Art Taylor: A Conversation With Art Taylor
He’s the recently appointed president and CEO of AFP, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, so we’re on hiatus from our 25NTC interviews for one more week. Art explains the value of AFP in our community, including enforcing professional ethics; reflects on our challenges and how to advocate for our sector; shares his thoughts on fashion, guided by his wardrobe stylist wife, Yolanda; challenges us to improve donor participation; and urges us to take responsibility for our community’s image and performance.
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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. Last week, we promised a return to our 25 NTC coverage this week. Uh, it’s not happening and I blame the associate producer. On another topic, this is show number 745. That means we are 5 weeks away from the preeminent 15th anniversary and 750th show. Stand by 5 weeks to go. Oh, I am glad you’re with us. I’d be hit with auricular hypertrichosis if I had to hear the hairy idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, with what’s up this week. Hey Tony, we’ve got A conversation with Art Taylor. He’s the recently appointed president and CEO of AFP, the Association of Fundraising Professionals. So we’re on hiatus from our 25 NTC interviews for one more week. It’s not my fault, blame the pod father who writes my script each week. Art explains the value of AFP in our community, including enforcing professional ethics, reflects on our challenges and how to advocate for our sector, shares his thoughts on fashion guided by his wardrobe stylist wife Yolanda, challenges us to improve donor participation, and urges us to take responsibility for our community’s image and performance on Tony’s Take too. Hails from the gym. Another semper fi moment. Here is a conversation with Art Taylor. It’s a pleasure to welcome Herman Art Taylor back to nonprofit radio. Art is president and CEO of the Association of Fundraising Professionals AFP. He had been president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance from 2001 to 2025 this year. At the Wise Giving Alliance, he co-authored the overhead myth letters with the guide star and Charity Navigator CEOs. That was 2013 when art was last on nonprofit radio with the two other CEOs. He’s been a lecturer at Columbia University and adjunct faculty at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. You’ll find Art on LinkedIn and AFP is at AFPglobal.org. Welcome back, Art. It’s good to see you. Tony, thank you for having me back. It’s been a while, but, uh, obviously I’ve been following your, your amazing journey with this platform, and it’s just been, uh, unbelievable that you could stick to something as long as you’ve had. Well, thank you. Yeah, we’re coming up on our 15th anniversary will be in July 750 shows. But congratulations to you on being appointed president and CEO of the enormously wildly popular and important association of fundraising Professions. I’ve been following you. Congratulations. Well, thank you, Tony. It’s a great honor to serve the fundraising profession in this way at this point in my career, and it’s obviously quite adjacent to what I’ve been doing over the last 24 years. So it’s uh a great uh way to see how a person’s career can come together and in my opinion fit pretty squarely within the the bounds of what fundraisers are trying to do both from a performance and an ethical standpoint. Obviously, a lot of people agree. Otherwise you wouldn’t be president and CEO apparently, right? They do. Uh, I didn’t include in your bio your law degree. You and I went to the same law school. Temple Temple it’s the Beasleys. I don’t call it that reminds me of Mrs. Beasley. Remember the little doll from uh the, the TV show with Sebastian Cabot, a Family Affair? I do, I do remember, uh, Brian Keith. Sebastian Sebastian, the little girl had a doll, Mrs. Beasley, uh, so I don’t call it the Beasley school, but I think you left when I got, did you, did you get your degree in 1989? 1989. That’s right. And did you go full time or at night? No, I went in the evening. I worked at a nonprofit, uh, all day long as a CFO, and then, um, at, at night I would go to classes and it’s quite an experience. Uh, I started in 1989, so you, you graduated, but I always admire, I went full time, but I always admired the evening students because I knew they were go-getters, you know, they didn’t, they, they weren’t, uh, their jobs were demanding, and here they were 4:30, 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock, walking up the steps at Temple Law School, and they’re sitting in for another 2-3 hours of class as I’m walking down the steps to go home. To have some dinner and, you know, and start studying. So I, I always admired the evening students, uh, the, just the, the ambition that it takes to get a law degree while you’re working full time. Yeah, well, you know, when you start out, you don’t really think about it that way, um, and then when you get in it, there’s so many other people who are doing it, you just kind of go along with the stream of activity, you know, you just, you’re just kind of in it and it just becomes a part of your life. But it was challenging, um, also extremely rewarding and, um, got to meet some really fun and interesting people. And learned a lot to uh carry with me even though I never practiced law, believe it or not um it has helped me in enormously um important ways everything from how I think about a problem to understanding some of the legal ramifications of issues that we get into um even policy, Tony, it, it helps you shape how you, um, envision creating policy internally and externally. And risk management issues, um, and also, you know, when I got in, the reason I wanted to go to law school was I was practicing as an accountant and my thought was that accountants sort of account for what happened, you know, we sort of keep track of what happened, but lawyers kind of create these transactions legal instruments and make it, make it happen, yeah, and I sort of felt that this would be a complete. Um, full circle way of, uh, growing in my career, and it did, it helped me quite a bit in that way too. Yeah, law degree, very valuable. Yeah, uh, enormously. I only practiced for 2 