Tag Archives: inclusion

Nonprofit Radio for September 19, 2022: The Tech That Comes Next

 

Amy Sample Ward & Afua Bruce: The Tech That Comes Next

Social impact orgs, technology developers, funders, communities and policy makers can all do better at technology development, argue Amy Sample Ward and Afua Bruce in their new book, “The Tech That Comes Next.”

 

 

 

 

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[00:02:21.94] spk_0:
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 bear the pain of pseudo ag raffia if I had to write the words you missed this week’s show the tech that comes next social impact orgs, technology developers, funders, communities and policymakers can all do better at technology development for greater equity, argue Amy sample Ward and Bruce in their new book, The tech that comes next tony take two heading to the Holy Land. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D Just like 3D but they go one dimension deeper. It’s my pleasure to welcome Amy sample Ward returning she’s the ceo of N 10 and our technology and social media contributor there at AMY sample ward dot org and at Amy R. S Ward and to welcome Bruce. She is a leading public interest technologist who has spent her career working at the intersection of technology policy and society. She’s held senior science and technology positions at data kind, the White House, the FBI and IBM She’s at a few a underscore Bruce who is a F. U. A. Together they’ve co authored the book the tech that comes next how change makers, philanthropists and technologists can build an equitable world. Their book is at the tech that comes next dot com. Amy welcome to nonprofit radio Thanks

[00:02:26.04] spk_1:
for having us.

[00:02:27.35] spk_2:
I’m glad to

[00:02:28.07] spk_1:
hear what you

[00:02:29.25] spk_0:
think both of you for the first time. Very nice to meet you. Glad to have you.

[00:02:34.51] spk_2:
I’m so excited to be here.

[00:02:53.06] spk_0:
Thank you, excited. That’s terrific. You may be more excited than I am. I don’t know, but I know I’m very excited. I’m very pleased. I already said I was pleased, excited. Is excited is even better than pleased. Thank you. Uh let’s start with you since people know AMY sample ward voice. Um I feel like we should start with a definition of technology the way you to see it.

[00:03:45.79] spk_2:
Absolutely technology can mean many things to many different people and even when people just simply hear the word of technology here, the word technology contra and hope of the future and assistive devices that may transform our world, but it can also bring up feelings of in trepidation and confusion and so in the book, when we talk about technology, we define it very broadly as to what our tools that exist to help us really exist in the world. Um and so this can be anything from digital systems and websites and like AI for example, but it’s also more basic things such as you know, pay deeper or other tools that are just used. And so we define it extremely broadly in the book. The focus of the book does focus on digital technologies though and really looking at adoption and use and development of digital technologies especially as it relates to the social impact sector

[00:04:07.28] spk_0:
and what what troubles you about our relationship to technology?

[00:04:36.38] spk_2:
Um, well I am an engineer, a computer engineer specifically. And so I love technology. I love being in technology. I love doing all sorts of things with technology. I love designing new ways to use technology and figuring out how to design technology to support new ways of interact that we have. I think one of the things that

[00:04:41.22] spk_1:
does

[00:05:34.13] spk_2:
give me pause though is how some see technology or some try to position technology as the be all and end all the magic solution that we could have to solve all of our problems. And that if we simply find the right technology, if we simply insert technology into any societal problem that we’re facing, that that technology will magically fix whatever we have been facing. And that’s simply not true technology not a natural phenomenon. It is something that we could create. It’s something that we should be intentionally creating to minimize bias to make sure that technology is developed and used in inclusive ways and really does enhance what we want to do as humans, which is hopefully live well together in community. Um and not just be used as some big tool to force uh different, often um different, often disproportionately impacting outcomes

[00:05:45.54] spk_0:
and you have a lot to say about development specifically more more equitable development.

[00:07:43.75] spk_2:
Yes, absolutely. Um I think equitable development of technology is something that can and should be continuing to grow. I think historically, especially when we look at the past several decades of the rise of digital technologies and technology more broadly the um the power, the money, the education has been concentrated in one group and a lot of other groups, it includes a lot of historically underrepresented or overlooked communities um based on ethnicity, based on gender identity, based on sexuality, based on ability, physical ability, mental ability or more um have really been left out or forgotten about. And so when we talk about a more inclusive design process and more inclusive development process for technology, we’re talking about one being more inclusive to who is actually allowed in the room when we talk about technology design. So who do we see as capable of being technologist um and who have who has those abilities to engage that way, but also recognizing that because technology does not exist alone, but because technology doesn’t exist in a vacuum, because technology can’t magically solve all of our problems on our own. Even if you’re not a technologist, you should be at the table in some of these design conversations because you are part of communities that have needs and those needs should be articulated at the start of the design process. You might understand a particular subject matter. I think in the book we talk about using technology in the education space, in the food space in other spaces as well, you may have some of that knowledge that is critical to making sure that the technology supports the overall goals of those sectors. And so it is important that as we think about being inclusive in developing technology, we make space for not just different types of people who are able to be technologists, but also different types of expertise that we need in that developed process.

[00:08:09.00] spk_0:
So you’re not so pleased with the model where rich, privileged white males develop technology develop, identify what’s going to be solved and how best to solve it. I I assume that that model is not working for you.

[00:08:27.26] spk_2:
I would say I would go even further than

[00:08:30.25] spk_0:
going out and

[00:08:30.92] spk_2:
it’s not working for most of us. Um so it is not working for most of us to have the power concentrated in that

[00:08:52.64] spk_0:
way. Okay. And in fact, uh someone see, I don’t know who wrote which sentences, but somebody wrote. We can’t continue to perpetuate the belief that those with the most money know best. I don’t know, maybe your editor put that in. You may not even be one of the two of you. I don’t know. Maybe

[00:08:57.13] spk_2:
I

[00:08:58.76] spk_0:
trust

[00:09:36.43] spk_2:
me amy and I spent many, many hours on many, many aspects of writing and editing to make sure that what is in the book. We both stand behind. And so absolutely with that sentence. Something that I think we we both stand behind. Um We can’t let you said we can’t let one small population in this case rich privileged white men be the ones who design all of the technology and decide all of the outcomes for everyone. We really need to. And in the book we talk a lot about how it’s so important, why it is so important to go back to communities and communities who understand their needs to understand their priorities and let communities drive that process. That would then include um policymakers. That then includes funders that that includes um technologists themselves and that includes

[00:09:53.21] spk_0:
uh

[00:09:54.53] spk_2:
the leaders and employees at social impact organizations.

[00:09:58.85] spk_0:
Another aspect of it is that just what’s what problems get solved? What what what gets attention?

[00:10:06.18] spk_2:
Absolutely. And um I think we have lots of ideas on this, but I have been talking for so long. Um I would love to pass it.

[00:10:29.88] spk_0:
We’ll get a simple word gets amy sample Ward will get their chance. Okay. Um Alright, if you insist for All right. Um Okay, if we have to go to Amy Now. All right. Uh You say somebody wrote this sentence. Uh Exactly related to what I was just saying. We dream of community centered work that builds from community centered values and there’s a lot of emphasis on going back to values. Um Why don’t you uh just sort of introduce us to the some of those values amy

[00:14:05.53] spk_1:
sure. Happy to. um I think that you know one thing we say in the book and we’ve we’ve enjoyed getting to talk to a lot of groups about since the book has come out is that everything we do as people is centered on values, but often times we don’t talk about them, we don’t make sure that our values are aligned when we start working on something. And so then those values become a some and I think we’ve all heard many different puns about what happens when you operate on assumption. Right. And so that’s that’s kind of part and parcel of also assuming that the only people that can make technology are people with certain degrees or that have a certain amount of money or that you know look a certain way. Um again that that’s those are values that we’re not talking about and that we need to talk about so that we can be really intentional about what we want to focus on. Um and in the book, you know of who has already been speaking to some of those values that there’s important role and we need to prioritize lots of different lived experience as an important part of any technology project. Um that a lot of different people should be involved in every single stage of that process, not like at the end, once we build something and we like pull the pull the little cover off and are like today we built it, what do you think there should be no pulling the cover off? You know, everyone should have already been part of it and known it was being built this whole time. Um but also values that I think are important to can it name early in the conversation around accessibility, so much of the barriers and the walls around technology projects that are there, you know again, whether people are talking about them explicitly or not that are maintaining this this false reality, that only certain people can be involved are coming from a place of saying oh we speak a certain way we use these acronyms. We we talk about things without slowing down for other people to be involved. So what does accessibility look like? Not just that a tool could be used with a system of you know devices but really that you are not using jargon that you’re making sure things are being held at the time of day when those folks that you want involved can be there. Um that child care is provided that your user group meetings, you know every level that you are operating in ways that really do make things accessible to everyone. Um and I think another value that we like to talk about early in conversations is the book is kind of a big idea like the world is not the world we have right now, like what if it was not this, what if it was equitable and just and wonderful. Um, and I know you want to talk about the illustrations colorful uh, you know, so to get there. It’s not like two steps. It’s not okay. That’ll be on like the 2024 plan, right? It’s a lot of work. And so technology and the relationship and expectations we put on it just like social change are that we can make incremental right now immediate changes and at the same we can be working on really big changes. The shifts that get us to a very different world that we have to do both. We can’t just say, well let’s live with harmful technologies and and harmful realities until we can all of a sudden just change over to the like non harmful one. Um, you know, we need to make changes today as we’re building for bigger change.

[00:16:31.93] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They have a bi weekly newsletter that I get. It’s called on message and they had something interesting in the, in the last one, it was five ways to find the timely hook and I’ve talked about news hooks with them that can be a great opportunity for you to be heard when there is some kind of a news hook. So how do you find these timely hooks, couple of their ideas track recognition days and months. I just did that in august, it was national make a will month and I did a bunch of content around that and there was, you know, there are days and months for everything like pickled day and a lot. So you can search for, you can search for the the recognition days and months, find something that fits with your work. Another one was just staying current with the news. They said they were gonna send their e newsletter on the day that queen Elizabeth died but they thought better of it because you’re not gonna be able to get people’s attention. People are just gonna be deleting emails more rapidly because they’re consumed with the death of the queen. So they held off a day or two. Um, and tying to a trend is another one that they suggested. Uh and they give the example of when um including salaries in job postings was trending and they used the example of somebody who actually wrote contrary to that idea. But it was timely because it was something that lots of people were talking about. So there’s a couple of ways of identifying the hooks, You can get their newsletter on message. Of course you go to turn hyphen two dot c o. Turn to communications. Your story is their mission now back to the tech that comes next. How is it that technology is not neutral? Amy

[00:16:36.71] spk_1:
well,

[00:16:37.09] spk_0:
humans, humans,

[00:17:26.74] spk_1:
I don’t think humans have the capacity to be neutral. And we are the ones creating technology. I mean even before digital technologies. You know, the number of um, pieces of farm equipment that could be considered technology, you know, humans built those that kill people who are left handed because the tool was built by right handed people to be used with your right hand, right? Like there’s there’s not a lot of evidence that humans can be neutral. And so then you add to that that we’re building it with a often very small group of people not talking about values for something that is meant to be you know, used in a different context with different people. It’s it just doesn’t have the capacity to be neutral. Let’s

[00:17:43.78] spk_0:
take something that’s so ubiquitous. It’s an easy example. Let’s take facebook. How is so somebody’s facebook is there, you can use it or not use it. How is that not just a neutral entity sitting there for you to use or not use,

[00:19:31.46] spk_1:
I mean you are welcome to use or not use facebook but just because you have the choice to use something or not use, it doesn’t mean it’s neutral. The platform is collecting your data is selling your data is deciding whether and how you can use the tool to connect with other people or to create groups, right? It is not allowing you the control over how your data and and use of the platform goes. So it’s kind of a false choice really. Um and for a lot of people, it is very much a false choice. There. There isn’t the feeling that they cannot use it if it’s the only quote unquote free tool that they could use to find certain resources or to otherwise, you know, talk and stay in communication with certain people, but at what cost, you know, and I think that’s the kind of conversation we’re trying to spark in the book is technology isn’t neutral, we just accept that and then we say and so at what cost at what harm are people having to make these choices around how they navigate technology? And we we have never presupposed in this book or in our lives that facebook or any other platform is going to necessarily make the choices that are best for the community and that’s why policymakers have an entire chapter in the book. You don’t need to be a text specialist or have a who is you know, technical background to be a policymaker that’s making smart protective policies that for users we need to say, hey people should be able to access and protect and restrict their data. Let’s make some policies around that. Right? Because the platforms are not going to make that policy themselves that that restricts them. Um and so I think again, all of these different groups together, get us to the tools that we need and not just the technology developers themselves,

[00:19:56.28] spk_0:
a few anything you want to add to that. Uh My my question about why facebook is not a neutral tool.

[00:20:50.18] spk_2:
I I think Amy gave a really good overview as to why technology and facebook in this case is not neutral. I think um you know, a lot of people now you’ll hear say they algorithm made me see it, the algorithm didn’t make me see something and that just also goes to the fact that someone has programmed the algorithm, someone has decided what will be given more weight or what will be given less weight, what will be emphasized won’t be emphasized. And so that then drives your interactions and the biases that the programmers have or the stated goals that the owners of the platform have then get seen to encoded into the technology that you use, whether it’s facebook or any other platform that then can affect how you interact, even if you do decide to often to using the technology as Amy mentioned, you always well not always, but you often have a choice as to which technology you want to use, what platform you want to log into, you want to engage with or not, but once you’re there, your choices are often limited in ways you might not realize because of the fact that technology is not neutral.

[00:21:20.02] spk_0:
We’re getting into the idea of oppressive systems which which the book talks about for you wanna explain. So, facebook may very well be an example, but what what what what’s oppressive systems generally,

[00:23:01.71] spk_2:
you know, I think one of the underlying themes of our book is that technology can really be used to enhance goals and to sort of enhance missions, and we argue in the book that we want to, you know, social impact organizations, especially communities to find ways for technology to enhance their mission, to help them accomplish their goals more often. But the reality is that technology again sits on top of people because it’s created by people and so to the egg extent in which extent to which um there are oppressive systems and society, whether that’s around how people get jobs or access education or access other resources, um that is then I can just be translated into the technology systems that then help facilitate our lives. It’s the same principles for different sort of outdated policies that have been rooted in unequal access. For example, if you just take those policies and write code then um that directly relates to policies, the new system, this technical system you’ve created has those same oppressive oppressive aspects in that system. And so again, when we talk about designing technology does need to come back to what communities are we designing for? Are we talking to them? Are we letting communities really drive that work? And through the development process are we really keeping in mind some of the historical context, some of the social context, some of the knowledge about biases and how that appears in different technology and what ties doesn’t have to how organizations function and how policymakers do their work, Um what we need to be funding to make sure that we have the time and the money to invest in a more inclusive process.

[00:25:40.82] spk_1:
I just want to add as I was talking about that um, and kind of trying to like hear our own conversation while while we’re in it and to share the reminder that while of course like facebook is this giant huge technology platform. Um, we are also talking about technologies that nonprofits make, you know, an organization that decided to have their staff or hire a web designer to help build something on their website that allowed users to complete their profile or to donate on their website. All of these things that organizations are doing with technology is also developing technology, right? It also needs to be inclusive. It should also have a lot of your community members and users part of that process the whole way, right. This isn’t just for for profit giant tech companies to hear this feedback, this is everyone including the way we fund our own technology inside of organizations, the way we prioritize or build or don’t prioritize or you know, don’t build technology and when we, when we think of it that way and you know, it’s just so easy, I think or I think it is easy to to say, oh my gosh, facebook is an oppressive platform, all of these things are horrible. It’s done all of these things. We can, you know, we could search for news articles from a decade of issues, right? But that kind of shifts the attention. Um, and acts like we as organizations don’t have any blame to share in that not that we’re sharing in facebook’s blame, but like we too are part of making not great decisions around technology, you know. Um there’s an organization that I I experienced this as a user on their website and had to give them some feedback that there they collected demographics as you’re creating your profile super common to do right? Um, their race and ethnicity category for like all humans that would answer this category only had four options total of all of the races and ethnicities in the world. There were four. Not one of those options was multiracial, not one of those was other. Let me tell you the thing you didn’t list here, right? You had to pick required question with four radio

[00:25:52.25] spk_0:
buttons.

[00:26:29.98] spk_1:
That’s that is that is harmful, right? Like you and maybe there was a good reason, not a good reason. Maybe there was a reason that you felt, you know, your funder makes you report in those four categories. I totally understand how hard it is to like manage your work as well as meeting all these funder reporting requirements. That’s something we talk about the book that is an issue. We need to go fix funders reporting requirements, but just because a funder says give us state in these four categories does not mean those are your four categories right? You have an obligation to your car community to be better than that. Um, and so I just want to name that as an example that we’re not just taking the easy route of complaining about facebook, which I would love to do for like five more hours.

[00:26:41.44] spk_0:
No facebook is not even facebook is not even,

[00:26:43.71] spk_1:
you know what I mean? Also trying to name it as something we’re doing inside our organizations to

[00:28:58.50] spk_0:
your example reminds me of the example you cite from jude shimmer who says, you know, she’s filling out a donation, they’re filling out a donation form and there’s no mx option. It was mr mrs Miss, I guess no mx um, by the way, you had several nonprofit radio guests quoted in the book, Jason sham steve hi jude. So I’m glad non profit radio brought these folks to your attention. You know, elevated their voices so that you, you became aware of them because you would not have known them outside. Well that’s elevating voices. That’s exactly exactly right. It’s time for a break. 4th dimension technologies, technology is an investment. Are you seeing this? You’re investing in staff productivity, you’re investing in your organization’s security donor relations because you’re preserving giving and all the actions and all the person’s preferences and their attendance and things. So you’re certainly investing in your donor relationships, uh, in your sustainability. So because technology is gonna help you preserve your mission into the future. So I don’t want to just throw something out and then not explain it. So see technology as an investment, fourth dimension can help you invest wisely. So, uh, make those savvy tech investment decisions. You can check them out on the listener landing page at Just like three D. But you know, they don’t want to mention deeper. Let’s return to the tech that comes next. All right. So let’s bring it. All right. So no, as I said, facebook is not mentioned in the book. I was choosing that as a ubiquitous example, but let’s bring it to something that is non profit created. Who wants to talk about. I kind of like the john jay college case because I used to do planned giving consulting for john jay, who, which of you knows that story better. Nobody

[00:30:43.41] spk_2:
looking at other resume. But I will, I will happen and talk about the john jay college example. So just briefly for folks who might not have read the book or gotten to that section of the book yet. Um, john jay college, an institution in new york city that had recognized that they had a lot of services geared towards making sure people finished their freshman year and started their second year, but not as many services geared towards people who, um, not as many services geared towards me, making sure people then ultimately graduate. And so specifically they had noticed that they had a large number of students or a not insignificant number of students who completed three quarters of the credits they needed to graduate but didn’t ultimately complete their degree and graduate. They partnered Data kind, which is an organization that provides data science and ai expertise to other profits and government agencies. Um so they worked with those data scientists to really understand their issue to look at the 20 years of data that the academic institution had collected. The data. Scientists ran about two dozen models, I think it was and ended up coming up with ended up developing a specific model specific tool for john jay college To use that identified students who are at risk of dropping out and potential interventions. The John Jay College staff then made the final determination as to what intervention would be done and how that would be done. And two years after this program was started at John Jay College credits the program with helping additional nine 100 students graduate. Um and so that is, I think, you know, one of the examples that we’re talking about of really the technology coming together with the subject matter experts really being used to enhance the mission and then really again, technology and humans working together to make sure that the outcomes are our best for everyone.

[00:31:04.33] spk_0:
There’s some takeaway there too in regard to ethics, the use of the data collection and use of the data. Can you talk about that? Absolutely,

[00:31:51.44] spk_2:
Absolutely, absolutely. As we think about data collect data collection data use data analysis, I think in general, especially in the social impact space, you want to make sure that you got consent when you collect the data that you’re collecting it in ways that make sense, that you’re not necessarily over collecting um you’re storing in the right way is protected in the right ways. Um and then as you need to do something with it, you can you can access it, you can use it as a way to foster communication across a different departments. I think one thing that was really exciting and talking to the john jay college staff as they said this program in that development actually force conversations across departments which if you’ve ever done any work at an academic institution, you know, working across departments on campus can be challenging and so sometimes the data can force those conversations and can also help strengthen arguments for the creation or um termination of different programs.

[00:32:15.79] spk_0:
Thank you because ethics is one of the one of your core values ethical considerations around around technology development and

[00:33:23.63] spk_1:
I think that’s I like that you’re bringing that up tony because I think it reinforces, I mean a fool was saying this, but just to kind of like explain those words when we’re saying that technology is there to help humans, it means that algorithm that was created is not moving forward and sending, you know, a resource or sending an inch invention to a student, it is not there to do the whole process itself, right? It’s there for its portion and then humans are looking at it, they are deciding, you know, who needs, what resources, who needs what intervention. And they then do that outreach right? Versus that idea that I think nonprofits especially think of all the time. Like if we just got the tool then this whole like thing will be solved and it’ll just like somehow run its course, you know, and like the robots will be in charge and that’s not great. We don’t need to do that. We’re not looking for robots to be in charge but also in this really successful example of technology being used, it’s still required people, you know, the technology isn’t here to replace them. It’s to do the part that we don’t have the time to do. Like crunch all those numbers and figure those things out and then the people are doing what people are meant to do, which is the relationship side, The intervention side, the support side, you know. Um and

[00:33:43.70] spk_0:
I just want to kind

[00:33:44.49] spk_1:
Of separate the two right?

[00:33:46.71] spk_0:
The tool was to flag those who are at greatest risk of not graduating after they have I think three quarters of the points or credits. Uh so so that

[00:33:58.99] spk_1:
that

[00:34:13.73] spk_0:
right, that that’s an ideal day. That’s an ideal uh data mining artificial intelligence task. Just flag the folks who are at greatest risk because we’ve identified the factors like I don’t remember what any of the factors were. G. P. A. I think was one. But whatever the factors are identified them now flag these folks. Now it’s time for a human to intervene and give the support to these to this population so that we can have 900 more folks graduating than than we expect would have without without the use of the tool.

[00:35:19.70] spk_2:
Yeah, absolutely. And just to continue to build on what Amy was saying. I think sometimes as nonprofits are considering technology or maybe hearing pitches about why they should use technology or why they should select a particular technology. It can be overwhelming because sometimes the perception is that if you adopt technology it has to then take over your system and and rem move sort of the human aspect of running your nonprofit and that’s simply not the case. You can always push back as to what those limits need to be sort of in general but also very specifically for your organization for your community. What makes sense? What doesn’t make sense? And so really prioritizing as Amy said, the using the technology to take advantage and to do those tasks that or just simply more efficient and computers are more capable of doing that while you use the humans involved for the more human touch and some of those more societal factors I think really um it’s important to emphasize that as leaders of social impact organizations, as leaders of nonprofits, you have that agency to sort of understand and to decide where the technology is used and where it isn’t used.

[00:36:57.67] spk_1:
Yeah, we, we were really conscious when we were working on the book to disrupt this pattern that you know, it’s like you learn a new word and then you see it in everything that you read. Um once, once we talk about it here, you’re gonna like go and everything you click on on the internet, you’re going to see it. But technology companies have been trying to sell us for a long time very successfully that their product is a solution and technologies are constantly using that language when you’re looking at their website, when they’re talking to you, you know, this is an all in one crm solution, this whatever, they are not solutions, they are tools and as soon as we, as you know, non profit staff start adopting that, they are the solutions, we then start kind of relinquishing the control, right? And thinking, oh well the solution is that this too, tool has all of this, It is just a tool, you are still the solution right? You are still the human and we, we didn’t want to have that language in the book. So you know, we’re always talking about technology as a tool because with, without humans needing to put it to work, it doesn’t need to exist. We don’t need to have a world that’s trying to make sure we can maintain all of this technology if we don’t need it anymore. Thank you for your service. Like please move along. We don’t, we don’t need that anymore. And that’s okay. We don’t need to feel bad that a tool isn’t needed anymore. It’s not needed. Great. We have different needs now, you know, um and changing that kind of dynamic and relationship inside organizations.

[00:37:24.77] spk_0:
A Crm database is a perfect example of that. It’s not gonna, it’s not gonna build relationships with people for you. It’s just gonna keep track of the activities that you have and it’s gonna identify people’s giving histories and event attendance and help them ticket etcetera. But it’s not going to build personal relationships. They’re gonna lead to greater support whether it’s volunteering or being a board member or donating whatever, you know, it’s

[00:37:39.88] spk_1:
not the mission, It’s not the food at the gala. Even if it sold the tickets to the gala right? Like it isn’t at all.

[00:38:13.47] spk_0:
So I, so I gathered so the Wiley did most of the writing on the book is what I gather because I managed a couple of quotes and nobody like nobody claimed them. So um and also the I I see there’s only two pictures, I like a lot of pictures in books. You only have two pictures and then you repeat the same two pictures from the beginning, You repeat them at the end and and they’re in black and white, they’re not even four color pictures. So there’s a little shortcomings

[00:38:15.70] spk_1:
that’s because in the book they could only be black and white, but in the e book they can, the one that’s meant to be in color can be in color.

[00:38:25.00] spk_2:
And also we knew that our readers have imaginations of their own and the words that we have on the page would evoke such strong images we didn’t want

[00:38:33.81] spk_0:
to overly

[00:38:34.58] spk_2:
provide images in the book.

