Tag Archives: employees

Nonprofit Radio for February 22, 2021: Listen Closely

My Guest:

Emily Taylor: Listen Closely

If you want to know what folks are thinking, interested in and motivated by, you need to listen to your donors, volunteers, advocates, employees. How do you get to the answers to listen to? Emily Taylor talks. We listen. She’s principal of teenyBIG.

Emily has a free paper for you, “5 Questions to Ask Before Spending More Marketing $$.” It’s here.

 

 

Listen to the podcast

Subscribe to get the podcast
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

Dot Drives: Raise more money. Change more lives.

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

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.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 526_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20210222.mp3

Processed on: 2021-02-20T01:51:59.019Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2021…02…526_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20210222.mp3.561317311.json
Path to text: transcripts/2021/02/526_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20210222.txt

[00:01:45.84] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with hereditary angio oedema if you swelled me up with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Listen closely. If you want to know what folks are thinking interested in and motivated by, you need to listen to your donors, volunteers, advocates, employees. How do you get to the answers to listen to Emily Taylor talks. We listen. She’s principle of teeny Big Antonis. Take two a webinar or two were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives Prospect to donor Simplified. It’s my pleasure to welcome Emily Taylor to non profit radio. She is principal of teeny big coaching nonprofits to meaningful e engage their audiences through human centered design. Her prior experience is in nonprofit management and industrial design. The company is that teeny big dot com and you’ll find Emily on LinkedIn prominently. Emily Taylor. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:47.64] spk_0:
Thank you, tony. Happy to be here.

[00:01:49.53] spk_1:
I’m glad. Let me ask you a question and I’ll bet nobody’s ever asked you. Did I pronounce your name correctly?

[00:01:54.24] spk_0:
Yes, yes, I’ve definitely lucked out with the easily pronounceable name.

[00:01:58.94] spk_1:
Excellent with martignetti. You know, uh, nobody ever asks, and they always mispronounced, but I’m always careful. But of course I

[00:02:05.24] spk_0:
Yeah, I’m married into a more common name. So it made things easy for me. Yeah,

[00:02:20.84] spk_1:
it’s easier to spell. Easier to say now. Industrial design is always interesting to me that I always think of like commercial design, like Cheerios boxes. But But that’s not That’s not strict. That’s not industrial design, really, is it?

[00:02:44.44] spk_0:
It actually is. It’s not the greatest name for a career path, but but it’s designing of products, you know. It’s the people who decide. You know what your cereal box might look like, but also your phone and your car on and, uh, you know, pens and pencils, just everything.

[00:02:46.46] spk_1:
Everything around us has design features to it. And of course, someone else was

[00:03:00.14] spk_0:
inside. You know, someone who decides how they make it, and that’s the engineer. But industrial designer really decides what it looks like what it communicates and how people connect with

[00:03:02.83] spk_1:
it. Okay, well, that I mean, there’s different principles around bookshelves than around iPhones. IPhones A little more complicated, little more complex. What? What did you industrially design?

[00:03:39.14] spk_0:
Most of my career was spent in packaging. So packaging really? And you know it Tze telling you what’s inside of something and you know why you want to pick it up and buy it on DSO Really? I like to think of packaging is an analogy for a lot of stuff. You know how we present ourselves to people have nonprofits present themselves to each other. It’s all a package that someone could gets a sense of before you dive in. Further,

[00:03:43.84] spk_1:
My favorite package packaging comes from Apple computers.

[00:03:48.05] spk_0:
I thought you were going to say that

[00:04:07.74] spk_1:
they’re so elegantly, uh, like the phone. You bet. It’s like on a pillow. I mean, it’s a piece of some material, which is not exactly cardboard, but it looks to me like it’s on a pillow and it’s wrapped in a gentle little plastic sheath. And the the power cable is is perfectly coiled, with a little little tie holding it. I mean, it’s incredible.

[00:04:38.44] spk_0:
Yeah, it is what we call the packaging experience on. And that’s really you know, if you imagine opening that up and having all the pieces jumbled out, you’d be really confused of what to do. And so, um, you know what I’ve been trained to do is think of things as a process. And how do you present information in a staged way So that someone gets it? Someone’s excited about it. Yeah, they can, you know, enjoy the joy. What’s inside?

[00:05:01.94] spk_1:
Okay, excellent. And you’re you’re you’re making a segue. Thio listening. We’ll get there, we’ll get there. Um, but yeah, you You wanna, you know that it’s your first impression. It’s the way the box looks before you even open it before you see just seeing it on a shelf, whatever it is. But then but then you I mean, you’re doing packaging, so there’s also security like you gotta hold the thing together. You don’t want it shaking in the box or whatever it was that you were packaging.

[00:05:16.34] spk_0:
Yeah, you don’t want people stealing it. You don’t want to toe fallout, get too hot while it’s shipping, there’s there’s a lot of different elements thio crunch into that beautiful package. Okay, cool.

[00:05:22.80] spk_1:
And then you move Thio Nonprofits?

[00:05:46.24] spk_0:
Yeah. So I was able to make a lateral shift where I moved, um, took my industrial design knowledge and ran a nonprofit called Design House where we worked in revitalizing local manufacturing, using design, and so we would run workshops on dhe. That was really my first forefront until, like, living in a non profit space versus just volunteering.

[00:05:58.74] spk_1:
Okay. And where’s the interesting listening and engaging with audiences on on that kind of level? Where did that come from? How did you get interested in listening?

[00:06:02.42] spk_0:
You know, I

[00:06:03.81] spk_1:
have developed interest in listening, right? I

[00:06:06.04] spk_0:
mean,

[00:06:07.14] spk_1:
what little But let’s problem where six minutes in. Let’s look what?

[00:07:16.94] spk_0:
Let’s stop listening. Um, well, I I grew up is a very kind of shy and awkward child, and and so I found, but I was really interested in people. And so I found that listening to what other people were saying and figuring out how to connect what I wanted to say and due to that really helped me. Um, you know, figure out how I could connect with people. I almost had you know, analyze it versus it, coming naturally, and so that that has allowed me to really listen in a way that I think not everybody does is I’m really looking for the words people are saying and asking them why they think that way s so that I can understand the context of where they’re coming from. And you know, whether it’s a cultural difference or or just, you know, a difference in in personality. It allows me to like bridge that gap and see where people are coming from so that I can then communicate what I want to to them.

[00:07:19.04] spk_1:
Interesting. All right. It’s very It’s very personal for you, too.

[00:07:41.64] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, it’s It took me a while to really, like, make that connection back to That’s where it came from. Um, but it’s fun. I always love just, you know, connecting with people well, in the past, in cabs. Or, you know, at the train station you just start up a conversation and and here where people are coming from, because it’s always a totally different place,

[00:07:49.84] spk_1:
we’ll be in cabs again. We’ll be in. Captain, it’s coming. It’s coming. Where you coming from, where you taking. Used to take cabs and trains. Where are you?

[00:07:59.54] spk_0:
I’m in Chicago. So we’re about 2 ft of snow in. Yeah, Okay,

[00:08:13.74] spk_1:
so let’s Tze talk about listening. So we were kind of already kind of touched about it, but, you know, like, why it’s important. But, you know, we’re talking about user research. Why should we? Why should we spend time on this?

[00:08:49.64] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s it’s really important. Tons of for profit companies are doing this, you know, everything that comes out of Starbucks And we mentioned cabs with uber like they’re constantly listening to people and getting ideas in front of people and and hearing the reactions to them. And people are just getting used to having these very customized experiences. And it it connects to nonprofits to people have, once you have those expectations, you have those with everything you do. So

[00:08:50.53] spk_1:
s So how are companies doing this give give a couple of examples?

[00:09:30.24] spk_0:
Um, they’re doing focus groups. They’re they’re interviewing people. They’re putting out surveys. They’re also running, testing, you know, they’re getting prototypes out in front of people. Um, they’re having, you know, influencers work with them to design products. It’s all things that concerned a little overwhelming and expensive on DSO. That’s where I think, trying to bring those the most important elements of those two non profit. So it’s not not a huge cost barrier on, you know, and finding ways to listen in the way you can.

[00:09:32.67] spk_1:
Okay, But I interrupted you when you were describing why this is important.

[00:10:52.84] spk_0:
Oh, yeah, well, you know, it’s it’s important because people are are used to having. Like I said, having these, um, being more targeted and not just following whatever a leader says eso it’s is part of human to human centered design. This is part of the experience of being let’s top down, um, or bottom up, how can we, rather than having a leader that has a vision and everyone follows it to be thinking about, um, yeah, gathering the pulse of the people that were working with and using that to ladder up to the decision making. It’s not to say this is a you know, everyone needs toe to make a decision for all but toe have that input. And I think it’s really important this year because I cannot remember a year where it is so unpredictable what people are thinking, Um, you know, how comfortable are they going out? When are they going to get vaccinated? You know, what is their? How their perceptions of organizations changed over the last year based on who connected with them and who didn’t and you know, stories. They read that it just seems even mawr important to see where people stand because this is like a There’s no apples to apples Comparison.

[00:11:43.04] spk_1:
It’s time for a break turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS Market Watch, The Chronicle of Philanthropy You wanna be in papers and outlets like that? Turn two has the relationships to get you on those outlets so that when these places air looking for experts on charitable giving, non profit trends or philanthropy, they call turn to turn two calls you because you’re their client. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Now back to listen closely. So we’re interested in how folks are, uh, interacting with our organization or interested in interacting with it. What what, like what’s motivating them? Those kinds of things.

[00:12:23.34] spk_0:
Yeah, I think motivating And then also you know what will fit into people’s lives like you no longer have the, you know, the consistent after school programs or the favorite, uh, you know, venues someone attended to like I remember. You know, it used to be you couldn’t plan things less than a few weeks out on a Friday Saturday night, and now you know, people are home. And so So how do you kind of get a sense of like where, you know, as a non profit where you could now fit into people’s habits as they bring some of those you know, we’re out of home experiences and to their lives.

[00:12:40.94] spk_1:
So when I was introducing the show, I ticked off listening to donors, volunteers, employees Are there other constituencies that we should be listening to?

[00:12:43.04] spk_0:
Let’s see, You said that donors,

[00:12:45.32] spk_1:
donors, volunteers, employees.

[00:13:04.64] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, I tend to look broadly at, and, um and I call audience, you know, basically people who are following you because a lot of those people could become a donor. They could become a volunteer, and they don’t really see themselves as such. Um, eso

[00:13:06.78] spk_1:
it could include, like your social Social Channel followers,

[00:13:10.58] spk_0:
could it? Yeah.

[00:13:11.85] spk_1:
Okay. Yeah. All right.

[00:13:27.84] spk_0:
Yeah. Um, you know, listening, trying to figure out how do you get them to the next stage? How do you turn them into, you know, one of the other categories? Um and, you know, but there’s really no end to who you could listen, Thio. I think that’s just where I focus is general audience

[00:13:50.24] spk_1:
folks who are benefiting from your programs to if you’re if you’re doing any kind of human service work or it could be customers if you’re a museum or a theater, it could be patrons that way. May not be donors, but maybe patrons to your museum Visitors.

[00:14:02.34] spk_0:
Yeah, and I’m going to make it sound too broad. But the real trick is to figure out who you want to listen to so that you can define it for yourself.

[00:14:11.44] spk_1:
Okay? Okay. But But all these folks, I mean, if they’re if they’re interacting with you in a meaningful way, don’t they? Don’t they deserve a voice in your You’re listening campaign?

[00:14:55.54] spk_0:
Definitely. I think where I’m going with is you know, the people who maybe are following you on social media will have different things to say. You know, if this is a museum, um, I have different things to say that people who are coming in to the museum or people who have donated to the museum for a long time. And so it’s helpful when you’re listening to kind of focus who were listening to so we don’t mix up Well, somebody said this and the other you know, these long term donors think this other thing and and you’re mixing up the messaging when, really, um, you know you need to be separating. People are gonna have a different perspective, depending on how well they know your organization.

[00:15:14.84] spk_1:
Yeah, for sure. And how they interact. So that’s what we’re here to talk about it. So we wanna we wanna avoid this. Yeah, You don’t want All the messages are like all the feedback coming a LH coalesced together and aggregated. I mean, maybe for some purposes, you aggregated. But you want to know what your distinct audiences are are saying back to you?

[00:15:18.25] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s about targeting and segmenting eso that. Yeah, when you listen, it doesn’t get confusing.

[00:15:31.74] spk_1:
Yeah, okay, so let’s let’s let’s talk about how to do this for for different audiences. How do you go about thes listening campaigns? I’m calling them listening campaigns. Is that

[00:15:35.37] spk_0:
okay?

[00:15:36.29] spk_1:
Can you put your imprimatur on that? Is that all right?

[00:15:38.87] spk_0:
No, I love it.

[00:15:44.34] spk_1:
Listening campaigns. Okay, so if you have different listening campaigns for different audiences, let’s talk about some method methods.

[00:16:43.44] spk_0:
Sure, Sure. And, you know, I always wish there was one that could really kind of all encompass get the right information. But there’s different tactics that kind of our good and bad in various ways. Um, but the one I love the most is to just straight up interview people just talk to them and this, you know, that could be done. You know, obviously, if you have very passionate followers that you can have conversations with them at any time and really talk to them about you know why they’re part of your organization. But you can also just go on toe Facebook or Twitter and just say, Hey, you know someone who comments, would you have 15 minutes to chat with me and get them on the phone? Just do that. You know, a couple people a week, and all of a sudden you’re starting to get a broader sense of what people who aren’t connected to your organization are just lightly connected. Think about you.

[00:17:19.74] spk_1:
Yeah. Excellent. Okay, So I like I like that you say, You know, just comment back to somebody on Facebook. I see you know your comment a lot. Would you like to spend 15 minutes talking to me talking to us about our organ? That you you seem to be very interested in? Um, you know, non profit radio is action steps. So, like, what can we dio eso? Um how about I mean, could you just approach? I guess you could just approach volunteers the same way or, you know, you’re you’re devoting 10 hours a week to our work or whatever it is 10 hours a month. Could you could you sit with us for a phone call and talk about the organ?

[00:18:18.14] spk_0:
Any any interaction is ah, opportunity. I mean, you could even if you have a cocktail hour, just go around and ask the same question Teoh a few different people and and take note of what they say it Z. It’s more of a qualitative kind of feedback. But you get some really great answers. Although I would take a step back and just say it’s good to know what you want to learn. I actually had a a little hosted a conversation earlier this morning about listening to your audience, and it was interesting. I asked the group if you could just reach into your audiences brain and find out anything, you know, what would you want to know? And the question really stumped people. Mhm. Uh huh. And so, you know, it made me realize that, like, as you listen, you also need to know what what you’re looking for.

[00:18:19.37] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s like your goal setting for your listening campaign. Every campaign has to have a goal. This is not a volunteer campaign or fundraising campaign. This is listening campaign. So what would you like to learn?

[00:18:39.74] spk_0:
Yeah, you know, it’s so obvious. But sometimes when we just talked to people were used to having a conversation, not, uh, really digging for information.

[00:18:56.24] spk_1:
So when you’re at that cocktail party, if you’re if you wanna engage folks in your listening campaign surreptitiously, you’re not going to say, you know, let’s have a can of pay. Would you join my listening campaign? You’re just gonna say these kind of pays a good I like the I like the little like the little shrimp tails. So what s all right? So what you want to know is gonna inform what question you’re gonna ask or what questions you’re gonna ask.

[00:19:19.64] spk_0:
Yeah, but it might be, you know, how did you find out about this event? This organization? What? What drew you to To come here, kid. Um, you know, those those kind of questions.

[00:19:27.64] spk_1:
What moves you about our work? What do you know about our work, or what’s your favorite thing that you know about our work or Okay,

[00:19:46.64] spk_0:
Yeah. And sometimes it’s a really great time to ask about. You know what you think of certain words. I’ve you know, it’s kind of taking some notes on some clients that I’m working with that are having issues. And I work with this, uh, organization that’s doing contemporary classical music. And they they

[00:19:46.91] spk_1:
have a really classical what? That’s

[00:20:04.04] spk_0:
modern, modern modern composers doing classical music and they always run into Probably What you’re thinking in your head is like people associate classical music with the big, you know, white wigs and Beethoven

[00:20:06.84] spk_1:
Strauss and right. Yeah.

[00:20:23.94] spk_0:
And so I’m really pushing them to start asking people what does classical mean to them so that they can start to really here where people are coming from and what they need to say. Toe to bridge that gap. Okay.

[00:20:25.44] spk_1:
Okay. How about some other methods? So we got the cocktail party casual. We got the, like, the ocean social listening. What else? What’s more form?

[00:21:57.84] spk_0:
Yeah, you know more. Traditionally, there’s there’s surveys which can be big and laborious, so they could be quick. Just three, You know, two or three questions surveys that you pop into your email. Um, and the thing with surveys is, uh I think really making sure they, um they don’t just They asked the right questions. So, you know, again going back to your goals. You really need to look at that. Um, but a lot of times of surveys, um, they’re not great at predicting people’s behaviors. And so, you know, a survey I’ve run into a lot of nonprofits who will say, you know, we did a survey, and everyone thought, you know, Tuesday at seven was a great time for an event, but no one showed up. Yeah, and and you know, I think the thing there is like, it’s really hard for people to predict. You know how they’re gonna feel on a Tuesday night. You know that it tze different people have, like, a mode for answering surveys. And so really, it’s great to get ideas out in front of people for those surveys. You know, maybe, What do you think? Between these three things, Um, you know, these three messaging campaigns, these three event ideas or even just, um, you know what? Sorry, I just lost my train of thought. My cat came into the room. Um,

[00:21:58.63] spk_1:
okay, we’re very We’re very family friendly. Wonderful. It could be a child in animal. Not only family friendly, family embracing, family embracing. You’re welcome to bring your cat onto this. Excellent.

[00:22:35.24] spk_0:
She might she might just join anyways. Okay, um but having what was going to say is having open ended questions so that you can here some of the things that you might not expect, so a lot of times with surveys will we might make assumptions about things. And when you leave some open ended questions that allows people thio, you know, one participate and feel like they’re engaged, but also opens you up to things you might not have thought to ask about.

[00:22:43.94] spk_1:
Do you have a favorite survey tool? Um, Surveymonkey. Everybody knows story. Monkey. Yeah. You have a favorite monkeys.

[00:22:47.95] spk_0:
Great. I’ve just started thio use type form.

[00:22:51.44] spk_1:
I’m, like form.

[00:23:30.64] spk_0:
Yeah, and and that’s been nice. It’s a little You can actually do some assessments. Uh, but it’s a really It’s more like visually engaging software. Um, so I’ve enjoyed that, and I think things where you can just when you talk about tips like putting things in emails So being able to put the first question of a survey into an email blast so people can just click on that kind of get a sense with the surveys about and that just takes, um, shoots him right into the survey versus click on this link to take the survey and then just sort of like one extra step. Okay,

[00:23:34.04] spk_1:
Do you have ah preferred length? You said they could be super long or it could be very short. I mean, I’ve I’ve had folks on saying, you know, no more than five questions or people start to fade out after so many questions. What’s your advice?

