opportunity that you didn’t realize was available that’s coming up. You should still have plenty of time to make the grant deadline and, um, you know, on and get in on the new money.

[00:44:02.03] spk_3:
Okay. Where did you say you find the quick search?

[00:44:06.79] spk_6:
Um uh, those are all under the things you can do. Tab. Um, you have FD. Oh, quick start. You’ve got requests for proposals. Um, and the 9 90 finder. Those air all under the once you get a candid dot or GE go to things you can do and you’ll find those additional tabs.

[00:44:24.49] spk_0:
Okay? And you said the request for proposals includes deadlines.

[00:44:28.09] spk_6:
It does.

[00:44:29.48] spk_3:
Okay, okay. All right, let’s move. Thio FTC dot

[00:44:32.85] spk_0:
gov federal election commission dot gov But f e c f d c dot gov

[00:44:37.14] spk_3:
What you like this for?

[00:46:34.88] spk_6:
Well, I thought since we were in an election year, it would be a good source for people to kind of keep an eye on. Um, you know, folks who are making a political contributions. It does show, you know, a certain level of disposable income and obviously shows political leanings as well, which may or may not be used full depending on the type of organization that you are. Um, so when you get to the F e c. Website. It’s a very busy website. Um, and one of the things that you want to do first is go to the campaign finance data tap. And then from there, you’ll be able to click down where it says, look up contributions from specific individuals. Yeah, so you can. And so basically anybody, um, the what? The reports will include our people making contributions in excess of $200 per election cycle. Right. So let’s say you give somebody, you know, $50 here and there. Once it hits that $200 mark, the, uh, the campaigns have to start filing this with the Federal Election Commission. Um, after he hits that $200 level, right? So again here, one of the things that you have to keep in mind is that you can proactively prospect this you can you can do a search. Uh uh, on, uh, on a zip code. And the data that you’re gonna get is goingto have the name of the person, the air mailing address, their occupation and name of employer. But here’s a big, big caveat is that there is not supposed to be. This data is not supposed to be used in any way, shape or form for soliciting whether they had soliciting business. We’re soliciting charitable donations.

[00:46:40.44] spk_0:
No,

[00:47:00.28] spk_6:
I bring it up as a resource, more so that you can maybe cross check. Are any of your, um, current donors also political contributors? And you know, at what level is a contributing in the political realm and where, But also you should just be aware that again, they they call it salting the data. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that term before.

[00:47:09.27] spk_0:
Sultan. I’ve heard it. A CD. What happened? I’ve heard seeding go ahead.

[00:47:56.08] spk_6:
The committees that are reporting that are sending in their reports, right? Salting the data means they’re going to be sprinkling the report with up to 10 fictitious contributor names. And those contributor names are gonna end up having a really address. It’s usually like gonna be a committee employees or something like that that they may use. So if you start, if you go and do a proactive search by zip code, you might be getting some of this seated data in there, right, that salted data that will enable you to send out, you know, postcard campaign or letters or

[00:47:58.68] spk_0:
whatever,

[00:48:03.80] spk_6:
but it could end up winding up in a mailbox of somebody who’s monitoring to see is somebody using this data illegally,

[00:48:08.58] spk_0:
right? You’re gonna get You’re gonna get snagged. So wegner is

[00:48:11.02] spk_6:
very, very careful

[00:48:12.61] spk_0:
whether or not

[00:48:20.56] spk_6:
use it in that way. But it is a really good source to cross check, you know, and see if any of your donors are contributing politically.

[00:48:34.73] spk_0:
OK, Ok, um, sesame seeds or salted or whatever it is, you don’t use it the wrong way because you’re gonna get you might get caught. And ah, that’s bad. Yeah. Yeah, bad business. Um, just like you seed or sesame seed or salt, whatever. You do your own and your own mail lists to see what you’re sending out, right to see how how timely your mail house is actually sending stuff to the post office, are they? Is it postmarked the day that they say it’s going to postmark? Same. You know, you’re trying to catch them. You’re trying to keep them honest. Well, Federal Election Commission’s trying keep you honest. Okay, enough about that. Um,

[00:49:04.04] spk_3:
that’s interesting. I love that Look up

[00:49:13.77] spk_0:
contributions from specific individuals that school. So you can You can search by when you’re doing an individual’s you could do name, name and name and state can you go like Is that

[00:49:16.36] spk_3:
how you do it?

[00:49:17.47] spk_6:
Yeah, Well, you can You can certainly look

[00:49:19.69] spk_0:
at a

[00:49:19.92] spk_6:
particular individual’s name. Um and, you know, any time I’m doing, you know, my in depth donor profiles. This is one resource I always cross check to see if this person is making large political donations in addition to charitable contributions.

[00:49:36.00] spk_0:
Okay. Okay.

[00:49:37.11] spk_6:
So it’s definitely one of my tools that I use to do research, but I did want to give that caveat on the, you know, proactive aspect of it is You do want to be careful on Don’t use it illegally.

[00:49:49.62] spk_3:
Anything else on FCC?

[00:49:54.76] spk_6:
No, I got it.

[00:49:58.28] spk_3:
Okay, you have some conference is coming up. Did you want to share?

[00:50:40.82] spk_6:
Yes, right. So before you know it, the big annual APA conference will be coming up. It’s always in the summer months. And so APRA You’ve heard me talk about them before. It’s the Association of Professional Researchers for advancement. Their website is APRA home dot or ge. And there you’re gonna see various opportunities. So the big one is their summer conference. Um, and that is held. Um, that is held, uh, August 4th through the seventh. It’s going to be held in Washington, D C this year. Um, and you can learn all about that, you know, on Apple’s website. So that’s sort of the biggie.

[00:50:46.56] spk_0:
And

[00:51:29.46] spk_6:
then I thought I’d just let you know about some Call them smaller, More regional conferences that are taking place. One is coming up real quick in also in Washington D. C. Actually, um, on march 12th the APRA Metro D C. Chapter is having an annual conference, so that might be one to put on your calendars if you’re in that neck of the woods. Um, another one is, um APRA Greater New York chapter is presenting something called Prospect Khan 2020. That will be March 17th. And that’s taking place at the N Y U Kimmel Center. Uh, you’ve got

[00:51:31.25] spk_0:
Marie 20

[00:51:32.19] spk_6:
third.

[00:51:33.17] spk_0:
Yeah, go ahead. Where’s March 23rd?

[00:51:35.80] spk_6:
New Orleans.

[00:51:36.66] spk_0:
There you go. Get

[00:51:37.58] spk_3:
out of the Eastern Sea

[00:51:40.59] spk_0:
s get out of the Eastern Seaboard. Overdrive

[00:52:05.84] spk_6:
is happening March 23rd. Ah, in New Orleans and the other one I want to talk about is in the Midwest on May 7th. APRA Midwest is having a conference 2020 and that’s gonna be, um, May 7th and eighth in Des Moines, Iowa. And so again, if you go to the APRA website, you’ll be able Thio find all of these particular opportunities available. Thio under their events Tab,

[00:52:11.84] spk_3:
Are you a conference speaker? Do you still do that?

[00:52:26.86] spk_6:
I am not speaking at any of the upcoming up APRA conferences this year, but I’ll tell you, they’re speakers are always amazing. Um, very often they’re going to be from some of the larger universities and so forth. And so even a small to midsize non profit will have a lot of takeaways by attending thes conferences. And again, if it’s not your budget to go to the big annual conference, see about some of the chapter opportunities, um, that are closer by and those air usually gonna be a bit more affordable.

[00:52:58.26] spk_0:
Your practice is so robust you don’t need to be speaking any longer. It’s the clients are coming to you. All right,

[00:53:00.75] spk_6:
enjoy it.

[00:53:01.37] spk_3:
And you share your expertise here as well?

[00:53:06.80] spk_0:
Absolutely. All right. Um Let’s make sure we we don’t wait another September, October, November, December, January, February, March Another six months before you come back. Okay?

[00:53:13.92] spk_6:
Absolutely.

[00:53:27.85] spk_0:
All right, Let’s work on that. And maybe a dinner. We’ll see. Like I said, let’s not get carried away. They will keep it to a lunch. I feel like a better lunch. Better, thank you very much. She’s the Prospect Finder. Ah, at Maria Simple. The prospect finder dot com are doi end of their cheap and free. Thank you, Maria. Simple.

[00:53:34.94] spk_6:
Thank you.

[00:53:35.59] spk_0:
My pleasure.

[00:53:38.20] spk_3:
Next week. Sexual harassment

[00:53:43.79] spk_0:
in Nonprofits timed to the sentencing of Harvey Weinstein. If you

[00:53:43.98] spk_3:
missed any part of today’s

[00:53:45.10] spk_0:
show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com

[00:53:49.13] spk_3:
were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As. Guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com by Coca Math and 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 to dot c e o

[00:54:14.44] spk_2:
our creative producers. Graham. My route Sam Liebowitz is the line producer shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy. And this music is by Scott Stein be with me next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95 percent. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for January 31, 2020: CEO/Chair Relationship

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My Guests:

Alex Counts: CEO/Chair RelationshipYour 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.

 

 

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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.

Nonprofit Radio for October 11, 2019: Recruiting Your Board Members

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Gene Takagi: Recruiting Your Board Members
Gene Takagi returns with 12 tips, ideas and strategies you can use in board recruitment. We’re talking expectations, motivations, commitment, requirements, and more. He’s our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the Nonprofit and Exempt Organizations Law Group.

 

 

 

 

