Tag Archives: information technology

Nonprofit Radio for August 29, 2022: Your Tech Problem Is Actually A People Problem

 

Ananda Robie & Sam Dorman: Your Tech Problem Is Actually A People Problem

Wrapping up our #22NTC coverage, Ananda Robie and Sam Dorman sort out why your nonprofit’s technology problem is very likely a people problem. And they share their roadmap to better technology tomorrow. Ananda is with the Center for Action and Contemplation and Sam is from The Build Tank.

 

 

 

 

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[00:02:02.70] spk_0:
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 be stricken with cause Elijah if you burned me up with the idea that you missed this week’s show your tech problem is actually a people problem wrapping up our 22 Ntc coverage. Ananda roby and Sam dorman sort out why you’re nonprofits. Technology problem is very likely a people problem and they share their roadmap to better technology tomorrow. Ananda is with the Center for Action and Contemplation and SAM is from the build tank on Tony’s take to wrapping up national make a will month 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. Here is your tech problem is actually a people problem. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 N. T. C. You know what that is by now through all the interviews we’ve been doing, it’s the 2022 nonprofit technology conference and you know that it’s hosted by N 10. The smart folks who help you use technology as you’re doing your important work with me now are Ananda robi and SAm dorman. Ananda is digital Managing Director of digital products at center for Action and contemplation Sam dorman is co founder At the build tank Ananda Sam welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:02:23.64] spk_1:
Thanks tony

[00:02:24.87] spk_2:
Yeah, thank you so much for having us.

[00:02:36.99] spk_0:
The pleasure. Pleasure to have both of you. Your session topic is your technology problem is actually a people problem. Sam can you, can you give us an overview of what folks are often, uh, misconstruing about the real problem perhaps at at their smaller, mid sized non profit

[00:03:30.65] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. My partner chris and I, we, you know, founded the bill tank to try to help organizations resolve their pervasive technology pain, which is, um, which is really common. It’s just about every organization is struggling under these, these same restrictions where they just don’t have the technology that allows them to do what they want to do and it’s holding everybody back and it’s creating all all kinds of pain points. And so what I think that people don’t realize is so often it’s not actually a problem with the technology, the symptoms, you know, feel like their problems with technology, but it’s a gap in a certain kind of technology capacity. Um, and it’s about actually getting the right internal team doing the right types of things, which is sometimes not what people expect it should be. And Ananda is a perfect example of that kind of person. And the team she has built at C A C is a perfect example of what it looks like to go from those sorts of pervasive technology Pain points to actually really using leveraging technology to its potential to help increase the organization’s impact

[00:03:58.76] spk_0:
ananda what are some of the symptoms that you were you were feeling at center for action and contemplation?

[00:04:54.00] spk_2:
Yeah. Well, luckily I was so blessed that by the time I came to the C a C, they had already met chris and SAm and gotten bought in on the digital product team model and investing in structuring technology Well. But prior to coming to see a C in previous roles, I’ve had, I did experience that other nonprofits or in higher ed, which has been my kind of career path. That really what’s most common is you hire folks to do a job and then technology is treated like off the side of their desk. So you might hire a development director who’s responsible for fundraising for your organization, but then they’re also responsible for, you know, keeping the donation platform up and running and troubleshooting issues or if you need a new platform going and finding it and uh, you know, putting it into place. And so it’s just means that people a have too much work on their plate. So their workload is too much and then you don’t have the right people with the right kind of interests and skills doing the work. And so there’s a whole model for how we kind of have distributed ownership and break down the ownership between content folks and technology folks.

[00:05:10.36] spk_0:
Okay. You say there’s a whole model, Is that, is that part of what your your session was about?

[00:05:51.03] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. So, so, we, you know, we pulled together this thing called the road map to a better technology tomorrow. So chris and I were always trying to share everything we can as resources. We can work with some organizations like the CDC, but we can’t work with every organization. But it also feels like a lot of these things, once you understand the concepts there not that hard, they’re pretty based on common sense. They’re definitely not common practice, but uh, we try to share everything freely. So we put together this roadmap with just sort of six key steps about, here’s how you go from where you’re, where you are now to building this kind of capacity that’s gonna be able to supercharge you. So, in the, in, in the session, we just walked through those six steps.

[00:05:54.01] spk_0:
Okay. And this is the road map to better technology tomorrow. Like something from the 1950s,

[00:06:01.43] spk_1:
your

[00:06:02.85] spk_0:
new electric stove is the the kitchen of tomorrow for the happy homemaker.

[00:06:09.47] spk_1:
We kinda did. It’s a little bit tongue in cheek. We, we like to have a lot of fun with the work that we do. And so we sort of, it felt a little bit like it was like mad men branding the road to a better technology. Yeah,

[00:06:37.24] spk_0:
that’s what I think of it immediately, but before we All right. So, we’ll go through the roadmap Sounds, uh, sounds very exploratory what sam, but why why are we defaulting to blaming, uh, faulting technology? Is that, is that because it’s easier than looking introspectively at our team and our skills and gaps there in? Well,

[00:06:44.52] spk_1:
it’s hard to

[00:06:45.16] spk_0:
blame technology.

[00:07:49.02] spk_1:
Well, it’s understandable. That’s where you feel in the pain. So people just don’t have the basic tools that they need. If you’re trying to accomplish anything, you’re trying to, you know, not to use the example of a fundraiser. You’re trying to raise money if you’re a communicator, if you’re a program person, if you’re an executive trying to understand what things are working, the pain point is focused on. We don’t have a system that helps us track our donors well, or understand their journeys with us. Or a lot of pain is felt with websites, you know, like everybody needs to use the website as a key. It’s like your front door. It’s also your engagement pathways. It’s a key property. And very rarely do organizations have it where everybody who has needs with those properties, with those, with those technology platforms, is actually getting those needs addressed. And so, you know, they, that’s where you feel the pain. But what people don’t understand is it’s because there’s a lack of ownership and lack of stewardship and it’s not a highly technical kind of lack of ownership and stewardship that’s missing. It’s a highly strategic, highly communication based set of skills that needed to steward these platforms and make sure that everybody’s getting what they need out of them and have sort of a long term oriented view. It’s exactly the kind of stuff that Ananda is so strong at.

[00:08:08.05] spk_0:
Okay, okay, so it sounds like the shortcomings uh manifest themselves in people’s performance because we don’t have the kind of tools we need, you know, the things you ticked off saying that you’re you’re more eloquent in describing that I’m going than I would be, so I’m not gonna bother, but I’ll just say it’s everything you just said, but it manifests itself in poor performance or overworked or

[00:08:57.22] spk_1:
Yeah. And I’ll just say, you know, it’s sort of like you have, you you you you wanna you get great people around you in an organization, you have a really inspiring um mission and you get great people around you and it’s like getting a bunch of expert chefs in your kitchen and then all you give them is a bunch of wooden spoons and you say cook a gourmet meal, they just don’t have the tools, they need to make their amazing, you know, and so what you wanna do is you want a situation where you have someone whose job it is to just make const consistently enable their colleagues to do better and greater work via those sort of technology systems. So promise of technology is just not commonly realized for most organizations, it’s just paying up and down the up and down the books

[00:09:06.58] spk_0:
because the people at that dining table are gonna say these chefs suck

[00:09:10.08] spk_1:
right?

[00:09:10.81] spk_0:
Yeah, you’re gonna say something

[00:09:12.73] spk_1:
back.

