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Nonprofit Radio for June 9, 2025: Consciousness & Intentionality In Work & Retirement

 

Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons: Consciousness & Intentionality In Work & Retirement

Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons wrote a book for retirement planning that has value for anyone, at any age, who aspires to fulfillment and joy through all the stages and pages of their professional and personal lives. She walks you through the value of play; embracing new mindsets; constantly evolving; sovereignty over time; the power of full engagement; managing energy, not time; and a lot more. Elizabeth’s book is, “Encore.”

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Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d come down with cataphylaxis if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s up. Hey Tony, this week we have consciousness and intentionality in work and retirement. Elizabeth Zelika Parsons wrote a book for retirement planning that has value for anyone at any age who aspires to fulfillment and joy through all the stages and pages of their professional and personal lives. She walks you through the value of play, embracing new mindsets, constantly evolving, sovereignty over time, the power of full engagement, managing energy, not time, challenges to identity, like marriage and parenting, and a lot more. Elizabeth’s book is Encore. On Tony’s take 2. You’re listening to a top 10 podcast. Here is consciousness and intentionality in work and retirement. It’s a pleasure to welcome Elizabeth Zallika Parsons to nonprofit Radio. Elizabeth is a retirement transition expert, lawyer and author of the book Encore A High Achiever’s Guide to Thriving in Retirement. The book is based on her retirement planning coaching practice on Corio. You’ll find Elizabeth on LinkedIn. And, uh, by the way, I hope she accepts my connection invitation. I just sent it recently. Uh, and her practice is at on Corico.com. Elizabeth Seleka Parton’s Parsons, EP. Welcome to nonprofit Radio. Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. It’s a pleasure to have you. Something, uh, we haven’t covered in the show description. I’m gonna allay fears that this is only for retirement planning because I, a lot of what I would like to talk about, maybe all of what I’d like to talk about is Uh, stuff that has general applicability, I think, like time and play and um evolving as a person and a professional and so, so, uh, I don’t want the uh non-boomers, you know, be tuning out. So uh I’ve, I’ve written the show description in such a way that uh they shouldn’t. Uh, but there’s also value for boomers who, uh, like I am a young, I’m a young baby, young. 60, only 63, so young boomer, there’s value for boomers as well who might be planning their own retirement or might not, you know, even so, you could work, you could be 63 and work another 10 or 15 years and Etc. We’re gonna talk about all that. You should, you should probably tell your own story about being a high-powered lawyer. Milbank, I did recognize used to Milbank, Tweed, you know, New York City, Lower Manhattan, right? Wall Street firm, or if not literally Wall Street, certainly Lower Manhattan white shoe, I don’t know, 180 year old firm or something like this, you were at Millbank. So Tucson, I know nobody in Tucson recognized the, the firm name, but, uh, but coming from the New Jersey, New York area, I did. But tell, please tell your story and maybe you can parlay that into why uh anxiety about retirement is a, is a normal thing. I’d love to. Yes. Thanks for the invitation to do that. So, you know, I, um, I, I sort of targeted my book to the high achiever type. And I, I chuckle at myself for being that type, you know, since I was a very little person, I’ve always been a striver, and I’ve always wanted to climb the little ladders in front of me. And so I did that, uh, you know, and surprised myself and landed a job at one of these, these, you know, global law firms. And I was thrilled. I mean, I, and so I I brought everything I had to that. I mean, I, it was, that’s what it takes, you know, it was an 80 hour a week undertaking. And, um, and it’s exciting and also exhausting, you know? And so for the better part of a decade, I poured myself into that career and, um, Didn’t really stop to ask myself if I could also manage having a family, but I just went ahead and did that. And one day I, you know, was increasingly aware that I was probably not gonna be able to do both of these things as well as I wanted to, and that if something were going to be sacrificed for me, it was gonna have to be my career. Now, I, I say that with no judgment about anybody else who decides they can’t juggle, because many people do. I just could not. I could not find that gear. So, when I decided to let go of my career, I explained it to myself and everybody else that I was front ending my retirement. In my mind, that held some sort of framework or explanation, because I was sort of borrowing against the future, right? Like my time. And I, I thought to myself, as long as I have enough money, you know, to cover the next 5 years or so, I’ll figure this all out, you know, it’s just financial security is the only thing I need to know I have in order to make this change. And so, I sort of, uh, sauntered into my future without a thought about how this was going to change my identity, how my life structure was going to work, that I was going to lose my community, I was gonna lose all my sources of intellectual stimulation. And don’t get me wrong, it was lovely to be a mother, but the 3 year old and the 18 month old weren’t really, you know, throwing the thorny intellectual problems my way. So, I, I sort of woke up 6 months after I made this massive change, and I was absolutely lost. And I was lost in a way that was frightening because I’d never felt that way before. And it was, I, I was losing my self-confidence in the sense of being lost, because I didn’t even know where to start. To explain it to myself or to unwind it or to solve it. So, it, you know, fast forward to now having done this work for 15 years with people who are really truly at the brink of retirement, feeling very unsettled about who am I going to be, how’s my life going to work? How do I stay engaged. All of the work I do was built into a program that came from my own efforts over several years to unpack this and create methods for beginning to shape those answers before you land into the situation where you have only questions and no answers. So, I, you know, I did live this change in a very uncomfortable way. Happy I landed on my feet eventually. But I thought, gosh, I, I really had some blind spots when I did what I did. Um, so, yeah, that’s a little bit of my background on that. And uh about the, the anxiety around, you know, the, and again, broadening, so that’s not only for boomers, but, you know, and uh personal identity revolving around professional title, uh, professional identity. That to help us, help us unpack that and why that’s not so healthy. Yeah, absolutely. So, and, and I agree. So my, I experienced that change at age 35. So I truly do want to reinforce. I think ahead of any major life change, these issues are theoretically relevant and often very relevant because we as human beings are, we, we wanna belong to things, you know, we wanna belong places, and a huge part of our identities is usually shaped. By the roles we play in our lives, and the communities or groups we assign ourselves to or belong to. And so anybody who invests a great deal of time and energy into a career or even into a role like motherhood, you know, when those roles begin to change or disappear. It literally can feel like you have lost who you are, because it is such a conscious way that we understand ourselves. We all have an existential identity as well, those enduring aspects of ourselves that are, that we’re always there and will always be there, even as they flow and, you know, reshape themselves. But the roles are so powerful in our own sense of who we are. And so when they change or go away, I think it is very useful to understand that. That can feel like an existential threat. And if you even if you can’t name it, you know, it feels like you’re gonna lose you. And so we often work with people around, no, no, there’s a you under there. Let’s dig in on that. And then let’s also think about how, how new roles that tie back to existing ones can can help you bridge into new spaces, new contexts, so that you feel a sense of yourself moving forward and evolving, but not disappearing. Uh, in a, in a moment that is really just for boomers, I think, uh, we wanna debunk this myth that it’s all about financial planning and that if you have enough money. That’s all it takes. And, and I get a lot of the advertising at 63, again, young, baby boomer, but young, young baby boomer. Um, I, so I’m, I’m guessing, you know, with the sophistication of, uh, online marketing that we have now that I did not grow up with, you know, probably folks, uh, Gen X, Z, well, maybe X, but millennials and Zs and certainly alpha, they’re not getting seeing anything about retirement. But the way it’s promoted to me is if you have enough money, you’ll be fine. You’ll walk into the sunset, your health will be perfect. Uh, it’ll be sunshine and rainbows every single day after your retirement. So let’s, uh, uh, cut that myth off at its knees. Yes, absolutely. That is one of the major reasons I wrote the book, because I think that we are marketed to somewhat unhelpfully. Uh, around this inflection point. And, you know, first of all, a life of pure leisure is rarely satisfying. It, it’s just not how humans thrive. You know, leisure has meaning when it’s intention with effort or engagement. You know, it’s, it’s, you need the yin and the yang of those things. So, it’s nice to imagine 30 Saturdays in a row, but 365. That’s, that’s, you know, that starts to make you go, whoa, whoa, whoa. So, I, I always remind people that you’re still going to want to experience, you know, growth and challenge. You’re gonna need to reconnect with something that feels purposeful. You’re gonna wanna keep your communities alive, challenge your mind, you know, have problems to solve or, you know, skills to acquire. I mean, that’s what keeps life spicy and interesting. So it’s, I, I never want to diminish that money is important, right? It’s, it’s the security can be a wonderful foundation, but I remind people you really ought to think about this moment as more of a graduation. Not a, you know, not a withdrawal into less. But frankly, it should be a graduation into even more. I mean, not, not that you have to run off and go get busy, but there’s all sorts of opportunity in front of you at this moment in life, you’ve finally got some fresh freedom, you’ve got some financial security, you’ve got skills, wisdom. You know, all sorts of things. So it’s quite an interesting moment to say, what would I like to make of this? as opposed to, oh, I guess, you know, now I, I simply play all day. Um, and people who opt into that as an experiment, I think rapidly discover it is not really a recipe for well-being. Well, you even, uh, have a couple of anecdotes about people who are drinking in the middle of the day because it starts off like, oh, I can, I can have a glass of wine or a beer and then it becomes excessive and, and detrimental obviously to health and physical and mental health and relationships and everything, you know, so too much, too much leisure, right? You like you say 365 Saturdays, um, OK, so back to, OK, that was a little digression for the older folks who, you know. Uh, who get the financial, who get the marketing from all the financial services companies that assure you that all it takes is enough money and we’ll help you determine what enough is. Of course it’s probably never in their minds it’s probably never enough because you want to keep feeding their feeding their fee structure, uh, but, and that’s all it’ll take, right, so, uh, uh, so that was for the older folks who get that marketing relentlessly. um, so you talk about identity bridging. And, and life restructuring. And again, I, you know, I’d like to keep in mind that these, I, I, the way I read, read the thing, read the thing, the way I read, I read the thing like it was a comic strip. Yeah, I read, you know, you put a comic strip together, you did, you spent a half an hour. No, uh, the way I took your book is that I, I think there’s a lot of value for folks who are not retirement age, but still in, again like we talked about identity and some other, some other subjects that you’re very intentional about, but So, you know, trying to be more inclusive than just the retirement group, uh, there were the pre-retirement, you know, the retirement plan planners, um, identity bridging and, um, and, and, and life restructuring. Yeah, yeah. So, yes, and, and those things, I agree with you, those two items I think are in play. Every time anybody faces an inflection point, almost at any age, right? I mean, even very young people stepping into adulthood or shifting their careers or going from single people to married people. I mean, all of these. Moments in time mean that our identity underpinnings are going to be challenged in new ways. And the quote unquote way our life works is going to be probably reshaped. And my view, after going through it with less of an intentional approach, is that having some intention around those things. Makes those changes much, much easier to navigate and actually can move them from. Sort of unsettling to exciting, because you start to imagine, Wait a minute, I’m actually on an adventure here that I am offering. I’m the one deciding how I want this to work. Instead of sort of waiting for things to show up and then find them confusing, and then sort of find yourself in problem solving mode, you know, for a long, long time before you resettle. And so, I think about You know, the questions of who do I wanna be in this next chapter. It’s a little more useful than what do I want to do? You know, we need to figure out who we want to be. And, and by that I mean, what are the things we value? What are we trying to be more of in our lives? You know, are we, you know, what’s our formula to be resilient in the world? And how do we function, forget the roles, you know, who are we under all those roles? And how do we want to Sort of bring those pieces forward and then think about the roles that we wanna play in life and how we want to play them. And similarly, life structure to me is often driven by the major thing we’re doing in life at that time. So it could be school. You know, more often it is a career. And, and so usually we are focused on something significant. A monolithic undertaking. It could just be raising your family, but, you know, it’s something that asks uh most of our energy. Uh it, it’s very demanding and therefore, we organize most of everything else we care about around the edges. And we’ve got to recognize when that monolithic. Undertaking diminishes or changes or goes away. If your whole life scaffolding has been built around that, it’s very, it’s a little mess messy jumble there for a little while. If you don’t stop and think, how am I gonna redesign things? I mean, And that’s going to be driven by how much freedom you have, how much choice you have. What are the known knowns? What are the things you’ve got to show up for every day? And, but how do you optimize the rest of your day so that your energy and your use of time are as much as possible intentional. They’re things you’re choosing. And we talked to people about, you know, your physical well-being, your relationship world, your, are you working on things you find fulfilling? Do you have time in your life for contemplation? I mean, these are things that In the thrust of middle adulthood even, we often just barely get time to make, you know, to think about. And it’s, it’s worth asking yourself, even if you only grab 15 minutes a day to sit with yourself, can you make that happen? So, I agree. I think anybody who can focus on these things with some intention, no matter what age they are, will, will likely have a, a sense of greater well-being. And greater flourishing than if you are just sort of head down, going like mad, you know, until you claps at the end of every day, which, which is where I found myself when I left my career. I, I love your metaphor of the scaffolding because it can be taken down methodically or, you know, a vehicle could crash into it and it could, could tumbling and be be devastating. You got it. Um, you have throughout the book, you, you cite a lot of, um, you share a lot of questions that you ask your coaching clients, share some of those questions. You, you touched on them a little bit about resilience, but specifically, what, what are some of the questions you ask? Uh, your clients to, to ponder as they’re working through, you know, identity and, and, you know, life restructuring. Absolutely. So, yes, I’ll I’ll share several. They’re, um, they, they’re quite thought provoking, you know, and, and hopefully some of your listeners may well may take some of these and sit down with them and think, see what comes up. But one question I, we love to ask, you know, everybody is to think of three people they admire. And, you know, we don’t care whether they’re known to them personally, you know, living, dead, his historical figures, even, you know, mythical figures. But just three people that you have noticed somewhere along the way and thought, gosh, you know, I really admire that person, even if it’s not everything about them. So we sort of take those names down and then we really Intentionally ask them to explain why. You know, tell us why. What are the things you’ve noticed? And we’ll, we’ll note those words down. But it’ll be things like, gosh, he was such a wonderful listener. You know, we would uplift people, or he was inspiring, or, um, you know, he’s so wonderful with language or whatever these things are. So we make our list and once we have reviewed, or we’ve got our list. What we explain to people is typically the things we admire in others are the very things we would love to bring alive more in ourselves. And it doesn’t mean that, you know, it’s, it’s gonna be a snap your fingers, and I will be able to embody these things, because often they are aspirational. They’re things that aren’t as alive in us. And so we see them alive in someone else, and we say, oh. I would love to be more like that. But what that collection of attributes is in, in psychological terms is your self ideal. And whether you’re conscious of it or not, we all have a self ideal. We all do walk around with a set of attributes we’re sort of always trying to grow closer to. And it’s very interesting when you actually catalog them and look at them, and then start to say to yourself, Now, that’s interesting. How can I bring more of that alive in the way that I live? You know, and maybe that will influence the next role that I consider taking or just it’ll influence the way I approach, uh, the role of parent or friend. But people love that exercise because it is a non-obvious insight. And, I mean, almost no one we work with has ever thought about that. But the second they see the list, they go, oh my gosh, that’s my list, you know, I, and it’s kind of exciting. So that’s a great example of one that if I, if I answered that with Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, and the Great Pumpkin, would, would you refer me for therapy? Yes, he goes into a special category. Yeah, but, um, more, yeah, a couple more, couple more your client questions. These are, these are excellent. These are, it’s it’s introspection, it’s it’s inspection, it’s intentionality, you know, it’s thoughtfulness. Yeah, I mean being thoughtful to yourself, being self-aware is the thoughtfulness of thoughtfulness to others is essential, but being thoughtful in your own. You, you, like I said, your own life, your own identity, you know, you can make the life that you that you aspire to. That’s right. So, so yeah, so, yeah. Yeah, another great question that, um, I think always reveals a, you know, great insight for, for this purpose. I will ask people to tell me a story that has these elements in it. So I’ll say, I want you to think of a story where you were doing something you’re just naturally good at. You know, it sort of comes to you easily, and you really enjoy it. It’s a kick in the pants to do it. And the third element is, in the process of doing this thing, you became aware that you helped somebody. So there’s a feedback loop of somebody getting help in a way that was really rewarding for you. And you sort of get that spring in your step in that moment, right? Like, ah, this is my sweet spot. I love doing this thing. And I love it even more when they’re small stories. You know, I’m not looking for that. I was leading a boardroom full of 60 people and I was this, you know, I’m looking for, like, hey, I showed up and helped my neighbor with this problem he had. And, you know, I’m just really good at that thing and it’s. And I could tell he was really grateful. But I, I love those stories. And I, I, I try to get people to think of several, and then think, what is the theme underneath of these things? Because that for you is a very animating thing to do. It animates you, it energizes you, and it feels purposeful. And so often we can find examples of these stories that occurred in work working life and personal life, ideally. And there’s a theme there. And when we can unpack that theme, that’s another very rewarding insight because the question is, how do you go do that some more, you know? And, and it’s all of a sudden we’re in the world of possibility again, instead of the world of things ending. We’re in the world of new beginnings. Like, whoa, you’re right. That, I love doing that. Where do I go do that? And it turns out, I mean, if you’re brought up in your theme, you can do it all kinds, in all kinds of places. And, and, you know, so it’s helping people connect to these items that are not, I mean, they’re so internal to us. We, they aren’t obvious to us, right? So it almost takes getting out of your picture a little bit to see that. But the minute you do, It just gives you this little boost, and you think, I, I love doing that and I’m gonna go do that some more somewhere else. And so that’s another great example. Yeah, these are brilliant. Yeah. Um, let’s talk about play. The value of play, so, so underrated, you know, we can’t play after we’re 9 years old or whatever, you know, that’s tragic, that’s tragic. So, you know, there’s other forms of play, um. And, and, uh, why don’t you talk about Harvey Oldbars. I, I nicknamed him. That’s not his name, but you, you give his first name and he, you know, so tell the story of Harvey Oldbars and then, and, and play, what, what adults play for adults. Absolutely. So I’ll. I’ll tell you I’ll explain a little bit about some of the research, and then I’ll share that story because I love that story too. Um, Stuart Brown was the author of a book called Play. He was studying the way that, you know, mammals, including humans, use play to continue to grow and develop in a very safe way. And the beautiful thing about play. Is it’s, it’s usually low stakes, right? It, we’re not doing it to survive. We’re not doing it to put food on our table. We’re doing it to have fun, to grow, to experiment, and it’s, it’s an absolute necessity. And the development continued health of the mammalian brain. And that’s as true for humans as anyone else. And you can see it in young mammals, right? Young animals. They play incessantly. They’re learning to hunt. They’re learning to pounce. And so, if you can take that analogy and apply it to yourself as a human being, you realize, oh, interesting. Play is not this, you know, silly thing. You must set down so that all you can do now is work. It is a way to keep growing in a, in a relatively low risk way that’s also enjoyable. And so I loved, yeah, I won’t take too much time going into it, but the book’s worth reading for anybody out there listening. But the final thing I’ll say is he, he has identified what he calls play archetypes, and there were 8 of them. And so his, his book is great. It’s sort of, and then you can sort of figure out where do I fit, you know, am I an explorer? Am I a competitor? I, anyway, all these different ways people play as adults. Well, we always raise that with our clients because many of our clients are divorced from any conscious sense of play in their lives. And when we remind them that there’s actual value to this in terms of your own brain development and health, they think, oh, OK, that’s interesting. But it also opens up an entire world of new activities that are, you know, really fun and energizing and interesting, but it helps combat that sense of I’m squandering my time. So one of our clients was sharing with us that When he was working, and he was a lawyer and he had a very intense career, so he was always traveling, and anytime he was on a business trip, as soon as he could finally break free, he would find himself going. To the sort of oldest, most local bar he could find. And whatever little weird town he was in. And it wasn’t, he wasn’t going to, you know, slam drinks all night, but he’d, you know, sip a beer. But what he’s really going for was he wanted to understand the history of this place. How did this bar come to be? who owned it? Who owns it now? What’s the, where are the stories? What’s it meant to the community? He just was fascinated with these places. And I got this sort of I thought, well, what if that’s play. You’re just, you’re playing. That’s a fun little exploration. And he said, Oh, absolutely, you’re right. And it’s the conversations that I’m there for. And so as we talked more, another thing that came up is that he, he loved, he loved being a photographer. So he was, you know, just sort of a photographer on his travels. And anyway, the long and short of it was, we developed this idea together that one of his new Ways of engaging would be to be intentional about traveling the US, finding the oldest bars, maybe in the country, choose 20 or something, go visit them intentionally, set up interviews, photograph them, tell a little vignette. And maybe put a book together about this. Maybe even started as a series of articles. He, he lit up like the sun. I mean, this was sort of like the bulls Eye idea. So that is one of the things he went off to do. And it was And it was so fun and enriching. And frankly, I think the, the bars he was reaching out to and the people he was reaching out to were so honored, you know, that somebody was interested in what they were up to. So it’s that kind of thing that I think can come out of the conversation about play, because often I think we dismiss those things as, oh, that’s, you know, that’s squandering time, that’s not valuable. No, no, no, those things are full of gold. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. You’re listening to a top 10 podcast, Million podcasts at millionpodcasts.com. Put us as a top 10 podcast on their fundraising list and on their nonprofit list. So, I’m grateful to them. Thank you very much to Million podcasts for Recognizing the show, um, you know, you’ll find others on there, of course, you know, somebody’s got to fill out, uh, 1 through 9 so that we could be in the top 10. Uh, but, you know, those other ones, yeah, hm. Uh, they’re OK. They’re OK. You, you wanna, you, you’re at the right place. Let’s just put it that way. You’re at the right place right now, listening to a top 10 podcast. Thank you very much, Million podcasts. And thank you for always, thank you for listening to nonprofit Radio. You put us in the top 10. Thank you. And that is Tony’s take too. Kate. Congratulations, Uncle Tony. Congratulations, uh, associate producer Kate Martignetti. It’s a team, it’s a team. Plus all our plus all our other team members. Mark Silverman, our web guy, everybody you say at the end, Susan Chavez, social media, Claire Meyerhoff, creative, everybody, everybody. We’ve got Beu but loads more time. Here’s the rest of consciousness and intentionality in work and retirement with Elizabeth Zallika Parsons. This is very related to something else you talk about is embracing new mindsets that we’re, you know, we’re, we’re evolving, uh, you know, so. Is there any, is there any more detail you wanna add about, uh, mindsets then, you know, beyond play? Yeah, yeah, there, well, of course there is. It’s a section of your book. There’s otherwise, otherwise there would be a heading, and then there would be this page intentionally left blank, but you didn’t do that. So yeah, so, so share, share some of you’re thinking about, yeah, mindsets, it’s just, it’s so natural from, from embracing adult play. Yes, definitely. So, I, I love the discussion about mindsets because I think that often. You know, and again, I don’t mean to make this overly connected to people who are leaving careers for actual retirement. But if you’ve been in any context where your role is to react to the content that other people are providing to you, it gets to be a strong habit, right? It’s, and so, if you’re in any sort of job. You know, you essentially are that. You, you show up every day and there’s stuff to do, right? Often that other people have given you. And so, you, you become a very good reactor. And I remind people of that. Almost always, you are a wonderful reactor, but you’ve got to become a creator if you want to be intentional about the life you’re about to, to lead. You’ve got to be the author of the content you’re gonna live. And it’s not that we don’t. You know, we don’t have the skill to do that. We just aren’t used to doing that. So it’s often a light bulb goes on for people when they realize, oh my gosh, the biggest mistake I could make is to sort of set down whatever it is I’ve been doing, and then just turn around with the same mindset and wait for stuff to appear. That’s like a recipe for feeling irrelevant and unempowered. Because if nobody’s continuing to serve up stuff to do. You feel you’re sort of wandering around aimlessly going, what do I do? What do I do with all this time, you know, you give the example of like a lawyer who says, well, I’ll be a mediator. Yeah, right, you know, I’ll just go find more stuff to react to. So that’s a mind shift shifts a mindset shift that I think is extremely valuable. Another one is to Embrace the idea of being an experimenter, as opposed to somebody who always gets it right. So, uh, you know, I will watch people entertain a fresh idea that they get initially excited by. And then their, their critical mind jumps right in there, you know, because they start, that part of their mind, which is often very valuable at work, starts telling them all of the reasons why this is just never gonna work, can’t do it. Total long shot. Stop it, don’t even go there, you know. And I say, no, no, no, set that guy down on the bench. You’ve got to go experiment. What is the cost of experimentation, right? It’s just data. You, you experiments really don’t succeed or Fail. They give you data. And so you shouldn’t ever go into it with the success failure thinking. Go into it as, oh, interesting. We’re gonna try this. We’re gonna get data, and then we’re gonna use that data to shape our next decision. That is a much more helpful mindset if you want to be expansive and you want to try new things. And similarly, you know, I think I just, I just something there? I’m, I’m always, I do a lot of fundraising. Consulting and training and I’m always saying, you know, when you’re gonna start a new program, think about how you can instead of why you can’t because the why you can’t, if you’re searching for the why you can’t, I could name a dozen off the top of my head. I don’t even have to know you’re nonprofit or you or you as a person. Uh, I don’t have the bandwidth. I don’t have the money. I don’t have the time. My family demands are too high. I just got a new house. uh, I just got new job responsibilities, uh, you know, the lawn has to be cut, you know, uh. How you can instead of why you can’t. I love that. I love that. With your permission, I may borrow that question from my own it’s it’s just it’s opening, you know, OK, let’s put aside, like you said, put aside the the reasons I can’t. Let’s think about the strategize over how we can, I can, OK, just a little. I love it. I love it. I think that is a genius way to frame it. And another, and on that vein, I mean, I will work with people who express a true desire to take on a new challenge. And I mean, a few that often come up or play some musical instrument that they never got around to trying or, you know, learn, you know, the martial arts or, you know, learn a new language. And, and they have a narrative about, uh, you know, I don’t like, I’m not gonna be good at that. I don’t think I’m gonna be good at that. And they’re so used to mastery, right? They’re, we all have a comfort zone. And when we’re in it, it’s so comfy in there, right? You know, we don’t, we don’t have to be comfortable, you talk a bit about how uncomfortable the comfort zone is. Yes. And so it’s leaving, it’s hard. We know, I mean, we get it. It’s hard. But if you can reframe this from I’m a master at the piano right now to, I’m a student of the piano. I’m a student of this language. Suddenly, you know how to be a good student. You don’t have to be a master yet. No one expects you to be, but you know how to be a good student of something. And if you can just take the value in that, that piece of identity can feel much more comfortable than, I’m a lousy guitar player, you know? No, you’re a great student of the guitar. Totally different mindset, right? So, it’s things like that, and very much like your question, that we really, really work to Um, emphasize because being, you’ve got to stay in the world of possibility. Like you said, there were a million reasons you can kill your dream. There are a million reasons you can you can say, this is never gonna work. But if you can find the possibility in it, and you can look at the whole thing as an adventure, go for it. Why not? You know, it, it’s, I mean, the It’s people regret the things they never gave themselves a chance to try, you know, and, and that’s awful to have those regrets, to have those regrets in any time. I don’t care how, I don’t care what age you are. I have regrets. I, you know, if I had tried, who knows what would have come of it. That’s right. That’s right. And I say to people too, so you might try it and hate it. That’s great. Yeah, you’ve mentioned it a couple of times. You talk about metrics. You know, what, what metrics are you gonna use for your to evaluate the, the value to you of your new mindset? How are you gonna check in with yourself to make sure that this is giving you the, the, the joy and the, and the fulfillment that you expected it to, right, so we wanna, you know, there’s some evaluation too. Yes. Oh, definitely. And I think, you know, certainly in working life, we’re measured externally, right? Well that’s ways. Yeah. So, you know, you can’t take those shardsticks forward. I mean, I mean, I think, I mean, you, you can, but you’re not gonna feel very good about the feedback loop, so. What’s better is to start setting some definitions for yourself. Like, what do I want, you know, my physical well-being to look like? What, and how, and, and how can I measure my progress? What do I want my relationship world to look like? How close am I today? Well, what are the indicia that I’m moving in the right direction? We encourage people to set. Those, you know, metrics for themselves and, and source your sense of OKness internally. Source it from yourself, because, you know, we are constantly evaluated, graded, measured, awarded, you know, in external ways throughout our lives. And it’s very easy to get conditioned to needing that, to feel like you’re OK in this world. But the more you can source those things from your own self, your own definitions, and from the most meaningful places, you can identify the happier you will be. And, and that’s particularly true if you’re stepping into a chapter where you are the one creating your life, right? Because who else is gonna stand there and tell you you’re doing it, OK, but you. There’s something very funny, um. You, you, a lot of your clients and a lot of the folks that you cite in the book are, are attorneys, you know, clearly, uh, partners, long, long standing partners at big firms, but you mentioned your own. Yeah. Were you a partner when you left at 35? I was not. I, you know, I was. Well, I was exactly. I was in my 10th year and the the thing was you got to start working, you gotta go 6 months in London, 6 months in New York. I had a 3 year old and 18 month old. I mean, I was like, I appreciate it, but that’s not happening, you know. The reason this is funny is because I, I practiced law for 2 years. Uh, I loved, yeah, I loved law school. I went to Temple Law School. loved law school. I wish law school was 5 years instead of only 3. I loved law school. The practice of law. I made a decision, you know, I was, uh, I, I chose a, a, a, a medium, I guess in New York City would be a medium sized firm, um. And uh it was general liability and medical malpractice, uh, defense, to all defense work. Um, hated it, hated it. The partners, uh, the partners were fighting with each other. Um, at one point there were partners fighting over me. I had, I showed some early talents fighting, and then they, they were all gray-faced. They were all divorced. They’re estranged from their kids. I thought I’m dreading, I don’t. You’re supposed to like I’m working this hard for that. Yeah, for that I’m supposed to aspire to progression, and I’m I’m terrified of it. I don’t want to look like those people. So that firm actually began to implode like partners were leaving and taking hundreds of cases at a time, like major medical center, you know, 200 cases out the door each week or something like that. So I went to a much smaller firm, same kind of practice, hated it. It was cliqueish. If you were in with the, the name partner, you were great, but if you weren’t like me as an outsider, I was new, you were, you were on the outs, and that was only like 12 or 12 or 15 attorneys. I got so disenchanted I quit. I, I, I quit the practice 2 years and I started my first business, which was to prevent people from becoming unhappy, burned out attorneys. I, I called it, I called it attorney career guidance. New York City. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just, I had always had a, a, a, a, a, a, um, a talent for resume writing and cover letter writing and interviews, and I did some of that in college. I worked in the, in the, the college, the office that helps you with get job with the grad studies office or something and all that, yeah right, career guidance. So I parla into a, into a business career guidance. It was unbelievable. I love it and it, it, it did so, so, but I, I kept it for about 44 years and then I. Re-engineered myself again into nonprofit fundraising where I’ve been since since 1998, but, but I was trying to help people not become gray faced this miserable people miserable divorced, estranged from children, uh, attorneys because I knew I wasn’t the only unhappy attorney in New York City. Yes, exactly, exactly. I love that story and Bravo, the reinventions, they’re fantastic. Oh, they were, they were harrowing, but oh, my, my mother, I told my mother she had a knife in her hand when I told her I’m, I’m leaving the law. If it’s at the cutting board, I can picture her in our our home in just the cutting board holding the knife. I was, I had to step away, just, you know, be outside arm’s length just in case, um. So, uh, so I was trying to help attorneys, you know, not be unhappy if they, if they were currently unhappy. I was trying to help them find a better Yeah, a better career, using their skills in a in a in a different way. That’s right. So yeah, let’s go back to your book, um. Um, oh, evolve, no, um, man, time, we’re sovereign over time. Yes, you have control over your time. The, the calendar does not control you. You control it. Talk about our, you, you, it’s, it’s eloquent in the book. I’m sure you can do it here too. Our, we’re so I love the idea of the phrase like the sovereignty, not just, you know, time management, but we’re sovereign over time. Absolutely. Well, I think it’s such, um, again, we get so habituated to others telling us how we have to be with time, right? You know, and most of us, I think, in life, especially these days, we live with a feeling of time scarcity, as if we just haven’t been given enough time to do all the stuff. We somehow think we need to get done, or somebody else is telling us we need to get done. And it, it’s really interesting when you stop for a minute and realize time only exists because you yourself are perceiving it. It’s not a thing that lives outside of you. We, we’re not like beings running around in some giant, you know, time sphere. I mean, we generate time by our lives. And so your own priorities about how you want to engage will then shape time. And but we just get so used to being at the effect of time that we forget we’re in charge of it, and we forget that we can choose. To spend our our energy during the day in an intentional way. And I think that’s especially true for people. Who sell time for a living, right? It starts to feel as if time is actually this externality, and it’s like a jar full of it or something, you know, and it’s like, oh, I ran out of it again. I mean, it’s, it’s not outside of you. And it’s, it’s almost a mindbender to get your head around. But when I started to actually think about what does An energizing day look like. If I could make it up any way I want, what does it look like? And I started mapping this thing for myself and experimenting. But realizing that, you know, until I can imagine an ideal day, I’m never gonna live one. And this is one of the things you ask your clients, describe your ideal day. Walk me through it in great detail, and I don’t want to hear about the day you actually live. I want to hear about the day you would design if you could have it perfect. And that’s, you have to suspend this thinking about, yeah, but I have to do this and I have to do that. I have to do this. Forget all that for now. What would it look like if it was just your perfect creation? That is always such a fun exercise because what you end up realizing, there were rhythms to the day that worked for you. Some people love to get up early. They wanna have quiet time right away. You know, other people love to be active first thing in the morning, or they’re like, Oh, you know, between 8 and noon, that’s my power. Mental hours. Like, I can do 7 hours of work in 3 hours, you know, in those, in that time of day. But when you start to see these, these sections of the day, and when do you want to be social? When do you like to be, you know, sort of thoughtful? When do you just want to be on your own? When do you want to be out of the house? When do you like to be in? I mean, it’s suddenly you realize you’ve got your hands in the clay. And then you realize time is your clay, and you can shape it. You can use it the way you want to use it. But you’re never gonna get there imagining that time is outside of you, and it’s this force that is, that you’re in battle with. You know, you can’t, you can’t be in a battle with time. It, it’s not, that is never going to give you the sense of control and sovereignty over it. That I think you actually have. But this is definitely one of the harder concepts for people to actually implement. And so, we try to give them ways to experiment with these ideas. But if you keep at it, suddenly you realize, wait a minute, I do get to choose. The every single thing is a choice. And, and even for folks who are still working. OK, now, if you’re still working, you’re gonna have constraints on your time. There’s gonna be a weekly meeting, bi-monthly, you know, whatever, there’s gonna be those, but, but without around those exercise your sovereignty, know. Yes. Yes. Here’s an example. We had a very, very, very busy mid-career, um, professional come to work with us. And he came because he said, if I can’t get this solved, I’m leaving my career now. And I should still have 10 good years. than me, but I can’t do this anymore. So we said, OK, let’s, let’s, you know, so among all the other things we did, one of the, one of the things we did was we really worked with him on, talk to me about why, why you’re, what makes a day great or what makes a day not so great. And so he’s talking about how his, his assistant would just throw meetings, these meetings that he just couldn’t stand on his calendar. And they were always the internal ones where everybody’s whining and complaining at him. And he’s like, they just show up all over the place, all over my calendar. And we said, Well, what I understand you have to do those to a certain extent, but what if you constrict them to just Tuesdays? And I, I won’t use our, our, our colorful language, but we called it Tuesday, should they? You know, it’s like Like, you can swear, you can you can swear. Why don’t we make it Tuesday shit day, right? Like, it’s just Tuesday. But then Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday are free of those things. And he was like, Oh my God, that’s, that’s a mindbender. It’s perfect. And that is exactly one of the things he did. And, you know, he ended up making it to the finish line in a much more energized way. Now, that was a tiny piece of the work we did. But it’s a great example of remembering you are sovereign over. You know, what you let into your life and when and how it shows up. And that leads into not managing time but managing your energy, your energy, it’s, there’s so much you could have written a wellness, well, I don’t know, like a, I don’t know, a professional development, I don’t know, professional survival. This is not, this is not by any means restricted to people planning for retirement. Yes. It’s funny, the number of people that we work with who say to us after we’re, you know, through our two-day program, they’ll say, I, I should have done this 15 years ago, in the middle of my career. It would have completely transformed how I approached everything. And I don’t think I’d be so daggone tired, you know, and, I mean, to appreciate you saying that, we get that feedback a lot, that these concepts are really about optimizing the way you’re living with, you know, trying to be more intentional, trying to understand who you are. How you want your life to work, and then figuring out strategies to put that architecture in place. And then realizing that it’s always iterative. You know, this whole thing is a, it’s a mosaic, that you’re constantly shaping. Um, but I just think that sense of agency is so important. And when we, we feel that the effect of our lives, like we have no choice and what is going on every day, it’s just so exhausting. And if you can get your sense of agency back, of course, there will always be constraints, but you can make this beautiful picture out of it, right? That’s still got all the constraints in there, but there’s all sort of, all sorts of juicy stuff that you’ve put in there with intention. That’s a very different proposition. And even more now, so since the pandemic. So, you know, so this revolution just within the past 5 years, if you have the value of hybrid work, you can, if you can, whatever day you can work from home, it could be 5, you know, but whatever it is, even if it’s only 2 or 3. You know, you have greater flexibility there than you do in the office naturally. You still have, you still have agency over your time, even in the office. But, but when you, when you have the value of hybrid work which is new to us, and we have this beauty, this beautiful gift just in, in the past 5 years. Take, take fuller advantage. There is no doubt about it. We, those themes are so strong and I think people got, there’s more opportunity for this kind of thinking and actual implementation than there’s ever been. So it’s only been 5 years. So don’t, you know, don’t be taking it for granted. It’s only been 5 years. It’s a revolution in work, internalize it, you know, to see the, find the value of it for yourself. All right, so talk about managing energy, not time, energy management. Never heard this before. Yes, so I stumbled upon this work, uh, you know, when I was trying to put my sad little life back together. And, um, of course, I was the consummate time manager, of course. So I, I was, I was like, to your point you had to what? I don’t know. Were you 6 minute increments? Yes, that’s incredible we should, we should acquaint or just a little digression, just acquaint people with billing at a firm. I, I’m accustomed to the same thing. Yeah, what, what this looks like. Yes, so you literally have to record and explain and justify what you are achieving. For whomever and literally in 6 minute increments every 10th of an hour an hour and, and it has to be specific and valuable and, you know, expressed well. I mean, it’s just nuts, right? You, you, I, I said I used to joke to people, I feel like I’m selling my life away one hour at a time. Like, what, what am I doing? And I mean, I don’t mean to knock, you know, people who love being lawyers, but it’s, it’s, it can create some very weird. Dynamics with time and you, you just feel almost like you are selling your life away, you know, it’s the strangest thing, but anyway, can I, can I just give you my, can I give you my, my, my own personal, um, uh, I, I, I never, there was never a billing code for thinking. Thinking there was a bill. Everything was enacted a researching, writing, drafting, arguing, attending, you know, answering, whatever draft, but there was never a billing code for just thinking and I thought so much of what a lawyer does is just thinking. But there was never, you couldn’t, you couldn’t build 6 minutes for thinking, let alone, you know, an hour or you know, so and I used to look at, you know, so I practiced from 1990, 1980. 1989. I graduated law school, no, no, I started 18992. I, I, I practiced law for two years, 192 to 194. We didn’t have computer billing. Right. Every day looking at that blank page, staring the, the ledger, the one that you had to fill up with like 12 or 13 or 14 hours, and whatever you didn’t do was gonna spill over the next day or weekends. And that’s how you end up now I never, I did not have this was smaller fronts, we did not have 80 hour, you know, requirements or even unspoken requirements like I, I know you did, but 60 hours, you know, 60, 70 hours, you’re supposed to bill a lot and you didn’t do enough any day, it was gonna spill over. And every day, like turning the page or the blankle from the full page the day before turning it over to the blank page on the other side, oh my God, I have to start with the 6/10 of the 10th of an hour now again, and I can’t finish until I’ve got whatever uh 1000s done. Oh my God, you know, it was, it was just so dispiriting every single day, every day. The blank page, the physical blank page. OK, I’m sorry, opposite of energizing every day you’d look, I, I would fear going to the blank page of like on the bus ride into the city. Oh my God, the blank page is staring at me. All right, any case, all right, so that’s what you had to account for, you know, at 80 hours a week and in increments of 6 minutes. So, so. Yeah. It’s OK, that’s a lot on time management. You had to be a a consummate time manager, but, but the, the higher plane, the enlightenment, the enlightenment of energy management. Yes. So, as I was trying to come up with a completely different theory of how to live a life that I was proud of. I, you know, I, I read this piece of research, um, that these two gentlemen had done on high performing people, meaning people who could show up consistently the way they wanted to show up under often very intense conditions. And they worked with, you know, some of the best tennis players in the world, for example. I mean, they’re out there by themselves and, you know, under great pressure, and they’ve got to perform. So, what is it these people have figured out? You know, they were very into Interested in understanding what it was that high performing people had tapped into and what their research uncovered, and they published it in a book called The Powerful Engagement. But what they uncovered was that the currency of high performance is energy, not time. And the problem with time is we all get the same amount of it, right? You don’t magically get more. I mean, it is what it is. Energy, on the other hand, is something you can build more capacity in. And I just was, my mind was blown. I thought, of course, that makes complete sense. You know, and they pointed out, well, we understand what physical energy is, right? It’s how much get up and go do you feel. But you also have emotional energy. You know, you can have a lot of negatively charged emotion, or you can have a lot of positively charged emotion. You know, your mental energy, like how much, how steadily and for how long can you focus on something, but even your spiritual energy, which is not necessarily religion, but that your inner life, you know, your sense of purpose, and so. What they sort of explained in this book was, we can all build capacity, and you do it this, just like you build a muscle. You stress it and you must let it recover. So you oscillate between states of exertion and states of recovery. And if you do that consistently and intentionally, you will find that you build more and more and more energetic capacity. And if you do that across all those realms as a human being, you’ll, you’ll sort of be this unstoppable force of a person. I was fascinated by this idea, but what it lit in me was a curiosity. And I thought, let me try living this way. Why not? What do I have to lose? I mean, you know, selling the six-minute increments didn’t do it for me. So it, it’s, it was fabulous. And I still read that book. I’ve probably read that book 10 times. It is such an interesting blueprint for living. And of course, there’s so much more, you know, I can’t possibly touch on in this chat, but I would really encourage people who find it intriguing to invest whatever it would be a few hours to read through this book, because it is fascinating, and I, I talk about the application of some of those ideas in our work. In, in helping people think about this life restructuring, right? Because how do you approach life now? I mean, if I’m setting down that other model, what’s gonna replace it? So this is often a very intriguing way to start thinking differently about how you make the most of a day, a week, even a year. And what am I working on? Am I doing things that build my energy? Do I feel more energized or drained by that thing I just did? Do, am I doing enough recovering? I mean, most, most people working through middle life are not recovering enough, you know, they’re just, I didn’t. I was like mock 10 all the time. So it was, it was a really, it was a game changer for me. And um the name of the book again? What is it? Yes, it’s called The Power of Full Engagement. Jim Lore and Tony Schwartz were the authors, and it was written in the 90s, but it’s still, it’s still available everywhere you can buy a book. Is that the same same Tony Schwartz who wrote uh The Art of the Deal? I don’t think so. No, I don’t think so. And I know Jim Loh has gone on to write some more like the the principles of conscious leadership, I think is his recent book. Anyway, he’s a really interesting thinker and has a lot of great stuff to say. Let’s close with relationships. I’m, I’m a, I’m a huge believer in relationships. I’m the guy who gets our high school friends together, my law school, our, our Air Force reunions, the college fraternity reunions. I love, I, people thank me for doing it and I say, no, I’m, I’m not doing it for, I’m, I’m selfish because it’s a joy to me. I, I’m getting us friends together for selfish reasons because it’s a joy for me to be around all of you and to see everybody else together and, and when it’s those deep deep friendships that go back so many years, there’s, you know, there’s no personas, there’s no facade. We all knew each other when we were college assholes, so. We’re not pretending. We’re not, there’s no family persona. There’s no work persona. There’s no relationship persona. It’s just you. It’s just you. So put your feet up the way you used to, and you know, so, uh, so we gotta close. uh, there’s so much more in the book. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll say a little more when we close, but we gotta close with. The value, the joy of personal relationships. Absolutely. We, we emphasize this so strongly because You know, I think any, any of us, no matter what stage of life we’re in. We struggle to make time for all of the people in our people world, right, that we’d love to stay connected to. It, it’s hard. I mean, there, you know, when you’ve got so many demands on time and so much to get done and all those things, it’s easy to like, think of your relationships as the things that are expendable. But what we remind people is that they are really the richest part of your life and always will be. And if you can Think intentionally about who you want to be alive in your world with you, what kinds of relationships you want, what, what are the characteristics of those relationships when they’re really working? You will never ever regret investing in your relationships. Never. You know, when you look back on life, it’s always the people. It’s always the people. And so, especially for people, you know, shifting out of one chapter and into another, there’s often A loss of some, some part of your community, you know, whether they were colleagues or the neighborhood of people you lived near, or your kids are grown up now, and all those parents you raised them with or you going other places. So, continuing to stay connected to the relationships that Always mattered to you, is so important. And I think a lot of people coming through middle adulthood and moving into this chapter, maybe where they’re finally, their kids are grown and career is kind of starting to mellow out a little bit. They’re like, Oh, I finally have time for my friends again. But I feel a little sheepish, cause I’ve been AWOL, you know? And we remind them, everyone’s been AWOL. I mean, you know, you’ve got to be proactive because if your old friend reached out to you after 20 years and said, Hey, I know it’s been forever, but I’m in town. Do you wanna grab lunch? What would you say? You’d say, heck, yes, I’m in. So they, it’s like, Oh, you’re right. So we, we literally have a model for people, you know, an approach to use to Really get that engine going again. And I tell you over and over and over when we’ve been working with people for a number of months after the original session with them, they talk about this and how thrilling it is to be reconnected to people, um, and to be deepening their family relationships. Oh my gosh, it’s, it, it, it, there’s, as you know, there is a limitless amount of joy there. All right, Elizabeth, there’s so much more in the book. You got all of part 4, which we didn’t get to, you know, you, you got a 6 month checklist, you know, so, so for anybody who is retirement planning, uh, there’s, there’s great value throughout the book, but as we’ve made plain, it’s not only for people planning retirement. I, I think it’s just, it’s just, it’s, it’s mindfulness and intentionality. In, in mostly career, but there there are a lot of life, you know, non-career aspects to what you talk about too. Uh, so congratulations on the book. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate this conversation. I’m glad. Thank you. Uh, your book is Encore. Well, you know the title. I’m I’m saying this for listeners. Uh, you know the title of your book. Encore, High Achiever’s Guide to Thriving in retirement. But the value goes way beyond uh retirement planning. Elizabeth Zlika Parsons, you’ll find her on LinkedIn, uh, again, I, I hope you’ll connect, you know, you don’t have to, but it would be nice, I think, and, uh, you’ll find her practice at encorrico.com. Thanks so much, Elizabeth. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much. Next week, donor advised fund, fundraising. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for June 2, 2025: Storytelling & Local Media