years, uh, but I, I agree with you. I find that having the law degree enormously valuable in the way you attack problems, think about things, yeah. Well, Tony, you know, the big difference today though is. I think when I was going to law school, it may have cost me $3000 a semester. I don’t think there’s a place you can go for that price today. Uh, it’s probably 200 times that now. Um, so let’s talk generally about uh AFP, you know, just acquaint folks with the, the work of our association of fundraising professionals. Right, so, uh, AFP has been around now for almost 70 years, and, um, it is the, I think most discussed organization focused on the fundraising profession. Uh, we have about 25,000 members who work in all aspects of the nonprofit field. Um, both educational institutions, healthcare institutions, um, museums, nonprofit organizations, large and small, um, people both in Canada, in Mexico, and some sprinkled in other countries around the world. And so it’s um a pretty broad and wide uh membership and um people through all aspects of their career. Um, from the beginning until even into retirement, remain members. And it’s, it’s quite remarkable to um know that people find our organization as valuable as they do. Um, we’re focused though primarily on helping our members do their work better, more effectively, um, but also ethics. Um, we think it’s really important that members do their work ethically because as you know, if donors trust our people, our fundraisers and even our organizations, they’re going to give more. And so the ethical piece of this is really important, and we have a code of ethics that all of our members must sign off on before they become a member. And um in cases where there are challenges to that members notice to their code of ethics, we’ll even adjudicate a case where a person can be sanctioned for violating the code of ethics. In fact, I was on the ethics committee before I joined AFP for about 8 years. And we hear cases where a member accused another member of violating that code, and we would go through a process whereby a person was either determined to have violated or not violated that code. What are the common violations that you see. It can be any number of things. Um, it can be someone stole another person’s um uh content. It could be someone was accused of getting paid on a commission basis, which we don’t allow um a percentage basis which we don’t allow, or any number of other violations, Tony. And when they come, as I said, there’s a committee, there’s a group of us who would be assigned to hear that case and we make a determination and the member will be sanctioned anything from um losing their membership for a year or permanently to Um, not being able to participate in certain activities, um, we try to uh make the sanctions match what the offense was. I did not know that there’s enforcement of the code of ethics. The code of ethics, I think, is widely known. I hope it is. I didn’t know that there’s an enforcement mechanism too. Yes, the AFP code, the AFP code, and we have the ethics committee that really does that, and it’s an independent group from a, well, the board of directors obviously sanctions it, but it doesn’t participate in those cases. The ethics committee does all that work. Well, Art, uh, the, the challenging times we’re facing, you mentioned, you know, trust, not only of fundraisers, but trust of nonprofits, uh, the, the trust of the nonprofit community. Some, some individual nonprofits like Harvard and Columbia Universities and National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Planned Parenthood, so we’re seeing it on a micro level and we’re also seeing it on a macro level. Just last week or two weeks ago, I think it was 2 Wednesdays ago there was this uh charade of a congressional committee hearing. About how it was called something like NGOs gone wild. You could tell, you know, it was, it was objective, uh, it was a very objective assessment of our nonprofit community, not, um, you know, the, the look, the Trump regime is challenging our sector badly. Uh, months ago, Elon Musk called us a Ponzi scheme, uh, and just, just a week and a half ago when you and I are recording, there was this, I think, shameful committee hearing, uh, the, the, uh, at the department of, or the, the committee for the, for the, the support in support of the, uh, the doge work. Um, what are, you know, what is AFP doing? Well, first of all, we’ve been trying to stay abreast of all of these activities and keep our members informed and we have um great government relations work that um we um are hearing from on a regular basis, both about the challenges but also about some of the opportunities. Right now we’re pretty focused on the the this big beautiful tax bill. And there are some opportunities within that, particularly for us to finally get a universal charitable deduction for all of, um, everyone who files a tax return, regardless of whether you itemize. And that will be wonderful because we. Anticipate through studies that it could raise about $40 billion more in charitable donations and so we’ve been really trying to get behind that to get legislators to support this and it looks at this point like it has a good chance of passing with this bill and you know they we’ve also been trying to work to eliminate some of the more challenging uh provisions in this tax bill that could affect nonprofit organizations such as. Uh, extra taxes on foundations which could obviously hurt, you know, what nonprofits are able to get from those organizations and, um, um, making sure that um there’s no provision to single out particular types of organizations to be penalized in ways that um would make all of us in some ways vulnerable to that kind of attack. So, um, we’re, we’re paying obviously a lot of attention to that and trying to make sure that through our legislative processes we’re able to help. We had success, uh, in the House of Representatives where the, uh, the provision that allowed the Secretary of the Treasury to unilaterally designate a charity as terrorist supporting got stripped out. Uh, we need to keep that out, you know, we don’t want the Senate to add that back in. That’s another, that’s another talking point that I’ve been encouraging. Um, but yes, the universal charitable