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Hello and welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of wheel if I if you irritated me with the idea that you missed today’s show recruiting your board members. Jean Takagi returns with 12 tips, ideas and strategies you can use. Inboard recruitment will get those many of them as we can. We’re talking expectations, motivations, commitment, requirements and Maur. He’s our legal contributor and principle of neo the non-profit and Exempt Organizations Law Group on 20 steak, too. I’ve never been so insulted in all my life. Responsive by Wagner, C. P A. Is guiding you beyond the numbers. Witness cps dot com But Cougar Mountain Software, Denali, fundez They’re complete accounting solution made for non-profits Tony dahna may slash Cougar Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for non-profits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. And as I’m reading, I realize that the embarrassment of wheel we had that last week. So again, as I’ve said, uh, I’m in desperate need of an intern. So I have someone to blame for these mistakes. So so sorry we didn’t get ah updated sickness for you this week. Uh, no one to blame but myself, which is the problem. That’s why I need interns. Um, let’s let’s bring on Jean. I feel, uh, we’ll rescue everything for us. You know who he is? He’s the managing attorney of Neo non-profit Exempt Organizations Law Group in San Francisco. He edits the wildly popular non-profit Law block dot com. And in 2016 he was the American Bar Association’s outstanding non-profit lawyer. He’s at G. Tak Jean, help me out here, please. How are you? I’m doing great. How are you? Very well. You sound strong and powerful. And Vural and enthusiastic. I love it. Thank you. I need that. I need that after my real mistake. Um, So you, uh you have Ah, pretty lengthy. Uh, interesting block post that we’re gonna turn over a little bit, but you know, it’s you. You wrote something for individuals who are contemplating boardmember ship, but we’re gonna turn the tables on it on talk about non-profits or contemplating recruiting board members. And what? What advice you’ve got in that in that regard? Does that sound right? Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. Go. You’ve, uh you’ve been working with boards and board members for how many decades now? Um, a couple decades. Yeah. Yeah. So you know what you’re talking about. You You’re on your ANA least one board that I know of. Are you on more than one board currently on a couple boards and a few committees that are non board committees, but staying pretty active. Yeah. No, I know. I’m tryingto I just wanna, uh, establish the bona fide. He’s I mean, you’re not just not just a theory for you. You’re actually practicing it and keeping, ah, keeping real boards feet to the fire. Right. You’re not just not in a vacuum. This is real life for you. So yeah, both both the legal adviser to some boards and then sitting in the fire as the boardmember. I’m not sure I’d want to be on a board that you are a boardmember of you. Would you hold this will? You would hold us to high standards. I I certainly aspire to high standards. I don’t know if I achieve them often or ever, but I aspired to them. So I guess, Yeah, you we wouldn’t clash or anything if you were on the same board. I would I would respect you. I just would be annoyed that you’re always telling us that, you know, we’re not We’re not reaching the right standards of governance or you’re failing your failing the the the requirements of of the duties, the three duties. And and you’re not fulfilling your responsibilities as board members. I would, you know, I would respect you. Um, and I would I would aspire to do better in your words. I would. I would. Yeah. Totally trying not to be that type of boardmember. Well, but you’d be hard. You know, we all know those boardmember. Yeah, but will be hard for you to turn it off. I mean, you know, you’re you’re a fiduciary to the organization. You have. You know, it would be hard for you to turn it off. I could tell it would. All right. Um, So let’s see. So we’re starting with, you know, starting with some of the basics. Um, you want you want to make sure that people understand what? What they’re taking on what responsibilities The three duties, which you’re, um, loyalty, care and obedience. Um, you want to make sure that board members understand what they’re walking into? Yeah. I mean, that’s absolute basics because, you know, everybody could say, you know, I like to be on the board. I’m really passionate about the mission, and that’s a great starting point, but I know that that’s not gonna get very far if you’re not willing to do the rest of the work that’s involved. So just having an understanding of what your legal obligations are, first of all, is probably a good first place to start and for the non-profit, because you flipped it nufer the non-profit. When they start to recruit boardmember, they want to make sure that the board members kind of understand not only what the organization wants out of them, but what the law demands of them. And and they should have offensive. Actually, what could happen if they don’t settle the obligations and that maybe the boardmember from hell that nobody wants the ones who could tell the well in the worst case scenarios, which I sometimes see. This is what can happen it in, like the worst case scenario as you might imagine, might be personal liability of boardmember. Go out of pocket for something that happened with the organization on their watch, because perhaps gross negligence or something more serious than that, or just terrible PR damage where boardmember Zehr individually attacked by media and social media for some failure of the organization. I think from the headline in many news stories over the December and the beginning of the fall, we’ve seen some high profile non-profits where they have been called out for. You know, donors are for activities have engaged in, and so boardmember Zehr often held, you know, to thio how they’re living up to their authority on the responsibilities by the media and social media and maybe buy you a time dummy. Maybe that’s right. Non-profit radio also aspires to a very high standard. The show achieves the high standards. It’s me personally. It’s me personally. That’s ah, that’s rare for way. Just have about two minutes before before our first breaking. You make the point that there should be in place. My ability insurance directors and officers liability insurance. Well, that would be one of the things that I would look for as a perspective boardmember coming on to a board. So I would think that a non-profit that aspires to try to get high quality people on their board who are really interested in doing the work protection, huh? Just in case personal liability doesn’t become an issue. Directors and officers, insurance is kind of what protects against that. So that would be a mosque on my list. Do your do your boards that you sit on, let you get involved with recruitment. Yeah, I’m Max. Absolutely. Part of the one of the committee that that’s in charge of recruitment for one of the board. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. So that I shouldn’t say like, let you go. I mean it. That way, they take advantage of your expertise. That’s what I should say. Buy-in recruiting new boardmember. Yeah, because it is essential. You know, the people want to have to know what they’re getting into. And, of course, like you said, it has to go a lot lot further than just passion. Um, we have about a minute or so. What? You you knew, name something. What would you feel like bringing up for a minute? And then we could talk about it more after the break through? Sure, I guess, is a nonprofit organization I would want to know. Why does this individual? So I’m thinking about inviting onto the board. Want Do they want to be a board member of our organization? And I know everybody I talk to you is gonna say what we have a passion for the organization of the organization’s mission. But I would want to know what else. Why else do you want to serve? Sometimes those reasons could be all about, you know, uh, very altruistic. And you know what? Emotionally helping the people about our organization helps what that means to them and the social impact they want to create. But sometimes there are self interested reasons as well. And sometimes that’s okay to do it for personal reasons. And maybe we’ll get into that. Tony, would you have any personal reasons for wanting to serve on the board? Could you see some benefit that comes to you personally out of it? Oh, sure. Um, hold that thought. I’m not trying to get out of answering. Let me take this break, and, uh, and I will answer in about 30 seconds. Um, this break is for regular CPS. Are you thinking about a change possibility? Possibly in your c p. A relationship. Maybe your board is talking about boardmember boardings rumbling that they’ve had the same accounting firm for a long time. Or maybe they’re not quite up thio up to par for some reason, um, whatever the reasons, maybe you’re feeling, ah, growing need to get some accounting help. You know, a partner. You know, partner Wagner. You know, ye duitz doom. Weinger CPS has been a guest multiple times. Talk to him, see if they can help you get started at wagner cps dot com. Now, let’s go back to recruiting your board members. Um, okay, Gene. So, yes, Uh, I didn’t I didn’t call you out for asking me a question, which is generally prohibited, but that’s okay. Uh, so, yeah, I mean, I’ve ah, personal networking. I mean, if we’re getting to the base level, maybe there’s some people on the board who, you know, I’d like to I’d like to get to know, or maybe I know them and were friendly, and I feel like we would work very well together, Although that could be that could be a bit of a red flag for the non-profit. If if I’m gonna be like a voting bloc with my friend or two that, you know, that could be difficult, depending on what those one or two people are like. Um, but, yeah, of course. Networking business advantage. Um, maybe I’m on another board. And there’s some synergy put potentially between the organization’s, um so there’s a couple of non mission related reasons. What do you hear? You hear any bad stuff? Well, I’ll just add on 15 were good things, and then I’ll talk about the best. Like sometimes people want to develop skills and maybe create job opportunities for themselves. They may start off a boardmember hoping that that might turn into something out with that organization or maybe a allied organization. Um, prestige is probably another, and there are some status boards of, like foundations and symphonies and operas or whatever. Organizations have particular status in a community of whatever communities that have might happen to be sometimes sitting on the board ads toe kind of the social status that somebody might have and power. Sometimes I know for identity based group community organizations, sometimes serving on the board on it. Being with such high like that that that person is able to exercise power in other areas as well. So those might be reasons summer okay for serving on the board of long, but that’s not there. Those were not their primary reasons, or they do not let that get in the way of acting in the best interest of the organization above all other things. But sometimes there are some bad things. And then so serving on the board to get into a contract with your company, that wouldn’t be such a cool thing, although we hear of that happening with several organizations that are in the news. Um, have you where Jean have? Have you ever heard anyone disclosed that what in the in the recruitment process that they want it? Not that I’d like to see. I’d like I’d like to see this organization doing some work with my with my company. I haven’t heard you haven’t heard of the organization I join, but there’s definitely been some implications that for some of the reasons that you discussed well voting blocs created within the board from business partners or business, then you know they’re using that block to take advantage and have the whole board or enough of the board to agree to certain contracts, um, that allow their companies to do business. So I didn’t want to point out to meeting, but I think it’s safe to point out one name of an organization because they’ve been in the news an awful lot under governance. And that’s the N R A, which is actually a bunch of different organizations. Ah, but the n r A. That sort of the main organization, uh, has been kind of under heat a little bit for the contract that their board members and they have a very large board. I think over 70 people the contract that their board members have engaged in with the organizations and whether that was on abuse of their duties or not. I will comment on whether I think it is or not. But there’s that perception of a non-profit boardmember being on a board that the proof contract would that boardmember company and when that occurs over and over again with multiple board members and it starts to look like the voting blocs are sort of a wash, you wash my hands. I’ll wash yours kind of kind of deal. And so you have to think about the perception, and not only just the limitations that Lami have on that. There’s certainly some legal issues that could arrive, but the public perception of that and being on the front page of The New York Times or The Washington Post or whatever. And you know, with that allegations, what will that do to the rest of your fund-raising and how the rest of the community thinks of your organization? So there are some really interesting things that could be bad as well in terms of bad personal reasons for serving on the board. Um, I’m going backwards now to something that you mentioned about potential social media embarrassment for you being on the board. Critics of the organization, I guess, is there some way that an organization can, um, insulate or or somehow protect or what can what? Can an organization offer to, uh, mollify someone’s concerns over possible personal embarrassment on the social networks? Yeah, you know, it’s a really tricky thing. There are some organizations that try, so you’ll see that some organizations are very open about putting on their organizational website. You know who is on the board of directors? Um, but some organizations feel that they want to keep that information a little bit more private, and they don’t put their board members on their website. The limitation to that is that your form 9 90 which is a public document. And that’s your annual information return that you submit to the I. R. S. Um, that’s easily available on a site like GuideStar Archer. And, um, that’s going to list all of your board members on it. So as much as you want insulate some board members, that’s not really the way the law thinks about what the law thinks about. You know, non-profit organizations, while while they’re not public organizations, they’re not governmental organizations. They are the type of private organization without ownership where the board are really acting in Stuart’s on behalf of the community, Um, and they want to make sure that those organizations are fairly transparent and what they’re doing, including who is leading the organization. So that’s why that information is required on the form 9 90 board members and officers so that everybody could see them. And what type of compensation they make for the organization if they’re paid. So is there not really much protection that an organization could offer someone against attack again on the social networks? I’m thinking of that because it’s it’s so public, and it could be potentially so embarrassing. There’s really If someone wants to call out a boardmember, there’s not really nothing. It’s not really something that the organization could do. Tow support, the murder? Well, yeah. I mean, other than Dino insurance, you know, the the organization could It’s the beer enough. Have their lawyer perhaps look a defamation claim. That’s a stretch. That’s that’s really serious. Okay, yeah. And the social networks are Ah, well, yeah. I mean, they’re they’re pretty much open. They are what they are. You have to go pretty far. You have to go pretty far to be, uh, someone have a reasonable claim against you for defamation, right? And in that environment, right. And you’re weighing in against the First Amendment rights of people to be able to express their opinions like a yelp review that’s really bad and says, Well, you know, this organization has done horrible things, and these are the board members who are responsible. Well, that’s probably protected straight. All right, opinion. It’s something. But it’s something for organizations that are potentially controversial. If they’re doing grassroots political organizing or really doesn’t even have, sometimes have to be. It doesn’t have to be political to be controversial s. So if your organization has a mission that’s high profile of any of any sort, um, you need to