[00:40:08.82] spk_0:
Very good, well played. Okay, it’s time for Tony’s take Two. I’m headed to the Holy Land in november. I’m traveling to Israel for two weeks and I’m wondering if you have suggestions of something that I should see? We can crowdsource my my sight seeing a few things that are already on my itinerary, of course the old city in Jerusalem um Haifa and the Baha’I gardens the Dead Sea and uh mitzpe ramon. You may have some other ideas, things that uh you found or places to eat, maybe that would be that would be great little uh terrific places that I should try in either Jerusalem or tel Aviv I’ll be spending a lot of time in, in those two places but also near these other, these other ones that I mentioned to Haifa So if you know a good restaurant eatery, I’d appreciate that too. You could get me at tony at tony-martignetti dot com. I’d be grateful for your Israel travel suggestions and anything else that you may recommend about Israel travel. I haven’t been there, so I’d be grateful to hear from you that is tony steak too. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for the tech that comes next with Amy sample ward and a few a Bruce. Let’s let’s talk about another story. Talk about, let’s talk about, yeah, you, you all pick one, pick one of your case cases stories to talk about that that you like,

[00:44:39.78] spk_1:
I can talk about one since the flu already talked about one, but I was thinking because you already said it earlier, the food sector, so there’s one in there on rescuing leftover cuisine, an organization founded in new york. Um, and I think a pretty classic example of non profit trajectory like someone has personal lived experience they want to address, you know, make sure people don’t have the experience they had and create an organization kind of accidentally like they just start doing the work and they’re like, wait, what am I doing? Wait, we’ve just created a nonprofit, you know, and and kind of want to build because they start to have success actually doing the thing that they set out to do. Um, but like many nonprofits you reach the limit of human scale, like you get to the, this is only the number of people I can personally talk to or physically carry food, you know from one restaurant to to a shelter or whatever. Um and realize, oh we’re gonna need some tools to help us make this thing work. Um and grow beyond just the handful of initial people and also like many nonprofits, that was a very reactive process, right? Like oh gosh, we need a calendar tool, here’s one, oh gosh, we need a, you know, a phone tool, here’s one and not what is the best, you know, what what do we really need? How do we solve these goals? So they found themselves a few years in with very common nonprofit sector, like little patchwork, you know, all different kinds of things. They’ve kind of forced and often the the integration to use the technical term, the integration between tools was humans like answered the phone and then typed it into the tool because the person on the phone doesn’t have access to type it into the schedule er right? Like I they were having to be the tech integrations as humans, which meant humans were not doing human work, right? Humans were doing work that that the robots should be able to do. Um and that’s when they brought in more strategic dedicated technology. Um staff helped to build and again, what they didn’t really realize at first is they were building a product, you know? Um I think this is a bigger conversation of you and I have with organizations is we are we have products, we’ve built products. It’s not bad. And I think especially in the US, we’ve come to think that product is like a for profit word and we will have nothing to do with it. But what it just means is like it’s a package, it is a thing that’s doing what it’s meant to do. And we should think about how we make sure it works and who can access it. And you know, we bring some strategy to it. Um, but their process is really what drew us to including them in the book. They had a really inclusive process where all the different folks from, you know, that were users. So the volunteers who physically like went to the restaurant and picked up that food and and took it to an agency, the people in the agencies, the people in the kitchen of the restaurants, all those different people were able to say, oh, I wish the tool did this. I wish that I could do this every day when I need to pick up food. I wish I could get this kind of message. Everyone was able to give that feedback and then see everybody else’s requests so that as the staff and community and the tech team prioritized, okay, well what works together? What can we build next? What’s in line to be built next? Everyone had transparency. Everyone could see that everyone understood, okay, my thing is last or like I know why my thing is last, right? Like people could really see and give feedback and be part of the process the whole time kind of back to the very beginning of this conversation with us said, even if they were not the technical developers themselves, they had important expertise, Right? It was good to know, oh, these five different restaurants all want the same thing, what’s happening, right? Like what is the thing that’s happening for restaurants trying to offer food? Let’s figure that out. We know who to get feedback from, you know, um, we’re just such a wonderful example of people really having everyone involved in the whole process. Um, and as they have done that and continue to do that, they were able to move people out of, you know, answering the phone to type into the calendar and move people into human jobs. Um, grew the organization, it’s now in eight different cities in different states. Um, and that’s just more of the mission happening, right? Because technology was invested in in the right kind of way.

[00:45:02.73] spk_0:
So takeaways are transparency in prioritizing development inclusiveness, including

[00:45:10.61] spk_1:
the, including

[00:45:11.71] spk_0:
the community, all the, all the different

[00:45:14.65] spk_1:
people

[00:45:15.63] spk_0:
who are impacted, giving them agency

[00:45:18.80] spk_1:
to

[00:45:19.70] spk_0:
contribute and not not have it developed.

[00:45:24.33] spk_1:
Yeah. And they had,

[00:45:25.28] spk_0:
I don’t know how much

[00:46:40.74] spk_1:
of this made it into the book, but you know, in talking with them and having conversations, you know, there were a number of times where the thing they were hearing from, all these different users that needed to be prioritized wasn’t something as staff, they maybe would have identified or at least prioritized, but when you’re really listening and having the community drive that development, you know, is that what you’re investing in is actually going to make it better for your community, right? It’s the thing that they’re asking for versus you saying, Gosh, we have, you know, what’s next on our development docket, wonder what we could build, Like let’s think of something you’re not kind of guessing, you know, exactly what needs to be built and that’s kind of reinforcing for your users that you are listening that you are valued that they want this to be as good of an expiry as possible for you, right, Which is really kind of um bringing people in closer and and I think we all know, especially tony as the fundraiser, like keeping people, it’s a lot easier than bringing in new people. So if you can keep those partners in great, you know, you keep those volunteers in instead of having to recruit new ones because you’re burning them out because they don’t like working with you, it’s not a good experience, you know? Um yeah,

[00:47:26.71] spk_0:
let’s talk about the funding, but but not from the funders side because most of the very few of our listeners are on the, on the funding side, they’re on the grantee side and so from the, well the book, you talk about social impact organizations, but this is tony-martignetti non profit radio not tony-martignetti social impact organization, radio So so if we could use, please use nonprofits as an example in their funding requests, they’re doing grants, what what can nonprofits do smarter about requesting funds around technology, the development and the use that’s going to be required for the, you know, for the, for the project that they’re trying to get funded.

[00:47:32.08] spk_1:
Yeah,

[00:47:32.45] spk_2:
absolutely. This is a question that Amy and I have gotten so many times since the book has come out.

[00:47:42.97] spk_0:
Okay, well I’ll give you a milk toast bland ubiquitous question that not that

[00:49:01.18] spk_2:
it’s a milk toast question, but it is one that is so important to organizations and that even for non profit organizations that have thought about technology before, then the question becomes how are you going to get it funded right? And so, um, it’s an incredibly important question. And so I think that there are a couple of things that non profits can do. One is to seek out funders who are explicitly funding technology, we’ve seen an increase I think over the past several years in different foundations, different companies who are specifically funding technology and so looking for those types of funders. Um, I think it’s really important, I think then another thing to do is to really make the case as we make in the book that um, funding technology is part of funding programs of the organizations and part of funding the running of the organization. Um, it’s not simply an overhead costs. That is a nice to have that. If you get around to it, you can do it, but really you need to have strong technology and data practices in order to design your programs to run your programs. Um people, you know, are used to being out in the world and interacting with technology in certain and so when they come to your nonprofit, they still probably would like to have a website that sees them that recognizes them. That’s useful. They might like to know how to get connected to other people in your community, other staff members and what those communication technologies might look like and more. And so really looking for ways to write technology into program design as non profits are doing that

[00:49:25.77] spk_1:
as well. And

[00:49:25.97] spk_2:
then I think thirdly, just being connected with other nonprofits through organizations such as N 10 and listening to other great podcasts such as this one um to hear what, what other nonprofits are doing and what’s been successful as well. And applying some of those techniques to your own organization.

[00:49:47.95] spk_0:
I feel bad that I gave short Shrift to the, to the foundation listeners. So, I mean there’s there’s lessons in what you just said. Um, are there one or two other things that we can point out for uh for foundation listeners that to raise their consciousness.

[00:51:25.89] spk_2:
Absolutely. Um, I think one of, I think, you know, there are many things about technology that can be funded, especially with nonprofit organizations. And I really encourage foundations to think about what it means to really fund that inclusive innovation process and to fund when I say innovation. I mean recognizing that version one is might not be perfect. And so funding version 1.1 and 1.2 and version two point oh, is just as valuable as funding version one. We see this all the time in the private sector that, you know, my phone gets updates on a regular basis and I still have a, and that’s okay. And so really wanting to make sure that funders recognize that we don’t need to just create new technology every time for the sake of creating something new, but really allowing the space for that iteration and really adjusting to the community needs is really important. I think also making sure that we’re funding inclusivity and so that can be things such as uh compensating people, you know, from the community for time, um, as they are involved in this development process, making sure that there’s money in the budget for all staff, not just a member of the tech team to get training on technology, but there’s money for all staff to get training on the different technologies that the organization is using. Um, and also the timelines that are given to nonprofits doing their programs allows for that really critical community listening and community input process into developing any technology and then ultimately developing and executing programs,

[00:51:49.02] spk_0:
I’m glad you just used community as an example because I wanted to probe that a little deeper how

[00:51:55.99] spk_1:
I

[00:52:11.32] spk_0:
guess, I guess I’m asking how you define community because you say that, you know, technologists and social impact or eggs and policymakers and communities can can be should be more involved in uh, technology development. How are you defining communities there?

[00:54:23.04] spk_1:
We’re not in a way because technology that N 10 builds for, you know, the community that that we have is very different than um, you know, that would be a bunch of nonprofit staff from mostly U. S. And Canada, but also all over the world, um of all different departments. Right? That that would be the community that intent has, but the community around, um, you know, the equitable giving circle in Portland. Well, that’s Portland’s specific very, you know, geographically different than the N 10 community. Um, it’s folks who can do monthly donations that want to support, uh, you know, black community in Portland, it community is meant to be defined based on what is trying to be built and and for whom it’s meant to be used. Um, and that’s going to be flexible, but I think where it really comes in is what we talked about in the book, in the funding section, but also all of the sections is what does it look like when we expect that transfer to community ownership is the final stage of technology development. Right. And so if that is the final stage, if um the community, you know, owning the technology that was developed by someone, um is the final step well, there needs to be a level of training and an investment that is very different than if you’re planning to keep this privately yourself the whole time, right? If you’re going to turn it over to the community to own it and maintain it, you’re going to be investing in that community in the process in a very different way. You’re going to be including people in a different way. You’re going to be thinking about knowledge transfer, not just technical transfer, right? Um and so that relationship with the community is inherent to the goal at the end. And I think that’s for us, part of what is so important about thinking about that big question of what does it look like for community to really own technology? Like even in the biggest widest sense, because right now, We as users don’t own the Internet, right? Really, there’s there’s 45 million people just in the us that can’t even access broadband. So the idea that the any of these tools, even in the widest biggest, you know, most access sense are are collectively owned isn’t real. And so that goes back to community, but it also goes back to policy, it goes back to how we’re investing in these tools, what values we are even using when we, when we access them? Um, that’s the whole book right there, I guess.

[00:55:00.40] spk_0:
Uh, the book is also, uh, a lot of questions. I always hope to get answers. When I read books this, this book, lots of questions questions at the end of every chapter and then they’re compiled at the end. They’re organized differently at the end. Why did you take that tack?

[00:56:06.65] spk_2:
Absolutely, yes. Our book does perhaps answer some questions, but it does provide questions. And that’s because what this work looks like varies based on the community you’re in based on your nonprofit organization, based on your role as a policy maker based on your roll thunder perhaps. Um, it varies. And so what your specific solution will look like. There’ll be some of the same building blocks, but the actual techniques you use will need to vary. And so the questions that we have at the end of each chapter at the end of the chapter on social impact organizations. For example, there are, I think 25 questions and five of those are questions that you ask someone as a nonprofit can ask of other nonprofits about technology. You as someone as a nonprofit can ask of your funders to start that conversation with some funders that we were just sort of summarizing now. What are specific questions that you should be asking of your funders were specific questions you should be asking of technologists that come to you and say, have we got a solution for you? Um, what are specific questions that you should be asking? Policymakers? Um, within the realm of what’s allowed for nonprofits to do part of the policy making process. And what are some real questions that you can ask of the communities that you serve and the communities you partner with to really get out, what are their needs and how might that tie to some of the technology needs for your organization?

[00:56:43.69] spk_0:
So what have we uh, what haven’t we talked about yet? That, that either of you would like to, uh, you feel like I’ve spent enough time on the well, here, I am asking you and then I’m proposing something. So I’ll cut myself off what, what what would, uh, whatever we talked about yet, either of you. That

[00:58:18.09] spk_1:
I mean, I think one thing that we have experienced is that there are some topics like how do we do this or how do we fund this or how do we make change? Um, you know, there’s some topics that recur throughout a lot of conversations, but ultimately, we have never had the same conversation about the book twice because that’s part of writing a whole book. That’s just questions, you know, and isn’t all the answers that isn’t Oh, great. You know, turn to chapter three where we list the 10 things you need to do tomorrow? Like there are no, I mean there’s probably 100 things, right? But um because of that, what we wanted to do when we wrote the book, even if, you know, we said at the beginning, even if no one reads this but ourselves, we want to feel like we are starting a conversation that we are just going to keep starting and keep having and keep getting closer to figuring out what’s next because it’s gonna be a whole long path. Um, and if it if we’re here to write a how to book that, who are we to write that? Right? Who are we to write the how to book on how we completely change the world? But what if we wrote a book that said, y’all, how do we change the world? Like really truly how let’s go, let’s go figure that out that motivates us. And so if it motivates us, it probably motivates others. And these conversations, I mean, I just love them because this yes, we had some of those recurring themes that all of us think about all the time. But this was a completely different conversation than we’ve had before and that, well, you know, different than we’ll have tomorrow. And I think what we’ve talked about the two of us is when we have

[00:58:31.93] spk_0:
not only not only different, but better,

[00:59:15.21] spk_1:
but when we have opportunities to talk about the book together with folks like you knowing that people are listening, right? Thousands of, of non private radio listeners, we want to, in a way have this be like a practice session for all of them so that when they finish the podcast and they go to their staff meeting, they’re like, hey, a food amy like never had their sentences thought out before they started probably said a million times. The bar isn’t high. I can just start asking questions, right? That’s why we have all the questions at the end. I can just start talking about this. There is no perfect, perfect doesn’t exist. So let’s not worry that I don’t know the exact way to talk about this technology project. Let’s just start talking about it and and get in there and have these conversations that we have almost model that process of just practicing the work of, of changing things.

[00:59:33.45] spk_0:
Anything you would like to uh leave us with anything we haven’t talked about that you would like to,

[01:00:00.54] spk_2:
you know, the subtitle of the book talks about building a more equitable world and we call out a few specific roles. But really I think it’s just important to recognize that we all have a role to play in building a more equitable world. And so if you see something in this world that you want changed. Hopefully this book does give you some real ideas about how you can go about doing that, some real questions to ask to find other people who can help you along that journey because really building an equitable world is an inclusive process and that includes you. So that’s that’s all I would add.

[01:00:43.80] spk_0:
She’s a for Bruce at a few uh underscore Bruce, her co author is Amy sample ward at Amy R S Ward and you’ll find the book the tech that comes next, how change makers, philanthropists and technologists can build an equitable world at the tech that comes next dot com. Amy, thank you very much. Pleasure.

[01:00:46.45] spk_1:
Thanks so much Tony.

[01:00:48.33] spk_2:
Thank you.

[01:01:39.63] spk_0:
You’re welcome. Thank you. Next week. Gene Takagi returns with Trust in nonprofits. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. And by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and his music is by scott stein, Thank you for that information Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for May 10, 2021: Online Meetings For All & Online Accessibility Beyond Meetings

My Guests:

Cindy Leonard & John Kenyon: Online Meetings For All

Cindy Leonard and John Kenyon continue our 21NTC coverage, with strategies and tips to make your virtual meetings accessible and inclusive. They’re with Cindy Leonard Consulting and he’s with John Kenyon Consulting.

 

 

 

 

Martin Cacace: Online Accessibility Beyond Meetings

We identify potential issues, help you prioritize what to fix and pick out the low-hanging fruit. My guest is Martin Cacace at Bound State Software and this is also from 21NTC.

 

 

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[00:02:05.94] 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 a vascular necrosis if you killed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Online meetings for all. Cindy Leonard and John Kenyon continue our 21 NTC coverage with strategies and tips to make your virtual meetings accessible and inclusive there with Cindy Leonard consulting and he’s with john Kenyon consulting, both happily named and online accessibility. Beyond meetings. We identify potential issues, help you prioritize what to fix and pick out the low hanging fruit. My guest is Martin Kosei at bound state software and this is also from 21 NTCC on tony state too. It’s vacation planning time. We’re sponsored by turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Here is online meetings for all. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc, you know what that is. The 2021 nonprofit technology conference conferences virtual this year Were sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C O. My guests now are Cindy Leonard and john Kenyon. Cindy is Ceo at Cindy Leonard consulting and john is principal at john Kenyon consulting. They both have aptly named companies. Welcome Welcome Cindy welcome john

[00:02:09.64] spk_2:
thank you. Thanks Tony, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having us.

[00:02:54.34] spk_1:
Pleasure to have each of you. Your session is intentional. Facilitation choices, creating online meetings for all to enjoy. I put the emphasis on all, but I think we’ll, we’ll explore, explore why we want to do that. So Uh, Cindy, let’s start with you. What, what obviously is very timely but, and, and online meetings we expect to continue right. I mean these are not going to die once the once 90 of the folks or you’ve either been vaccinated or had the coronavirus or whatever. Online meetings are not going away. What just generally, what could we be doing better? It seems like it seems like a lot of mediocrity.

[00:04:01.54] spk_2:
A lot of mediocrity. That’s an interesting. That’s an interesting way to put it. Yeah. So the part of this session, the idea was that, you know, now that everybody has been doing zoom and online meetings for about a year now, you know, we’ve all gotten used to the technological parts. Um, we felt like it was time to do a session that goes beyond that somebody at the Ntc, I forget the breakout session. Um, but they said that technology is a mirror. So when you hold it up to your nonprofit, it reveals all the broken processes and broken tools. And I thought that was very apt. And when you think about that regarding online meetings, you know, everything in terms of inequity, inaccessibility, um, lack of diversity, power dynamics tend to be magnified, you know, where those things existed in person meetings. The technology adds an extra layer of complication. That makes things more inaccessible, more inequitable unless you do specific things to counteract that. And so that’s what this session was largely about.

[00:04:12.74] spk_1:
John you want to add to the Cindy’s introduction at all?

[00:04:39.44] spk_3:
Sure. That like Cindy said, you know, we really tried to share what our vision is for inclusive meetings. And so that means that all folks can contribute equally if they desire and that it’s okay not to using things like you would in person like a talking piece to go around and make sure everyone is able to engage meaningfully and to share. And that it’s okay if if they don’t want to. But digitally we just list people’s name in the chat and have everyone go through so we make sure we don’t miss anyone.

[00:05:00.24] spk_1:
Mm Okay. Okay. Uh so how can we be more intentional as we’re setting up a meeting? Is that a is that is that a place to start? Can we like sort of maybe take this chronologically through uh through a meeting? The pre meeting? The during the meeting and then the post meeting? Is that by doing it justice, if we do it that way?

[00:05:38.94] spk_2:
Yeah, we actually um we split we split our section up into three main sections. One was about inclusion and Power Dynamics. Another section was accessibility techniques, how to before during and after with those and experiential and reflective techniques. So we actually demonstrated a variety of interactive activities that could be used to engage your as a facilitator to engage the audience. So those were the three main sections.

[00:05:45.34] spk_1:
Okay. Is it okay if we uh well I don’t, I don’t want to mess up your

[00:05:50.34] spk_2:
no, you’re fine,

[00:05:52.27] spk_1:
john can we do it? Is that

[00:06:06.04] spk_2:
okay? I think so, yeah, john and Griffin, Griffin Castillo, um who’s not with us today? Uh Griffin and john were covering the power dynamics portion of this. So I think starting there is probably a good idea to john.

[00:06:10.74] spk_3:
Sure. So yeah, tony if it’s okay, I’m going to talk about some aspects of inclusion and then I’ll start to do that. I’ll talk about before during and after a meeting.

[00:06:18.64] spk_1:
Okay, Thank you. Great.

[00:06:20.29] spk_0:
All right.

[00:07:00.64] spk_3:
So some of the aspects of inclusion that we want to make sure people are aware of are the some of the advantages that we bring to our meetings online from having the latest technology to having older technology or only phones and even recognizing folks have no internet access in some areas. Understanding there’s advantages when it comes to digital literacy with computers or software, even having a dedicated space to participate. Our co presenter, Griffin Castillo, is the racial equity ambassador for the Oakland School system and so many students are sharing space with other family members. Understanding some people can respond quickly versus those who are reflective thinkers. So providing different modes for people to share as well as the very common advantages of having expertise, seniority or rank or relational privilege. So you want to be aware of those aspects and then there are specific things you can do before, during and after your meetings to make sure that you’re creating an inclusive and accessible meeting.

[00:08:26.04] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Well, I mean I gotta, I gotta start with the obvious. You know, I’m asking neophyte questions. You, you all spend, I’ve spent years thinking about these things and I’m coming at it quite a bit newer, uh, for folks who don’t have the technology that’s needed. How do we include them in a meeting that we’re planning online? That has to be online by because of the pandemic, by the way. If you hear any background noise, I’m having some renovations done. So maybe you’re banging. Yeah, there’s a little hammering, buying little drilling going on. So, uh, that’s, that’s, that’s your lackluster host with talk about a non private. I mean, I guess, uh, they’re much, there are much worse environments to have to be a party to a meeting in, but I’m in a lesser one than I than I would like. But that’s what, that that’s what that is, listeners. You’re, you’re hearing my stairs being renovated. Okay. So what about folks who don’t have any, they don’t even access, They don’t have digital access. How do we accommodate them? How have we accommodated them and how can we going forward in online meetings?

[00:09:10.84] spk_3:
Sure. So two of the ways we talked about were make sure that you’re providing offline readable versions of any documents or presentations for those who can’t see them live or can’t see them online but may be able to download them as well as documenting your notes and providing recordings, either video or audio to allow folks to review materials, digest them at their own pace. And that also supports accessibility, which are some of the pieces that Cindy talked about. Okay.

[00:09:21.84] spk_1:
It still seems like, I don’t know. It still seems insurmountable though if you’re, if you’re giving them a recording, but I mean if they don’t have internet access, how can you give them the recording?

[00:09:44.34] spk_3:
Sure. So the example I use, I often work with native american people and for example sometimes they need to drive a half hour in order to get a signal on their phone. Or they could go to a library on the reservation or wherever they are. So it is possible for them to get access. It just may not be live and it just may not be high speed. So as long as you’re providing those materials and there is a way for them to get them and put them on their devices or print them out if needed. That helps.

[00:10:16.44] spk_1:
So as you’re planning meetings you need to be aware that there may be folks that are going to raise their hand and say I can’t attend the zoom meeting at one o’clock tomorrow. You know, I don’t have that kind of access or I don’t have the, you mentioned even the privacy, uh, maybe they have online access, but they don’t have a private space to to listen and, and yeah, to listen and participate.

[00:11:20.14] spk_3:
Sure. Yeah. So I’ll talk about some of the things um, that that I covered and then I’m going to pass it to Cindy because she’s got some great ideas and when it comes to accessibility for people of all abilities. So one of the things tony that like you said before the meeting, it’s really important to discuss the issues that I mentioned about, you know, advantages and and our vision um with those with privilege to get by in so that they understand we want to allow all voices to be heard and that we think about ways to include everyone when we’re planning for meetings, Um that we, you know, make sure that that is part of our planning. That we ask attendees about accommodation needs up front during registration and that we have a plan to accommodate people with different abilities so that you know, we already know somebody who can do american sign language interpretation. We already know someone who can live caption. Uh, the presentation that we’re giving. Um, and I know for example, other pieces that that Cindy helped us worked on was if you have somebody who is sight impaired or blind, um reading the description of any visuals that you have. And Cindy was also great because she added something called all text that I’ll let her talk about two images. Cindy talk about that for us.

[00:11:47.04] spk_1:
Let them uh, we’re talking about inclusion. Accessibility. Cindy, Cindy is them Cindy. Thank you. I just you know, it’s all done in politely but you know, we got to be respectful. Right? It’s

[00:11:56.73] spk_2:
all right. Yeah. Absolutely. And I don’t walk if somebody says she her I don’t I don’t freak out. Okay. I do identify this non binary.

[00:12:05.14] spk_1:
Do the better you do the best we can. All right.

[00:12:07.24] spk_2:
Yeah. So yeah. One of the

[00:12:09.54] spk_1:
we’ll never make that mistake again. I assure you that.

[00:14:21.74] spk_2:
Okay. Um So yeah, so um one of the things that we did uh did we did do as an accessibility technique during the meeting and we probably should be doing this for radio interviews as well. One would think whenever we did our introductions uh for example, I said I’m Cindy Leonard from local velocity learned consulting. And I am a white white person with long straight brown hair and green glasses and today I have on a plaid sweater and I’m sitting with a yellow blank yellow wall background behind me and the idea of describing yourself um for people who aren’t either are excited or how vision impairment, but there’s also people that, you know, if you’ve ever tried to connect to a zoom meeting on your phone, the video isn’t always great or maybe you’re not in a place where you can watch the video, but you’re listening to it. Maybe you’re commuting or in your car. Um, so having that visual described is really important, not just for people with vision impairments, but for everyone, you know, and I talked a little bit during my piece about universal design, you know, and so one of the great examples of universal design design that is good for everyone helps people with disabilities. That is also good for morgan. What more of an audience is the concept of curb cuts Now, this is a low tech example, but the curb cut that, that little cut out at the corner of a sidewalk, you know, it’s, it’s great for people with using a wheelchair. It’s great for people using on a cane, you know, walking that have blindness. But insults are great for women and strong women with babies in strollers. It’s great for delivery persons. It’s great for older people who tend to trip on, you know, as we age, we tend to trip more. Um, so the idea is to make your power point and your meeting and your handouts more accessible and it helps everyone, not just people with disabilities.