[00:09:13.80] spk_0:
I’m sorry. But

[00:09:15.34] spk_2:
no, I was just gonna say, I think um

[00:09:17.99] spk_0:
when

[00:10:12.60] spk_2:
we say it’s a people problem, it’s that’s not to be misconstrued that it’s a problem with the people currently in the organization having a deficit or something. It’s usually a people problem because the right staffing to steward your technology has not been put in place. So it’s really a people problem often in terms of a gap in people for the technology. So it’s a misconstrued notion that, you know, when you get technology, it would be false to think that good technology is just plug and play, you get it off the shelf, you plug it in, you play, it works for your org forever more. Um, that’s not the case for anything. Your organization is growing and developing and adapting and evolving. Um your technology needs to do so as well. But in order to stay on top of that, you have to have the staffing of the folks like me who are responsible for treating that technology almost like a product. So we’re gonna make sure it stays up to date, it gets um serviced and updated and replaced as needed. So I just want to make sure no one is hearing this as it’s a people problem within your org. I’m sure the people within existing orders are phenomenal and they likely have too much to do and a full time job in addition to potentially looking and focusing on technology, you should have a specific stripe within your org that is focused on the technology much like you have stripes focused on your programs.

[00:10:40.30] spk_0:
Okay, thank you. Alright, banana. Are you, are you familiar enough with this too to launch our journey on the, on the road map to a better technology tomorrow?

[00:10:45.91] spk_2:
Well I’ve had the benefit of truly like working under chris and SAm’s mentorship for the last six years. So I like to think that I’m very familiar

[00:10:53.79] spk_0:
with it.

[00:10:54.46] spk_2:
Yeah, SAm and I have kind of been on a little bit of a publicity tour lately. I feel like where Sam you know because he and chris is brilliant minds are what came up with the kind of road map and then I get to offer a bit of the color commentary about what it looks like in like implementation and actuality versus

[00:12:51.20] spk_0:
theory. Turn to communications media relationships and thought leadership. First comes the relationships then comes the leaderships leadership but I couldn’t pass up the rhyme. You gotta have the relationships before you can get the leadership the thought leadership because you need those relationships so that when an opportunity for thought leadership emerges either because there’s some big news hook or you just have something that is compelling that you need folks to hear. You gotta have uh you gotta have the journalists and the other content creators in a position where they’re gonna pick up the phone when you call, they’re gonna reply when you email. That takes relationships turn to knows how to build those relationships. So you gotta have the relationships, then you can get heard. Then you become a thought leader in your field, turn to communications, they can help you build those relationships. And while you’re working on your messaging, that can help you craft that also so that you become the thought leader, you ought to be, you deserve to be turn to communications. Your story is their mission turned hyphen two dot c o. Now, back to your tech problem is actually a people problem. And what about buying leadership by in Ananda? Was was was was C A C beyond that. When you got there, you said they had already bought in. So, had you, like, had you passed that phase, Is that something you didn’t have to deal with?

[00:13:32.75] spk_2:
I mean, I think it’s always ongoing. I’m always telling the stories that it takes to make sure we’re investing in technology properly from a capacity and funding in time perspective. But I really was fortunate when I joined the Sea a sea, that our executive director, Michael Michael Poffenberger had attended one of chris and SAm’s talks and really just connected with their approach to technology and wanted them to support the C A c is really up upping our game when it came to tech. Um but one of chris and SAM’s requirements was that if you want to partner with them, you’ve got to have internal staffing to kind of fill that gap that is all too common when it comes to tech. Um, so hiring my position was basically the organization’s response to this is the direction we’re gonna head when it comes to structuring our technology and this is the first position we’re gonna hire to make that happen.

[00:15:11.64] spk_1:
tony maybe I’ll add. It’s also really important to note that a non as part of the leadership team now at C A. C as the chief of this team and that’s one of the things that we really emphasize is important. You know, the actually the first step in the road map we were going to talk about is you must be willing to invest and it’s about investing, not only resources, but time and care and focus. If technology is not part of what your leadership knows and understands, then you’re making decisions sort of devoid of what you can actually do in the world. You know, it’s like technology nowadays as your arms and legs to do almost anything in the world as an organization. And so if you have a bunch of people at leadership level, making decisions about programs and what you’re capable of or timelines or anything like that without that strong back and forth communication with those arms and legs and you have an organization that sort of lurches forward and can’t walk straight. And so it really makes a huge difference when you see a situation like CSC where nana is there as part of the leadership team, able to say yes organization. This is what we’re capable of. And also, um yeah, we can we can do these tradeoffs that we’re talking about at a leadership level, but here’s what we’re gonna have to dip prioritize and here’s what we’re going to prioritize. So it’s just sort of a whole different approach of, of investing in technology is a key skill set for the organization.

[00:15:17.61] spk_0:
Okay. And you said that’s our first, our first of the six steps is investing, but not only in the technology, but also in in the organization the people

[00:15:48.39] spk_1:
well. And that’s why we start with saying, you have to invest as, you know, you have to be willing to to hire people in this certain type of uh, you know, a certain type of capability and that means salary and that means head count and that’s one of the most expensive things. There are, so a lot of times we say, you know, that’s, you got to hear the bad news first, which is, it’s gonna cost a lot, most organizations are woefully under invested in internally internal technology capacity. And that’s just the truth of it. So when, when people come to us and say, you know, is there an affordable way we can do a B and C. We say no. If you want to be good with your technology and good good meaningful impactful outputs, you have to invest in terms of resources in terms of development, in terms of external experts and in terms of your internal team

[00:16:13.51] spk_0:
ananda what what’s the annual budget at Center for Action and Contemplation and and how many employees?

[00:16:20.30] spk_2:
Yeah. Great question. I believe our annual budget is close to about nine million and we have about 55 employees.

[00:16:35.89] spk_0:
Okay. All right. I want listeners to understand the context of what investment means. Why is at the center for action and shouldn’t contemplation come first and then comes action after you’ve given after you’ve thought about what it is you might be acting on, you

[00:16:51.54] spk_2:
know, one of my favorite things that our founder father Richard moore says is that actually the most important word in our title is the word. And because what is good action without sufficient contemplation? And what is the point of contemplation if it doesn’t result in good action? So and is the most important regardless of which order? Those words come in.

[00:17:08.97] spk_0:
Okay. All right, thank you. And thank you Father Also. Alright. All right. So, um Sam is there a place for folks who have you know have a smaller organization like uh suppose it’s like half the size of of C a C s annual budget like it’s 4, 4.5 5 million

[00:17:22.95] spk_1:
dollars is still

[00:17:24.56] spk_0:
a place that that they can improve their relationship. I’m gonna say their relationship with technology.

[00:17:31.79] spk_1:
It’s a great question. You know we have done this with very large sort of

[00:17:38.48] spk_0:
two great questions in a row. It’s all downhill. Yeah

[00:17:39.66] spk_1:
pretty much

[00:17:41.58] spk_0:
batting

[00:18:54.94] spk_1:
average, batting average is solid so far that we’ve done some very large sort of enterprise scale organizations. We’ve done it with tiny organizations and people ask me that often like well you have to be a certain size and I think the answer is no you don’t have to be a certain size. So I used to work out of an office where there was social enterprises that were being incubated. And so like people starting uh you know, triple bottom line businesses as they used to call them. And what they would do is either the founder uh would be someone with great technical sort of oversight capability or your first hire was sort of a C. T. O. Or a technical co founder. And so nowadays it scales down to I think the size of two, if your organization has a headcount to half of that capacity is probably focused on your technology because anyone starting an organization today understands how essential that is to be able to do anything in the modern day world. The problem is a lot of old organizations are trying to get away from this really old model of like the tech person in the back corner who just thinks of all things tech and everything. Tech goes through that person. We often say that’s like having a department of paper where everything on paper goes through one person in the back room. It just doesn’t make any sense. Everything is technology at these days and you have to be more sophisticated about what who you’re putting on what there’s a lot of different skill sets that you need at the table. Most organizations have their traditional I. T. Covered. Most organizations have their super users of technology covered. And almost no organizations have this particular gap which is technology stewardship

[00:19:15.10] spk_0:
Amanda. What were your credentials before you came to see A. C.