make sure you’re boardmember understand that there’s a potential for them to be, uh, called out good or bad. We’re thinking about what we were thinking more of the bad. That’s true, Tony, I. And I think now that I think about your question about is there anything that you can do to protect your boardmember? There is one protection for small organizations that they might offer is to not publicized or use a board members home address or even their business address as the organization’s address. And I know a lot of small grassroots organizations do that. They kind of just use a board members. Or maybe the founders home addresses their organizational address. Yes, well, once you’ve made that public information now, people could actually go to that home. They know where you live. So, um, not subjecting a boardmember tiu. That might be important. And that that address might be located on a public document that details either the organization’s address for the ancient for service of process address. So that’s the agent preservative processes. Basically who? Somebody would deliver a lawsuit, too. And you are required to make that publicas well. And oftentimes people put a boardmember they’re on, they put their home address so they make sure that they get the mail. That’s not very good for privacy concerns. So those are two things to think about. You could get a P o box for 100 bucks a year or something. And sometimes a P O box is not permissible. They require a street address, But then you can look too. There are a lot of virtual offices that will let you suri address, right? Right. Yes, exactly. That’s right. The male shops that used to be mailbox etcetera. Um, but that type of that type of store, they’ll give you a street address, but it’s a storefront. Yeah, OK, yeah. That’s right. For service of process P O. Box. Not allowed. Probably, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, you want to be looking for someone who is, Uh Ah. Good. Ah, good team. Team player works well with others. They’re gonna be serving on committees. And of course, we talked about expectations. You gonna tell them whether they’re gonna be on one or two committees? Maybe you could even tell them which committee or committees they’re going to serve on or ask them what their preferences are. But it’s committee work. It’s full board work. It’s working team wise with the C suite, sometimes with the staff, maybe with volunteers, somebody who’s gonna be collegial and team worthy, right? Yeah, I think you know, I wouldn’t understand an organization that wouldn’t want that characteristic of a boardmember. And it’s hard to tell, right? Some people are good about, you know, putting on a good public safe. So it’s the only time you’ve ever met this candidate is, uh, you know, a breakfast interview, and then you’re deciding whether to that that person should be on the board or not. That’s a tricky decision to make because they can say they’re collegial player and be really nice at the breakfast meeting. But do you know how, though act in aboard environment, then sometimes that’s going to be very different from that one on one meeting. So getting to know the person might include a little bit more diligent but informing them of, like Witek of requirements and responsibilities they’re gonna have for your organization if that’s committee work or that other work or expectation that they volunteered at events that times are work with some other volunteers or work with some staff on some committee, whatever kind of the organization does with its own board members, that’s the expectation. And that’s why they want t get Yu on the board. You know, they’ve got to make sure they’re expressing that to the boardmember in advance before they bring them on, because the boardmember. Is walking into something that they didn’t know about. That’s gonna be a potential mismatch and can create some harsh feelings. It’s not managed, right? Yeah, sure. I didn’t know. Why didn’t you? Didn’t you tell me up front that this was gonna be the thieves? Were the expectations on And of course, as long as we’re talking about expectations again, we want to be very clear about fund-raising expectations. How much are you required to personally give. How much do you do we look for you to get from from other sources? Do we look to you to host events in your home or in your business? Uh, do we look to you to bring the business community to us, etcetera? All those types of fund-raising requirements should be should be laid out. Yeah, it’s a it’s a It’s a great question to ask, because this is a little bit of a debatable topic, and I see both sides on it. Is that fund-raising requirement? Tony Some a little curious as to how you feel about it, too. I kind of feel like it’s great to ask that every board member give a meaningful amount for them. But I’m a little bit more leery of the board that says, You know, we have a $1000 a $25,000.100,000 dollar minimum that you contribute a year for the privilege of being a boardmember big sickening that’s now framing it as a donor relationship rather than a relationship in which the expectations are is that the boardmember is been a exercise proper oversight and helped direct the organization into the future um So while I think donations should be a requirement of some sort, I don’t think strict numbers are really a good idea, Particularly if diversity and inclusiveness is something that we want in our organizational board. Yeah, Yeah. I used to feel that a strict number was appropriate, but I’ve changed my mind over the years that it should be what it should be a meaningful gift for the individual. Now, there are marquee names with that we’ll never get away from. You know, we have $100,000 requirement here, but we’re talking to small and mid sized non-profits, not the New York City Ballet and Stanford University. Right. So But you know that that, uh, well, they’re the other, the other 5% we’re talking to the other 95 but they’re the five that they’re not in the 95. So, uh, so they’re they’re moving them aside as we do routinely. We don’t even mention the 1999% of time without even thinking of them. So for our listeners, yeah, uh, it should be a meaningful. I mean, it should be a stretch gift, you know, But then you have to have conversation with each individual boardmember. You know what that means for them? I think I think before they joined the board, I I agree, Tony. I think that’s a good thing. Thio raise ahead of time. So you don’t put people in awkward positions where their like again going. I had no idea. And this is deeply personal for me. And I’m going through hard times now. Yeah, yeah. Do you like to see these expectations in writing? I kind of liked have, um, some of this in writing as part of the board orientation package so that both parties know kind of what, What he expected. Questions are going to be. So, uh, both, you know, in the board orientation package that I’m thinking of is going to be shared, even with part of it will be shared with a prospect before their actual provided onto the board. Okay, some of the questions that that you’re gonna ask of any prospect so they get to know you better as an organization, as the board of the culture that values better pervading the the organization. And they get to know you better than individual and to see if there is that right fit. So being as transparent as possible up front, I think, is the best way to help make sure you’ve got a good relationship going. You mentioned being independent enough to express your own point of view and not to be intimidated by other committee members of the board members. How would a non-profit assess that? Yeah, it’s a really good question. I think you could see the Valley, Tony and I know you’ve got a legal education background as well. So the independent judgment is really important. So we don’t have kind of a bunch of sheets. Just say, Oh yeah, way trust, you know, our chair or whoever. We will just go along with the boat without actually looking at any of the documents or any of the facts and circumstances related to that boat, which might be very important for which you might have particular skills that you could actually have given the full board. The benefit of if you had actually taken a look at that ensures what you what you had with it rather than sort of rubber stamping what somebody else said so that independent judgment is really important in terms of meeting your legal responsibilities. But it’s also just if you’re a team player, Um, I don’t think you’re just the team player. If all you do is follow, I think with a strong team, you are all supportive of one another. And when you have a certain skill that or experience or perspective, you share that and you utilize that so you can help the team in that area where other people, other people on the board may not have those things. And I think we’re also unique. That we can offer something different from the way everybody else is looking at Is the boardmember on almost any issues. So I think really contributing and exercising that independent judgment is, uh, super important. But testing it wth the question you asked Really hard. I know. So we asked the question. Or you can ask more generative question about how would you behave if you know, the board chair said, We want this on your head. Five out of six other board members say it, but you really disagreed with that. What would you do in that situation? That might be one of the types of questions that you ask a candidate for the board and see what they say. Yeah, Maybe that’s maybe that is the only way is just ask you. What would you do in that situation? All right, Jean, we have to take a break when we come back. Give us any more thoughts you might have on assessing that, uh, that independent judgment and then, you know, then you come back with something that you’d like to chat about. Meanwhile, we’re taking a break for cooking mountain software designed from the bottom up for non-profits. It’s simple to use phenomenal support. Can you say that about your own accounting software? QuickBooks? No. Quick in no turbo cash workday zoho Patriot. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you can’t. Um so go with something that is made for non-profits from the bottom up. Cougar Mountain Free 60 day trial on the listener landing page at Tony dahna May slash Cougar Mountain. Now it’s time for Tony’s take two. I’ve never been so insulted in all my life. This woman years ago accused me of being a thief, a planned giving thief. She suggested that I would steal from an estate steal from my employer at the time. This is what I was a director of planned e-giving. Um, and all while trying to get me to do her a favor, which was technically well, not just technically, which was impossible for me to do is illegal for me to do not just on a technicality. It was illegal for me to have done, but she didn’t understand how this whole thing works. So, um, see what shocked me? It’s Ah, it’s a video where I’m hosted by Peter Heller of Heller Consulting Group. He’s got a video siris. He interviewed me. I told this shocking story, and you can find it on. Uh, yeah, I mean, you go to Peter Heller’s website, but why would you wanna go there when you go to tony martignetti dot com? That’s the place to go. Watch the video at tony martignetti dot com. All right, let us continue with Jean Takagi and recruiting your board members. Gene, anything more you want to say about possibly assessing independent judgment than anything come to mind there, but I think it has to do the questioning of the candidate. But maybe more importantly, you have to share with the candidate that you’ve got a culture that allows for independent judgment to be welcomed, right? You don’t want to make it look like you have this culture where everybody is going to rubber stamp a board members or the CBO’s. Maybe which is more common. Whatever the CEO decides upon, they know the day to day stuff, so they must be right. Do you have a culture that that allows the board to question, then probe and act more than just the sounding board? But really, Thio provide a lot of additional input and then decide whether the board should actually stacked in and make decisions where there’s enough of the board that that challenges what a particular board share or a CEO, my steak is in the best interest of the organization. So it is a particularly important point to create a culture that allows her for individual board members to intervene when it’s reasonable and appropriate. But I think that’s the last thing, okay, and this is related to something that you and I have talked about before, which is very bad sign. If all the votes are unanimous and there isn’t this culture that you just described, you know everybody just rubber stamps. Ah, there’s And we talked about it. It might be a strong board chair or CEO or somebody extra wealthy who everybody is intimidated by, or whatever. You know that those are all those are all very bad and counter to the culture that you’re talking about fostering. Um, what did you want? You got one. You do throw something out there? Sure. So I think another thing that an organization wants to do with with an individual is to make that individual comfortable, that they know who’s actually on the board and who the CEO is. Some some organizations recruit board members, and only one boardmember. Knows this new candidate. Nobody else has ever met him, you know, and they judge that candidate based on how they look on papers. But he’s got a good resume. Yes. Um, and this boardmember vouches for him, and we really need a boardmember. So let’s Alexis, um, yeah, uh, so you know that’s not a typical. It’s pretty common. So for non-profits have a system where they went. Why don’t we have that breakfast meeting or lunch meeting and bring out a few board members on bring out the CEO for one of these things. If you’re you know, it is a board member and the board really that important to an organization. And the law recognizes a tte the top of of what is still ah, hi article system in terms of governance, it’s the law requires, you know, that the board is at the top, then a boardmember position is super super important. And is the organization treating the addition of a boardmember as it is that important? And that’s a good sign of the board for an individual candidate and for aboard that actually sets it up so that they’re going to place proper priority to bringing on a new boardmember by letting the meet several board members and CEO and maybe attended board meeting without any, um, sort of strings attached. A visitor. You come out and see a get to know us, we’ll get to know, you know, that’s a promising Anything I haven’t heard that suggested for That’s a good one. Let someone come to a board meeting as a visitor as an observer, that was you mean? Yeah, exactly. Um, and I think they would get a sense of what the culture is much better from actually getting to be in the meeting. Even if they’re a silent observer. I’m sure there’s going to be some pleasantries exchanged, but they’ll know much better. And you get a sense out of them if you actually allow them to participate as part of the board. Um, at least with introductions and maybe what they want out of what their views are of the organization that that might be a nice baker. Also your point about doing it based on a breakfast meeting in a resume review that, um, yes, this is subsumed in what you were saying, really? But I won’t make it explicit that that that just doesn’t give, um doesn’t give credence to the, uh doesn’t respect the, uh, the position that you’re bored should be held in. It makes it, you know, just purely transactional. We need a body, she’s available, and she has a good resume that, you know, that doesn’t doesn’t, uh, give someone ah, feeling of prominence in the organization like Ajay. If it hadn’t been my warm body that that was brought in, there would have been some other warm body that they found the next day, but but a Siri’s where there’s multiple interviews to three interviews over several weeks on and there’s deliberation and you make sure the person shows up on time for the three interviews and takes them seriously, you know, those you can learn a lot just by observing somebody over over several weeks or maybe even over a couple of months. Yeah, I think that’s so true. And I met the okay with even introducing some perspective board members to certain staff beyond the CEO. Um, so and then soliciting staff input is, well, a thio what they think about this perspective. Candidates. Um, I, uh I am forgetting a good picture. Look all around from all people. Um, and Aziz said that the importance, I think articulated much better than I did. The importance of the position should be respected by the process. That’s what I meant to say. Yeah, I think you just said it better than I did. Okay. Really Got you said. You certainly said it more succinctly. That’s definitely true. Um, okay. You have one. You gotta You gotta basically have your compliance house in order