deduction, that’s outstanding. So non-immis, non-itemizers can get what is it, it’s, I think it’s a $150 individual deduction, $300 for a couple, right, that’s valuable, but there is a lot that’s bad in this bill for, for the sector, you know, these, these individual charities being attacked, um, financially. We, we just don’t know, you know, I, I use the metaphor of a domino row. Like those are the 1st 4 dominoes, the 4 I mentioned. Who’s the 5th which is the 5th domino? Might it be your nonprofit is number 5 or 6 because we know what happens when the 1st 4 fall. So, uh, so we have, so AFP has, I’m sure you have. Uh, government affairs, government affairs, either contractors or, or employees, and, and our, our contractors are also similar to contracting with other, uh, similar organizations and, and who are making sure that we’re all informed. So what you’re, what you’re experiencing with this work is a concerted effort. It’s not just AFP, but we’re joining forces with other organizations through our um legislative support. To make sure that many organizations are a part of what’s happening here and, and also being formed and, and weigh in where necessary. Does that include working with the National Council of nonprofits with Diane Yentl, she, she does, yeah, she was the sole positive voice at that uh at that committee hearing. Yeah, it was awful. It was awful the way she was treated. Oh, she was personally attacked. Yeah, it was awful and, um, you know, I think that. Uh, I actually thank God for her courage and uh for her commitment to this work. And, um, you know, all of us in the nonprofit sector owe her a tremendous debt of gratitude for what she’s been willing to go through, not willing, but she’s doing it because she knows she’s, it’s, it’s what she does. It’s the kind of person that she is. And um I can’t thank her enough on behalf of our organization and um many others who may never come in contact with her for her commitment and strength and um her willingness to stand up for all of us. Does AFP have any lawsuits against the regime? We don’t we don’t have any lawsuits as of now, but supporting the councils, yeah, OK, OK. Um, What, what, what can you encourage folks to do, uh, on an individual level? Well, you know, we’re having our virtual Hill day this week. And so we’ve asked our members to reach out to their congressional um delegations to talk to them about the importance of some of the issues that we’re talking about right now and to be supportive of the great work that the nonprofit sector does. I think most people kind of understand, but you know, we aren’t great in our sector at talking about ourselves. And it’s understandable I guess we don’t spend a lot of money marketing our work, we just go out and do it and so what you have are um people who don’t quite uh connect that some of the good things are happening are happening because of nonprofit organizations and um some people don’t even understand that the service they received was through a nonprofit organization. And so we’ve got to do a better job of telling our stories, but um we’re asking our congressional delegations to be supportive of the great work that nonprofits are doing in their districts and in their states and to look at, look for ways to assure that the field is such that we can continue to do this important work and uphold our democracy. You know what I fear, Art, is that we, we’ll get the universal charitable deduction at, at some level. Maybe that’s, it doesn’t really matter. Let’s say it stays at $150 per person, $300 per couple. We’ll get that, but we won’t get the attacks against the sector removed from the bill, both on the micro level, those 4 or 5 I mentioned. And on the and on the macro level in terms of USAID, State Department funding, you know, so like they’ll throw us a bone. With the deduction but end up hurting the sector very badly and the, and the image of the sector. Yeah, well, I worry about that too because along with the money comes the vote of confidence, right? I mean, when government says we think that there should be a robust and free nonprofit sector, it’s basically saying to its citizens, this is good for us. And when government attacks it and fights it, you know, people get a very different impression of what we’re doing. However, with that, I’ll say. That Regardless of what happens, you will always have nonprofits. People will fight, people will struggle, people are gonna support each other because it’s the human instinct to be supportive and helpful to each other. What we have to do, I think, Tony, is make sure that our Congress and our um our senators understand the extent to which we’re under attack. We’re not sure that they all do. We’re not sure that every senator and every congressperson has focused on these issues, and we’ve got to make sure in our own organizations and organizations from people who are hearing this, hearing this show that you can make outreach to those people in your, in your area to make sure they understand that we’re under attack, that these are real. Policies and potential laws that are going to be enacted that could have a deleterious effect on what we’re able to do locally in our communities. It’s really important that you not take for granted that they already get it. They don’t get it in every case. We have to get out there in front of them and make sure that they do and. You know, I know that there’s some fear that people have right now, um, of being critical of what’s going on, but I would hope that we could get beyond some of that fear and at least tell the story. I mean, we don’t have to be particularly critical. We can just say, you know, in our organization because of the resources we get, people get fed, or because of our organization, people who can’t get to their cancer treatments are able to get there, or because of our organization. You know, people who are, um, depending on uh being having a free access to their religion can actually do that because of our services, you know, we have music for kids who are trying to learn how to play instruments and they don’t get that in school. Um, and because of our organization, kids can get college educations and, and community colleges can thrive. So the kids who are trying to get the best value out of education can do that