[00:14:38.64] spk_1:
I’ve had guests from previous ntc’s make that point often. Uh Usually I think in the, in the context of a web, web, web design, uh it benefits benefits everyone. It reduces, you know, if if you’re using the right contrast levels, it reduces eyestrain for for everybody uh etcetera

[00:16:22.34] spk_2:
etcetera. Alright. Yeah, it really does overlap. I’ve been one of my, one of my consulting practice pieces is web website development, which I’ve been doing for about 20 years and there is a lot of overlap. A lot of the things that I’m saying about your power point back also applies to your website. So for example, the alternative text alternative text is what is red in lieu of the file name of a photo. So if I’m, let’s say I am a person who is blind and I’m using a screen reader software that is reading the web page to me or reading the power point debt to me when it gets to the images. If it doesn’t have alternative text which is descriptive text that you deliberately added to the image, it will read the file name of the image that’s been inserted or that’s uploaded. And that means, you know, it’ll read like, like image, it will say like I M G 678 jpeg. And that means nothing to anyone. So the idea is to describe the images in the alternative tax, so that, you know, whenever whenever I’m trying to figure out how to do that, when I’m either doing a website or a power point is I like to pretend that I’m sitting here in my office with somebody who has vision impairment and that I’m trying to, you know, like, here’s a picture, I’m trying to explain to them what is on the picture. So it’s helpful to me to imagine a person beside me that I’m trying to describe something to.

[00:16:47.54] spk_1:
Mhm john how about um if we transition um we’re a little bit all all encompassing, but uh that’s okay, that’s fine. As long as folks get the information, it doesn’t really matter what, what format it comes in or what, what, what theme we use. But like is there anything you can say specific to during, during a meeting that we haven’t talked about yet?

[00:16:50.64] spk_2:
The, the,

[00:16:52.14] spk_1:
that we need to

[00:18:14.44] spk_3:
Sure. So some of the things that we did in our session and that I try to do consistently is when I introduce myself as you mentioned earlier, using uh sharing that. I’m john Kenyon and my pronouns are he and him just as Cindy’s pronouns, are they in them and I’m not enforcing that or asking everyone to, to say that, but it just helps people with different gender identities feel included. Something else I do is when I introduced myself, I say that I’m coming to you from the occupied lands of the native coast, miwok people and that I send my respects to them and their leaders past, present and emerging again to just recognize that the land on which I am currently living was not originally my land and again helps people who are native people feel included. And that’s a practice I actually learned from my Australian colleagues because they are trying to be respectful of the Aborigines, the native Australian people. I’d also say that what we try to do is have real clear guidelines for participants. Something excellent that one of our session participants shared was doing, including things such as suspending judgment, suspending guilt, suspending assumptions and embracing awareness toward understanding, embracing leaning into discomfort. If you don’t feel comfortable with the topic or sharing, being able to lean into that,

[00:18:27.14] spk_1:
lean into meaning, express it,

[00:18:29.29] spk_3:
that’s right. Being in

[00:18:31.08] spk_1:
a forum where you can you can say something

[00:18:45.24] spk_3:
right and being able to say so, you know, tony you’re you’re our boss and you’re handling this meeting and you’re not letting any of, you know, the emerging leaders of the younger folks speak and you know, finding respectful and positive ways to bring that out. So for example, just to name that, to say, you’re not letting other folks speak, why is that? I’m not judging you, I’m not shaking my finger at you, but that we’re naming it,

[00:19:02.74] spk_1:
bring out the power dynamics

[00:19:23.54] spk_2:
and some accessibility related things that we do during a meeting are they’re actually pretty intuitive once, once you hear them, but if you don’t deliberately think about them, you know that you can miss things. But for example, use plain language, you know, every industry has a lot of jargon and you cannot guarantee everybody knows the jargon.

[00:19:25.89] spk_1:
non profit radio we have drug in jail

[00:19:28.50] spk_2:
in jail. I like it. I’m not hesitant to put people in like a

[00:19:32.48] spk_1:
transgress

[00:19:33.59] spk_2:
acronyms are another big thing in our second, everybody loves their, you know, so don’t say in 10 say the nonprofit technology network first, you know, okay, well,

[00:20:27.14] spk_1:
and then they don’t want to be the nonprofit technology network anymore. They’re like, I was thinking maybe he said that, but I’ve been admonished by the CEO maybe I said and 10 earlier, but example award that the N 10 Ceo is is a regular contributor, a technology contributor to my show, she’s admonished me to stop saying non profit Technology Network. So it comes from that comes to the top, but absolutely acronyms, you know, fundraising is full of them. I do plan giving and there’s all kinds of acronyms around trusts and just the, the, the assumption that everybody knows what you’re talking about. I mean I I shoot my hand up and say, what is that? You know, I’m right, right self, I’ve been doing it all my life, so it’s, you know, Uh, so I don’t mind people, but if one person doesn’t understand it’s probably 50 or don’t.

[00:21:11.84] spk_2:
Exactly. Another another point, another point is to give sufficient time a little more than you think you need to for people getting into breakout rooms on on the online software, forgetting to any third party exercises, responding in the chat box, any interactive activities. Not everybody is a fast clicker. You know, like I’m a power user. I guess you could say I’m on a laptop or a computer, so I’m really fast on the clicking, but not everybody is like that. People need time. Some people need more time to find what they’re supposed to be doing or where they’re supposed to be calling. So you want to be careful about that as well? Yeah.

[00:21:30.24] spk_1:
All right. Mm. Um, how about after after the meeting follow up, john you had mentioned. Uh, I think it was you john readable documents. Uh, what else, what else should we be doing and follow up to be sensitive to

[00:21:52.34] spk_3:
Sure. So just to reiterate, like I said, making sure that you have all your documents and notes and things like that that you can share with people so they can download them and read them off line or print them out. Something else that was suggested in our session. And that we try to do is post meeting surveys and ask, how did we do with inclusion? How did we do with accessibility if you’re an emerging leader? Did you feel centered? Did you feel excluded or included? Did we give everyone time and space to participate whether they’re able to share immediately or There are more reflective thinkers, like many of us are

[00:22:10.84] spk_1:
Cindy, anything you want to add there?

[00:22:13.57] spk_2:
No, not at all. But that’s great, john that was a great summary. I would like to send a shout out to our, we mentioned Griffin Castillo, one of our co

[00:22:22.66] spk_1:
presenter. I was gonna, I was gonna put a moratorium on mentioning him because he didn’t join us for the interview here.

[00:22:58.84] spk_2:
No. And now so are other co presenter his name, I don’t think we’ve mentioned yet is Jean Allen and Jeanne Allen is she’s, she’s a dual role. She’s with a nonprofit, she’s on the board of a nonprofit in north Carolina with his name, which name of which I cannot remember. Um but she’s also uh independent nonprofit consultant herself. She’s been at it for many years. Very smart lady. She ran she talked about all of the interactive how exercises how to include more engagement and your breakout session to make it more interesting or in your in your online meeting.

[00:23:12.64] spk_1:
Is there anything from that that you can you can share as well as you would have. But I mean for engagement possibilities in online Yeah, what can you reveal?

[00:23:53.04] spk_2:
Yeah, it was something as simple to an exercise. She called the chatter fall exercise chatter fall like a waterfall. Um And we put a put a question on the screen that says an idea emerging for me is why. And she had them all not hit send but deployed at their answers with the reflections in the comments box of chat box. And then she had them all had sent at the same time and it was just this beautiful cascade of all kinds of thoughts and comments all coming out at once. And there was a lot of, there were a lot of unifying ideas and themes emerged from that. And then she also showed us a tour

[00:23:59.21] spk_1:
which, hold on, tell me again, what was the lead into that? What was the statement that folks were supposed to fill in the blank? What we asked

[00:24:13.34] spk_2:
them to tell us an idea emerging for me, meaning emerging from the sessions of our is. And then they were supposed to finish

[00:24:18.85] spk_1:
Thank you.

[00:24:56.44] spk_2:
Yeah, it could be any question. Of course. Of course, Yeah. Um and Jeanne also did a live example of a google jamma board. So jam, like, like let’s Jam, you know? Um and it’s a really, it’s almost like an inner john you can help me with the description on this. It’s almost like a, like an interactive, multi user whiteboard. It reminds me of a smart board, did you have in a classroom or a meeting room? Except that everybody accesses it at the same time. And you could add post it notes and and print on it and scribble on it. It’s really eat right. The double suite.

[00:25:15.84] spk_3:
That’s that’s right. Yeah. It’s almost as if, as we often do an offline meetings, you have a wall where people are putting up post its and people can put up post its and write anything they want on them. We were able even showed folks how we were able to upload images and pictures. So it’s, as Cindy said, this nice interactive place where people can share, you could even do something like here’s a question. Do you agree or not? And put your posted five is totally agree. One is, I don’t agree at all. So you get a spectrum of answers and see where people lie on the answer to the question. It’s not just thumbs up or thumbs down.

[00:25:42.14] spk_1:
This is called a google jam board jam board. And how does it relate to using zoom for meetings? Is it a is it like a screen share? Someone shares their screen and they show their jam board and then everybody, everybody can participate how zoom

[00:26:01.74] spk_2:
meeting you give them a link and you send them off to the tool, they stay in zoom, they stay in the room so they keep zoom active, but you’re sending them to their browser and it opens in a browser tab.

[00:26:16.84] spk_1:
Okay. So everybody’s doing it independently along alongside zoom. Okay. All right. We have just a couple minutes left. Anything that we haven’t talked about that either of you want to bring up in a closing a couple minutes.

[00:26:28.64] spk_3:
Uh huh. Sure. So I think for my closing, I would just share a participant quote from our session which which really resonated with me and they said, even if I’m a participant rather than a leader of a group, I can still practice and demonstrate accessible and inclusive practices by describing visuals, Making sure I engage people in the chat, sharing my pronouns, making sure I provide room for everyone to share,

[00:26:49.34] spk_1:
john why don’t you describe your background? Let’s try to put this into practice and I’ll do it in my clothes, Go ahead or describe yourself on your background.

[00:27:15.94] spk_3:
Great. So I’m john I’m a white male, I’ve got gray hair and a little bit of a beard. I’m sitting in a room that has white walls. I’ve got a kind of a delft blue curtain behind me and some flowers, the flowers are called veronica. Um and so yeah, that’s and I’m wearing a dark blue shirt.

[00:27:44.44] spk_1:
I’m Tony, I have a red t shirt on my hair is mostly white, a little smattering of dark remaining. But, but it’s, it’s stunning and dashing nonetheless, even though it’s 90% white uh, you know, you’re supposed to not supposed to editorialize right, supposed to keep it factual. I have stunning, stunning, boring background of my hp printer and uh pretty much white walls behind uh in a red t shirt and I wear glasses. I wear glasses.

[00:27:48.84] spk_2:
Thanks. That was excellent. Uh huh.

[00:27:52.54] spk_1:
Yeah, they are Cindy Leonard. Ceo, Cindy Leonard consulting and john Kenyon principal john Kenyon consulting thanks to each of you for sharing. Thank you. Cindy. Thank you john,

[00:28:03.84] spk_2:
thank you for having us. Real

[00:28:05.84] spk_3:
pleasure. Thank you.

[00:31:44.24] spk_1:
Thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Let’s talk a little bit more detail about them. The ambitious biden agenda released a couple of weeks ago. Is there anything in there that impacts your work touches on what you do at all? Anything you’d like to be heard on may be quoted on be a trusted source about you can improve your chances of getting an op ed published or being a source or getting quoted working with turn to because they have the relationships to make these things happen for you so so much better than you or someone in your office cold calling a journalist or blogger whoever it is that you’re trying to reach that doesn’t know you, you want somebody who’s got the relationships you want to turn to because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for Tony’s take two. It’s time to plan your summer time off. Yes, I uh It’s finger wagging time. No camera here. But you got to take care of yourself folks. Please. You need to take care of yourself this summer. What a what a 18 months it’s been. Maybe last summer was a blur. Certainly you couldn’t go anywhere. And I hope you didn’t because it wasn’t safe. It’s changed. You know that master of the obvious. So plan your summer. Get it. Let’s get the plans going. Get the reservations made, book the week book the two weeks. You’ve got to block it and then preserve it, preserve it for yourself. Honor it. It can’t be interrupted. You got to set boundaries set that time for yourself and make boundaries around it. Honor that time. No, I’m sorry you can’t get together then. No, I won’t be able to do that meeting. No, now now that that weekend is not good. Now that week isn’t good either. You gotta make time for yourself and preserve it. Please yourself. Your family. If you have a family, get that time away this summer, you need it, you deserve it. You want to take care of others. Whether it’s on the professional side, those folks you take care of or it’s on the family side, you want to take care of your family. You’ve got to take care of yourself, please this summer, especially of all of all summers since last summer was such a bad bust. Set the time aside. Honor it. No encroachments, do it for yourself, do it for those who you take care of. That is Tony’s take two. We have boo koo but loads more time for nonprofit radio here is online accessibility beyond meetings. Welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC the 2021 nonprofit technology conference. We’re sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C o. With me now is martin caucus a president of bound state Software martin. Welcome to nonprofit radio’s coverage of 21 ntc.

[00:31:53.94] spk_0:
Hi Tony, thanks for having me

[00:32:05.44] spk_1:
a pleasure, absolute pleasure. Your session was 10 common accessibility issues and how to fix them. I would like to start at the basic ground level. Let’s just define what accessibility is before we identify the issues.

[00:33:21.64] spk_0:
Yeah. So I think you can define accessibility as making well in this case like your websites, uh, making it accessible to everyone and what that means is that there’s four different levels. So whether they’re perceivable, which means that people can like actually see what’s going on operable, which means I can actually not like use your website without um special requirements. So if you for example a mouse or something like that, they might not be able to use that um understandable. So that means that they want to be able to you want to be able to make sure that people when they go to your website or accessing some content that they can understand what’s going on. It’s not confusing and robust. It means that it’s just a future proof and it can be used across various types of like uh technology. So like web browsers or um screen readers and stuff like that. So it kind of encompasses all that is making it is making your website be accessible to to everyone apart from if they have um impairments or anything like that, disabilities.

[00:33:37.24] spk_1:
We know what the penetration rate is among nonprofit websites. If we use that definition of accessibility. Um sorry,

[00:33:37.91] spk_0:
can you say that again?

[00:33:38.78] spk_1:
Do we know what the penetration rate is? How common are accessible websites in nonprofits using your definition?

[00:34:20.64] spk_0:
Uh, to be, I don’t have a specific number per se, but from just from my research and from browsing different types of websites. non profit websites. It’s not it’s not too common, like it’s something that I think it’s becoming more uh top of mine, but like I see it in proposals or RFP s and stuff like that more and more and more and more often, especially if the organization has like some government funding and the requirements come from that, but it’s not something that’s um commonly found. So

[00:34:32.64] spk_1:
there’s a lot of room for improvement. Yeah, I think so. Okay. Okay. Um can you help us spot potential problems on our own website? Yeah. Good. Sure.

[00:35:04.24] spk_0:
Um Yeah so that’s kind of what uh my talk with and at the conference and I just wanted to give people some some tools and like some understanding of what’s going on their website. So they can they could take them take them home and start working on it and see you know, how can we make our web sites more accessible? It might not be like fully accessible in terms of the various levels but at least getting started. So at the most basic level. So somebody has used enough system technology. Can you can use your website that goes a long way. So. Yeah,

[00:35:14.44] spk_1:
well we’re not gonna be able to do everything overnight. It’s not gonna be like flipping a switch but no we can approach this incrementally and make it more make our site more accessible.

[00:36:00.13] spk_0:
Yeah, exactly. I think that’s the right approach. So I think, to begin with, I wanted to like differentiate between a couple of different issues. So like sometimes these issues are caused by their technical issues, so it might be caused by the templates or in quotation marks, the code. Um, so you might need a developer, uh, to, to help you with it. And other ones are more like low hanging fruit. I think it’s just like things that are related to content. So a lot of the nonprofits use like content management systems to up their websites to create blogs and content. So some of this stuff can be like fixed through just having an understanding of, okay, what are the guidelines that should follow, um, to create more accessible content?

[00:36:15.33] spk_1:
Okay, yeah, So let’s let’s let’s focus on the low hanging fruit, the stuff we can do on our own because our listeners are small and midsize shops. So, you know, they may very well not have an internal developer and hiring an external developer maybe outside their means. So let’s start the stuff we can we can do on our own. Yeah, let’s do that thing. Yeah.

[00:37:06.53] spk_0:
So the first one is it’s pretty basic, but it’s um, it’s page title. So page titles are very important for for orientation. It’s the first thing, like for example, screen reader reads when you’re like when you line on a new page, it’s a good way to differentiate and move between pages and move between pages. So, um, you want to make sure that page titles are unique and they provide um enough information to know what that page is about. Um, another tip that you want to be looking for is that you want to make sure that the most unique and most relevant information comes first. So rather than putting like your organization name first, you want to put it at the end and make sure like whatever the pages about it comes up at the beginning. And this is also some of these practices are also like best practices for the web, but also for like a Ceo and things like that.

[00:37:18.53] spk_1:
Can you explain why does the organization name go at the bottom? Why is that lower?

[00:37:31.73] spk_0:
Because you want to make sure that whatever is the most important part, the most relevant to that page Comes 1st and then your organization comes

[00:37:34.17] spk_1:
after they already know they’re on your organization site. So

[00:37:53.03] spk_0:
yeah. So perhaps if you’re on the home page, you wouldn’t follow that. Like maybe like depends how your SEO strategy is. But if you’re on the about page or or blog article, you want to make sure that the title is at the beginning of the title of the blog or the title of your about page, because that’s kind of what that person is looking for, otherwise it can it can be distracting. Okay,

[00:37:58.53] spk_1:
okay. What else? What

[00:39:35.12] spk_0:
another thing is just headings like this is again pretty basic things, but you want to make sure that when you’re correct, craft and content. Um and a lot of the usability guidelines go hand in hand with like uh just sorry, the accessibility guidelines go hand in hand with usability. Um So when you’re making like, let’s say creating content for the web, you want to make sure that it’s split up and you’re using headings appropriately, so the continent’s more digestible, so it’s easier to understand, but it um and then also if you’re using these headings, you want to make sure that they follow a hierarchy. So typically pages will start with heading one, which is the largest heading. That will be the page title. And as you work down the page, you want to make sure that that hierarchy is maintained. So then that would follow by an H two tag, which again, if you’re using a content management system, you would be able to just select the H two tag is similar to like award uh like a more document and things like that. Um And then a little bit more technical is you want to make sure that when you when you’re selecting these headings that they actually look like headings and on the code side, you want to make sure that there for like their semantically um tagged as heading. So what that means is like in the actual page code is there’s like a little tag, this is H one H two H three, so it needs to be created that way because they’re used as anchors for again, for screen, right? Just to to be able to understand what’s going on. Some people that sounds like they’re sections,

[00:39:39.62] spk_1:
that sounds like it’s just a matter of highlighting the code. Sorry, highlighting the text and tagging it as H one H two H three. Yeah,

[00:39:53.72] spk_0:
exactly. And there’s little tools that you could use, like you don’t have to know how to look at the code. Like there’s plenty of um

[00:39:55.62] spk_1:
yeah, we’re trying to result there’s we’re trying to avoid the code for for right now. Yeah, you can do at our desk if we’re not a developer.

[00:40:02.85] spk_0:
Yeah, you could do this like um as long as you, if you’re using WordPress, you can just select the right appropriate tag and if the theme or or the template you’re using is properly done, then you shouldn’t have any issue.

[00:40:16.41] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Other low hanging fruit, I’m sure you’ve got a bunch of this bunch of these. Yeah.

[00:41:24.11] spk_0:
Yeah. So another one is uh your link, text a lot of the times, like people will put in something like for more information about my organization click here now um you you want to make sure that you’re when you’re creating links that people understand, like where they’re going, like where that link is taking them and so you want to be able to when you’re creating these links, you want to create, create context rich links. Um And the reason for that is because some some assistive technologies that allowed them to view all the links in one page, just so you land on a page, see all the lengths and they’re listed in order. So say that you have a lot of click here’s like they don’t really make sense out of context, so it doesn’t really help them, it’s confusing. So rather than doing something like that, you want to make sure that the the lengths make sense out of context. So you want to say, learn more about my organization, that’s the entire link. So when somebody is scanning through all the links, it makes sense to them.

[00:41:25.41] spk_1:
All right. So it’s a matter of which words are linked. Yeah,

[00:41:29.37] spk_0:
exactly. And

[00:41:30.00] spk_1:
linking the word here here here.

[00:41:42.41] spk_0:
Exactly, Yeah. And and the same thing goes with buttons, for example, you don’t want to have like buttons that are just generic like submit. You want to make sure that they’re descriptive. So, again, this goes hand in hand with usability. So you want to make sure that the button says for example if it’s a newsletter, subscribe to newsletter so they know what the action they’re taking.

[00:41:58.21] spk_1:
I see. All right. That that explains something that I’ve wondered about why some people have or some I see mostly in journalism too. And now I’m thinking about it you know like five or six words will be highlighted as the link. One of them.

[00:42:27.20] spk_0:
Yeah. And it’s also it’s also but yeah. Okay. And it’s also better for S. C. 02 because you’re that’s kind of uh in essence like google crawls your site through a boat. So and it’s very similar to a screen reader. Read it. So they would they look at the links and it’s like okay, this link is this. Um And then you would you answer that phrase and then that’s how it starts to understand what’s going on on your website and where web pages to navigate to. Yeah.

[00:42:38.70] spk_1:
Rich links. All right. Give us more. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:09.30] spk_0:
Yeah. Another one is um text alternatives. I’m sure everyone well not everyone, but this is more familiar. Like all text is the text alternative description of an image. So of course, if you’re if you can’t see and using a screen reader, you can’t see what the image is about. Uh So you can you can provide a description for the image um about what that image is about or the or why that that image is there. So what’s the function? Um If it’s just like a decorative image, you don’t you don’t need to put anything, but if it serves a purpose, it’s important to have that their

[00:43:18.98] spk_1:
description.

[00:43:26.30] spk_0:
So typically when your uploaded a new image on your content management system, you have the option that they will be like a little descriptor field even say I’ll text and then you can just put it in there.

[00:43:33.60] spk_1:
All text. Yeah.

[00:43:55.50] spk_0:
Yeah. It’s it’s it’s very common. It’s just a lot of times you’re like uploading a lot of images and going through like doing a million things. So it’s one of the things that’s easy to miss and it can be hard to also to think about what uh huh what, what to put in there. So I think, yeah,

[00:43:57.40] spk_1:
I guess otherwise the person, the screen reader is just going to see like a file name.

[00:44:02.49] spk_0:
Yeah, exactly.

[00:44:03.68] spk_1:
Yeah. Image seven dot jpeg. Which is Yeah.

[00:44:32.29] spk_0:
Yeah. Or maybe a default value that the program are put in there. Might say default. Yeah. It’s not great. Yeah. And then in the same and lines with the, with the links that we talked about before, a lot of times you use images as links. So you want to make sure that in the all text, your including the destination, if you’re using an image for a link, making sure, okay, where is this link taking me? It’s it’s kind of tied into what we talked about before,

[00:44:40.09] spk_1:
yep. Okay. But the content, content and links. Okay. Others uh yeah.

[00:45:26.89] spk_0:
uh number five would be multimedia like so a podcast for example, um Not available like two people with with hard of hearing or death, um, visuals and videos are not able to people who are blind. So you want to, you want to provide a way to to help these people. Um not only that, it’s just people without, with without disabilities were out, I don’t know, taking the train or something, you want to watch a video, but you don’t want the sound to be on having captions. Um it’s very useful. Um, if you’re learning a new language, like I learn english like having captions, it’s very useful to understand what’s going on. So there’s many uses of why multimedia should have um, should provide an alternative to to consume that. So like a transcript

[00:45:31.14] spk_1:
transcripts, podcasts,

[00:46:42.88] spk_0:
Yeah, a transcript for podcast, for audio and visual content maybe captions. I mean they can be quite elaborate elaborate to to create, but uh, it’s it’s one of the requirements for or guidelines for accessibility. Um, I think these next two are the ones that I talked about before, but um, and they kind of go hand in hand. One is simple content. Like a lot of what I see a lot is just like people just dumping information and information on their websites. And I think it’s important, especially with, for people with cognitive disabilities are really anyone if you’re landing on a page and it’s just like blocks attacks that you have to scan through and trying to understand what’s going on. Like it’s not very usable and again it’s not accessible. So you want to make sure when you’re creating content, you really think about what message you’re trying to convey and you you formatted in a way that’s simple and use a simple language. So Try to aim for an 8th grade level and there’s some tools there that kind of help you with that and help you edit your content so it’s more digestible.

[00:46:46.16] spk_1:
Okay. 8th grade, I’m wondering if I’ve even heard lower than that. Like sixth grade? I’m not sure.

[00:46:59.68] spk_0:
Yeah, I’m not sure. I think I think there is I use a tool called Hemingway editor and I think that one even goes down even further. But yeah, I think if you get to eighth grade and it gives you a check mark.

[00:47:04.17] spk_1:
Okay. Okay Hemingway is that a free resource that listeners can use?

[00:47:08.29] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just go I think it’s just if you google Hemingway editor, it’s just like a free tool you can use online.

[00:47:18.78] spk_1:
Okay. That’s cool. Thank you. I like I like resources. All right. And you said something related to that?