[00:19:55.68] spk_2:
Yeah so I um I actually studied film in college and I think that’s really comes from, I had an inkling towards technology. I really loved editing, I loved editing software and afterwards I went to work for a nonprofit. My goal was to actually be in the creative team. But but as a part of working there, a part of my job was using salesforce. Um And I was kind of what is traditionally called an accidental admin. So using salesforce for a couple of years they’re like, hey you’re really good at this, Would you be interested in doing this more full time learning more, taking on more responsibility. Um And I said yes and I think it’s one of the best decisions I ever made. Unfortunately our nonprofit went through a pretty massive downsizing. Um So they kind of kept on people who were like the jack of all trades and could do a lot. So I was kept on kept on as primarily the technologist but I’ve been working in Salesforce now for about

[00:20:16.08] spk_0:
12

[00:20:16.66] spk_2:
years. Uh So now certified Salesforce admin and focus on our digital product team. So I oversee our Crm Web and I. T. Teams for the C. A.

[00:20:24.93] spk_0:
C.

[00:21:30.54] spk_1:
Maybe tony I might add that. It’s like a perfect background. So you know one of the things we say is when you’re looking for technology people a lot of people think that means oh we gotta we gotta hire a bunch of developers um And that’s usually the worst thing you can do. Usually development is something that’s not easy um to hire for to manage to to evaluate the quality of work. And it’s one of the best things that you can outsource because there are firms that that’s their job, that’s what they do, that’s what their specialty is. But this sort of this sort of skill set that Ananda is such a master of this sort of like this communication based sort of ally ship based strategic layer of technology stewardship that comes from all all kinds of backgrounds and so oftentimes in an organization, people already have people like this that could be amazing stewards of their technology but they’re just not tapped for that, They’re not put in the right roles. So it really is, it really opens the floodgates for who can come in and help as opposed to sort of competing for the same highly technical, um, you know, people with, with, with depth in a, in a technical area. You’re really looking for people who are just, you know, great communicators and understanding of the big picture and allies, natural allies and uh for for their colleagues to help them do everything they do better.

[00:21:55.43] spk_0:
I think big picture big picture technologist is is valuable the way you, the way you described it. Let’s let’s move on to our let’s continue on our journey. Sam what you and your partner have, uh, what’s your next, what our next stop? What’s our next stop on the

[00:22:40.26] spk_1:
journey? We’ve already been hopping around in a few of these and you can, you can see them on on the road map. But I’ll mention one piece that Ananda referred to earlier, which is this, this we have this model of trying to separate out the just because of a chart we we created long ago, it was the Blue team and the gold team. The Blue team was this sort of tool. Optimizers like Ananda and the gold team was the people who are trying to use their tools to accomplish their work. So most, most of the people on our chart an organization, they might be like fundraisers communicators, program. People, executives, any number of things. They need tools but they need them to accomplish their work. And like said what often happens is they don’t have the tools they need. So they sort of finally go out and they’re like, I’m gonna build a Crm or I’m gonna build us a new website

[00:22:49.66] spk_0:
and

[00:23:02.20] spk_1:
now they’re on the phone with developers and talking about platforms and all the stuff that pulls them out of what their strength is instead of work focusing on their areas of expertise, which could be fundraising or anything else. And you’ve got these other people like who are just natural tool optimizers who can sit down with those people here, what they’re trying to do and say, okay, I can go figure out how we do that in technology land. Let me spend all my time on all these crazy paths that that takes. And then we come back together, have a meeting and I can tell you the three options and we go from there. So it’s it allows people to focus on their areas of expertise and and when you see that all of a sudden the machine really starts humming a lot more.

[00:23:32.29] spk_0:
So uh summarize the second stop for us. How would you, I mean if if the first one was invest, nothing has to be a single word. I don’t

[00:23:59.21] spk_1:
know that’s fine. The second one is differentiate three key areas of technology. So that’s where I was talking about, not just the sort of everything goes through tech but you’ve got traditional I. T. Which is something else which is setting up your computer’s security and software and hardware and all that. That’s a different set of skills. You’ve got your content users, your your super users and then you’ve got the the team that Ananda leads which is actually your your tool optimizer team, your digital product team

[00:24:09.47] spk_0:
stewardship to you call technology stewardship

[00:24:12.73] spk_1:
technology stewardship. Exactly.

[00:24:14.58] spk_0:
Alright.

[00:24:45.49] spk_2:
Yeah. I think one of the um you know chris and SAm have a great one liner that I always love to mention when we’re talking about this part of the road map which is that everyone likes to geek out somewhere. And I think that’s the importance here is like are the folks that you have hired within your organization able to focus the majority of their job on what they were hired to do that they’re likely experts and excellent in or are they getting distracted by having to work on tech or technical people having to contribute more to content. So the idea is making sure that folks who like to geek out on development or marketing or creative customer service program execution really get a partner that then is responsible for making sure that we find and build and train on, allowing them to have the best tools possible to do their jobs well. Um and that will just alleviate a lot of dysfunction and a lot of missed opportunity for um, just prioritizing capacity.

[00:28:50.81] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. 4th dimension technologies. They still have the free offer exclusively for nonprofit radio listeners. You get the complimentary 24/7 monitoring of your IT assets. It lasts for three months. They’ll be monitoring your servers, your network and your cloud performance. They’ll monitor your backup performance as well all 24 7. If there are any issues, they will let you know ASAP at the end of the three months, you’ll get a comprehensive report telling you how all of this is doing against different benchmarks that are standard. You know, you want to know how you’re, how you’re faring compared to where you ought to be faring. And they promised to throw in a few surprises as well. It’s all complementary. It’s on the listener landing page, tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. It’s time for Tony to take two national maker will month is coming to an end. So sad. But I am celebrating to the bitter end. We’re not letting any of national make a will month go away, leave us without full celebration. And to that end I’ve got more ideas, more reasons really. They’re not just there. They are. My ideas, they’re my thinking. But these are, these are reasons, this is not in the abstract reasons why wills are the place to start your plan to giving, I’ve done 13 through 15 already. I’m gonna do 15 through 13 through 15 already. I’m gonna do 16, 17 and 18, the last week of August and you can see the compendium of reasons at linkedin so far. Eventually they’ll be on my blog. But right now you go to linkedin through the month of august, you will see the cornucopia of reasons why planned giving should be started with Will’s simple charitable bequests. So go to my linkedin and you will see the vast array of reasons That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got just about a butt load more time for your tech problem is actually a people problem with ananda roby and sam dorman. I’m thinking about fundraising, which is what I do. I do plan giving fundraising consulting and thinking about how the supplies and fundraising, like there are people who are great at relationships but not so good about the simple, the simple, very simple user task of documenting the relationships and the activity and the steps and things. So, you know, like for them, if there could be some smoother way, like maybe they could dictate instead of having to type or you know, maybe give them a portable device, you know, they can, they can do it on a, on a on a pad or a service, you know, instead of having to carry their laptop or feel like they have to go back to their desktop to to preserve things like that. I think that’s a simple example. It’s a