through a community college. Kids can get student loans. And let’s talk about that. How many people can go to college today without some type of student loan? And these could potentially be under attack too. So let’s not assume that every congressperson understands the value in what we do, and we need to get out there and make sure that they do. Because there are so many constituencies that are hurt by this big bad burdensome budget bill, uh, you know, the, um, Medicare, uh, Medicare, yeah, the, the potential Medicare cuts, uh, potential Social Security cuts, you know, so there’s so many cons and and other things, there’s so many constituencies, um, we need to make sure our voice gets heard. And, and you’re right that It, it should be directed to the levers of power, you know, sometimes I, I get concerned that we, we share each other’s posts on LinkedIn, you know, but that’s just that, that’s our echo chamber. Everybody, everybody we’re connected to on LinkedIn is already aware of the problem. Your, your LinkedIn connections are your, are your nonprofit colleagues. And we’re all in the community together, but beyond the our echo chamber to the levers of power and, and to the extent it’s possible to the public too, because, because our, our image is being. Badly, not worse than just tarnished, it’s being badly destroyed by the, the words in, in Congress and from uh the executive. Yeah. And I can’t believe that most Congress people want to hurt nonprofits. Um, many of them are parts of nonprofits themselves, you know, um, many of them were able to get elected because of their service in nonprofits. You know, they became popular because of the good they were doing in their communities through those nonprofit organizations. So, you know, let’s just be real here, and let’s be real. I mean, if you’re a congressperson or even a senator, there’s a nonprofit in your community that you’ve been connected to. Are you really willing to stand back and let that organization suffer for no reason? Um, and that’s basically what we’re talking about here. Someone decided that it’s time to hurt nonprofit organizations or to make them, um, operate in a way that we want to see them operate instead of giving them the freedom to operate in a way that they can best serve people. And are you willing to just stand around and let that happen? And that’s just kind of where it is. It’s really that basic. It’s not anything more than that in my opinion. And we have to, um, hopefully, you know, with our energies and in our concerted efforts, help them appreciate that um they’re connected to these organizations too. And if you’re really about delivering constituent services, how are you gonna do it if you’re not you’re doing it through government because you’re cutting all the government services out. And, and nonprofits which have been um great partners with government in delivering services to constituencies in every state. It’s time for Tony’s Take two. Thank you, Kate. I’ve got no tails from the gym. This one is, uh, and another semper fi moment, two Marines meeting in the gym. Uh, our last semper fi moment was uh back in March. Uh, it was actually the March 31st show. Two Marines met then, two Marines met this time. Uh, one of them is the same, uh, Rob. I’m not sure I knew Rob’s name at the time. I, I actually, I think I did the other guy, the other guy couldn’t get his name in. Because Rob was a little, little chatty, chatty former Marine, and I don’t, I did not catch the name of uh this uh second Marine uh this time either. But what I just admire is the way these, these guys have this love of the Marines and this camaraderie years after having served and, and, you know, they didn’t know each other, they didn’t work together in the Marines that, but these, you know, former Marines, they, they come together and uh. They just, they bond over their acronyms and Marcom and whatever, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t catch as much of this conversation as I did the uh the one back in in March, but it’s, you know, it’s two Marines. It’s just, it’s just very clear and, uh, and they always end, they end the conversation, you know, they don’t say goodbye, goodbye is or take care, that’s not the last word. The last word is simplify. And then they and then they part. So it’s, it’s admirable, uh, really, I, I, I’m not mocking it at all. It’s just, it’s a strong bond among former Marines who never served together. They just have that common Marine Corps bond between them. So, simplify. That is that no, I’m not qualified. I can’t say simplified. I was not a Marine. I was in the Air Force. We didn’t have, we didn’t have any mottos. We just, uh, I don’t know, we were like the sissy boys of the military. I don’t know. See that seems to be the stereotype anyway. It’s not true. We were not sissy boys, but that seems to be the stereotype that’s out there among, among the, uh, the more. Highly testosterone laden, uh, army and Marine Corps and navy seems to be the the misguided stereotype. So I won’t say simplify. I’ll just say that is Tony’s take too. Kate. You didn’t have like a motto, you didn’t even have like a goodbye. No you can remember? No. There’s no secret handshake, no motto, no, I mean, there was codes of conduct, of course, but nothing, nothing like the Marines have semper fi. We didn’t have anything like that. We were just the sissy boys. I don’t know, sissy sissy boys. I’ve never heard of that. Uh, you weren’t in the military. Uh, I don’t know. I, I mean, you don’t, you don’t hear it among the Air Force, so we don’t, we didn’t call each other that. But once since I’ve been out through the decades that I’ve been out of the Air Force since 1989. I’ve, I’ve heard that, uh, the other branches of the military think that Air Force personnel are the sissies. Oh wow. Well, we’ve got booco but loads more time. Here’s the rest of a conversation with Art Taylor, with Art Taylor. Going back to uh LinkedIn, you, you posted about a, you posted about a month ago on LinkedIn something personal. You, you, you posted a brief bio, uh, you told us that you’re a citizen of the United States and where you were born, your parents, who your parents were, and that you have a birth certificate and a passport. What motivated that post? Obviously, um, you know, we’re in