[00:49:58.87] spk_0:
Yeah, So the same same thing. It’s uh your your layout. We talked about the heading simple content. All go hand in hand layout in terms of like how you’re structuring your page, you want to make sure it’s just simple, straightforward. Um I’m not going to go into more than this because it goes into more like design and things that you really can, you can really change without the help of maybe a designer or developer. So I won’t touch them more on that. But the next one I will touch on is contrast ratio and this is another one that’s quite popular when you think of accessibility, like okay, like it needs to be like the contrast needs to be enough so people can can read what’s the tax? Um Right, so one of the things you want to use is there’s plenty of tools out there if you if you just google contrast checker. Um I think one I have here in front of the web, I am dot org and it’s contrast checker. That’s I think the one I use most of the time. Um you just put in two colours and there’s just like it spits out to two different results, whether it passes or not. Um So that that’s pretty straightforward. It falls within like the template sort of but uh now more and more like with the CMS, you can you can change anything right? Like you can change the colour depending on the flexibility of the template. Um, A big one is images, so like a lot of nonprofits like to use images, um because obviously it’s an easier way to like resonate with your audience. Like you can, you get a better feel of what what they’re about. But the problem is that they like, it’s common to overlay text over there and now you’re giving your staff the ability to upload new images and then change the text. Um and then that becomes really tricky if, if it’s not a nice theme or if the image is not great. Um Now you’re having contrast issues. So like, for example, having like simple overlays, it’s like making sure your image is dark enough, so there’s some contrast um goes a long way, There’s other tips for in terms of design that you can do to overcome that but um like putting like a little background on on the actual text so it stands out more. Um But yeah, I think it’s one of the tips, let’s just be careful and the images you’re picking, making sure there’s enough contrast or and if it’s not adding some sort, if you if you have the skills just adding a bit of like a darker um rectangle overtop, like through whatever image processing software that you use

[00:50:31.26] spk_1:
and you can check this with which the well by the way, I want to just make sure everybody knows CMS is your content management system, just in case everybody questioning that, I’m not gonna put martin in jargon jail because I think CMS is pretty, pretty widely known, but if you get if you get to giardini martin then my jargon jail. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. But I’m not putting you in there for CMS. I think that’s pretty, it is widely known but just just in case there’s any listeners who don’t know CMS is your content management system and stunning. Absolutely. But be careful because you’ve transgressed, I

[00:50:34.59] spk_0:
don’t know when I go to jail, I don’t have a jail free card. So Yes, that’s right.

[00:50:40.76] spk_1:
Well I I allow um uh parole is not too hard to get.

[00:50:42.66] spk_0:
Okay. That’s good. Good to hear.

[00:50:44.42] spk_1:
What’s the contrast checker again that resource that folks can use.

[00:50:56.06] spk_0:
So it’s web uh it’s web A. I am dot org. Okay. Um and then if you go to the website it’s just under the resources as contrast checker. Yeah.

[00:51:02.36] spk_1:
Okay. And you can just google contrast checker as well.

[00:51:04.73] spk_0:
Yeah, there’s there’s probably like more than 20 different tools but

[00:51:10.96] spk_1:
martin picasa recommended one is web A I. M.

[00:51:14.66] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. They have a few other tools. That’s the one that’s

[00:51:17.37] spk_1:
it’s got the blessing. It’s got the yeah, it’s a blessing. All right.

[00:51:21.38] spk_0:
Sure. Let’s go with that. All right.

[00:51:23.36] spk_1:
So does that does that exhaust the ones that folks can do on their own without a developer? Let’s

[00:52:23.35] spk_0:
see. I think the last one is actually um it’s not really an issue but something that’s nice to have is an accessibility statement. And during my uh talk, a couple of people like this um so they’re an excessively statement is just it’s an important it’s kind of think about it like a privacy statement. But for accessibility it shows your users that you you kind of care about accessibility and about them provide some information about the accessibility of the content. What steps are you taking to to do um to make your website accessible? And then you can provide an option to to receive feedback. So if they notice any problems they can they can they can reach out and let you know because issues will come up as you create new content or things get updated, there’ll be regressions and um you kind of have to stay on top of it. Accessibility just periodically do checks to make sure that uh nothing nothing fails. So

[00:52:26.15] spk_1:
yeah, that bleeds into maintaining accessibility over time. We have a few more minutes left. What’s your advice around keeping this up?

[00:53:44.05] spk_0:
Yeah. So I think to to keep this up, but you gotta understand that again. Regressions are common if you’re constantly updating your website and upload in your content. I think having manual checks periodically, so maybe once a month you have a bit of a checklist to go through. Um It’s a good idea. I think sharing some guidelines with your team, it’s it will go a long way rather than be um reactive and unfixed changes as they come up. Like you can make sure the new content that you’re creating meets the guidelines. So just having like a little checklist of. Okay, well, these are the common things that you want, we want to stick with will go a long way and then later, like, or if your budget allows, there’s a bunch of automation tools that will like run tests for you um on your website. So if you’re a bigger site and you have thousands of articles or things like that you might want to look into into that and and and accessibility of is it important to you that it might be worth it? Um So for example, I have here um like from DEak X. So it’s like an extension um There’s also accessibility insights from Microsoft or again the same website I linked to before. Well webbing. Uh they have a wave evaluation tools that you can wait. Let

[00:54:03.84] spk_1:
it goes more at the time. By the way, I have some floor work going on. So if you hear a circular star or some hammering or drilling okay, renovations outside and no worries.

[00:54:05.58] spk_0:
If you’re a crying baby, that’s that’s my baby outside the

[00:54:08.74] spk_1:
daughter. So.

[00:54:09.46] spk_0:
Okay. I

[00:54:15.14] spk_1:
haven’t heard any. All right, okay, great. Wait, let’s tick through those um those those resources again a little slower.

[00:54:18.03] spk_0:
Yeah, sure. Um So there’s acts by deke um Let’s see if I have the I don’t really have. Yeah. So like the website is D E. Q. U. E dot com for slash X.

[00:54:34.04] spk_3:
X X

[00:54:35.37] spk_1:
X

[00:54:36.11] spk_0:
A X E

[00:54:38.02] spk_1:
X C four slash X. Okay.

[00:54:40.94] spk_0:
Then the other one is again the it’s the same website I mentioned before. They have an evaluation tool. So all these are kind of like extensions you install in your browser and then you can click a button and that tells you all these all the issues on your page. So it’s kind of like a handy thing.

[00:54:56.81] spk_1:
Yeah, the other one was what? Web dot A. I am.

[00:55:01.14] spk_0:
Yeah. That’s right.

[00:55:05.64] spk_1:
Okay. And and so all right. So there’s there’s a accessibility checker there as well.

[00:55:08.01] spk_0:
Yeah. And then the last one is by Microsoft is just this one is easy. Its accessibility insights that I owe.

[00:55:24.84] spk_1:
Okay, accessibility insights dot io Yeah. Alright. We like free tools like free totally bring this, bring this uh

[00:55:45.94] spk_0:
and I guess I’ll do one more. Um There’s a Khan Academy has one that is quite friendly. I don’t I mean I like it, it’s just like a little tool that you add to your bookmark and then whenever you go to a website you just click on that and it creates like a little pop up. Um So if you google just con economy and it’s uh it’s T. O. T. A. 11 Y.

[00:55:49.66] spk_1:
Way Con con K. H. A. N.

[00:55:54.82] spk_0:
Yeah akademi

[00:55:56.66] spk_1:
Khan Academy. Yeah.

[00:55:58.49] spk_0:
And then the tool is it’s T. O. T. A. 11 Y.

[00:56:03.53] spk_1:
T. O. T. A. 11 Y.

[00:56:05.67] spk_0:
Yeah so I think I don’t have an actual you’re all for it but it’s said to I use. Okay, so we can find

[00:57:29.43] spk_1:
an account academies. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right, thank you for those uh free resources. I like those. We’re gonna leave it there, martin. All right, okay. Cool. Well thank you for having me my pleasure. He’s martin to CASA President abound state software. Thank you again martin and thank you for being with 20 martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21. Ntc the 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c O next week. First generation wealth with Esther choi If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, yeah, thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty You with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Yeah.

Special Episode: POC Underrepresented In Nonprofit Leadership

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Sean Thomas-Breitfeld: POC Underrepresented In Nonprofit Leadership

Sean Thomas-Breitfeld

The willingness and skills of people of color aren’t represented in leadership circles. That’s the main message coming out of Building Movement Project’s report, “Race To Lead Revisited.” We visit the report’s conclusions and recommendations with BMP’s co-director, Sean Thomas-Breitfeld.

 

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[00:01:48.24] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. This is a special episode of non profit radio to help you be the change around racism, people of color underrepresented in non profit leadership. That’s the main message coming out of building movement projects Report. Race to Lead Revisited We visit the report’s conclusions and recommendations with BMPs co director Sean Thomas Brett felled, responsive by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot CEO and by dot drives, raise more money, changed more lives for a free demo and free month. It’s my pleasure to welcome to the show. Sean Thomas Bright Felled. He is co director at the Building Moving Building Movement Project. He previously worked in various roles at community change, developing training programs for grassroots leaders and worked in the communications and policy departments where he coordinated online and grassroots advocacy efforts and lobbied on a range of issues including immigration reform, transportation, equity and anti poverty programs. Building movement project is at building movement, or GE, and at B L. D. I N G movement. John Thomas Bright felt Welcome to non profit radio

[00:01:51.64] spk_0:
Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:53.33] spk_1:
It’s supposed

[00:01:53.87] spk_0:
to be here with you.

[00:01:54.83] spk_1:
It’s good. It’s a pleasure. Thank you. So why don’t you start by describing the work at Building Movement Project?

[00:02:02.44] spk_0:
Sure, so building movement projects been around for over 20 years, and from our founding we’ve had three main areas of focus. One is what we call movement building, looking at how organizations collaborate, how nonprofit organizations can be part of movements for social change and social justice, and what it takes for organizations and non profit leaders to really be on the forefront of making big leading some big structural changes in our society. We’ve also looked at what we call a non profits and social change or service and social change because we think there is a particular role for human service organizations in bringing about structural and systemic change in our society and that that’s really important to support on. Also encourage organizations like that to get involved in advocacy. Listen to an uplift, the voice and on power of the communities that are being served, and then the third bucket of work has always focused on leadership, so recognizing that leading a nonprofit organization is a very hard job we’ve always looked at What does it take for leaders? But also, what does it take for non profit leadership? Thio really have aligned both the practices of leadership with the values that organizations hold. And so over the last several years, we’ve been particularly focused on issues of race and leadership in non profit organization. That’s what the race to lead work comes out of.

[00:03:41.14] spk_1:
Okay, right? And the This race to lead revisited report is really comparing a 2016 survey for the original race to lead with a 2019 survey for this report. Exactly.

[00:04:04.84] spk_0:
Yeah, so we surveyed people working in the nonprofit sector both in 2016 and 2019 on these issues of race and leadership. So this report race to lead revisited at some comparisons between the findings from 2016 and 2019 to see how the sector’s been evolving

[00:04:55.34] spk_1:
and you did have some new questions as well. We’ll have time to get to some of those, um, you talk about Well, first I got to say, I realize the contrast here I have long white hair and you have short, dark hair. We are. We know in the hair. We are. We’re not similar in hair. My God. Uh, yeah, OK, Sorry I couldn’t help notice. Um, you talk about we’re gonna have fun on non profit radio. I mean, it’s a serious subject, but we have fun nonetheless. So you talk about white advantage in the report versus white privilege? You mentioned white privilege once or twice, but predominantly. Talk about white advantage. What’s the What’s the difference there? What? What? What are you trying to say? A little different than the the more seems more common, you know, white privilege.

[00:05:05.24] spk_0:
Yeah. So what’s the term white advantage? What we’re trying to focus on is some of the structural advantages that accrue to non profit organizations based on, you know, multiple people in positions of power being white. So particularly thinking about the composition of boards and the composition of senior leadership teams. Um, because, you know, I think oftentimes the analysis is very individualistic, right? So, like, there’s an individual white person in the executive director role of the organization that only paints part of the picture on DSO we wanted to have a more complicated and nuanced analysis of what’s actually happened. An organization s O, that it became less about, like, the it one person at the top of organizational hierarchy. And think about it, uh, in a way that encompasses both the board leadership and senior staff.

[00:06:04.44] spk_1:
Okay. And then the structures as well, it seems thio less focused on an individual or individuals and mawr, uh, levers of power and processes policies.

[00:06:27.04] spk_0:
Exactly. And it also became a way thio understand and sort of unpack. Um, how, uh, sort of whiteness of organizations that, like in our sample, right, like, 45% of respondents work for organizations where both more than 75% of the board is white and more than 75% of staff and top leadership are white on. And, you know, I think that for me, that was actually somewhat startling in surprising um, And then we also saw that those organizations tend to have bigger budgets at least was being reported by the staff. Um but then, at the same time, we’re seeing that staff were reporting more negative experiences in those types of organizations compared to organizations with more diverse leadership on both the board and senior staff levels.

[00:07:29.64] spk_1:
And so the overall message that I got from this is that the power remains in boards and at the sea levels of nonprofits, and those are predominantly white. And that and that that really hasn’t changed from 2016 to 2019.

[00:07:35.24] spk_0:
Yeah, that hasn’t well, it’s hard to know because we actually didn’t ask the question in this way back in 2016. But I think that this, um, sort of puts our data in the context of some of the research that board source has done that shows that boards are overwhelmingly the majority of non profit boards are overwhelmingly white

[00:07:59.14] spk_1:
and also not reflecting the communities that they’re serving. Absolutely. Yeah,

[00:08:01.54] spk_0:
yeah, because I think what has happened is that the function of non profit boards very often is less a function of accountability to the organization’s constituency and mission on, because organizations often have a lot of responsibility for fundraising and raising the resource is for the organization to do its work. Um, that as a result of that sort of demand, organizations often have, um, prioritized recruiting from people who holds wealth in their communities and because of racial wealth gaps that tend to be white people

[00:08:41.04] spk_1:
on dhe. That’s recruiting for both leadership and volunteer position board with talking about boards and you make it very clear we’re talking about boards as well as C suite. You know, CEO, executive director level.

[00:08:54.14] spk_0:
Absolutely.

[00:08:56.24] spk_1:
So let’s go into the three. I guess main conclusions that the report identifies first one is that things really haven’t changed that much. We’ve already alluded to it. Things haven’t changed that much in the three years.

[00:09:14.44] spk_0:
Yeah, and you know, I’m not sure how surprising that should be. Um, for our sector. You know, I think the change is often particularly in organizations. When we’re talking about organizations where we’re talking about the composition of the staff, that kind of change is incremental, right? I think that what has shifted is that, particularly in the last year is much more consciousness raising much more awareness on the part of organizations that these imbalances, these inequities exist and needs to be addressed. Um, but recognizing that there is a problem is not the same thing is taking action to address the problem.

[00:10:18.34] spk_1:
So you are seeing mawr alright, consciousness raising awareness. It seems like predominantly because of the diversity equity and inclusion work that Ah lot of organizations have done. But it’s just sort of, you know, I’m I gleaned from the reports, just sort of scratching the surface. I mean, ah, lot of it is trainings that raise awareness, but we’re not seeing much action flowing from that consciousness raising.

[00:10:23.84] spk_0:
Yeah, And so one example of the increased consciousness was that in both 2016 and 2019 we asked survey respondents what impact to their race had had on their career advancement. And, uh, for white respondents back in 2016 roughly half indicated that their race. They recognize that the race had a positive impact on their career advancement. So this sort of classic recognition of white privilege that increased to two thirds of the white sample in 29 so one from half to two thirds. So you know that is e think progress, right? In terms of like people having a recognition and understanding that white privileges riel and that it’s positively the benefits of that privilege are accruing to white people in nonprofit organization. Um however, the same question also revealed that back in 2016 a third roughly of people of color felt that their own race have negatively impacted their career advancement, and that then increased almost basically half off the sample of people of color in 2019. So the increased consciousness is both, you know, I think leading people to recognize the ways that they have been disadvantaged as well as for white people the way that they have been advantaged on DSO. You know, we’re still left with this challenge. This problem. That race is clearly having an impact on people’s advancement. And so it needs to be addressed in organizations in ways that I don’t think training is sufficient. Thio thick

[00:12:04.14] spk_1:
right? But you acknowledge consciousness, raising an awareness that that is the first step. But we have a lot more, a lot, a lot further to go. I mean, you know, it’s just

[00:12:14.61] spk_0:
absolutely

[00:12:50.24] spk_1:
widely recognized that, you know, you don’t just do trainings a couple of trainings over six months and then check your box. You know d e. I is covered. Let’s move on, Thio. Let’s move on to the gala. You know it za process. It’s a journey, you know we’ve had other guests say the same thing. It takes time. Thio, uh, change the policies, the practices, the traditions Even if they’re not written down, that our advantage ing white folks over people of color, This takes time. But you gotta You’ve got to start somewhere.

[00:12:52.74] spk_0:
Yes, and I think consciousness raising is is an important and legitimate starting point.

[00:13:42.54] spk_1:
Right? And we’re just getting started, okay? It’s time for a break. Turn to communications relationships. The world runs on them. We all know this turn to is led by former journalists. So you get help building relationships with journalists. Those relationships, they’re gonna help you when you want to be heard so that people know you’re a thought leader in your field turn to specializes in working with nonprofits. One of the partners was an editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. They know the non profit space they’re at turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to P. O. C. Underrepresented in non profit leadership. Are you going to do this in three years again?

[00:13:45.94] spk_0:
It’s a very good question. You know, it’s hard

[00:13:48.15] spk_1:
to

[00:13:48.28] spk_0:
know, uh, in terms of, like, capacity funding, all of those things um, but yeah, I think that it seems worthwhile to keep revisiting thes issues, given the pace of change. Um, having been pretty slow just in the time that we’ve been collecting this data.

[00:14:24.14] spk_1:
All right, Um, anything else you want to say about you know, how the the findings from 2016 are pretty similar? Uh, yeah. Continue through to 2019 before we go on to the next. Well,

[00:14:24.49] spk_0:
sure. I think the reason that we felt like it was worth restating on pointing out the similarity in in terms of the findings between 2016 and 2019 was because, um, you know, from our perspective, it was really important to state very clearly to the sector. But there are people of color who are in the pipeline that the pipeline is not necessarily the problem. Uh, there’s, I think, different metaphors that people have used unpack and try to understand what the problem is of why we’re not seeing more representative leadership at the top levels of nonprofit organizations. And our view has just been that it’s not a pipeline issue per se. There are people of color who have the skills training credentials to be in those top roles, but they face racialized barriers to actually moving into those top jobs to being hired for those top jobs. And so we just felt like it was important to remind the sector of that finding, Um and sort of not lapse back into, ah narrative that, like we need to train more people of color because somehow people of color are not ready toe lead. People of color are ready to lead, but are often too often not given the opportunity.

[00:15:38.84] spk_1:
Not only have the skill sets already, but are willing to, in fact, what willing Thio want. Thio want to advance the leadership in greater numbers than the and the white respondents?

[00:15:51.94] spk_0:
Absolutely.

[00:15:53.03] spk_1:
E guess. There’s narrative that, you know there’s a lack of interest in in people of color advancing toe leadership. But you’ve dashed that.

[00:16:01.74] spk_0:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that part of the reason that’s important is because if people hold this mental model that who wants to be a leader is, uh, not a person of color, then they’re going to ignore the leadership potential of people of color in their organization.

[00:16:26.64] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s very convenient. Well, you know, the folks of color don’t really aspire to leadership. So no need to consider them. So Okay, so you’ve you’ve dashed that it’s not so in two respects. It’s not a pipeline issue. The skills air there and the willingness Is there a ZX? Well,

[00:16:36.24] spk_0:
absolutely

[00:16:42.44] spk_1:
desire Thio advance and to lead. Okay, Um right. So remember your second main main conclusion, I guess, is there is white advantage. We were talking around it. Now we come right out and say there is white advantage in the nonprofit sector.

[00:18:59.24] spk_0:
There is. And, um, you know, I think that the the white advantage takes multiple forms, right? So I think that there have been over the last several months Mawr written about like, what happened? What’s called now? Philanthropic redlining, right, that organizations that are led by people of color, particularly black led organizations, are don’t get access to the same kind of resource is as the white led organizations focused on or serving in communities of color. And so there’s really interesting research both from organizations like Abssi A ZX, well as echoing green and bridge span that really dug into that funding disadvantage. And I think that our data also showed similar findings, particularly when it comes to, for instance, e. D s of color. And this was reported on Maurin a report from based on the 2016 data but E d s of color feeling like they don’t have, they don’t get grants of comparable size to peer organization or that they don’t have access Thio relationships with funders. And so those kinds of advantages in terms of like, who funders trust who funders will give bigger grants thio all of those benefits than accrue to white led organizations that then create this financial gap between organizations, nonprofit organizations based on who’s in positions of power in that institution. And so other ways that the white advantage showed up were in terms of the sort of composition of organizations and the greater comfort that white people, uh, seem tohave in. Those organizations, for instance, on questions like Do people feel like they have a voice in their organization for people working in white, dominant organizations were both the board and senior staff are more than 75% white. That’s where we saw the biggest gaps between people of color and whites in terms of their their agreement with that statement, right? And that gap decreases as you have mawr diverse organizations. And it’s also interesting to note that the average the mean increases. So both people of color and white respondents are more likely to say they have a. They have a voice in their organizations when they work for POC lead groups. So if you know, funders want to invest in organizations that are cultivating that kind of leader full ecosystem inside of their organization that, you know, make it possible for staff to feel like they have a voice and can help to set the direction for the organization, then you know foundations would be wise to really take a hard look at their own investment and the composition of organizations that they’ve been funding on. DSI. You know, like, are these organizations largely white run or are they POC lead on. And if there are largely white one, they should start investing in more organizations that are POC ledge.

[00:20:06.94] spk_1:
You identify five opportunities which we’ll get to, and one of those is put your money where your mouth is. You just say, put your, uh, you

[00:20:08.83] spk_0:
know, money

[00:20:54.04] spk_1:
where mouth is for sure. Yeah, I mean that’s a critical lever of power is funding for any anyone, whether it’s whether it’s corporate or non profit access to capital access to markets. Um, you know, what I thought was really interesting is, um, when you were identifying whether an organization was white lead or POC lead you, you chose as a threshold for white lead, whether more than 75% whether the Board of Leadership is more than 75% white. But then for for people of color lead, the threshold was just 50%. Is that because there just aren’t enough that are that are at the 75% level? So you had to reduce the yet to reduce the threshold to define it as person of color lead? Was that the reason?

[00:21:02.45] spk_0:
Yes. I mean, I think that it reflects the sort of composition of the sector, right. So 45% of respondents reported working for organizations where more than 75% of the board and senior staff were white on then it only 14% of respondents reporting working for organizations where it was over 50% of board and senior staff where people of color, you know, like it’s

[00:21:30.25] spk_1:
hard to have

[00:21:30.98] spk_0:
a comparison between Yeah, exactly.

[00:21:34.02] spk_1:
75% shoulder, 75% for PFC. Lead was gonna be too small a sample You

[00:21:40.57] spk_0:
a

[00:21:41.99] spk_1:
handful of Okay, uh, e suspected. Okay. Um, yeah. The experience was a little more about the experience. How people experience how people of color experience work in a in a white led organization.

[00:21:58.84] spk_0:
Well, I have to say, this was surprised, Not surprising. But it was interesting that the data was so clear, um, that the these racial gaps were so much larger for respondents working for white run organizations compared toa the POC led groups. And, um, you know, I think that it reflects what we’ve been hearing from the focus groups that we’ve been doing across the country in terms of the frustration, particularly on the part of people of color working in organizations that, um, you know, I think often feel somewhat alienating. And where people feel like they, um their leadership potential is not recognized or supported on dso. It was just a really, uh it was nice to have the data show, uh, and really reflect what we’ve been hearing anecdotally through focus groups and interviews around the country,

[00:22:59.54] spk_1:
You mentioned three organizations that have contributed to this work. One of them was bridge span. And then what were the other to save them. Save them a little slower theater, too.

[00:23:03.21] spk_0:
Sure. So a few months ago, bridge span and echoing green partnered on a report that looked at the going echoing green,

[00:23:14.57] spk_1:
echoing green

[00:24:50.44] spk_0:
green. Yeah, they partnered toe look at the funding that had accrued to organization organizational leaders who had gone through echoing Green’s programs. And so they were able to then really track and demonstrate that black leaders compared toa white leaders who had gone through the same kind of leadership development programs were getting very different levels of financial support on So that report came out at, you know, the earlier in the spring and last winter, an organization called Absi, which is the Organization for African Americans in philanthropy. On DSO, the acronym is a B E, and they put out a report looking at what they call the philanthropic redlining, this phenomenon of financial support from foundations accruing to white led organizations rather than to POC lead or black led organizations. So they use this terminology of redlining because it’s evocative of historical policy that led to very dramatic differences in terms of what sort of development and investment was possible, uh, in cities and neighborhoods based on this policy of redlining. And their point is that the imbalances, the inequities and where philanthropic dollars flow leads toa completely different prospects for organizations. And because some organizations grow because they get the funding and other organizations sort of. Whether on the bun

[00:25:06.34] spk_1:
isn’t the large majority of the smaller organizations I think you’re special was under a million dollars aren’t Isn’t the majority of those POC lead?

[00:25:08.44] spk_0:
It was, Yeah, it was striking to see that a much larger share of POC led organizations had budgets under a million

[00:25:30.34] spk_1:
dollars compared to, for instance, what led organizations? And, ah, large, large majority of those are a million dollars or under in funding or annual budget.