your nine nineties articles of incorporation by-laws policies. Your financial statements, whether audited or not, All these things I mean, this is sort of foundational, but, you know, if there’s a problem in any of these, you’re you are got you at the organization are gonna look poor in the eyes of your perspective. Board members. That’s what I think. And I think as a perspective boardmember and I will give you this morning, actually for a board. So coincidentally, um, I’m gonna look at all these. Um and I will look at them with a bit of a critical eye to see if I see sloppiness. Where if I see vagueness in in what the missionary, I see a different mission statement in the articles from the by-laws the website. Like I had really tell what they’re doing where they’re 9 90 Just seemed to be like, very, you know, scattered. We prepared. Of course. I’m gonna see, you know, the financial. I’m gonna see how stronger week they appear, at least on paper. Moneywise. Um, so there’s a lot of things the documents are gonna show me. So if a non-profit is very careful about doing these things and finding on time, of course it I’ll see if they’re finally late and you know they’re suspended or delinquent or or whatever. So the non-profits should like when whenever you invite a houseguest over that you want to impress in, clean your house before you bring that person. And I think non-profits got to think this thing. Wait, they’re gonna bring the boardmember and again back-up prominent important positions. We’re going to clean our house so we can attract the best candidates. And hope will retain the best candidates as well. Well, Gene, that organization would be lucky to get you in-kind on. How many boards can you be on? My gosh, you’re on your own. You already you have time for? Yeah, I usually have a tube board maximum. But the organization that pocket is important enough. And I actually have a term off of another board. Uh, within the year that that gives me the ability to sort of overlap with three boards for maybe a few months. If I If I should be so lucky as to be elected by that order, um, But then then we’ll be back to two boards after that. Okay? I see you get you have a whole schedule of new spreadsheet to manage. You’re bored. You’re bored. Obligation? Yeah, actually. D’oh, I’m very careful about trying not overcome it. Let’s talk about something that you and I talked about. Oh, I don’t know. Three months or so ago, maybe 23 months. We had a real well, uh, meaningful conversation about diversity equity and inclusion. So without going over the that full hour that we spent, um, if this is important to the organization, then it’s going to want to recruit board members for whom that value is important. Yeah, I think so. Well, and if they’re looking to recruit, um, certain, uh, members of the community that might give the board more diverse representation. They’re gonna want to really think about making that person feel not like a token which we discussed about and have an inclusive environment that really welcomes their ideas and acknowledges and ensures that they’re able to exercise the power that they have in their position, that they have a voice in the organization and in the governance of the organization. They’re not just sitting by the sidelines, helping the board take a better looking picture. So it really is an issue. But it comes down to where? For an individual. If you believe strongly in that In in that diversity concept, um, and you are invited onto a board that’s not diverse, and you’re a member of the majority group. So let’s say the group is predominantly white man and your white male we get invited onto that board. Well, if you really falik the value of diversity equity inclusion, you might say, No, I’m not gonna take that position on that board because I would grab you see that board bring on somebody who does give you a more diverse perspectives representation on Guy might, you know, being part of the majority group, participate in another way to help you get that. But I don’t want to be part of a board and just make make that that issue on even harder one to deal with. So it’s an interesting situation for organizations that want to think about it. Um, if they want to bring in the best people, they’re gonna have to think about how they’re gonna address their composition issues as well. That that happens to be an issue. Yeah, no, it’s very altruistic. The way you describe you know, the selflessness of doing what’s right for the organization. Bye bye. Not not accepting a board position and flip that on its side. Uh, non-profits need to be, uh, thoughtful about who they are inviting If this is an important value for them, Jean, we gotta take our very last break turn to communications, PR and content for your non-profit. They help you tell your compelling stories and get media attention on those stories all the while building support for your mission. They do media relations, content marketing, communications and marketing strategy and branding strategy. You’ll find them at turn hyphen to dot CEO and Jean and I have but loads more time for recruiting your board members. Um, all right, G, you have something, uh, you want to bring up? Sure. I think maybe the next important point I wanted to bring up because it happened to the indication is non-profit is great. It’s filled with wonderful people and they they’re really working towards something that I believe in passionately in their culture is the great says everything seems to be fine, but at the moment they are confronting some really difficult issues that’s going to require extra effort extra tax from the board, and it might be a financial challenging, financially challenging time for them might be a leadership transition, that they’re losing a founder or expect long term executive director and they’re gonna move into a new one. They might be engaged in litigation for which they did nothing wrong. But all of this doesn’t They’re going to be sort of boiled in in lawsuits and potential PR damage that might go along with that on all of the things can create more work for aboard and definitely require more effort in intelligence impact from the board. I think non-profits have to let prospective board members know, even if those things have not hit the media are are really public yet that if they’re coming on toe into an organization that’s got some imminently difficult challenges that will be brought before the board, they want to know first. Is that the best time to recruit boardmember? Because it might not be. But if they are recruiting port members, I think they got to be up front again with them and not surprised them after their dahna boardmember got you. Now you gotta be on the committee that deals with art. Being involved in this lawsuit duty to disclose basically thing I think that that organizations have to be up front about that, obviously very tactful there. I know there are confidentiality issues that are gonna be weighing in on the other side of that transparency, so somethingto really managed very carefully and thoughtfully. You’re basically saying there’s a duty to disclose these these kinds of challenges, and that could be an opportunity the organization could could turn that into something, you know? Yeah, we have this particular financial challenge, but that’s why we’re looking for you. Andi is not to be a donor, but, you know, maybe it’s Ah, it’s a it’s a finance problem or an investment problem on endowment management problem or something. And so you’re can hyre are sorry. Recruit someone who has a particular expertise and that person could, you know, potentially be a leader in I don’t want to turning the organization around but guiding the organization out of the difficulty that they’re facing so it could present a challenge and an opportunity for non-profit and for a potential boardmember to come together and help each other. I think that’s very, very true. Yeah. And financial management expertise is, um, really sought after quality for a board members. And sometimes some boards have a hard time finding those people, so it’s a difficult issue. Arises. And, um, uh, they put extra effort into finding somebody like that that that can be an opportunity for referred bringing ana boardmember gonna be invaluable for many, many years. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what about, um, the, uh just, you know, sort of leadership personality, like, you know, Are you Are you? Ah. Are you messing? Well, you are. You messing well as leaders with the the potential boardmember do you put forth a, um, an image which hopefully is not merely a not a facade, but, you know, Are you confident you you convey confidence in the direction of the organization, the your leadership, your leadership style? Uh, you know, these, I think, are sort of intangibles that Ah, well, much of what we’re talking about is intangible, but that ah, potential boardmember is using toe assess whether they’re gonna fit. Yeah, absolutely. I’m sure they’re all the studies that we know of. Um, where first impressions are powerful tribes of what that relationship turns into um so or whether there is a continued relationship at all. Um, and I think that’s very true in bringing Ana boardmember as well. So boardmember gets introduced to a board chair or to an executive director or somebody else in a senior leadership position. And first impressions are going to develop pretty quickly. So certainly within the 1st 30 seconds Teoh a minute. Um, they’re going to be some presumptions that each side has about the other. And I think understanding the limits of what first impressions means are important for board members when you’re dealing with people who might be introverted or shy, and or maybe from a cultural, different cultural background not used to sort of exhibiting some of the the the confidence you know that you might find from another culture stressing that important in the first meeting maybe is more of a dimmer, demure attitude that is more valued by other cultures upon the first meeting, or that find that more appropriate. But I think we have to sort of take into account that there are different reasons that people are are showing for the first impression. But on the other side, when you’re the non-profit. You do want to make sure that you are giving the best impression we can, not just in the documents that we talked about earlier, but in your leadership. So I’m always a huge fan of education and trading, and I think boys don’t do that enough for their CEOs in their board chairs. Um, so yes, way kind of expect them to have the skill on. And maybe once in a while we’ll send them to a training where they’re just sort of getting training about the secretary, you know, in a sector wide conference or something. But are we really giving them training on on certain things that might be really, really relevant, but very, very specific? So if they’re the public face of the organization, should we be giving them some public relations training or some media training? Those things, too, just sort of think about it again. I’m a big fan of training, and the board can really help by saying we want allocate some resources to this on. Make sure that we’re providing for that, that that strong first impression and understanding about first impressions on their limitations when we’re judging other people on it. Yeah, I’ve seen instances to where, um, the organization invests in coaching for the CEO. I’ve seen that I’m not a couple times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they see promise potential. But I guess the CEO, maybe, you know, like like all of us, I mean has some shortcomings. You know, maybe it’s Ah, I don’t know what leadership leader, management of the other C suite individuals. Or maybe it’s, you know, there’s not enough team building or something, you know, whatever it is, they see a need a gap, and, uh, they invest in a coach for the for that CEO. I think that’s such a great, um, uh, allocation of research from from from many organizations that have money to invest in their leadership leadership training. I think coaching from the right people could be invaluable even for a very, very senior executive. None of us have all of the tools and all of the best qualities. Andi executive director seems to need so many different skillsets so many experiences in so many abilities. I think coaching never heard. Um, we’ve talked about we talked about the consistency across documents, and so now we’re talking about meeting, meeting the leadership of the organization and maybe even meeting some staff, introducing staff to potential board members. You want to make sure that not only your documents but you’re your people boardmember Zand staff and see sweet alike are consistent in terms of messaging, that they all have the common vision that’s laid out in the vision statement and that the articles of incorporation of the by-laws without by-laws the articles of incorporation speak to know the people all need to be consistent, as as thes potential board members are interviewing them just as much as you’re interviewing the potential board members. Yeah, I think that’s very true. And I think when the, um kind of the things that I think is overlooked right now is the importance of memorializing or documenting the organization’s value. Um, in a document like the by-laws Wait, don’t do it. We have incited a standard practice. I’m trying to think about that being an actual, um, important section of the box by-laws. Really? Okay, Yeah, I think organizations Now, um, you’re driven by your your mission, of course, but it’s not just your mission. You’re also driven by your value because if your mission was, I don’t know. We talked about this example before, but your mission was just thio. If feed homeless people, you could just wait down suit on the sidewalk, right? You could play down slop there, and many homeless people have to eat it that nobody does that right, because that’s not within our values of having people had to be treated with dignity and respect. Um, organizations just won’t do that. But we don’t explicitly say why we don’t just affect the mission, you know, to the maximum degree by just doing things without, you know, care and just laying it out. So I think it’s really important that we say what our values are and how the values that I think about are those that will guide our decisions so that it actually stops us from saying we’re gonna spend a maximum amount to get the most people served. No, we’re gonna not spend the maximum to maximize the number of people served. We want to maximize the service that we’re giving as well in balance, that and why are we doing that because of these values? And I think that has to be documented. So with that we know we actually share them with all the people, including the perspective boardmember. We don’t just assume it. That may not be true. Okay, Jeanne, we gotta leave it there. Well said he’s managing attorney of Neo non-profit Exempt Organizations Law Group in San Francisco. You’ll find the block post that we were speaking from at non-profit law block dot com, which you should be subscribed to its 12 considerations before you join that non-profit board. But I’m not sure I don’t want I don’t want a decrease traffic on hits to your site, But I think we I think we did a pretty good job of going through. Ah, all these 12. Maybe we didn’t. You know, we didn’t explicitly one through 12 but I think we’ve covered the vast majority. These, if not if not everything. Jean, thank you very much. Thanks for sharing your expertise. Thanks so much, Tony. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. Next week. Scale up and sustain with Kathleen Kelly. Janice. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony. Martignetti dot com were sponsored by Wagner CPS guiding you beyond the numbers Witnessed gps dot com but koegler Mountain Software, Denali fundez. They’re complete accounting solution made for non-profits. Tony dot m a slash Cougar Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for non-profits, Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. A creative producers. Claire Meyerhoff Sam Liebowitz is the line producer. Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein, who is me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit Ideas for the other 95% go out and be great. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. You’re listening to the Talking Alternative Network. Are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down. Hi, I’m nor in Sumpter potentially ater. Tune in every Tuesday at 9 to 10 p.m. Eastern Time and listen for new ideas on my show yawned Potential Live Life Your way on talk radio dot N Y C aptly named host of Tony martignetti non-profit Radio Big non-profit ideas for the other 95% fund-raising board relations, social media. My guests and I cover everything that small and midsize shops struggle with. 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Nonprofit Radio for September 20, 2019: Wounded Charity