an environment right now where people are being, um, Detained for many cases, no reason. Um, we have concern now that um even people with legitimate documents are being swept up and taken away. And um I just wanted to bring some attention to this issue, and people have interpreted my um my LinkedIn post in many different ways. Some people have pointed out that By doing this, I might have normalized the behavior, right? I mean, oh, so, so now everybody has to let the world know that they have documents. What about the people who don’t have documents? Are you basically saying they should go? And I understand that and and that wasn’t my intention, but I think it’s important to bring attention to this issue. Um I wanted to make sure that, you know, my wife and I talk about this from time to time. She says, well, what if you go overseas? Are you gonna be able to get back in your country? I said, Well, maybe I should let people know. At the time, you know, there were people who were being detained for no reason, and I said, well, um. If I make a public statement, at least the world will know. That I am indeed a US citizen because I put my bona fides on a social media platform. If that’s what they’re looking for, you know, for some reason you say I don’t have a passport when I get to you, I actually do have a passport and you can check it out and the world knows that I have a passport. So there’s some protection and just people knowing. But the main thing was to really bring attention to this issue. You know, I. I, I’m not a person to um. To really um express what our immigration policy should be here in this country. But what I do know is, um, throughout the existence of this country, people have come from other places and have contributed mightily to what we’re able to do as a nation. In fact, I would argue that we would not even be America if it weren’t for the energies, the enter enterprising nature of people who come from other places, combined with the talents and skills and willingness to work together with people who are already here. um, and then we have a large obvious, um, um. Gathering or not gathering, we have a large uh population of people who are indigenous to this country, who deserve our respect and appreciation and reverence really for laying the foundation for what later became this country, and we can never forget them too. So, um, in my mind, people are people. They want to create opportunities. So that they can thrive in our society and so that people who um get here at one stage can move up through our, our society and become uh more economically viable and educationally successful and, and go lives for their generations after them. That’s what America is all about. And it just hurts me when I see that we’re looking at ways of, of curtailing that or limiting that. Now, I understand, you know, we wanna make sure people come here legally. I get that. And we wanna make sure that um people are given um the right vetting, so that the right people are coming here. But I, I think the idea of just saying, you know, you look a certain way or you may have had a history of being in a certain country and therefore you should be gone. I don’t quite understand that. And so, um, you know, that’s just my personal opinion. That’s certainly not AFP’s, you know, position. I’m speaking about how I see things. Um, and so I, I don’t, I don’t necessarily go along with that. A lot of people would disagree. You know, everyone has the right to their own opinion on this. But I feel that um the, the people that I’ve interacted with from other countries have for the most part been hardworking, rising, and looking for opportunities to grow and help our country thrive, and they should be given that opportunity as far as I’m concerned. I was in New York City just last week and I intentionally took a ride on the Staten Island ferry so that I could go by the Statue of Liberty. I wanted to I wanted to see it and you you see it both ways on the, on, on the ferry to and from Staten Island. Um, and it You know, it, it struck me in a different way than it has in the past. I, I, I, I, I took it for granted in the past when I would ride the ferry or see the Statue of Liberty sometimes you see it from an airplane as you’re going in, especially going into LaGuardia, um. It, it took on a different meaning, uh, or, or it, it took on a greater meaning because the, the, the liberty that it represented for, for millions of, of immigrants is, um, is in question, we’ve got a regime that is, uh, and I intentionally call it a regime. I don’t think it deserves to be called an administration. That’s me, that’s Tony Martignetti. uh, I don’t, I don’t think it deserves the uh imprimatur or the, the, uh. The respect of an administration. So, you know, uh, there are elements of people in the elements, there are individuals in the, in the regime who want to make this a more white country. Uh, they, uh, they, they, they’re all for, you know, the 1st Amendment and the 2nd Amendment and due process for the right colored people, the white folks, and everybody else is, uh, A little suspect to these, to these. People in the, uh, the senior levels of the regime. um and uh and so the the the Statue of Liberty, you know, it, it, uh. It means something and, and then I, I also thought of it at a different level as a gift, that was a true gift to the nation. I, I, I don’t believe that the, the Qatari jet is a, is a gift to the nation. Um, but that was a secondary, uh, that was beneath my My first thoughts of just what that statue represents for millions of people, uh, and it’s, um, what it represents and, and what it claims, you know, give us your tired, you’re poor, you’re hungry, your huddled masses doesn’t say anything about what skin color they are, what country they come from, what their work visa status is, what, what they can contribute, where they, you come and you become an American. And, and that’s under threat. Yeah. Well, um, you know, the, the racial thing has always been, um. Just uh a scourge on our country, I think because the bottom line here is that we need everyone to be productive and uh vital in um delivering the best that they have to offer to the development of our country. And so, um, it, it just doesn’t make sense for us to say, you know, here’s a