[00:25:31.18] spk_0:
Yes, okay, yeah, in terms of the annual budget

[00:26:27.24] spk_1:
annual budget. Okay, time for our last break. Dot drives drives engagement dot drives relationships. Dot drives walks you through donor engagement. It’s a tool that’s simple, affordable and focuses you on building donor relationships and trust. There’s a free demo, and for listeners a free first month. Go to the listener landing page at tony dot Emma slash dot We’ve got but loads more time for POC, underrepresented in non profit leadership. And then the third main point is that d I. Efforts are widespread, you say, and their effectiveness is uncertain, I would say, but but their effectiveness is uncertain. You’re a little more optimistic. Um, so, yeah, we were scratching the surface of this before, but you know, say same or about what’s being done, but what the limitations of it are.

[00:26:35.74] spk_0:
Well, first off, I think it’s important to acknowledge that three quarters of the sample reported that their organizations were doing something related to diversity equity inclusion. And so the ubiquity of D I efforts is, you know, I think good. And I think it’s a relatively new phenomenon, right? Like it’s become the topic at a lot of conferences over the past five years. And so all of which is to say that like organizations are getting started right now, Um, and maybe it’s long overdue, but this is a moment when organizations are getting started. I think that the challenge, the frustration, particularly on the part of people of color. And the younger staff of, you know, diverse diversity of younger staff is that I think for far too often it feels like organizational checklist. It feels like a sort of double. Organizations are saying the right things, but not actually changing anything about their recruitment practices or internal hiring and promotion strategy. So, yeah, I think that that is the the frustrating in that, like the ubiquity does not equal impact.

[00:28:43.94] spk_1:
I just want to remind listeners the report is called Race to Lead Revisited and you can get it at building movement dot or ge. All right, Sean, how do you feel about talking? Oh, there’s there’s a quote. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You You pepper the report with quotes in the margin on Dhe there. Ah, lot of them struck me that. I’m just going to read one that was probably half a dozen or so that, you know, sort of stopped me a little bit. But, uh, Pakistani woman, I don’t believe I’m taking us seriously in the workplace because I am a young woman of color. I often question things which doesn’t always go over well in majority white organizations. I’ve been used as a token brown person that za harsh reality Thio Thio read and for her to admit in a survey that, you know, I’m a token. Um So I thought the quotes were very evocative.

[00:28:55.84] spk_0:
Well, yeah, thanks. I mean, we we really think it’s important to balance the quantitative data with, you know, hundreds upon hundreds of right and responses from survey respondents and then also the focus groups that we do. We also gain a ton of insights from those conversations as well.

[00:29:16.34] spk_1:
You feel OK, go into the five opportunities or is there Is there mawr anything more you wanna bring out about the the report itself? Well, this is part of the report, but about the conclusions, conclusions and findings.

[00:29:40.34] spk_0:
Well, I guess I would just add in terms of the sort of d I and, uh, there’s the both the skepticism, but also the impact, right? I think that, um, there’s, you know, I think there’s a lot of skepticism about training, often times. But our data did show that for reserving respondents that reported that their organization trained on a variety of topics. They had more positive views on the impact of training on their organization. I think that just speaks to the importance and need for organizations have, like, multifaceted well around D. I initiatives so that training is not again, like just the check box on or sort of like. Okay, we did the training on white privilege, and so we’re sort of done that the training is a way of both sparking but also sustaining critical conversations in organizations. And that’s why it’s useful for organizations to do training repeatedly and on a variety of topics.

[00:30:59.64] spk_1:
Yeah, I think it was. It was forearm. Or if organizations had had training on four or more topics than both white, the white respondents and the people, people of color respondents, um, felt it was it was more advantageous. So they got there was more valuable training than if it was three or fewer. Could you just take off a couple of different topics that that folks should be looking to training? I mean, not not exhaustive, but you know, what are some of the some of the topics that people should be thinking about training wise?

[00:31:07.27] spk_0:
Sure, yeah. So eso in terms of the topics that we tested for in the survey people indicated that whether the organization had done training on white privileged, specifically whether they had done training on implicit bias because that is a concept that I think has gained mawr currency in the sector. Structural racism, for instance. Um, like do people think of racism as just about interpersonal dynamics or as or as the result of structural, um, and systemic forces that are being replicated by policy? A. ZX well, as implicitly, um, also racial trauma and healing. I think it’s a training topic that is becoming more popular and developed, so there’s a variety of topics, and I think the important thing is just for organizations to be open to having and doing training on a wide variety of topics.

[00:32:07.74] spk_1:
And again, the more topics, the more valuable people will feel. Three outcomes are, um So let’s go to the opportunities. Then why don’t you once you start us off?

[00:32:19.04] spk_0:
Sure.

[00:32:20.17] spk_1:
I’m sure. Wait. I put you on the spot. Do you know that you may not have him off the top of your head? I have notes I haven’t written down, so I don’t need thio Put you on the spot memorized? I don’t know do you?

[00:32:32.07] spk_0:
Yeah, I’ve got it.

[00:32:33.81] spk_1:
Okay. Okay.

[00:32:47.44] spk_0:
First in the first one was focused on structures as well as the experiences of staff. Right on DSO. You know, I think it’s pretty straightforward, but I think the the reason that we felt felt like it was really important toe lift up lived experience of staff working in organizations is because of what we saw in terms of those experience questions, right? Like, do people feel they have a voice in their organizations or not? Right. We also thought it was important to point out that policies have to actually be in force, right? Like organizations can’t just say this is our policy. But if people don’t see evidence that actual behavior and practices air changing as a result of the policy, um, then you know, I think there are real questions about whether that has real impact.

[00:33:22.08] spk_1:
There is, as

[00:33:23.32] spk_0:
we said earlier,

[00:33:35.84] spk_1:
you’re not walking the talk. Then if you have ah, policy on anti discrimination and someone says something derogatory and it doesn’t get dealt with according to the policy. Yeah, that’s a joke. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:33:39.94] spk_0:
Um, we also thought it was important toe, you know, really, focus on the funding dynamics, so particularly for grantmaking organizations. But put your money where, like your mouth is essentially right. Like there are increasing number of foundations, that air saying that the I is important. Ah, nde sort of signaling to their grantees. But those organizations need to take d. I seriously need to diversify their boards and staff things like that. But if the foundations have not taken similar steps, if the foundations have not to diversify their own or internal institution, or the foundations have not sort of critically examined their portfolio of grants like are there racial disparities in terms of what the amounts of funding, which organizations get access to funding that sort of thing? All of that is about foundations being very serious on reflect about being reflective in terms of their own commitments to D. I.

[00:35:24.04] spk_1:
And you have reflecting reflecting your community, which we touched on a little bit, that that was really striking, how you know it’s intuitive. I mean, I realized it, but to see the numbers of, um, Whitelighter organizations that are serving POC communities, eyes like two thirds or something, I think, um, it’s startling that leadership does not reflect the communities that they’re serving, and that includes the board. I mean, you you wanna have voices from the from the folks you’re serving contributing to your contributing to your you’re you’re major decisions a ZX the board should be doing

[00:35:28.54] spk_0:
Yeah, and again, like, as I said earlier, like, if organizations see the function of the board as about accountability as about setting the direction for the organization, then I think those organizations will see the need and value of having a board that is reflective of the community that’s being served. But if organizations have the sort of rationale for maintaining the board is to have access to people with wealth and connections, and there’s obvious reasons that organizations go that route. Then they’re going to stack. They’re bored with wealthy people in their communities on again because of racism. Those wealthy people are not likely to be people of color from the constituency that’s being served

[00:36:15.53] spk_1:
and your last one responsibility and results.

[00:36:26.79] spk_0:
Yeah, I think our sense was that organizations air pushed to track a lot of things nowadays and so, like what gets measured is often what then matters. And so our sense was that organizations should be very clear about what their commitments are going to be to race equity. And, um, you know, really track those commitments and then track the results of that come out of, like, what kind of organizational change strategies they pursue. And so, you know, if organizations they’re doing like an annual review or annual reports, are they reporting on their goals and objectives around race equity? That is one way to sort of ensure that organizations are staying on track on dhe, that its multiyear commitment

[00:37:13.58] spk_1:
it’s gonna take

[00:37:14.84] spk_0:
multiple years of change.

[00:37:38.03] spk_1:
Uh, you know, just pay attention. You can move the needle on things. If you start paying attention to them, you’re saying, if you measure it, you’ll you’ll you’ll be. You’ll be accountable to it. So high attention to it. If your If your statements say that you value racial equity, then measure it, hold yourself accountable and commit to those years of change.

[00:37:41.23] spk_0:
Yeah, and I think it’s even better if organizations do that. Make that accountability public, eso that they’re the sort of reporting is to their staff. It’s to their board. It’s to their community so that, like the statements of the organizations stand with. For instance, black lives matter, then backed up with organizations being able to say. And here’s how we lived into that commitment. Here are the things that we did over the past year that made that riel,

[00:38:10.82] spk_1:
Sean, anything, anything at all that we didn’t cover that you want to talk about.

[00:38:16.52] spk_0:
Um, no, I think we covered a lot.

[00:38:34.22] spk_1:
Okay, well, we did. You know, it’s not profit radio. We cover a lot of ground, but, you know, we can only scratch the surface. I mean, we cover a lot, but what you want to read the details, So just get the damn thing. Uh, the report again is, um race toe lead racing. No race race, the lead race, the lead be visiting

[00:38:38.27] spk_0:
the lead revisited.

[00:38:49.92] spk_1:
Used to lead you visited. You’ll find it at building movement or GE. That’s where you’ll find building movement project. And Sean Thomas Bright felled. Who is co director, right, Sean, Thank you very much. Thank you.

[00:38:52.07] spk_0:
Thanks so much for having me

[00:39:32.72] spk_1:
absolutely appreciate your time. Thank you. Reminder were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives raise more money changed more lives. Tony dot Emma slash dot for a free demo and a free month, Our creative producer is clear, Meyerhoff shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our Web guy. This music is by Scott Stein and with me next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

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[00:02:40.44] spk_1:
on welcome tony-martignetti profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Welcome to our first podcast only show. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of in Texas itis if you inflamed me with the idea that you missed today’s show Donor surveys. You’ll make the most of the donors you have by discovering their potential through surveying Crystal Mahan and Christian Robot Yard talk principles. Best practices and goal setting Crystal is with stars, Air ambulance and Christian. Is that beyond the bake sale? This is part of our 20 and TC coverage and people powered movements. This 20 NTC panel helps you build more effective and more inclusive movements by encouraging you to think about communications, power and privilege. They’re Selena Stewart from League of Women Voters. US and Gloria Pan with mom’s rising on tony steak, too. Planned giving accelerator were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Here is donor surveys. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC 2020 non profit Technology Conference and 10 made the excruciating decision to cancel the non profit technology conference. But we are continuing virtually. You’ll get just as much value. We don’t have to all be close to pick the brains of the expert speakers from From N 10. Our coverage is sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software. The Knowledge Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Go to tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. My guests now are Crystal Mahan and Christian Robot Yard. Crystal is manager of annual giving at stars Air Ambulance and Christian is founder and chief podcaster at Beyond the Bake Sale. Crystal Christian. Welcome. Welcome to non profit radio,

[00:02:44.19] spk_2:
tony.

[00:02:45.00] spk_0:
Thanks, tony. Great to be here.

[00:02:46.42] spk_1:
It’s a pleasure to have both of you. You are both in ah, in Canada. Crystal. You are in Alberta and Christian. Remind me where you are.

[00:02:55.54] spk_0:
I’m in Ah, beautiful, Sunny Ottawa, Ontario.

[00:03:00.02] spk_1:
Ottawa. No other capital? Yes, in

[00:03:01.23] spk_0:
your nation’s capital. Not be not be disputed with Toronto. Who likes to think that the capital

[00:03:29.66] spk_1:
I know well and many Americans think it’s either Montreal with Toronto? Yes, but, uh, Ottawa Capital. All right. I’m glad to know that you’re both well and safe. Um, and glad to have you both with us. Thanks. Um, we’re talking about donor surveys. Your your NTC topic is ah, Dorner surveys your untapped data goldmine Crystal. Why are surveys a data goldmine?

[00:03:45.11] spk_2:
Well, we have the fortunate launching a survey. We’ve never done one prior to 2016. And when we did it, we were amazed at what we found. So we learned a lot about our donors. Education preferences. We made money, like, usually made that on that. And I’ll talk about. We actually ended up learning a lot about I’m getting prospects. And turns out that there were a lot of donors that we had no idea name Justin there will ever interested in the will. So there was a lot of revenue like hidden revenue that we were finally getting access to you. So that’s are where that line is moving your wits, but it’s preparing to you.

[00:04:23.61] spk_1:
Interesting. I’m looking forward to drilling into that more because I didn’t plan to giving fundraising as a consultant on sometimes asked by clients about doing surveys. So I’m interested in what you’re doing as well. Um, and and you’re getting gifts. You said you’ve made money back from them. So people do send you gifts of cash along with their surveys.

[00:04:53.69] spk_2:
Yes. Like this year we get. Because last year, 2019 are stars. Allies there, maybe $300,000 And that all the you people have been found for giving what? We’re looking at dollars. So it’s you cannot do a survey to seem like you. Point?

[00:04:54.30] spk_1:
Yeah. Did you say billions? With a B?

[00:04:57.21] spk_2:
No millions and

[00:05:08.78] spk_1:
millions. Okay, the audio is not perfect, so it almost sounded billions. So I want to be sure, because I’m listeners have the same question. Okay, Millions, millions is still very, very good. Um, Christian? Anything you want to head to about Why these air Ah, such a gold mine for non profits.

[00:05:14.81] spk_0:
I mean, besides the fact that you’re using data, obviously, to reinforce certain decisions and Teoh highlight certain wealth elements, I would say in terms of your sponsorship potential, I know a lot of organizations are looking more so into the corporate sponsorship corporate engagement side of things. And I think with your donor surveys, you could really reveal a lot around where people are working there levels in terms of positions within a certain company or organization. And that can lead you down some interesting pass from a corporate sponsorship perspective.

[00:06:05.94] spk_1:
Okay. Okay, um, your, um your description of the workshop said that make the most of the donors you already have. And it sounds like you both obviously are going there. Is there anything you want to add about sussing out the value that’s in your that you don’t know? You have among your current donors?

[00:06:31.20] spk_2:
Well, from our perspective, like it’s given us an opportunity to get to know our donors better in terms of what? What are they actually interested in learning about the organization or why are they choosing given that allows us to tailor messages, just be a lot more personal with them and act like we really know that was supposed to them just being a number. This is an opportunity to really cultivate that relationship and just continue bring them on war.

[00:06:41.08] spk_1:
Okay, um, is most of your content in the workshop around as practices for surveys? Is that what we’re gonna be exploring? Mostly

[00:07:05.94] spk_2:
Christian feel free to jump in and say that we were looking a lot of fast. Her best practice, then also, case studies. People would have some tangible examples how to actually launch one with consider. And what would actually need to do once they got

[00:07:24.46] spk_1:
OK? All right, well, let’s, um let’s start with, Like, where? Where do you get started? Who, Who who were the best people to send surveys to our What types of information are are you finding our most responded to or what types of questions are most responded to? How can you help us sort of frame? Ah ah, an outline of what we were to get started.

[00:07:55.62] spk_2:
Well, Christian and I talked a lot about building the proper spoke of your surveys of figuring out. Why exactly are you? What do you try to find out? And once, you kind of I guess you were down exactly what you’re trying to learn, what you’re trying to cheat, That sort of helping bigger. You need to actually reach up to what? The audience. You need to know that before.

[00:08:06.93] spk_1:
Okay, So, starting with your goals, what was the purpose of the darn thing? Yes. Okay. Okay. Um Christian. You want to jump in around, you know it’s starting to get this process started.

[00:08:15.29] spk_0:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think as crystal, I were kind of building this piece at whether you’re talking about more of a philanthropic, focus for your surveying or whether you’re talking about more of a corporate sponsorship focus of it. You only want to ask yourself, I never different questions before you even get going things around. What do you ultimately want to know about your donor base? Or about this particular audience population that you’re ultimately looking for? More information on? Why are you doing this in the first place? Is, Is this more responsive? Isn’t it more of a proactive type surveyed that explore new avenues? Would you ultimately need to know? I think that’s an important element to focus on Is not asking everything but asking the right things? Who do you need to ask? So who is the actual population that you’re targeting at the end of the day? What would you do with the information? So don’t just collect information for information, say not that that’s not important. But what’s the actual actionable pieces for that? And how are you gonna protect that information? I think with today’s sensitivities around around data privacy, it’s really important for charities and nonprofits to Stuart that data as they would any type of gift that they ultimately get.

[00:09:27.71] spk_1:
Yeah, in terms of the data stewardship that that may constrain what you asked as well, because now you have, ah, conceivably a higher level of security that you need to maintain

[00:09:32.60] spk_0:
absolutely tony and even just in terms of sensitivities, of phrasing, certain questions, and that it’s important for you to think about how you phrase certain things and how intimate your ultimately getting. And if you do get that intimate, like you said, how do you protect that data? But also, what’s the purpose for collecting that particular piece of data side from? Well, it might be a nice toe have someday, instead of this actually contributes towards our bottom line.

[00:10:00.13] spk_1:
You’re doing surveys around corporate sponsorship, right? That’s the example you mentioned. So you’re getting to know where people work so that you might use that information for potential sponsorships.

[00:11:02.31] spk_0:
Yeah, I mean, when you look at sponsorship, ultimately it it’s very much a business transaction. If you look at how Forbes just define sponsorship. It’s very much the cash and in kind fee paid to a property, a property being whether it’s ah terrible run or some type of adventure conference in this case, um, in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associate without property. So anything of any other type of exploitable commercial potential, which is the most buzzer and definition you possibly could. If you think of any type of advertising medium, whether it’s TV, radio print, you want to know ultimately cruising your audience. And one of the best and most effective ways to do that is to conduct some type of survey to really tease out who are some of your very specific or niche audiences. Cannabis a niche. So it’s a bit of a cringe for for us up here in the North. But, uh, having a survey to really tease out who are who’s in your audience. And some of the more behavioral psychographic demographic features of that audience are particularly important, toe have to really make a compelling case toe corporations looking to use sponsorship with your organization,

[00:11:20.18] spk_1:
the, um what four matter using Christian crystal, I’m gonna ask you the same thing shortly. What? How are these offered to people?

[00:11:28.33] spk_0:
Yeah, so we so in the experience of I’ve high, we usually use ah surveymonkey survey of some kind that allows for a lot of cross top analysis to be able to say that people who are in between the ages of 18 and 29 this particular set of income, they have these particular purchase patterns. They care about your cause, toe ends degree. They, um, are engaged with your cause or with your property and whether it’s through social media or through certain print advertisements or whatever that might be. And we usually collect around 30 plus data points on all of those on all those elements, ranging from again behavioral to the demographic to psychographic Teoh. Some very pointed, specific questions around the relationship between your cause and the affinity for a certain corporation based on that based on not caring for that cause.

[00:12:39.89] spk_1:
Yeah. So you said collecting around 30 data points, does that? Does that mean a survey would have that many questions? Absolutely. Okay, now I’ve heard from guests in the past. May have even been ntc guests. Not this year, but, you know, the optimal number of questions for surveys like five or six or so and people bailout beyond that point.

[00:13:58.37] spk_0:
Yeah, and and usually before I had actually sent out a survey of that magnitude, I would agree with you. Tony and I agree with most. I think that the important differentiators one is that you frame it as it’s very much for improving the relationships and the ability for the cause properties, whether that’s your run, your gala, whatever that might be to raise money and usually the audience that you’re setting. That, too, is very receptive to that. I think you want to frame it also as your only collecting the most important of information. And you’re also looking at ah again like you’re incentivizing in some way, shape or form. So usually when you tailor it with some type of incentive Buta $50 gift card opportunity Teoh win something like that. Usually people a lot more or a lot more receptive. And in the time that we’ve done surveys, whether it’s in my my past days, consulting in the space or now doing a lot of work with charities nonprofits, we sent it to tens of thousands of respondents and get a pretty a pretty strong response rate and a really nominal, if negligible, amount of an unsubscribe rates. So people are not un subscribing from getting those questions, and in fact, they’re answering a lot of them and an important element, as well as making them optional. So not forcing people to house to fill out certain pieces but giving them the freedom to answer whatever questions they feel compelled to. But when you’re doing it for the cause, people are pretty are pretty compelled to respond to those states of questions.

[00:14:01.77] spk_1:
Okay, Crystal, how about you? What? What format are your service offered in?

[00:14:31.04] spk_2:
Did you both offline and online? So our donor base tends to skew a little bit older, though for us, a physical mailing is absolutely I’m only deals online, burgeon for, I guess, other parts of our donor base that are different. The graphical, just based on that person’s preference, is giving them that opportunity. But what we did find is that in terms of our offline responses, we had a lower was off rate of responses to the survey, but exponentially more donations coming through offline as online and then for online responses of the online certainly had a lot more responses to be online. Survey. There are fewer donations, so I found that there was an inverse relationship there about that very thing.

[00:15:41.08] spk_1:
It’s time for a break wegner-C.P.As paycheck protection program. Loan forgiveness This is still a front burner issue. You have got to get your loan forgiveness application in. Wegner has the info you need. Their latest free wagon are explains the state of P P P Loan forgiveness. What is forgivable? What documentation do you need? How to work with your lender? Go to wegner-C.P.As dot com. Click Resource Is and recorded events. Now back to donor surveys with Crystal Mahan and Christian Robot Yard. Do you, ah, subscribe to the same opinion about the length that that could be up to 30 questions? In a survey, a ZX Christian was saying,

[00:16:17.66] spk_2:
We personally have a practice of you tiki bars between five and 10 questions. And sometimes we even Taylor that we know that some of these interested in particular programs we might take out a certain question. But in something else related specifically to them, for their isn’t variability in the surveys, but generally quite short, but I do agree with Christian for sure in terms of really framing the purpose of the survey and you to the questions around this is the whole purpose of this is to build a relationship with them and better serve them and get to know them better. And I think that really prince, And then you also

[00:16:23.41] spk_1:
just gonna ask about incentivizing, Okay? Something similar, Like drawing for a gift card. Something like that.

[00:16:33.91] spk_2:
Yeah. We get a star’s prize package. We wanted to do something about these decisions. You couldn’t get something but elsewhere. So yeah, way start for merchandise. So that’s

[00:17:18.04] spk_1:
okay. I’m gonna thank Christian for not having a good, uh, good video appearance because, you know, I’ve done 10 of these today, and they’re all gonna be all the video’s gonna be preserved. Except this one. Because Christian, um, as a very extreme background is really just a silhouette ahead with headphones. Really? Little I can see. But I’m grateful because my background just fell. I have a little tony, I have a tony-martignetti. You watched other of these videos which you’re gonna be available. This tony-martignetti non profit radio. So the easel you know, what’s that for? A form core, you know, sign. And it was behind me. It was, and it just fell while Crystal was talking. So thank you, Christian.

[00:17:29.66] spk_0:
It was just so surprised that you could ask 30 questions on a survey and get some type of degree of response.

[00:17:38.43] spk_1:
Only it shook my house that I’m

[00:17:40.42] spk_0:
30 data points. What madness is this? I’m

[00:17:58.70] spk_1:
so a gas man. Yes. And then also the fact that you the two of you disagree. Um, all right, so but I’m shouting myself, calling myself out as having a flimsy background lasted through. And that’s through, like, seven hours of this. I

[00:17:58.85] spk_0:
love it. Also, we don’t necessarily disagree, but I think different surveys serve their different purposes. So I agree with Crystal that in that particular case, you only need descends. One that has 5 to 10 questions rise in this case, your public sending it to in a slot strip case, you’re probably sending it to a larger population of people. And you only need a certain amount of people to fill it out.

[00:18:18.73] spk_1:
Crystal, I had asked you, and you probably answered, but I got distracted by my collapsing background. What? What kinds of incentives do you offer?

[00:18:40.21] spk_2:
We offer stars prize pack. So it’s stars over two nights that we want to talk or something a little bit different other than my gift card that they could get through any other. Yeah, it’s so different Angle

[00:19:00.18] spk_1:
personalized two stars. Okay, Okay, Um, now, was yours specifically Ah, planned giving survey, or did you just have a couple of planned giving questions? And that’s where you discovered this data goldmine of future gift. And all the wheels that you found out that you’re in was

[00:19:27.84] spk_2:
it was it was not specific to plan giving, so it was more just a general survey. And then we did have a question about plan giving and that we were stunned. But subsequent years we kept asking mad, and right now we’re sort of in the middle of doing that whole. I’m giving strategy and trying to really build that out. Now that we know that there is this whole core people that are interested in this. So it’s really opened up the water opportunities President organization after all.

[00:19:43.23] spk_1:
Yeah. Interesting. Okay. All right. So you learned from the first time this is you’re in a lot more estates than you had. Any idea? Um, let’s let’s talk about some more good practices for surveys. Crystal, is there something you can one of two things you want to recommend and then we’ll come toe go back to Christian.

[00:19:53.81] spk_2:
Yeah, One of my major things is that if you’ve been asked a question, you have to know where you’re going to do with that data after the fact that you were people just ask the question to ask a question for whatever reason. But then they don’t action. Anything out of it to me is very important that if our donors are gonna spend the time actually breathe through your survey, respond, mail it in or submitted online, that we actually do something that that information is the weather bats killer. It’s a messaging or changing communication preferences or whatever it is you’re asking us to do, you were tell has I think that’s so important that you have to have all a plan once these losses come back. And what are we gonna do with them? Who was going to take action? How are we gonna reason with this? How are we going to use information.

[00:21:15.77] spk_1:
I think of date of birth is as a good example of that. If you’re gonna, if you’re gonna develop a plan to congratulate someone for their birth on their birthday each year, then that could be a valuable data point. Um, but if you just, you know, if you’re just asking because you you don’t have a purpose, you just interested in what their ages? For some vague reason, then there’s no there’s no value in asking. And if it is just to follow up, if it’s just to know their you know when you want to send a card, maybe you don’t need the year. Maybe just need the day in the month. But if there’s value to your database for knowing their age and you would ask for a year

[00:21:23.72] spk_2:
exactly how he felt down, what do we need to know? I really asking

[00:21:30.90] spk_1:
why, Kristen, you have a best practice you want to share.