[00:24:16.44] spk_0:
Well, I I the big lengthy ones. Those are like like marketing surveys that some organizations do every couple of years. That’s that’s really not by focus. I like, Yeah, I mean, it’s especially right now. People are changing their mindsets month, a month, the quarter to quarter. And so the more the shorter you could make things and the more focused the better. So I’d rather see people you know asked 3 to 5 questions a month or every other month than 25 question survey each year,

[00:25:30.14] spk_1:
it’s time for Tony’s Take two. I’ve Got a webinar for you. Five Planned giving websites that set the standard. It’s on February 25th, 3 p.m. Eastern time. It’s a romp. It’s a quick shot. I’m gonna take a romp through five plan giving websites in 45 minutes. Show you what I love about them. Show you what not to do that I don’t think is so good on them. And take your questions. Of course. Always time Q. And a quick shot 45 minutes, February 25th at 3 p.m. Eastern time, and you register for this esteemed webinar at PG Websites PG websites that is Tony’s take two. Let us return to listen closely with Emily Taylor. Do you have? Ah, this is different. Unrelated. But where my mind is thinking. So I’m gonna ask you Do you have opinion? An opinion on political polling? Like the accuracy of polling. Do you consider that within your I know you don’t do that work.

[00:25:33.37] spk_0:
Obviously you

[00:25:34.49] spk_1:
consider that within your belly. Wick toe comment on.

[00:26:36.04] spk_0:
I’ve been really fascinated by this. And this is where I go back to, like, whatever you do a survey you always have toe question what people really are, You know, the action versus what they’re predicting. Ah, nde. We’ve seen that with the last two elections of poll numbers just being way off. And so that’s that’s the sense that I get is, um that is a result of, you know, asking people toe fill in boxes versus trying to get to what they how they really feel about things. Um, you know, there’s there’s definitely a I think with surveys we can put on a we don’t want to be mean to this non profit hat or, you know, with political things like we don’t I don’t You know, I don’t quite understand. Can’t quite articulate how I feel. But I I’m just gonna answer this because this feels like the safe thing to Dio. And so those kind of answers don’t help us. Yeah, right.

[00:26:45.54] spk_1:
They’re misleading. Uh, maybe. Maybe not intentionally Or maybe in time, But anyway, they’re not helpful. Leaving your right. Leave it leave. It is not helpful. E want to attribute bad motivations to folks. I don’t want to do that.

[00:26:50.04] spk_0:
No. Like I said, sometimes it’s It’s because you know you don’t wanna be means it’s a It’s a good thing, but it doesn’t help.

[00:26:57.34] spk_1:
How about focus groups? Are there are people doing those online? I mean, it’s certainly eminently doable, are they? Are they valuable? Our folks are people participating.

[00:27:17.04] spk_0:
Yeah, I’ve definitely There’s been focus groups happening over the last year. I find them. You know, there’s a lot to be careful with with focus groups because there are group dynamics that you need to be aware of. You need to be

[00:27:28.44] spk_1:
a pro at facilitating those, right? Yes. Yeah. You don’t wanna go off as an amateur trying it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Because you’re asking for people’s honest opinions and

[00:27:40.64] spk_0:
yeah, and it’s very hard for people. You don’t want to talk about some of those being nice elements. That is amplified when you have a few strangers in a room.

[00:27:48.14] spk_1:
Yeah, right. Yeah. I don’t want to say anything controversial. I don’t want anybody feeling. Yeah, but then you’re not getting truthful answers, right? So you need all right, You need a pro if you’re gonna do the actual focus groups, right? Okay. Do you facilitate those? Do you facilitate focus groups?

[00:28:04.84] spk_0:
Um, I do not. Usually there’s a few people I work with that that have done them, or, um, but, like I said, you know, prefer being able Thio digging a little deeper with people

[00:28:16.34] spk_1:
you don’t have that lions lions, then of focus groups. And yeah,

[00:28:40.34] spk_0:
well, I’ve definitely done them in. You know, in the past industrial design world, I’ve watched a lot of focus groups, so e think I I understand how complicated they are. And it’s when you get into, um, nonprofits that air so emotionally entangled in our heads that I don’t find them as is practical.

[00:28:43.24] spk_1:
Okay. All right. So don’t try this at home. Or maybe you don’t need it.

[00:28:47.52] spk_0:
Just just have a good Yeah.

[00:28:49.25] spk_1:
Alright. Another You got another method?

[00:29:20.34] spk_0:
Um, well, another, you know, we can also get into more data driven methods, which is like, a b testing or doing, you know, sending out several different options. And and so this is not listening in the sense that you people are voicing things back, but you’re seeing what decisions they make your observing their behavior. And so I find observing as another type of listening, like,

[00:29:21.18] spk_1:
what are some examples of things you might A B test?

[00:30:13.34] spk_0:
Um, you could a b test a new message you wanted to use to promote a program or or to encourage people to donate. Um, you know, the trick is to always have an action that you want people to take eso You could talk about an event in two different ways. Send that out and see you know what? What? Got people to, you know, come to the event or click for more information? Um, whatever it might be. But that’s those air. Really. They’re harder because again, you don’t get that. Why? But you do. You do get the behavior, which, as I mentioned before in the survey’s can sometimes, um, not come through because, yeah, it’s not someone’s riel reaction. Where reaction.

[00:30:19.54] spk_1:
You’re getting reaction you’re getting You’re getting data. Um, Anything else? Quantitative. You like to quantitative?

[00:30:22.97] spk_0:
Yeah. I, uh I mentioned observing Don’t

[00:30:26.54] spk_1:
hold out on non profit radio listeners. Now, keep anything into my

[00:30:30.51] spk_0:
bag of listening trip.

[00:30:31.84] spk_1:
Nothing. Nothing at the bottom of the bag.

[00:30:57.34] spk_0:
Well, this one is so observing, I think can also happen. Um, it’s a little harder right now, since a lot of people are socially distanced, but observing people’s behaviors, Um, and this could be, you know, watching people and an event. How many people like, if you have different tables where they’re going, you know, keeping track of of some of those things. Are they paying attention to different speakers

[00:31:01.91] spk_1:
when you’re CEO gets up? Does everyone go to the bar or the bathroom? That’s a bad sign.

[00:31:08.04] spk_0:
Yeah, You just don’t know what it means. You know, I always think

[00:31:13.59] spk_1:
they don’t wanna listen. Uh, going to the bar to drink. When? When? The CEO of the bathroom. They probably don’t wanna hear the CEO. So that’s bad.

[00:31:41.14] spk_0:
Well, I always think of the example of, you know, and a friend to other friend gave a speech at an event and came up to her afterwards and was like, What? Why did you hate my speech? What was wrong? And she really She had some sour candy in her mouth the whole time. And so she was kind of like like making these

[00:31:42.47] spk_1:
grimacing, disapproving

[00:31:46.94] spk_0:
faces unintentionally. And so this is where you don’t want to make those assumptions eso we can observe, and that will help

[00:31:53.82] spk_1:
us. I mean, there might be an alternative. Might be an alternative explanation for everybody going to the bathroom when you maybe you had too much

[00:31:59.82] spk_0:
punch. Maybe what? Maybe you serve too much punch.

[00:32:13.74] spk_1:
Punch, punch. All right, All right. So maybe it’s the timing. Okay. Um Alright, so that’s interesting. Yes. Observing dynamics in a room where people where people huddling. What? What? What might you learn from things like from that? Those kinds of observations when we get back to in life are really ever personal. Presidents? What might you What might you pick up or what have you seen? That’s interesting. Um

[00:32:58.54] spk_0:
uh, let’s see. I mean, you can learn like I think of an example like at a museum. You know, where are people stopping and taking the most pictures might learn. Like what is, um, what? Elements of a space are engaging to people and that could then lead you to ask more questions about why that seem more interesting to people. So So sometimes observation helps us come up with more questions than answers, but very, very helpful ones.

[00:33:01.64] spk_1:
Yeah, because those questions then could become goals for your the next phase of your listening campaign.

[00:33:25.14] spk_0:
Yeah, well, and I think, you know, to the museum example, someone might not realize they were, you know, idling in a in a certain room and taking more pictures if you would ask them in a survey or even in an interview. But if you observe them doing that, then they have to kind of think a little bit more about why they why that appealed to them?

[00:33:42.14] spk_1:
Well, that’s it. Like they’re hanging out in the French nudes room. Of course, they’re all going to say, Well, I didn’t realize I didn’t I didn’t know I was there, that really 25 minutes. I don’t make any assumptions about that Yeah, I thought I breezed right through that. The newsroom. Alright. Yeah, e

[00:35:09.14] spk_0:
Just saying Oh, yeah, Are sometimes our minds remember different behaviors than than what we actually did. Yeah, sure. Let’s see if I could think of other ones. Um, I think that that kind of covers I was I was gonna add toe observation is, um and this is less like little observation, but seeing what? What else? People do. Um, and so this could be understanding. Knew where? Where do your where’s your audience shop? What what other things are they doing with their time? Um and so this It’s not really a different method. You might still need to do a survey or interview around this, but but to understand, um, you know those air behaviors that we can then use to work with our programs on dso understanding that people, you know, maybe are more organic or vegan shoppers might then lead us to think more about the food we serve at an event, um, or or how you’re appealing your, um, your mission to people. Especially like a newer There were people. There might be some connection you can make with other habits and behaviors that they have

[00:35:11.05] spk_1:
or knowing maybe what other causes folks give to

[00:35:32.44] spk_0:
exactly. Yeah, um, you know, And knowing that someone shops set eco friendly stores might than, you know, make them more connected to a sustainable part of your organization. And, you know, knowing that you you have sustainable practices could be more appealing to them.

[00:36:28.63] spk_1:
Right? Right. You want to share that? Okay, time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals. DOT drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level. End quote. That’s Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is prospect to donor simplified. Get the free demo for listeners. Also a free month. It’s all on the listener landing page at we’ve got but loads more time for Listen closely, and I hope that’s what you’re doing. How did you get the company named teeny big?

[00:37:00.93] spk_0:
I gave myself a small window. Thio come up with a name and, um and what I really liked about it is I love zooming in and out on things. And so the big picture is very fascinating to me, but then to zoom in on these little details that we might observe on doing back out to see what we can broadly learn from those, Um, that was that really drew me to to the name.

[00:37:10.63] spk_1:
Okay, Now what? I’m this interesting s So why did you give yourself a time frame for choosing a name? Did you feel like you could go on forever if you didn’t? Yeah.

[00:37:27.83] spk_0:
Yeah. Coming from the design world, I knew I could spend endless amounts of time. And so, yeah, that was an entrepreneur practice I learned of. Give yourself 45 minutes for an idea and just come up with as much as you can. Then, uh, is that

[00:37:31.43] spk_1:
one? You got a company name in 45 minutes? Mhm.

[00:37:33.13] spk_0:
That’s all right. And then 14 minutes for the logo. Yeah. Kept it moving.

[00:37:41.63] spk_1:
Yeah, for a clever name. Okay. Interesting. Very. That was a very productive 45 minutes. Give.

[00:37:43.74] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s interesting. When you give yourself constraints, sometimes you can get a little more creative.

[00:38:13.32] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s for the those of us who work in the last minute. You feel that pressure now? I’m not saying, you know, last but it. But it’s time pressure. You know, your do other things until you know that you’re at the point where you absolutely have to focus on something else. And then you do. I mean, it’s amazing. You know how I can squander three hours and it’s amazing what I could do in 25 minutes. Uh

[00:38:20.72] spk_0:
huh. Yeah, that’s a part of the brain I’ve not quite understood, but it’s It definitely forces some focus. That helps. Yeah,

[00:38:34.72] spk_1:
it’s valuable. It helps. May not that I’m squandering 7/8 of my day, and then I’m only working half hour a day. But but the time pressure of ah, of an imminent deadline helps me.

[00:38:41.72] spk_0:
Yeah, sometimes you have to force it in yourself. I’d like to think about really didn’t like the names. I could just give myself another 45 minutes. But all right,

[00:38:42.21] spk_1:
you’re cheating. Then you’re gonna cheat yourself. I know, I know. Not setting the boundaries. You’re not supposed to abandon your boundaries. Emily, you’re supposed to stay. It was there was

[00:38:51.38] spk_0:
this part of my brain was telling myself that. And then the other part was like, Wait,

[00:38:57.92] spk_1:
maybe if I need more time. All right. Um, what else? Where else do radio? Where else do we go from here? Where do you wanna talk about?

[00:41:06.01] spk_0:
Let’s see, One of the things I love to talk about that I think is not happening very much in the nonprofit world is prototyping and testing on dso. I mentioned this a little bit in the ways toe. Listen, um and this kind of gets into again, like a lot of listening, and it’s a, you know, professional listening, not just conversation is trying Thio get answers to these questions that people aren’t always able to articulate. And so when we can get ideas in front of people that allows them to react. So, you know, you could you might be able to say, Oh, what would get you to come to this next event? You want pizza or free wine or, you know, you might be ableto like Sorry. I phrase it the wrong way. You might ask somebody that and they might say The obvious answer is like pizza and wine or or a discount. Um, I feel like that’s sort of the ultimate, um, answer to a lot of non profit questions when when they do surveys is people like Oh, yeah, I would come if I just had a discount or if there’s a free ticket and and yeah, I like the amount of non profits I hear that. Say, they gave them the discount and they didn’t come, Um, And so if instead we get ideas in front of people and say, You know, what if we had a Q and A at the end, or what if we, um, you know, told you some really interesting stories about this artist or composer? Um, you know, and maybe share some of those tidbits so they would understand what that actually meant. Um, you can start to paint a picture that they could get excited about, and so maybe it isn’t about the discount or the free thing, but it’s about the the interesting value that they would get out of it. Um, and they’re able to react to that rather than having to come up with the idea of themselves

[00:41:08.19] spk_1:
can give another example. It feels like we’re talking in the you’re talking in the abstract. Can we?

[00:41:13.05] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:41:14.51] spk_1:
Can come An example for us. Toe ground. This?

[00:41:36.41] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, let me think of a good one. So let’s see, with, uh, there was an organization that they were really having our arts organization, that they discovered that people were viewing them mawr as a entertainment venue. So people were coming and supporting them through ticket sales, but they weren’t moving towards donations And really seeing this organization

[00:41:45.71] spk_1:
as Yeah,

[00:43:11.70] spk_0:
yeah, and so they’re kind of struggling in this barrier. And so what we did is we actually prototypes, um, three statements that they could say ahead of their programming to remind people about the broader work that they were doing what happens, you know, when they left the building and on DWI could hit different, you know, emotional touch points. You know, one was really about the big picture of how this organization fit into the world. One gave us a practical numbers around the impact they were making. I think one told a good story about the history of the organization and So those were prototypes. Those were three different ways they could talk to people about why their organization is more than just entertainment on DSO. Then they could take those those concepts and whether it was in a survey and have people kind of choose which motivated the most. Or through an interview where they can literally just get, you know, ask people what they thought about those different. You know, those different statements and use that to then build a really powerful statement that when they did actually go, so have the next event. They had the confidence that that would make an impact. Okay,

[00:43:33.50] spk_1:
Okay. Helpful. Thank you. All right. Um, any anything we should be cautious of when we’re having doing this work? Maybe whether it’s casual at the over the counter pay table at an event or whether it’s more formal. Any lessons learned that we should avoid?

[00:44:00.29] spk_0:
Yeah, I’ve been going back thio some of things I’ve said before about people don’t always know what will motivate them. Um, and you know, they don’t always know what they’re the kind of predict their behaviors in a certain situation. And so I’ve definitely learned to live with a certain sense of, uh, uncertainty,

[00:44:01.45] spk_1:
A certain sense of uncertainty, a

[00:45:23.19] spk_0:
certain sense of yeah, helpful. Um, you know, listening is a process, and so it’s not as concrete as, um, you know, maybe some some more quantitative data points, but it is. It’s something you should always be doing. But always questioning on dhe. This kind of goes back to making, making assumptions about people you want to make sure that we’re not taking people literally, um, that that were, you know, uh, that we’re trying to figure out the motivations behind them. The, um you know, not just the functional touchpoints. So maybe, are they attending an event? Um, would they want to attend event, But also the why behind it? You know what really draws them to your organization? What caught their eye about that event? Um, and using that to then, you know, kind of taking those bits and pieces and building a story about them slowly so that we’re not. So I feel like I’m kind of getting in a little bit of a word. Jumble. Right. Okay.

[00:45:32.19] spk_1:
Well, you first of all, for functional touchpoints almost put you in jargon jail. I

[00:45:32.30] spk_0:
know. I

[00:45:32.73] spk_1:
know. Okay? Yeah.

[00:45:52.49] spk_0:
Yeah. Tony and I were just talking about jargon on LinkedIn. So, Z, uh, my watch out is to toe always sort of live in this hypothesis with listening on dso I think of. I think of it as, like a scientist.

[00:45:56.65] spk_1:
Okay, what’s the What’s the hypothesis? Oh, that you have a hypothesis going in.

[00:46:50.38] spk_0:
Well, that’s so a scientist is, um, you know, studying rocks, and they might find certain information about those rocks, but they always always have to keep questioning. Is that true? Is that true? Is that you know, is that really, um, the truth? And so I think with listening, it’s the same thing. People are complicated and so we can keep listening and gathering mawr information. Um, but we also have to know that it’s not solid ground that we’re standing on it. Z, it’s something that my ebb and flow throughout. Okay, you know, a ZX time moves on, and so it’s You have to live with some uncertainty. I e I guess what I’m saying is that if you you know, you don’t just do a survey and wipe your hands and think you have all the answers.

[00:47:06.08] spk_1:
Understand? Okay, right. You may need to have You may very well need to probe further. Asked what? Little asking One more question. Ah, dive deeper Thio to get to the rial. Yeah, Motivations person people really motivations what really moves them?

[00:47:25.78] spk_0:
Yeah. And you know, like this year as a ZX vaccinations happened, Those the ideas that people said in March might not be the same as in September. Eso you just have to live with some of that that uncertainty,

[00:47:27.28] spk_1:
okay, but it’s still worth proving its worth. Oh, yeah. You’re listening campaigns, Of course.

[00:47:35.98] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, it’s better than saying the wrong the wrong thing. All

[00:47:36.78] spk_1:
right, we’re gonna leave it there. Okay?

[00:47:38.78] spk_0:
Okay. All right.

[00:47:51.38] spk_1:
Emily Taylor. Principle of teeny big at teeny big dot com, which was derived in 45 minutes or or less. Um, thank you very much, Emily. Thanks for sharing.