category of people that we’re just gonna relegate to the, the bottom of our society because of how they look. It makes absolutely no sense. It’s never made any sense. And obviously people of various um racial backgrounds have contributed mightily to the success of the country. And you know where we are today, it seems that. We those of us who have been discriminated against in the past because of racial um. Because of racial issues. You know, we now, um, we fought for integration into our society. We had to fight for that integration. And um we were getting closer to full integration and now it seems that the people who um didn’t want to see that happen or people who fought against that are basically saying um you were never discriminated against to to begin with and so um. You should just uh go back to being the way you were, and you know it’s interesting cuz. There’s some people who are now saying fine if you don’t want us to go to your restaurants or if you don’t want us to participate in your businesses, we’ll do our own thing. And so we start doing that and then you know the question comes up, well wait a minute, you’re discriminating against us you’re discriminating. You’re you’re canceling me. My restaurant is canceled. Yeah, they’re fine. If you don’t want me to go, then I won’t go, but But now, if we create our own, now we’re discriminated against you. So it’s, it’s kind of a weird dynamic. I mean, we, we can’t be integrated, but if we try to do our own thing, then, then we’re not being uh fair to, to others. So it’s, it’s really strange, uh, Tony. I mean, what are we supposed to do, right? Really weird Well, What we, what we need to do is push back at this point against the uh the budget bill that’s now in the Senate, it’ll certainly go back to the house because the Senate will make changes and we need to influence those changes. Um, Yeah. You mentioned on a little lighter subject, uh, your wife, your wife, uh, Yolanda. She’s a wardrobe stylist. That’s how, that’s why you’re always styling. I see. I love black turtleneck. You’re you’re great with black, black turtlenecks. You must have drawers of turtlenecks. Um, yeah, she’s a wardrobe stylist. I love that. Talk, talk a little about your, your wife Yolanda. Oh, Yolanda is unbelievable. You know, my wife worked 31 years as a flight attendant for Delta Airlines. And When COVID hit, it was clear that it was time for her to retire. And so she’d always been styling women just as a a courtesy, you know, she’d see how. People were dressed or they would come to her and say, hey, what do you think of what I’m thinking about wearing and she would give them ideas. But when COVID hit, she said, you know, maybe I’ll do this full time as a business. And so she started at the style table. And it’s been a remarkable journey for her. Um, she has gotten so many interesting clients. She was featured on. The Today Show, um she’s been on uh local uh TV here in DC because of the work that she’s doing. And her whole orientation is to try to make women feel great about themselves and to be confident with what they’re wearing so that they can be confident in their lives. See, for many people, clothing is either a stressor or it’s something that gives them uh great confidence. And um if your clothing isn’t, uh, if your closet isn’t organized, well, it’s a stressor because you’re now thinking about what do I put together, where do I find it? And, and so she will help women get their clothing in order and then help them find. The many outfits that they already have in their closets. Uh, data says that something like 20% of the clothes we have is what we wear, so 80% we just have sitting there. And when she goes in to do what’s known as a closet edit. It’s a whole psychological thing that women are going through. Why do you have that? Um, I don’t know. Well, you know why? Tell me. Well, I was with so and so and he bought it for me like 20 years ago and I can’t. Well, where is so and so? He’s gone. He’s not why are you holding on it. And there are emotional reasons why people hold onto their clothes. So she’s, she’s working with them to help them get rid of those and help other people, get them to people who can relove them. Including donating some of those clothes, and she’s also very big on environmental issues where, you know, fast fashion can be a problem for our environment. And so she tries to get people to use, you know, more classic items that they can repeat and rematch and remix, but it’s an, it’s an amazing process that she goes through with her clients and they love her. I mean, I, I know who’s talking about my wife, but. These women actually love her for what they’ve done for her and so I appreciate you letting me talk about her because I could talk for the whole show of course at the business is at the table. Her, her advice about classic pieces strikes me because that’s what my mother always used to recommend get buys basic classic pieces that will last, whether it’s jewelry or foundational wardrobe pieces. Um, and by good quality and you’ll get a decade or more out of use, decades, uh, from them, um, and, and they, and they’re very likely, you know, not gonna go out of fashion. Um, that’s right. So, so she helps you. Does she help you? Does she, she, well she tries, but I, you probably her toughest. I’m, I’m probably her toughest customer, but I’ve been trying to, um, be a bit more, um, open to her style. So my, my problem, Tony, is when I grew up I didn’t have any money. But um there were people in our neighborhood who sewed and they would always look great. So they get fabric and they make their own clothes. But I didn’t know how to do any of that, you know, I was an athlete and had no money. And so, um. What happens is you realize that you can’t compete in that field with, you know, some of your classmates, so you just kind of let it go. Just surrender, surrender, you know, I’m, I’m not in. I can’t surrender take any pride from that jeans and jeans and a t-shirt we just do every day and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll wear a different t-shirt, but yeah, all right, and then, you know, you kind of grow up thinking that, OK, I have to do other things so that people will overlook how poorly I’m dressed. I need to overcome. What was your sport or sports? Oh, I’ve