[00:21:33.84] spk_0:
Yeah, I would say Consider the not just the population size that you’re not just the population that you’re serving, but also the representative makeup. So if you know that your database is predominantly on more, the senior side of things, but you’re getting a disproportion amount of more individuals who are on the younger side of things. In terms of respondents, that’s something important that you have to take into account. So the makeup of the actual population is is more important. I would argue that the amount of responses you could get a crazy amount of responses. But if it doesn’t represent the population that you’re serving and that who make up your donors, it’s it’s not gonna be valuable dated to you. I remember one time we had a ZX instance for an organization wanted Teoh do a survey for sponsor purposes, and in other cases, it’s been from or donor specific, like, I will just put it on on Facebook or Twitter or something like that. It’s not necessarily your population is not necessarily the group that you’re looking that you’re actively engaged with a fundraising perspective. You get information to the otherwise and then obviously reflect on that and use that. But be really clear about the breakdown that you need to have in order to make the information, actually, representative of the rest of your database,

[00:22:47.24] spk_1:
Um, what kind of response rates what’s what’s a decent response rate to, ah to a survey?

[00:23:06.51] spk_0:
I think it depends what type of server you’re sending. I will let Crystal speak to this more, but I’d say if it’s philanthropic. Eikenberry on the sponsorship side of things you’re looking for a response rate that coincides with the 95% confidence interval with a 5% margin of error. Let’s get market data to calculate that there’s a bunch of big captain complicated formulas that we probably have all repressed from our time in. In statistics Citizen that in university there’s ah company called Surveymonkey that actually has a calculator for its. If you go to the Surveymonkey website, you can actually just plug in a what the sample side of what the actual size of the database you’re sending into. And you can plug in what confidence interval that you want. And then what margin of error that you’d like, and it will pump out a number of a minimum that you need to have. I would say that’s a good starting point. But again, as I talked about before, make sure you have the representative break up breakdown of, ah, who’s actually within your audience reflected in the survey results and don’t have it disproportionately skewed towards a particular demographic that might be just more inclined. Teoh, respond to surveys.

[00:24:25.04] spk_1:
Okay. Okay, um, Crystal, Anything you want to add about the confidence, it’s different, but yeah, I withdraw that. That doesn’t make sense for you because you’re doing individual philanthropic surveys. So each response you get is valuable. You find out that someone is interested in planned giving already, has you in their will. That one response has has great value. Yes. Okay.

[00:24:39.74] spk_2:
Our purpose of our surveys a little bit different. We don’t worry so much about that, but I actually meeting how like that in your mind. Reaching out to you?

[00:24:44.24] spk_1:
What? What kind of response rate to use for the crystal is still you know, these things? Things take time and you’re doing Some of them are offline. So there’s postage and printing, et cetera. What kind of response rate do you consider good for? For a NH effort like that

[00:25:40.43] spk_2:
in terms of financial reform? Three. So don’t verify that for us, a response to the survey doesn’t necessarily mean a gift, and it gets to the survey, doesn’t necessarily mean that they responded to a number. Yes, we usually eight or 86%. But in terms of actual response to the survey, we’ve seen his lower 2% for the highest 7% a year of channel. So either way, like we have, quite like we have quite a large database. So any of you to be So get this information, your father.

[00:25:42.89] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Um, for your online surveys. Crystal, are you using surveymonkey? Also, did you say

[00:25:48.80] spk_2:
use a couple leased surveymonkey last year? It is very user friendly. What? I would caution people are always print about whatever price package designed for because, like you discussed for our surveys a big focuses financial tournament. So we needed to price plan that involved being able to redirect right from surveymonkey page to our donation form. So you had to be really mindful things like that. So in some of the basic packages, they don’t write redirect donation form in that you can’t Do you have a really negatively impact your

[00:26:27.94] spk_1:
Is there another online tool that you like? Also you?

[00:26:52.64] spk_2:
I used Teoh from cold response. Ter. We’ve there be start a sweetener somewhere in Europe, and they were very good, though there are some limitations is well with them in terms of what the packages offer. But bring out we’re using serving Look, you know what was sending out like, for example, looking at surveys. This any surveymonkey already of our to be rich 8th 1 So that’s what we’re using.

[00:26:56.04] spk_1:
Okay, how about you, Christian? Is there another one besides Surveymonkey that you could recommend?

[00:27:22.01] spk_0:
I I think it just depends on what you’re looking for. A tony. So if you’re looking for a lot of, let’s say, more qualitative answers, I’d say even a Google form would would be more than would be more than acceptable. It really just depends on what functionality want to get out of. I used every monkey pretty religiously, just cause it’s like Crystal said. It’s very user friendly. It has the functionality that I need, and it’s and it’s relatively reasonable in terms of in terms of price point for what you get. It’s also gonna depend, and it’s up to you to do due diligence on what types of functionality you need. You need to integrate with your database for other software. Do you need certain functionality. Do you actually know how to use a lot of those things? Is there gonna be support and again, like what? What are they going to do with your data? Like, do they have access to your data? Whether it’s metadata or otherwise, Are there other rules of jurisdictions you have to consider with that data privacy? So I use every monkey by lots of considerations to make.

[00:28:04.85] spk_1:
Okay, Okay. Thank you. And Kristen wanted to, uh why don’t you lead us out with some Take us out with some, I guess. Motivation. Closing thoughts like to end with?

[00:28:05.97] spk_0:
Absolutely, I would say from a sponsor perspective, whether you’re a large organization or small organization, the riches during the niches. So to do good sponsorship, it requires good data, and it requires those 30 plus data points. But whether you’re a big group or a small group, you can compete at the same scale, especially with the amount of money that’s being spent on cost sponsorship over $2 million a worldwide, which is no small amount of money. That’s that you can get access you whether you’re $100,000 a year, order a $1,000,000 plus requires good data. So make sure you’re collecting good data. Make sure you’re clear on what do you want to use your information for? And, uh, not just the diligent in ah, making training step, but the data is actually protected.

[00:28:50.64] spk_1:
Okay, um, I was I was I was gonna let Christian end, But since the two of you have such divergent purposes, which is fabulous for it’s great for a discussion Divergent purposes around your surveys. Crystal, why don’t you take us out on the on the filling topic? The individual donor side?

[00:29:51.64] spk_2:
Yes. So play for discussing. Don’t be afraid to fundraise just because survey doesn’t mean that you can’t make money off of it. People are supporting you enough that they’re willing to fill out the remainder onto you. They may be going to donators alone, and then I’ll help without it said you have to know why you do what you do with that information. It’s really important in terms of respecting your door time and back. That there giving you this information, you need to be able to use it and sort properly and safely. And then last may I just say please, please please test your survey before you actually sending out Senator One other part fans are other people that are not in the midst of building the surveys that you can find out. You phrase things appropriately. You’re actually wanting what you want to functionality is appropriate. I think that’s just so we don’t have one chance of finding out. So just make sure that

[00:30:01.59] spk_1:
okay, thank you very much. That’s Crystal Mahan, manager of annual giving at stars Air Ambulance. And with her is Christian Rubber Yard founder and chief podcaster at Beyond the bake sale crystals in Alberta. And ah, I’m sorry, Crystal. Did I just say Crystal? Yeah.

[00:30:21.02] spk_2:
You know, yesterday

[00:30:23.48] spk_1:
I say, Chris Christie, Mr Just all I know is in Alberta,

[00:30:25.30] spk_0:
you know, we don’t make it easy on your tony

[00:30:36.35] spk_1:
on, and I got through 25 minutes. So well, and I know it’s a lackluster host. I’m sorry. This is stuck with in the Christians in the capital city of Ottawa. Thank you so much, Christian Crystal. Thank you very

[00:30:40.72] spk_0:
much. Thanks, tony.

[00:33:31.93] spk_1:
Thanks to you for being with joining martignetti non profit radio coverage off 20 NTC, the non profit technology conference Responsive at the conference by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain will get you a free 60 day trial. Thanks so much for being with us now. Time for Tony’s Take two. I am still very proud to announce the launch of planned giving accelerator. This is a yearlong membership community that is going to get your planned giving program started. I’m going to give you exclusive webinars Exclusive podcasts. Yes, beyond tony-martignetti non profit radio, there’s gonna be the exclusive podcast for accelerator members. Small group asked me anything. Sessions over Zoom I’ll have Resource is like templates and checklists. All of this is to get your planned giving program started. You’ll join for a year. I will keep you filled with exclusive content, and you will get your program started. I promise I will make planned giving easy, accessible and affordable. You can check out all the information at planned giving accelerator dot com. If you may not be quite ready for membership, you don’t want to look at that quite yet. You just want to dip your toes in the water. I have a free how to guide about getting your planned giving program started to see a theme. Here, you see, you see the consistency running through here. This is not This is not accidental. Please, please the free how to guide you Download that also at planned giving accelerator dot com, that is Tony’s Take two. Now it’s time for people powered movements. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC 2020 non profit Technology Conference. Of course, the conference was canceled, but we are persevering. Virtually sponsored. A 20 NTC by 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. My guests now are Selena Stewart and Gloria Pan. Selena is senior director of advocacy and litigation at League of Women Voters. US. And Gloria is vice president for member engagement at Mom’s Rising Celina. Gloria. Welcome. Hello. I’m glad we were able to put this virtually. It’s good to see both of you. Um and I’m glad to know that you each well and safe and in either D. C or just outside D. C. Selena, you’re in d. C and Gloria. Where you outside Washington Gloria

[00:33:46.60] spk_4:
I am actually near Dulles Airport. So, you know, some people commute from here, but because Mom’s rising is a virtual organization, I don’t. And so when people ask me for lunch, I’m always like, Okay, it takes a little bit more planning. I have to bend. I have to get my body injustices.

[00:34:18.24] spk_1:
Okay, Um, you’re NTC Topic is a revolution is coming. Top tactics, build people powered movements. Um, Selena, would you get us started with this? What? What was the need for the session?

[00:35:27.88] spk_3:
Well, I think, um, I think one of the things is right now it’s all about people power. You know, there’s everything is so politicized right now, and I think that there is often a conversation about how people are involved with what government actually represents or what the government is representing. So I think that that’s really, really important. Um, we also saw, like, a 2018 mawr voter turnout, more voters turning out to vote and things like that. So I think that that also is a part of us people conversation like what is compelling people to participate, even mawr, or at a greater extent in their democracy. But all of these things kind of work together to figure out. Not only do we have people engaged now, but what is important. What just community is more people become engaged. How does how does our definition of our community and communities in general changes? More people are included and participating all of those things. So I think that we’re at a very interesting and crucial moment in time. And so people powered and people involved movement. It’s it’s, I think it’s always happen. But it’s just a coin phrase. I think that’s especially prevalent right now.

[00:35:56.69] spk_1:
Good, Gloria, even though participation is is very high, were also largely polarized. So how do we overcome the opposite ends of the spectrum to tryto bring people together and and organize?

[00:36:01.33] spk_4:
Are you talking about everyone or are you talking about voters?

[00:36:17.39] spk_1:
Uh, well, I’m talking about the country. I don’t know. I don’t know whether I don’t know where the people are voting, but I’m talking about our political polarization. I don’t know if they’re necessarily voting. I

[00:36:20.97] spk_3:
I talked about voting, so I probably threw it off a little bit. Glory. They act like I’m asking for

[00:37:19.89] spk_4:
complication only because, like some of the most talented and I think unifying on politicians in recent memory. For example, Barack Obama did not succeed in unifying all of us, right? So there are some segments of our citizenry that will just not do it. We will not be able to come together with them. But I think that for, um, people who really do want the best for our country and who are open minded enough, Teoh want to hear from other people who have different, you know, slightly different ways of looking at the world. It is possible to do it, and that goes back to what Selena was saying about people powered movements. I think that one of the reasons why that’s become more more of a catchphrase is that you know, we are in an era of information overload. We are in an era of polarization and not believing everything that we’re seeing on the Internet and in the news. And so being able to actually really connect with people on the ground, in person, over the phone, but directly and not going through the filter of social media or news movements is it’s increasingly important, and that will be one of the main channels for us to unify as many people as possible.

[00:38:16.42] spk_1:
So we’re talking about creating these both online and offline, right? Um, people powered people, centred movements. Um, how, Gloria, how do we want nonprofits to think about or what we need to think about in terms of doing this, organizing, creating these these movements,

[00:39:11.07] spk_4:
I’m First of all, it’s about inclusivity. Okay, So, um, at least from where we set Mom’s rising and me speaking on behalf of Monster Rising right now, we want to make sure that whatever we do and if it’s the most people and harms no one at all, if possible. So that’s one part of it. How we speak, how we communicate to make sure that what we’re speaking and how we communicate does not reinforce add stereotypes that creates divisions. Okay, that’s one way, another way, not way. But another thing to consider are also the tools that we’re using. Are we using your people are on different kinds of communication tools. Some people only do Facebook. Other people only do on email on dhe. There also is like text messaging there. All of these new community communications goes towards coming on and being on top of the different tools. Superb, warden, Because we need to meet people where they are. Um, because you’re just a couple of thoughts.

[00:39:36.49] spk_1:
Okay. Um so sorry, Selina. So we’re talking about diversity equity inclusion. Let’s drill down into a little bit of, like, what do we What do we need to do around our communications that is more equitable and non harming?

[00:39:57.72] spk_3:
So I think that’s an important question of us. Definitely something that has been injured in the leaks work over the last, I would say five years, but more intentionally over the last two. I’m sorry. I

[00:40:01.52] spk_1:
mean, he’s sorry. Whose work?

[00:42:09.00] spk_3:
The league. I’m sorry. I always refer to the League of Women Voters with us. Okay. Colleagues were led. Sorry. Boats that are full title is just too long for me to keep saying so. I just prefer to see Oh, I got you know, d I is very, very important for us. You know, our organization has historically been older white women. We’ve also always had members of color. But I don’t know that they were always at the forefront. So for us, our work is really centered in two questions and everything that we’re doing, who’s at the table and who should be at the table who’s missing. So I think starting all of our conversation in the efforts that we’re doing with those two questions allows us to center on our work in diversity, equity inclusion and also use our power as, um, people who have had access to legislator stakeholders, et cetera. How did we use our power and in a way that allows access of inclusivity for more people. So I think that that is really important and something that DEA diversity and inclusion work. It’s hard just versus It’s not easy, you know it. It gets very uncomfortable a lot of times when you’re talking about privilege, patriarchy and all of the talk about as it relates to d I. But it’s so important to get comfortable being uncomfortable and having these conversations that the only way I think that we can start to build a bridge towards unifying Um, CA music is at the end of the day, we may be politically, but at the end of the day, we all share many of the very same values which is historically united this country. Like right now we’re in the midst of the Corona virus. The Corona virus doesn’t care where the Republican Democrat black, white, female male does. It doesn’t matter. I’m at the end of the day, we all have to make sure that we’re doing what we can to be safe as individuals. But also our actions greatly impact the people around us. So it’s more of a It’s more of a community mindset that’s required or to tap this down. So I know that that’s like a little offset. All shoot from what we’re talking about. But I think it all placed together in some way, shape or form.

[00:42:30.65] spk_1:
Okay, um, Gloria about for moms rising. And how do you ensure that your communications are equitable on dhe? Non harmful?

[00:43:35.32] spk_4:
Well, Mom’s Rising has very intentionally built an organization that tries to bring different voices to the table. We are intersectional and we are multi issue, and so from our staff were very bad person, many, many different ways, and from the way that we choose which issues to work on, we also take into consideration which these are being impacted and how we communicate about those and then the way that we campaign is that our campaigns are always overlap. And so there is different people within the organization as well as a partner policy partners from different issue areas. They help us that our issues and the way that we communicate with them to make sure that you know you are we’re not communicating in a way that that that excludes communities, reinforces bad stereotype pipes and raises red flags, make make, make people feel bad ways that we don’t understand because of where we individuals. Campaigners. No. So everything we do is very thoroughly betters through different filters.

[00:43:48.70] spk_1:
Okay, so you re vetting. Yeah, please. Yeah, so, you know,

[00:44:55.97] spk_3:
I totally agree with what glorious said. I think that’s really important because the league is also multi issue and kind of has that you have to compete when you multiple issues. You sometimes have toe think a little differently about how you present yourself on each issue in orderto not negatively impact the whole set of what you’re trying to accomplish. And so for us and the communication speaks, I’m expressly is thinking about whether it’s appropriate who’s the appropriate messenger when we’re communicating so Is it appropriate for the league to be a leader in this space, or do we need to take a step back and be a supporter? So I think that’s one of the things that’s very important for us. Communication wise is we’re figuring out what is what space are we gonna take up in the communication in space and how we’re gonna communicate this issue and then the other pieces Who’s talking? Who is the person that we’re putting in front actually speak about a particular issue and is, Is that the right person? And are they speaking from the lens that’s most appropriate for that particular issue that’s gonna be impacted most as a result of what you’re saying or doing? So I think that’s very important. With Gloria lifted up

[00:46:14.78] spk_1:
time for our last break turn to communications relationships, the world runs on them. We know this turn to is led by former journalists, so you’re going to get their help building relationships with journalists. They’ve been there, they know how to do it. They know what the pitfalls are and they know how to do it wrong so they will steer you to the right way to build relationships with journalists. Those relationships will help you when you need to be heard so that people know you’re a thought leader in your field. They specialize in working with nonprofits. They’re at turn hyphen two dot ceo. We’ve got but loads more time for people powered movements with Selena Stewart and Gloria Pan. How do you manage the conflicting issues? If you know, I guess it’s because there are issues where you have a large constituency on one side of one issue. But something else may seem contrary to that to that large constituency. A different issue that you’re taking a stand on Is that Is that my understanding? Right when you say, you know, potential issue conflict?

[00:46:51.33] spk_3:
Well, when you have a 500,000 members and supporters and you’re in every congressional district, everybody can agree on on how to approach an issue. But what grounds? The league is our mission. Our mission is to empower voters and democracy. Power people defend democracy. So I think as long as you stay rooted in what your chin values statement is that you can find some reconciliation across, you know the most seemingly divergent issues Okay,

[00:46:58.68] spk_1:
climate change That I think would probably be a good example. I was just

[00:47:11.43] spk_4:
I was I was gonna add, okay, that just to step back a little bit. The one thing that I am super super proud of, um, is that a toll east for progressives? I think that we’re actually pretty consistent in about our agreement on your shoes. We may have different levels of intensity and what we agree with, but I think they’re very few conflicts. We may not agree on how to get somewhere, but we all agree on where we want to go. Okay, So in that way, I rather feel, at least from Mom’s rising standpoint, we rarely get. I can’t even think of a single instance where we have conflicts because we’re not agreeing with each other or with policy partners on the most important thing where we’re heading.

[00:47:45.75] spk_3:
So I think that’s a difference, because are the league is it’s not left or right leaning were kind of way. We have members who are both conservative and liberal. Yeah, have some of that conflict more in that. But I think you’re absolutely right. Do we all want the same things and a healthier, more vibrant democracy. Absolutely. So you have to find some common ground in that space. But we definitely have members who are who want to handle things. One way, versus the other. We have to find common ground.

[00:49:02.57] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s the challenge. I was trying to get it. Yeah, okay. It helps. At least it helps me to think of an example like climate change. You know, some. There are some people who don’t even believe that it’s it’s human impacted. And there are others who think, where decades behind and in our inaction Teoh Teoh, reverse the effects of human induced climate change. So, um, it’s Ah, that’s that’s quite a challenge. Really. So, um Okay, Well, where else? Well, should we go with these people? Powered movement ideas? You you, you to spend a lot more time studying this. So what else should we be talking about? That we haven’t yet. I

[00:49:02.65] spk_4:
would actually love to hear from Selena how the league is dealing with. I’m doing your work remotely.

[00:49:10.59] spk_3:
You guys are already virtual. This is like, No, no sweat for you guys, right? Well, you know,

[00:49:37.30] spk_4:
I mean, we do have, you know, our plans range from virtually all the way down to the grassroots. Right? And I think especially for organizations like your Selena, we share the, um, the common goal this year of border engagements. I am very sorry I opened the door. Family a letter out. I’m

[00:49:43.14] spk_3:
very sorry. Okay.

[00:49:45.25] spk_1:
All right. So, you know, um, terms of remote working, but yeah, but how it relates to this topic of people power.

[00:50:59.86] spk_3:
Yeah. So I think that’s really, really important. We’re definitely so it is one thing to convert toe er teleworking, right? That’s one thing. But when your work is so much advocacy, um, and especially the leaders on the ground who are doing voter registration, which requires you to be on the ground talking to people, you know, that has shifted our work. So one of the examples that we have because we have our people power fair mass campaign, which is basically trying to get redistricting reform for across the country and a positive waste that we don’t have another situation like we had in North Carolina where you’re from, tell me and also and Maryland subs we wanna we wanna make sure that you know people are represented appropriately, but a lot of the states that were working in they have a signature collection campaigns going on right now. So how do you do signature collection when you can’t actually be within three or six feet of people? So now many of our leaks air converting to digital signatures and going through their legislator to make those adjustments that they can still collect signatures and meet that need, et cetera, Our love. We have a lobby core, which is 21 volunteers that goes to the hill every month. Obviously, with the hill being also teleworking, it created what we thought might be a barrier. But now our lobbies are doing virtual coffee meetings on Zoom just like this and having those conversations with legislators, legislative staff and all of those things. So I think that the Corona virus has forced us to do our work in a different way. But it’s also being great to innovate and be creative and do the work that people love just in a different way. So we it’s not perfect. I don’t even want to make you think that this is perfect because it’s definitely not. But I think that there’s a lot of positive energy about doing our work and finding ways to do our work in different ways.

[00:52:27.38] spk_1:
Which, okay, is thinking creatively. I for our for our listeners. And I don’t want to focus just on Mom’s rising and legal women voters us. I want them to recognize how what we’re talking about can be applied by them, how they they, what they need to go back to their CEOs or whatever vice presidents wegner And what kind of like discussion items they need to be putting forward at the organization is not now thinking about in terms of, you know, again, people power revolution is coming. Yeah, you know how how how can our listeners helped create it?

[00:53:21.55] spk_3:
I think just becoming involved, like when you’re talking about people powered anything, it’s really about base building. And for me, the goals of base base building are always to grow. A base of volunteers who have a shared value of some sort and you’re coming together in orderto makes the progressive movement on that. It’s also about leadership, development, communities and constituency who turn out who are players in this issue or what have you and then putting issues to the forefront. So I think that wherever you is, what do you value? What’s important to you? You could be a simple as Hey, there’s a pothole, my street that has been fixed in the last year. Can we come together as a community and really talk with our local election officials about making sure our streets are in a position that’s not gonna record cars or have someone get endangered in some way? So I think it comes down to, as on an individual level, what is important to you. What do you value and finding and connecting with those people? Also, that you something similar? And what do you want to change? What is it that you’re trying to change or that would make your life better? And who were the people who can support you in getting that done?

[00:53:55.15] spk_1:
That’s consistent with what you said down an organization level to the same. You know what? The core values, that’s what that’s what drives all the work on, brings people together finding that commonality around, whether it’s the pothole in the street and the individual level.

[00:54:01.45] spk_3:
Whoever whatever. Here, whatever.

[00:54:08.59] spk_1:
Jim Yeah, Gloria, What? What’s your advice for how people can contribute to this revolution.

[00:55:16.50] spk_4:
Um, I think that right now we’re all sitting in our homes and we’re rethinking the way that we do our work. And even as individuals, we’re rethinking the way that we are doing our activism. You think that a very important message right now for activists personally and for organizations that organize activists and try to recruit and build the base, is that now is not the time to step away. Now, more important than ever, it is important to stand top of the issues, to sign those petitions, to speak up and to share your stories, because I will give you a very, very specific example. Right now, Congress is negotiating, arguing over all of these different critical needs in the Corona virus relief bills. While Mom’s Rising has been on the forefront of trying to influence those negotiations. And the most powerful weapon we have are your stories, people stories, what’s gonna happen to your child care center that has to close down what’s gonna happen to a domestic workers who suddenly don’t have a paycheck? Um, paid family leave. This is something that a signature mounds rising issue. We’ve been working on luck forever ever since. Our founding is one of our signature issues. But now, because of the stories that we have gathered and we’re hearing from our members about the need for pay leave and the fact that if we had had paid leave all this time that the burden of Corona virus would have been much lighter this is something that we’re powerfully bringing to the negotiating table. And we’re actually seeing We’re going on paid leave. So all organizations and all individuals, whatever issues that you’re working on, do not step away, continue to share your stories because those stories have to be brought to the negotiating table for policy. And that’s the only way we’re gonna get the policy that we need.

[00:57:30.53] spk_1:
Okay, We’re gonna leave it there. That’s Ah, quite inspirational. Thank you. That’s Ah, That’s Gloria Pan, Vice President, member engagement, engagement at Mom’s Rising. And also Selena Stewart, senior director of advocacy and litigation. The League of Women voters. Us though Gloria Selena. Thank you very much. Thanks for sharing. Thank you, Tommy. Pleasure and thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 20 ntc were sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial? Thanks so much for being with us next week. An archive show. I promise you, I’ll pick a winner If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Our creative producer is clear, Meyerhoff shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy on this music is by Scots Dying with me next week for not profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for May 1, 2020: Real Estate & Racial-Equity DEI

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[00:00:12.24] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:02:23.24] spk_1:
big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. This is our first ever show in 487 that is not produced in studio. I put it together using a dizzy audacity and zoom. Let’s see how I did. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I throw is Anthill asthma. If I saw that you missed today’s show Real estate, how have markets being impacted by the pandemic? What do you need to think about before your next move and when should you start your thinking? Jane Brody is executive director at Vikas Partners and Rachel Equity D I. Justin Pen shares how Corona virus has disproportionately hurt black and indigenous people. We also talk about dismantling white power structures that you may not realize exist inside your non profit trust. In his end, tens community engagement and equity manager, this is part of our 20 and TC coverage. Tony Steak, too. Take a breath, were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers. Wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for non profits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen. Two dot ceo Here is real estate. It’s a real pleasure to welcome to the show. Jane Brody She is executive director at Vikas Partners in New York City. Before Vikas, she helped launch a mentoring program serving over 10,000 Children and a foster care program to help over 8000 teenagers in the system make the transition to independence. She’s been a consultant to Ben and Jerry’s UNICEF, the American Red Cross, Coca Cola and the Special Olympics. She’s done stand up comedy company is at Vikas partners dot com. Jane Brody Welcome to non profit radio.