[00:47:53.98] spk_0:
Thank you, tony. Thanks for having me.

[00:48:00.37] spk_1:
I did pronounce your name. Right? Right. Emily, You okay? Okay. No more shy and awkward either. Well, you’re over that. Your china smart assed, uh, non profit radio. You are. Thank you very much.

[00:48:07.77] spk_0:
Thank you.

[00:48:57.67] spk_1:
Next week, strategic execution you know, strategic planning Now what if you missed any part of this week’s show? I beseech you, Find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot c o and by dot drives prospect to donor Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty, with me next week for non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Special Episode: Reopening From Coronavirus

I love our sponsors!

WegnerCPAs. Guiding you. Beyond the numbers.

Cougar Mountain Software: Denali Fund is their complete accounting solution, made for nonprofits. Claim your free 60-day trial.

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

Listen Live or Archive:

My Guest:

Lisa Brauner: Reopening From Coronavirus
My guest is attorney Lisa Brauner. We see the faint light at the end of the tunnel. We’re slowly emerging as we knew we would. But these things must be done delicately. What do you plan ahead for? How do you keep employees safe and can they refuse to return to work? What are reasonable accommodations? Lisa has answers. Lisa has advice. Lisa is a partner at Perlman+Perlman law firm in New York City.

 

 

 

Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

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.

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

Sponsored by:

Cougar Mountain Software logo
View Full Transcript
Transcript for 487b_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200506.mp3

Processed on: 2020-05-06T21:41:06.680Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2020…05…487b_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200506.mp3.116034144.json
Path to text: transcripts/2020/05/487b_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200506.txt

[00:00:12.34] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit

[00:00:42.84] spk_2:
radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. This is a short special episode of non profit radio to help you cope with the pandemic reopening from Corona virus. My guest is attorney Lisa Brunner. We see the faint light at the end of the tunnel were slowly emerging as we knew that we would. But these things must be done.

[00:00:44.94] spk_3:
Delicate, please.

[00:01:39.04] spk_2:
So, what do we, uh, what we planned for? That’s coming. How do you keep employees safe? And can they refuse to return to work? What are reasonable accommodations? Lisa has answers. Lisa has advice. Lisa is a partner at a prominent Perlman law firm in New York City, responsive by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com My Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant mountain for a free 60 day trial. And by turned to communications um, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Thank you very much. Welcome back, Lisa.

[00:01:41.54] spk_0:
Thank you, tony. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:43.54] spk_2:
Alright. Thank you for doing another special episode with us. These are these are these are valuable for listeners. Thank you. You’re welcome. Everything okay? Looks ah. Looks bright and sunny in New York is it

[00:02:00.64] spk_0:
is right. Well, it was raining earlier, but looks like the being the son, maybe. Okay. Make its way through. Looks

[00:02:36.98] spk_2:
looks bright. We’ll call it bright and sunny. Okay. Even so, shining light on your beautiful artwork on your walls. Thank you. So you’ve been thinking a lot about what is ahead as states begin to ah, open up the reduced the restrictions on on work at home, our restrictions on work in the office requirements to work at home. It’s happening slowly. There’s, like, I don’t know, maybe half a dozen states or so, so far that if reduce the the restrictions on just on certain industries, So I don’t I don’t know if maybe, you know, Are there states yet that have office workers allowed back to go back that had restrictions before just on office work?

[00:02:49.54] spk_0:
Well, I mean, we hear about in certain states like Georgia that they’ve already started to reopen certain industries.

[00:03:04.44] spk_2:
Right? That’s just restaurants and dollars to point essential. You gotta have those but our people back in offices in Georgia.

[00:03:08.74] spk_0:
I don’t know that people are back in the offices.

[00:03:12.65] spk_2:
Yeah, so but it’s coming. It’s good

[00:03:14.38] spk_0:
calming you write.

[00:03:15.53] spk_2:
That was like

[00:04:23.24] spk_0:
the end of the tunnel on dhe estates air trying to use depending on the states in the measured approach or prioritising which businesses come back first. New York is already talking about the plan for which are the most essential businesses or industries with the least amount of risk, where they can start reopening construction and different and different things. So it’s it’s a kind of a faced approach. It sounds like it’s happening. In New York, for instance, the governor put in a 12 point plan of different things that he expects them would like to see happen. Ah, in order for the reopening to occur and specifically with respect to workplaces, at least in New York, and it may be may be different in different states. There’s an expectation in York that, uh, is part of this plan that employers are going to put into place implement the safety protocol for their

[00:04:37.24] spk_2:
I thought, This is This is one of things we need toe be planning ahead. So, you know, at this stage, we’re planning for returning. Um, you know, but there. I mean, there’s basics. Like, what’s the schedule gonna be? Who’s gonna come? Um, you know, walk us through some of that pre planning. But before we get to the

[00:07:41.34] spk_0:
sure exactly at this point, tony, employers should be pre planning for that day. Ah, and not not necessarily waiting to see what happens. They should be putting a plan in place, which involves things like who? Who is going to continue to work remotely? Who is gonna be actually in the office? How are we going to How are we gonna make that happen? And how we gonna ensure that employees are safe coming back? What could be looking at their finances? What is it that we can afford to do in terms of who we bring back our their employees? That we will not be able to continue employing that we may need to furlough. Who do we need on the ground? Are we going to need to cross train certain employees? So if there’s certain things that need to get done and the employees we need to do them. Can’t do everything. Mm. From home. Do we have other employees that are able to come in who can actually perform some of those functions? What do we need to do physically in our workplace to ensure that the workplace is is safe, for instance, Um, are we gonna have what we have? Sufficient? Will we have masks? Will we have gloves? Do we need to dio, Do we need to sanitize the workplace? In other words, that we’ve wiped down everything all the surfaces, computer keyboards and door knobs. What have we done to ensure to communicate to our employees that the works, the works space that you’re coming back to is actually is actually safe. So having a plan to communicate to employees about what’s been done in terms of safety precautions, considering what type of personal protective equipment or face coverings and things like that, the employer is gonna have figuring out whether they need to do some type of reconfiguration of the actual work space. So, for instance, it in workplaces where they might have more of an open plan where everybody’s together. Ah, what do we need to dio Teoh either reconfigure this space to make it safe so that we can still allow for social distancing. Do we need to put up plastic or plexi glass? But between the areas where employees are working, do we need to set up one way a one way hallway that, you know, this whole way? Everybody goes in this direction and the other hallway, Everybody comes in the opposite direction. In other words, that employers should be coming up with their post pandemic plan for how they’re going to logistically bring employees be back and who’s gonna come back. And also how how are we gonna bring employees back safely?

[00:08:12.17] spk_2:
Okay, that’s a ton of stuff to be thinking about. But you know, all good. So listeners will go back and start taking notes on, like, the 20 things that you just ticked off as a ZX items to be used to be thinking about, um, everybody talks about the PP do. Do employers have AH responsibility requirement or t provide? I don’t gloves and masks. Or is that is that governed by state law? Or just buy your own moral obligation that you feel what what what what guides them in making a decision like that?

[00:10:12.94] spk_0:
Mm. I mean, I think it’s I think it’s adhering to whatever the precautions are of the CDC and Osho, the Centers for Disease Control and on OSHA, Occupational Safety Ah, and Health Administration. In looking to those to that guidance and also any state and local guidance as to whether their directives right now, perhaps with the exception of the essential workers, it’s really being left to the employers to for the most part, unless there’s a state or local directive to do it, it’s being left to employers to make those decisions. But certainly if the CDC is advising that individuals wear face coverings in instances where they can’t social distance, it would be it would behoove an employer to say, You know, we follow the directives of the seedy city. Ah, in protecting our employees is an under under OSHA. Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, employers have to maintain a workplace that’s free of any hazards. Essentially, they have a duty to to do that, too. Keep the employees safe, you know, pre from hazard. So in the workplace. So so that would extend Teoh. I mean, recommendation would be that employers do provide face coverings to their employees. And and also they may even consider having face coverings available to anyone who’s visiting the workplace. If they have something cups, someone coming on site, who’s gonna be cleaning the work area clients? Anyone who’s going to be coming into the workplace because those individuals could be, if they’re asymptomatic could be infecting one of the employees. So

[00:10:18.74] spk_2:
that would

[00:10:19.09] spk_0:
be, well, advice to do that.

[00:10:49.09] spk_2:
That brings up another issue about people coming to your office, those you’re serving or maybe just like you said. Maybe they’re just the office cleaners or just people routinely come in. You know the mail gets delivered. Ups comes, you know, et cetera. How do you treat people? Coming to your office is not just what do you expect of them? It’s not just what do you expect of employees and what you gonna do for employees but visitors to the office or your other facilities as well? You know, non profits may very well not even now have a second facility. It’s not in office, but it’s where it’s where they serve meals or serve clients in some other way. Those people have to be accommodated.

[00:11:45.08] spk_0:
Yes. So I mean, all those things there such excellent points and which really go to the point of pre planning now Because Because employers can’t they can’t just show up on the first day of work and say, Okay, now we’re you know, now we’re back to work. Ah, we’re going to do the best we can. They really have to plan out in advance. You know what is social distancing gonna look like And our work space. And it’s gonna be different for every non profit. Like in some instances, it could be, you know, setting something up like we see when we go into when we go into a pharmacy or when we go into a supermarket where they’ve actually designated, you know, spots for people who are waiting on line to understand their six feet between you

[00:11:51.05] spk_2:
because it was sitting on the floor.

[00:12:36.34] spk_0:
Exactly. So depending on the non profit, so I’m not gonna be appropriate in every setting, but depending on the non profit and what, who their servicing and what the layout of their workspaces, it’s gonna dictate what it is they need to dio from a social distancing perspective to keep six feet between people, but they have to. Employers should be thinking now, what is it based on who were serving on what we’re doing? And what are configuration is what kinds of changes do we need to make right now to ensure that our employees feel safe, that that the people that we serve that are coming to our work site also feel safe. Uh, you know that that they’re not going to get infected. So eso the pre planning is is, I think, crucial right now.

[00:12:44.75] spk_2:
Otherwise, you just compounding the crisis. If you’re leaving this until the last minute are you know, the week before or something. You know, it’s not gonna be enough time to look at all the guidance because so you said, CDC, OSHA, and you also have to look to the your state whatever state guidance there may be. And even potentially, your city could have guidelines around requirements for businesses.

[00:14:00.84] spk_0:
Absolutely, absolutely on social distancing. But here’s some other things that I wanted to mention that employers could think about. Two. Is there as they’re planning? Um, I mean, the goal is to to continue the social distancing for now until we know that the threat is over, and so they could consider things like staggering of start times that employees start work staggering in the end times, particularly where people are in larger urban areas. And they may be Trent, you know, traveling by bus or subway where they’re gonna be congregated with a lot of people. And so to reduce that from happening. If employers consider maybe staggering the time that an employee comes to work to avoid Rush Hour or to stagger the time that the employee is going home from work to avoid rush hour, that could be a possibility or changing the day. So we’re

[00:14:16.45] spk_2:
thinking maybe I could get a work day that’s like 10 to 2. Can I squeeze Shoot 10 and leave around two, or maybe to 30 with, and I’ll reduce my lunch to an hour and 15 minutes from an hour and 1/2 That that that is not considered a reasonable accommodation?

[00:14:27.64] spk_0:
Well, a reasonable combination isn’t another context.

[00:14:43.54] spk_2:
I know. Yeah, no, I’m being unreasonable a za potential. But I could never be an employee because that, you know, there are a lot of reasons I couldn’t work for um, so, yeah, I mean, even staggering weeks, maybe. Maybe right 11 team works off site for a week and then comes into the office and the other team, and they rotate it, rotate around that way

[00:15:18.91] spk_0:
absolutely. Or having someone working on a weekend day as opposed to a weekday as a substitute, as a way to to stagger, first of all, so that you are helping the employees reduce the risk if they’re gonna be traveling by mass transit or in a large group. Secondly, er, to reduce the number of people just in the office together at one time. So

[00:15:34.93] spk_2:
there’s a potential, you know, in being flexible like this, there’s a potential to actually, you know, toe help families who, you know, maybe it’s ah, it’s a couple. And it helps them that one of them works on a Saturday or that one of them has, you know, unusual hours tend to six or something. Maybe that helps the family. And so you can build f have that flexibility and also be good to your employees at the same time.

[00:16:17.54] spk_0:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say one of the kind of key takeaways from all of this is employers should be flexible in the solutions that they are coming up within this time. That’s so unprecedented, but should should just be flexible on the possibilities of what exactly they can provide and what they can offer in terms of bringing the workers back to work and doing it in a way, that’s that’s Ah, that’s safe. Um, so yeah, well,

[00:16:20.11] spk_2:
I was gonna turn Teoh reasonable accommodations, which I perverted a couple of minutes ago. But, um what what do we need to be thinking about that? What does that phrase mean? And how does it apply here?

[00:22:28.34] spk_0:
So reasonable accommodations. So under the law, employers have a reasonable have a duty to reasonably accommodate employees for because they have a disability for religious practices. Ah, in New York for pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions. And so the types of things that one needs to reasonably accommodate an employee for may depend import on your jurisdiction and what that jurisdiction recognizes as being entitled to a reasonable accommodation. But for employers who have 15 or more employees, they are covered under a federal law called the Americans with Disabilities Act. And they have a legal obligation to reasonably accommodate employees who have a disability so that that an employee can perform the essential functions of their job. Unless doing that, we would pose an undue hardship on the organization. So how that looks here in in this cove, it situation is if you have somebody who has a disability, they may set a. My doctor says that I need to continue working from home. Ah, nde working from home, maybe a reasonable accommodation. And for that person, it’s also going to be more difficult for employers to say that doing so would pose an undue hardship in view of the fact that so many people have been working from home because of the situation. So somebody has disability, uh, in New York, for instance, if there pregnant or because of childbirth related medical conditions, they may need to. It may be that they that they need to work from continuing work from home is a reasonable accommodation that could be an example working from home or leave of absence or things like that. So where it gets where it now gets trickier, here is the situation where somebody has an underlying condition. Well, let me first say that the E O. C. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the federal agency that enforces the A d. A. Has has not said that Cove in 19 is a disability, said it may be good state and city and a human rights laws like New York City. Human rights laws have said that, yes, this this, uh, is a disability and those laws, this is one of most important things is that even if there’s not a requirement into the federal law, state and city laws maybe much more liberal and protective of employees, then what What the a d a provides. So even if a certain reasonable accommodation may not be required under federal law, it may be required under state and sitting law. And so that brings me to the next point about the sister of reasonable accommodations. And that is one of the wrinkles here. Interesting aspects is that we know that people with certain underlying conditions are more susceptible to contracting the virus, right? So individuals who have diabetes, uh, who have, uh, who have respiratory ailments who have auto immune honestly, maybe may be more vulnerable, uh, or susceptible and so So the question comes up. What about somebody who has an underlying health condition? Um, you know, can they, uh, can they refused to come to work, right? I mean, that’s one of the questions, and it’s an open question. I think employers, they’re gonna have to they’re gonna have to consult with legal counsel about what the state and local laws are with respect to that. Um, but the person has an underlying condition like, for instance, in New York City, New York City just issued guidance. Ah, New York City’s Commission on Human Rights just and that’s the agency that enforces the New York City Human rights Law. They just issued guidance around this issue of underlying conditions that employers may need to reasonably accommodate ah, individuals who have an underlying condition in New York City. And it could be in other jurisdictions to having an association with somebody who has a disability is illegal protection. So let’s say an employee has a family member who has a disability that employer can’t discriminate against, or treat that employees less favourably simply because that person has an association with a person with a disability. So depending on the state and city jurisdictions. There could be greater protections for individuals, depending on whether someone there associated with has a disability, whether the employees themselves has an underlying condition. When that employee says to the employer, I want to continue working from home or I need to take time off or something or something to that effect. So it’s kind of it. It’s another aspect of this that employers need to be thinking about. Not just what is the federal Lost A but one of the state and local law say about how I need to accommodate this person and whether they can refused to come to work because of ah, of the of the fear of, uh, of contracting the virus and they might be entitled to. I’m sorry, Go ahead.

[00:22:48.84] spk_2:
What about if it’s just a fear? But there isn’t un underlying, um, underlying diagnosis that makes them more vulnerable either themselves or someone there associated with suppose. It’s just a generalized fear of traveling and returning to work without any underlying medical issue.

[00:25:14.47] spk_0:
Generally, they wouldn’t be able to refuse unless there is Yeah, generally, I mean, once the stay at home order has lifted. Ah, and e No employers are clear to reopen their workspaces. Someone’s general fear isn’t gonna be illegal. Generally gonna be illegal. Ah, excuse provided legal excuse from them not to return to work. I mean, if they if they’re entitled to paid sick leave or paid extended family leave for one of the reasons under the families first grown of his response act, That’s one thing. Generalized Fear, uh, is not going to give them a legal claim for refusing to come back to work. That said, uh, to the extent that employers can reassure their employees as to number one, the efforts of the employers taken in the workplace, them safe. I’ve heard situations of employers who they hire a private van or bust or something where they’re going to bring employees into work to avoid having to deal with mass transit. So employers can be creative and ways in which they can support their employees on reassure the employees about the safety of both being at the workplace and coming to the workplace and being flexible and accommodating, even when there may not be a legal obligation to do so. But for reasons of employee morale and motivating employees finding creative and flexible ways to support employees coming back to the workplace. You know, alternative ways for them to get to work. Ah, and reassuring them that we’re providing face coverings and and gloves so that you feel safe when you’re here. We have protocols for people who are visiting the workplace so that we know you know, that they’re taking precautions when they’re gonna be interacting with you as an employee. Those things go a long way for employees to feel reassured that they that they’re gonna be that their safety concerns are being addressed.

[00:26:18.91] spk_2:
A lot of a lot of what you’re suggesting today is consistent with what you said in the very first. You and I did the very first special episode together, which was probably five weeks or so ago when when we were on the other. We’re talking about other things, just planning for working at home, and a lot of your advice there was be flexible. Um, be thinking ahead. What’s it gonna look like when you, when your workforce is distributed back to home, are after their homes communicate? That was a central message then, and it still is, and this is exactly what you’re saying. Now, you know, communicate with your employees about what you’ve done about what you’re going to do, um, to help them just be reassured. So I mean, the details are different because we’re going from home to back to the office is But your overall messages about be flexible, communicate, um, have some empathy. You know, those air plan ahead. Those are the same things you were saying five weeks ago about the opposite situation.