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Doug White: Wounded Charity
Author and consultant Doug White returns with his latest book, “Wounded Charity,” positing that the 2016 allegations against Wounded Warrior Project were mostly untrue and that the organization’s board failed. Join us for a provocative and thoughtful analysis.

 

 

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Transcript for 458_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20190920.mp3.mp3 Processed on: 2019-09-20T19:10:34.517Z S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results Path to JSON: 2019…09…458_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20190920.mp3.mp3.868378293.json Path to text: transcripts/2019/09/458_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20190920mp3.txt Hello and welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other 95% on your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I turn drama Tropic if you unnerved me with the idea that you missed today’s show. Wounded Charity author and consultant Doug White returns with his latest book, Wounded Charity, positing that the 2016 allegations against Wounded Warrior Project were mostly untrue and that the organization’s board failed. And the media. Oi Doug brings a provocative and thoughtful analysis on Tony’s take to take caution in your plan. E-giving relationships Responsive by witness E. P. A. Is guiding you beyond the numbers. Witnessed gps dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non-profits tony dot m a slash Cougar Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for non-profits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. What a pleasure to welcome back to the studio. It’s good to be Don’t wait. Yes, he’s the author, teacher and advisor, two nonprofit organizations and philanthropists. He’s said he’s the soul. That’s the only part they want occupying those three those three categories. He’s co chair of the full proof foundations Walter Cronkite Project Committee and a governing boardmember of the Secular Coalition of America. He’s the former director of Columbia University’s master of science in fund-raising management program. Before that, he was academic director at New York University’s heimans Center for Philanthropy and fund-raising. That’s where we first met. His latest book is Wounded Charity. Lessons Learned From the Wounded Warrior Project Crisis will be published early October, and that’s what brings him back to non-profit radio. Welcome back as I say, It’s good to see you again. A pleasure. You’re our first live guest in our new studio. I can smell the paint. I can t o and the elevators better intoxicating. The elevator is bigger. There’s more than one, and it’s you. It sounds different to me. Uh, we got it. We got to get some things up on the wall, but it feels good. Just welcome to the new space. Well, thank you. It’s good to be a part of it. Um, yeah. Wounded warrior project. Very interesting. You’re You uncover some things that a lot of people do not know. Um, and you say that you’re actually you’re offended, Earl. I think early in the book you say that you’re offended by what happened to Wounded Warrior Project. The reaction that the board had you took offense at this. I did. But not at first. Because when you hear something on CBS or read something in The New York Times, you tend to think it’s true. And before I go too far, I want to make sure that people know that I like CBS News. I like most of the networks and I think the world of The New York Times. But this is a story that they got wrong and it was egregiously wrong and upon having learned what did happen, I am offended. I’m offended by the lack of journalistic standards. I’m offended by the way the board behaved. And every time I ask somebody about this story, did you hear about what happened to a wounded warrior project? I’ll have reactions to Oh, that’s that fake charity. That’s the charity spent all the money wrong, and I say, Where did you hear that? And of course, he’ll tell me where they didn’t. Of course, that’s where thatwas the times and CBS. But then I say there is more to that story and most of what you know is wrong. More to it. You. Ah, Now, at the end, you call it a long, long, nurturing hit job. A long, marinating hit job That would be the freezer. Long magnetic it job is the phrase you Yes, way Have a full hour together. So we have plenty time. Thio flush this out. But say little about long marinating the two people who were fired the CEO and CEO Steve Nord Easy and Al Giordano were fired in March will probably do a CZ. We go forward with the story of this, but they were fired in March of 2016 after scathing reports out by CBS and The New York Times. And it would be easy to think then, logical to think that as a result of those reports, the board looked at their leadership and said, we’re going in the wrong direction. It is my opinion that that decision was made well before those reports came out. Now. Yeah. Okay. We’re gonna get to that. All right. Wonderful. Um So the claims in the media were were scathing money wasted on travel and entertainment costs were too high. Morale was low. Programs failing. Um, some watchdogs, charity navigator and charitywatch, specifically low grades. Um, yes, this was This was all January 2016 a CZ you’ve said New York Times and CBS, but not in that order. Give us Give that what happened at CBS and then The New York Times And what was said I was home about nine o’clock on Tuesday night the 26th of January and enjoying my, I think, second bourbon when I got a text from a good friend of mine and someone you may know to Laura Fredericks. Oh, sure texted me and said, Did you see what CBS said about Wounded Warrior Project? And she’s also on the board off another veteran’s organization. So she’s tuned into these kinds of things, and I said, No, I hadn’t. So I looked it up and watched it, and I thought, Wow, this is Ah, pretty scathing report because it said that they were spending money badly, that morale was bad and everything you’ve just mentioned. And I thought this sounds like something I would be interested in because, as you know, with other books, another work that I’ve done. I’ve been very critical of charities because I don’t think charity should be badly run. I think they should be well run by people who care about the work they do and having a charitable ethos. And so I’m my intent are up when it comes to bad behavior charities. And so I thought, Well, this is just another example of that because I had no contact with Wounded Warrior Project Before this time, however, I had contact with a reporter of The New York Times about six or maybe four weeks prior. I had been called by day Phillips, who ended up doing this report about Wounded Warrior project, and at that point I knew nothing more than what was publicly available. You know, the information that was publicly available on nine nineties and other reports, and basically his take with our conversation, which, by the way, lasted about an hour or an hour and 15 minutes. What is the ethos behind an organization that is, that is growing so quickly? Is there a problem with that? Inherently. What about their programs? And all I could speak to was with what I knew publicly, and it was all very positive. I said, I get it That that there are criticisms. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying they’re perfect, but I can’t see anything wrong with them. We ended that I think on a fairly good note. And I had no clue that he was working on this kind of a story. And I’ll tell you this much at that point, I don’t think he waas right. You think he changed his slant of the story when CVS came out with what you saw, I well, they knew CBS was coming. I mean, what happened was that Tuesday night, I knew it was gonna be a three part series on CBS. I wanted I did, right? Dave Phillips. And I said, Are you aware that CBS now has this big story scooping you? Yeah. And so I thought, this is not good. My answer came the next boarding When I read the New York Times when that story was in the New York Times above the front page above the fold. That’s correct. Now what? So I was curious about this. Why would the times if if you’re right, why would they slant the story because of what? Because of the direction CBS took. Why couldn’t they take their own tack if they were Maur? If you felt that Dave Phillips was Maur neutral about about wounded warrior, Yeah, and I think in the long haul of things I want to be gentle with Dave Phillips because I don’t think he’s the bad guy here. And I think I know he’s a very good reporter. I think what he had was what I call an evergreen story. It was not something that had a deadline to it nearly did, by the way, the CBS take have a deadline to it. But it was much more salaciousness. And so I think he tried to catch up to that salaciousness. That’s what I think happened. But he wasn’t finding that. And you don’t You don’t pursue this in the book. But it was a question I had. He wasn’t finding that in his You don’t think in his in his own in his own research, not originally. But then he got talking to people who are on a Facebook page. We’re all malcontents, former employee employees. And so he got inside the second chamber and listen to it after a while. And when he went down to wounded warrior project in Jacksonville, he had many interviews. Many of them were very positive in all of them. Got put on to the cutting room floor. So he at that point had shifted because CBS came into the picture late, like in December s so late, 2015. And so I think he had timeto switch gears. Okay, we have Thio take a first break, and that is for Wagner. CPS. They have a wagon or on September 25th Exempt or non exempt. You need to classify and pay everyone correctly under the Fair Labor Standards Act. And you need to document what you’re doing. Wepner will explain it so you can understand it. Weather cps dot com Click Resource is and upcoming events. If you missed it, live so many of our podcast listeners. I can understand that. Then go to re sources and recorded events. All right, let’s go back to ah, wounded charity. Um, so he so he caught up with the salacious side of it. All right, I’m still alright. This Yeah, There was the malcontent employees Echo chamber. All right, so Wonder Warrior Christ Wounded Warrior Project now has a crisis. There was a three part series on CBS over what, Over two nights a night the next morning of the following night. Oh, that’s right there and one in the morning and then the following night. And they’ve got this New York Times with peace. Which came the guest, the 27th of January. What is the board do? The board hires Simpson Thatcher law firm here and a group called FT I, which is accounting firm to do an audit of the organization’s finances. They did that almost immediately, probably within a few hours of the reports coming out because they wanted to find out what was going on with regard to the accusations that money was being misspent. They also at the same time silenced the CEO. Stephen aren’t easy stating our Daisy is a pretty savvy guy. Probably one of the better CEOs. What was his age at this point? Him and al what were their ages? They’re not really young, but they’re not old. I would say they’re probably in their fifties. Okay? Yeah, something normal helps me on. I think they’re about the same age they came through the world with the veterans world. Kind of the same time. At any rate, um, they were told they couldn’t talk to anybody. And Steve actually was very media savvy and good person in many ways said to the board, This is not the right strategy, because we’re gonna be out there hanging without any story. And we’re not even responding. He wants to get ahead of it. He wants to get ahead of grab it. Yes, like you would advise your own clients to do in an emergency. Silence is bad because the story takes story goes on without you. The stood out without your part of it. Well said, Well, that didn’t happen. And so he was muzzled. Reinardy xero Steve. Not easy as a CEO. Yes, Al Al Giordano CEO. Yes, two Italians. But what you didn’t pursue the Italian American discrimination pathway into this thing? These two, these two screaming Italians nor D. C. And Giordano railroaded by the board. You didn’t pursue that? You know, you’re the Italian American sentiment on the warrior project. Most of the lack of intellectual curiosity. Okay, I’ll help you. Thank you. Bring me in. Silences them now I had another something curious CBS offers. Did he say? Nor Deasy or not? D. C Easy, easy. Okay, The proper princessa Ditzy what? You wouldn’t zizi like brothers pizza? You don’t say Pisa pizza. Nor did Marty Martin, yet martignetti CBS offers, nor D z Rebuttal time. They offer him substantial time on a morning some on one of their morning shows with Formerly With Charlie Rose. Why did they do? And they say And they say in the email Ah, lot of time like we usually give guests three minutes, we’ll give you twice that or something like that and we’ll be willing to talk about other opportunities for you to be on CBS on other shows. Why did they offer that? Did they sense that that they had something wrong? Oh, I know they sensed they had something wrong. I mean, there’s nothing that says it on paper to my knowledge, but there could not be any other conclusion after watching this. And also there were people who talk to Gil. There were some internal e mails from internal emails that I was able to put my hands on that showed that there was something really wrong here. Why would CBS offer them or offer Steve This? This could have been an effort on their part to kind of come clean. But Steve knew that this this was baked in already. I don’t feel like there was any any anything to gain by coming back and fighting that. Oh, I thought he would have taken the opportunity if the board had allowed him to. Oh, well, yeah, but the board didn’t allow him to write, so, you know, I don’t. And he’s been criticized. He’s been criticized for that, Uh, but he wasn’t