 

Fabiana Meléndez Ruiz: Storytelling & Local Media

Fabiana Meléndez Ruiz reminds us of the value of sound storytelling, and how to get your house in order before you go public with your stories. She shares sound advice on the great value of local media and how to build the journalist relationships that will help you get your stories told. Fabiana also reveals startling media consumption trends among Gen Z and Alphas. She’s the CEO of Refuerzo Collaborative.

 

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Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of polymyalgia if I had to endure the pain of you missing this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, to give you the highlights. Hey Tony, this weekend. Storytelling and local media. Fabian Melendez Ruiz reminds us of the value of sound storytelling and how to get your house in order before you go public with your stories. She shares sound advice on the great value of local media and how to build the journalist relationships that will help you get your stories told. Fabian also reveals startling media consumption trends among Gen Z and Alphas. She’s the CEO of Refuerzo Collaborative. On Tony’s take 2. It’s time to contact your senators. Here is storytelling and local media. It’s a pleasure to welcome Fabian Melendez Ruiz. She is a Venezuelan American communications expert and CEO and co-founder of Refuerzo Collaborative, a Latina owned agency nurturing the stories that reinforce community. Her agency is at Raffuerzocollab.com, and you’ll find them on Instagram at Rafuerzo Collaborative. Welcome to nonprofit Radio, Fabian. Thanks for having me, Tony. I’m excited to be here. A pleasure. I’m glad you’re excited. Thank you. Let’s talk about storytelling. Uh, you, you’re an expert, you’ve done thousands of stories. Let’s just start with the, the value of good storytelling. Why so important? Absolutely. So I, I think we need to start with my background a little bit. So I started, um, Working in PR and I did all of, all of the things. I did food and Bev and, and motor sports, um, and science and book launches, and there was a common thread and that was that I wanted to work with mission driven and mission-oriented organizations. Um, and so I always had the philanthropic bug, right? I always wanted to volunteer and serve on boards, and I did those things. And when I launched Refuerzo, uh, we carved a niche in nonprofits. So that’s, um, I think what would be relevant for a lot of listeners is, you know, why is a publicist on the podcast? Well, I work with a lot of VDs and a lot of boards and a lot of nonprofits. So storytelling is we wouldn’t have you if you did. If you were if you were still working for motorsports and food and beverage, uh, you wouldn’t be on nonprofit radio. You’d be on some, some corporate, uh, corporate PR podcast, but you wouldn’t be on nonprofit radio. So, uh, but we know, we know you’re bona fide because you’re here, but it’s good to share your background too. That’s, that’s fine, yeah, thank you. And um, so, OK, let’s talk about storytelling now. So, when we started working with nonprofits or when I started even before before so, and we started Working on PR campaigns for them. There was a thing that I noticed. And that is, they didn’t have defined stories a lot of the time. So the mission was defined, right? And the values and like the work. But I’m like, that is not the story. That is a, a part of the story. And that’s what should drive the story. But Um, we would have these conversations, and a lot of nonprofits would wonder, well, why aren’t we getting on the news? Why aren’t we being asked to comment about, you know, XYZ when we’re an expert? And I would tell them, well, it’s a storytelling issue because y’all are in a lot of ways, focusing on something that’s a little, a little more self-serving. So y’all are one. To be on the news because y’all want to be on the news versus wanting to be on the news because you have an angle for a particular community issue that is important. And that’s the the importance or that’s where storytelling comes in is it can’t be self-serving, right? Um, really, it has to be because you as an organization. Or as an ED or, you know, whatever, as a program coordinator, have a perspective on an issue that impacts a community that ties into a community issue, and you can tell a story about the impact you’ve done to support in solving that issue, if you will, um, through storytelling. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, well, we’ll have time to flush it out. Yeah, of course it does, and your, your point is, uh, Very important about being, you know, mission centered, right? All the, all the stories are about the mission, of course, but the mission itself is not newsworthy. The, the work, the work around the mission is, but you know, like publicizing your mission statement is not gonna get you anything either in earned or owned uh media. Absolutely. Well, and you have to remember, and you know this, right? Because you work with nonprofits and, and you’re in radio, right? But a lot of people don’t, and they don’t have to, right? Because a lot of EDs or people in nonprofits have other roles that aren’t marketing. But I think it’s helpful to know that, you know, newsrooms are operating very lean. Um, and I don’t think a lot of people recognize that. I think they hear, you know, newspapers are closing, all of these things are happening, but they don’t really digest that. So when you’re storytelling, you have to make sure that it aligns with that particular radio show outlet, you know, newspaper, magazine. And that particular journalist, because they’re getting 500 emails a day, right? So, what are you doing as an organization that is different, that is impactful, that is backed by data, that is backed by people who maybe have been impacted by programs and can speak on it. Um, you essentially have to be a journalist. Or yeah, think like think like one. Yeah. Mhm. OK, uh, cause you’re gonna be appealing to them. Absolutely. Right, OK, um, so we’re, we’re talking about storytelling for, uh, journalist, journalism channels, you know, the news channels, uh, news outlets, not so much social media and, and earned, uh, and earned media or other, other, I should say social media. It’s definitely for both. So I’m starting with um earned or like journalism because that’s where a lot of the crux of my work is. But yeah, I mean, social media is the same thing. I think the issue with storytelling there is that people want to go viral. Um, and I’ve had a lot of nonprofits tell me, well, how can we tell, how can we tell a story so that we go viral? And that is the biggest mistake, right? You don’t, you don’t want to post with the goal of virality, right? Like, virality is, you know, really more of a more serendipitous than that. It kind of just happens, right? Like you can be on top of the pulse of pop culture. Um, but if you post with that intention, it doesn’t happen. It’s very funny. It’s almost like the the least you want it, the more you will get it. So the more you want it, the least you will get it. Yeah, absolutely, that, that shouldn’t be the goal, uh, because it’s, it is, it’s too fickle, uh, like you said, serendipitous, of course, but, but, um, but if we have the right perspective and our expectations are appropriate, and we’d be using the same stories for journalism outlets that we’re using for social uh social outlets and maybe our blog as well. Yes. So the good news about storytelling is that, um, it never dies. So you can recycle that content as much as possible. Um, and really, I think we need to go back a little bit because, um, I think a lot of the storytelling. Workshops that we do and narratives that we do where we rework a lot of that for nonprofits. There’s a lot of internal work that has to happen. So, um, sometimes before we even pitch or help them with social, we have to sit down and have essentially, um, you know, a come to Jesus or, you know, Muhammad come to the mountain situation because Um, you can’t have good storytelling if your house isn’t in order. So we’ve had a lot of situations where, you know, there’s, um, maybe some discontent and a board, and, and that causes everybody to disagree, um, on what the story should be or what they should be doing moving forward, or we come in really with the focus of story. We always come in with the focus of like narrative workshops, but then we find that there are symptoms of other things too, right? Or Um, you know, we’ve had situations where we come in and everything looks to be in order, right? We’re like, OK, we have the story, and then when we actually sit down and are discussing with the board and the ED and everybody, we realized, well, we thought we had the story, and it makes a lot of sense for 2025, for example. But it doesn’t carry the organization for the next 5 years. So maybe there’s um something bigger there where we need to rework the mission or rework like what the actual um What the actual programs are, the services, like it’s, it’s funny how we come in to do marketing and sometimes it ends up being a bit of a bigger project because we want to help with the narrative and a lot of that ties into the narrative and so we end up having to sit down with a lot of nonprofits and say, actually, um. There’s other, other things we need to tweak so it all makes sense. Because storytelling has to align at every level, like we had, you know, a, a nonprofit who um wasn’t getting um Wasn’t getting people to sign up for their programs, um, like wasn’t getting young boys, but they were getting young girls. A lot of girls signing up for this like college program, and they were like, we don’t understand why we’re not getting, you know. Teen boys to sign up. And I was like, well, your messaging says girls. So it was never clear that it was, it was, you know, for teen, you know, at risk in general. It was just, and I’m like, the branding is really, you know, pink and it’s like, you know, I love it because our branding is pink, but if that’s, if that is not what you want, if you want this other target audience, we need to completely Redo the whole thing basically. Um, so it’s always very interesting how storytelling is never just storytelling. Let’s talk more about the the the the house in order before we can start to create narratives and, and, you know, talk about news hooks and things like that, but let’s talk more about what, what needs to be in order before we can find good stories to be telling. I love that question, um, because it’s the hardest, the easiest. So, um, first things first. There needs to be consensus, and I think in nonprofits that’s actually very difficult. At least what I have found is it’s very difficult because Consensus about what by who? What do you mean? Well, I’m we’re we’re we’re about to dive in, Tony. I’m excited. Um, yeah, around all kinds of things. So let’s start here. The mission and the vision. Oftentimes look a certain way when the organization is founded and they have, you know, the founder or the founders of the founding board have a certain like, this is what we want it to look like for the next, you know, however long and then throughout the years or the decades, as there’s different boards and different EDs and it strays further from the founders, maybe the vision changes. Now, part of the consensus building is. If the way that we are carrying out the mission and vision changed. Is that something that happened because it is a natural evolution of the org, or did we lose our North Star at some point? So that’s a question we ask a lot is this is this is pretty fundamental. I mean, if, if the, if the leadership. And the board aren’t aligned around. The, the, the work that the mission statement and the vision call for, this is pretty basic. I mean, that they need, they need some more, they, they need some more foundational consulting before they can start talking about going, going public with their stories. Oh, yeah. Well, and it’s interesting because we see this a lot. We see this a lot, and we will tell them, you know, that is not the work that we do, right? Like we need, you know, we recommend a consultant that we can come in and PR. And I think that’s something that’s really important for us as an agency is to do these things equitably, is to be able to help people and organizations determine like, hey, there’s a, a bigger issue here and we don’t think. In good conscience, I can do PR for you until this is settled, right? But at least organizational development, strategic planning, leadership development. Absolutely. And then there’s other issues, right, that we’ve kind of come in to say we need the house in order before we talk about this. So we’ve had, you know, situations where there was malfeasance, which Happens and nonprofits for unfortunately. Um, and so, you know, cases where money has gone missing or whatever, and it’s like public knowledge, but they don’t ever want to address it. And so part of cleaning houses, we need to come up with some statement because if I’m asking questions about it during this discovery phase where we’re trying. To get everything in order, a journalist on the line is going to ask about it, or someone in social media might comment about it. Yeah, for sure, you’re you’re talking about communications, but it sounds like the crisis is over and they’ve never fully, yeah, they never fully addressed it. Well, yeah, so right, so any any journalist is gonna ask questions about the whether you want to talk about it or not. Yeah. Right, but you’d be surprised how many it works, and I understand, right? I think nonprofits want to be, want to focus on the thing that they do best and that’s serving the communities that they serve. And so sometimes a lot of these, when we come in to help people get their house in order, um. It’s out of fear, right? They’re like, well, what if people lose trust? And I always tell people, or, you know, leaders, people will lose trust if you’re dishonest. Point blank period. But if we’re honest and we address things, There is more forgiveness to be had. And then there’s a more benign, um, more benign versions of like getting the house in order or consensus building. So we’ve had situations where, you know, um, maybe the ED, when they go out to network, talk talks about the org one way, but then we learned that program managers, uh, talk about the org another. Way and it’s all good. It’s all positive. They just have differing messaging in which they’re talking about the impact of the org. And so that’s an easier fix because we get everybody in and we do these like narrative sessions where we say, OK, let’s all come to a consensus as to what we all think. You know, the, the bio of the org that isn’t the mission or the vision, but like how we’re talking about it makes sense. Like, what are the things we want to highlight, what are the impact points that matter, what are the data points that matter? And then let’s come to a definition together so that there’s alignment. And obviously those are um Those are a little bit easier because it’s just tweaking and refining certain things. So that’s usually what I mean by cleaning house. And it’s a spectrum, obviously. There’s the smaller things and the bigger things that we have to escalate, but really I think a good marketing team, which is funny because I think people don’t think that, but a good marketing team is, is. Foundational to any business, I mean nonprofit or for-profit, and should be able to flag things and say, hey, you know, the reason the external messaging isn’t working on social or earned media or what have you, is because of these things that I’m flagging. OK, no, that’s all valuable. You gotta have strong foundation. Before you can go out publicly and and ask journalists to, uh, you know, to promote to promote your work essentially. But people don’t know that, Tony, and it’s, it’s bunker. I mean, it’s it is, right? Because that’s my job. But, and I live in it, right? But you would be surprised or not at how many EDs or or leaders are like, I just, I really want to be on the news and I’m like, you can’t. The messaging is too, it’s too scattered, it’s too messy. Yeah. And OK. And so not only the messaging isn’t. Consistent and, and, and all positive because the house is not in order, but OK, let’s say now we’re past that. now, now don’t we need some kind of a news hook? I mean, a journalist is, is very, very unlikely to just do a general sort of puff piece about your work unless it relates to something that’s timely and topical. Right, so there are. I mean, the good news is nonprofits usually do an annual fundraiser. And so I would say that’s the lowest hanging fruit in terms of a hook. Um, because a lot of local TV alis and radio shows do want to talk about events that benefit the community. So that would be an example of a hook that maybe is a little bit easier to pitch around, um, maybe a fun event like a run or a walk, you know, yeah, galas do get covered, um. You know, there are nonprofits here. We’re working with one who’s doing, um, not a gala. Their annual fundraiser is actually a food passport. Um, so they’re an AAPI organization and they work with the Asian community in, in Austin, and so they do um this really fun food passport where they connect with all the. Asian restaurants in the city, and they put together this like big discount passport and you purchase that and then you go to the restaurants that are affiliates and you get a discount at the restaurant. But again, see, that’s interesting. It’s newsworthy. It’s tied to like a specific cause. Um, they raise funds because they, you know, again, support health in the Asian community in, in Austin. So they do all of these translations in different languages. So that’s something that a reporter would be like, hmm. That’s very interesting. Um, now, in terms of news that isn’t, um, necessarily around an event or anchored around something like that, that’s where, you know, a lot of the cleaning housework really helps because as you’re defining narratives and things you find, um, you may find Uh, topics that are interesting. So this is an example. We work with, um, an organization that is actually like a non, it’s a nonprofit, but they’re like um a membership org, and they work with uh young women in Austin and basically help them develop their um their they help with professional development. And we were pitching around their big gala or their big, you know, award ceremony, and, and it was the, it was honestly a lukewarm reception and it happens from media, um, and we realized, OK, it’s very alumni centered. So this is in an Austin award that um That is open to the public. It’s the people that are nominated or alumni of the work. So maybe that’s why there’s a little bit of a barrier of entry for people to be interested in this particular event. But we went to the event and they had former scholarship winners speaking. And one of them said something that really stuck with us from a storytelling perspective. She goes, You know, I’m really thankful for this org because I went from a GED to a PhD because of their scholarship program. And I said, That’s it. That’s the story. Um, it is timely because there’s a lot of conversation, you know, I mean, we don’t have to get into it, of course, there’s a lot of conversations about, because of the current administration, things are shifting, and so, you know, that does impact scholarship recipients and so to have the story of this. Um, this, you know, she’s a woman now, um, was younger when she got the scholarship, but how she went from a GED to a PhD. I’m like, this is it, this is timely. It’s relevant, it’s interesting. We have the data to back it up. We have the scholarship numbers they’ve given out. Um, and That’s how we came, we came up with that that pitch angle. So really it’s thinking about, you know, what is going on in the news? What is going on in your city? What is going on in the world, and what are y’all doing to kind of move the needle with a particular issue. This is all valuable, uh, Fabiano, because, you know, we’re, we’re focusing on local media. You know, we’re not, we’re not setting our sights to, you know, whatever, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Times. We’re, we’re talking about local media, local media, smaller, smaller mid-size nonprofits, which is where our listeners are, um, and, and most likely, most of their donors or all their donors are in the local community. And I mean, the community might be a state, you know, it might not just be your local town, but, but we’re talking about local, local media. This is, this is really, this is valuable. um Right. Well, and so many, you know, again, when I come in, people want, you know, their pie in the sky goals are usually like a chronicle of philanthropy or like a CNN. And mind you, we’ve got clients in those outlets, so it’s not impossible, but Um, I believe that local media will never be low brow. This is like a joke I I make because I think people focus so much on like the Washington Post of the world and the New York Times, and the truth of the matter is we need local media because they cover your town and your city and your stories. The New York Times is not going to come in and cover. You know, whatever suburb of I live in Kyle, which is a suburb of Boston. They’re not going to do that. The only time we’ve gotten covered is because we ran out of water. So like, of course that made national news, but it was none of those like more positive stories are going to get covered because they’re focused on things that maybe are going to drive more eyeballs. So, you know, I think local media is incredibly important, and this is kind of my soapbox about we need to preserve it, but also Um, for a lot of nonprofits, it’s what moves the needle. Like we’ve had clients say our gala sold out because y’all got us on a local, you know, several local broadcast shows like we got more donors, we got more program participants, so it is very important. Let’s talk some about building relationships with local media outlets, which means local journalists, before you start pitching. Just getting them to know you, know your work before you’re looking for them to, to, uh, to publish about you. Yeah, so building relationships is instrumental, but sometimes what happens, everybody knows how to network, but nobody knows how to network right is another thing I kind of say. And because I think people do come into it, um, wanting it to be quid pro quo. And you can’t come into it like that. Even, even if the goal is to get them to cover your org, you have to make a genuine authentic connection with that person because they are a person first and a journalist second. So, um, and it’s the same thing with donors, the person first and a donor second, even though we want to get the other way. So, um, when you are out at, you know, a gala, a conference, like out on the town, make True genuine connections with people, find some sort of common ground. Like, I just, I mean, of course, that’s my my job, so I’m a yapper, but I’ll come in, you know, and start talking to people and they’ll say, you know, my daughter does dance. And I’m like, that’s wonderful. Like, what does she do? Ballet? Oh, I love that. I did, I still do point as an adult. And so we find an actual true common ground that builds. You know, a relationship. I also think the follow up is important. So I will meet people at events or I will tell clients like, You met this person, you need to email them the next morning and simply say, it was such a pleasure meeting you. You know, I would love to, I would love to chat more if you’re open to it. Like, you need to follow up because that’s, that’s really where you kind of funnel that relationship in and, and deepen it. Um, a lot of the journalists that we’ve built relationships with was just, Hey, I saw your pregnancy announcement. I’m so excited for you. You know, like emails like that, that became texts later, that now, you know, they’re they’re kind of on call. Now, mind you, I will say this, the relationship will not save you if the story is bad. So, the way to keep these relationships primed is one, Keep it authentic always. Like, these are not your friends, but also do not send them garbage stories. Send them good stories, really think about what you’re pitching. And that’s a great way to get them to call you. Like, we reached the point where I’ll get, you know, a local outlet that’s like, Hey, here’s our editorial calendar for the next 6 months. Like, do you have nonprofits that want to come on and talk about that? And that is golden. That’s how they’re like, OK, like we trust you because we, you know, we go to happy hour together, but you also never give us bad story. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. The federal budget proposal uh passed the House last week and is now in the Senate, so it’s time to contact your US senators. Importantly, something that was very bad, one of the many very bad things in the bill for our nonprofit community, got taken out. In the house that was the provision that the Secretary of the Treasury could unilaterally designate individual charities as terrorist supporting organizations and there was no way to appeal that so that got taken out in the house so our voice counts they didn’t, you know, Republicans have the majority and they didn’t just do it because they felt like it they did it because. People who support nonprofits, us included, spoke up. So that’s very good. So, now that, uh, that bill is now, as I said, it’s in the Senate. A few points that you want to make with your senators when you call or email. You want to keep that provision out. Remember that was the provision you may remember from last year it was House Resolution 9495. Well, it got put into the, the budget bill and as I said, it got stripped out in the house, so we wanna keep that out. So you just want to let your senators know it’s important to keep out that. Designation power that the Secretary of the Treasury had to designate charities as terrorist supporting all right? Also, the, the individual attacks on, on, on charities like on Harvard University, Columbia University, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio. Our nonprofit community is strongest when we are standing together and that means standing for each of our members of our community and it doesn’t matter if it’s Harvard University with the largest endowment of all the charities probably in the world that $50 billion dollar endowment doesn’t matter. When they come for Harvard and they come for Columbia. And they’re successful, then what’s the 3rd domino after those 1st 2? And how easily is that gonna fall, and where is your charity or your sector? You’re part of our community in the line of dominoes, so it doesn’t matter that it’s the wealthiest charity. We don’t like the cuts against Harvard, Columbia, and also the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio. Those 4 members of our nonprofit community have been singled out for defunding. And as I said, you know, after those 4, where is the 5th domino? Is that you? Are you the 5th domino? We all have to stand together. So there’s a couple of talking points, you know, generally you could remind your senators when you contact them about how important the work is that all the nonprofits in the country do, and you could target your own specify your own work if you wanna highlight that as well. All right, we’re in this together and we are strongest when we stand together. So I urge you to contact your two US senators. Uh, if you don’t know who they are, you don’t know how to contact them, just Google, who are my senators. The first link is a link to a government website. You put in your state, uh, in the poll down, and your two senators pop up, right? Google, who are my senators? Please reach out to them. Support the community. We’re in this together. That is Tony’s take too. Kate. Although they’re going after these like big corporations, you might tell yourself like, oh, they’re not gonna come after me, they will come after you. Like it starts with the top and then they work their way down and they they will. Yeah. Uh, yeah, and they’re all charities, and all the charities, all the nonprofits are vulnerable. So that’s why we each have to stand up for All of us, each of us. We’ve got Bou but loads more time. Here’s the rest of storytelling and local media with Fabian Lalendez Ruiz. I love the relationship will not save you if the story is bad. It won’t. And, and, you know, it’s, it’s like that with friends that you have normally too, right? Like how many good friends do you have that are like, Tony, you’ve told me this like 1000 times. Like I’m kind of sick of it. Yeah, actually my friends do say that, yeah, um. My, my few. So yeah, uh, you know, you can’t be pitching them every week or even every month, you know, your board meeting is not in a newsworthy event. Uh, you know, yeah, so you have to just manage expectations around the relationship. They’re not your journal, they’re not your publicist. They’re still a professional journalist. They’re still interested in what’s newsworthy, but, you know, everything that you think merits. Publicity doesn’t mean that. The, the broader world or anywhere the world outside your office is gonna be interested. Right. Well, and I also, this brings me to news shocking. I do want to talk about news shocking because that’s something people may not be, you know about it, but people may not be familiar, so. News shocking essentially is when there’s some sort of breaking news or a hot topic in the news and you leverage that to pitch your or, right? So, um, here’s the thing, here’s the caveat with that is, people abuse that and then it becomes either really insensitive really quickly or really frustrating for the journalist. Um, so you have to have a modicum of self-control with news jacking. Not every news jacking opportunity is relevant. But, you know, for example, we had an organization that works with um Latinos voting in Texas and so a lot of their Areas of expertise are helping Latinos in terms of civic engagement but also immigration issues and things like that. And so when um in you know January through the last couple months when there were all these administrative changes around immigration that were going to impact people, we started news jacking and we simply sent an email to like Politico and The Hill and all of the ones that were covering this and even local affiliates saying, hey, we represent this org. They can speak about this area of expertise or available to comment. And because of that, we got, um, I believe it was the Associated Press was like, hey, I’m actually writing a story about Like immigration, does the ED want to comment? So, we were very responsible and very strategic about the news hacking because it was, you know, we’re dealing with human lives, right? So, I think sometimes people get excited news hacking, like, there’s people who, you know, you can imagine, and journalists don’t love that because it seems very insensitive. And also like, why are you pitching me this thing that has nothing to do with like People dying. Um, so we were very strategic about it and it it paid off, so news shocking is fantastic, but again, we have to be very careful with it. Yeah, the messaging needs to be appropriate. Sure. All right, um. You, you, uh, Say that nonprofits should operate as businesses with experts. And not just Organizations focused on the social good. What what do you want us to take away from the corporate side? You know, um, not all of them, right? I don’t want to generalize, but a lot of businesses on the for-profit side do really well in terms of narrative building because they tout their leaders as experts, right? So, um, they are on MSNBC and stuff all the time talking about the market or, you know, whatever, because Because they’re seen as experts now. Whether they are or aren’t, that’s not my call. I focus on making sure our nonprofit experts are actually qualified to speak on things. So, really, you know, I’m a softy and I love the soft side of nonprofits, so that is not an issue for me. But I think for, you know, um, donors or even like the media, sometimes they need someone to come in and be more data-driven, more impact driven, and speak as an expert, as an authority on a thing. So I think nonprofits should balance the, um, how much they leverage like the softer side of things and how much they come in and say, hey, actually, I’m an expert in this topic. I’m qualified to speak on this thing, and, um, that is what we’re wanting to speak about. And usually when we pitch experts in that way, like we say, OK, yes, she’s an ED but she’s a certified clinical social worker, or yes, she’s an ED. But she’s, uh, she has a PhD in education and can speak about education. It goes a lot further than just, and I don’t, I don’t mean just as injust, right? Cause I think the impact is important, but it goes a lot further than just like, they helped 10,000 kids go to school. Cool, but like, what is she actually an expert? Yeah, well, uh, child development, uh, the, the benefits of early, early intervention, uh, the benefits of early education, uh, the benefits of structure and early ages, you know, yeah, so yeah, it’s it’s unfortunate. Go ahead. Well, and I was gonna say that’s, you’re absolutely right because what happens is a lot of EDs and leaders, those people lose themselves in the org, right? And it should be, again, it should be a balance of, we have this amazing impact, we have these amazing programs, but also I myself am an expert and that’s why I’m at the helm of this org, because I can speak on this thing. And I think that’s what we can learn from for-profits in that, in that case. But, um, what were you gonna say? Um, that, uh, it’s unfortunate that, you know, the thinking is, well, she’s an executive director, but like that’s a, like that’s a negative, you know, being an executive director or anywhere leadership in, in a nonprofit is a, is a, is disadvantageous is it means they’re unaware, you know, but we can overcome that. Negative stigma and stereotype because she has a degree or because she’s worked in the field for so 25 years, you know, nonprofit leadership is expertise in in the area. It’s acquired over decades, um, it’s leadership, it’s, it’s drawing people to the cause as, as investors call them donors, but they’re all, they’re investors as well. Um, it’s, it’s hiring and retaining. Talented people to work with the, the program, whatever, whether the program is humans or animals or the climate or or water, you know. So it is, I mean, that the it it subsumed in being a CEO or executive director is expertise. I think it should be more like she’s an executive director and she she can speak on this topic that’s, you know, water, she can speak on water quality or food deserts or, you know, whatever it might be, whatever the, whatever the new jacking situation is. Absolutely. Well I think a lot of the issue, Tony, is, and this is my personal opinion, just based on the orders I work with, there is a crisis of empathy, and I think we’ve been in a crisis of empathy for a long time, um, where people see the softer jobs as less valuable than, say, a CEO. But again, when I come in to work with orgs, the first thing I tell the board or whomever’s in that prelim meeting is, the ED is a CEO. Yeah, so we, we need to treat it in this way. Yeah, I, I prefer the title CEO president or uh or executive director, um, but because it establishes chief executive officer, yeah, but the hypothetical person you’re you’re suggesting like shouldn’t shouldn’t even be on a nonprofit board. If they think they think nonprofit leadership is lesser than corporate leadership, I mean, all the things I mentioned, plus I didn’t even mention financial management is, is balancing budgets and budgeting and forecasting just, just the way corporations do. So, you know, that’s bullshit if, if they’re looking down at the CEO, uh, they don’t belong on a nonprofit board. But and it’s not even, you know, there’s a very, very small percentage, I think, of boards where I’ve had to come in and say, uh, the CEO does not work for you, right? Because there are some that think they can boss the ED around, but that’s neither here nor there. But even, even outside of nonprofits, like, there are, there is, I believe, uh, a belief that these leaders are somehow, I don’t want to say less capable, but are somehow. You know, because it’s a softer, perceived as softer, there’s something lacking, and it’s, it’s very interesting to me because I don’t see it that way at all. And, you know, do you find this in uh in journalism circles? Not necessarily journalism. I think that’s the perception of um. Regular people. So people are involved in the world, and I think that is important though, it’s important to have a barometer of those things because I think engaging the community is important. I think community education is important and a lot of the work we do as a, not even with clients, I mean, yes, but as us as a PR agency as an authority is talking about. The importance of these organizations and how you can see a nonprofit and think it’s soft, but they do a lot of technical work, a lot of things that are valuable, and they uphold a lot of the things that we need in society. So, you know, I, I always think it’s important to discuss because I’m like, no, this is what people think and it And it’s bananas because it’s sometimes it could even be people who benefit from the programs who are like, well, I don’t know. I don’t know if nonprofits are actually, you know, like, good. Um, but again, it goes back to storytelling and how we’re telling stories and how we position leaders and, and, you know, how we build public trust. Yeah, that’s all, that is all essential. Um, and especially now I think with this administration, you know, Elon Musk saying nonprofits are a Ponzi scheme, people just get rich and then they retire, you know, all these. Not even stereotypes. It’s more it’s talking about bullshit. It’s just nonsense and totally reflective of the, the cadre of. People who are, you know, if you want to talk about the soft side, that means they’re passionate, that means they have a passion for the work that goes deeper than, uh, earnings per share and, and stock price and, you know, buybacks and, well, that’s buyback is not a measure of financial stability of a company, but you know, earnings per share and, and, and profit and quarterly. Um, quarterly quarterly metrics that are all financial. There’s a passion that goes beyond all that. So that’s what I would call the soft side zeal for the work. Absolutely, and I think that there’s a level of strength. And that is immeasurable when you’re a leader that is OK with putting yourself in the line of fire. Which a lot of nonprofits end up being, especially, you know, currently, I think there’s a lot of strength. That is or isn’t so, you know, but it shows so much passion to say, I care so much about the mission. That even if, you know, someone picks on me specifically and and is trying to defend us, like, I will fight it tooth and nail, right? And, and I think that that strength, then it shows so much about the, the level of, of care and and level of the work. But yeah, I mean, ultimately, that’s why I’m so. passionate myself about positioning these nonprofit leaders as, as experts because I’m like, this is how we have to cut through the disinformation because people don’t know. All right, well, there’s some work to do on the, on the public side. So much of, well, uh, you know, I. I see some outside the nonprofit community, but so much of my contact is inside the nonprofit community that’s you you get into your own echo chamber and, uh, you forget what perceptions are and they’re and perceptions are being hurt as the community gets. Defied and dismissed as Ponzi scheme. All right, let’s bring it back to, well, this is all related though. This is all you, you, this is all related to journalism and and media and storytelling because our stories need to overcome the perception of weakness and squishiness. That, um, that the public may feel about our about our work and the, you know, the, the, the, the luxury of it and because they don’t understand what how basic so, so much of the work is. Absolutely. Well that’s why I always say, I always tell clients, arm yourself with data. Arm yourself with data, because, um, if you want to fight this misconception that soft is bad, you need to have the data to back up that soft is good, right? That the work and the passion has had an impact. And mind you, a lot of nonprofits already do that, but you’d be surprised at how many, you know, haven’t like checked their numbers in 2 years. And I’m like, Guys, we need to, we need to Really, really like being meticulous about the data, but this is where storytelling comes in comes in as well, because journalism’s journalism’s journalists really do like the data. So that’s where that really shines. But the general public likes the storytelling. So like there is this component of storytelling in the journalism side, but if we’re talking about public perception, that’s where you need storytelling. Um, and you know, you and I are on social, so we’ve seen when you try to talk to someone and dispel something with data, they’re like, show me your sources or whatever, which is fine, but again, that’s not what’s getting through to the general public. The general public wants stories. So storytelling, I think is essential in a lot of ways, and you can pull different levers for different audiences, right? Like you can tell a story that’s more data heavy for a journalist and tell a story that’s maybe a little more, uh, emotionally driven for social media or for the general public. So that they understand ultimately what the work is. What more do you want folks to know about storytelling? And, and working with media that uh we haven’t talked about yet. Um, I think something that’s really important to note is there will be, you know, moments of, um, where the fire hose opens and then moments where it seems like you’re in a drought. And, um, what I mean by that is we have times where, you know, we, we work on a pitch and then that kind of takes off and a client is getting like 7 interviews and then they’ll start going live. Um, and it feels really exciting. And then that kind of stops for a little bit, and the client is panicking, and they’re like, What does this mean? And the work never stops. Like, we’re always pitching, but that just means, OK, like, you had your 15 minutes in a lot of ways for this segment of media. Let’s focus on social for a little bit. Let’s maybe, let’s see if there’s something you can talk about, or let’s write a blog, or like, what does the newsletter look like? So, the work never stops. It just changes medium. And we all change medium all the time, right? Like, I, I still watch the news. I have subscriptions to newspapers because that is my job and I like it. But, um, sometimes I get tired and I’m like, I need to get on Instagram or I actually want to watch TV. Um, so just as we change our own mediums in our lives, you know, nonprofits need to be agile and, and just and pulling levers at different times. And just because your local news isn’t covering you all the time doesn’t mean there isn’t a story to tell, just, you just have to find where to tell that story. Brilliant. Do you, do you still read um physical newspapers? I do. I do. Yes, and physical magazines. I have a whole stack behind me in that shelf down there, but, um, I grew up. So, like, I have fond memories of waking up every morning and my parents reading the news like physical newspapers at the breakfast table until I do that. Um, and if I can’t, for some reason get the physical edition, or they don’t give send it to me, I have the, the like physical on my iPad. Which is still, you know, and it’s funny because I think that there’s a level of education and PR that is going away, or like a level of knowledge, because I’ll, I’ll tell, you know, interns, Oh, this is above the fold news. And they’re like, What does that mean? And I’m like, right. Um, and it’s still a term that is used, but I think the The um origin is now lost, whereas I’ve had to physically show them a newspaper and say this is above the fold. So yeah, I mean, I think there’s there’s lots of instances of that, you know, lots of things that are. Current and popular now relate to the past. I mean, I, I look at my phone, my cell phone has an image of a, of an old kind of phone that you used to hold up to your, you know, the icon is a phone that you used to hold up to your head and had a wire attached to it, you know, nobody under 40 knows what that means, I don’t think. When we’re seeing a resurgence of physical media, um, so Gen Z and Jan Alpha do want subscription, like physical subscriptions. They want CDs, they want DVDs, like, yeah, yeah, like magazine and newspaper subscriptions. Yes, we’re seeing a resurgence. Because I think um people are tired of the fickleness of like the new subscription models. So, you know, having Netflix, but it goes up $30 every 6 months on a whim, and you don’t own any of those movies and so we’re seeing. Uh, younger generations return to physical things, like tangible things. A lot of them are giving up iPhones for flip phones. A lot of them are getting landlines installed. A lot of them are going back to malls, they miss physical shopping. So, and I’m very, I mean, again, I read physical newspapers, so I’m very pro own the things that you buy. Um, otherwise they go away, right? Like, and they’re never seen again. They’re in the Disney vault forever. So, um, own, you know, we’re getting a VHS because we started collecting VHS’s again and we watch them. So the physical media back, and I think that’s, yes. This is very interesting. All right, I, I, I am not aware of this at all, Fabian. Um, younger folks going back to DVDs for movies and, and physical subscriptions delivered. Newspapers and magazines. Yeah. I think we all got tired of, I think we all got tired of everything being so ephemeral. I understand that’s the same reason that I at 63 years old. Uh, baby boomer, but young, young baby boomer, young. It’s very important to know that. Um, I, I have a collection of a couple 100 DVDs that the movies that if I want to watch them. I’m, I don’t feel like waiting until they show up on, um, on Prime again where I don’t have to pay $4 for them. I wanna watch, I wanna watch. Well, my most recent one was, um, Citizen Kane. I want to watch Citizen Kane tonight, and I don’t want to have to go shopping around for it. And if it’s not on any of the services, then I don’t get to watch. Uh, no, no, I wanna watch it tonight. So that’s one of the couple 100 movies in my collection that are just essential when I want to watch them, I can. When it it goes to this idea, also there’s a little bit of um revisionist history happening with a lot of media where You know, I, I work on the PR side where if I don’t have the physical thing, the links will disappear. So if I don’t clip them, if I don’t get the physical subscription and a client was in a magazine or a newspaper, and they say, Oh, don’t worry, it’s also on digital, that’s cool. But sometimes websites get scrubbed and those links disappear and it’s like it never happened. So that’s, you know, my professional reasoning, but on my, in my personal life. You know, I love film. I’m like a big film person, and I’ve noticed that sometimes films get altered. Like the version on Prime, they changed certain things because they were like, Well, you know, and I get it. Like I understand it, the, the theory of why that’s happening because they’re like, Well, it was made at a certain time and maybe certain things aren’t appropriate, but I’m like, Yes, but also it’s it’s not the same thing. Now, now it’s the Amazon redux version, which, which I’m not at all interested in. No, it’s not the same. Yeah, but of course things have evolved. Times have changed, but the movie, the way it was made, that’s, do you have, can you, is it possible for you to name a favorite, can you name a favorite movie? Or is that, that’s, it’s too hard? No, I can name a favorite movie. Um, I’ve been watching a lot of black and black and white films right now, and, um, I just watched Mildred Pierce and I realized how much I love Mildred Pierce and how much I love that movie, um, and I just rewatched the original, um. The portrait of Dorian Gray, and I forget that that one was, um, it’s black and white, but every time they show they show the portraits in color, and I really love that, uh, because I think it’s a beautiful use of technicolor. I yearn for technicolor personally. I think movies now are too dark. Um, there’s not a lot of saturation or like beautiful colors, and it’s funny because directors say we’re aiming for authenticity, and I’m like, you can be authentic and still have some sort of color saturation. OK, right. If you like, um, picture of Dorian Gray, have you ever seen Sunset Boulevard? Yes. OK, you have, you know it. OK, good, good. Um, all right, very interesting, very interesting information about, uh, you’re talking about Gen Z, I guess, Gen Z and alpha. Which goes after Gen Z, yeah, they, they’re bringing, so there’s a statistic that like 29% of them now shop in store, so they’re reviving malls. We’re going back to mall culture because they want to hang out in a third space, um, but then, you know, there’s other grim statistics like 50% of them say that their career aspirations are to be an influencer, so, you know, balance. Mm. All right. Yeah, um, I’m focusing on the positive. They wanna be, they wanna be with people in real life. They wanna see their friends in real life. They don’t just want a game with them. Right. OK. That’s all very interesting. You wanna leave us with um just like a little wrap up, a little motivation. Reminder about storytelling and its value and local media, you know, tie it all together. You’re the expert. Absolutely nonprofits are doing incredibly important work. And the best way to thrive and survive during these uncertain times is to tell your story. Fabiano Melendez Ruiz. She’s CEO and also co-founder of Refuerzo Collaborative. You’ll find the collaborative at Raffuerzo Collab.com and also on Instagram Rafuerzo Collaborative. Fabian, thank you very much. Thanks for sharing everything. Thanks for revealing some things about uh Gen Z and Alpha that I had no idea of. Thank you very much. It’s a real pleasure. Yes, you too. Thank you. Next week, consciousness and intentionality in work and retirement. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for May 26, 2025: Healthier Productivity From AI