[00:29:20.61] spk_2:
simple example but it’s perfect. I mean that’s the epitome of my job is like what do you need to do in order to do your job well and if one of those things is documenting your interactions and there seems to be a roadblock to doing that well let’s find out why is it like that you are constantly maybe out in the field doing your work and there’s not a good mobile app in order to complete that. So you’re having to wait till you get back to your desk is the platform, you’re using the UX UI really clunky to use are you just not trained? Have we now not provided the reporting that then shows the return on your investment. So you have this incentive to see how all of your work is paying off. There’s not necessarily a single or simple answer. So the trick is understanding the need and the reason and the why behind that need, understanding what the roadblock is and then alleviating that and that’s different for different people, some people that might be a technology use equal issue and other people that might be not understanding the need or the reward behind doing it

[00:29:49.06] spk_0:
well

[00:30:16.31] spk_1:
so well said and you know when you hear a non to talk, you can just imagine the power of having a colleague like that who’s just sort of a heat seeking missile for problem solving and knocking knocking hurdles out of people’s way. It’s completely flips the sort of traditional dynamic that you have for technology which is if you got a problem submit a ticket and we’ll get to it when we can, you know, that’s like the opposite of what anna and her team are doing. They’re out there being like tony your we you know, you’re out there trying to fundraise for us. We want you to succeed your our colleague, your ally. Like how can we help you do that better? And what you find is that once people realize they have that kind of a team on board, those sort of that kind of allies in place. The ideas just come fast and furious and then the R. O. I. Just sort of spikes where all of a sudden everybody is more powerful and more effective with the hours in their day, the R. O. I. And it’s just unbelievable. But it starts with that upfront investment

[00:30:48.00] spk_0:
see all right, continue us on the road map.

[00:31:53.81] spk_1:
Well yeah, we’ve been getting a lot of this. So we differentiate those areas of technology, you build this team, a technology accelerator team or a digital product team like talked about and then it’s all about hiring the right kinds of people which we’ve talked about that sort of strategic stewardship level layer and then one thing we didn’t talk about is insourcing and outsourcing the right things. I did mention this idea that you don’t want to generally in source uh development, you want to hire, you want to work with external partners. Actually, the last step of our road map, we call make magic with external partners. And even though that’s sort of flowery language, we chose that on purpose because when you have the right dynamic, you have, you know, sort of a superhero internally, like Ananda working with a really skilled external developer or external firm giving sort of depth of strategic and technical expertise. Well that will take us on a certain, you know, certain type of work that they’re doing, but also for their, for their web work. They working with a terrific web firm and for their Crm work, they’re working with a terrific crm firm and not just, you know, the traditional thing is just handing the work out to somebody and then they do whatever they do and they deliver it and good luck. And on day one, you know, you figure out whether you can use it or not, it’s the opposite of that. It’s, it’s very much an ongoing partnership, just probably not to talk about this because that’s where you see a lot of the power, it’s not about building a team internally, that’s going to do everything, It’s about building a team that’s going to steward it, figure out who are the right players that you need on the field.

[00:33:53.49] spk_2:
Yeah, I think often like this part of what the roadmap that we talk about can be very surprising to folks, especially if you’re saying like, hey build a technology team and the first thing is maybe not to hire like an extra under the hood. Super incredible. 10 times certified developer. Um that’s not what we would look for as the first hire doesn’t mean you’re not going to grow and expand into meeting that kind of expertise within your org um but for me, technical knowledge is one of the easiest things to learn and like SaM said the contract for so yeah, what we want to ensure we’re not doing is outsourcing the brains because if you do that then you really risk making bad investments and bad prioritization so you might be doing the wrong work or not actually getting at the root of what’s needed because truly like no one has better knowledge of the needs and nuances and changes of your organization than someone internally. So you need someone internally who is truly tasked with owning and stewarding, you know, the strategy, technical work and investments for your platform. The way that we do that is like, you know, we do all of our own admin work inside and then we have a phenomenal partner for our sales force team that if we need any coding or high level development, there’s not enough of that work for us to need to staff a full time position, but we have a great partner that we can outsource that work to um but again, like sam saying it’s not just an outsourcing, we don’t have a partner that’s just an order taker. They’re not just like, yes, we’ll do it. They really come to the table and we expect and ask of them to bring their wisdom and their critical thinking and their partnership so that they up our game, so they’re just not execute ear’s, they’re actually asking questions and giving advice about how we’re investing in our technology as well. So we get an additional phenomenal external partner on our

[00:34:18.62] spk_0:
work. And I can see why you said earlier that you’re constantly making the case for a particular technology investment, you know, what’s the, what’s the return gonna be, how is this gonna improve our efficiency? You know, I can see how your regularly making this case these cases all

[00:34:47.30] spk_2:
the time. Yeah. You know, and we started with moving the air, creating a Crm team internally and advocating for this type of investment on crm structuring the team in this way, finding the external partners in, you know, replacing old platforms that were not performing well with newer technology. Um, and then a few years down the road, you know, went back to chris and SAm, I think our executive director went back and said, hey, we’re experiencing a lot of pain on the web, like what’s going on over here, and they’re like, it’s the same issue you’ve got to treat and staff your web technology like you have crm. So we’ve brought web into the fold and made the same kind of advocacy and same kind of investment for internal staffing, Internal stewardship and external partners.

[00:36:03.20] spk_1:
Yeah. And you know, Tony. I think you see the same sort of like when there’s pain, there’s turf penis because people are just fighting to get the basics of what they need to do their work. So they say, no, this is ours, we’re gonna hold on to this is, you know, I had to go build a new web site. So I’m gonna hold onto this with everything I got, once you have a team like Ananda hired this amazing uh, product manager for web jesse jones. Once Jessie’s in there, people are only too happy to sort of let go of control because they know that she is gonna look out for their needs and do it 10 times better than they could have done it themselves. And meanwhile they get to do their fundraising or communications or program work and focus on that. So it’s just this process of getting everybody optimized onto the skills that they are best suited for and the things they love to wake up in the morning and geek out on, you know, what better option is there, that one, you’ve got the tools all that, that you need and two, you get to do the work, you’re excited about with them. It’s, you know, a lot of it is common sense, but it’s about bringing the right types of people in

[00:36:28.82] spk_0:
ananda? What have we not talked about yet that you want folks to know about this the process or the investment maybe questions that came during your session that you think are were valuable.

[00:36:33.03] spk_2:
Yeah let’s see what have we not covered yet. We’ve covered a lot.

[00:36:38.04] spk_0:
Well non profit radio is a comprehensive podcast. I hope I hope you’re not surprised by that.

[00:36:43.06] spk_2:
I expected nothing less.

[00:36:44.64] spk_0:
Thank you very much. Thank you that’s the validation I’m looking for. Thank

[00:36:48.60] spk_1:
you very

[00:36:49.47] spk_0:
important to me it’s very important

[00:37:59.95] spk_2:
um I would just say I think the only other thing that um I have discovered in my work here that um is important is often people can start conflating um digital product team members with more like traditional I. T. And so one of the things that has become important about my role is really protecting my team’s time in their remit so often you know when you put these really ally oriented folks onto your staff and they start fixing all of these pain points or debacles and make things run smoothly and get improved and partner with your gold team members, your content members. Um you can start to develop a reputation as almost like a fixer and so one of the things is then all of a sudden you’re getting all kinds of questions like hey can you fix this printer, can you work on my computer, Can you do this? So I think you know we touched on it earlier about the three different areas of technology but really keeping that distinction and not letting you know I. T. And digital products kind of become one in people’s minds because then all of a sudden you have folks who re we have the potential to be force multipliers for your organization whose time ends up getting eaten up by you know fixing that are important but they’re not really what the remit of this

[00:38:14.17] spk_0:
exactly

[00:38:24.51] spk_2:
which is so important if you need to print that’s important to your job. But that’s not a force multiplication for the productive nous. And the mission of your organization said it’s a different skill set and they should be treated and maintained separately.