[00:28:13.44] spk_0:
We are on the other side. It’s true. But those those values and those tools I think are the same because those are the things that give employees reassurance that everything gonna be okay on dhe on dhe. People may have fear about coming back to the office coming into the office again. So to the extent those things can be done, you know they should be done on employers, you know, because we’re in the pandemic. They have also some more flexibility in terms of certain things that otherwise might not be able to do under the Americans with Disabilities Act like taking employees temperatures, although not everybody who has Cove in 19 has a fever, but employers can do that? They can scream. Okay. They can. They can. They can ask employees whether they have the, you know, particular symptoms that have been identified specifically with covert 19. Uh, they can insist that employees self report to them. If those employees start exhibiting any of those symptoms to let them know, uh, employers could do that. Now, of course, they have to keep any any medical information, which includes the results of temperatures and things like that. If they were to do that, they have a legal obligation to keep that information confidential. So whether they decide they’re gonna take the temperatures and record those temperatures or they decide, we’re only gonna look to see if somebody is above a certain threshold. And we’re only going to indicate on a form that they were either below or above the threshold. They can make those determinations themselves about how they they want to administer it. But whatever the results are, they must keep that information confidential. Um,

[00:28:29.31] spk_2:
yeah, I want todo Did you have more than you wanted to say on that? Uh, I thought that what employers? How much further? Employers can go now with questions. And then you know, you still got to or cause I was gonna ask, I was gonna start asking something else, but

[00:28:34.19] spk_0:
I’m sure I know. Go ahead. OK,

[00:28:35.88] spk_2:
OK. The, um

[00:28:37.74] spk_0:
what do you do

[00:28:51.64] spk_2:
in the case where someone is, um, is happier on unemployment because, you know, there’s, ah, there’s that federal bump of $600 a week. Um, plus, whatever the state is paying unemployment benefits, Um, what if you have You just have a recalcitrant employees who is happier receiving the unemployment than then they would be going back to

[00:29:35.05] spk_0:
work. So that’s an excellent question and something that we actually see. And I think first of all, the bump ends on July 31st. That’s the first thing the $600 additional, Uh, so that’s the first thing that the second thing is typically to be eligible for unemployment insurance. The person has to be ready, willing and able toe work. And if they’re being offered a job back, they may be in a situation where they end up being disqualified from unemployment insurance.

[00:29:40.28] spk_2:
You have to certify right that you, I guess, includes that you turned down employment. If you did right, I don’t have to certify. I mean, I know in North Carolina, you have to certify each week it’s probably routine, uh, about white Look for a job, you know, things like that. So it just if you turned down your existing employers offer of returning to work, Um, that’s that would disqualify you for unemployment.

[00:30:15.76] spk_0:
They may. They may be depending on the state deemed ineligible to continue receiving unemployment. If they were then offered hope so. Yes. Oh,

[00:30:19.64] spk_2:
I’m happy here.

[00:30:21.24] spk_0:
It is this way until

[00:30:35.64] spk_2:
July 31st. I’m very content right here. Right. OK, so there’s a mechanism for dealing with that on the on the unemployment insurance state level. Yeah, hopefully. OK, alright. We could dismiss that hypothetic. But you said you ve seen that, or you’ve heard it already.

[00:30:41.64] spk_0:
They were because they’re making more money at this point. So it

[00:30:45.27] spk_2:
was a purely hypothetical. You’ve heard

[00:30:47.20] spk_0:
I exactly. Yeah.

[00:31:24.46] spk_2:
Okay. Okay. Well, not all employees air lazy and not all employers or scruple. Unscrupulous. So, you know, make that z ensure we, uh, fair to both sides. Um, And on this, by the same token, there’s enough blame to go around for everybody. Um So what do we have? Toe? You know, you’ve talked about so many different things. Do we have to have written policies about You know what the expectations are gonna be when you return? We’re gonna be standing for fever. Will be issuing PPS. Um, here’s our policy for visitors to the office. Now you need to comply with this. If you see a visitor, you welcome a visitor. Do there’s always need to be in writing.

[00:34:17.69] spk_0:
Um, not everything needs to be in writing, but certain things should be in writing so that everybody is on the same page. I think I think employers can communicate just again. It depends on the size of the employer as well. In terms of whether something will be in writing or not. I think that you know more long term, longer term policies, uh, and protocols. I mean, you could have you number one. If you do have people continuing to work remotely, definitely want to have a policy on that. You want to have an agreement with that employee so everybody understands what is being expected. What? The terms are what you’re expecting with respect to employees to record their time for those that air covered by the overtime pay laws. You want to make sure that everybody understands about the importance of confidentiality and protecting the data security and and all that for employees in accounting to work remotely for paid sick leave on pay, extended paid family leave under the families First Law. You certainly want to have policies addressing those and the interplay with your other paid time off policies for absolutely for protocols on visitors to the workplace and things like that. Uh, depending on the size of the organization, you you will. You would want to have a policy addressing that particularly things are now changed in terms of how you’re gonna be interacting with visitors to the workplace, does it all the things that you would want to to have, uh, you would want to have policies on for sure. Andi would also want to train your managers and your employees about what these new policies are. So have a chance to address questions, but particularly the managers who were gonna be enforcing these policies. I mean, it’s ultimately in many cases, gonna be a to the managers who will be enforcing the social distancing who will be addressing, you know, safety concerns. Who will be, um, who will also be may be involved in decisions about who’s coming back into the workplace and who’s not. And you want to be careful about that as well that there isn’t, uh, discrimination happening either. You know, people are paying, being desperately treated or you have some type of neutral policy that’s disproportionately impacting older people. Pregnant women, etcetera. And also there’s been a noted increase in in bias against Asians, Um, during this pandemic, um, both in the workplace and outside the workplace.

[00:34:23.65] spk_2:
We talked about that five weeks ago.

[00:34:25.16] spk_0:
We did so

[00:34:26.40] spk_2:
the possibility of that. Yeah,

[00:34:55.34] spk_0:
exactly. So it’s It’s really important that employers are reminding all their employees about their policies, prohibiting discrimination and doing any supplemental training that they feel is necessary to ensure that there aren’t derogatory comments. Remarks directed at Asians Has everyone returns to the workplace. So increased training. I would say a lot of

[00:35:02.56] spk_2:
love can be done in advance. You can be absolutely obviously developing the policies, but also training about the policy discussing them before the first day back.

[00:35:08.51] spk_0:
Absolutely. Yeah. Uh, could be doing that now.

[00:35:13.69] spk_2:
So planning, developing and communicating than training that stuff could all be done in advance. Virtually

[00:36:00.88] spk_0:
yes, yeah, all that could be done. So and also just you know what the employers planning to do exactly. From a safety perspective, you know that they’re adhering to the CDC protocols and directives and what OSHA is recommending and just reassuring their employees about what they’re doing to keep them safe on dhe and also what the mechanism is for employees to bring forth any issues. Like if an employee in a particular work site feels that their manager hasn’t been, Ah hasn’t been acting consistently with what the organization says it’s being done or that there isn’t social distancing happening or the people they feel. The people aren’t taking precautions to keep them safe. Employers want to make sure that they hear from those employees so that it can be addressed, so they want to make sure they communicate whatever the mechanism is for employees to to bring those issues forward.

[00:36:38.37] spk_2:
Okay, Lisa, I think that’s pretty comprehensive. That’s enormously comprehensive. Um, I mean, I was like my takeaways are planned. Be flexible, communicate train, You know, on all these dozens of different things that we talked about. What? That’s that’s what I That’s what I’m thinking. Like in the end. What do you want to leave people

[00:37:51.63] spk_0:
with? I think those air I think those air perfect takeaways. Actually, all of those things be flexible in solution plan. Now for what reopening is gonna look like whose whose ableto continue to work from home. Who on Who needs to come back to the office? Are we being Are we making these decisions for lit? Legitimate, non just discriminatory business reasons. Is it gonna have a disparate impact on a particular group? Older people pregnant, you know, take a look at your decisions and what the impact potentially could be, uh, or will bay in making your decisions plan and, uh, and and the and be flexible in your in your solutions on a train train your employees train your managers to make sure that they’re following the protocols that you’ve put in place and that they have awaited to raise any grievances or complaints or concerns eso that those get can get addressed.

[00:37:57.33] spk_2:
Okay, Incredibly comprehensive. Thank you very much. Lisa,

[00:38:01.00] spk_0:
you’re very welcome. My pleasure, tony.

[00:38:31.86] spk_2:
Thanks for doing it responsive by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers. Wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant in for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, P. R and Media for non profits, Your story is their mission turned hyphen. Two dot CEO. Creative producer

[00:38:47.11] spk_1:
is My Half Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our Web guy. His music is by Scott Stein of Brooklyn, New York Many thanks to Susan and Mark for helping get this special episode out very quickly with me next time for non radio, big,

[00:38:49.86] spk_2:
non profit ideas for the other 90

[00:38:53.74] spk_1:
5% go out and be great.

Who Brings Sunshine To Your Mission? Tell The Stories Of Your Hero Worker Bees

Dive deep and think hard about who in your org is critical to your mission. Who gives it life and delivers sunshine? Use your digital storytelling to share their critical work with your donors, your board, your volunteers, newcomers, even employees. 

Nonprofit Radio for June 1, 2018: Tech Mindfulness & Fringe Benefits Trigger UBIT

I love our sponsors!

Do you want to find more prospects & raise more money? Pursuant is a full-service fundraising agency, leveraging data & technology.

WegnerCPAs. Guiding you. Beyond the numbers.

Credit & debit card processing by telos. Payment processing is now passive revenue for your org.

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

Listen Live or Archive:

My Guests:

Beth Kanter, Carrie Rice & Meico Whitlock: Tech Mindfulness
Our Nonprofit Technology Conference panel wants you to avoid technology burnout or overcome it if you’re already there. They have mindfulness advice for your entire office, your teams and you. They are Beth Kanter, Carrie Rice from Carrie Rice Consulting and Meico Whitlock of Mindful Techie.

 


Gene Takagi:
 Fringe Benefits Trigger UBIT
Tax law now requires your nonprofit to pay unrelated business income tax on parking and commuting expenses you provide for your employees. Our legal contributor, Gene Takagi, shepherds you through the new land. He’s principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law firm.

Gene Takagi

 

 

 

 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

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.

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

Sponsored by:


View Full Transcript

Transcript for 392_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20180601.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T23:54:33.872Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2018…06…392_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20180601.mp3.632003455.json
Path to text: transcripts/2018/06/392_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20180601.txt

Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of zoho iq andthe assis if you stung me with the idea that you missed today’s show tech mindfulness our non-profit technology conference panel wants you to avoid technology burnout or overcome it if you’re already there, they have mindfulness advice for your entire office, your teams and you. They are beth cantor carry rice from carry rice consulting and miko whitlock of mindful techie and fringe benefits trigger you b i t tax law now requires your non-profit to pay unrelated business income tax on parking and commuting expenses you provide for your employees. Our legal contributor, jean takagi shepherds you through the new land he’s, principal of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law firm i’m tony, take two, show your gratitude. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant radio by wagner, cpas guiding you beyond the numbers wagner, cps, dot com and by tell us turning credit card processing into your passive revenue. Stream tony dahna slash tony tello’s here’s our panel on tech mindfulness welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc you know what that is? It’s the two thousand eighteen non-profit technology conference coming to you from the convention center in new orleans. This interview, along with all our eighteen, ninety si interviews, is sponsored by network for good, easy to use donorsearch and fund-raising software for non-profits my guests right now are beth cantor carry rice and miko whitlock welcome all three of you. Thanks for having us. Our pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you very much. Carrie with cantor is master trainer, speaker, author, blogger and her latest book is the happy, healthy non-profit carry rice is principal at carry rice consulting, and miko whitlock is founder and ceo of mindful tiki. All right, your workshop topic is had a conker technology distraction and burn out and be more present for yourself, team and organization. All right, that’s pretty lofty presents. I feel like starting right in the middle. Carrie, we’re not so president so often, are we? Well, we broke up our session into our presence for ourselves, our presence for our team and our presence. For our overall organization, that was my focus was really about what are we doing to make it possible for those of us who aren’t members of the paid staff necessarily to remain present for the organization in a way, that’s not pushing them past their use of technology in a mindful way that to their own benefit as well as for the organization. Okay, so so each of you, i guess, has has ah, part of this three tiered presentation. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. So then carry is the organization, right? Isn’t in the organization. Okay, the host needs some notes to keep this straight. And beth was yours. Climb the we the wean? Yes, ourselves that we being of teams or internal organization staff working together. Okay. And, miko, what is your part of this? The eye, the individual? Oh, you’re the individual. Okay. Okay. So how do beth and carry distinguish the two? The two years of years the organization so you’re outside the organization, extra marries outside the organization and remaining being present. And you’re here in the internal. Okay. Got it. Yeah, i do. Alright. So far. I hope i don’t lose it. I got it? Okay. We’re also trying to overcome tech burnout. You’re we’re all concerned about tech burn out what’s the trouble here, rico? Well, the trouble is twofold. So one is what i described his intention deficit disorder, where we have a lack of clarity about what it is. We’re actually focus on it in a particular moment. I don’t think that’s a crazy coin. I mean, i think that’s out there is an attention deficit disorder. Intention? Oh, intention. Attention. Oh, well, i’m glad i okay. Intention. Definite deficit disorder. I’d yes idea. Okay. I made that clear. Yes. And so part of the work i do is around people to take a step back and really reflect on what it is that you’re trying to do in particular the context of a non profit organization, what’s your role. And what are you pushing in terms of the actual mission and the outcomes for this one aspect of it? The other aspect of it is that we have to recognize that the technology is designed in such a way that is intentionally draining our attention. Right? So is, you know, we have push notifications that are set up by default, for example. For social media, for our mobile devices. And we have to understand that that’s intentional. But they’re also ways for us to control that we can turn off those modifications. We canoe certain absent applications to regain our attention, to be more present. But those are sort of two aspects of it lack of intention and then also the intentional effort by companies to actually take and hold and keep our attention. Attention. Okay, thank you. And welcome back to non-profit radio. Thank you. And i talked in twenty sixteen and the other person on the panel who i spoke to in twenty sixteen was best cancer. We’re talking about your was then your new book? Yes. Ok. Healthy non-profit healthy non-profit, which is still you can still get it. It’s. Not like it’s out of print or anything. But in twenty sixteen, it was new. And your co author wass lisa sherman. He’s a sherman. Is she here? Not this year, but this year. Okay. And how is this work today? Different than what we talked about in twenty sixteen and happy, healthy number off it. Well, if we go back to that radio program in your archives, we talked about self care and taking care of ourselves and talk on a culture of well being. So this is a subset of it on dh specifically how staff working together can be highly productive unless distract less distracted and get their works done. And i think what we’re faced with is something called collaborative overload, which is back to back meetings, too many emails, too many platforms, and that keeps us from getting things done. So a lot of what i talked about is how could you be more intentional about your work together to combat this distraction? Okay, we’re cement wristing phrases that lack of intention intension deficit disorder, collaborative overload. Carrie, did you come with the special phrase? Welcome to non-profit a radio is very ous a newcomer. Welcome, i always surround myself with the best, so you’re you’re non-profit radio. Exactly. I’m a non-profit radio way with you and beth in mikko doesn’t get much better than that. Um, well, i come from a world where my branding is called empathetic non-profit management, which is basically that all the stakeholders of the organisation should be treating each other the same way that we treat the recipients. Of the services that we provide so the empathy that we have towards the poppies or the homeless people, we provide the same level of empathy tours, donors towards board members towards members that we’re looking at each of those groups through that same empathetic lens. And so by doing that, and then combining that with technology it’s about changing the expectation of what we do internally on our team or what we do is individuals based on the work that meeko is suggesting that we’re saying, well, maybe that doesn’t all apply to the external stakeholders who aren’t actually getting paid to do the work that we’re doing as professional does not okay, there’s a lot here, we’re gonna unpack it. I’m the remedial person on the panel, okay? Because you all have been thinking about this for years, or at least, you know, it’s, right? I mean, years or at least months in collaborating around this on the newcomer. Well, same way. Okay. Right. Well, ok. I want everyone thinking out of an average. Okay, on average are so you’re quick learner. So bring me along. Yeah. Be respectful. Okay. Uh, it’s. Time for a break. Pursuing they have a new paper, the digital donation revolution how do you keep up in our one click to buy amazon world? Can you use more revenue? A loaded question? The paper has five online fund-raising tactics proven to work and save money proven tactics you will find the digital donation revolution on the non-profit radio listener landing page. Tony dahna slash pursuing radio now back to tech mindfulness look, i don’t know where should we go? I want to start with the i’d like to start with the i actually down the end. Okay, i will start the individual. This the lack of intention this is all around helping us to stay focused right now so that we can be more mission successful ways all it’s all for the good of the of the of the social yes, there’s the societal good. But if we don’t bring it down to the if we don’t start with the individual, we can’t be maximally efficient in helping change the world. Yes, my yeah. Is that a decent contacts i put in an early yes, and so it it starts. I use a framework to people to sort of have ah place to go when they get distracted, right? So distraction is inevitable. So we’re talking about is getting a tool, a framework that they can walk through. It starts with understanding your why or your purpose. So why you showing up? Why are you committed to the work that you’re doing and then understanding based on your based on your wine, your purpose? What your actual goals? And you might have many goals that you’re focused on any point in time. And once you identify what your goals are, you actually prioritize because he recognized that with multitasking were actually mohr effectively be focused on a few things, that we’re not very good. Multi taskers, actually, are we even though we think we are what there’s actually wait, i thought we were not. Are we? Am i wrong? Well, you could say i’m wrong, i’m wrong. Why? In the technical sense, one way you could talk to this is not only me and nico, am i wrong about them? I’m walking about multitasking, i thought we were not really, truly you can’t really multi task exactly on what it when you’re doing two different task, your brain is just switching back between. The two on every time it switch treyz delays, and it also uses up brain cells and raises quarters all of cortisol levels that raises cortisol levels. So i was right. Okay, how come nobody said i was right? I am going to tell you that i think you’re right. It depends on the way to find monisha audiocasting so silent when i know for me i was seeking information that wasn’t next time, i’ll give it to him as long as it’s deserved. I mean, of course, it’s wrong if i’m wrong say, i’m wrong, but if i’m right jump on it, you know, it doesn’t happen that often. There you go, give credit where credit is, tio. Yeah, i actually like transitioning between projects, it’s just that for me i have to set aside an amount of time that works best for me to make those transition and that time is probably more than ninety second i s actually it is more than ninety seconds. Another thing about multi tasking is it takes you several seconds to re find yourself. We acquaint yourself with the task that you left, but you’re not going back to that could take his lorts nine or ten seconds for more, you know, when you’re like bouncing just quickly. I mean, it could take it could take ten minutes if you were writing something, you know, if it is a bigger piece or something. All right, because it’s not just the switching cost is also the cost of actually getting back to the place where you left off, right, and then take some time, they sort of speed up again, right? Right. Okay. Okay. All right. So good. We’re focusing on the on the you know what? I have a question for you, though. Sure. How does the eye how does what you’re describing relate to what carries part of this is she’s here you’re talking about carrie, talk about the individual as off site worker or as a as a consultant to the organization, but you’re also talking about individual. How do your how do your topics today differ? Well, i was so that they overlap, and so when we talk about why we’re talking about obviously, the individual right organizations are not just things they’re made up of people and the same thing when we talk about boards and other external stakeholders, we’re talking about people and individually way have to be able to show oppa’s out best cells so that collectively, when we come together, we can maximize our collective right, carrie okay, carrie where’s the overlap, right? So if someone were following amigos presentation yesterday about thie ability to say yes and to be able to say no with intentionality, then i want a board member who feels comfortable saying no to me because then when they say yes to me, i know they really mean it because i know that they have the skill set to say my schedule is too busy to be doing that right now or it doesn’t fit into my why of why i’m involved with this organization specifically. Okay. Okay. Um, i saw you nodding. You wanted you wanted anything with beth that’s about this promise not to swear this time you can go back, tio? No, it was twenty sixteen. Or was it fund-raising day in new york city, so, like twenty, fourteen or something? My boys just cracked fourteen and the two thousand thirteen thirteen remember better than okay. Two thousand thirteen fund-raising day n y c and best drop the f bomb, but she promised not to do now because i have affiliate stations that are governed by the fcc way, we can’t use the seven, we can’t use the seven words that george carlin had a lot of fun with, okay, okay, in any case, the whole context or yeah, long term listeners will remember best dropping everything twice in the same, the same discussion that certainly new visitors can go to your archives. Thirteen was only on one time that year, you find cantor at twenty martignetti dot com get the twenty thirteen appearance from fund-raising day in new york city. Okay, with that contact. Well, there’s something you want to add to the discussion. So, yeah, i think the collaborative overload is made up of four, four things the four piece and they’re not bad words. I don’t get what you don’t sow planning, planning priorities, being president and then people. So our relationships, interaction with staff and how we work together, communicate and collaborate on projects can lead to burn out in stress and certainly having, you know, just for example, let’s say my phone’s here, right? Yeah. This is like techno fear in ce and a bunch of people are doing this at a staff meeting it’s getting in the way of getting things done. We’re not giving each other our full attention and intentionality. I even considered that maybe you have a word for this cycle of insulting, well talking techno fear with techno parents? Yeah, insulting technology. A little offended you? No, i’m not talking in a meeting and people were picking up their phones. I’d rather they walk out this way. I think they’re going to the bathroom and i’m not tracking their time, so they’re gone for fifteen minutes do-it-yourself trouble may i’d rather they leave and come back and do it while i’m talking. But here’s the thing and it’s a lot of what i talked about in terms of the week. We have to be intentional about the way we’re working together. So if there are work and we’re being explicit at a meeting, we’re not checking our phones during the meeting or a technology unless it’s supporting the technology or else it’s a device free meeting. Okay, all right, so waken new can help with policies. Ground rules were also are also trying. Teo set norms that have to do with acknowledging riel life happening. So for me, some having someone come into a staff meeting and say, i’m waiting to find out if my father’s okay in the hospital. So i’m going to be looking at my phone during the meaning of exception exactly, but sat having that norm set so that someone is sneaking away to look at their phone and distracted from the meeting, but to be able to share with the members of the team. This is why i’m distracted right now i’m doing the best i can than everybody else khun give that person support and make them more successful. I agree, and then the knot intentionality around it. Here’s the reason why? Okay, okay were rough about halfway through and we we’ve talked around way talked about this. Why this is important. I want to spend time on strategies. What is our listeners? They’re in small and midsize non-profits how can they apply this work to them? Or if they are an outsider? Or maybe even a virtual employees carry reitman might you’re you’re part of this. I told myself i also applied a virtual employees. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, i don’t want to drill down through yeah, yeah, and specifically, when it comes to technology wellness with external stakeholders, my rule is simplicity is that sometimes the complicated solutions like using, for example, slack for us to keep track of our conversations for a lot of people who don’t work in a corporation or in an office or in a non-profit they don’t know anything about that program, so coming up with a simpler solution and saying, oh, let’s, just use google chat or let’s, just use text messaging or something like that it’s a simpler solution for an external stakeholder than an internal stakeholder like the teams that that’s talking about where you can actually say, okay, everybody needs to get up to speed on this particular technology, but it’s really hard to do that when it’s someone who is a donor or a boardmember or an external consultant or someone who’s working off site, so you’d probably rather i didn’t say we’re willing it down for the lowest common denominator. I prefer not to use that phrase whenever possible, but i will i’ll stick with simplicity because that people keep it simple, silly, i won’t say stupid keep it simple, silly. Okay, good enough. Miko, how about cem cem, drill down tto strategies. Teo, you know, overcome this tech burnout. So the first thing i will say is that not every solution is a digital technology solution. And so starting with just taking time to really get clear about your intentions and as i was saying, establishing norms in terms of policies around how you actually meet and how technology is involved or not in those meetings and using the time at the beginning of the meeting just run through really quickly. Hey, guys, this is what we agreed to. No cellphone today. Is everyone okay with that and running through it that way? Don’t think i was out, and that would be the time to raise your hand and say my father’s in the hospital. I do. I’m doing the best i can. Okay. Okay, so but if you’re looking for a technology solution, there are a number of aps out there that are really cool that really help you too be clear about their intention and to help you not to spend as much time on your device is doing things that aren’t moving your mission. Or your wife forward. So i think a moment for example, moment is an app that you can download for the iphone and for android moment, yes, moments ok? And it simply keeps track of how often you’re actually using your phone and how often you’re actually using different aps. And so you can look at the data that you’re getting from this and actually haven’t awareness. Oh, i’m spending two hours a day on facebook. I’m spending three hours, you know, looking at instagram like us five hours out of my day. Maybe i could be spending that time doing something else so that simple awareness could be oh, really begins to instigate a shift in behavior. Okay, okay. Strategy strategy for the we the team one one one that’s real popular’s tohave an email charter which includes things like what is your policy around after hours emails which can cause a lot of stress. It’s not so much the amount of time it’s this sense that you’re on call all the time it’s just it’s just the just the existence of it. Right? So having a really formal policy about, you know, for normal business email, i mean emergencies and disaster relief and all that it’s an exception way. Don’t expect youto at reply to your email right away between seven p m and seven a m sometimes it takes, you know, making sure that the senior leadership understands this and is modeling that behaviour as well. Yes, i know it does not. If not c e o on down buy-in none of these strategies, they’re going to be our gonna be adopted, right? Exactly those exceptions ceo is allowed to look at her phone during the meetings. The whole thing crumbles, right? I mean, we got nothing to bases, all right? And that came up in our session as well. Someone asked that my ceo’s looking at the phone all the time and what i know there’s so many things i want to implement, but i can’t and i ask that person well, do you manage a team? She said, my senior management won’t listen to me and i said, you managed to team and i said, yeah, just your team listen to you well, most the time they said we’ll create that culture on your team exact change. You can change the way we roll yet. Okay, okay. That came out and came out on the previous conversation today to try to think about what the the context of that was. Oh, it was trying to get buy-in from above, actually way. Label them buy-in bitches. Bitches is okay. All right, all right, all right. It is ok. Carrie and laura, i think they’re very good team. They’re very good together that used to be at the humane society of us. And anyway, we dump them two buy-in bitches, but one of them said, if you can’t, you can’t make them get get the buy-in above. Then manage what you can on your on your team. So same same idea and then show it off to you know, when your boss sees how productive your name is being, they say what’s the secret why’s your morale so good, why is your productivity so good? And then you’re able to say, because we we managed expectations, we set norms and you’re actually you’re managing up and there was another, another instance that came up with in this case, it was a consultant, mike. My clients expect me to respond to them right away. How do i address? That expectation and it’s kind of well, you. If you reply, you set up the expectations. We know you break the norms. Yes. You know, when that you teach people how to treat you essentially you notice that the boundaries early? Yeah, yeah. Beth is right the first time if you respond immediately, that’s that’s the rule and that becomes, however, if you reply with or if you maybe make make a call instead of replying with email, you know, i don’t i don’t do after hours. I don’t do after eight p m e mails or whatever. I mean, i you know, i have my own life. You said the boundaries of the expectations early and i ninety nine people out of a hundred going to respect that, i think. And i read it it’s in my consulting contracts, actually, that i only do work between norvig snusz hours. Okay, well, you’re the mindful technique. You if your story miss up and get off that shot his mic off. Great, but but i saw kivi, larry miller speak recently if bloom khan and she was talking about the types of roles where we want to be responsive to our members in real time, and so having there be certain members of your staff who have a different work schedule where they’re in the office only twenty five hours a week and then they’re available evenings and weekends fifteen hours a week to be checking so that if someone posts and says, oh my gosh, what do i do about my dog there’s someone who can respond in real time and say, we can’t help you with that? Why don’t you try calling this emergency number but that they don’t have to work full time in the office if they’re going to be available during alternative hours? That’s something that they actually negotiate with their workplace and the expectations air managed and that it actually works really well? Kibby it was an example that give you gave, and i thought that was it great way of thinking of it when we do want to be able to be responsive during weird times, that’s also has implications across time zones yes, yeah, likewise world where the people on the west coast what’s the expectation and carrying your you know, maybe you’re a consultant to a virtual employees on the west coast. Are you? Are you expected to be up and working at six a? M or do you work the hours of your zone? There are policies that cuts both ways, right? But what are what is our policy? That’s when it gets back to the normal? No, we need to go with the norms are what the ground rules are. Yeah. What’s bloom con it’s a balloon khanna blew the bloomerang unconference they do a column around here? Yeah, yeah. Bloomerang does an educational conference, which i know a lot of other vendors do as well so that their their clients are actually getting a lot of information as well as using excellent products, you know, across the board. Okay, that j lo j love involving bloomerang, i guess founded bloomerang. Actually, i think he’s been on the show. A lot of good people now and even more good people. Like i said, i only i only surround myself with the best company. All right, you can place carrie. You still got a couple minutes left. Let’s. Go back to yumiko. You got another another strategy. Tip tool. Best practice? Yes. So you can take control when you come to digital vices like your tablets in your mobile devices, you can actually take control so the defaults might be set to push notifications to you. For example, every time you get an email every time someone likes a post on facebook, but you can actually adjust those setting so that you’re not getting pained every time. Is it really necessary to get a get a email every time somebody likes a post your comments on it? Is it really? That is a really essential? Is it essential? I don’t, i think not. Right? Well, israel, i imagine that could be circumstances where i might be the case. If you’re managing social media on behalf of her brand, maybe it does make sense if you’re monitoring comments, but as an individual, maybe not if it’s, especially if it’s getting in the way of you getting meaningful work. Okay. Okay. Excellent. So look at those defaults. Yes, because the platforms want you engaged. Exactly. Uh, that’s how they make their money? Yes, yes. Yeah. Linked in with the with the what is like that you can you can vote somebody with you. Give somebody a endorsement. Endorsement? Yes, with the endorsement. Oh. My god, it’s rampant? What do i mean? That first of all, they’re meaningless. It’s just an engagement hook. Yes, i think. All right, we don’t need to be notified. I’m obviously i’m sure you’re sharing my bias. Uh, sorry. Okay, but its host. No, no smiling. Now, you don’t think it is all right. Listeners are accustomed to this he’s rants. Okay, another strategy. Ground of something else we can do within the organization. Uh, what? What could we do? Root. Nice reflection. Okay, right out. How are your liberation? Okay, so, uh, because the stress and burnout is what i call fired-up leadership, our fire drill culture, which is basically oh, my god. The grants to tomorrow. All hands in the conference room let’s, get this done and and kind of if there are fired rell’s, you know which happened? It’s having the discipline toe push the pause button and figure out, is there a bigger systems issue or something we can address toe? So we don’t have this fire drill next time. Yeah. Weekly fire drills latto program. No, no one. And it pulls people off their work. It creates a lot of stress. And if the leader has that fire drill, leadership, culture, it’s, the shrill voice. It just causes a lot of stress. Yeah, and that’s, not productive, it’s giving me. I got a chill. I mean, i got a i got a physiological reaction, just as you were, and i didn’t even do it. And full fire drill voice. She didn’t run around or anything. I think it is all my fault. Okay, excellent. Zoho what about you said you call that routinized reflection? Yes. Ok. Ok. What about what about in the organization? Dahna dahna i don’t know. A collective time together. Devoted collective time. That’s not devoted to work. Well, i was kind of other reflection or something. Well, well, two things too quick. Tips. Okay, so so there’s the five wise, which is an exercise. When the fire drill happens, sit down with the team, do a twenty minute brainstorm. Why did this happen? Oh, because we didn’t have the grant on the calendar. So why did that happen? Oh, well, we don’t have a grantspace started before you drilling down, asking why? Why? Why? Why so that’s a really good practice? We actually find out the root cause we’re right through all the symptoms, right? If your record and try to fix it, thie other one is because we have bad time management tools were not using time management tools or headline management, right? Well, saliva flying there that’s mine. You know, sex on that time i was on the table didn’t hurt anybody. Okay? And the other thing is having look ahead. Rituals and ah, latto non-profits do this many don’t just like looking at you probably do this because you’re scheduling what’s coming up the next quarter, the next month, one organization that i know they have stopped days and stop days are they don’t have any internal meetings that one day a month, it’s actually a development team, and they work on getting that deep thinking done the creative planning, finishing up the proposal they didn’t right so it’s not filled with all the meetings and deadlines and stress. Carrie, i’m gonna give you the last shot. Unbelievably, this is we’re almost done last last tool tip strategy tech. I mean, idea what what you got both of my tools would be empathy and empathy. It would be self empathy. It would be taking a moment and assessing