[00:02:29.84] spk_2:
Thanks, tony. Great to be here.

[00:02:31.52] spk_1:
Real pleasure to have you tell me about your stand up comedy. I’ve done some of that. What’s what were your gigs? Where did you do?

[00:02:38.54] spk_2:
Well, I took a little class, and I always like to do stuff that kind of scares me a little bit and challenges may. So then, after I did the class and we did kind of Gotham startup, I did a couple open mic nights and I was invited back, and I liked it a lot. But apparently the owner of the club who booked me said, You have to bring 10 friends next time and next time. So I didn’t wanna have to, like, burden people with asking them to continue to watch me and follow May. And I realized very quickly that my humor was very regional, like I understood, you know, New York comedy specific. But it’s much started to be able to be funny and all the markets and how good the major comics are about sort of national humor, right? I enjoy it. I recently just improv class because I like doing those kinds of things. I think it makes you fresh and it challenges you.

[00:04:14.57] spk_1:
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Um, I’ve done stand up comedy and improv. I took a bunch of improv classes that the Upright Citizens Brigade and I took some stand up comedy classes with this Manhattan comedy school. Um, I’ve played Gotham, but only, you know, like you. It sounds like I do the new talent shows where Oh, you got a visitor there. Okay. Um, do talent shows? Yeah. We bring hers. Brings you gotta bring 10 people or 12 people or 15 people or something in orderto in orderto Get your stage time. Yeah, but I agree improv especially. You know, it’s very good for speaking confidence. I loved it. I think it helps me a lot. I like those. Did you did you try regional comedy outside New York? Is that how you?

[00:04:19.04] spk_2:
No. But we discovered that afford median income. Who’s been doing it for 15 years? And he’s told us to the story how he lived in his pinto, basically and traveled from city to city, Pittsburgh, all the small markets and when market his his bits than his time and then he’d go to the next city in the next city. I was like, I’m not gonna do that.

[00:05:19.94] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s hard to. It’s hard to make money at stand up comedy very few people to, and it’s true. You know, I’ve never even thought of it, cause I the only place I’ve ever done stand up is in New York City. I’ve never wanted to be regional or national, but absolutely true. I don’t I’m not sure people would get me outside outside the clothes. Maybe Westchester that would be about as far. Um, right. So So let’s talk about real estate. And, you know, our listeners are small and mid sized nonprofits. Um, now you you know, the New York City New your New York City market Are you able to generalize like to the t broader than that when we talk about

[00:05:22.42] spk_2:
course. Definitely. I think the same. Planning things and considerations Air true for nonprofits nationally. And I on the international board with other tenant rep brokers internationally. So I always used to having conversations.

[00:05:38.41] spk_1:
Okay, Okay, um and so what are we seeing? Real estate wise around the pandemic. What’s the impact

[00:05:47.80] spk_2:
of certainly some things that you would think there are a lot more sub lets that are hitting the market transactions air down. In New York City of, for instance, it’s been down 40% in the first quarter. I think that it’s gonna be a very rich landlord reaching for us market more than you know, a tighter market where Layla is gonna be a little more difficult. So they’ll be more flexibility

[00:06:16.90] spk_1:
when we come out of this. And people are looking again for real estate. That’s encouraging. On the 10 inside that there’s gonna be that kind of flexibility. Like you said, you know, landlords reaching out, you think.

[00:06:23.87] spk_2:
And also I would say the other great. A huge amount of space that will be available will be retail. It’s gonna be a lot longer for retail to come back because of restaurants and all the other stores. That just a change of pattern of how people can access those spaces is gonna be very different.

[00:06:44.24] spk_1:
Um, when we you know, if any organization is thinking about changing real estate or just use, I guess maybe even just using their existing real estate when when we end up going back to offices. What other considerations there? How do you think things have changed in terms of office space usage?

[00:07:03.50] spk_2:
I think some of the considerations of the large brand tech companies, household names, air changing the amount of physical space per employee so typically was 175 square feet per employee. Now it’s going up to 300 square feet. Does that mean that they’ll be taking more space? I don’t think necessarily. I think people will be varying worked times and changing how many people can use space to a different time. They’ll also be technological impacts. For instance, people will be relying more on their handheld devices than that, necessarily having centralized computer systems, touch lists, entry to spaces, booking of conference rooms, anything where there’s high touch experiences. I think also just the way that people interact. There won’t be as many large group meetings, and the way that we work together will be very different. For a while, you

[00:08:06.40] spk_1:
mentioned booking conference rooms. What you mean? Like, if there’s a, uh, there’s booking a reservation system outside the room and lots of people touch it, is that

[00:08:16.84] spk_2:
it actually, or, you know, touchless check in. Sometimes people hand you and I have had to check in when you go into a space for security. So I think some of those things will be rethought and they’ll be more innovations along the way that we work together in a virtual way. And I think people’s ability to work at home and the office will be expanded. We’ve all adjusted, and we might have several waves of what’s gonna come ahead. We don’t really know.

[00:08:44.04] spk_1:
You know

[00:08:44.26] spk_2:
what I think we’re all anxious to get back to work and be together.

[00:08:47.85] spk_1:
You said, um, typical was 175 square feet per per employee. I don’t that’s that. That sounds like a lot, but is that the average is the average cubicle 175 square feet of space?

[00:09:26.94] spk_2:
Uh, roughly. I mean, there’s lots of different ways they call it bench seating. If you’ve seen lots of staff in small desks in front of them, that could be a slow is 100 per person or 75 square feet per person. I think it’s gonna be more generous than it was before, and we’d have large bullpen seating with lots of people in rows. I think that’s gonna look different. And also, I think they’ll be more spacing between desks and the physical nous of space changed.

[00:09:33.85] spk_1:
Yeah, I e. You know, you said, you think it’ll it could go as high as like 300 square feet per person, which is almost almost double the 1 75

[00:09:43.10] spk_3:
I’m

[00:09:50.74] spk_2:
not sure are non profit clients conduce that as as generously, Yeah, but that’s what I’m getting at right. I think it depends on what are non province use the space for. So that’s part of determining what the next steps for the non profits are. You do you have to have a large H Q like mothership. Do you need small offices? And in the various communities you’re serving, what will be the physical footprint of the space that you need to have some fulfill? Your mission, I think, is kind of part of the new sort of long term strategic planning into Cove it and in general, for non profits.

[00:12:18.54] spk_1:
It’s time for a break wegner-C.P.As so that your 9 90 gets filed on time so that your audit is finished on time so that you get the advice oven experienced partner You, JJ, Doom and Affirm that has a nationwide non profit practice with thousands of audits under its belt. Wegner-C.P.As dot com. Now back to real estate with Jane Brody, and I see I fix that mistake with Jane Brody’s name. This audacity is so you can get so compulsive with it. It’s so alluring to take out every, um and on then. But if I if I take all those out, you’re gonna wonder. Who the hell am I listening to? Where’s tony? Sums and ours and his mistakes. So I’m not taking out everything. That is a slight imperfection. Some some things. You know what? Some things have got to stay the same. Every damn thing cannot change that. We’re accustomed to its It’s doing settling. I mean, there’s enough changes already to non profit radio. I’m keeping in the arms in the eyes and the okays. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I’m keeping those in, um, there. I’m keeping that in. Some things have just gotta remain the same. I am not perfect in the way I talk. And by now, after 487 shows, you don’t expect me to be so the hell with audacity, ease, intricacies and perfect ability. I’m not taking advantage of it all anyway. It’s time for a break. No. Anyway, here’s more back to real estate with Jane Brody. When should we start talking to our existing landlord about whether we’re going to stay or about renewing? How early should that conversation start?

[00:12:34.84] spk_2:
It’s really two pronged approach. A lot of people think Oh, I haven’t talked to my landlord and they go towards very close to the end of the least. That’s not really the best model because it leaves you kind of trapped, dealing directly with your Lambert. What the best approach is a year, two years, a year and 1/2 before your lease is expiring, kind of figuring out what you really need the space or and what the purpose and function of your space. You have the right spaces. It’s the right size, or you’re in the right market in the right community and then engaging a broker which has no cost to you. The commission’s air baked into the deal, and what you do is you have your broker find you at least two or three options that you like. So you go on on tours, understand the market, see what your space would cost across the street, in the same area you like to be in, you get a negotiated, non binding letter of intent that your broker can work with you on. And then once you have a deal in place, then you can go to your existing landlord. We call it kind of a stocking horse in the trade, which is here’s something that I could get if I have to move, can you beat it? can you match it? What can you do with this existing opportunity against what? Staying in place? Most people want to renew and stay in place. And your broker can also negotiate that with your landlord. So you wanna have sort of two tracks. The best is at least a year and 1/2 a year into place because it takes probably a month to find the right space. You negotiate the letters of intent, take you at least a month to do the lease, and then if you have a build out, that’s four or five months. So that’s a good amount of time. Plus, everybody has Stakeholders may have you the board involvement the various teams in your organization. Does this fit the needs of the organization, and then you have to kind of engage everyone in the process.

[00:14:56.64] spk_1:
So where you call a stalking horse, I will just call leverage, right? You want to have. You won’t have another deal in hand that you can present to your current landlord and say, Look, you know, I could move, but everybody knows you don’t really want to move right. I mean, it’s a big hassle moving, sure, but you want to have some leverage over the over the person? Absolutely. So I can see why you got to start, like a year and 1/2 in advance,

[00:15:19.11] spk_2:
or I just want to make one other point. Tony. Some people are afraid to challenge their landlord because my landlord’s so great. He’s been a donor to my organization, and I think, uh, I think sometimes nonprofits are intimidated by that, But I people very much treated as separation of church in ST and ST you make a donation to something you believe in and on the other part of the isle you can certainly negotiate a least one has nothing to do with the other.

[00:15:31.87] spk_1:
And you made the point that a broker is free to the tenant, right?

[00:16:13.13] spk_2:
Yes. Okay, that Brooklyn tony that that works from a from a Do you else to end point is commission is baked into the transaction, and it’s a very old schtum. So in every transaction, there’s a landlord broker, an attendant rap broker. If you don’t have a tenant rep broker, and basically you’re just handing the condition completely over to the landlord broker, and I like to kind of talk about in terms of the wars. Wouldn’t wanna have one lawyer kind of representing both sides of the equation. You can. So you look for somebody who understands your work in your mission and can act on your behalf and, well, looking at the same data. So that’s another thing people think. Well, let me hire Let me get three or four people running around for me, but it doesn’t really work that well because we all look a co star, which is a proprietary database that we all subscribed. Teoh.

[00:16:31.94] spk_1:
Okay, so everybody’s got access to the same listings. What? You said that in any community, that’s nation

[00:16:37.28] spk_2:
yet it’s national, its international. Okay,

[00:16:39.91] spk_1:
okay. All right, So now all right. So we know we should start, like, maybe two years, a year and 1/2 in advance of the expiration of our least. So now what do we need to be thinking about in terms of our new space Or, you know, our existing space?

[00:16:55.26] spk_2:
Well, one thing that I think is really important is a good match with right land board. So I have just a couple of examples that really kind of illustrate this one is this organization I worked with? They they, uh, took in donations for babies. 03 year olds. They would get strollers and books and clothing, toys, and people would come with you could imagine garbage bags full of treasures. And then they would come to the building full of all their stuff in their hands, cribs everything and come into the lobby and go up in the elevators and make the donation on. And then the clients would come with not themselves or just their baby. They would bring five or six people because, you know, day care is a huge challenge for low income families. So a particular Landler didn’t like all that additional foot traffic,

[00:17:47.69] spk_1:
right? Probably bags of stuff being hold onto the elevator to Right?

[00:19:07.24] spk_2:
Right. So you’re crowding my other tenants. You’re crowding my elevator, you’re holding things up. So I was able to find them a landlord that adores what they do. They actually make donations, they help them with all kinds of support. And I recently ran into the landlord at an event, and they’re like Jane finding more tenants like this. We love what they dio and I have another case where I worked with this organization called Chess in the Schools. Wonderful organization had been in the building 17 years, and they had this, like, huge 12,000 foot space that was shaped like a pizza pot. I mean, how somebody designed this thing with slices as the various zones, but it was really expensive rent for them. They had downsized, but they had this, like, really strange requirement that once a week, 80 young people high school kids came to play chest, so they needed a certain kind of space. The landlord worked so hard to keep them in the building. He he helped me find the space within the building that was 4500 feet, renovated the space for them. And then there was no lag way leaving their old space and moving out of two years earlier their existing lease and gave them a brand new lease going 10 years, four. Very unusual. So if you get lucky with those kind of connections, so I always try to find landlords that are the right match for clients, I think it makes a big difference,

[00:19:28.74] spk_1:
and you have to be upfront about what your work is so if there are gonna be families coming through, You know, with kids, you know, the class A space landlord, you know, may not want that because they don’t want Children in the lobbies or if it’s gonna be folks with disabilities. And you know, some landlords may not be at all sensitive to that, and others may be completely embracing of that. So yes, true, we’ll be upfront about what kind of traffic you’re gonna create if it’s not strictly an office environment.

[00:20:13.39] spk_2:
And that’s really educating your broker to really understand your organization. And I kind of think of it as kind of putting that mission on my back and trying to, like, think about what that executive director or board member needs. I’m working with an adoption agency right now and one of the things that was really important to them. And I really thought a lot about this when I when I speak about this particular client, is they have birth mothers who are, you know, young women. Sometimes there are, you know, compromise situations. They’re kind of a lot of anxiety around giving your baby up for adoption and going to like a mainstream building where you’ve got turnstiles. Intense security screenings would be could be intimidating. So finding them a sort of quieter block building where they could walk in themselves, created in the best way. And also there’s confidentiality issues. There’s programming. So how can it be very front facing an appropriate for that particular client and meets the needs of the organization?

[00:21:14.64] spk_1:
Okay, yeah, I see. Just maybe just even giving their name at a security desk is, I don’t know, intimidating or off putting to a clientele like that

[00:22:20.64] spk_2:
or shelling a driver’s license or so really kind of matching what you’re trying to accomplish in this space. And I also think understanding what you’re using the space for Israeli import, you know? Are you doing classrooms or you’re doing training? Are you doing touchdowns? Space for your feet fieldworkers? I had one particular client who ah, was an arts organization. After School Arts Organization. It was created in the seventies when all the arts organizations were taken. All the art teachers were taken out of the school systems, so these two former teachers started organization and they hire freelance artists to come into schools, you know, lovely idea. Filling a need and then the schools would contract for these part time workers. This and they kind of grew the organization unwto through little tiny apartments that they were renting in the community in the city. So this executive director said, let me create one central place for the organization, a place where the artist can come, receive their materials, have training, have collaboration. And it’s really changed the environment of the organization and the way that the employees and the artist kind of bond on having a ton, equal footing and a connection in a place to be together.

[00:22:44.04] spk_1:
All right, Jane, um, so let’s talk about some common mistakes that you see that non profits, you know, can hopefully avoid,

[00:23:27.94] spk_2:
I would say typically timing, not having enough period of time to think about your space. So we talked about a year and 1/2 or two years. I’ve had people call May I’ve got a month left to my least. What should I dio? Okay, that’s certainly not doesn’t put you in the driver’s seat, right? Making sure that you have all the stakeholders involved in the process. The development people, your board, your your staff, understanding what you’re trying to accomplish in your space search being isolated and just working through the operations people. That’s really important. Another important part is that you could afford the space and that it fits with your budget. I mean, certainly Cove. It has been a real lesson and understanding the financial impact of things like rent to those air key mistakes.

[00:23:44.91] spk_1:
These mistakes, we’re gonna be reduced because we’re raising people’s consciousness about about them. All right, Um, all right, so I mean, I love it. You hit this a couple times, but you said that you can’t stress enough the importance of starting early. So you you have time. It’s not a crisis. You’re not trying to find space and negotiate a deal in three or four months, which may not even be doable,

[00:25:35.69] spk_2:
I think also, I want to mention just another example. I worked with a food pantry early on, and it was really interesting this particular organization, great organization, New York Common Pantry. And they had received a grant to help senior citizens receive food distribution through senior citizen centers. So it was a new program. They were gonna have vans leaving the central location going out to these new communities and providing food. So when we started looking for space and understanding what they could do, you started learning a lot about crazy things. Like if you get all this food and then your new distributed the weight of the food and the canned goods and all the foods that will be distributed could be really important on the weight of a building, so being in a second floor wouldn’t work. So we ended up being in a ground floor small warehouse, and then they had some other programs. Programmatic needs counseling. Nutrition program really split how they ended up solving the real estate. We had office in one location and food distribution in the vans and a different area. So sometimes the way that you solve the program programmatic needs can look different because of the the whole state weight breaks out. So it’s all pen of a learning experience some time

[00:25:42.44] spk_1:
and creative creative experience. All right. Jane Brody, she’s executive director and Vikas Partners. They’re at Vikas partners dot com. Jane. Thanks so much for being guest. Thanks for sharing.

[00:25:51.79] spk_2:
Thanks, tony. Be safe.

[00:27:57.30] spk_1:
We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain Software their accounting product. Denali is built for non profits from the ground up so that you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and the exemplary support that understands you. You have a free 60 day trial on offer. It’s on the listening landing page. That’s the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Now time for Tony’s Take two. Take a breath, take a breath. Relax. You need to take care of yourself, not just once. Try to do each day, sit with yourself and clear your head. Focus on your breath. Meditate, nap. Whatever is good for you. Be good to yourself in a healthy, soothing, calming, loving way. There’s so much shit going down, and so much is being asked of you That is strange and difficult. Take care of yourself. Do it each day. You deserve it. You need it. Please take care of yourself, and that is Tony’s. Take two. Now it’s time for racial equity. D I welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC 2020 non profit technology conference. You know the conference had to be canceled, but you also know we are persevering virtually. We’re sponsored at 20 NTC by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Martin for a free 60 day trial. My guess now is just in pen. He is a community engagement and equity manager at n 10. The host of 20 NTC. Justin, welcome.

[00:27:58.74] spk_4:
Hi. Thanks for having me.

[00:28:00.60] spk_1:
It’s great to have you. It’s a pleasure. I’m glad we’re able to work this out. Virtually thanks so much. Yes. No, you’re You’re well and safe ing in Portland, Oregon.

[00:28:25.54] spk_4:
You know, I am. It’s some, you know, we’re all living a very new reality, So it’s definitely something that, uh, was kind of new to me. I worked 2 to 3 days a week, um, from home. But now I’m doing it all day. Every day

[00:28:33.04] spk_1:
of misery. Were maybe six years. Hopefully not seven, but maybe five for six days. Um, so you had really interesting topic? Ah, critical. Critical announces you what worked for us. A critical reflection of intends racial equity rooted. D I work? Yeah, I think this is obviously your responsibility at and then as

[00:28:50.28] spk_4:
that is, Okay,

[00:29:28.14] spk_1:
um and I’m still, you know, this D I is I’m 58 years old, so I didn’t grow up with this. Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it, talking about it, struggling with it for and, you know, maybe not long enough, but three for 3 to 5 years, I’d say some ran. Um, so I have a pretty basic question, but I want to get it off my chest. What off, Mike? I wanted I want to get it out. Why? Why do you have to say racial equity rooted D I work, right? I would think that that’s just subsumed in D I

[00:31:10.70] spk_4:
Yeah. You know, I think there’s a lot of things, you know, I wanna give space because we only have 25 minutes. I could definitely talk for 25 minutes just specifically about this. However, I do think because we center all of our, um, racial our excuse me, our d I work with rooted in racial equity. It’s important to us because I think at the end of the day, there are a lot of systemic and oppressive things that have happened not only in this country, but also, um, within the nonprofit sector that really do effect people of color first. So, for example, there’s this idea of intersectionality, which does happen and is a thing. But also, like, you know, you can be a, um, a white woman who is just and still get a lot more privilege than a black woman who was disabled. So, um, so that’s just a just a bit of it all, too. And that’s why we center it with racial equity to explicit. Absolutely, Absolutely. And that’s not to say that it’s a binary where we are saying that racial equity above everything else and we’re not we’re gonna brush everything else off the table. There are other identities that, um, people identify with that air just is important. And, um, they they have their own, you know, marginalization within their own communities to, and those need to be honored as well to and considered. And, um, really makes in and made sure that they’re being prioritized during certain circumstances.

[00:31:47.94] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Um, well, you know, we we may end up going more than 25 minutes, because I Something’s according to meet it. What about this? This pandemic. How do you feel? Like this is highlighting. We’re gonna get there are. Actually two things I wanna ask you is exacerbating. Yeah, I want to start with almost over the highlight. How do you feel? Like this pandemic and the country and I’m focused on Let’s focus on the U. S. Yeah, uh, that has the reaction to it. They’re working from home. The we could talk about the s. My gosh, I could see how we usually go. 2125 minutes.

[00:31:52.27] spk_4:
Yeah,

[00:32:03.44] spk_1:
about the loan programs? Absolutely. Wherever you wanna go, How do you feel? Like the pandemic and the response to it have highlighted. Yeah, inequities.

[00:34:11.38] spk_4:
What a great question. Wow. So I can only speak from personal experience or just the identities that I bring to the table. So, um, I am I’m half black and I’m half Navajo. So my dad is black, and my mom is Navajo. And so, um, being that bi racial professional in the non non profit sector world, um, you know, as a black man and as a Navajo man as well, you know, you see these things and you have these very direct ties to the communities with which you navigate in and reside in the one thing that comes to mind is, um you know, all of my Navajo relatives. So I have a lot of member who relatives that are still on the rez on the New Mexico side. Um And so, um, one thing that’s really striking to me is that, you know, the last I mean, the numbers change every day, right? With these covert 19 cases. Um however, the last time I read it, um, it was, um per capita, the amount of cases after New York and after New Jersey, the next, um, the next amount of cases was the Navajo Nation under. Really? Yeah. And so that’s I mean, there’s their cases per capita, and I want to make sure that that portion Exactly. And so that’s really concerning because I have family on the rez. And also, um, it’s, um It kind of it speaks to the, um the years of historic, um, oppression And, um, you know, genocide that has happened with it within indigenous communities. Um, and how there has been, um, baked into, um, you know, communication and treaties and promises broken promises by the federal government. Why? This has kind of made, you know, this situation that we have now on the Navajo reservation. And I’m sure, um uh, among other tribes, something that is really, really pressing right now, there’s probably accounts everywhere. And so I just

[00:34:27.37] spk_1:
health care. Health care has been a serious negative problem. Serious problem on the indigenous peoples for generations, right? The health care on the reservations.

[00:36:01.23] spk_4:
And so it just ends up being something that, like, I hold near and dear to my heart because I think of all my family members that are on the rez and live on the Navajo Nation. Um and also just, you know, um, the the way in which, um, you know, the the federal government supports or doesn’t support the Navajo Nation, never being its own sovereign nation. And so I think there’s, um um this is really kind of, like, pushed everything to the forefront of what is wrong with the systems. And I think it also, you know, on the other side of things, you know, you see now as that this data is coming out, those who have passed away and died to come, Teoh, you know this illness, um, the majority of them are black people. And so that’s also concerning for me, Um, that, you know, I think that there is, um, something to be said for that. And I think, you know, that kind of also lends Teoh. There are people who aren’t able to, you know, work from home. They have to be out there to. And so I think it’s very interesting in a data point that, um as hopefully when all of this subsides will be able to look at and really sit through and figure out and find I mean, I would be willing to put money on, you know that. You know, people of color indigenous communities, black people and indigenous communities probably were disproportionately affected by this. This pandemic

[00:36:09.24] spk_1:
in terms of health care, unemployment, yes. Businesses closed, I

[00:36:35.13] spk_4:
write. And also systemic and systemic. You know, an institutionalized racism that has policies, practices that our priority not prioritizing them, or are looking over these communities to as well. If it goes past the health care and Maurin two systems as well, it’s not built for them. Um, because it wasn’t with them in mind. It was with white folks in line,

[00:38:25.22] spk_1:
right? Right. Okay. Yeah, we could We could certainly go hours on that. Yeah. Um, all right. I’m yeah, and I don’t And so I mentioned, you know, highlighting and exacerbating. I Yeah, I think when When the dust settles and we look at disparities in outcomes, we’re gonna find immigrants and indigenous folks disproportionately impacted in terms of, uh, well, yeah, the institutional racism that you’re you’re bringing out and just in terms of the more surface store things that that, you know, like health care and help get unemployment lost jobs. And I mean from I have a small business. And so I see the way those that loan program is, at least in these opening weeks of it or whether I should say we’re recording on according on Tuesday, April 21st and so far, the opening program the opening, uh, indications around the S B A. Programs are that, you know, big businesses air getting it, yes, and most likely predominantly wiped. Run. Yeah, and and small businesses that I think Congress intended it to help or are falling short. At least that’s yeah, that’s what’s happening in this first tranche of 250 billion. We’ll see what happens when there’s the absolutely next the next level, but I’m sure you’re right. You know, the because the system is rigged against and built in favor of Yeah,

[00:38:26.63] spk_4:
Yeah, yeah,

[00:38:28.16] spk_5:
yeah, yeah. All right.