[00:38:34.04] spk_0:
Sam same question for you. Anything you’d like to uh I’d like to add that we haven’t talked about yet.

[00:39:26.23] spk_1:
No it indeed it has been very comprehensive and I appreciate the time to talk about it. I guess I would just say um that the the this path is very possible. Organizations can make this transition and like we say it there’s no shortcut you have to put in the time to focus on the resources you have to care enough uh to really invest and to invest in all those ways but you can walk down this path that’s why we’ve tried to share these resources as as openly as we have. It’s all there like the bill tank dot com slash roadmap you can read through it. Um it’s just about the sort of common sense of things are not going to be great unless you have great people stewarding them, just like every area of your organization. So I guess the thing I want to, I just want to offer some hope to people who are struggling under the burden of systems that hold them back instead of supercharge them that it is possible, you know, it’s not possible without investment but with the right investment in the right structures it is possible that everybody has the tools they need to work more effectively to be more happy at their work, to be more effective at the end of the day and to have more impact

[00:39:46.44] spk_0:
and you’ll find the resource at the build tank dot com slash resource map source roadmap of course that’s roadmap. The build tank build tank dot com slash

[00:39:58.45] spk_1:
roadmap which

[00:40:00.13] spk_0:
is the roadmap to better technology tomorrow for our happy homemakers

[00:40:04.77] spk_1:
19

[00:40:11.24] spk_0:
50s. Alright, that’s Sam Dorman, he’s co founder at the build tank and also Ananda robi, managing Director of digital Products at Center for Action and Contemplation. Ananda SAm thank you very very much for sharing. Thanks

[00:40:22.10] spk_1:
tony

[00:40:24.06] spk_2:
pleasure,

[00:41:45.33] spk_0:
thank you and thank you listeners for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 N. T. C. Next week. We now return to our regularly scheduled non 22 N. T. C. Programming principles of sustained fundraising with larry johnson. 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 Yes, I Tion for in a box, the affordable tech solution for non profits but also get the free offer, the listener offer all of its at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. You know, 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 this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation Scottie with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for April 26, 2021: Prepare To Tell Future Impact Stories & Modernizing Your IT Function

My Guests:

Stephanie Fast & Jeff Melando: Prepare To Tell Future Impact Stories

My guests from 21NTC want you to invest in technology, so you have the outcome and impact data you need to tell great stories. They’re Stephanie Fast and Jeff Melando, both from Social Solutions.

 

 

 

 

Derrick Gilbert: Modernizing Your IT Function

Now that you have a purpose for your IT upgrade, let’s take it to the next level. Derrick Gilbert explains his people, process and technology framework for IT upgrades that rival corporate achievements. He’s founder of Gil Technology Group. This is also from 21NTC.

 

 

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View Full Transcript

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[00:00:02.84] spk_6:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti

[00:00:12.35] spk_7:
non profit

[00:00:12.97] spk_6:
radio big non profit

[00:00:15.11] spk_7:
ideas for the

[00:01:39.94] spk_4:
Other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh and I’m glad you’re with me I’d suffer the embarrassment of axillary hyperhidrosis if you gave me sweats with the idea that you missed this week’s show prepared to tell future impact stories. My guests from 21 NTC want you to invest in technology so you have the outcome and impact data. You need to tell great stories. There’s Stephanie fast and Jeff Blando both from social solutions and modernizing your I. T. Function now that you have a purpose for your I. T. Upgrade. Let’s take it to the next level. Derek Gilbert explains his people process and technology framework for I. T. Upgrades that rival corporate achievements. He’s founder of Gil Technology Group. This is also from 21. NTCC Antonis take two. Your mission based relationships were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. And you’ll be hearing more about them throughout our 21 NTC coverage here is prepared to tell future impact stories.

[00:01:44.94] spk_7:
Welcome to tony-martignetti

[00:01:46.03] spk_1:
Non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC, the 2021 nonprofit technology

[00:01:51.64] spk_7:
Conference. We are sponsored at 21 NTC by

[00:01:57.84] spk_4:
turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o.

[00:02:01.14] spk_7:
My guest now our Stephanie Fast

[00:02:03.33] spk_1:
and Jeff Milan does. They are both with social Solutions. Stephanie

[00:02:08.26] spk_7:
is president of Impact

[00:02:10.19] spk_1:
Partners at Social Solutions and Jeff is director

[00:02:14.51] spk_7:
of Impact Partners. Stephanie Jeff Welcome.

[00:02:18.54] spk_2:
Thank you for having us.

[00:02:19.82] spk_7:
Have you?

[00:02:22.14] spk_4:
Thank you very much. Your workshop topic is impact

[00:02:25.07] spk_7:
stories

[00:02:26.13] spk_1:
combining stories and data to better prove impact.

[00:02:31.83] spk_7:
Uh Stephanie, what we see that some shortcomings in

[00:02:36.12] spk_1:
storytelling, are they either to anecdotal or two data driven? Is that the

[00:02:40.54] spk_5:
problem? Well, I

[00:03:14.74] spk_3:
think that’s the problem historically is that the nonprofits have focused on telling the stories of their work, but they haven’t been in a position to tell the data that to use the data to back up those stories. So the, the readers get heavy on one side, which is the, the emotional side of the stories without having the technological data to support them. So are you know, what we were talking about in our in our session was how do you tell a better story? How do you bring those two together to be more impactful? Because you’re balancing both the heart and the head?

[00:03:20.74] spk_7:
Okay, right.

[00:03:25.24] spk_1:
The heart and the head. Very good. All right. Uh, important distinctions to make.

[00:03:26.54] spk_7:
Right. All right.

[00:03:38.94] spk_1:
So because we want to be data driven, but we also want to have some emotional appeal. Um, so Stephanie, let’s stay with you. Why don’t you get us started? How do we, what do we first think about if we’re going to be writing and we want to write one of these impact stories?

[00:04:55.94] spk_3:
Well, one of the things that, that Jeff and I talk about a lot is that you have to plan for data, it’s not something that just happens automatically. So most of the non profits that we talked to our, our clients of SSG have already sort of gone through their reporting cycle to their funders, right? They’ve written their 2020 statements, however, you know, um, unique. And um, I want to say, you know, messed up right? For let go better where like 2020 was what it was, right? And, and there was a lot of changes that we saw with funders in terms of their requirements for reporting, they reduced requirements. They allowed nonprofits to have more flexibility and how they spend There are funds. And, and so the reports that the nonprofits created for 2020 sort of reflect that like they had to just, you know, get work done as fast as possible. Kind of blow things out and, and so they’ve, they’ve now had a chance to report back to their funders on what they’ve accomplished. The, what we’ve been talking about is how is 2021 going to be different? Right? 2021? Like when we’re sitting a year from now in March of 2022, you know, looking back at 2021, like what do you want to do differently? When you talk about your impact in 2021 and if you’re going to have a change in your story, then you got to start thinking about the data that’s going to support that story now, right? Like figure out what you want to say next year. And then let’s back it up and look at what do we need to do today to be prepared to tell that story a year from now, Jeff, Jeff, pardon me. I was just seeing if Jeff had anything to add

[00:05:17.61] spk_1:
to that. Well, I was gonna ask

[00:05:18.61] spk_7:
the same. Yeah,

[00:05:19.44] spk_1:
absolutely. We’ve got to get to Jeff Jeff. All right. So, so yes, we’re going to predict what we want to be able to say. So how do we start now deciding what to capture to say that a year from now?