yourself and looking at all the expectations you have for yourself and others have for yourself and then empathizing and really thinking about what you’re actually going through. And then every other stakeholder you work with just walking a mile in their shoes and just imagining what’s challenging them. And how can you make it easier for them as well? The empathetic, empathetic also. Thankyou. All three. Very much. This one flew. Flew. Sometimes i gotta pull teeth. This one. Not like that. Okay, they are beth cancer, master trainer, speaker, author, blogger carry rice principal carry race consulting mika whitlock, founder and ceo mindful techie. And you are with non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc this interview sponsored by network for good, easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits. Thank you so much for being with us. Need to take a break, wagner. Cps before they go beyond the numbers, they cover the essentials for you. Nine ninety and your audit. Check them out at wagner cps dot com. You get to know them in one dimension on the screen. Then go three d real life. Pick up the phone. Talk to the partner. You huge tomb. Or of course, you can use the contact page on the site. If you prefer. I like to talk to people. I like to get on the phone with you. Very nice guy. Not going to let you down. Wittner, cpas, dot com they will take care of you and your auditing. The end accounting needs. Jean takagi is coming up now. It’s, time for tony’s. Take two. I hit this last week, the ninety six year old secretary um i didn’t know who writes this crap. I didn’t hit the ninety six year old secretary she’s already dead. But i did mention this last week and i should write this. I need an intern to blame. She this woman gave eight million dollars to two non-profits in her will had very unassuming lifestyle all of our old life. Nobody knew that she was anywhere near ah millionaire, you know, able to give away eight million dollars in her will. Ah, my takeaway from this is in the video, the little teases i want you to show gratitude toe all your donors. She was not a donor, but she could have been. And she if she had been, she would have been very modest. So that’s sort of a tease. Take a look at the video at twenty martignetti dot com leinheiser love we got we got we got tons where’s it going to it’s going tio let’s start with cambodia and ottawa, canada you’ve been with us a few times. Ottawa welcome back. Germany, gooden tog gergen, india i’m sorry. I can’t i don’t know. How to say hello in indian but the live listener love goes to you brooklyn, new york that is not foreign att least not in my in my book, maybe from people in queens. It is taipei, taiwan ni hao where’s our china. No one in no one checking in from china today. Um, bring it back to the u s, tampa, florida, brooklyn, new york, multiple new york, new york get the to get the two borrows know staten island, queens bronx not checking in today. San francisco, california is with us washington, d c and new bern, new bern, north carolina. The live love goes toe all each and every live listener and the podcast pleasantries that the vast majority of our audience over twelve thousand listeners each week the podcast pleasantries to you. Whatever. However you fit it into your schedule, you binge listen. Six hours on a time on on sundays, pleasantries to the podcast listeners and the affiliate affections to our am and fm station listeners throughout the country. I’m grateful that your station carries us in your schedule and i’m grateful that you are listening. Analog analog will never die. I don’t care what anybody says analog is not going to die am and fm listeners affections to you now it’s. Time for fringe benefits trigger you b i t i i i can hear his heart beating it’s racing. He knows he’s coming in and he’s jean takagi he is managing attorney of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. Of course he’s, our legal contributor he edits the non-profit the popular non-profit law blogged dot com you should you should be bookmarking that are subscribing to that non-profit law block dot com he’s the american bar association’s twenty sixteen outstanding non-profit lawyer he’s at g tak welcome back, team takagi. Thank you, tony, how are you? Hey, you’re coming in booming. I love it. I’m doing very well. Thank you. Thank you, it’s. Good to talk to you, it’s. Been it’s been some time? I think it’s it feels like it’s been too long. I don’t know what has been but it feels like it. Welcome back. Thank you so much. Great to be back, tony. Thank you. So we’re talking about ah, cem cem tax law changes one specifically regarding is narrow category of fringe benefits and you be i tv. Ah, unrelated business income tax. We haven’t even talked about this for quite some time years. So remind us what unrelated business income tax is. Please? Sure. I mean it’s a great starting point. Because, um, a lot of folks have never had to deal with it before. And i are going all of a sudden have to have to have to deal with it now. But generally speaking, the unrelated business tax is on income tax that’s imposed on unrelated business trade income, which is income from a trader business that’s regularly carried on. So basically, with the same frequency and continuity is for-profit would do it. And that’s not substantially related to the organization’s advancement of its own charitable or other five a onesie three purpose unrelated business taxable income. That’s what? What? The income tax is going to hit now that people call it. You bit right, cubine? Yeah. Cubine for unrelated business tax. The acronym? Yeah. I’m wondering why it’s not a bit. Because it’s it’s unrelated to not eun it’s, not eun related. So i was. As i was thinking about this, i may adopt a bit you can stick with. You but if you want to be a dinosaur but the trend is moving now because one data point creates trend. It’s now moving toward a bit. Okay, so, quite roll off the tongue is nicely, but it really doesn’t. I think it’s coming is better because it’s unrelated itt’s a it’s, a sin tactically, grammatically, you know. Ah, naturalistic. All right, um all right. So, wait. So we have taxes on we have in minor ways or in, in narrow ways has put it that way in narrow ways on tax exempt organizations because the irs says that they’re primarily tax exempt, right? That what’s up. Yeah, well, i think what they are, they’re tax exempt on income from donations and on income from related activities that those air activities that substantially contribute to advancement of their their charitable purposes, and we never look at how their profits are deployed. So if, for example, a social services organization runs the coffee shop that had nothing to do with job training or anything like that, it was just ah, they bought a franchise coffee shop and they were making money. But using all the profits to go back into the social service stuff. That’s still unrelated, so any earnings coming out of that business would be taxable. Okay, um, and this gets to the three pronged test you mentioned it’s, trader business regularly carried on and, uh, not substantially related to the organization’s exempt purpose. That’s. Right. Ok, ok, we may. We may come back to these because i want to i want to get to the crux of this thing, and then i wanted tear it apart a little bit. I have a lot questions about why, why we’re getting, why, why this is being imposed on us. It doesn’t seem to fit, so you’re going to help you, khun, help all of us out. Hopefully, other people are questioning this, too. Although it’s, too late, it’s not like this is a proposal, i mean, it’s, it’s. A done deal. You have to deal with this thing so so if you have a bit liability, then you have to calculate how much tax you owe to the irs each year. Is that right? That’s? Right? So you’re gonna have to pay now, it’s a flat rate of twenty one percent attack on your puppet and you have to file. Thank you, john. Thank you for that thousand dollars arm or of of the unrelated business taxable income you’re going to have to file form nine, ninety with the irs, so that goes along with your regular form nine ninety siri’s filing, and this is important because this is going to hit churches as well that otherwise don’t have to file nine nineties, but if they’ve got unrelated business taxable income of a thousand dollars or more now they’ve got a file in nine ninety and paid twenty one percent tax on it. Oh, very yes, very interested, right. Churches are exempt from the nine ninety requirement, but now they’re going to file this nine ninety t assume t is for tony handup pick up. Okay? Yes. Interesting churches were swept into the nine. Ninety requirement under this. All right, what? They’ve always say if they if they had over a thousand dollars about unrelated. They always had to file this. But we’re creating new sources of this. We’re gonna have a lot more organizations and that’s. Why it’s important for churches to be aware of it now as well. Interesting. Yes. All right. Let’s, let’s. Get to the crux of it. What is the new source? What are the new sources that we are here talking about today? New sources of of it. So this all stems from what’s known as the tax cuts and jobs act on dh that’s basically congress’s new tax act. So i think most of us and we on an earlier show we talked about the tax reform act that hit and started to apply as of january first of this year two thousand eighteen. So under this tack fact there’s several provisions that affected non-profit on tax exempt organizations and one of these had to do their several that applied to to the labbate unrelated business income tax. But one particular thank you. Thank you very much. When in particular that’s. Quite distressing. Is that now a qualified transportation fringe benefits that’s provided by an employer to an employee is going to be taxable so it’s not any income that the non-profit is receiving it’s, actually, for most of them, an expense that they’re paying for a fringe benefit for their employees. Um and all of a sudden now they didn’t have to last year, but starting this year, they have to pay tax on giving a qualified transportation prince benefit to an employee. Okay, now it sounds like you’re you’re ah, you’re consistent with my thinking because you just drive. It is distressing, and i didn’t see how it was income because typically pre-tax income, but all right, so let’s, let’s define what is a i guess the acronym is q t fbi? What is a qualified but i’ve drug in jail, so, you know, i’m not could put myself in jargon jail. What is a qualified transportation fringe benefit now that is going to trigger a bit under the tax law, so it would include things like any employer provided shuttles to work transit passes that that you might give teo your employees so that they can take the metro or whatever hyre transit that that they have to get, get to work and workplace parking. Zaf employers air providing any of these things to their employees? Not that they’re getting any income from it, but the expenses that they pay out. You’re gonna actually have to pay an additional tax on that now. Yeah, i can’t believe this. Well, it’s dis incentivizing mass transit because they’re going to get tax, the organization that gives you money toward your transit pass or pay, but gives you the transit pass directly. Uh, this is like it’s, like the global warming and climate change enhancement act. Dis incentivizing that’s a lot of levels. I can’t believe the dis incentivizing mass transit usage by taxing the benefit. Ah non-profit employer giving it to employees it’s ludicrous. So i’ll give you a little bit of their ration. Now, if you call this a restless since jean so calm of the calming voice as i’m ranting. All right, go ahead. Yes. Give us the rational please. They’ve taken this away as a deduction from for-profit sa’s. Well, so before a for-profit employer that provided thes qualified transportation bridge benefits, upleaf shuttles and transit classes, workplace parking could deduct it. Yeah, before they pay income taxes on their net income, that kind of made sense, right? You know, it’s an expense to run your business and you’re trying to do do a good thing. Yeah, trying to attract attract labour that may come from a distance, so you’re helping them pay for or offset the cost of their commute? Yep. Then durand non-profits for-profit do not get teo. They lost that deduction. They lost that as of this year. So that’s part of the text you no cuts in jobs act so that that’s one area of new revenue for the government is despite the tax cuts. This is one area new revenue that businesses can’t deduct this and non-profits have to be taxed on it. So it’s kind of ridiculous, but this sweeps end a ton of charities, small charities included and churches that have no unrelated businesses they’ve never had to understand. You bet or a bit because i’ve never had any unresolved business better elearning income so that they would never file the nine, ninety they would never worry about paying this type of income tax, and all of a sudden they’re not making any more income, but they have been providing parting to their employees. Yeah, park and now i’m in transit. If they don’t file the night nineteen, they don’t pay the tax and they could get it, you know, with interest and penalties as well. What’s the rationale for equalizing corporate and non the corporate and nonprofit sectors. Why? Just because one loses a deduction, which also is a disincentive, teo mass transit and commuting it’s equally. But, you know, removing that deduction for for the corporate community is unequal disincentive tio teo taxing it on the non-profits but where’s, the what’s, the reason for having two equivalent make these two equivalent way if we remove the deduction for corporations and we have to, we have to tax it on the on the non-profit sides like they’re competing. What? What? What? What’s the rationale for trying teo equalize thes yeah, it’s a good question, tony, and i don’t know that i have a policy answer just no that’s, basically, that their explanation is to put everybody on the same playing field. But this doesn’t make sense. Non-profits inc organizations, because they’re doing public good, that businesses aren’t required to do so. I don’t get it either. All right, thank you. Let’s. Take a break, gene. Tell us moughniyah lll have a talisman eal ly elementary school is receiving a monthly donation from tello’s for the credit card processing of a company one of our parents owns likely the easiest donation source we have ever secured. End quote, monthly passive revenue that’s what? Tell us we’ll get you the easiest donation source ever think of people who are close to your organization? Who owned businesses who would be willing to switch their credit card processing. That’s what it’s all about. You get passive revenue indefinitely. Start with the video at tony dot m a slash tony. Tell us now, let’s. Go back to fringe benefits that trigger labbate with jeanty jeanty. That could be like you could be a deejay. Or so our rapid jeanty. You like it? Jean d’you did a rap for us once. Didn’t you think you write a rap ones? I’ve written a few you well, i only labbate really perform. Yeah, you did one. You have many. But you performed one on the show like jean t gene t the gene gene t the law machine. Remember, jean, you could be ging t the legal of machine. Remember rum? What was that with chuck barris? Oh. Gosh! Oh, gosh. Oh, don’t got anything geever gene, gene, the dancing machine. Oh, yeah, i remember him. You’re going to be your gene gene the law machine. Gene gene, the law machine gt. All right, jean jean don’t think i’m going to forget this either. Gene gene, the la mission. All right, gene t i love it. Um, okay, so you’re you’re is as dismayed as as i am i i just i cannot see them. Well, i’ve ranted i can’t see the rationale for the equivalent ing equalizing the corporate and nonprofit sector dis incentivizing mass transit. All right. And then so let’s go through. I mean, how does this work in the in the three pronged test? Trader a. You bit a bit of it. I made a mistake. Labbate is has been, um um created when it’s something that’s ah non-profits carrying on a trader business that’s regularly carried on and not substantial related to the organization’s exempt purpose. I mean that this is not even doing this for-profit it. So, it’s not it’s a trader of business. This is not a profit. This is a fringe benefit, employees. How does this fit? And there’s no. Income generated either so it doesn’t fit. They just threw it in because there’s a system of taxing non-profit that has nothing to do with prince benefits, but they found a way to teo just stick it in, and it doesn’t fit your right so that part of the problem, although in one aspect what you said was true, you know, this is the law now, there’s, not much we can do about it, but in another part we can actually do something about it. So while the basic laws are there, there’s just a lot of open questions and a lot of misunderstandings and ambiguities and no way to understand exactly where it applies and where it doesn’t apply in certain circumstances and a whole bunch of organizations, including the national council non-profits the american institute of e p, a american society of association executives are calling on the treasury department, the irs to say, hey, don’t implement these, you know, laws yet because we have no clear guidance and we don’t have a way to tax plan for this because we don’t understand where it applies and where it doesn’t apply, and you’re saying it already takes effect. As of two thousand eighteen, the laws were rushed through without understanding. There are no regulations yet, so treasury hasn’t built regulations yet, right? So how do they enforce something where nobody understands exactly what it means? Our eddie, these organizations challenging the existence of this prevision or they’re just asking questions about it. Do you know? Well, they’re asking for a delay and implementation until there are regulations that are promulgated and regulations require comments. And so it takes a while to get done. But there are so many open questions, i don’t know that they can change the law in and of itself on left congress to become the law, but the regulations that are underneath it and we can discuss some of the open questions that are out there, they’re asking people to comment to the irs directly. And you, khun, you know, if you googled irs comment and tax forms ah, and you put the form nine ninety it’s it’s on ly basically email form nine ninety and say delay. You know, uh, imposing any liability on us until you tell us exactly what the rules are you all right? Now we will get to some. Of the questions i do want to make it clear that we’re not talking about employee’s losing the income exclusion for these benefits, right? That that remains intact. That’s that’s, right? So employees that get these fringe benefits don’t have to pay tax on it. So it’s pre-tax you’re not losing your pre-tax benefits up to two hundred sixty bucks a month for commuting and two sixty month for parking. That’s not right, that’s not employers that are paying for it are now being advised by some of their accountants. It doesn’t fit into their budget additional tax cut that benefits. Yeah, because the tax rate is twenty one percent, right? Correct. So twenty percent of two, sixty is fifty two. So this is costing if you’re giving your if e-giving the max for either commuting or parking, of course will be one hundred for if you’re doing a max for unemployed e you know, this could be roughly fifty bucks to one hundred bucks per employee in tax. Well, it will be over a year, you know, five hundred twenty bucks expand on this. All right? I was just doing it by the month. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. One hundred sixty bucks per person? Yeah. Additional tax on the non-profit. So if you have ten employees that you’re doing it for that over five thousand on dh that’s, a modest size non-profit right? All right, um okay, so you have to. So what? What’s what’s your guidance before we get to the questions? What do you recommend? Non-profits do gene be the voice of reason while i’m ranting, please? Well, first you got to understand how many employees you’re actually providing these fringe benefits to and do do you think that they are covered by the tack? So there are these open questions that that we haven’t started to talk about yet, but open questions. So if you’re providing parking transit passes or shuttle bus service is tio any of your employees consider how much tax you may have to pay on it, then you’re gonna have to figure it out in your budget. Can you continue to provide all of these fringe benefits and pay the tax, or do you actually have to do something else? And one of the other things he might do is take away the fringe benefits and just pay employees the income. For them to do with themselves now, that’s not a very attractive option toe a lot of employees. So it’s more than just the money you’re gonna have to think about in doing this. But those discussions have to be had now and comment to the irs and say we can’t we don’t even know how to plan for this until you tell us what the rules no. Yeah, because giving them giving it to the employees of straight income obviously raises their income tax liability. Exactly. All right? Okay. Any any, any more guidance how to proceed or that that exhausted? But i think that’s all the guidance i can give now, but the one area that we’re really uncertain about it, the whole parking area, okay? What’s going to pass the question and stuff on shuttle buses, which not too many small non-profits would do it’s pretty clear, but parking is like it’s just so full of opening that we don’t know what that means. Like suppose you suppose you offer parking too. Ah, guests of your office, you have a parking lot next to your building. My boys just cracked like i’m a fourteen year old building. On dure employees use that, too. What? What? What does that mean? Yeah, that that’s. One of the questions that we have is if the parking is available for anybody for free, then presumably allowing your employees to use it to shouldn’t count. But what if there are a limited number of spaces? So so we know that really, the general public is not using those bases. Or what if the spaces say employee parking only. So those are some of the questions that we have about parking. And what if you know what if the building is is owned by the employers? That doesn’t cost them anything to provide the parking. How do you figure out what the cost is? And how much do you pay tax on it? A lot. A lot of open questions. Okay. Uh, yeah. Um all right. So should we suppose were in that situation. Suppose we do. We we have a parking lot. We owned the building and the lot. Um, we should be talking to our tax adviser. Yeah, but times are tax adviser, and you ask for help again. Delay implementation of the rules. The irs should tell us in treasury. Department should tell us exactly when it applies and when it doesn’t apply, and right now they’re not saying anything because they happened figured it out yet either. So ah, and one more area i wanted to touch on sometimes it the charity isn’t really even providing the benefit themselves because it’s subject to this salary reduction, so basically the employees saying reduce my salary by two hundred bucks and, uh uh, you know, because i want to use that for parking is a pre-tax benefit, so the charity isn’t even paying for it, but the irs seems to have told us at least unofficial coyness when when officials, you know, told attendees at a big conference a couple months ago that the irs would impose you bit on these payments. Employers are made, you know, it’s coming from the boys themselves, it’s over jean okay, committed to this and and what aren’t there some some towns that require ah pra vision of transit benefits? And so aren’t there circumstances where employers might be doing it? Because it’s required by law? Yeah, and that’s so it’s not really a fringe benefit? Is it it’s a required benefit that you have? To give in new york city, washington, d c san francisco shot out. I’ll tell those cities and then the non-profits there you you’ve got some issues. Those are places that require require the benefit is a pre-tax salary reduction. Oh, come on. I mean that. Well, yes, clearly this has not been thought through, but that has to be an exception. That’s that’s not a fringe benefit. That’s ah that’s following the law that’s a legal requirement wrecks that are going to make that clear. But right now, we’ve just got the word of one official that says yes, they’re going to oppose you bit on it. And so that’s the best guidance we have right now. But we have no official guidance labbate gene of it. Um, did we know this was in the in the tax law? I know the thing was enormous. Nobody in congress read it. That was notorious. It was too big to read. It was rushed through. Didn’t have those the hearings that air routine and major tax revisions. Do we know this was buried in there? We well, only those who are paying a lot of attention. I knew it was in there. But it wasn’t the biggest problem that charity, you know, we’re facing. There are other issues with bill, so this particular provisions didn’t get a lot of attention until more recently. Ok, i see. Yeah, there were. There were concerns about. Taxes on large endowments, which we did get on the very high end right there. Remember, there was discussion about whether churches would be exempt from the the politicking. That’s, not the right word, what’s. The help me actually election nearing election, hearing that that still is a big concern for a lot of people that it’s been put into another bill again that that the irs can’t enforce against five twenty three’s, not just churches, engaging an election year. Oh, that’s in a bill that’s in the bill now it’s in the bill. Next. Oh, so and they’re certain factions of congress that continue to slip it into all sorts of bills because there’s a very strong republican platform buy-in that that is to really destroy, and i think that was president trump’s words destroy the johnson amendment, which is the part of five a onesie three that says five, twenty three can’t engage in election hearings, can’t, you know, become partisan political actors? Yeah, right, the johnson amendment yes, we’ve heard a lot about that. All right? Um, we got like, we’ve got to wrap it up so jean, i don’t know if the next time i talk to you will be ah, we’ll be the four hundredth show on july twenty seventh. Maybe we’ll get you in june. We’ll try. I’m not sure, but thank you very much for today and i look forward to talking again. That’s so do i, tony. Very excited. Teo, join you on the four hundred show as well. Cool. Congratulations, creek. Preliminary. Congrats. Thank you again. He’s at g tak e ta ke subscribed to this thing for pete’s sake. Non-profit law block. Dot com read it subscribed to it next week. Henry tim’s with his new book, new power. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant radio weather. Cps, guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner, cps, dot com and tell us. Credit card in payment processing, your passive revenue stream. Tony dot mm slash tony tell us. A creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows social media is by susan chavez, and this music is by scott stein with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be glory. You’re listening to the talking alternative network e-giving geever e-giving hello, this is bruce chamois, coast of the web design and technology coach. Join me and my guests every tuesday from eight to nine pm as we discussed the latest in web design, social media, marketing, search, engine optimization and technology way also discussed popular topics, including ward press making money online, better cool rankings and more every month way. Also feature the best unsigned music from around the world right here on talk radio dot n y c. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down? Hi, i’m nor in sumpter, potentially ater tune in every tuesday at nine to ten p m eastern time and listen for new ideas on my show. Beyond potential live life your way on talk radio dot n y c hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Are you into comics, movies and pop culture at large? What about music and tv? Then you’re in for a treat. This is michael dulled, your host on talking alternative dot com. I’ve been professionally writing comic books, screenplays and music articles from fifteen years. Catch my show secrets of the sire at its new prime time slot. Wednesdays, eight p m eastern time, and get the inside scoop on the pop culture universe you love to talk about. For more info, go to secrets of the sire dot com dahna. You’re listening to talking on their network at www dot talking alternative dot com now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Are you a conscious co creator? Are you on a quest to raise your vibration and your consciousness? Sam liebowitz, your conscious consultant on on my show, that conscious consultant, our awakening humanity. We will touch upon all these topics and more. Listen, live at our new time on thursdays at twelve noon eastern time. That’s, the conscious consultant, our awakening humanity, thursday’s twelve, noon on talk radio dot. You’re listening to the talking alternative network.