 

Jason Shim & Meico Marquette WhitlockHealthier Productivity From AI

Our annual duo returns with tips and resources to make your use of artificial intelligence better for you. They also go beyond AI with many smartphone strategies, inbox management, and Meico shares his shutdown ritual for bedtime. They’re Jason Shim, from Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience, and Meico Marquette Whitlock, The Mindful Techie. This is part of our coverage of the 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference (#25NTC).

 

 

 

 

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

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

Nonprofit Radio for May 19, 2025: Employee Wellness & Email Deliverability

Mandy Kutschied & Sam Hanley: Employee Wellness

Meet a company where one of the employees is a wellness coach for all the others. Mandy Kutschied and Sam Hanley are with The Fresh Perspective Group. They share practical strategies for employee wellness; ergonomic resources; a 4-day work week; productivity tips; and, talk about the ethics of wellness coaching in the workplace. Sam often hears things she cannot reveal. This is part of our coverage of the 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference (#25NTC).

Anne Paschkopić: Email Deliverability

This comes up frequently at the Nonprofit Technology Conference, because the rules often change about whether your emails get delivered and how they get treated by email providers. Are you right to only mail to people who’ve recently opened a message from you? No. Is it good practice to make sure everyone has opted in to your list? No. Anne Paschkopić explains why these and other former best practices, are no more. She’s from M + R. This conversation is also from #25NTC.