played baseball and basketball in high school and college, yeah. Where did you go to college? Franklin and Marshall, yeah, F&M, yeah. So it was, you know, it was, uh, one of those things where, you know, I just can’t compete. And then when I was old enough to maybe have some decent clothes, I just never thought about it. And I would just do maybe the minimum, you know, and never really thought about how. The way I dress can influence how people perceive me, and it’s true, you know, the first impression, right? The first impression before, before there’s a word out of your mouth, before there’s a hand extended to shake, you, you look like, you look like something. People are, people are looking at what you look like. So you know, I’m trying to get better at it and she’s, she’s a real assist. I, I. I tell people, do not judge my wife based on how I’m dressed. Believe me, she’s a lot better than what you see being interested in me. You get a lot of perks being married to Orlando, the perks from 31 years with Deltas and now wardrobe, uh, in-house wardrobe advice. She’s, uh, and, and I couldn’t, that’s only the beginning, you know, she says I married her for flight benefits, but I tell her, no, no, no, there’s so much more. My wife is. Uh, a person who just loves people. She, um, always has a project that she’s working on and the project is a human being. Uh, a day doesn’t go by where she’s telling, not telling me a story about someone she’s trying to help who’s in a tough spot right now. And. Um, sometimes there are people that she barely knows. You know, I, when I was at the Wise Giving Alliance, we’d have this debate back and forth about whether she should be giving money to people on the street. Because at WGA, you know, we’re always saying you should give thoughtfully and you should give, um, obviously based on a heart too. But um I would say to her, so, um, every person we pass you’re giving money to is that the wise thing to do. She says, I don’t care about whether it’s wise. It’s what I think I need to be doing to go to heaven. And you know, God has been good to me. So if someone needs a few dollars and I have it, I’m gonna give it to him and I don’t care what they do with it at that point. I hope they do something good with it, but if they don’t, you know, that’s kind of on them. So that’s, that’s kind of how she is. She’s just um. A very special individual that um I have been very fortunate to have come across and have in my life and to be married to. Well, give her, give her our regards from nonprofit radio. You’re not a lost cause. Tell her, don’t give up. Don’t, don’t give up on art. You can go to heaven. You can go to heaven if you can help Art. Keep, keep helping your husband. Um, all right, so, you know, we, uh, going back to the, the challenges that the sector is facing, we did have that big win in, in the House of Representatives where that, that burdensome provision got removed and, and we, uh, from what I read, it’s not likely to come back, but we still have to be vigilant about it. But you know, so building on that success, you know, our voice makes a difference that that didn’t just happen because. The House of Representatives, you know that your members of Congress thought, oh, that, that, that doesn’t sound like a good idea. They, they didn’t even know about that provision in this enormous uh 900 page bill or so 1500 page bill, whatever it is. They didn’t even know that that provision was in there until we in the charitable sector brought it to their attention and got it removed. So our voices do make a difference. We’re not gonna win every time. We’re not, but we can win some. We can win. So, well, with, uh, leave us with that, that, that, that encouragement, please, yeah, I will. And but I’m also gonna suggest that we have other issues aside from government that we need to begin focusing on. Um, one of which is the massive decline in donor participation that you may have been tracking, you know, if you, if you border off 2018 and go back 20 years, we were giving at um 66% of families were giving to nonprofit organizations. By 2018, it’s gone down to 49.5%, and that number continues to go down. So we have a big problem, I think. In donor participation. And why is that important aside from the money? Well, Those everyday donors give nonprofits the freedom that they need to do the kind of work that only they can do in their communities without the um extra stress that could come from large donors pushing these organizations to do work a certain way. It also gives them the ability to operate independently of, of, um, programs. So a lot of times you get a large grant and that program money doesn’t cover the administrative costs and organizations must have freedom to operate administratively, right? to run a good organization. So, um, What’s happening, you know, the Generosity Commission released a report. Um, telling us some ideas that we could begin focusing on. I was co-chair along with, um, uh, uh, my colleague, um, from the Kaufman Foundation, John, um, Gosh, I’m blanking on John’s name. He’s gonna kill me for that. But we, we co-chaired the government relations and Policy Task Force. For the Generosity commission. And as a result of that, we were asked to share ideas for what we could do to strengthen everyday donor giving and participation. And lo and behold, there were some things that we found that we could do with government. Many of the things that we’re trying to do now, increase the The universal tax deduction for people, but a lot of them were cultural. Meaning that there’s something going on in our culture right now that drives people who are generous to give things other than Institutions or nonprofit organizations. And we’re very concerned about that. It could be just a general lack of trust in institutions that are driving people not to give to nonprofits. It could be a different orientation toward giving. Than we’ve seen in past decades or generations where people don’t feel like um giving to an organization is the right thing to do or they maybe come from places where government does a lot more and it’s odd to be giving to an independent organization. It could be that younger people are feeling they don’t have money to give right now. Because they have student loans and they have uh