[00:38:30.62] spk_3:
Um,

[00:38:32.02] spk_1:
so we’ve been 20 minutes already, and we haven’t even gotten to only about it away. About the time you gotta you gotta host that. I wanted to talk about the pandemic in these terms

[00:38:42.27] spk_4:
or yeah,

[00:39:16.89] spk_1:
I haven’t done anything, but also so thank you. Yeah, but don’t worry about the time that you got a lackluster host to deal with. It’s my my shortcoming. Um all right, let’s talk some. Let’s talk about in 10. Yeah. Um What? Ah, well, all right. Before we get into the details of in 10 how do you how? Open someone start this conversation in their own organization? Yeah, I feel like it’s systemically institutionally. Wait, Run. Well, that would be out. They wouldn’t feel it. That would be obvious. But wait, wait, wait. Policies. Yeah. Um, how did they kick off this conversation?

[00:39:23.82] spk_4:
You know, tony, that’s a really great question, too. And there’s a variety of ways to bring it up. Teoh, I just got done reading a really good book. Actually, that Amy shared with me. Um, about how Teoh Stopgap

[00:39:38.86] spk_1:
award and simple words are social media and technology contributor here on non profit radio. Okay, just for the for the 45 people out of the 13,000 who may not know who any simple

[00:42:00.09] spk_4:
Yes, She gave me a book about institutionalized racism and institutionalized bias on how that manifests itself in the workplace and more importantly, what you can do about it. So it’s one thing toe like, recognize it and be like, This is wrong. And this is happening. Another thing to start, um, to start bringing it up within your organization is at the root of your question is you know, what can you do? And there’s a variety of things that you do. I think the first thing that comes to mind, um, that I read in this book was the book. It’s called Recognizing Institutional bias. Um, I may have to, like, follow back up with you. I know it’s something like that, but I breathe through it, um, so I’ll I’ll give you the title of it later. Um, but she um But this book talks about, you know, it’s one thing. Excuse me to go about it as an individual, but it is. I mean, it’s kind of like one of those things where safety in numbers and so being able tohave an ally or someone within the organization that you can also push this work or were, too. So it means asking some hard questions, and it means asking some hard questions of yourself as well to. And I think that’s the key point. Um, as well is realizing that, you know, we all have implicit, um, biases that we have in our head. Um, you know, when we think of cats, we think of cats, as you know, very. You know, Castile. They kind of take care of themselves. Some cats aren’t like that, though, you know, And so I think going into it, we have to really check those ideas about certain people, people from communities that have been informed, those implicit biases. We have to make sure that we’re good with ourselves or not even that we’re good with them and that we’ve reconciled them but that were aware of. So I think that was a really big take away point for me. Um, you know I’m 1/2 black man. I’m a Navajo man. Um, I have implicit bias, you know, everyone does. And so I think being able to understand that before pushing this work is really key to this. You have to really kind of strip yourself bare and understand that, um in order to push this work forward, you’re going to have to do some self work as well.

[00:42:17.87] spk_1:
Implicit biases. Is that not the same as stereotypes?

[00:42:20.30] spk_4:
Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. Some people call stereotypes. Yeah,

[00:42:24.77] spk_1:
you gotta You gotta be conscious of your own stereotypes.

[00:42:58.50] spk_4:
Exactly. We don’t politicize. Yeah. And sometimes those stereotypes are very obvious to you. You you think about them. But also, there are some that are very deep within your subconscious that come out without knowing, too. And so then it’s one of those things where you start. You have to be reflective and think, Gosh, where is this coming from? Where is the stock coming from? And where is this belief coming from? And really dig down deep into it. Um, I think another thing to that, um, when you push this type of work forward or are start to prioritize this work you have to think about you and I were talking about this earlier is, you know, the climate of the organization. Um And where in what? In the environment of the organization, some organizations have their heels in the ground, and I have experienced organizations like that where their heels air in the ground and they’re like, we have a D I committee that meets once a month and that’s it. Check box checked. We’re done with it. We don’t have to do anymore work. We don’t have Teoh, you know, examine the policies and practices in the environment that we put forward with an organization. So that’s a non starter for a lot of people. And in those

[00:43:37.63] spk_1:
organisms, on top of that r R D I committee, it has black black people in it. Yeah, so we’ve We were an equitable organization. Exactly to blacks on our equity committee.

[00:46:01.08] spk_4:
Exactly. And so I think those are things that I have experienced those there is half organizations where, you know, that’s the thing we call tokenism within. Let I wouldn’t even say within the d I world. That’s just tokenism, period with in whatever world you want to live in. And so that’s That’s a tokenism thing. And sadly, I’ve fallen victim to that in my earlier years of, you know, when I was a young professional of, you know, really being eager and wanting to please white leadership, Um, and realizing that I wasn’t pushing forward d I work. I was not contributing to it, but I was a victim of it. Um, and it was a system much larger than the the actual work that I was putting forward, and it was really sad, and I had to remove myself from those situations and those token izing situations. There was once a month d I meetings where I was that the token eyes per person of color that was having to bear my soul about some very, very deep and emotional topics. And so I think a lot of times, you know, you have to as a person who’s pushing this forward specifically, and I’m you know, I say this directly to people of color and organizations and non profit organizations who are the one to, you know, third person of color in the organization. I mean that that’s a big, big hill to climb to, and it’s not insurmountable. But what I will say is, you know, you have to be able to check in with yourself as a person of color and as a, um, as a professional of color, Um, be a black being Beit, indigenous, being Asian, um, agent. And so I just think that you have to check in with that because and be very hyper vigilant and aware that, um, some folks may want to token eyes you in a way and being ableto have, um, practices and things in your back pocket, too. Disrupt knows those policies and procedures and practices and then either move forward or remove yourself from the situation.

[00:46:09.88] spk_1:
Checking in with yourself means, like the official question. Is this even worth doing at this organization?

[00:46:11.41] spk_4:
Right. And maybe

[00:46:12.44] spk_1:
Do I have any ally or there are other potential allies? Okay, go to potential allies, and they turned out not to be allies. Is it even worth doing in this organization like you say, you remove yourself, Go elsewhere?

[00:47:29.58] spk_4:
Yeah, and it because. And that’s really sad, too, because I think a lot of us in the nonprofit world are, um, you know, we are so passionate about the work that we dio We wanna, you know, we kind of pride ourselves. And I did this for a very long time when I worked in use development. You pride yourself on the number of hours that you work. You pride yourself on working overtime. You pride yourself on for the bare minimum, you do that. And then you have larger organizations that are typically white Run. That’s hold you hostage to that belief. And that’s really and that was I mean, I heard that maybe two or three years ago, someone said it much more beautifully than I just did. But on I wish I get credit them, but I forget who it was, but it really is those, I mean, and that’s a very big systemic, um, problem within the nonprofit world is that, you know, a lot of times white leadership will hold those those middle level, middle level, direct service middle management folks. Um, be it you know, people of color or not to their own jobs. To that to that own passion. I

[00:48:03.03] spk_1:
thought you loved our work. Exactly. We asked you when you came here three years ago. What moved without the work and, you know, using that work against them in some fashion time for our last break turn to communications. They’re former journalists so that you get help getting your message through. It is possible to be heard even through the Corona virus cacophony. They know exactly what to do to make it happen. They’re at turn hyphen two dot ceo. We’ve got but loads more time for racial equity, D I? In fact, this runs long because it’s a good conversation with Tristan that I did not want to stop. The total show is roughly 75 minutes,

[00:48:15.97] spk_4:
and it’s like the byline of you know, non profit works. Sometimes, sadly, is like we’re not in this for the paycheck, you know,

[00:48:23.25] spk_1:
Passion, passion, shaming.

[00:50:25.86] spk_4:
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s so I mean, and so when you put you take that in and of itself, within the nonprofit world, and then you layer on a racial inequity that’s like also, you know, people are stuck folks of color. Black folks are stuck with it between a rock and a hard place within their job. They want to make money toe like live to pay their bills. They want to have a job to do those things. Yet they’re stuck in an organization that is holding them hostage to the work that they’re doing, and so that that’s something that I think is I went off on a tangent. But I also think that you have to be very aware is this Is this organization ready for this? Is this organization really about this work? Because it’s gonna strip a lot of things bare for the organization that they may not like, you know, And that made that push against that culture dominate that white culture, dominant belief and systems that have built the organization toe what it is today. So, for example, it means, you know, how are we working? Are we working every single meeting toe have some sort of end results? Um, you know where we come to a conclusion at the end of every meeting? That’s white, dominant culture in and of itself. Sometimes we have meetings that don’t have a big or clear and result, and we need to be okay with that. Um and so I think about that. And I think about my past, you know, roles that I have held in use development and how many times I’ve been in a meeting where it’s like we have to get X and Y and Z done by the time. But in two hours we have to pound out a budget in two hours on DSO. I think being able to work, and I’m not saying that like and 10 is one of those, you know, shining places on the hill. But I love it here because Amy gives us the space and latitude to sometimes not have toe have meetings that maybe we didn’t come to a clear conclusion or that there’s not an expectation that we have a solid, you know, um, a solid solution that we come out of

[00:50:31.72] spk_1:
their outcome by end of me and meetings or just a microcosm of the total work, that because the work is constantly a journey absolutist repeatedly, you know, it’s not done at the end of a year or 18 months. And, you know, like you were saying different example though, you know, check, we’ve done our We’ve done our diversity work

[00:50:50.11] spk_4:
right right

[00:51:06.97] spk_1:
now. Now, we just banned the committee or the committee Lance to be six months every six months or something like that. Yes, the meeting is just a microcosm of the of the overall structure and progress and journey you say in the description of the program, then 10 journey. It’s never It’s not really never completed.

[00:51:15.12] spk_4:
Yeah, it’s never done. And it definitely doesn’t live solely with me. And I think this is the one thing that I particularly like, Um, in this this role that I’m in within 10 and working so closely with Amy with D I work is the idea that she and I are a team, um, working towards this, I think a lot of times and organizations, they token eyes, a person of color, and they’re like, Oh, you’re the equity person. You’re the equity director. You’re the X, y and Z, which is fine. It’s great. I’m all for that. But a lot of times there are situations where or organizations that put it all on that person. And they’re like

[00:51:52.79] spk_1:
the person has no with no authority, exact lots of accountability, but no authority,

[00:53:04.39] spk_4:
right? And so what I really like and appreciate is that Amy pushes me, and I pushed back on things that we’re working towards and, um You know, I say I pushed back, but also she and Ira will learn personality anyway, So a lot of times, um, she’ll peek around the corner from our office when we when we worked in offices. Um, you know, and be like I was thinking something like, Oh, my gosh, I was just thinking that. So I think it also helps be specifically with her. And I really are, um our relationship is that she and I are just very similar. Um, and, um, I think that does help. But I also appreciate her as a leader being able Teoh ask questions and prioritized racial equity not only when she’s thinking about D I stuff, but when she’s thinking about the budget. When she’s thinking about NTC when she’s thinking about, um, you know, all of our I t endeavours, all of our community pieces. Um, I appreciate that because that says to me as a person of color and more importantly, a someone who’s, um, you know, a ah person who’s working for is that Oh, this person’s in it for riel. Yeah, Amy talks. The talk walks the walk, and again, it’s not toe like, you know, game points with a Me, too. Because for that you

[00:53:18.07] spk_2:
were you making

[00:53:18.66] spk_1:
the point of the importance of leadership that has to be leadership support by in, you know, whatever it’s called or else you are, Well, not the person committee or the entire endeavor is just gonna be, you know, without without teeth,

[00:54:48.24] spk_4:
right? Yeah. And so that’s what I appreciate her as a leader, even though I’m the person that has the role that pushes it forward and stewards that she’s right there with me helping me and asking those questions on an executive level and on a board level two and prioritizing those questions. And so that’s something that I really appreciate as an employee, but also separately from that, like as a person of color, as an indigenous man, as a black man. I appreciate those things, Um, and so it’s it’s kind of 11 of those situations where, you know, talk is cheap, you know? And, um, you know, she walks the walk, and I really appreciate that. I’ve, you know, worked with a lot of white leadership in past organizations that I worked in, where they talked to talk. They love a good. You know, feel good session about D I stroking their own egos and all the things. But when it comes, it comes down to it when there are policies that they’re pushing forward and meetings that are directly, you know, working against racial equity, that’s not it, you know? And so those are examples that I think of where I’m like. Gosh, I wish I would have spoken up. Um, but but, you know, within 10 I don’t feel that. And that’s something that I I’m gonna hold on to it and hold onto it tight, because I know that this is a good thing. And I’m really, um, you know, glad and blessed to work on a place that prioritizes those things.

[00:55:13.17] spk_1:
Can you tell a story of an example of something that on its surface is not inequitable by? Maybe you pointed it out, Or if not, use something. It became obvious that it is inequitable. Yeah, you brought it to the organization and a chain jumping

[00:57:48.23] spk_4:
right. So I’ll give an example, and it doesn’t really point out a specific person, but it points out, Is Berries easy thing that no one had really found it within the organization within our organization. I know a lot of people think, Oh, wow. It’s like this multi tiered, you know, organization with lots of people. There’s only 15 of us, so, I mean, the way we work is very collaborative anyway. And so, um, once we have a job, sport where folks immunity are able to post open positions on the community s so a lot of times it’s organizations that will want to post a open position that they have on for the longest time, we didn’t, um we as an organization didn’t have, um, a requirement for salary. So when people when there was a salary field for organizations to put in, um, you know what? How much this person was going toe radio? Absolutely. They leave a blank, right? D o e dependent upon experience. Um, and if you look at that, too, seems pretty like, oh, standard. We see it all the time with, like, you know, you know, we go on linked and we go on any sort of jobs board site. Yeah, They probably don’t, you know, put the salary, and a lot of times it’s dio we and, um I I myself was like I don’t see like why, you know, there’s like an issue with that, too. Until it was pointed out that, like, you know, this was This is a practice that is steeped in, um, whiteness and its steeped in patriarchal, the patriarchy. And so why do Why do organisations not do that? I don’t know. I can’t say that for each and every other word Is that what I can say is that when organizations don’t put a salary for a job or put d o e um, that disproportionately effects women and people of color. Um, because it contributes Teoh. And there have been studies that show that when it’s when there’s no salary, it discourages people of color. Don’t feel like they are, um, you know, I don’t want to speak for for all people of color, but there have been studies that have shown that, you know, it contributes to that pay gap. That gender pay gap

[00:57:59.03] spk_1:
okay, enables that’s what I thought. It enables disparities in pay

[00:58:00.60] spk_4:
exactly and so

[00:58:02.32] spk_1:
committed because you don’t have to commit in writing exact ranges 1 25 to

[00:58:57.62] spk_4:
one solidity on their maybe organizations out there that are like, Oh, this is a black woman that’s applying for this job. I’m going toe put my I’m gonna offer this job to this person on the lower end of that range, and that’s not fair, Um or, you know, because I didn’t put post my salary. I’m gonna lowball this this this job offer and that’s not fair as well to we want organizations that are going to put or post positions or job roles on our website to be up front with everything, too. We want to make sure that our community members have all the information that they have to make an informed decision about their future job. Future A future benefits so they can make the most educated decision on whether they want to join this organization or not. Do you

[00:59:02.44] spk_1:
know what’s what’s required for

[00:59:12.82] spk_4:
that salary? Yes, so right now it is required. That’s the only thing it so you can’t post a job of job opening without having a salary.

[00:59:15.53] spk_1:
OK, so array is arranged, Arranges acceptable,

[00:59:18.46] spk_4:
I believe, arranges acceptable. I

[00:59:42.21] spk_1:
think that’s okay that someone is coming being offered at the lower end of that range, and they feel their experience marriage something higher? Um, then they can brother on conclusion that this may very well be racial or gender based or some other some other classifications based beyond their experience. You could draw that. You can draw that conclusion for yourself. If you’re being offered the low end of that salary. Radio

[00:59:50.07] spk_4:
have some very badly for that with the rains that that was going, going it, Teoh.

[00:59:53.03] spk_1:
Otherwise, your you’ve got no information whatsoever.

[00:59:55.44] spk_4:
Absolutely. And so you’re like I don’t know what. And so a lot of times there’s just weird tactic that people do. It’s like, What do you think you should be paid? And it’s like, you know, don’t turn that on its head. You know exactly what this job is worth. Please put it out there so everyone is aware.

[01:00:12.08] spk_1:
Okay, My own conclusion,

[01:00:57.91] spk_4:
though, anyway, so we require that now, and that’s something that we all came together and talked about. I mean, I can’t say who I can’t remember who, like specifically brought it up as something a za point. But it was such an easy fix. Such an easy fix. And, you know, I’ve been you know, I keep on talking about past organizations I’ve been with, but, um, I’ve been in organizations where it’s like an easy fix, but it took three months to implement. It took a meeting une email thread, you know, Ah, heart to heart meeting about how this was. You know, sometimes if it’s easy just implemented, and this was one of those things that you know, start to finish, maybe took ah, week a week and 1/2 to get it all running a

[01:01:01.53] spk_1:
programming is all of a sudden it’s a required field when it wasn’t required before.

[01:01:05.85] spk_4:
I think things are red

[01:01:06.96] spk_1:
asterisk and has to be programmed in the back end that you can’t submit your form without that field being

[01:01:23.71] spk_4:
feel that there’s a there’s low hanging fruit that sometimes exists in an organization that no one’s really sat and looked at and been like, Why are we doing this? How can we do this differently? That’s in a more equitable way in an equitable, equitable, more former fashion. And I think you know, I also say that, you know, I bring up these this anecdotes just because, you know, I mean, there are a lot of other things that we’ve done that. Have? Really?

[01:01:39.11] spk_1:
Yeah. That’s a That’s a great one.

[01:01:40.66] spk_4:
Because lately that

[01:02:19.54] spk_1:
innocuous on its face, it’s completely innocuous. Leave it blank if you want. Your Blanco are based on experience. It sounds perfectly. We’re doing that that way for generations. Based on your experience, you’ll get big. But now it’s locked in. You know what? We’re being offered a salary at the low end, and you can draw your own conclusion that why that might be exactly okay and no longer enabling. All right, Um, that’s a great story. Yeah, Um I mean, yeah, there’s so much we can talk about. Yeah. You mentioned in the description how racism manifests differently. A different levels of an organization.

[01:02:23.60] spk_7:
Yeah.

[01:02:24.50] spk_1:
First, a little bit.

[01:03:03.42] spk_4:
Yeah. So great question. I have, um, the ah, you know, opportunity and the privilege to serve on a, um A It’s an advisory. It’s the Committee on Racial on Racial Equity for, um, the it’s called Organ Metro. So it’s Thea Thea area local regional government that it’s, I believe, spans three, if not four counties in the Portland Metro area. So it’s a governing govern form of government that overlooks all four of us

[01:03:06.10] spk_1:
have to show off that I know Portland is in Multnomah County.

[01:03:09.04] spk_4:
Yes, I have to show. I

[01:03:10.54] spk_1:
just have to marry. Let’s have to show that off. That completely

[01:07:16.58] spk_4:
how I, um seven. It’s very much like a, uh it’s very much like a, um you know, council, where there’s council members that represent each district. And there’s also a c 00 that runs the entire organisation and government. Um, So, um, I sit on a, um on a committee that is tasked with making sure that racial equity is something that that governing body prioritizes and also is taking into consideration when it’s pushing or advocating for anything. So all that to say is that we had an opportunity Teoh to touch base with some leaders, potential leaders within this, this governing body. And, um, I think one of the questions that came to the top and that I asked you because it kind of goes back to your question of like, um, racial inequity manifests itself in very different ways on. And so if you’re a you know, a CEO of an organization, um and you’re like, yes, I’m about d I work. I live in. I breathe it yada yada. I do all of it on and I’m really passionate about it. Yet you’re a white person, and then you have to, you know, foreign partnerships with other area organizations, and they’re all white as well to what happens when you get into a room or you’re having to have big, you know, decision making conversations and everyone and there is white. Um, and, um and people in there are saying things that aren’t racially equitable. Um, and you’re sitting there in your belief that I believe I believe d I work. I know that it’s there, but the gravity of all these other people agreeing with this false, you know, or agreeing with this, you know, racially an equitable belief. You’re gonna have to push against that in that scary right to go against the grain of like, the larger group on. And so I I ask that because you know, our I just I bring that up because I think the phrase that comes most to mind to me is someone said it to me and I forget why read Reddit? Orde said it. But it’s always stuck with me as you move up within an organization, racial inequity on racism becomes more sophisticated, so it’s much, much easier to detect. Unlike a direct service, rubber hits the road level as you get to that C suite level. You know of an organization, it becomes more nuanced. It becomes mawr about tokenism. It becomes more about how you’re playing folks of color against each other or not even talking about it at all. Um, so I think that’s something that I’ve, you know, experienced in scene, you know, on a direct service level. When I first started right out of college, you know, when I was working for direct service, the the direct service staff of Color, the black folks, we’re always the ones who got, you know, assigned to jobs or assigned the locations that were less than favorable. And so, um, you know, it’s pretty straightforward. And then, you know, as we moved up within the organization, we realized that there was a token izing thing going on at the middle middle management level. And so, you know, I think that’s just one thing that it manifest in in very different ways, you know, in different organizations, but also across different levels To one level of, you know, racism may look, you know, one middle level of racism may look completely different at one organization that it doesn’t the other two. And so that’s why it’s, like a very sinister thing. Um, Teoh to be able to, you know, figure out for an organization.

[01:07:39.98] spk_1:
Um, let’s see, where can we go and sort of wrap up? Um, What you tell me you want? Oh, let’s bring it back down toe back to in 10. Because they were supposed to have been, but I let I wandered. Um um, deliberately So what do you want? What you want to share about? Sort of in closing in about intense journey, The work, the work that remains

[01:09:03.37] spk_4:
Yeah. Go. Absolutely. I love that. You said the work that remains cause there’s always work that remains. I don’t want anyone. I certainly don’t want to put on any, um, you know, false pretenses that we are. We’re there as an organization. We have arrived. We’re not. We have There’s always work that needs to. That has remained. That is remaining. And so I think that’s where I would start is that we have we’re on our own journey. We are, um, you know, moving forward intentionally and with respect to make sure that we are covering all of our departments and making sure that, you know, everyone is a steward of this d I work and making sure that it permeates every corner of our our organization. So that’s where I would start. I think you know, if folks are out there that are wanting to or your I mean, I specifically I speak Teoh, um, you know, CEOs, executive directors of organizations that are white. Um, this is the best time to push this forward. And it’s going Teoh not be easy. That’s

[01:09:10.83] spk_1:
what he said is the best time.

[01:12:27.75] spk_4:
It’s the best time because, you know, this is a time where people are, you know, there are country is and I don’t want to get you know too far into the political part of things. But like, you know, there’s a lot going on in our country to and, um, non profits are, you know, specifically smaller grassroots roots nonprofits are, um, you know, suffering A lot of times, a smaller grassroots non profits were run by people of color, so you know, I think in the spirit of non profit, it’s incumbent upon, you know, leadership to make sure that they’re helping. Not only there constituents, their employees, but also other nonprofits. So what does that mean for those CEOs or executive directors? This is the time, you know. And again I say that not in like, ooh, the stars have aligned these air that this is the time every time is a good time, You know what I mean? There’s no bad time to do this. This had this work has to be done. Um and so I would say that, you know, it’s it’s something that will pay off for years to come to. You’re going tohave employees when you start to prioritize, you know, d I work and not only within, like the D I department, but also just d. I work across your organization across departments and start to look critically how you can change and morph and transform into. I’m an anti racist organisation. You’re going to realize that a Not only are you a happier person be your employees are happy to be there and happy to do work, because inherently, when you a drew racial inequity. You’re addressing a lot of other inequities as well. You’re addressing, you know, gender inequity. You’re addressing LGBT Q. I A plus in equity as well. Those things will come in that makes employees happier. And what does that do that starts informing how you interact with your employees? Not only its not only informs it, but it starts to shape the things that you hold near and dear, both individually and as an organization, and your employees and staff will see that they will see that and they will want to stay. And that Matt effects. You know, if for those data folks out there, you know, staff retention, you have folks that are going to stay for the long haul because they believe in the work that you dio and what happens, you know. I mean, a lot of people think, you know, in in organizations or in business, you know, the customer is always right. Customer’s always right customer first, you know, or your that your communities that you’re serving our first and yes, that’s right. And there’s a grain of truth in that. However, you can’t serve your customers or your um, your the communities in which you’re serving or living in. If your employees aren’t served first and aren’t being prioritized, it’s kind of like, ah, flip of mindset that you have to dio So that would be my encouragement. And that would be my, um my you know, last piece that I would end on Is that like, you know, this is the time to do it, you know, because you know it. At the end of the day, it helps serve your organization to make sure organization stronger, and it makes your employees stronger. And it makes the relationships that you have with your employees stronger. Likewise that didn’t that, then goes into your, you know, direct service groups. You know, your communities that you’re living within. It makes your connection in your relationships more sincere and more bonded.

[01:12:51.55] spk_1:
Tristin pen, community engagement and Equity manager at N 10 s Justin, Thanks so much.

[01:12:58.14] spk_4:
Thank you so much. I hope I made sense. Thank

[01:13:51.35] spk_1:
you very much. You made a lot of sense Last sense and thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 20 ntc remember, were sponsored at the conference by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Martin for a free 60 day trial. Thanks so much for being with us next week. Privacy. Best practices. I told you it was coming. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As Guiding you beyond the numbers. Wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission turned hyphen. Two dot ceo.

[01:14:41.79] spk_0:
A creative producer is clear. Meyerhoff. I did the post production. How did I do? Let me know. Sam Liebowitz managed to stream show Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scots non next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great talking alternative radio 24 hours a day.