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. This is show number 740, which means we are a mere 10 shows, 10 weeks away from number 750. Nonprofit radios, unbelievable. 10 weeks away. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be stricken with dextroduction if I looked to the right to see that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s up this week. Hey, Tony, more conversations from 25 NTC. Employee wellness. Meet a company where one of the employees is a wellness coach for all the others. Mandy Kuthi and Sam Hanley are with the Fresh Perspective Group. They share practical strategies for employee wellness, ergonomic resources, a 4 day work week, productivity tips, and talk about the ethics of wellness coaching in the workplace. Sam often hears things she cannot reveal. Then Email deliverability. This comes up frequently at the nonprofit technology conference because the rules often change about whether your emails get delivered and how they get treated by email providers. Are you right to only mail to people who have recently opened a message from you? Now Is it good practice to make sure everyone has opted into your list? No. Ann Paskaic explains why these and other former best practices are no more. She’s from MNR. On Tony’s take 2. The federal budget, part de. Here is employee wellness. Thank you for being with our 25 NTC coverage. We’re all live at the Bal Baltimore Convention Center. With me now are Mandy Kutchide and Sam Hanley. Mandy is vice president of people at the Fresh Perspective Group. Sam Hanley also at the Fresh Perspective Group as wellness coach. Mandy, Sam, welcome. Thank you so much pleasure, pleasure to have you. How’s your conference going so far? Good. It’s awesome both of our first time here. Have you done both first? Oh, this is a very good conference, isn’t it? I mean so far? Yeah, it’s great. This is our 10th or 11th. Uh, having the podcast here, yeah, capturing interviews, it’s a very good conference. You chose you chose well it’s a good vibe. Um, and your topic is what employee wellness really means and why it matters. Um, Sam, let’s start with you because I don’t know any other companies besides the Fresh Perspective group who I’m just meeting today for my first time, uh, that have a wellness coach. Maybe it’s very common. I don’t know, but, uh, why is it so let’s answer the second part of the, uh, the topic. Why does it matter? Why does it matter? Come a little closer to the mic. Yeah, thank you. Um, I think it’s very rare to have someone as a wellness coach on a team. No, not very common. Um, typically speaking, many orgs have human resources, so it’s even a shift to be more people oriented and so I have a background in counseling and behavior analysis, so my intention is to support the company as a whole. In the culture and how we operate and embed wellness into our culture but also on an individual level level so supporting employees one on one whether that’s just venting or need an emotional release or something’s going on at home because home life and work life are so interwoven together so how can I support our employees as as human beings. OK, um, and, uh, we’re not gonna do this right now, but part of what we’re gonna talk about is what the ethical considerations are when people vent versus talking to their HR director. It’s very different, I imagine. OK, we’re gonna talk about we’ll, we’re gonna get to that. um, Mandy, what, what, why does the you’re a vice president there, officer? Why does the fresh perspective group, um, invest? I mean, you’re paying, uh. Paying salary to Sam and benefits, but she is a benefit. He program is a benefit to the employees so but I don’t mean to answer my own question. Why, why is the fresh perspective group investing in employee wellness to the to the point of hiring someone to do it? Yeah, we think it’s incredible incredibly um critical to our success. So the company itself is a people centric organization that does sales force consulting and manage services for nonprofits who are. Struggling with their technology as we’ve heard throughout the day and we know that what we’re selling is our people the the the keynote speaker this morning 10 minute gap or the sound went out but also she was talking about, um, we, you know, technology part of the, the issue with adoption or how we use it is like the people using it are really designing how it gets used um so what we’re selling is our people, our consultants, obviously they’re great. At tech, but they’re also human beings and we know that in order for them to support the nonprofits that we serve, we need to be supporting them as humans um so that’s really critical and one of the ways we want to do this is by being different in how we structure so I came out of HR I almost 20 years of HR um and there are some legal ramifications and sort of legal things you have to think about when you try to structure support in this way, but we knew that we really wanted to be people centric. Want to build something that was different, that really took care of the whole human and we were going to do that with intention and with care and part of that was having a wellness coach that was focused on the individuals. Yes, yeah. Well, she’s a founding member, so we all founded the company in July. We’re only 8 months old. Yeah, it’s a new venture. Yeah, so she’s been here since the beginning really helping us a people-centric culture through the decades of the practical strategies for employee wellness. Sam, I’m guessing that is more suited for you. I’m just answering. I’m, I’m not, I’m, I’m not committing you to anything. This is from your session description. You looked a little nervous. Practical strategies for employee wellness. You’re committed to this. Yes, OK, um, Mandy and I and I it we’ll we’ll talk to you so when employees are on a big project, so allowing a bit of breathing room afterwards, what does that look like afterwards, what do you, how do you how do you? Looking at what do you what do you say to them? Uh, what is your plan? What does your schedule look like? Is your calendar completely jam packed in full, or do you have space to take lunch? Do you have space to go for a walk? Do you have space to take an afternoon off? Our pay time off policy is very flexible, um, so if you need to take a Friday off, go take a Friday off. We also work 4 days a week, Tuesday to Friday, so we every week have Monday off. Um, so all employees except for myself work 32 hours a week, um, and so having that Monday allows just natural breathing room in our everyday week in itself because it’s embedded in that. So our every all our team members have that day to get appointments done, relax, be by themselves at home. Weekends are always busy doing errands and family functions and events and all that stuff, so just allowing that space and making it sacred so. We all know not to ping anyone on a Monday, um, so after projects making sure that continues to be sacred, but also checking what’s your schedule look like? Is it jam packed? Can we, can we check you is this you emailing to remind people or is it you knocking on, you’re probably not you’re virtual knocking on doors but how do you practically how do you do it? What do you do? Yeah, a one on one or 15 minute call. Your plan, how are you doing checking in? What does your rest look like afterwards? What’s your workload look like? Is it is it manageable? Do we need to support you in finding ways to take things off of your plate? Do you need to lean more on other team members and just giving them the autonomy to make those choices but still being proactive in that check in? What does that look like? Yeah and Sam has um scheduled one on one sessions with everybody who wants to they can opt in or opt out. Most of our folks opt in. Um, she’s so she’s taking that sort of like individual care, but then if she’s hearing something, so for example I think this is a good one, we, when we were launching as a company, there was a lot of heavy lifting from our marketing team right away when you launch a company, right? There’s a website, there’s branding, there’s material, so our marketing team is one person and one consultant, and they were doing a ton to get us ready and so Sam had been meeting with the our director of marketing individually noticed. That you know there was just a lot going on so after the launch um we worked with the marketing director and their supervisor and we said OK we’re gonna get, we’re gonna throw a couple extra days and we’re gonna ask if she has the capacity to take that time off and she did we said great, go like rejuvenate a little bit and recover and restore so you can come back refreshed um and she did, she said, oh, I feel like I can actually come back and like feel excited instead of daunted and drained and. And tired, so it was a it was a good sort of in the moment recovery plan. Now Sam, if you hear from someone that they’re overburdened, maybe they need to they need do you have a link to the CEO do you how do you get the person the help that they need. So in one on ones it’s what does that look like for you? How can I support you in your communication with others to be able to lean on them. Um, do you feel comfortable talking to the CEO or talking to your supervisor in, in getting support, um, I think that’s 1414 now. I was relevant for folks to know how big an organization we’re talking about 5 or 14, so you were saying that uh you’re asking. How comfortable do you feel or then can you be a voice on their behalf if they don’t feel comfortable, but then if they don’t feel comfortable, you’re going on their behalf. They know they came from you. How does that give them greater comfort ultimately everybody knows that it came from them. Yes, I think that plays into the ethical consideration so just really. Staying grounded in the relationship with that person and knowing that I’m only doing anything on their behalf with their consent and having that discussion first so if they want me to speak on their behalf or support them in that way then it’s important that I have their permission and that we do that together. I want it to be. Involved partnership to get help them help them get what they need. What if they aren’t comfortable with you speaking on their behalf, but this remains a challenge for them, and obstacle it’s burdening them, but they’re not comfortable speaking or having you speak on their behalf, then what? That’s that’s difficult. So a part of my job too is looking for themes so on in my one on ones are the themes that are coming up is communication being lost is one team feeling more stressed than another um so then I talked to Mandy and we figure out how can we support this individual, um, theme or this team team as a whole, um, and we yeah. And that’s why I think like in our session we talk a little bit about the evolution of workplace wellness and the history from you know industrial era to post COVID time and a lot of it is around the systems that we set up so there may be individual themes of burnout or um not feeling like there is that sort of self advocacy or self care that you can enact with your supervisor because maybe it’s a lack of emotional intelligence or empathy from. The leadership, so if we’re seeing those themes, then we know our systems need to improve. We need to train our leadership on EQ and emotional empathy and how do they have engaging conversations with their direct reports or is it more around like how we work and how we’ve designed work? Do we need to rethink those systems and structures, um, because sometimes it’s at an individual level, but a lot of times it’s on a systems level. Has this all come up in just 8 months? I mean it’s come up in other organizations for me over the last 18 years, yeah, but we haven’t experienced as much of that, not to any extreme. Yeah, yeah. OK. Um, since we sort of touching on ethics, what about, um, confidentiality? I mean, are you, are you sworn to confidentiality if the person doesn’t want anything revealed? Yes, OK, OK. And then, but your role is to try to aggregate themes, but. That might not be that might not be part of a theme. It might just be individual and the person so like is there a resource of referrals like would you make a referral to a deeper consulting that you can’t do or therapy basically we’re talking about therapy yeah so yeah if there’s deeper concerns or things coming up, yes, it’s referring out to counseling services. Can I support you in finding the appropriate service provider to help you with your mental health? Um, I, I had a thought there, um, I think sometimes at work, you know, you, you have something going on in your life and you go to your manager and so you dump your emotional things that are happening for you to your manager and the manager isn’t always equipped to support that person and so both people are kind of feeling disconnected, not sure where to go from there something’s there’s kind of a bit of a. Elephant in the room and so I’m, I hope that I can be that mediator of come let’s let’s chat get get what you need off your chest and then let’s move forward into that problem solving piece so I can be there for the empathy help you problem solve so you can go to your manager and say hey I’ve had a death at home I I need more space my brain is not in it this week whereas I think like Mandy said um historically there’s just that pressure to perform. Form and get work done no matter what else is happening in your life. So how can I help people move through that process a little bit smoother and still feel heard and supported and know that their workplace has their back even when something else is going on in their personal life. Encourage everyone to take their lunch break away from their screens, um, so, uh, there’s even a couple individuals at work where it it was encouraged to put that into their calendar. They just blocked off for lunch. No one can book a meeting at that time, so that kind of holds us accountable to actually take our lunch, um, rather than meetings just be booked and you then don’t have lunch, you’re not eating, you’re not taking time away from your screen, you’re not getting up and moving your body, um. So in that lunch break going for a walk, uh, we also have every week I post something and it’s often around that physical health so moving our body um snacks, getting exercise water yes. Stretching was an issue. I was she’s very good at reminding me to drink my water. I don’t drink water. I think ergonomic is also in the virtual world there’s a lot of because we’re working at home and we haven’t really thought about ergonomics set up to be physically supportive we’ve talked a little bit about how do we make sure folks have the right level for their computers so they’re not um putting pressure on shoulders and how do they have the right chair and we have a budget for that so we can support standing you got it yeah I have a walking pad, yep. see me in my walking. Oh, it’s just like why is it not a treadmill? It doesn’t go as fast. It’s just walking like a desk you’re walking you’re OK. We had Beth on a couple of years ago because she had just written a book on wellness for nonprofits she had a co-author too. I’m sorry, I don’t remember the co-author’s name, but Um, she was, they were advocating, um, doing walking meetings, physically walking out and you’re you’re in a meeting. Why not, right? Our brain works differently that way, yeah, getting fresh air and the repetitive movement of our body walking there’s real digital screen fatigue happening right now, so it’s like how can you also make sure you’re limiting some of the screen time. Uh, you have any other tip tips so the pad I’m sorry, it’s not what’s it’s OK um what else do I appreciate that you’re sitting on a ball, so you’re just you’re naturally moving your body and it probably feels more comfortable on your body to be that way. I use it at home it’s actually born of an NTC. In previous years they contracted with a furnishings company for the booths back when we had booths 10 by 10. This is your first ATC, but every year before this it’s been 10 by 10 booths, and the company that they use, uh, is expensive. Like a chair is like $300 or maybe I’m exaggerating $200 for the 3 days, right? And then, but I wanted a nicer chair, so I was like a 4 or $500 chair for 3 days. That’s a. That’s that, you know, I, I got my my ball and just blow it up and I’ll spend $0 and I’ll be more comfortable and you’re $500. So it was born of a couple of years, I think last year was the first year. I just got tired of the ergonomic chair expense. So yeah, yeah, OK, so, uh, yeah, it’s movement, right? Is core like centering taking even 5 minutes to step outside, sit on your front step. Breathe in some observing outside what do you see for distance it helps your eyes like you need a yeah just that quick yeah reset, refresh, change of environment for a moment can be really helpful in getting you back and refocused, um, having snacks at your desk, chewing things can be helpful for your nervous system, help regulate just simple little things, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, that oral sensory feedback, yeah, more crunchy or like like peanut butter is sticky, so you’re, you’re working your oral motor and it can just be helpful to regulate your body so it doesn’t have to be anything major, right? We don’t have to get our 10,000 steps in and we don’t have those types of initiatives at our at our work, um, but. Just getting those small little things 5 minutes away from your desk standing up yeah it can be in your in your 5 NASA says the optimal nap is 22 minutes scientists and they know this 2 longer than they. Longer than that and you’ll feel groggy and a little disorient maybe not disorient groggy when you wake up shorter than that, not restorative. So the optimal nap according to NASA 22 minutes but I’m a proud napper. I love. Yeah, OK. Um, the 4 day work week last year at NTC we had advocates, we had, we had the leader of the 4 day work week. Um, nonprofit. I, I forget what 4 days a week or I forget what it’s called, but he, he and a couple of panelists, including someone from N10. N10 has a 4 day work week here. Patty was on, um. but you chose Mondays off instead of Friday would have been the natural choice, I think for a lot of organizations. Why did you choose Monday? It was really intentional. So the again, the organization that we work in is consulting and we consult with nonprofits and so just the organic cycle of the stuff we do, we felt, um, there’s a lot of Tuesday Thursday meetings with our nonprofit clients so there was like uh inherent Tuesday could be meeting heavy day Wednesday could be. Down work day Thursday could be meeting heavy day. Friday we’re taking that feedback and kind of making changes and Monday we rest. So it just like it worked with I think um for us it worked because of who our clients are. It’s gonna be different exactly yeah you got it, yeah, exactly. It’s also an interesting mind shift too because most people work until Fridays and so you’re getting ready for that weekend naturally with. Community and so then you’re having your fun on the weekend and then you get that Monday oh yeah I have Monday and it feels more productive naturally because that’s what we’re all used to so you can get your chores done you can schedule in your massage um you can get the all the the housework done. OK, an intentional choice to make it to make it and just to be clear we’re talking about a 4 day 32 hour work week, not a 4 day 40 hour work week 2 hours. Yeah, yes, that’s what the campaign is all about. We, we had the panel on, yeah, that’s it. Yeah, OK. OK. Um, you mentioned massage. I’m, I’m a massage, I do, it’s not luxury, it’s it’s part of taking care of myself massage massage advocate as well. Yeah, we have quite a comprehensive benefits. acupuncture, it’s part of the, yeah, we’ve got different levels for folks, right? So depending on what you opt in high deductible, low deductible, but it’s acupuncture, yeah. It’s I I’m I’m from Canada too and so Mandy is from here, um, so we, we, we’re a little bit different anyways, um, so I can’t always speak to what I can’t always speak to that. But I think a lot of Americans consider that a luxury. Like when I’m at the resort for a week, you know, I’ll I’ll get a, I’ll get a spa treatment. I’ll massage, but it can be very, I mean like yeah very yes exactly physical touch that. Muscle movement and it I mean we have uh I have a coworker, we have a coworker at the Fresh perspective group who goes in for medical reasons monthly and because she can’t move her neck otherwise and it’s like she needs that and it is it’s not, it’s not nice to have it’s need to have. And, and, and can I go one bit deeper than physical touch is the human touch. Like this is something I never want a robot to do. I don’t want AI massage as as good as some, some, uh, medical services company may tell me that it is, uh, I don’t want it. I want, I want the human touch. We want to be seen and heard. Um, 4 day work on site counseling. I think we kind of talked about on site. It’s all virtual you can check in any time. I mean if you’re in a crisis, and I, I need to I need to I need to. I very much encourage everyone to book one on one, same day, any time, any length of time that they feel they need. And is there routine check-ins too like do you have a monthly or weekly with everybody or how does that work? Yeah, it’s about monthly for about 45 minutes, yes, yes, yeah, some opt for more and some opt for none some have their own um counseling services outside of the workplace too that they’re very regular and feel very well supported in that way so yeah. Uh, creating a culture of wellness at work. I mean, it comes from the top down. The CEO must be devoted to this, yeah, definitely, and, and again that was very intentional when we were setting up the organization. She was very much, um, a fan of a people centric culture, so I wanted to make this into policy process practice, so things like the 4 day work week, but also, um, when we have a decision and you know. You know we have to prioritize something we tend to prioritize people first and that means our clients but also our employees and then we might prioritize, you know, the tech or the finances and they go hand in hand, but we’re often um we’re really looking at the impact on the person so when we look at our benefits package when we look at our time off policy like all of those things we take up people. First lens too and like is this really improving the wellness of our culture or is it not um so thinking about just those systems are really important um so I’ve been really happy and you’re right from the top down like you have to have the buy in of the CEO or it’s never gonna stick um and I think she’s a huge advocate for wellness which is makes it a lot easier for sure. Uh, have you hired any new team members since the inaugural team? OK, um, so we only have a sample size of one, but what was the reaction when they were told that there’s a wellness, you’re, well, the wellness. Uh, the wellness coach, yeah, we have a wellness coach on on our team. What was the reaction? I think it was a huge draw so, um, part of the recruiting process, everyone we talked to the candidates before we made our final selection we’re all very excited about it. I think at first we had to explain it because it’s not something you see often so there’s a lot of education around this is. Resource for you they’ll be, you know, counseling available they’ll also just be a coach there to help you with your sort of own understanding of all of the dimensions of wellness, um, and it’s a 4 day work week like all those things were huge draws. I think it got us the the the big candidate pool that we saw, uh, and the final candidate that was selected was very excited about it. outstanding and uh productivity. I don’t know you don’t have a, you don’t have a control group. it wasn’t a pre-A and now how do you measure the productivity of the wellness program? It’s a great question, and we talk a little bit about metrics in our in our session tomorrow, um, because you’re right, there’s no control group pre wellness coach and 4 day work week and sort of people centric culture, but I think the metrics you we. And look at and use are a lot of the ones that other places have things like your employee engagement scores so like net promoter um but also just feedback. I know you know feedback is um is often seen as anecdotal but like anecdotal data is still data and so feedback from employees um we we haven’t um launched a net promoter score survey yet but we’ve gathered like you know monthly feedback on different offerings we’ve talked. The the staff, um, but I think turnover is like the biggest thing I look at it’s a lagging metric, um, and nobody has left. Well, always a good thing, right? Like no one’s like, I’m out of here, this isn’t working for me. There’s no exit interview data, yeah, exactly, um, so I think those are just big things to to keep an eye on and then there’s just, you know, participation rates of who’s engaging with the the services we offer, the programs we offer, um, their satisfaction from those programs and all of that that you can measure. Right, Sam, can you leave us with a wellness tip that we haven’t talked about yet? I’ll put you on the spot. You must have a deep repertoire of a tip tip. Yes, yes, your screen or away from screens. OK. Um, Mandy, Mandy, uh, vice president of people at the Fresh Perspective Group. Sam Hanley, wellness coach at the Fresh Perspective Group, Sam, Sam, you go by Sam Andy. That’s yeah that’s our duo name now. It’s the the the team, thank you, thank you very much for sharing. Thank you for having us. Thank you very much. And thank you for being with Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 25 NTC, the 2025 nonprofit technology conference, where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting technology services for nonprofits. It’s time for Tony’s Take 2. Thank you, Kate. Very similar to what I said last week. The federal budget process is still ongoing in Washington DC. There are hearings, there are negotiations going on, and there are bad things in the budget for nonprofits. For instance, uh, uh, something that I didn’t mention last week, the, uh, the permission of the authority for the Secretary of the Treasury to singularly denote that a charity is a terrorist supporting organization. Now, you may recall, that sounds familiar, because back in late last year, There was the House resolution. Remember 9495, it was the nonprofit killer bill, a lot of people called it. That’s what 9495 allowed them to do. Now that that didn’t pass in the last Congress, so it’s not called that anymore, but the, the unilateral authority for the Secretary of the Treasury to designate a charity in that way and thereby, you know, canceling the charitable status, that is part of the proposed budget. Um, there are also the, the big funding cuts to, uh, USAID and the State Department for, uh, for foreign funding, um, so, you know, there are, there are bad things in the budget proposed for the nonprofit community. I’m urging you to contact your Congressional representatives, senators, and your House of Representative, House of Representatives representative, your congress people. Uh, let them know how important your work is and how important our nonprofit community is that you don’t want to see it threatened. That you don’t want to see funding cuts. How vital the work is that all the members of the nonprofit community do. Uh, I had said last week, I, I, I had a LinkedIn post last week that had a link for how to find your senators and your congressmen or or congresswoman. Um, you know, it’s easy to find. You don’t, you don’t need my LinkedIn post. It’s just last week I had done it, but I do urge you to reach out to these folks. I’ve been doing it, I’ve been, my people, uh, the, the, the three that I call, you can only leave messages, it’s unbelievable, and nobody ever picks up. But if that’s, that’s all you can get, that’s fine. They need to hear from All of us how important. The nonprofit community is in the US. And that is Tony’s take too. Kate I remember in high school we had to, one of our assignments was to actually