allowed. You’re right. Now there’s a question. Uh, we could talk about this now. Sure should. Should he have or, you know, where do you, uh, ready to draw the line between obedience to the board and loyalty to the organization and say, Screw the board? I’m going ahead. That’s the last profound question that I asked in the book toward the end. And I think it’s an open ended question. I don’t know the answer to that. Boardmember has, ah duty of loyalty to the organization. Staff member has duties to both the organization and to the board. When you see that the board is going in a different direction. From where you see the organization going, you have a profound dilemma on your hands. One person was extremely critical of Steve for not bucking the board. I won’t use the language he gave me, but that language is in the book. But he said that Steve should have and Al should have buck them and gone public with everything they could at that time. And which person which questions that you know, that was quote okay. Yes, You have a lot, by the way. Lots of footnotes couldn’t you couldn’t have cut the footnotes down 370 foot notes. It’s really got to go to the back of the book all the time to see this. It means a substantial because I was taught in law school. You always read the footnotes. You know that the footnotes used to be in academia couldn’t put them at the bottom. It’s so much easier when they’re the bottom of the page. But that looks bad. People won’t read books like it looks like it. Then it looks like an academic journal. That’s yeah, and it’s important to may toe have these facts correct. And this is not true about a lot of things that are written in general. And so I want to be sure that especially in a situation like this and I was this way with the book on Princeton, too, wanted to make sure that everything that I said was backed up in people new words being backed up. In fact, just to go down that line for a minute. I do worry and always do worry about what I have an anonymous quote. I don’t want people to think I made it up. And so I’ve asked people, attorneys and other people in the world of ethics and non-profits. How do I make sure that people don’t think I did that? And there’s really no way. Just, you know, the authority is otherwise there, so they’re gonna have to take your word for it. It’s like the times when they come out with an anonymous source, got to take their word for it. But that means that eyes the author have to take a lot of responsibility and have a lot of integrity, or try to have integrity anyway in the process. That’s why you have the footnotes Okay. Okay. It’s a yes, I imagine you have. You have a spreadsheet somewhere that says anonymous quote. Footnote number 2 14 Is this person? Yes. Something like that. So, Yeah, I do. We do have to trust you, and your lawyers will never see it. I can tell you that no matter what you do. Okay? You’ve assured everyone a lien on it. All right? So now nor D. C. And reinardy, xero, Dizzy and Giordano, highly rated by the board before this before this occurred. Yes. Talk about that talk about and how wounded Warrior Project was doing. Let’s give them their due now. Wounded. Well, they don’t need their do now. They’re just They’ve always been a great organ. I meant now in the show. Oh, in the show. Just at this point in our time together. Let’s do it. Great organization. It grew from a fairly small organization in the early two thousands. John Milius started it with backpacks out of his basement to take up. He noticed that when he got out of being wounded, Hey, didn’t have any essentials like a toothbrush or a water bottle or things like that. He said I’m gonna put together backpacks and take him up to Walter Reed. He was in Virginia and give them a way. That was really the way it got started. And at the same time, because there was a fellow out in Long Island. Peter Hoener Camp was also concerned about veterans coming back. He started something called Soldier Ride on DDE that raised money for Wounded Warrior Project. So they began to make money a few years after John Milius started it for real. And when Steve and Al came into the scene to really become the leaders of the organization from a staff perspective, they started. They said What? I think all charities need to do more off. They said, What is our task here? And when they defined their task of taking care of veterans when they’re coming back from 9 11 posted an 11 conflict, the money that it would take would be X. And they said, Okay, we’re gonna go out and raise X. It wasn’t like, Okay, we’re gonna raise $1000 see what we can do. What they say. They had an entirely different mindset and a good one, but as you can imagine, Tony. It was somewhat in conflict with the way the mindset works at many charities. So the pursuit of the money became itself something controversial at anyway. They grew and grew, and by the time they left they were earning almost $400 million which is pretty big. They went from 10 to $400 million in a decade, basically, and they had 20 programs. All of them were working. They were quantifying their results and from a an impact respect of the big word today and non-profits his impact. They were already doing it. They were already doing it from a quantitative and qualitative perspective for for many years prior to this point, they were doing a good job, and I think they still are. The vision, I think is reduced, and it’s a smaller organization right now, but it’s still a good organization. I don’t want to say anything bad about the organization today, but it’s a different organization. And nor did see not Dizzy and Giordano, as I said, highly rated by the board. Okay, let me get back to that because you did ask that a few months before they left their ratings and by the way, there prior ratings were all consistent with this. We’re fabulous. They were great. And Steve said, Well, look now I think we ought to slow down and start to become a different kind of order. We are becoming a different kind of organization, so we need to look at it in a more sophisticated way. We’re going to slow down a little bit. We won’t be pushing the gas pedal is hard, and what we want to do is make sure that we’re really serving everyone to the fullest that we can on DDE. That always reflected in those in those reports that the that the board had done on the board hired a firm to do this. And so they all concluded that they were doing a great job. This is just a few months earlier, and so it was really start when when this happened, the crisis came along. The reports just a few months after the glowing review by the board, and then a month later, the board says, we need to change very cryptic and very unsatisfying. In fact, after the two were fired in March, I think was the 16th of March in 2016 Tony Odierno went on the Bill O’Reilly show, and Bill O’Reilly was always a very big supporter of the wounded warrior project. Odierno. It’s board, chair and audio was the board chair, Thank you. And at that point he stepped in. His theory of an amputee also. Yeah, and basically his father was a war hero. He was the head of the military command over there. And so he’s a Tony. Odierno is, I’m sure, a very fine, upstanding, good person. He wouldn’t return any of my phone calls, but that’s another issue. I think that he’s probably a very good person, no reason to doubt that. But he so he came in. He had a full time job here in New York. Kayman is an acting CEO, and he was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly, and O’Reilly said, Why did you fire me? So we needed a change of culture? No, Riley, to his credit, said, Well, what does that mean culture? What it was this culture thing that’s going on here? Well, we really needed a change of culture. I’m making you have the transcript and you have the transcripts segment in the book. Yeah, but basically said that we needed a repeated himself. We need a change of culture, know, really, if you remember him on the show, is kind of a pugnacious fellow, and he said, and this is a friend, you know, This is a friendly interview He said, Well, what does that mean? Again and again, Tony said the same thing. And Cody Bill O’Reilly was just flummoxed. Why don’t you answer this? You’re not answering my question. And he said, Basically, since you’re not answering it, I guess we just don’t have anything more to talk about. Very frustrating and what it really? In addition to your alley’s frustration, the problem was that Tony did not have a good answer because there was no good answer. They were essentially saying the organization in their responses to the reports. The organization is fine, but we need to make a change of leadership. Yes, that was the 22 contradictory statements. Exactly. So you have a report that comes out in March, this report that was done by Simpson Thatcher saying basically everything that the media said was wrong. Still, we need a change in culture. We need a change and so and I got a hold of a letter that Simpson This report, by the way, was not written. Okay? There was no right. It was orelon. But there was a letter written Thio Grassley, Senator Grassley who was looking into this. That’s the letter I looked at. And Simpson Thatcher said, Well, clearly, Odierno, Excuse me is clearly reinardy Z and xero dahna have to go. I’m thinking clearly. What? What’s so clear about that? Everything you’ve said so far is supporting the work that they’ve done. And so where is this coming from? The report vindicated them. The report vindicated. There s so we’re getting to the long marinating hit job theory. Well, the report vindicated them. And as part of that report, they said, Well, there are some some tweaks we should make here. You know, there are some things that as a growing organization, you should do a little bit better. Well, by golly, what organization does not have that is it? It was like policy. Some of the policies and procedures need to be right. Revised, but they’re experiencing explosive growth. I mean, it’s not uncommon for policies the lag behind growth as you’re trying to raise more money and do more programs, and both Steve and Al were seasoned at growing. They knew what they were doing. And so if you take that, you say that doesn’t make sense. What also doesn’t make sense is that a few years earlier, Simpson Thatcher also did a report on the Clinton Foundation, and they were scaling. This is a conflict of interest here. There are no policies. Everything’s wrong. There’s just like it’s crazy now, one scintilla of a recommendation to replace anyone at the Clinton Foundation here. Everything’s going well. We have a few things that we think we should, you know, upgrade. But you know, those two guys that have authored this entire success for the last decade, they need to go clearly. Let’s bring in Richard Jones. That’s a good time for him. He’s on the board of Wounded Warrior project. Uh, still is. I meant at the time. But he still is. Yeah. You say he remained. I didn’t know if he still is today. Okay, I think he’s going off the board at the end of this, Okay? But I think you still think it’s the last line of your book. Richard Jones remained. Yes. Um, but he’s on a couple of other boards and he’s got a He’s got a duty of loyalty to CBS as well. Talk about him. Well, I can only remember offhand right now. One of those two other boards and one was Dixon House. The other was the Veterans Family Institute for Vets and Military Families. E M F. Thank you. And there were a lot of organizations that I implied earlier who didn’t feel comfortable with wounded warrior projects. Growing success. And these were two of them and he was on those boards. And so he comes in. I believe in 2014 or 2015 I get the years a little bit off. It was after the Super Bowl. CBS dedicated the Super Bowl add to the Wounded Warrior Project, and I think he had something to do with it all. Good. So after that, he wants to be on the board of Wounded Warrior Project, and I asked Steve about this and I asked him other board members. Richard Jones didn’t talk to you know, I didn’t see any interview note for them. Well, the interview note that I do have in there is that he didn’t talk to me. Okay, um, when I show what I asked him, I asked all of the boardmember is the same thing, and nobody talked to me. But he was on the boards of these two other organizations that itself wouldn’t so much. It would raise a little bit of a red flag, but it would be disqualifying. I don’t believe, even though they might have known that these other two organizations were in opposition or really didn’t like W W. P. But there’s a lot of that going on. So it’s not the issue. The issue of the day. What really got my attention was that he was also a senior executive at CBS at the very time this was going on. And the criticism that CBS had of Wounded Warrior project was the very area that Richard really Jones was overseeing. I thought there was a conflict there and and a story I still do. You know, I feel it was very wrong, and I I’m I’m really interested in knowing why Richard Jones was allowed to be so much a part of not just wounded warrior project of the investigation that followed. Yeah, you question the board vetting of him when they when they invited him to come on, The fact that he’s a boardmember of two other competing organizations. Well, yeah, I do question esos veteran service organizations. Well, I don’t know that the other two are vey CVS. Oh, that’s a very specific designation. Okay, that’s okay. That same same world. And I wouldn’t call them. I would call him competing in the sense that they didn’t like Wounded Warrior project. They weren’t in the same league. And what I say that I’m not criticizing their size or anything there A lot of small organizations that are doing your job. It’s not that. But he came on and he he wanted a state and al to be fired. I did talk to board members who told me this that they he wanted them to be fired. And he insisted on the unanimous vote that they be fired. He insisted the vote be, you know, he was gonna He threatened