[00:06:46.84] spk_2:
I think, I think a lot of nonprofits, especially the providers of human services that we get to work with in our, in our daily lives at work, they know what they’re good at inherently because they’re doing it every day. But it takes a bit of a heads up approach to think about systems and strategies and most nonprofits don’t have time to do that right there like knee deep in the river trying to catch fish. And somebody is on the, on the, on the banks of the river with like a net saying like, do you want to try something different? Um, and so that’s kind of where we sit today, right? And we, it’s a constant, constant thing, right? There’s always room for innovation. There’s always a role that technology can play. And, and the, I’ve heard it once. I’ve heard it 1000 times nonprofits are behind when it comes to tech investment. Um, and we know that, right? Look at, look at the public-sector side or even the for profit business side studies are stone for profit businesses are investing anywhere from 13 to 22 of their bottom line revenue on technology because they know experience formacion a lets them do more with fewer human resources, Right? Nonprofits. I think Anton’s latest statistics is about two of annual operating budget is spent on tech.

[00:06:49.33] spk_1:
Oh my, it’s that low 2%.

[00:09:06.84] spk_2:
That’s, that’s the latest number that I’ve seen. And I’m, I’m not all that surprised. And if you look at the types of technology that most nonprofits have universal access to its Microsoft office and it’s an operating system and it’s a calculator, Right? Well, that’s really hard to show that you’ve actually exchanged. You actually moved the family from housing, insecure you stable, right. Other than you just put that in a letter to your donors or your funders, right. Um, so to be able to invest in like the technology infrastructure and the capacity to prove it and to prove it, not only that you’ve done it for that one family but that you’ve done for every family that you’ve touched or that you do a current X percentage of the families that you touched to be able to show your success is one side of the coin. I think the other side of the coin, maybe the side of the coin nobody wants to talk about. No nonprofits wanna talk about funders I want to ask about is what are the things that we’re doing and spending time and resources on that we’re not good at. So anecdotally we work with a nonprofit uh Were there for years. Right. Big non profit they run five programs in their community. They adopted some data systems to track their impact statistically quantitatively. And what they realized is four of their programs extremely impactful participants enrolled in those programs were having just massive life changes that broke down cycles like poverty or or domestic violence or abuse. The 5th 1 they were mediocre at and when they compared their notes with another nonprofit around town that did the same service, they found out that that other nonprofit was way better. So they developed a partnership, but data driven partnership to actually extend a better experience to the people that need that service in their community. So when I think about impact, I know that um, funders want to talk about impact for the sake of nonprofits telling it to them so that they can say look at what we invested in. But really impact is about changing a person’s life, right? So I don’t want to get to like it’s all about data, it’s all about stories, It’s all about telling this to your funders and it really it comes down to doing good work to change the reality of a person’s life. Right? Does that make sense? All right.

[00:09:12.48] spk_1:
Yeah. You said a lot there. I mean, I’m trying to I’m trying to take away,

[00:09:16.43] spk_7:
you know,

[00:09:24.54] spk_1:
technology investment, uh, and there’s lessons to be learned from the corporate side, but also

[00:09:25.86] spk_7:
focus

[00:09:28.64] spk_1:
on what you do best because because the things you’re not doing well are sucking resources away from where you you can be much more efficient. Every dollar spent on a lackluster program is a is a dollar not spent on a highly efficient and impactful and successful program.

[00:09:44.24] spk_2:
Yeah, economists would call that opportunity cost, right?

[00:09:53.84] spk_1:
Yes. The opportunity cost of doing something you’re not so good at is high when you’re talking about people’s lives or clean

[00:09:54.83] spk_7:
our air. All right. All right. All right. So, let’s get we gotta get back to now. We gotta get back to the root of uh

[00:10:02.94] spk_1:
writing these impactful stories. So drill this down now, Jeff. I’m not letting you off

[00:10:05.92] spk_7:
the hook. Bring

[00:10:07.01] spk_1:
me bring us back to

[00:10:09.14] spk_7:
writing impactful stories.

[00:10:11.24] spk_2:
So what if I got

[00:10:12.96] spk_1:
a deadline I’m on. I’m on deadline here. I’ve got a I got a 250 word e newsletter piece that’s got to be done by midday tomorrow. Where am I here?

[00:11:03.34] spk_2:
So, non profit Yeah. Do you think do you think your Thunder wants to hear about all the cool stuff that you did? Or do you think your Thunder wants to be shown the impact of all the cool stuff that you did? Right? That’s what it comes down to. Right. So take your data kill your investors, whether their institutional funders, private philanthropy, corporate funders or even individual donors and show them that the dollars that they spend on you are well invested. Um There are definitely donors out there that give from the heart and that’s very nice. And they’re definitely institutional funders out there that just want to write the check and hear about how many kids you served. But the ones that are going to be long term partners, the ones that are gonna give you grants year over year, maybe long term grants. They’re the ones that are gonna want to see that you’re the type of organization that believes in proof and evidence and that you have model and the systems to tell it.

[00:11:37.04] spk_1:
All right. All right. So there’s there’s there’s a lot that has to be set up. Well, that this is back to Stephanie’s point. You need to know what you want to capture and your point you have to have the technology uh, and the most efficient programs to capture the best. I mean, your most efficient programs are gonna show better data than your lackluster programs. So. All right. All

[00:12:28.14] spk_2:
right. And it’s as much a learning her for nonprofits as it is for funders. This is we often try to separate the two conversations because there Technically two different types of organizations. This is the same problem encountered for both groups. Write a funder says, Hey, I have this grant where I gave money to this organization that went to schools and handed out brochures about dental hygiene. What’s the how do I measure the impact of that? Was like, well, you don’t, there isn’t any like that’s a sponsorship not to grant. You know, if you’re investing in a fund is invested in organization, they should also want to invest in that organization. Success. Not just right, but you faded out. Not just what, not just writing the check in. Just in the success

[00:12:32.38] spk_1:
invest, right? Investment, not just a transaction

[00:12:35.58] spk_2:
versus a

[00:12:36.30] spk_7:
transaction. All right, Stephanie, Stephanie,

[00:12:49.54] spk_1:
I want I want you to bring us back to. I still am, I still have my deadline for 250 word article. And uh that I need to plan For what I want to say in 2021. It’s not gonna help me write my my impact story with my new deadline for tomorrow.

[00:14:42.64] spk_5:
Right. So one of the things that we that we talk a lot about is about the difference between outputs and outcomes and insights and impacts. Right? So there is a continuum. And I think the old way of of sort of looking at it was like dollars per participant. Right? So you could see how many people did I serve, Right. That’s sort of the old way of doing that. And I know it because that’s kind of my background. So I came from a nonprofit, I worked as a chief financial officer of a nonprofit for 12 years. And over the course of those 12 years when we started, we that’s what we were doing. We were counting how many people got access to clean water, right? How many people got access to a school and what we were finding over the last 5-7 years. I think it coincides with what technology is able to provide, right that the abilities of um, of technology keep growing so that you’re able to use data to find more and more. You can track more and more things and you can and you can move beyond just tracking access or just tracking outputs. And I think you’ve got to, you’ve got to develop your theory of change. You’ve got to figure out what, what is the true out outcome that you want to achieve and how do the outputs relate to that? Right? That’s an activity. That non profit should go through and figure out like what is their theory of change? We we did that at my former organization because our our donors were starting to ask those kinds of questions. They were starting to get more sophisticated. They were writing bigger checks. If the bigger checks, you get, the more that they’re likely to be thinking about impacts instead of outputs. Right? And so when you start moving from that mindset of just tracking the small outputs to starting to think about the outcomes, then you start to track different things. And that’s how you build what you want to track next year by thinking about what do I need to start tracking now?