make an email and then send it over to our congressman. So if a high schooler can do it, I think anyone can do it. Uh, absolutely, yes, it’s not hard to, you can reach them by email, by phone, uh, you can go in person because they have offices throughout your state, however you do it. It’s, it’s, yeah, very doable. We’ve got bou but loads more time. Here is email deliverability. Thank you for joining our 25 NTC coverage. We’re live at the Baltimore Convention Center. My guest now is Ann Paska. Very close. Pashka Pitch. There’s an accent over the sea, which is an unusual character. accent is. Yes, it is. Uh, well, it’s actually my wife’s last name. I’m Pasky. She was co-pitched. We’re married now we’re Pask pitch, uh, and she was born in Yugoslavia, which doesn’t exist anymore. OK, yes. Yeah, so I haven’t seen that before. I don’t know if it’s definitely a lot of our friends thought we were joking until they saw it on our legal documents, but it’s, uh, we didn’t wanna pick one over the other. Well, did you decide who goes first? No, we just thought Pakay. I agree. OK, OK, wonderful. Uh, she’s Ann Paskaic, managing production specialist at M. They probably just say, yeah, it’s uh we are a consulting firm, uh, we do digital work, advocacy, audience research, advertising, uh, mostly digital, some PR social media, well, most of that’s online as well, um, we work with nonprofits across the country and across the world. Your topic is email deliverability. Have the rules changed? That’s almost an ironic or sarcastic question, uh, because they have indeed changed. We’re gonna talk about. Uh, you know, so we’ve had this topic over a few times in the past 3 to 4 years, uh, probably because the rules are, are, are changing. So, so the answer to your question is, uh, or maybe it’s a rhetorical question. Yeah, the answer is yes, right? It’s mostly changed. There’s some things that have stayed the same, um, I mean for a given level of same, of course we’re sending emails and. Not just uh mail and phone calls anymore, but some stuff is the same but a lot has changed. For instance, uh, you say in your session topic, are only mail the people who’ve opened recently. Oh no, that’s not true anymore. Now it’s clicked. Only mail to people who have clicked. So where, where do we get started with this? Is this an OK place to start or what? I think this is a great place to start because I think who do you email? How can you tell that they’re consenting is essentially the question, you know, of course you’ve got people who hopefully have opted in um at a minimum you wanna give them the language that says you’re getting emails maybe you have a confirmed opt in, but then once they’re on their list, how can you tell that sort of ongoing consent? I think that my approach to this is, you know, deliverability can be really technical and complicated, but you just have to remember that the people on the other end are humans and you’re trying to read those signals to try and understand what’s going on with the human at the other end. In terms of the opens question, um, of course Apple came out in 2021 with the Apple privacy policy for emails, uh, which basically said it’s common knowledge, it may not be common, it’s not so common, but, but you’re the expert so I glad you thank you for breaking this down for us, but, uh, just in case there are any listeners who didn’t, uh, who didn’t know that, uh, I’m with you. I did not know that Apple came out with this, uh, 4 years ago now. Yeah, so give us the history. No, no, I’m not, I didn’t want you to gloss over. I just want, I didn’t want, I don’t want anybody to be uh disappointed if they didn’t, they weren’t aware of this common knowledge. That’s true, that’s true. I I I assume obviously it’s my. If you were watching your email open rights, if you’re in the part of your industry that does that, you probably saw them go haywire in early 2022 and that is because of this change. So what Apple did is they said essentially You know, when somebody opens an email, the way that we track opens is whether or not they download a tiny little tracking pixel, so essentially an image, and when you download that it sends a bunch of additional information to the CRM that you’re using, whatever, um, where are you, what’s your IP address, what device you’re on. And essentially Apple said, you know, we’re really big on privacy and we think that that’s too much information. So what they did is that anybody who opted into this new policy, which they opt you in by default, so pretty much anybody with an iPhone has opted in, yeah, yeah unless you’re a real nerd and you’re like, I’m gonna go 3 levels down on the menu and turn it off. Um, what they do is they essentially open the emails on your behalf. So instead of like Ann Paska Pitch Malden, Massachusetts, my home’s IP address, if I have an iPhone, then that privacy policy just says, oh this was opened by Apple and you know Pasadena, California or wherever that IP address is, so it is protecting my privacy. On the marketer’s end, instead of getting, well, OK, probably a human person downloaded this tracking pixel and we can see where they are, we can see what their devices, you just get well Apple opened this and because Apple opens that for everybody with an iPhone, just a lot of people, what happened is Openreach just kind of went everywhere. Um, it depends on the email tool you’re using. Some email tools that, you know, this is confusing, we’re gonna separate it out, we’re gonna, we can look at the signals and say. This is a human eye open, um, yeah, you know, like oh it’s Pasadena, California and Apple’s IP that’s a machine, you know, it’s a little more complicated than that, but from our end we were able to be like, oh OK, this is human open, this is machine open. Usually they prioritize looking at those human opens your open rates go down. For everybody else, the CRMs went like, I don’t know, it’s still an open, it’s all the same and so their open rates went up because everybody with an iPhone was quote unquote opening everything, yeah. And then coming back to the like how do you target your emails um before this change we said you know opens are good top of the funnel indication that somebody is probably looking at your email, you know, it’s a bit of a rough it was a it was a rough statistic even then because of course if you have all your images blocked or you’re just on a slow connection and the images don’t load, doesn’t matter if you read the email, it’s not going to download that tracking pixel and track it as an open. And then on the flip side, if you’re one of those people that opens an email in order to delete it, that was tracking as an open, but an open was still kind of a good indicator that at least a human was using that email address and probably looked at your email. OK, right, that that we could say. Yeah, and it was like a good rough estimate. And of course Apple comes out with this change and everybody’s like, well now I don’t know if a humans looked at it, uh, you know, the machine is doing this and I don’t know if somebody’s completely ignoring it, um, so a lot of organizations said, well, I’m not going to take into account Ops anymore because I don’t think it’s a good good success. So we’re talking about the users or the the email the email providers. Uh, neither the, the nonprofits who are sending our email, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, we’re part of this too. OK, so we don’t know what to. Yeah, yeah, you know, like I’m somebody reading my email. I’m not gonna notice the difference. Inbox providers, they can still get all that information because they have access, you know, if I’m Gmail, I own the inbox, even if you’re looking at it through your Apple iPhone. So they’re still getting the same data. It’s just us as marketers who are using a third party tool that’s, you know, only tracking opens through that little pixel. That’s where our data starts to get weird and our decisions about who to send to has this whole other variable. OK, so let’s drill down on that because that’s what our listeners I think are gonna be most interested in um at least in this around this part of the, this part of the topic, who should I be mailing to or who should I be scrubbing off. Or whatever that’s not the right. Who should I be dropping off our list because they’re not engaged. They’re bringing down our engagement rate. They, they don’t, they don’t open or maybe we, we don’t know if they open or even if we assume they open but they don’t click, they’re still bringing down our engagement rates because because the providers know all this, right? You know, they know what you see, they know if you, if you, if you open it or if you only look at it in your um. The browser, not the like the preview pane yeah yeah if you only see the preview pane you know if you click, you know if you open or open and then click. They know everything they know how far down you scroll. They know how many times you looked at it. They they know if you like after reading it, did you like carefully file it away in a file folder or did you delete it? Did you forward it? Did you, yeah, like all of these things they’re collecting every single data point. And feeding into their machine learning and we’re over here with that for your emails to people’s inboxes or not that’s the subject. OK, so what’s your uh expert advice? Who should we be taking off our list or if you want to approach it in the positive, who should we be mailing to so. I’m gonna say you should actually be emailing people that open and this is not what we thought was gonna happen when Apple came out with this whole machine thing but it turns out um whether you’re looking at just machine and human opens or rather whether you’re able to distinguish between them or they’re just in a big pool, you can’t tell the difference, different tools are different. Opens are still a really good indicator of whether somebody is using that inbox and it turns out that that is good enough for inbox providers um yeah pretty low threshold it it is a pretty inbox, yeah, well, it’s not just somebody owns it, it’s that. So sorry, I’m I’m gonna, I’m I’m gonna do other sidebar. So Apple’s robots will only open emails if one that email is landing in the inbox. So if you have a bad reputation, your email is going to spam, the robot’s not gonna open that essentially they’re like this isn’t good enough. I’m not gonna open it. Probably nobody’s gonna pull this out of spam and look at it. They also only open emails if somebody’s actually using that inbox. So if you, you know, we talked about me changing my name when I got married. I’ve got an Ann Pasky email address. If I don’t use that anymore and I stopped using it, so I stop logging on, then Apple’s gonna stop opening those emails for me, you know, they’ve they’ve they’ve got a lot of server space but it’s not infinite, so they’re not gonna spend it on people who aren’t using their email. So, if you get that machine open, it might not mean that I actually saw it, but it does mean that it 1 landed in my inbox and 2 that I am actively logging into that account. And it turns out, and again like this is not what I thought was going to happen, you know Apple came out, we said you should look at pulling back to just looking at other indicators, but what we saw is that the groups who were like I’m gonna wait, I’m gonna like wait until I see problems uh by targeting these opens that may be humans and may be machines they never had problems um they they saw that continuing to email. Active addresses whether or not those people were actually engaging with their emails in terms of opens kept them in a healthy deliverability spot. OK yeah, alright, so, so encapsulate to summarize that for our listeners who are not technologists but they’re certainly technology users uh into a sentence or two that we can digest. Yes, so if you are targeting your email list based on activity and open is a good indicator of activity. That was very concise. Thank you. I hope it was helpful. Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s not the only indicator, you know, I think you should also be looking at clicks, you should be looking at things that aren’t deliverability related but are important to your program, whether that’s donors or event attendance or whatever other indicators somebody’s giving you that they’re going to be engaged because Tony, deliverability is not the point, right? It’s a tool, it’s a, it’s a requirement if people aren’t gonna read your emails if they can’t see them, but ultimately most people aren’t running a program where the goal is to deliver emails to the inbox. They’re trying to change the world. They’re trying to like talk to people, yeah, so. That’s why I say like also target people based on recent online actions because that’s what you’re actually going for. It’s not all about the technology and it’s it’s a yes, absolutely. It’s an online but it’s a nonetheless. Um, OK, making sure everyone has opted in. No, that’s not quite true anymore. Now we want double opt in. What, what, what’s the issue here? This is, this is a big one and one that I think is really different in the nonprofit space compared to, you know, obviously a lot of the advice out there is for for profits, you know, assuming you’re you’re selling the shoes or something like that. And this is where I feel like my take is maybe a little controversial but it’s based on what I’ve seen you don’t have to do a confirmed opt in if somebody is, for example, donating. They are putting down their credit card information they’re saying I care about you as an organization and I’m giving you my money and it is OK to just say, hey, thank you as part of that we are opting you into email. Obviously always give people the option to unsubscribe um you know there are some situations where you might want to do a confirmed opt in where it’s something like. Uh, we have an organization that sends, uh, cards to children in the hospital, and a lot of people want to do that, but they don’t actually care about signing up for the email list. So that’s a situation where we might want to do a confirmed opt in or a double opt in. Um, or anywhere where you’re a little bit worried about the quality of names you’re getting. So if you’re having people like sign up at a at an event and they’re typing things into an iPad or even if you’re writing your name on a piece of paper, that’s where you might want to make sure, hey, are you, did you make a typo? Is this really your email address? Did you really mean to sign up and send them that email confirmation that they have to click on to confirm, you know that? That is what a double opt in is, yes. you did not explain that. Yeah, we have jail. Yeah, opt in, confirmed opt in. It just means I put my email in on a form, but then I have to go to my inbox and click that link before I actually start receiving emails. Yeah. We do that all the time exactly a couple times a week. I mean it seems routine, OK, but that’s a double opt in so initially we’ve included you but please confirm. And then you confirm through clicking on an email, yes, yes, and that is kind of the gold standard of opt in, but of course a lot of people don’t do that so you have to kind of gauge what are my quality of names, what’s the likelihood that they’re going to see that one single confirmation email versus maybe the quality of action that brought them onto your list. How does this impact deliverability? the the inbox providers know whether there’s a double opt in? They do not. All they know is what happens when your email gets to the inbox that they own or you know, that they provide for your subscriber, their customer. Um, I guess they do it, yeah, yeah, they’re providing a, yeah, they’re providing a service to the user who is your supporters probably, um, and I feel like it’s important. I’m talking here about, uh, mostly free mail providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, you know, Hotmail, AOL, um, when we’re talking about. Uh, like, like a corporate inbox provider, um, meaning like I have a company and our IT team runs the spam filters versus Google running the spam filters. Those rules might be different. Most nonprofits lists are, you know, individual people using those free email boxes. The rules are a little bit different if you’re, um, mostly talking to corporations. Well, now we get to what which email address people have provided. Isn’t the personal, isn’t the personal email more valuable because it’s less likely to change through a person’s life? Yeah, yeah, but I think it also depends on like what context you’re talking in, um, you know, like I I just signed up for your list and I give you my work email because this is a work relationship so uh different organizations are gonna be relating to people in different parts of their lives. Right. Well, I guess it, I guess it depends on the relationship from the user perspective, which, which you gave us the second rate email because you might change your business and then I would lose you. I might, I might, but I don’t know. I’ve been in MR for almost 13 years now, so it’s, it’s pretty good. I just always have. I, I’m not disparaging your joining our list. Thank you. I’m grateful that you joined the list. I’m not disparaging the email you gave us. I’m having an academic discussion about which is, which is more valuable. I would have, I would think that someone’s Gmail or their, their home, their home, their personal account would be uh a more valuable over time. Address that I think all other things equal somebody’s probably gonna be on their personal email address for a longer period of time, but the thing to think about with deliverability is what what does that person want? Look how smart you are back to the top. I’m I’m wildly digressing and to the topic. Well, I can only speak to my area of expertise, so you’re doing great. Thank you for trying to build up. Um, no, but I think it’s a good question because it’s asking what is valuable to you as the sender versus what is valuable to the recipient if, uh, you know, we’re talking about, um, I mean yeah, let’s keep using me as the example. I’m like, OK, I want I want to know when my recording comes out. I want to know what other sessions you’re doing. That’s a work topic. I try to have good work life boundaries, you know, not always perfect, but so I wanna be like I wanna know when that’s coming out at work and you know be able to forward that email straight from my work email to my marketing email. If your email came to my personal inbox I’d be like no I don’t wanna think about work. I’m trying to trying to see when my pizza is delivered. I’m trying to see what my grandma sent me last week kind of thing. So it is, it’s relative. I might get upset I mean not me, but the hypothetical me might get upset if you’re sending work emails to my personal inbox. So I think that is a thing to be balanced. Like, sure, if I leave my job, you can’t email me my work email address anymore, but that’s where I want it. So I digression. Thanks for using yourself as an example all the time. I don’t know. Does your grandma send you stuff online? She’s pretty savvy. She does sometimes. She’s she’s got an Apple watch. Uh, she’s very, she is 92 and pretty savvy. 2. Yeah, I wouldn’t have even thought that old. Wow, 92 in an Apple watch it? Yeah, she does get her email on it? Uh, I mean, I don’t know if she gets her email. She does try to answer her phone on it sometimes and that’s it’s a little hard, but she’s great. She’s trying, yeah, yeah, not afraid. Apple Watch 92 savvy. Yes, let’s get into some nasty acronyms. Uh, we’ve, we’ve talked about these in the past. I was telling you off mic it was either last year or the year before we did email deliverability from uh at an NTC. SPF or DKIM first I live on the beach, so to me SPF is the sun protection factor. I look for at least 30 sometimes I I may transition to 50. I know that’s not what you’re talking about. Uh, let’s acquaint us first with these before we get to the deliverability advantages or disadvantages of each. Yeah well you know what I I’m gonna actually throw a third one in there and that’s D D M A C, OK, yeah, yeah, we’ll take one at a time. What’s our SPF? Gosh, OK, now I feel like you’re quizzing. It is a sender policy framework SPF. So there you go. Alright, yeah, and what’s its relevance to us in in the deliverability subject? Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna actually bucket these together. I’m not. No, no, so I think that these are, these are really important to understand. They’re very technical. I will say you only need to understand them once, probably, uh, the first time that you set up your email system, and then you only have to change them if you either change your domain name or send your change your sending IP address, which you probably don’t know what your sending IP address is, so TLDR if you move to a different email system. You know, whoever you’re sending from owns that IP address. All of these different frameworks are just different ways to say, hey, I’m sending an email and I’m allowed to do that and I am who I am, so I like using myself as an example. This doesn’t apply I’m not a bulk sender, but if I were a bulk sender. We’ll use MNR. M&R sends a labs post periodically, you know, I write about deliverability you get in your inbox. Um, the SPF DIM and DMmark are all different ways of saying hello, this email is indeed from M&R. I’m not spamming you. I’m not spoofing. I have permission to send, I have permission to use this IP address and these things all line up, um. Part of the reason I’m bundling this together is honestly, I have spent time trying to understand the technical differences between these and what all of them are. And it doesn’t stick in my head because I don’t need it that often. I mean we needed this initially when we set it up set up our email with our provider, yes, yeah, you, you need to talk to your your email provider, your CRM, whatever you wanna call it, and you need to have access to your DNS, which is the back end of your website essentially, yes, exactly, and it is essentially taking different pieces of code from different. Places and pasting them in other places to say what I said that you are a legitimate you’re sending OK so I think it’s bucket. There are a lot of really great resources about these. I, I will be honest, I am not one of them. I can tell you that you need to have it and I can tell you you should check and keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t break, but it is. Hopefully you set it and forget it. If we don’t have an IT uh CIO or an IT director manager, who should we check with? You should check with whoever you are sending your email out of. So your Salesforce, your Fonterra, every action, they will have their support team, um, so one of these again, uh, I don’t have a best friend of mine, one of those, they, they will. have to set up for you to provide the code to say you know we own this IP address and you’re allowed to send from it, but they will be able to help you through the other pieces because obviously they they want you to be able to send email successfully out of their system so they will be able to walk you through the technical difficulties or hopefully not difficulties, the technical details, give you the code, tell you where to put it, talk to if you don’t have an IT team, whoever is the best person with access to the back end of your website. Um, and that sort of thing that they’re gonna be a good resource. This is all about proving that you are who you say you have to send this. Name the sender that we’re telling you it’s coming from. It’s both the domain so whatever parts after the at sign of the email address, so MRSS.com for me uh and the IP address that is owned by that email tool that you’re using. OK, OK, um, we can spend more time together if if there’s more you want to say about deliverability that we haven’t talked about yet. Let’s see, I think the one other thing I wanna say is that um it’s really important to pay attention to and that means some sort of monitoring or reporting system. uh I think that it it is it can be tricky, right, because if you’re a small nonprofit, you don’t have a ton of resources, you’re gonna try to not pay attention until there’s a problem. That can be costly because then first of all you, you have a problem that you haven’t noticed for a while um and then it can be harder to fix and then you’re also trying to fix it at the same time you’re trying to figure out how can I tell if I fixed it. So I think it’s worth taking a little bit of. of time and setting up a couple of tools that will let you monitor what your deliverability is. Is it still generally better to have a mail to a smaller list that’s more engaged than a larger list with a lot of unengaged addresses? That’s a that’s a yes no question and I like to say it depends. um I think that what you wanna look at is how many people you’re actually reaching. I’m not gonna say like smaller is always better. I’m, I’m honestly more in that middle part. I wanna try and figure out how many people you can reach to maximize your program without hurting deliverability and kind of find that line and stay just on this side of it, um. Look at your actual numbers oftentimes if you’re sending to a huge list of people, the only big number is how many emails were sent and how many emails were delivered. You wanna look at, you know, we like to look at percentages, but you wanna look at like who in terms of numbers is actually opening or clicking and especially donating or taking action or signing up for your events or whatever that end goal is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, so there’s value, you just said this. I’m just reiterating. Uh, there is value in looking at the metrics, some key metrics. I don’t know, once a month or something or maybe more. It depends on how often you’re sending email, but I, I will say not once an email. Um, deliverability can be kind of volatile. So if you’re looking at it once an email is a good way to give yourself a scare and like have a false false positive in terms of there being a problem. Uh, once a month is usually good for most people or once a campaign. Um, and just taking a look at looking at that performance, if you can looking at performance by recipient domain, so dividing up and saying what was the open rate for my gmail.com subscribers, what was the open rate for my Yahoo.com subscribers because all those inbox providers have their own spam filters, so. Even though they use the same kinds of data, their users have different data points, so a decline consistent trend with one provider compared to the others, you might have an issue with that provider web person or IT provider. Rules at that provider. I mean, if you, if it’s noticeable enough that if it’s if it’s enough of a decline that it’s, it bothers you. And if it doesn’t bother you if it’s only a couple of maybe it’s not worth spending time on that. Yes, take a step back, look at your whole program. Yeah, I mean it’s good to look at individual domains because if Gmail thinks you’re you’re absolutely peachy and Yahoo thinks you’re sketchy, why would you do anything about Gmail? Why would you cut back on, you know, maybe main fix that you have is is to send to less engaged people and more sorry less unengaged people and more engaged people and if Gmail says, yeah, no, everybody’s engaged, why would you cut back sending there if the problems with Yahoo. OK, savvy advice overall. Thank you. All right, Ann, Ann, and Pasaic, managing production specialist M and give your grandma my good wishes. I admire 92. I do plan to fundraising, so I work with 70, 80, 90 year olds and I don’t know any 90 year olds with an Apple Watch, so she’s an outlier on, on the good side. On the on the Ambitious. Yeah, in the connected. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ann. Thanks for sharing and thank you for listening as 25 NTC, the 2025 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting. Next week, healthier productivity from AI with Mika Whitlock and Jason Shim. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for May 12, 2025: Connect Small Donors To Your Major Donor Event & Add Experiential Elements To Your Events