families that are needing their money and they’re not making as much as they need to make to make ends meet. It could also be that, you know, Tony, remember when when you and I were starting out. Um, we go to work and there was this campaign. That the United Way would launch or other organizations would launch in a workplace and someone would come around with a pledge card and say, hey, here’s um a pledge card we need you to give $5 out of your paycheck every week so that our company can compete with all the other companies in our city to see who’s the most generous from our employees. That’s hardly done anymore. But that was an engine for massive amounts of small donations. Same is true with the combined federal campaign, which is just a fraction of what it is, uh, of what it was, you know, today, for federal for federal workers and then and then later on the the current attacks against the sector, hurting, hurting our image and, and therefore our, our likelihood of getting donations. And, and then, you know, the fundraising profession has done what it does, right? It, it looks at, well, where, where can we expect to get the most money with the least amount of resources. And that happens to be large donors. But of course, during this time, we’ve seen a separation between the middle class and the really wealthy, right? The wealthy have gotten far more wealthier than people have entered the middle class. And so fundraisers are saying, well, that’s where the money is, so let’s begin going after those folk. And so more campaigns are geared to getting large gifts than they are, you know, direct response kinds of campaigns. And then if you add the religious aspect, people aren’t attending religious services as much, which was also a place where large amounts of small donations were gathered. So, there’s some things going on in our sector that we’ve got to come to reckoning with. If we’re going to continue to see our democracy thrive because we also know, Tony, that when people give, they also participate in civil society at a much higher rate than when they don’t. So, um, voting, going to school board meetings, participating in community rallies or community town halls, all of these things. are highly more likely to be engaged in if people donate to nonprofit organizations. So, um, we’re, we’re gonna see some, we’re gonna see a shift in how America operates. And if you add on to that, what we’re seeing right now, you can see some real challenges as we move forward. So, while we are talking about the the challenges that government is putting on us right now, we also have to begin to think about What we’re doing in our own society outside of government, that could be keeping everyday people from giving to our organizations, we have to find ways to address that. And there’s some good news too. I mean, we do know that people are generous. And we see days like um activities like Giving Tuesday where large amounts are are collected via digital platforms, which is fantastic, right? And we just need to amplify those efforts and find other ways, maybe through culture, maybe people who we respect. If we don’t respect our politicians, maybe we respect our athletes and entertainers, maybe there’s a way for them to help normalize and um make giving fun and exciting and the right thing to do if you’re part of our country. Maybe they can help um. Influence what we’re able to do and that and make it something that people see as important, giving to institutions again. You know, one last thing on this, Tony, and I know I’m going on and on, but you know, I have a sense that With all of the activism that we’ve seen in our society. Designed to point out the problems associated with institutions. That we’ve also begun to think that, well, maybe these institutions just should go away, or maybe they’re not important anymore. And that’s, I think, sad because While you can point out flaws in institutions, flaws that probably always existed, by the way. Just today, we see them more because we have more ways of being um of, of creating transparency in these institutions, right? We see more things now. But these things always existed. It’s not that organizations, in my opinion, suddenly got worse. In fact, they may be better now than they were. In fact, I know they’re better now than they were. But what we see now can be troubling, and the it’s the flaws they get amplified, right? And so. People look at these things and they say I’m not gonna give to that. I’m not gonna be a part of that. Then what are you gonna do? When you tear something down, what are you gonna replace it with? You can’t get real work done outside of some kind of institution, some kind of organized effort is how things get done. So while we’re critical, and I, I certainly encourage criticism, I also want us to think about, well, what are we going to do once we finish criticizing the thing. Once we get done complaining and once our voices are heard. What do we do? Because we have to fill that vacuum with something that’s actually going to solve the problem. Tearing down doesn’t solve a problem. It just ends what was ever causing harm, but it doesn’t solve the problem and we need to make sure that we’re supporting things that actually can solve the problem too. And so that’s my um my encouragement to people. I love that people are activists, I love activism. But we also have to think about how we form solutions, and it’s not just by tearing down. Herman Art Taylor, president and CEO of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. You’ll find art on LinkedIn. AFP is at AFPglobal.org. And Art, I thank you very much for sharing everything. Thank you Tony. I, I really love that you’ve done this for so many years. You’ve made such a huge difference to so many people doing this. And I’m just honored that you’d have me come back on the show. Well, thank you for being a guest and, and thank you again for sharing. Next week, let’s really and truly get back to our 25 NTC coverage with tech to amplify youth voices and donor diversity. Yeah, you said that last week too. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. I hope we can trust you going forward. Mhm. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti, the one and only. 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.