[00:14:52.24] spk_1:
Okay. All right. My hypothetical uh my hypothetical writer who has articles still not written,

[00:14:59.30] spk_7:
That’s still not

[00:15:00.13] spk_4:
right. All right. So, I should have planned. All right. So

[00:15:03.35] spk_7:
All right, Well, the lesson

[00:15:04.46] spk_4:
is that

[00:15:05.44] spk_1:
you’re not gonna be able to write a great

[00:15:07.48] spk_7:
impact story

[00:15:10.54] spk_1:
for tomorrow at noon with unless you’ve got things in place

[00:15:14.24] spk_7:
to to track real

[00:15:16.37] spk_4:
outcomes, real, real real impact outcomes versus impact, I understand the difference.

[00:15:21.05] spk_7:
Alright, alright. So

[00:15:23.34] spk_1:
you’ll have to work with the data

[00:15:24.45] spk_7:
that you’ve got

[00:15:25.74] spk_1:
and weave that into a narrative for your deadline story that’s due tomorrow.

[00:16:13.24] spk_3:
And I think that if you haven’t planned then you’re going to have to rely heavier on the case studies and heavier on the you know, taking one piece, one example of how your work has transformed someone, right? And if you don’t have the data writ large, then you’re going to have to find the data in a microcosm and then tell that story. Um as part, you know, when I was saying before, was this balance apartment head, But if you don’t have the big data to talk about, then then pick a small case study and wrap your, wrap your impact around that one individual and how they’ve been transformed by your services. Okay.

[00:16:14.74] spk_1:
Okay. All right. You got

[00:16:15.49] spk_2:
unfortunately if if you didn’t invest in the in the right infrastructure to get the data, your noon deadline tomorrow is uh there’s a sane in the south. The ship sailed.

[00:16:27.04] spk_1:
Yeah, no, that’s

[00:16:28.13] spk_2:
clear. Alright.

[00:16:36.24] spk_1:
Well, yeah, we say something in the north. Well, I’m in north north Carolina now, but I’m from the north, which is, you know, you’re screwed, you work with what you’ve got and and Stephanie, Stephanie just explained how you can take an anecdote and you can you can also craft that into a larger sum larger narrative, but maybe without the ideal without the ideal data about about true impact.

[00:16:54.44] spk_7:
And and

[00:18:01.34] spk_2:
and we’ll never we’ll never have perfect data. There is no such thing in an ideal world will have clean and complete data, but it still won’t be the entire picture. I think whether you have good data or bad data that the end goal is no, I mean make for your investors, funders, donors community understand the work that you do understand why it’s helped them understand why it’s important and who your who’s benefiting from it, right? Find outside resources. So do your research. I’m on the help out. Didn’t say I’m on the board. Help out with a nonprofit here in charlotte. Um, that does empathy education. It’s really hard to get like metrics for a nonprofit with one employee around empathy education. But what we do have is research, right? We can show that by doing empathy education. K through five people are more likely to be nicer. They’re less likely to participate in bullying, right? Um, and the research happens to come from Harvard. So that’s, that’s a start, Right? So in the absence of data, find someone else that had data and show that you’re similar enough. Right? So, okay, there you go.

[00:18:07.47] spk_1:
All right, You can use them outside. You can use some outside numbers.

[00:18:10.10] spk_7:
You’re in charlotte. We’re only about five hours away by car.

[00:18:12.92] spk_4:
Where are you? I mean Emerald

[00:18:14.54] spk_1:
Isle on the beach.

[00:18:15.69] spk_0:
Okay, Very cool.

[00:18:18.44] spk_2:
Oh, I actually went to, so I went to Unc Wilmington. So yeah, hour and a

[00:18:23.25] spk_7:
quarter of south or so. Yeah, I have

[00:18:25.08] spk_4:
the ocean across the street here.

[00:18:26.53] spk_2:
I’m very jealous how close you are to a port city java. I know on podcast we don’t want to plug businesses that aren’t necessarily sponsors, but if you are attention folks listeners, if you are in coastal north Carolina and you go pass a port city java and your coffee drinker do not drive past it without getting something

[00:18:45.32] spk_1:
as he takes a sip from his mug. It’s not a port city java mug, but we don’t have Port City java here in Emerald Isle.

[00:18:52.04] spk_7:
It’s a small thing you’re

[00:18:52.97] spk_2:
not very far from, pardon

[00:18:54.95] spk_7:
me,

[00:18:55.53] spk_2:
not very far from, not very far from

[00:18:57.23] spk_1:
maybe anymore head

[00:18:58.73] spk_7:
or something. Okay,

[00:18:59.79] spk_1:
We’re a small town, only about 3500 time residents here, which is why I like

[00:19:04.37] spk_7:
it. Um, alright, but Port city job, that’s okay. We can shout out non

[00:19:07.86] spk_4:
sponsors. That’s right.

[00:19:09.44] spk_7:
We shouted out social solutions, you’re not sponsored, So

[00:19:12.22] spk_1:
there you go. There you go.

[00:19:13.94] spk_7:
Okay. Um, all

[00:19:15.80] spk_4:
right, so let you know this is becoming

[00:19:17.12] spk_7:
more of a conversation about

[00:19:23.34] spk_1:
how to prepare to write impact stories next year, which is where you started out, Stephanie, you know, saying you need to know what you want to report on a year from now to put those things in place to have the numbers to do so.

[00:19:31.69] spk_7:
Um

[00:19:32.59] spk_4:
All right,

[00:19:33.37] spk_7:
all right, that’s right.

[00:19:34.34] spk_1:
We we got our we’ve got our

[00:19:35.81] spk_7:
my my deadline off the hook, so we’re

[00:19:38.08] spk_1:
okay, you gave some solutions for that.

[00:19:44.84] spk_2:
I think the, like the actual story is the easy part if you build the the infrastructure to Yeah,

[00:19:50.34] spk_1:
that’s the point. Right? So I’m saying that this has evolved into a plan for the

[00:19:54.31] spk_7:
future, your impact stories

[00:20:02.94] spk_1:
for sure or impactful story. Impact stories, I guess. Yeah. To write those stories. Right? So, um, let’s talk a little more about then, what since that’s where we

[00:20:11.74] spk_7:
are. Um this preparation, you know what we’ve talked about the data driven, let’s talk about some of the emotional appeal,

[00:20:15.55] spk_1:
like Stephanie, you said, you know, it’s the brains and the heart.

[00:20:18.79] spk_7:
Let’s let’s

[00:20:23.64] spk_1:
all right for this story that we’re gonna be writing a year from now. How do we bring in more of the heart?

[00:21:44.34] spk_3:
Well, I think the place to start is with the people who are closest to the work. Right? So I think the best place to start talking about Case studies is with the caseworkers, right? They’re the ones that have the most direct experience with individuals, it’s not in the marketing department, it should start with the people in the field when in my in my previous role, uh that was we were doing work in Ethiopia, and so are field workers. Were the ones that were capturing the stories, you know, in the small communities, in the small rural communities, right? Because they’re the ones taking the pictures and I think people don’t want anymore, they don’t want the cookie cutter story of this little boy gets up at 4 30 in the morning, walks six miles to go get water. I mean, unfortunately that we’ve heard those stars too often. So I think what is appealing to people now is something that’s more raw, that’s more vulnerable. That’s more uh like real life of of what somebody is experiencing in the most direct way. That doesn’t feel candor staged. It doesn’t even have to be 100% good outcome. I think people are as interested in why things fail as why things succeed. And I think the more people are willing to tell authentic stories that that come come at issues from new perspectives. I think that really resonates with with readers.

[00:21:57.74] spk_7:
Okay, Jeff you wanna you wanna hit to the heart?