Jenn Lejano & Jess Ray: Connect Small Donors To Your Major Donor Event

Jenn Lejano and Jess Ray show you how to connect folks who would never come to your expensive event, to your expensive event. They’ll help you broaden event support by engaging donors you’re probably leaving on the sidelines, with actionable strategies to engage your entire donor base. Jenn is from Fresh Eyes Digital and Jess is with The Adler Planetarium. This is part of our coverage of the 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference (#25NTC).

 

Genie Gratto: Add Experiential Elements To Your Events

You can learn from big brands to create buzz and emotional connections around your events, without spending the money they do. You’ll engage your supporters emotionally as you incorporate experiential and interactive features into your events. Genie Gratto is at GWRITES. The resource she shared is here. This conversation is also from #25NTC.

 

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And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Did you notice last week’s show was all AI? This week’s show also has a theme. I, I want you to know that this show is meticulously, scrupulously planned week after week. These things don’t just happen. It’s not random. It’s, it’s carefully plotted week after week. And I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the embarrassment of Catahora if you woke me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s going on. Hey Tony, we’re all about events today with two conversations from 25 NTC. First, Connect small donors to your major donor event. Jen Le Hanno and Jess Ray show you how to connect folks who would never come to your expensive event to your expensive event. They’ll help you broaden event support by engaging donors you’re probably leaving on the sidelines with actionable strategies to engage your entire donor base. Jen is from Fresh Eyes Digital, and Jess is with the Adler Planetarium. Then Add experiential elements to your events. You can learn from big brands to create buzz and emotional connections around your events without spending the money they do. You’ll engage your supporters emotionally as you incorporate experiential and interactive features into your events. Jenny Grotto is at Grs. On Tony’s take 2. The federal budget Here is connect small donors to your major donor event. inaugurating our coverage of 25 NTC, the 2025 nonprofit Technology Conference with this very interview right now that you are listening to. It’s our first one of the, of the, of the conference. We’re all together in Baltimore at the Baltimore Convention Center. Where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting software and services in technology for nonprofits. My guests now are Jen Lehano. Did I say your name right? I should have asked you off mic. Leno is good. All right. And Jess Ray. Jen is a partner and co-founder at Fresh Eyes Digital. Jess Ray is associate director of individual giving at the Adler Planetarium, which we all know is in Chicago, Illinois. Jen, Jess, I’m sure to get confused, uh, you’re not even you are sitting in alphabetical order if you get, but, uh, my first, my first and last name, right, Jen, Jess, welcome. Thank you, pleasure to have you. Thank you for kicking off our, our coverage of 25 MTC. Your session topic is connect small dollar donors to your major donor event. Uh, let’s start, uh, down the end of the panel of two. Jen, Jen, Jess, exactly. I did that on purpose. Just testing us. Uh, I wish I could, I wish that were true. Uh, OK, Jess, thank you. Um, yeah, uh, this is not even something that I would that I think is on the radar of a lot of event fundraising planners, uh, nonprofits, just like overview, we got plenty of time together, but overview, uh. Well, why did you think we should be doing this? Why did you feel this was a necessary topic? Well, um, first of all, the Adler is really inclusive, so we wanted to make sure that we were, um, bringing everyone into our space, and we also wanted to take advantage of our wonderful partner Tom Skilling who Chicagoans will know and he really connects with people so that was our thought is how do we um. Use him in a way that is both makes sense for him as well for us in taking advantage of our event that otherwise we would ignore. OK um and are you, are you both in Chicago or I am yeah OK and uh is the Adler Planetarium. Uh, a client of specialized digital. Oh, OK, so we have a client, uh, a client consultant relationship. All right, um, why don’t, why don’t you give us your overview. So I think, you know, one of the things when Jen. Really, are you sure? Are you sure it’s Jack? Damn. There’s only 2. I mean, I have 50 50% chances and I blow it every time. I’m not buying lottery tickets for that, Jen, that’s what I said, yeah, um, so you know, one of the things when we were working with the team at Adler, uh, you know, their celestial bash, which is their annual fundraising gala was coming up, and you know one of the things that they talked about was like, you know, how do we do more with our individual donors? We have this event. The ticket price for that. Event is not for individual donors, right? It’s a mid major more on the major side, um, in terms of the ticket price because it’s a fundraising event, it’s a large gala, um, you know, it’s, it’s not something that like your everyday $50 donor is gonna probably attend and our advice actually was ignore your gala. Right, so it was, uh, we shouldn’t actually be making this about the gala or about um the major donor event but we should engage people by using the celebrity Tom Skilling, um, uh, you know, using the gala uh timeline as a deadline for the campaign and we should build an individual giving campaign pre-event that helps drive momentum and drive interest as we’re getting up to that event. So the goal was really actually don’t try to. Great individual donors into your major donor event, but let’s give something for individual donors to get excited about that connects to your event so that was that was kind of how we were approaching it. OK um and and Jess, so connect to the event but not so you’re not inviting. Uh, when you say small dollar donors, which I, you know, I appreciate, you know, a lot of, a lot of folks in our community will say modest donors, like, like you’re insulting them if you say they’re small donors or small dollar donors, but you’re not commenting on their character. They’re not small people. They just make small gifts. I just call it what it is. So, so thank you for saying small dollar donors are not modest. I mean, I don’t mind modest, but small, they make small gifts. They’re not, they’re not small people. All right, so you’re, you’re connecting with the gala, but You’re not inviting the folks to the gala, is that right, Jess? Correct, OK, so explain the connection, but you don’t get an invitation. uh, say, say a little more Jess. So one of the things we also took advantage of was our theme for the gala and which was on Wonder and so Todd does just inspire wonder and all when you interact with him. So we created a special campaign and like Jen said, use the bash event date as the like ground. point to say oh we have a match in place we need to get it in by this date and that’s how we used it to circle around and taking advantage of also um the media that we had around the celestial event because we were honoring Tom to mention to the wider base like our WGN. Post about the campaigns, yeah. I’m sorry. OK. All right, get the word out about it too. So the small dollar donors. Uh, the campaign to the small dollar donors, does it mention the gala or it just says it just uses the gala, very little, so yeah, and that was intentional. So I think like one of the things as consultants that we’ve seen is um nonprofits tend to overemphasize the importance. I’m Jen yeah there we go. You got it you got it this time. Now you can get the lottery ticket, um, yeah, but we have. There’s plenty of time to spoil, um, but so many nonprofits come to us and say, oh, we’re having this event and the event really becomes the central focus for the organization and it is kind of exclusionary to most of their donors, right? And so you know we talked about like could we, how do we get individual donors kind of involved and finally it was like we don’t, right? Like we don’t try to get them involved in the gala but we use all of that energy and. The effort that the nonprofit themselves are putting into the gala to create a campaign that will work for individual donors and so we didn’t talk about the gala a lot in email communications or in social posts things like that um we did talk about how Tom Skilling was being honored at the upcoming gala so that it wasn’t like we were hiding it but um but really I think the advice is I mean we’re kind of flipping this on its head, right? The advice is not for you to like get your small dollar donors involved in your. Major donor event it’s actually to ignore the major donor event and get your small dollar donors uh involved ahead of time and there are things that I think you can do at an event right that could um I mean if we didn’t have time to pull this off this year right? but I think like you could have kind of uh uh you know a thank you wall or something at the event that’s thanking those individual donors the one thing that I think Tom did really beautifully at the event. Was he made sure to call out the campaign because he was really proud of the campaign we we branded it the Tom Skilling great space Challenge, right? And so it was, you know, help raise $35,000 and it’ll be matched dollar for dollar and he posted it on all of his social networks, things like that, right? And then when he was at the event he was like, I am blown away by how many people donated and how many people love Adler and this campaign was a. Amazing. And so at the major donor event he was talking about the individual giving campaign and his impact that he had by running that campaign with Adler was the yeah let’s let’s give a shout to this guy Tom Skilling the Adlers in Chicago I don’t know. It is if anyone is listening, if anyone is listening from Chicago, I’m sure that by right now there’s like screaming because he’s he’s just the most authentic genuine person you’ve ever met. He’s the weatherman from WGM. He’s a weatherman, yeah, he’s been a weatherman for 45 years but he recently retired. OK, so he’s he’s on. Just retired and so we also took advantage of him retiring yeah now he’s spending his time in Hawaii and Chicago, but yeah, so he fled Chicago. I’m sure Tom would not do that. um, so what, um, what did the campaign look like? So give us a little more detail on what, uh, so yeah, I mean, so we um we developed uh the. Campaign plan, uh, the number of emails we were gonna send, uh, recommendations on social posts, and then, um, our amazing designer Thelma Andre who’s here volunteering at NTC, um, she developed the graphics and so she did this kind of, um, cartoonish, uh, you know, because it’s a really fun campaign, uh, the Tom Scaling Great Space Challenge and all of Adler’s, uh, brand colors and guidelines, um, and you know, and again a lot of this really rested on. Tom’s own promotion because he has a very engaged active Facebook following and um and he’s definitely sometimes one of those all caps posters you know like he’s just so enthusiastic and so he promoted the campaign multiple times and was often ready before we were saying like just let me know when I need to put this on Facebook I’ll do it my followers will do anything I know they will um so you know so we developed kind of all of the assets for the uh for the digital campaign. Um, and worked with the Adler team on, on how, how long was the it was just 3 or 4 weeks before the, before the thing. We didn’t want it to be too long. We really wanted to have it in a condensed time frame, which is how we often run a lot of digital campaigns, but, um, and you know, and then with the goal of to meet the matching gift for the 35,000 dollars, yeah, yeah, and you had a donor who was, uh, stepped up to do that we did that match, OK yeah. Um, I mean, what else are you gonna, I know you haven’t done your session yet because the sessions haven’t started. We’re, we’re in the midst of the opening keynote right now. That’s what you’re in the background. Um, what else are you gonna share? We still have time together. What else are you gonna share with your audience? I mean, we actually, we have two sessions that we’re presenting and they’re in the it’s both about the same campaign but from a different angle so we have connecting the small dollar donors um and then also like utilizing a celebrity influencer right? like so how do you make the most out of working with somebody like a Tom Skilling, um, how do you make the right asks, um, how do you prioritize your asks when they have limited time. Um, and so we’re doing two sessions actually kind of related to that campaign. Alright, let’s focus on the dollar donor side, um, and what else, what else is there on the, the small, you know, like actionable strategies is what I’m just reading from your, your session description, actionable strategies for engaging your entire donor base. What, what did you do? This is, is this the first year you did this? Small dollar donor campaign for before I gave up a major event, OK, yeah, yeah. What we really focused on. Was capturing the right tone and messaging so that it related to everyone and donors are donors, but you do speak a little bit differently to your average everyday small dollar donor than you do maybe a major donor or an institutional donor, so making sure that it came through an Adler’s authentic language and audience um. Voice, but as well as it made it made sense that it was coming from Tom Skilling so that was really important to when he’s talking through his Facebook to make sure that it sounded like him, even though it was wrote by the Adler so that was a really big part was to make sure that you’re speaking at the right way to your donors that make them feel like they’re part of it even though they are not attending the event that we had minimize, they know that it’s still happening but they don’t feel left out. When you were uh defining who’s gonna be part of the campaign, what what kind of criteria did you use in querying was it any size gift or what kind of period of time, what what what what were your parameters? We did have a special page that any gifts given towards that, so we ranged from I think $5 to somebody gave a $3000 gift into that campaign. um, so that all counted and then I think yeah Jen said. 23 weeks during that period also counted I means be invited to join the queries uh yeah so it was it was the full file it was the full file minus um the folks that they had already identified as invitees to the to the the everybody right, right, and I think I don’t in years past you had you had done an invite. Kind of out to everybody, right? And and that was the thing that they didn’t want to repeat, right? Because it was like uh it’s very tone deaf. Yeah, like nobody’s gonna buy those tickets, right, they were all digital, so we didn’t do any, we don’t do at this time. But actually when we look at when we crunch the numbers, a lot of them were first time donors that we had garnered through Tom. he has great outreach and engagement. OK, so you, you were able to acquire some new donors. And uh what about the, the overall revenue the arbuilding since 2020 and this was a 35,000 dollars, right? OK. And then didn’t we get you got that one we did we um we also had an anonymous donor reach out that was so um inspired by this campaign to say that they want to make sure we meet that match no matter what and we responded back, well, we’ve actually already met it. Thank you so much. We do still have a gap on our event uh goal and they’re like, how much is it? and said oh it’s about $45 like no problem, and they just sent us a check for $5000 yeah, outstanding. There’s something about planetariums. What is it? How come I love? I grew up with the um uh in New York City, the Hayden’s because we have the sky above us and so can look up s looking up to the sky. It’s a universal thing that brings us all together. Yeah, very well. So you didn’t think much of that movie Don’t look upon. I actually didn’t see that one. Do you know? Do you know? Oh no, it’s a big, it’s a great satire of our current politics and There’s this, there’s this earth threatening asteroid or major outer space object headed to Earth, and there are a lot of people who who don’t want you to know about it, so they just say don’t look up. satire. It’s it’s pure satire. Leonardo DiCaprio is very good. Um, is Amy Adams, I think too. I’m not sure about Amy Adams, but Leonardo DiCaprio is very good. You’ll love it’s a good satire. I’ll have to check it out. Thank you. Don’t look up. Um, alright, anything else that we we still have some time if uh if you do, is there anything more you’re gonna say that uh you haven’t shared don’t hold out on nonprofit radio listeners on the side. I just, you know, I just think it’s, um, I think again it’s like a little bit about approach and just thinking, you know, instead of starting with the question of like how do we bring these people into this big event. Of thinking a little bit more kind of audience first or donor first, right? Like so we know these folks are not gonna buy tickets to this, right? And even though I mean it was an awesome event I got the chance to go and you know you’re walking around the planetarium blah blah blah but yeah, I mean donors just don’t think of right they don’t have the resources or they don’t believe that they have the capacity or they just don’t or they. but don’t have interest, you’re not you’re you’re not one of the top charities. So yeah, they don’t, they love you, but not that, not just not that much. So there’s just, there’s, I mean you were not in that way, yeah, but, but you were realistic about that. These are folks that are not gonna come. Like the odds of them buying a ticket are so small. So let’s, and so Jane, you had the idea of let’s try to do something else like that. How do we engage them and how do we meet them where they are and I think like especially when you’re in kind of and I know Jess can speak to this more right but when you’re in the chaos of um prepping for an event and when it takes up kind of all of the air in the room especially for the entire staff right like it’s it’s all hands on deck for that kind of an event and it’s so critically important in terms of fundraising. Um, that it can be really tough to step back and be like, oh but how are we engaging the folks who are not coming to the event, right? And so I think the planning started early. I mean we started talking about this spring, yeah, like in the in the spring and the event was in September, right? So we started just kind of percolating on like how are we gonna do this and what is a way we can do this it’ll be really effective um and help you with a fundraising goal. It’s not gonna bring in the million dollars of your major donor event right? um but. There is kind of a place for individual donors to be a part of it even if we’re not specifically saying like you know this is our annual gala campaign like we would never call it an annual gala campaign because also nobody gives a shit about that so like you know like it just right right so I think like um but you know the the team at Adler is just I mean first of all they all work incredibly well together and I think have really great lines of communication and I think that ability to kind of be like. You know we don’t wanna we don’t wanna just send out a blanket invite we don’t really know how to do this but we wanna do something and um because I do think like the mission is so inspiring and they’re I mean their assets, their um their voice, their tone. Um, it’s one of the most fun brands that we get to work with, um, because it’s, I mean if you you should follow them on social media, their social media is really fun and incredible, um, but you know they just, it, it’s all very heartfelt and everybody really loves being there and you can kind of see that and feel that in their communications and that’s what we wanted to make sure it came through in the campaign as well to engage those donors authentically is really important with us so we don’t wanna be talking down to anyone. And make them feel that they are welcome in our space even if they aren’t at the event. Yeah, you’re not ignore them for the whatever the two months that lead up to the campaign I mean the gala when when like you said um it’s all, it’s all hands on deck. Everybody’s devoted to it and we’re ignoring what I don’t know, 80% of our file or whatever right exactly that’s exactly what we don’t want to do, right. All right, yeah, and anything else you feel like we’ve I feel like, yeah, I think so. Alright, alright. You’re Jenjano, uh, and co-founder of Fresh Eyes Digital, Chicago-based, and Jess Ray, associate director of individual giving at the Adler Planetarium, also Chicago, of course. Um, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jen. And Jess, you got it right. Thank you, thank you for come back year after year and then like names or something. Thank you very much. Thanks for sharing and thank you for being with Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 25 NTC the 2025 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting. It’s time for Tony’s Take-Two. Thank you, Kate. We’re in the process now in Washington DC that the Trump regime’s uh proposed budget is under consideration and it has to be approved by the Senate and the House, which means it can be amended by the Senate and the House. I’m concerned that there are things in this budget that are very bad for the nonprofit community, including individual members of the nonprofit community. Uh, I wrote on LinkedIn, uh, about this extensively. Uh, by the time you hear this, it’ll be last week’s LinkedIn, uh, long post, about as long it’s like one extra character I could put in. So about the longest you can, it’s the longest you can put in LinkedIn, um, but I’m urging. All of us in the nonprofit community to stand together in support of the community at large, because we all know how important all the work is that all of us do. Throughout the community and standing for individual members, nonprofits that are being targeted, like. Harvard University and the public broadcasting system. My encouragement in that LinkedIn post is to contact your House Representative and your two senators and not just do it once but multiple times, even if you can take 5 minutes a day to call the 3 of them. One at a time, and then on the 4th day, go back to the top of the list and call the 3 of them in the next 3 days. We have to keep up the pressure. The nonprofit community is so much stronger when we stand together united. Again, for the whole community, but also for each of our individual members. Cause when they go after one, and they succeed, they go after a 2nd, they succeed, it’s like a row of dominoes. And you know what happens to the dominoes that are lined up right after the 1st 1 and the second one. If you want, you can take a look at the LinkedIn post from last week, or just Be calling your congress people. Repeatedly To keep up the pressure that the nonprofit community and it’s each of its, each of its members. not be targeted by this budget. That is Tony’s take 2. Kate I don’t have much to add other than everyone has the right to make sure that their voice is heard, and if you like can’t go to protests and you just wanna stay home, stay home and make a phone call. It’s all you gotta do. There are a lot of ways to be involved and, and the lots of different forms of activism. You’re right. We’ve got Boku but loads more time. Here is add experiential elements to your events. Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 25 NTC, the 2025 nonprofit Technology Conference. We’re together in community at the Baltimore, Maryland Convention Center. Our coverage of 25 NTC is sponsored by Heller Consulting Technology services for nonprofits. With me now is Jeannie Grotto, communications strategist and consultant at GWrights. Jeannie, welcome to nonprofit radio. Well, thank you for having me. It’s good to be here. I’m glad you are. Thank you. Your session topic is add experiential elements to nonprofit events on a budget. And uh why don’t you give me an overview of what, uh, some sense of for our listeners in small and mid-size nonprofits, some sense of what uh what experiential events. Yeah, I mean, you know that’s anything where you can have sort of an interactive. Thing something that you’re doing like something that your audience members are doing that um allows them to really participate in the event in a different way so they’re not just passively engaged in the event they’re being part of it, being part of that event story. um. And we can do this without uh like affectation I mean we can we can weave it into the event. Absolutely. I mean I think um really what you’re trying to do anytime you have an event uh and you this doesn’t have to cost money is really think about the story that you want that event to tell so it’s almost like a three act structure. Right, it’s like act one is leading up to the event and kind of how are you preparing people to come into where you are. Act 2 is really at the event itself and then act 3, which is actually the hardest I think um is following up afterwards and how are you keeping people engaged in the mission. Um, and in the work that you were hoping they would get out of the event. OK. Oh, interesting. Alright, so good, we can weave this into our longer term goals for the event, which is longer term participation not just for an afternoon or exactly exactly and I think that’s the hardest, especially for small nonprofits, I think, um, and medium sized even large ones. I always talk about yeah yeah I mean I talk a lot about and and have been part of teams um where there’s a big event maybe a big annual event and the whole organization ends up in what we call this kind of whirlpool of the event itself um everybody gets sucked into this world. And then all of a sudden like there’s very little other work happening in the organization and so even people that are not used to working on events are working on it and being part of that process and so everybody gets sucked in then you have the event there’s all this adrenaline leading up to that and then you know you’re working really hard at the event. And then everybody hits the wall at the end of the event and everything stops and that is the part that I think is hardest for uh nonprofit staff if you know if you’re a corporation that has regular corporate events you have a whole events team and that’s all they’re doing so they’re used to that cycle of like following up afterward and getting people to. Participate in different ways um I think it’s harder for staffs that are either less experienced at events or just smaller staffs to really do that final push after the event and kind of carry it all the way through but that’s when you get the most bang for your buck with people connecting to your mission. Yeah, yeah, and you might try to unmute, um, see, see, see what happens, see what happens, uh, because since it’s just two of us, unmute our loudspeaker. We’ll see, um, you have some uh advice or strategies that we can learn from big brands in, in, uh, experiential events. Yeah, I mean I think that people, people really do look to big brands and think oh like they’re the ones that can do this so the the examples that I used in my session, um you know for example IKEA has an app that uses augmented reality you can pick out a piece of furniture. You can point your camera at your room, your living room or whatever, say you’ve picked a couch, it’ll put the couch in the middle of the room for you and you can really see what it looks like and um you know what they’re trying to do is engage you in feeling more confident about your purchase and feeling more comfortable with what the product’s really gonna look like um and that is a cool experience too like it’s really cool to be able to kind of place the couch that you haven’t purchased yet, right? Um, yeah, so it’s it’s like there’s a try on room for for furniture exactly and you know I mean it’s, it’s not cheap to develop that software that 3D software. My husband is a 3D software engineer. I know what it takes to get that stuff up and running. It’s hard and um and so that’s not the kind of thing that a nonprofit is gonna do, of course, but again it’s that that like you’re trying to engage people’s emotions and you can do that at kind of any scale. So another example I use. Um, you know, we’ve got to give love to Taylor Swift and so Taylor Swift had, um, worked with Spotify to do this installation right before the Tortured poets department was released and it was this library installation in LA. It was in Glendale somewhere, um, and it was just this thing you stood in line and then you could move through the library. There were little interactive elements. There were places where you could write things down, you could read little lyrics that weren’t released yet, so it was like a little puzzle, yeah, and you. Of course both Spotify and Taylor Swift have huge marketing budgets, but you know you can always have you could put out a set of journals for people to leave messages in at your event that costs the cost of the journals and the pens and you give people prompts to put in those journals and that doesn’t cost anything but it does allow people to have just a little bit of interactivity if it again you know like if that is an appropriate thing tied to your mission. In some way you get, you know, the prompts need to be tied in or whatever, it allows people to have that kind of tactile activity that then they can, you know, really. Feel part of the mission and part of the story. And then just to follow that thread, what what would you end up or pull on the thread or mix my metaphors, um, what would you do with those, those journal prompts that people write no I’m sorry, you’re providing the prompts, I mean the journal entries, well, yeah, you could use them in a number of ways. I mean, obviously you wanna make sure people know how they’re gonna get used before you use them, um, and one of the other pieces that I always recommend is to sort of think through any kind of interactivity or experiential element. Um, in ways that fit different needs, so not everybody is gonna be able to write something down. You might have folks who either can’t see to do that, maybe they, you know, aren’t able to and so figuring out maybe an alternative thing, maybe they can leave some voice memos that you could use or maybe there’s some other way that they can interact with those prompts but again it’s just, you know, that’s the kind of thing where people can come up it’s kind of like. Little activity station they can be part of it if you wanted to use that as user user generated content on social or on websites or things like that that would be one way maybe it’s something where you are even in kind of real time bringing up copies of the journals and having people read pieces of them out loud you know I mean I think like really it’s it’s less about the details of the activity and more about. How can you sort of think very creatively about ways to engage people experientially at the moment in ways that are tied to your mission? So we’ve kind of segued into from big brands to what nonprofits can do. So, I love the journal entry, uh, journal idea not not expensive like you said, but experiential nonetheless. What what other strategies tactics? Yeah, I mean, so there’s kind of three principles that I like people to really think about so one of them is indeed that it needs to be really interactive and so there needs to be something participatory about it. Um, something else that I like people to think about is, um, making it sensory, you know, like not just thinking about sight, um, thinking about sound, thinking about taste, touch, you know, all of the think about all the senses and how to engage those in different ways and you don’t have to engage all of them in any of these things, but that also. Locks a little piece of this which is that you know it provides different things what’s the music you choose like you know if you’re gonna be choosing music to play you know as people are walking up on stage or something like that like how is that gonna fit in to whatever your mission is, whatever your theme is all of that um and you know again it’s um. It’s just part of thoughtful event design, but if you are really thinking about how to tie all of these pieces back to your mission, it can be really helpful. So for example, um, a music example is when we had the Grace Hopper celebration. I used to work for Anita B.org and they have the Grace Hopper celebration every year which is a big, big, big and well funded conference that serves women in tech from around the world and so we. We had to create a playlist of songs that could be used um you know it breaks and things like that and we had a lot of criteria we had to meet to be able to they needed to be empowering they needed to be clean like the lyrics needed to be clean we needed to think about the needs of audience members from all around the world and all different cultures and religious backgrounds and so we had to it took us a long time to make this list of songs. But that was again it was intentional and then you know you know did you Helen Reddy, I am by chance? I think we did. I think we did, although we were it was the International, it was a song of international women in it was it came out in 1977 or something like that. I know we were skewing a little more contemporary, but I think, you know, that one always shows up. So what are you gonna do, yes, Simon and Garfunkel, please. These are all my favorites too, not for the, not for the tech women’s uh women’s tech conference. Alright, um, OK, no, so music, yeah, music. What other like, alright, so I would not have thought of music. What, what other sensory, I mean, aside from we’re gonna get to some hopefully like some activities type things, but, but just general sensory. Uh, visuals, visuals, sounds, I mean we’re probably not thinking about, right? I mean, I think you know if so for example if you’re doing visuals, I mean you know of any kind, you wanna also think about what about the folks who can’t see it, you know, I mean, is there, are there gonna be ways for people to get audio description? Are there gonna be other ways for people to interact with something. Um, is there a tactile element? So one of the ideas that I put in or that we talked about in the session was, um, you know, letting people vote on something, um, with some sort of tactile object. So I think uh like I was talking specifically about, um, in Iowa City there’s a restaurant that like does this coffee bean voting thing during the primary and during the caucus season. And there is something really satisfying and a lot of people with a lot of different abilities can do it where you’re like picking up a coffee bean out of this bowl of coffee beans and then you’re dropping it into this glass jar for each for the candidate that you’re choosing and you’re hearing that and it’s like hitting that pool of coffee beans and you’re hearing it like maybe rattle against. The jar on the way down um and you know and then you’re able to stand there and look at kind of where the levels are on the different candidates and kind of get a sense of where the caucus might go in that part of Johnson County um and you know I think that nonprofits could use an idea like that maybe there’s you know maybe you’re asking folks for input on. You know, 3 policy priorities like what are the ones that you think are most important in the coming year or um you know any other thing like that you know something that where people can kind of give their input in a real tactile way and then also you’ve got. The opportunity to take pictures of that and you’ve got these kind of nice layered looks and you can use those pictures to sort of show that like what people are feeling who came to the event there’s all kinds of ways to sort of spool this out good visuals yeah OK OK. Um, Anything else uh you wanna transition well, the, the, the third thing that, um, that I did not say is sort of the third principle is that, um, is that storytelling aspect of it and like really helping folks feel like part of that story of your events. So what again this. It’s back to that sort of 3 act narrative that we were talking about like where do you want them to come in on that story line? How do you want them to feel part of it and the more emotional connection they have with that story and often these interactive activities can help them build that connection um. The more they have that connection they will again support your mission in so many ways they’ll take action on your policy issues they’ll be more likely to be donors they’ll be more likely to like come back and maybe volunteer they’ll open your emails you know I mean there’s just so many ways in which this stuff ends up paying off in the long haul. Um, how about, um, activities that we can, uh, I’d like to talk maybe some activities before or during and then post and how you can, uh, because the, the post engagement is so important. So maybe one or two that you know during that you’ve seen or recommend, I mean you you can’t recommend because it depends on your mission, your events give us some mind opening uh an example or two, um, so I’m gonna give you one. I’m gonna tell a story that I uh I told the group and I also had shared in one other thing so before I came to this conference the Saturday before I went to a writer’s conference in DC, um, just it was a one day conference it was sponsored, uh, or run by Barrel House magazine, which is their press and a literary magazine, um, they do also put out books and I had never been to the conference before. Um, it’s about 200 people, so it’s much smaller than NTC, and it’s a pretty low budget conference. It was $85 to register and so one of the elements that they have of this is they have editor speed dating, so they have editors from different genres you can print out a few pages of what you have. Everybody got one ticket for a speed date as part of their registration, but. Um, you could purchase more if there was time you could purchase more for $5 a ticket, which gave them a little bit more revenue, um, and so you stood in this line and then they would bring everybody into this auditorium and sign you out to an editor and then they read your piece really quickly and give you some feedback. Well, you know, though I was standing there with an essay that I have worked on a lot and I feel like it’s in pretty good shape, I knew that it needed more work feeling a little. Vulnerable and I know I was not alone in that and I look over on the wall next to the line and there is an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper and it doesn’t even have the barrel house logo on it. It just had conversations and connections practical advice for writers in their like brand color and it was like you know white text on the red brand color and then down below it just with black text on white it said you are doing great. And right there in that line I’m like, oh look, they see me and now I feel really kind of connected to this magazine. I’m gonna go home and subscribe probably you know and like um and it just it was this like little tiny moment. All it took was somebody thinking about that ahead of time thinking about what the audience was gonna need thinking about ways that we were gonna be interacting and recognizing that all of us standing in that line we’re feeling really vulnerable at that moment and we might need a little encouragement and just leaving it where we could see it. It didn’t take any work at all and almost no money. Incredible, but yeah, it took it took you need to be intentional. Alright, alright, uh, OK, before we leave the uh intro event to get to the post event. Any more advice about how to conceive of what works for you? I mean you, you, you hit it hard, you know, mission, obviously a mission related, maybe part of bigger goals for the um for the event as well as the organization. Anything else that. Yeah, I mean, I, no I mean I think it’s gotta have some sort of, it’s gotta give you an emotional connection yeah that’s like somebody’s got this is your responsibility to come up with correct something experiential for us. No, I mean I yeah this is something that I think any event staff like any team that’s putting together an event should just be thinking about like where are these places that you can kind of set these little intentional. Um, spots for people to engage and for people to be part of this conversation with the organization because that’s really what it is, right? It’s you’re, you’re trying to build a relationship and that’s what brands want the big brands wanna do they wanna build that relationship with you through emotion through connection so that you’ll buy their stuff in this case, you know, we can do the same thing in the nonprofit sector. But do that through different means, but it’s still the same effect. You wanna build emotion and then you wanna use that to leverage to get connection. OK, excellent emotion. Yeah, if you hit someone in the heart, you know, then I think the brain follows, uh, plus they’re saying the next day, oh my God, I went to this fun afternoon. I was, uh, you know, it was, I thought it was gonna be a typical charity lunch, but it turned out they had, you know, whatever and we were doing this all together and. So much fun when I got greeted this way or it could be something at the coat check, you know, whatever it is, right, so let’s go event are we continuing our experiential time? Sure, and the post event is the more challenging for sure because you’ve got people who dispersed. It’s not like you can just sort of set up a table. Um, but some of the ways that you can build that connection and keep that connection going is I know that like we’re moving as a sector away from just sort of sending people home with a bunch of random swag, right? Um, nobody needs little stuff that is just gonna sit around their house or that it’s gonna end up in their kids’ basket of junk, yeah, or more tote bags and things like that, um. But what I would say is that there might be a thoughtful piece of low lift swag that you can send home with people that will let people continue to engage. So for example, examples I talked about yesterday were um. If you’re a literacy organization like sending someone home with a bookmark with maybe some ideas for how they can stay involved on that bookmark maybe they’ll use it maybe they won’t but you know if they’re working with if they’re interested in a literacy organization they’re probably a reader and so you can probably um assume that they will be reading books and they might use it um I also suggested that like another low lift idea was if you’re an environmental organization. Send people out the door with a packet of seeds. It doesn’t have to be like a specially branded packet of seeds. Um, I know TechSoup is here. They’ve got these like beautiful little pots with little seed things embedded in them, yeah they do. It’s lovely, um, but I see, yeah, and seeds exactly grants, exactly, um, but you know it doesn’t even have to be that elaborate. It can just be go to your local hardware store, get a bunch of seed packets, print. Out some labels with your logo and you know sort of a thank you for being part of our our growth or something I don’t know um put that on the packets and hand those to people as they go. Some people will plant them some people will take them home and put them in that drawer, you know, the junk drawer that has the other seed packets like I have that I haven’t planted yet exactly, but at some point I’m gonna open that drawer and I’m gonna take out that seed packet as I’m cleaning out the drawer and be like, oh right. I need to re up my connection with this particular organization, you know, so it’s, it’s ways of sort of leaving things with people after the fact um the other idea that I shared yesterday is, uh, if you’ve got a big keynote speaker that might be, you know, that is of real interest to your audience which is hopefully what you’ve brought in um. Having them maybe do kind of like a behind the scenes or backstage message that’s beyond the keynote that’s sort of like thanks so much and here are ways that you can continue supporting this organization and then emailing that out to folks after the fact so they have or texting it to folks however you’re regularly communicating with people so that they have that too as a little takeaway and just a reminder that you know the organization was thinking beyond the end of the event and you should be too. OK, um, have you ever seen anything where you’re welcome to say no, this is a harebrained idea, like with a male, I mean, everybody was in one place at one time, but, uh, like ship a surprise or mail a surprise or anything like that after event. I have seen a little bit of that, but I actually also suggested to folks that one kind of during the event during the event you could absolutely. Have some sort of letter writing station where you are perhaps having people write letters to policy makers or to you know whatever you know whoever and then you’re mailing those after but you could also have people write letters to themselves that you mail like a month later that again you know by then they’ve forgotten that they wrote the thing and then it comes in and they’ll remember as soon as they see the envelope of course but it’s like this. Just this post touch point that’s like oh yeah get you back to that moment when you were writing that letter to yourself so maybe it’s about asking you, you know, maybe you’re asking people to make some sort of pledge of what they’re gonna do when they get back from the event or get home that evening or you know whatever and then they get it in the mail and they’re reminded to take the action and they’re reminded of the event and they’re reminded of your connection to them and then theirs to you OK. Anything else? What, what else, uh, what other topic, uh, did you cover in the session? I don’t want you to hold out on nonprofit radio listeners. I mean that was, that was the big, the big thing. There were tons and tons of ideas, um, and I did, uh, I did share this in in the collaborative notes, but I would also be happy to share that link to kind of a two-page handout that has all like all the ideas I shared in the, uh, entire session. Um, I’d be happy to or can you just say it now? Uh, it’s, it’s a Google doc. It’s like a PDF on Google, but yeah, but you could absolutely include that in your show notes if you wanted. I mean, I think that, um, I always believe that more ideas out in the sector is better than fewer, so I have no. Right of ownership to any of them and I’m happy to have people take them and use them as inspiration and you know really make their events engaging and exciting and emotionally connected. OK, yeah, we’ll get the link from you and we’ll put it in the show notes for the Google Drive. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you so much for having me. Oh my pleasure. Thank you, Jeannie, for sharing all your ideas. Jeannie Grotto, communication strategist and consultant at Gs. Thanks, Tony. My pleasure and thank you for being with Tony Martignetti Nonprofit radio coverage of the 25, 2025 nonprofit technology conference where our coverage is sponsored by Heller Consulting technology services for nonprofits. Next week, 225 NTC conversations that are random, disjointed, and unrelated. Wait. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.