Nonprofit Radio for May 19, 2017: Healthcare Funding Options & Leadership Options

I love our sponsors!

Do you want to find more prospects & raise more money? Pursuant is a full-service fundraising agency, leveraging data & technology.

It’s not your 7th grade spelling bee! We Bee Spelling produces charity fundraiser spelling bees with stand-up comedy, live music & dance. It’s all in the video!

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

Listen Live or Archive:

 

My Guests:

Chris Labbate: Healthcare Funding Options

You have options today! First, Chris Labbate walks us through fully insured; self funded; level funding & minimum premium, so you understand your choices paying for your employees’ health insurance. Chris is with Marsh & McLennan Agency.

 

 

Gene Takagi: Leadership Options

Gene Takagi

Then, we talk leadership options with Gene Takagi, our legal contributor and principal of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group. Co-CEOs anyone? How about holacracy?

 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

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.

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

Sponsored by:

Vertical_Color
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 340_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20170519.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T23:49:25.918Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2017…05…340_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20170519.mp3.159871622.json
Path to text: transcripts/2017/05/340_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20170519.txt

Oh, hi there. Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host this is show number three hundred forty, the three hundred fiftieth non-profit radio is going to be coming up it’s on july twenty eighth, three fifty music comedy special news i hope you’ll be with me for three fifty i’m sending spies special a pre show special live listener love to the fans of crystal a bat this insurance guy has a big fan base that this guy’s, a rock star who sells insurance live listener love to chris’s special live listeners, and i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with my own militia if you try to soften me up with the idea that you missed today’s show health care funding options today is options day first, kriss la bat walks us through fully insured self-funding level funding and minimum premium. So you understand your choice is paying for your employees health insurance chris’s with marsh and mclennan agency and shared leadership options. We talked leadership options with jean takagi are legal contributor and principle of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group co ceos. Anyone? How about holacracy shared leadership on tony’s? Take two. My finger is still wagging, responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We be e spelling dot com for all his fans. And, of course, for everyone else. Here is crystal bat with health care funding options. My privilege to welcome chris lay back to the studio as regional executive vice president at marshall mclennan agency, chris is an authority on employee benefits, including customer driven health plans and alternative funding. He shares his expertise and twenty eight years of industry experience to help you see how innovative employee benefits and hr programs can lower your costs. The company is at mm a hyphen and e dot com crystal bat. Welcome to studio. Thank you, tony. Pleasure to be here. I’m glad you are. Thank you. Read your colleague last week. Mark. So you’re going to shine like mark shine did yes, i know you’re up to it. All right? So we are we’re talking about funding funding options for employee health. Let’s, let’s reassure listeners first, this is not going to be impacted by health care reform that may come or is not going to be impacted seriously, right? Yes, that’s that’s correct? Most likely, the funding options will stay the same. Okay? Because we really can’t predict what’s coming out of congress, but we don’t expect the general ideas around funding that you and i are going to talk about to be impact. Correct, okay. Right? We don’t make the show irrelevant in two weeks after. Okay. All right, so it turns out you don’t have to fully fund. I mean, i think probably the majority are ah, now i know you do have some stats, actually, but i’m thinking small and midsize non-profits probably most of them are just osili insured, fully insured, really insured plan. Correct, but you have options. Correct. So? So in a fully insured plan, you’re just paying a fixed monthly rate that the insurance carrier sets for your organization and if its profitable to them it’s profitable them. If it’s not profitable, they’re taking on the all the risk skin and losing out. Yeah, okay. They probably don’t lose out too often, though. I’m guessing they might lose one year, but they’re probably gonna lose two years in a row over the long term state business. They have to make profit. Okay. Exactly. All right, so i think pretty. Yeah. People are pretty accustomed to that. The fully fully insured and ah it’s easy it’s level payment, i mean, and you know exactly what to expect. Her employees have a set of benefits and it’s all easily defined and of course, insurance, company’s, managing it right. So we’re just talking about the financing of the benefit plans, right? So that’s, often transparent to the employees, don’t get involved with that. So the employer is just paying the fixed costs, and they’re all there are alternatives to the fully insured, called self-funding, which can be explored for more, most organizations, five employees on up. Ok, so even for the smallest organization, correct benny on the state. But, yes, okay, okay, cool. S so this is going to be impacted by state law. Also, correct, yes, all right. Um now, if we are, if we are self-funding then we’re taking on some risk, correct, you’re taking on a portion of the claims risk so that portion you’re going to fund as the claims come in, but what’s often misunderstood about self-funding is that there are insured components built into self-funding so it may not be at the same level that you have. You’re fully insured, fixed rate, right? But you do have insurance components to protect you. Two different suits to specific types. There’s ones called specific insurance to protect you against any one person having a claim over a certain amount. Okay, you decide is the employer and you purchased that coverage of twenty five thousand fifty thousand. If a claim hits that level, the insurance kicks in, and then the second is called aggregate insurance, which is protection that your total claims that going don’t go over certain amount. Okay? All right, so i got you. I got you so you can. There are some. Yes, there are some insurance protections built into self-funding. All right, now you do have some stats about, um um about what? What? The percentages are around. Who’s self-funding. And how it’s. Been changing since nineteen, ninety nine like percentage self-funding vs versus the full, fully, fully insured thank you write. So especially since health care reform has has kicked in there’s been a movement towards self-funding on dh that basically is benefiting employer groups that have a favorable risk of benefits around the country. They’re showing. About sixty one percent of covered workers that have health insurance through their employer are covered under some form of a self-funding plan. Yeah, well, okay, so almost two thirds correct under some form of self self-funding and that’s changed from nineteen, ninety nine that was forty four percent correct. A big change. Okay, okay, um, so if we’re if we’re going to consider this self-funding option, there are some different kinds of costs that we need to be aware of, correct. Right now, we’re just like we have about two minutes before break. So why don’t you just kind of tease out the idea of these different kinds of costs we have to be aware of? And then you’re not going to more detail. Perfect after right after that. So in general there’s, two categories of cost, you have your fixed costs that you’re paying on a monthly basis and you have your variable costs will be, which will be your claims costs as they come in. Ok, fixed, invariable. All right, we’re going to dive into that a little more. We take our break a minute and a half earlier, so and then kristen are going to keep talking, finding out what your options are around, maybe self-funding all are a part of your employee health stay with us, you’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent with chris sabat when we’re talking about funding options for your employee health now, christine, you do not have lots of letters after your name. Last week we had i says that mention mark your colleague market lots of letters especially easy, like sees after name there’s all your where’s, all your credentials, they’re all just built into yourself. Yes. You know, i’ve been in industry since eighty nine, and i have my master’s in finance and marketing. I’m just really the experience in the industry on the benefits side. Okay, okay. Your bona fide? Yes. Okay. Okay. All right. So let’s. Now, zai promised diving a little more on these. Some of these costs that you have to think about taking on if you were goingto fundez self-funding fixed costs like like what? Like what? So the first fixed costs you would have is your cost to administer the plan. And typically you’re hiring an insurance carrier or a company. It looks like an insurance carrier called a third party administrator to perform all the tasks that that insurance carrier would under a fully insured plan. So paying claims customer service id cards for employees booklets. So from the employees perspective, if they don’t know what the funding is, it looks and feels like a fully insured plan to them. There’s no difference. Okay, so you’re outsourcing this administrative work. Exactly. No need for you to hire people to be doing this for you. Exactly. Cos that’ll do it for you. Yes, at a fraction of the cost of a fully insured plan. Okay. Okay. Um and the what? What else? Fixed costs. There’s this ways that now we now we get into some of the insurance coverage mentioned earlier, protecting us against a really unhealthy employer employee or or or or or aggregate. Go ahead. Absolutely. So so most companies that self-funding will have two types of insurance associated with their plan and their purchasing this protection. And the first is called specific insurance protection against anyone large claim going over a predetermined amount. And as the employees you, you picked that amount, whether it’s twenty five thousand, fifty thousand and as that amount goes up, the premium associating it kind of goes down exactly. Okay? And the second type of coverage is called aggregate insurance. And that’s protection that your total paid claims will not exceed a certain amount. Okay. And that’s, very inexpensive coverage. All right. And so these air part of your fixed costs that you’re going to be absorbing? Yes, if you’re if you’re exploring self-funding, you’ll get a monthly bill with your admin costs and your stoploss costs all printed out per employee, just like you get a fully insured premium bill. Okay, okay. On. And then you had the variable costs, which is basically what you’re going to be paying out for doctor visits. Right, etcetera. That right. Exactly. So the variable cost will be the claim’s paid out for your employee population covered under the plan. And in general, when you’re purchasing your stoploss insurance, the underwriter at the stoploss carrier will determine what they expect. Your claims to be given your employee population and then they’ll determine a maximum exposure. So if your claims go above this maximum amount, the insurance will kick in and cover it. Okay, that maximum exposure is usually set ten to twenty percent higher than your expected claims for your popular do-it-yourself kush. Exactly. Okay, exactly. Now, what about reserves in all this? I mean, if we’re going to be doing that, we have to have money set aside for the payment of claim. Exact. Exactly. So when you first go into self-funding plan in the first few months, you typically will not see any paid claims. Somebody goes to a doctor today. It doesn’t get reported two to three weeks from now when it gets paid. Okay, so there’s a cash flow advantage upfront going into a self funded plan, but on the back and if you ever terminate a self-funding plan, there’ll be claims coming into the third party administrator or the carrier that need to be paid based on service states prior to when you terminated, right? Right. That’s called run out or term a terminal liability. Okay, yeah, while you were self-funding toe at the end mean, you benefited in the beginning, right at the end. Claims are still going to be coming in as you exact your i guess. Or now fully insured. And you ended your your self-funding crackers. But but so that has to be a reserve fund, right? Don’t law must require something like you’ve gotta have ah dedicated account or something with the money. For the old yes, so typically a joint bank account set up with the third party administrator there paying claims out of this account when you had that crash flow advantage at the beginning of the program when your first during out self-funding we recommend that you just bank that money and that’s setting up the reserves for the event if it ever happens where you cancel the self-funding plan, okay? And how about knowing? Oh, well, i guess that goes into your expected cost. Me knowing how much to put into this reserve correcting for for a decent sized organization, i don’t know, like ten employees, i mean, could conceivably be half a million dollars or something. I mean, i’m just numbers don’t stop my head, right? You’re going to be more precise, you’re probably gonna say, well, it’s gonna depend on age, right and correct help histories, etcetera and it’s broken out by the underwriters on a monthly basis. So, you know, so when you get your stoploss coverage, they’ll give you a claims factor per employee per month. And that is how you calculate the number of employees times that claims factor gives you your exposure for the expected exclaims focus and that’s the amount that’s got to go in this dedicated reserve for typically yes, now you can’t you can’t be using this money for other purposes correct it, sze designated restricted or something for the self-funding plan? Yes, it should be air marks for the self-funding plants. He had the money available to pay their letting your employees down your absolute, obviously seriously. Okay. Okay. We don’t want people run operating that. Okay, um all right. So we’re talking a lot about self-funding what are what are some of the reasons you that non-profit might actually think about doing it? There’s some advantages? Yeah. There’s some big advantage associate with self-funding the first is there are a bunch of hidden taxes and fully insured plan. So under health care reform, there’s four four and a half percent in taxes that get attacked right onto a fully insured great. Okay, now, health care reform. Today on the day now, we’re recording couple weeks earlier, then this is going to air. So health care reform by that you mean the affordable care act? Correct? Or obamacare? Correct. Okay, not something that may be happening in congress in april of this year in may of this year is that right? That’s correct. So in the affordable care act, there’s a tax on non-profits that are any fully insured krauz any fully insured plan has attacks built into it that gets funded, the funds go right towards offsetting the cost of the affordable care act. Was it attacks on the amount of premium? You correct? Oh, interesting. Okay, right. Forty five percent you sent were correct and there’s also in some states and local taxes that get applied to fully insured plans. So when your self-funding you’re circumventing the state rules and some of these fully insured taxes at a federal level, yeah. Okay. All right. This one advantage. All right? What else are there? Other reasons it we have? Ah, younger, healthier group. You’re going to benefit because you’re paid claims will be much lower then expected or similar to expected. And then you’re paying less than you would under a fully insured plan now wouldn’t and ensure offering full insurance? Wouldn’t they be factoring in that you have a younger, healthier workforce. So health care reform change some of the factors that go in. They do account. For age coverage, tear with a single or family coverage if you’re a smoker or a nonsmoker, but generally you’re paid claims in a small group will not count towards calculating your rate. Wait a minute, we better impact that statement. Hold on, you’re paid claims in a given group will not will not what? I came here if you’re unaffiliated, if you’re in a fully insurance plan small group market? Yes, your claims do not drive your rates typically. Oh, they don’t correct because it’s the law of large numbers, they’re playing, they’re not going to base your rates on your claims. If you’re five people or ten people that’s what healthcare form actually did away with to try to stabilize the small group market just like those of us who are individuals, we go to the exchanges. It’s my premium is not at all based on my history could i mean, i think they might have asked if i’m a smoker. But that’s all yes, that’s one of the factors taken you okay? So we’re getting very small. So that’s at one end of the spectrum, tiny individual. I see what you’re saying. They’re all right there it applies to small groups as well. So i’ll give an example of you if you’re in a fully insured plan, you’re paying fixed rate every month and say your premium comes to one hundred thousand dollars a year. Okay, now, if you wanna self-funding plan, you’re paying your fixed costs, which might be twenty or thirty thousand will estimate and then there’s seventy thousand and projected claims what your claims only coming at ten thousand, you’re only paying ten thousand wonderful insure plan you pay the full hundred thousand still alright, so there’s an opportunity here for a new organization to engage in employee health, health, health and wellness, right? Yes, if you’re going to go fully every, i’m sorry if you’re goingto self-funding you can enjoy some benefits of every every, every two weeks, we have a five k run or, you know, whatever i say, right? I mean it’s perfect segway twenty foot that one of the next advantages. If you have an active wellness program where you’re engaging your employees and getting healthy, that can parlay into fewer claims and under self-funding plan, you benefit directly from that you’re not paying out claims on un employees that don’t go to the doctor. Okay? What size organization do we have to be? Or was it eliminated completely under affordable care act, where they would start looking at our claims history and our wellness programs? If we were going fully insured so it vary state by state eso it khun b fifty employees, one hundred employees and and more. All right, you have to be that size for them to start factoring in your individual act. Your program’s done. But i mean, you could have, like, smoking cessation. You could have, i don’t know. Organization provided fitbits and everybody’s got eight or ten thousand step daily minimum, right? You can have all kinds of programs to try to save yourself. Money. Those air, those air common wellness programs. There’s not innovative thinking, innovative now company and fried. It provided fifty. Now they’re doing that. Yes. Alright. I thought maybe i had some some great insights. Okay, um all right. So i just happened to be a big wellness fan so you could save some money if you doing self insurance. Self-funding self-funding i should say on and there’s a couple there’s. A couple more advantages. Get more transparency. You see, you’re paid claims were under fully insured arrangement. You typically do not especially smaller employers, so you don’t get to see the claims them all employers typically, we’ll not see their claims history because they’re not allowed or that usually carrier policy not to give out paid claims to smaller employers, especially if they’re rates aren’t dictated by plane. So that gives you the ability to better budget for future costs because you have all the information and it helps you design with plan design. So if you know people are over using the emergency room, you might up the co pan the emergency room copay and you might lower the copay on your urgent care centers or tele medicine to try to drive people with lower cost setting. Yes. Okay, so you could drive some behaviors. Okay. I could see that there’s one last one. It gives you the ability to not have to include state mandated benefits in your plan. And that’s, a big benefit for companies who have people across state lines because they can provide one seamless plan designed for all their employees. You say companies. But we non-profit organizations exactly. All right. So different. States have different mandated benefits, correct packages? Correct. Okay, i saw a bit of a little i mean, this is kind of interesting, well, privacy issue coming out of what you were just saying, if you’re self-funding you’re able to see claims history now you know who the unhealthy people are, right? Who’s got bad behaviors, etcetera mean, who wrecked a lot of so the reporting khun b done where’s d identified which just means you’re seeing general information, but it is if you have a smaller the company, you might be able to identify who those people are. S o typically you would want tohave an internal privacy policy, which which follows the hip national privacy standards with a privacy officer and a policy in place to protect that information and only have certain people buy-in certain people given access to the information within your organization. Ok, ok, that actually dovetails with what? What mark and i talked about last week levels of compartmentalization correct categorization, i believe he called. Okay, um, who typically would be looking at this data if we’re going self-funding who looks at this on a monthly basis so typically be somebody in hr maybe. Something in finance and it’s almost it’s, almost always d identified so you know, you’re not going to know who the people are, but they’re looking at it, just seeing what claims were being paid out and budget and future years, and then also the behaviours trying toe like you said, friends instance, if we see emergency rooms being overused, correct plan design, and then we could also just have meetings about listen, people, you know, you’re hurting our you’re hurting the organization by using the as your primary care or something like that, you know, you’re hurting. We’re trying to stay self-funding for for the these reasons because we think it’s better for you then than being fully insured. But you’re making it hard for us to do so right? Get a primary care physician. Yeah, you can have meetings about the right can you talk about? You can talk about that, you can have any things. And you, khun target wellness programs like you reference if you see your population has a history of high blood pressure or a lot of smokers, you can use that information to taylor educational program. Bring people in current, bring people in to talk about hypertension. Manage? Absolutely. Okay. Diabetic diabetes management? Yes. If people are having a lot of diabetes related issues. Okay. Okay. All right. So we still have some time left. What? My voice just cracked still. What? What happened? I asked you what else? What else could we talk about? Some of the some of the negatives with self-funding. So if you’re moving to a self funded arrangement, you have the variable cash outlay potential. So one month your claims can be very favorable. The next month you can have high claims. You do have those reinsurance caps built in protection. Stoploss is you’ve already examined all the jargon. I got tongue now, stoploss but you can still have some variants and some come organisations prefer the fixed costs associated with a fully insured plan. You know what you’re paying your budget for it and that’s your costs for the year where self-funding can vary over the course of twelve months. Okay, um, how does it work? This is a very basic question. But if you if you are self-funding, how does it work in terms of a network of hospitals and doctors? Have you that’s? Good cause. You choose what providers are available to your employees. So when when you hire the third party administrator or insurance carrier to administer the plan there, providing that service for you so you can hire a big insurance company and use their network, you’re renting their network to access those discounts. That’s part of the administrative fees it gets broken out into network rental fee utilization management, he gets into a very a lot, a lot of details broken out, focus. Okay, well, because you can use somebody’s network and not be insured by the exactly you’re taking the risk, you’re just using them to administer the plan. Roger. Okay, i say interesting. Okay, um, what else? We still got a few minutes left, so that zoho your disadvantages of having any of that was that was one big one. The other one is if you ever want to get out of self-funding you have that terminal liability. So if you say i’m canceling my self-funding plan today, you’ll have a couple months of claims to pay out. Still for claims that were incurred prior to your cancellation date. And at the same time, if you’re signing up for a fully insured plan, you’re paying the fully insured rates so it’s like a double payment for a few months to get out of this self-funding plan. I got to get to cool things. I got terminal liability and stoploss yes was going around saying, you sound like a genius, alright stoploss german labbate that’s a term reliability problem on dh that i could touch on to two other quick thing before you do, though dahna the terminal liability i mean, could that could that go on for years? I mean, suppose someone made a claim while you were still self-funding and then they continue to have related issues to that claim