to resign. That’s that’s strange. He threatened to resign if it wasn’t a unanimous vote to fire. Nor dizzy. And, uh um, Joe dahna. Yes. And this is, by the way, as a decide one person. It makes it sound so personal. Yes, it does, doesn’t it? Yeah. And then you have CBS doing this hit job, and it’s zee kind of a thicket of crazy questions coming around. All right, we gotta take, uh, take another break. We’re gonna bring in the charity evaluators, charity navigator and charity watch, too. Um, where are we now? We are with, um, Cougar Mountain Software, koegler Mountain. Simple to use. And the support is phenomenal. With a program like quick books, you don’t have support. If you don’t have support, it’s worth nothing. That’s quote Christine Christenson, the owner of Broomfield Cheap metal who uses obviously uses ku Commander. You can’t learn from a small business owner who loves the support at koegler Mountain. Of course you can. They have a free 60 day trial. You’ll find that on the listener landing page, which is at tony dot m a slash Cougar mountain. Now, time for Tony’s Take two your planned giving relationships. Um, when you, uh, inaugurate your plan giving program, you’re gonna be talking to people, mostly in their hundreds. I’ve never spoken to anyone over 100 but I’ve had probably hundreds of conversations with or thousands in all those decades but many, many with folks in their nineties. And, um, some of them are. It could be a little lonely and look for a little, you know, one a little more of your time on the personal side. And that could be a little risky for your plan giving program. And I flush that all out in, ah, my video. What to avoid in your plan giving relationships. And you will find that you know where to find that pizza that tony martignetti dot com and that is Tony. Stick to. Now let’s go back to, uh, Wounded Charity with Doug White, the author, teacher, the author, teacher consultant v. The author, teacher consultant to non-profits and philanthropist. Let’s bring in, um, charting. Navigator and charitywatch don’t have too many kind words. You have some, but not too much for these to charity rating organizations. No, I don’t. I think they should just stop doing what they’re doing. They’re doing more harm than good on that. It’s interesting you bring that up. I mean, they were a large part of the story, but there are a large part of the story in a couple of different ways. It’s because I wrote an article about Charity Navigator that came out in the Chronicle of Philanthropy that week in January 26. That was pure coincidence, right? It was pretty much a coincidence. I had put it in. But then the Wounded warrior project came in and I was able to add a sentence or two. I called Stacey and that the Chronicle. Stacy Palmer, editor dropping names, look atyou, dropping names. I call him Mr Palmer, but you know where Stacy? So we got a line in there. But it came out that week and it was Peter Hoener Camp who had been given that article by a friend of Hiss. And that’s why he called me. And that’s how I got in touch with wounded were how they got in touch with me Now going back to what charity navigator. Is it Zen evaluator way? OK, I don’t like them because they do a bad job. They they do not evaluate charities. They take numbers and they’re competent at dividing and adding and multiplying. But the relationship between those things, that is to say, what is spent on program or how much of CEO is paid or how much is spent on fund-raising or how many assets they have in the bank or whatever that is, is not direct indicator of how charity is doing in terms of its in terms of its work. And so they’ve been struggling with this for a very long time and trying to find this right mix the right algorithm. Well, there is no algorithm. That’s well, well, they have this former formulas and altum they wait certain things. They include certain things. They discount certain things, which is all very subjective. S o they It’s sort of it’s ah, it’s an objective product from a subjective process. You’re So you’re so right about that? I don’t know if you know this, Baxter. You know, I started I had forgotten that. But you, uh you have told me that in the past. Yeah, on dso Ken Berger. Very well. Who was Who was then the chair? I was CEO. Yeah, and I like him. I like him a lot. And I like Pat Dugan who funded charity navigator Pat Dugan had just sold out of his company, and I guess 2000 and that’s when I came out to be a consultant for him for a while, and he said, I want to know more about charities and he’s a good guy and he’s a kind of hardscrabble smart guy and wanted to do more in philanthropy in his life. And he said, If I can get the information, I can get this information out and help people understand how good charities are. And I said, The only thing we have that we can use is information from the 9 90 and there are lots of problems with that. The first problem is that it’s about a year and 1/2 to 2 years old, so you don’t really He wanted a morning star kind of a thing for charities, and it’s not gonna be the same in any way. The information on it is subjective because many people have. But there’s a lot of gray area in interpreting the 9 90 Yes, and finally I said you wouldn’t get married to someone if the only thing you knew about that person was her 10 40. It’s a relationship thes people have with the charity. It’s not just a matter of saying OK, you’re fund-raising efficiency is 20% whereas somebody else’s is better. And therefore, I’m gonna support that charity. I wanna go to a charity that I feel personally invested in in terms of the mission in terms of my own values. And so from that perspective, I said, We’re not gonna get very far in evaluating charity says That’s okay, I get it. I don’t really want anything more at this point. This is what we’re gonna do and besides the only information we have. So we did that. So all of that waiting and all of that has been revised many times. But it was very beginning. That’s what we did. But I always knew that it wasn’t the full story and it would never be the full story. It could never be the full story. Now that isn’t to say there can’t be a full story from other data or other information, but the charity world hasn’t yet gotten there, but that certainly doesn’t do it. But because there’s a vacuum, it fills that vacuum, and so people go to it. And Ken Burgers, predecessor Trump’s Trent Stamp, another super guy in a lot of ways, put charity navigator on the map. And so he became the go to for a lot of media in terms of questions about charities. And I just knew again I like Trent to a great deal. But they would be. He was being asked questions that had nothing to do with his work. A charity navigator like what kind of issues a charity would have with regard to its programs or something like that. And that’s not what Charity Navigator does. Yet it’s become this name of a new organization that knows everything about charities. And that’s not true. Let’s go, Thio. The reports come out, CBS News, New York Times, Charity Navigator and Charitywatch react. Well, What happened first was the charity navigator. Numbers were in the report and shared an advocator. Said that only 60% of the money was going toward programs. And wasn’t this a scandal and everything like that and s. So what happened was I talked to Ken Berger, and that’s in the book to I interviewed him and the reason that number was what it was. And I’m not thinking there’s anything generically wrong with 60%. Let’s get that straight right now. But put that aside for a moment, but it was higher than that because they were not charity. Navigator was not taking into account allocated costs that were being allocated to different Double Double Kid. You gotta read the book for that level of detail. Just get the damn book. But it’s not that complicated. I’ll say xero for readers. But the point being that charity Navigator disregarded both with G A P, the General Accounting Principles General, the accepted A Carroll accepted and the I. R s guidelines for doing this and charted every said. And Ken is very blond about this. We just didn’t take that into account. We just cut it off. So well, that’s not very fair, he said. Well, but the charity head of the opportunity to call us and correct it. So why is it up to them to call you to correct your mistake? Because they were up by almost 50%. It was like 85 instead of 60 was 85. Yes, yeah, yeah, and we don’t want to dwell on that number anyway, you know, there’s the whole overhead myth and, well, there is the biggest hypocrisy because, uh, charity navigator was the signature one of those I know. I had all three of them on the show when the letter when the overhead myth letter came out. Yes. I had Jacob, Harold and Ken Berger and Art Taylor on. Well, the other two were okay, but what did Ken Berger say to defend himself in that he’s the one who created the myth. So now he’s saying, OK, now we’re against that, right? I don’t get that. Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m getting a little bit. But I did have him on the show. That was, uh, October, October 2013. That letter came out. Um, that’s, um, other folks on the show to you. You opened with Dan piela and Brian mittendorf. Yes. Say both of them. They’ve both been on the go. Um, I don’t know what tooting my own horn, but this well, Danza show, do whatever the hell I want. Uh, they’re both good thinkers in this world. So damn very provocative. And he had a lot to say about one warrior project, Of course. Oh, you gotta read the book. You gotta be the book to find out. Exactly. I mean, everybody knows him from the Ted talk about the way we think about charities is what dead wrong. Okay, so we were Oh, it’s a charity navigator. In reaction to the reaction to the bad media charity Navigator puts them on what watch list or something or downgrades them. Right? The watch list thing. This is like This is so bizarre, Tony. I just can’t get my head around it still, and I’ve been swimming in this stuff for about 45 years now. So they put him on a watch list, and the watch list is nothing more than if unorganised ation is in the media in a negative way. They’re automatically put on the watch list because now we have some concerns about it. But now we have some concerns about it. So the funny thing is that a week or two later, right after that’s put on the watch list, CBS does another story saying Charity Navigator’s on the watch list. I Wonder Warrior Project. What? I’m sorry. Yeah, they put on the watch is by charitynavigator. Yeah, and the thing is bad. It was self perpetuating. But the other thing is that the story had nothing about being on the watch list. The story was just a rehash of other stuff they’d already right. So CBS wanted to grab this headline and then did nothing with it because there’s nothing to do with smaller organization Charity Raider Charitywatch. They did something similar. Yeah, they did in reaction to the media. Yeah, and they’re in the same ballpark I feel is charity Navigator when it comes to looking only at the numbers. Dan More shop. I don’t know if you’ve ever had him on. He’s out of Chicago. It’s a much smaller organization right on and again coming up with these ludicrous comments about the way charity should be run and no offence. Well, I guess I do mean to give offense. Let me be frank about my own intentions here. I don’t feel that Daniel Borisov is adding very much to the conversation about the charity world right now, and so I do criticize that, and if he’s going to sit there and criticize expenses, you should look in the mirror because his expenses with regard to his own salary a lot higher than anybody’s with regard to you. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, in relationship to the entire, but it’s like 1/2 $1,000,000. Your organization isn’t a tiny place. Okay, Um, all right. We still have another couple minutes before, uh, before before a break. Uhm All right, so they get this financial audit, it’s Simpson, Thatcher and f t. I. Very clean, with minor policy and procedure to minor things on you point out in a lot of detail the differences between the wounded warrior, project evaluation and the Clinton Foundation, but by the same firm Simpson Thatcher from, um, I guess we should start to, uh, hone in on the board a little bit. Now. You feel like it was left. Everything. Anything major out. I wanted to bring in the Richard Jones character. We left anything out. I mean, they were Well, yeah, jealousy. Okay, let’s take a look it for we analyze the boarding. Let’s look well, hard to analyze the board without Richard Jones being a part of it, and vice versa. But in terms of Jones role here he was the head of the audit committee, right? He’s the head of the Dam Art Committee that oversees the production of the 9 90 Yes, and he’s He’s flabbergasted by by these thieves. Media reports about overspending and lavish conferences. I’m sorry. Come back to take a break. Yeah. Let me get a break in. Because I know you’re on a roll for our last break. Turn to communications, PR and content for your non-profit. They help you tell your compelling stories and get media attention to those stories on and build support for your mission and your work. They do media relations, content marketing, communications and marketing strategy and branding strategy. Doug and I were talking about the Chronicle of philanthropy, and the assistant editor of Chronicle of Philanthropy is former assistant editor Peter panepento is a principle of turn to communications there. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. We gotta get the live listener loving Doug White. You brought, uh, you said you were out soliciting listeners. We got a lot of lot of live love going out. Thio Duncan, South Carolina, New York, New York Glenside, Pennsylvania, Jacksonville, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina. Close. Thank you. Close to Emerald Isle. Tip of Florida Tampa floor. Like I’m 14 my voice breaks Atlanta, Georgia in New Bern, North Carolina Even closer. My goodness. Live love to there. Um, before we go abroad, Wallingford, Connecticut, and field Connecticut, Oakland, California, Arlington, Virginia. Franconia, Virginia. I know. Franconia. I think I might know that is, uh, somebody might actually be listening to me instead of you, Doug. 11 person. Uh, maybe this too. Uh, live love out to all of you. Philadelphia P A as well. Huntington Park, California And thats everybody, you know, and, uh, Br What is this? California. Where That br What you’re writing there. Braila. Braila, California Live love to all our domestic live listeners. Thanks so much for being with us. Let’s go abroad. Thio El Salvador. Guatemala. Lord is Guatemala multiple Guatemala. Welcome. Welcome. Live love to you Guatemala. Um Brasilia, Brazil. So Juan Korea, Inchon, Korea and, uh, Machado’s Brazil as well. Wonderful. Multiple Brazil, multiple Guatemala. And, of course, our friends in South Korea. Always checking in live love to each of our live listeners. Thanks so much for being with us and the podcast pleasantries. That’s where you know. Not that we’re focused strictly on the numbers, but the vast majority does listen by the podcast live listeners. You’re welcome to join the podcast as well for times when you can’t catch us. Friday 1 to 2 eastern time join the over 30 13,000 people listening live listening on the podcast. So the pledges trees the pleasantries and the AMA said pageantry is but the passing key pattern trees and the pleasantries go out to the podcast. Listeners, thank you for being with us. Got butt loads more time for, Ah, Doug White and, uh, wounded charity. Okay, um, I got so effusive, but I forgot. Over what? What was I? Oh, that’s right. This guy, Richard Jones, is the chair of the audit committee, for Pete’s sake. Yes, go ahead, Tyr, the audit committee and you have to go back and look at that broadcast that CBS did that first night, but also all three. But in that first night, and it was like, Shaq, you’ve got this terrible 9 90 out, and I’m shocked, shocked to learn that there are in proprieties financial proprieties at the wounded warrior project. But the fact is, there weren’t any minute they weren’t that. In fact, they did a evaluation of all of the budgeting for the prior seven or eight years. An audit. They didn’t find anything out of place, Not a dime. That’s right. I gave a bad remark. That was a bad film reference because the French lieutenant’s exactly what’s going on. It is bad and yeah, that was That was a bad reference. That’s okay, because of what? It really wasn’t any gambling going on in this in this there was not. But but Richard Jones was a boardmember and was also a senior executive at CBS and also very involved with the veterans community is a highly regarded guy. I mean, you know, when it comes to anything personal or anything, nothing there. I wanna be clear that I have found nothing in these people’s lives. That or anything but stellar. But in terms of evaluating what happened here, we have to be clear. Yeah, it was It was a crisis and people reacted badly and the board, collectively failed, failed the organization. Right? And I would also be clear about that with regard to, as I mentioned before, Dave Phillips and also Chip Reid. Stellar reporters Chip Reid was the CBS Carson, this guy. So getting back to Richard Jones, the report comes back orally. Remember that it’s not been anything delivered in written format, and there’s a news conference that the wounded warrior project has on March. I believe it was 9 March nine and says this is what the results were. And on top of that, we’re getting rid of our two top guys that same night that came through. But during that month, when that that audit was taking place, Richard Jones was involved in the interviewing process. So here he is being involved in the interviewing process, along with Simpson Thatcher on matters that he was very much overseeing very much a part of overseeing at Wounded Warrior project, about how CBS had had written and reported its stories. So there’s, you know, I’m not stretching for this one. There was a conflict of interest there. He had a duty of loyalty to both his employer and because of his board relationship with Wounded Warrior Project duty of loyalty there. Yes, he did, as well as Karen Obedience. That’s correct. So the question that I have never been able to ask, even though I did accept the answer even though I did ask it, is why he was permitted to do that, why he wanted to do that. I suspect a couple of things. One is he could do whatever you want to do because he’s boardmember and you know that’s what they do. Sometimes he was also very influential. I think that and I wasn’t able to really put thes two dots together. But I think that his having been somewhat instrumental in getting the Super Bowl ad brought him into the full W W p. And nobody really thought anything about it at the time and even asked Steve, how did he come into the board? And I asked him, boardmember is how they how he came into the board and they really couldn’t remember any kind of moment. But one boardmember said that he was very upset that Jones did not disclose his relationships with the other two organizations. So here he is, and I’m thinking something is going on here. But that was on the relationships worrying his LinkedIn profile. Those relationships wearing Richard Jones is linked in profile. That is correct. The board would not have had to dive deep too far. You don’t need a private investigator to find those you’re making good pose board relationships. Yes, you are making good point for a moment there, after I had badgered him with thes e mails. I think his LinkedIn profile became not public. But then I went back. About a year later. It was there. So maybe it was my fault, I don’t know. But at any rate, he was in a curious place in this whole drama here. And so I began to wonder, Did this this ousting process begin? Well before this crisis and was the crisis basically invented? So I’m thinking that it waas on. It was fairly easy to get some disgruntled employees, but I don’t know why. Eric Millette, the face of the of the CBS reports, came out to be so negative against Wounded Warrior Project after he himself had been so effusively positive about Wounded Warrior Project had been rated best charity to work. That’s that’s all comes from employees ratings. Yes, I’m not making any of this stuff as I am, he’s saying, Oh, I have great thoughts about W. W. P. This is all external stuff, right? It was a couple of years in a row or something. It was it was number one or number two number one charity to work at for a couple of years in a row in there, like the top five for others. But there was this Facebook page of disgruntled employees who felt that there there was. There were firings for trivial reasons. And they felt if you didn’t fit in, you got fired, right? Is that the basis of basically what their complaints were? That is what their complaints were. But it’s funny because the firings were for cause and there is some fairly big deal firings. One guy was caught stealing from the from the till fundraiser, and two people following that were fired because they allowed it to happen. They knew it. And so it was the opposite of what you’d find in a scandal. They were doing everything you should just to stay clean. Al was really on top of that. He would. And the other thing I want to be clear about here is that these people loved Alan. Steve, Steve, Steve was in a very public place and and Alice always been in the operation side of it. But in my interviews, I don’t think I had one person that I interviewed who wouldn’t didn’t go out of his way to say, you know, if it weren’t for Al here, he is the CEO of this multi $1,000,000 organization. Hundreds of millions of dollars of or he’s the second guy CEO Seo. And he’s he’s taking time to get me through this crisis or that crisis or worked with the V A. They used to make calls. They would make the calls to some of the recipients of the services. Yes, because at its core, W, W, P, and all of the V esos and others exist because VH has some cracks in it. That’s yeah, that’s that’s flushed out of the booth. Got a by the book to get you to get that detail. There would be cracks no matter what. But there’s severe crisis. So Alice going through in trying to help them navigate this Byzantine system and they love for Al. It was overwhelming, all right, we need to switch to the board. Doesn’t wanna spend time positivity and bored, and what the board should have done it so clearly the board should not have silenced do not have been silent itself on. Dhe should not have silenced. It’s to it’s to talk to duck guys. Steve went to Tony, Tony oh, tea or no and said we have to have a strategy here. And he had already created some outlines for a strategy with Live Strong. And I think Coleman and another group who had gone through crises and what the fund-raising resulted in from that and they were not interested in pursuing that. Now they have the crisis coming up there. They’re winging it and doing a bad job of it, right? He had encouraged crisis management training long before this all happened. Yes, and they didn’t invite eso. No crisis management training could be very valuable for you, For you, for you and your board. That’s right. And I will speculate, and I have to label. This is speculation or opinion or whatever. I believe that the crisis was somewhat manufactured, right? Well, that’s the long marinating his job. So the board Okay, so you want to get to the board and I taught board governance for 20 years at N Y. U and Columbia. I still do this Southern University, so I think, and I think board governance is where it’s at when it comes to really understanding. Non-profits and non-profits don’t really advertiser. Their boards are. It’s always the CEO. It’s out there in the face of the public. And so we really don’t know what boards do or who they are, which is, I guess, OK, But they are your listeners to know they’re the guys who are really running the show from a strategic and long range perspective. And so they really are the decision makers when important issues come up on. And in this particular case, they, I think, made a lot of bad decisions. And, uh, toward the end, I think they let Steve and Al do what they needed to do. But Allen Steve always made sure that the board was on board and that the board’s suggestions and opinions were always taken into account. And there are examples in the book where that is proven to be true. So, boardmember, who says Stephen Al just flew off? We had no idea what was going on is demonstrably false. Yeah, that all these right? All the lavish conferences the board had approved the conference expenses. You point that out? Yes, and they were sighted at $3 million they were under $1 million in one example Almost almost 30. Yeah, Exactly. Okay. What else? What else can. Non-profit takeaway. Well, board wise, it’s not. Everybody’s going to be in the cross hairs like Wounded Warrior Project. So it’s It’s a specific organisation there, but any organization can be caught and to be in trouble. So what should be? What should aboard do? The board should have a tremendous relationship with its senior staff. If there’s a bad relationship with the senior staff that has to be taken care of before anything else is done, that might mean getting rid of a few board members that might be get mean, getting rid of the senior staff. Make sure that’s there. The thing is, the thing about this is that was the case. There was a good relationship between Steven now and the board. But the problem is, and I think this is where Richard Jones played an oversized role in the whole process. They were allowed Thio fire these guys a Ziff. They deserved it and they didn’t deserve it. And so the board, the board has to be on top of this from a public relations perspective as well as an operational one, in my view, and the public relations perspective is not unimportant, it’s not just the dressing on the whole thing. It’s what’s really ruined. Or, I should say hurt. Not ruined. Hurt. Wounded Warrior project. Since that day, they have lost over 1/2 a $1,000,000,000 in revenue. The half 600 I think $50 million in revenue from that day in the last three years take caution. Get the book because there’s there’s a lot more detail that we were not able to cover. It is wounded Charity lessons learned from the Wounded Warrior Project Crisis, published early October, But you can advance by it on on Amazon. I know for a fact again, he’s Doug White, author, teacher and advisor to non-profit organizations and philanthropists. Thank you so much, Doug. It’s been a pleasure to see you again minded get mine as well. Next week, I’m working on it. I have I ever let you down? There was that one time with the fermentation show, but that was so long ago. I was I was only 52 then. Youthful indiscretion on that show. Um, if you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony. Martignetti dot com were sponsored by Wagner CPS guiding you beyond the numbers record. Cps dot com by koegler Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for non-profits tony dot m a slash Cougar Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turn to communications, PR and content for non-profits, Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. A creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. Sam Liebowitz is the line producer. Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is By Scott Steiner, Brooklyn. They’re with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit Ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great. You’re listening to the talking Alternate network. You’re listening to the Talking Alternative Network. Are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down. Hi, I’m nor in Sumpter potentially ater. Tune in every Tuesday at 9 to 10 p.m. Eastern time and listen for new ideas on my show. Beyond potential Live Life, Your Way on talk radio dot N Y C. 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