like so i don’t know what a surgery that went bad or something, and then years later, they’re still having, like following surgeries to that infection from when you were self-funding what good question so it’s driven by the nhk earl date of the claim? So if i go to a doctor today and i’m self-funding today, it gets paid dahna self-funding plan for that same condition if i go to the doctor next month and next month i’m under a fully insured plan gets paid by the flame. Shirt plan. Oh, so the general liabilities just the run out. They call it from the from the self-funding period when people went to the doctor during that plan here. All right, so it’s not considered like a pre existing condition. Correct? Where the now insurance company, because you’re fully insured kicks is going is going to kick it back to you from what? Your self-funding days doesn’t work like that. Correct? It does not. Does not. Okay. Okay. All right. That’s, some reliability thisyou xero everywhere you’re in our daily lives. Term liability stoploss okay, what else you got? I could do real quickly to other hybrid type products between fully insured and self-funding. So you have some combination once called level funding, and this gives you the fixed costs of a fully insured plan where you paint a rate every month for employees. But at the end of the year, if your claims are favorable, there’s the potential to get a refund of a portion of the terrible claims. Oh, so you benefit if if claims air. Good. Act. Okay. And if claims are are not good. You’ve paid your rate for the year and you walk away. Okay, well, that’s, because you have what you want had some stoploss coverage it’s all built into, like, a fully insured rate. So you have that fixed rate, and then if your claims are favorable there’s something called a settlement done at the end of the year, you know, if you would get money back, but there’s no potential. The additional dellaccio more correct. Okay. And then you have you said in which another hybrid? Yeah. There’s there’s one more call the minimum premium arrangement. And this is sort of like a fully insured rate, but you’re carving out the claims part of it and your funding the claims as they actually come in. So similar to level funded. But you don’t have the wait till the end of the year to get the benefit of favorable claim get, like month the month? Correct. Exactly. Well, okay, so there’s. A lot of issues to think about, and i guess way just have, like, a minute and a half left or so, but i guess this all comes down to risk tolerance. Exactly. Do you do? Do you want to just write off the wrist completely and give it to an insurance company? Or would you like to get some of the benefits of doing it yourself and maybe even having healthier employees? But you’re taking on some of that risk. Correct your risk tolerance and your ability to handle some cash flow changes from one month the month with self-funding and it really comes down to analyzing what would my costs be under a fully sure plan. Total costs. What may cost being herself funded plan at the maximum claims that’s where the stoploss carrier says you would not pay more than that. Yes, you’re a total costs on. Then what would your cost be under the expected where they expect your claims to be? Given your employee population and looking at those numbers will give you a good feel for where he should be. Okay. All right. Crystal bat. Andi. I demoted him because he’s, a crystal bat is a regional executive vice president at marshall mclennan agency. Okay. I wanna thank you very much, chris. Thank you. Tony called my pleasure. Coming up. We have jean takagi and shared leadership options. More options for you first. Pursuant, they’ve got a new webinar. Big surprise. It’s free designing experiences. That inspired donorsearch every brand elicits a feeling, you know this like think disney, starbucks, united airlines and each of your donors has an impression of your organization based on their experience and interactions with you with your brand. On thursday, may twenty fifth, you can join lutheran, our ministries, brad never ary and pursuance senior vice president hillary noon and learn how to create immersive experiences that inspire greater engagement from your donors and potential donors. Brad is going to share how lutheran our explored the journey of a key audience identified opportunities to improve on their experience with his brand, and they put in practice places that are goingto make measurable impact trying to make change. Of course, this will be archived if you can’t make the live session, but if you can, you register at pursuant dot com quick resource is and then webinars we’ll be spelling who needs to engage millennials? Maybe you’re bored has raised that as ah as a possibility or a need. Do you feel it’s important for your sustainability? Perhaps what you waiting for? We be spelling dotcom get started for pete’s sake. Hosta fund-raising spelling bee. This is not your seventh. Grade spelling bee. You know this. Check out the video at we b e spelling dot com and then talk to the ceo alex career. Set something up or just get more information. We be e spelling dot com. Now, time for tony’s. Take two. That damn finger is wagging again. Are you properly registered in each state where you solicit donations? You need to be listen to my admonishing tone. It’s not going to stop. Where are you sending e mails? Sending direct mail hosting events, maybe buying ad space. Do you have a donate? Now button that admonishing tony’s not going away. Each of these things is a solicitation, and it triggers the registration requirements. Charity registration. You need to get it done. I can help you. You could do-it-yourself. You need to be in compliance in each state where you are soliciting donations. My video is that tony martignetti dot com that is the admonishing tony’s. Take two live lesser love. I’ve got a ton here in the united states of america and not too much abroad. Really. So let’s, uh, let’s. Start here in the us of a with tampa, florida. Very loyal, lifeless and live. Out to you special tampa. You’ve been with us for a long, long time. Woodridge in new jersey, swan’s borrow north carolina, new york, new york and brooklyn. New york really got two out of three borrows this week last week. Course we had all five. But brooklyn. I’m glad you’re with us. Manhattan. Thank you so much, but gives he with that westchester that’s. Not bad. North of the city. Poughkeepsie live. Listen, i’d love to you also, white plains neighbors in westchester live. Listen level so to newjersey caldwell, new jersey, hackensack, new jersey. Still no altum pandu jersey, where my mom and dad are sitting right now. Uh, moving ah! Moving way down south san marcos, texas live. Listen, love out to you, san marcos on then coming back to the northeast, stratford, connecticut were all over except on the west coast. I know what west coast person who’s listening but he’s on the line so it doesn’t count. Not this week. And let’s do germany got to live listeners in germany? We cannot see your they’re so concerned about privacy in europe we cannot see your cities in germany nonetheless live. Listen, love guten tag the podcast pleasantries. They got to go, you know that you’re tired of me saying it, but i’m not going to stop the podcast. Pleasantries have to go out to the over twelve thousand, listening in that method pleasantries to you. Thank you for being with us on your schedule on demand, and the affiliate affections were looking to grow that affiliate list. Our outreach director, belly, betty mcardle belly. No, she’s. Not ever. Billy. Betty mcardle is working on that. But for the effect for the affiliate stations that exist right now. Of course i am. And fm stations affections to you. So glad that you’re station includes us on your schedule. Thank you. Jean takagi is with us waiting patiently. He’s the one i was alluding to, um and he is the managing attorney of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the wildly popular non-profit low block dot com and he’s the american bar association’s twenty sixteen outstanding non-profit lawyer he’s at g tack on twitter and i believe he’s calling from an airport. Welcome back, jean takagi. Hi, tony. How are you? I’m very good. Very well, are you, in fact, in an airport? Is that what happened? I’m now at an airport hotel. A little bit better. Okay, where are you? What city you’re in? I’m in los angeles, los angeles. So that’s not far from you for san francisco. Okay. Okay. S a little background noise. I kind of like that. Mixes things up a little bit. Um, if anybody gets difficult while you’re on the phone, you know if you have to drop the phone, you know, and fight somebody off, just explain what you’re doing first before you just dropped the phone. Okay, i’ll make sure i hold them off, ok? All right, well, do what you have to do but inform me first that’s the first your safety is secondary to informing me that’s what? I’m that’s basically, what i’m saying, it makes understood, ok, thank you very much for that. So we’re talking about some shared leadership options. Um what? What brought this to your attention? You know, shared leadership has kind of been a little bit of a hot button issue recently amongst non-profits that are thinking of more equitable practices and in attracting younger people. Millennials, you might refer to the you know, to that group and say that they may not be is ingrained with the hierarchical structure that those of our generation tony, maybe comfortable within used to, and they’re really wanting tio have more of a say early on in their careers, so, you know, shared leadership issues, all sorts of forms are really starting tio to take hold in some practice on dh starting t gain in more popularity so are you seeing this? I guess mostly then in organisations where the leadership is thirtysomething or so well, you’re seeing it from from a lot of younger people, for sure. So living in the san francisco bay area in with silicon valley nearby, and this is not just a non-profit management or organizational structure, this is started in the for-profit world in this sort of spread into some non-profits but yeah, it’s a lot of younger tech companies, like suppose that that sort of kicked it, kicked it off some of experimented with it and left it like medium, but one of my organization that i’m on the board of a compass point non-profit services also experimented with holacracy and while it isn’t continuing in a whole keeping the whole model, we’re keeping aspect of it because you feel it’s really valuable. Okay, now i’m not going to put you in jargon jail because i know we are going to talk about holacracy but you just try to slide by me, and i want you to know that i’m quicker than you. So i i noted it, but you’re you’re you’re pardoned thiss time because where i know we’re going to talk about holacracy alright, so so sort of following from what you’re suggesting i can see the advantages there’s empowerment, there’s, there’s, there’s shared, there’s shared buy-in and empowerment of others. Yeah, and i think that works for leadership development with the team more people having more voices, teo impact what’s happening with the organization, what they’re doing, they become more interested in it that probably helps in recruitment and retention. It helps internal communication and collaboration, and it i think, necessitates cross training because you’re talking and trying to understand what your little part of the organization, how it may impact every other part of your if you’re one of the decision makers, are you’re making decisions as a group? You got to know the other three other parts of the the organization how your decisions are going to impact them. Yeah, i can see that this is not something you embark on overnight, right? Especially in the need for cross training and understanding. What’s going on across the crust of our organization for the thing people are going to be sharing in leadership now. Yeah, absolutely. The other, you know, benefit that has some people. Have been writing about it lately than it actually helps facilitate and succession planning. So we have more people who maybe pull, you know, in the pool of candidates to take over for for a ceo or an executive director. That maybe leaving the organization? Yes. Okay, that’s a good one, right succession plan. We’ve talked about that. Uh, ok, alright. See cem value. Um, but i see some potential downsides to this is going to be a lot more cumbersome for decision making. Yeah. I mean, you can imagine when you have too many chefs in the kitchen. I guess it is the metaphor analogy that people make on dh. So yeah, definitely neo-sage delayed decision making and that khun delay implementation of ideas. So you’re kind of the slow ship that takes forever to turn around. It can result in inefficiencies, and then you may lose opportunities, not acting’s. Quick enough cause confusion at the start. A cz you’re trying to figure out, you know, who’s accountable. How how do we, you know, make a decision? What if we’re split for? For what? If we start tio a form cliques within our organization and then we start to battle or engage in disputes with other factions of the organization. So their their potential bound falls that you have to actually really account for careful. Yeah, potential for open conflict. I mean, one of the things we’re going to talk about his co ceos and, ah, i mean, if the two people don’t agree. I don’t know. Yeah, get factions and jesus, you could start running like our white house. I don’t know. Okay, we’re gonna get to co ceos. All right, um, let’s. See? Well, we may as well go there. Um, what air you saying? Have you seen this? Have you have you seen this one in practice, where there were two ceos? Maybe any of your clients execute this? I mean, i’m just i’m just wondering if you’ve seen it firsthand co ceos, yeah, way have so definitely on. And i think this is actually becoming more of a trend, and i’ve seen it more in the nonprofit sector have limited exposure to for-profit sense since since i left that that world but i think you know, times are getting much more complicated. Management has also become much, much more complicated with, you know, technology changes non-profits are exploring earned income and advocacy and collaborations and employees laws are changing and then non-profit corporate and tax laws are ever changing, and right now there there’s some big, big changes that are planned, of course, on dh. So with all of that complexity, can one person really be the leader through the organization understand all of those those factors and be ableto lead the organization through all of it and that’s kind of why there’s been a little bit of a draw forming co ceos and succession planning is the other thing is, i think there’s supposed to be a huge turnover of executive lake leadership is the baby boomers are starting to age out of their employment, and they’re starting to retire on dh succession is, uh, is a problem if we don’t have adequately trained and experienced people in those roles, and coke co ceo platform’s can really help ease that problem. Ok, but with with all those issues that you mentioned for leaders to deal with, i’m not even sure that to people with their combined skills could manage, you know, can understand all that in the level of depth that that’s necessary. I don’t know, i’m not even sure two people could do it, so yeah, ee don’t know that i’ve ever seen three tio, no, but i’m just wondering if if i’m not sure to really adds that in my sense of it, too doesn’t really add that much more value. You could say it doubles, but i’m not even sure that’s enough, so if if i’m right, then why not just stick with one who has a strong team of people directly reporting to him or her it’s an interesting argument, tony, and indefinitely the single ceo structure is the one that were more comfortable with and probably the one that’s going to teach comin in for a long time still. But first, for some organizations, experimenting with two ceo structures can work out. And i think where we’ve seen this practically is where the two leaders share kind of a long term relationship, so they’ve already comfortable with how they work on dh, how they would make decisions together hyre the areas of responsibility, maybe divided so that one person has final decision making over these fears of the operation and the other one over other spheres, and sometimes, you know, in a very simplistic way, some people just refer to it is the internal management and the external management. Yeah, okay, some of that makes me makes me think of mika brzezinski and joe scarborough. I don’t know, okay, all right, let’s go out for a break and when we come back, jean, i’m going to keep talking about the shared leadership options. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy, tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m peter shankman, author of zombie loyalists, and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent um, jean, i’m thinking this is goingto take some time to to implement and, uh, before you start to reap benefits from it, if you if you do it’s not you, you’re not going to see this immediately. The advantages? Yeah, you know, i think it’s going to take an investment on depending upon what level of shared leadership you’re talking about co ceos is probably the a fairly simple level, relatively speaking of shared leadership, but yeah, it’s going to require an investment, it may take a failure, teo, actually get it going the way you want it. So there’s definitely a lot of learning. It relies on it, you know, having a shared vision and common values amongst the shared leaders on if you don’t have that established, you really shouldn’t do this. You have to be careful of the amount of money, time and other resource is that you’re going to have to invest because that’s all got to be budgeted in if you don’t incubated and invested and nurture it, it means it’s probably not going to work. We’re also gonna need a lot. Of patients among our staff. Yeah, yeah, i think that’s absolutely, absolutely right. You run the risk of having that go to mom, go to pop kind of run things, right? Good cop, bad cop. Yes, right. Somebody’s, thie other ones said this, but i said no. So i’m coming to you, right? Right? You got to beat that stuff down. All right? Interesting let’s go to one that i want to make sure we spend enough time on this. To me, it sounds like anarchy, but you’ve said your organization you’re on the board of is doing some of this. The pro you call it program autonomy is what is that? So the general idea and they’re different forms of this, but this this is on the other end of the spectrum of complexity. So this is a complex form of shared leadership where each program or each division oven organization is fairly autonomous, so doesn’t all rely upon going to the ceo on the ceo makes the final decision. Each group within the organization which might be divided into programs, will make their own decisions now don’t know, probably be working with the budget that’s been approved by the board on then segregated out into the different programs. So they know what the operating rules are within within their group. But figuring out how to distribute the leadership and that’s the one of the buzzwords, sum, sum. Avoiding drug in jail again, it’s. Really just distributing the leadership amongst the different programs or the different groups within the organization and there’s. One particular type of model that i mentioned earlier, which i should have waited until we got to this segment. That’s called holacracy on dh. That is a particular form of distributed leadership, where the different groups that that are taking on these local decision making authority rolls are called circles. No, james, no, jane. Yeah. Can you still hear me? Yes, i hear you. Okay, last thing we heard you say was holacracy is made up of circles, but you need to explain. Yeah, so you know, generally the way holacracy works is so it’s a form of program autonomy, although again, the circles or self managed groups don’t necessarily have to be divided into a program that could be divided into function. So there might be one for fund-raising for service delivery, for grants, for events, for public communications. So however, you decide you want to divide up the circles, it’s going to be an iterative process where you’re always modifying it. So every month you’re going to consider whether you should have the same circles or different circles, and each individual is actually going to take a role with multiple circles, and in some cases they’ll be the leader of a circle that’s going to help decision making and help facilitate that circle or that group of individuals within that circle to make a decision. And in other circles they may not be see that that leader on dh, so they’ll just be part of the group that makes the decision making, and they might be on three or four, five circles depending upon what their skills are. All right, this is anarchy to me, but you’re saying it works a compass point, it weaves we’ve tried it for maybe a year and a half, and we’ve decided to modify it so we’re keeping aspects of it. But we’re not keeping the whole thing, so you’re anarchists of anarchy. You can’t even follow the anarchic model of program autonomy. Okay, well non-profits pride themselves on their ability to experiment and hopefully do yes, alright, yeah. So who is but who’s orchestrating the overall? I mean, there’s got to be, doesn’t there? Well, i’m i’m answering my question, but better ask it as a question, doesn’t there need to be one or maybe two people if the co ceos overseeing the coordination of all these pola craddick circles yeah, there, you know, so it’s it’s, largely governed by two principles, one is you’ve got the law on the latto has the board of directors on top of the organizational hierarchy and does require a ceo in most states, or or a president that that’s going to be ultimately in. Charge however, they’re going to be a set of rules and systems, and this has to be very transparent and holacracy so you’re not leaving everybody to go. I don’t know who to go, teo, you know, maybe i’ll ask this person so in holacracy there’s a large set of rules that everybody knows and everybody has to abide by, including the ceo and that’s where how the different relationships between the circles are all codified and how the decision making goes from one circle to another. But ultimately again, it would be a non non-profit corporations you have a board of directors and ceo have to oversee the whole thing and can decide how to modify accordingly. Okay, maybe something for listeners toe look at program autonomy, let’s say i wanted to jump to the most complex one because i want to make sure enough time sometimes our talk at the end, our topics at the end get cut off a little bit. I don’t want that to happen with program autonomy and the holacracy pola craddick circles still feels very crystal lee to me, i don’t know dahna all right, let’s, go to we just have about two. Minutes left explain how the ceo and the board might be the leadership share well for small organizations that particularly all volunteer organizations it’s usually all hands on deck, right? The board is completely active in running the programs of the organization as well as just doing their regular board duty. So, you know, you got the ceo because somebody has to be ceo of a corporation that might be called president or chair of the board, but somebody has got to be identified in that way, and what their decision making authority is going to be will depend upon what the board wants to give to that position, but board make decisions board takes actions on lee at meetings or by written consent, so whenever individuals are actually running programs, they’re not running them as board members. They’re running them of volunteers with certain delegated authority. And what the board has to really be careful of is that they’re making sure that they’re delegating authority for somebody to run an event or somebody to run a specific program there delegating with due care, meaning that they’re not quitting somebody who would be totally unqualified and in experience latto lead. Something of importance to the organization because if it is, gets into trouble, you know, the board could be held for violating the produce very duty’s not exercising reasonable care in making that delegation, and they can’t just say, well, that was another board members, i couldn’t tell them what to do. That’s not the case. Yeah, yeah. Ok, i see. I see i see a greater responsibility and risk for for the board under this one, but it makes sense. I mean, they’re taking a more active role in the leadership of the organization. That’s, right? So that’s, that’s very much shared leadership where all board members see themselves as equal, but when they’re exercising roles that are different from meeting at boards and taking actions like approving contracts are approving, you know, the by-laws there acting as volunteers, so they have to realize that they’re wearing a different hat and the authority has to be properly delegated. We’re gonna leave it there. Jim takagi from ah hotel in los angeles managing attorney of neo and you’ll find him at g tak neos, the non-profit and exempt organizations law group. Thanks so much, gene. Thanks. Have a great day. I pleasure. Thank you. Next week, diane lettered returns with your grants team in and out. If you missed any part of today’s show, i’d be seat. You find it on tony martignetti dot com, responsive by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers, we b e spelling, dot com, our creative producers, claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Betty mcardle is our am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by susan chavez, and this cool music is by scots. Time you with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark insights orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address their card, it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s, why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s, not what you make in life. It zoho, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.