[00:24:31.94] spk_2:
Yeah. And I think if if we usually, usually with nonprofits, the Hearts, the part this nonprofit was typically started to do something for people, right? So there’s an inherent emotional attachment, emotional load do that. Um, so we almost say exclusively, but a lot of times it’s getting the pulling out from the emotion. What is it’s wonderful that we we got this family stable housing. How does that, how does that help them like go go one step further with the data? Um, but I agree with Steph, it’s about getting the stories from on the ground and it’s got a very non profit and non profit. Right? Um, so your Art museum, you have have to think about, Well, we have these great exhibits and we have this much, you know, there’s many people coming to see it and they’re experiencing this art that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. I’d also think about the equity of it, right? So, Oh, but also we have, you know, we subsidize visits for people of this income level and we have school trips come through, but that’s gonna be completely different if you’re an after school program, right? If you’re an after school program, you probably have really good data around, Hey, we know after the 14th absence, this kid is 40 less likely to graduate for any given grade, right? Well, what that means for little timmy is that he means family just lost their house and now they’re in a hotel. So we had to switch schools, which meant he was out of school for 10 full days. We have to intervene, right? To show show your readers. Think, first of all, think about what your readers are interested in and what you want to get out of it. So if it’s a donor or if it’s a community member and or a Thunder, you want to be able to show that you’re solving a problem, that you are providing a unique solution to a problem that we know exists in society. Um and from there, an accurate description of the problem is often a lot of the heart, the heart will automatically respond to that. The thing about that’s the thing about the heart or the other side of the brain. It’s it’s sort of it’s very responsive to that pain and under like it’s not hard to understand what it must be like to be a family losing their home or a person that’s out of work, especially this year with the pandemic. That’s easy, right? The next step is showing and here’s how our solution solves that. But by this point, if if your if your problem is real and your solution is good, people are already crying.

[00:24:39.14] spk_1:
Yeah. And and a lot of this emotion is uh Stephanie said it’s going to come from the folks who are actually doing the work on the ground, you know, the caseworker with timmy’s family.

[00:25:07.84] spk_2:
Yeah. And there are certainly cases where like instances where you don’t want to necessarily use who real world of an example, domestic violence shelters don’t, you’re not going to use a name or anything personally identifiable? Absolutely. 100%. We there’s always going to be data sensitivities and to think otherwise is um maybe blindsided. But that’s not to say that there aren’t stories that matter. And there are stories that are both meaningful from an emotional standpoint, but also backed up by data and science and proof

[00:27:22.14] spk_3:
tony Can I offer another perspective to this conversation? Um if we have time. So one of the other things that we’re talking about when you’re, when you’re building your impact story is not to do it in a silo. So even though you are one organization, you are part of a community, right? And we um we are trying to break down the barriers between organizations working in silos to getting people to have more of a community mindset, both in terms of the nonprofits that are working together to solve a person’s needs. Like he was talking about little timmy is needs homelessness help, He needs job or his parents need job help. He probably is food insecure. You know, there are people don’t live single issue lives anymore. They need they need organizations that can work together and can think about things in a community like fashion, both on the nonprofit side and on the thunder side. Right. What Jeff and I do is strictly raise money so that nonprofits can adopt technology, whatever technology they have, whether it’s social solutions or another technology, all we’re trying to do is get money into this sector because we think change starts with technology, right? So when you can get the funders to start thinking in a community way like pools of money and getting outcomes tracked for the whole sector, right? The whole community, then you start to have a different story to tell as well. And that story also would translate into your impact stories because then you’re looking at, you’re like, hey, it’s not just about how many people I served, it’s how many families got out of poverty because I’m connected to this bigger network and through this network, working together and sharing, sharing data and sharing outcomes and sharing, you know, tracking people across organizations. We were able to get x number of people sort of out of the system, which is ultimately the goal, right? The goal is not to just give them a meal. The goal is to get them stable so that they can resist a shock when it comes their way and that they can get sort of placed out of the system. And so like Jeff and I, you know, we we are obsessed with getting money into the sector so that so that this work can start to happen on a community level.

[00:27:43.94] spk_1:
Okay, we’re gonna leave it there. All right, Stephanie, we let Jeff shout out that he’s in charlotte north Carolina. Where are you

[00:27:48.99] spk_3:
in Austin texas?

[00:27:50.86] spk_4:
All right, go

[00:27:52.11] spk_1:
on. You’ve got yes, your bio said you’ve got three daughters in what, three different gig um, horns, boola boola and

[00:28:00.64] spk_3:
and roll

[00:28:01.48] spk_5:
tide. Roll, yep, we’re waiting

[00:28:04.75] spk_1:
for the tide is Alabama. I looked these up but I don’t remember

[00:28:08.52] spk_5:
what boola boola boola

[00:28:09.50] spk_3:
boola is. Yale. My youngest

[00:28:10.94] spk_5:
one in the ROTC

[00:28:12.00] spk_3:
program at Yale. Okay, and what was the third one is hook em horns. She’s a longhorn. She’s here in

[00:28:16.62] spk_5:
Austin at the

[00:28:17.87] spk_3:
University of texas. Ut

[00:28:19.48] spk_7:
ut

[00:28:20.84] spk_1:
that’s Stephanie, fast

[00:28:22.03] spk_7:
President of recent

[00:28:23.58] spk_1:
President of Impact Partners at Social solutions and Jeff Blando. Director of Impact Partners Also, it’s social Solutions. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you

[00:28:32.28] spk_5:
Jeff, Thank you Tony.

[00:28:33.65] spk_3:
This is a great

[00:28:39.54] spk_1:
pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you And thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of the 2021 nonprofit technology conference

[00:28:42.74] spk_7:
where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen

[00:30:12.84] spk_4:
two dot c o It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Here they are when there’s something in the news and you want to be heard on it. When you want to get an op ed published. When you want a guest on blogs and podcasts, speaker at conferences and be shared on social. You turn to turn to, they have the relationships, they know how to get you the coverage, they know how to get you covered. Turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o as you’ve heard a few times throughout the show. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Your mission is the basis for your relationships. This has come up a couple times. Just this past week, questions about, you know, what do we talk to people about or how do we open a conversation? It’s your mission. That’s what you have in common with folks. Now, I’m not so much talking about acquiring new donors that, you know, my work is planned giving. We don’t acquire new donors. That’s a different science and art. I’m talking about having conversations, planned giving or otherwise with any of your existing donors. Even even first time donors, they’ve, they’ve just done it. What’s the common denominator between you and them? It’s your work they gave to your work. Even if it’s just one time

[00:30:21.24] spk_7:
you have it in common.

[00:30:22.38] spk_4:
You build from there. That’s the basis of your relationship.

[00:30:26.24] spk_1:
Now, of course, in planned giving, you’re talking to folks who have been given to you for a long time,

[00:30:36.54] spk_4:
easily decades and lots and lots of cases, decades. So, but the, so the relationship is,

[00:30:39.14] spk_7:
is already exists to some degree and you’re just

[00:30:42.66] spk_4:
maybe trying to expand

[00:30:43.71] spk_7:
it to be a little more

[00:30:44.69] spk_4:
personal. But wherever

[00:30:46.72] spk_7:
you are in

[00:30:47.67] spk_1:
either end of that spectrum

[00:30:49.87] spk_7:
from new

[00:30:50.86] spk_1:
donor or to plant

[00:30:52.96] spk_7:
giving or

[00:31:01.94] spk_4:
anywhere in between your mission, your work, your values, the importance of all that, that’s the common denominator that you’ve got with folks. That’s what you build your relationship from. You have conversations and

[00:31:09.55] spk_7:
those conversations might be digital

[00:32:04.84] spk_4:
or you know marketing materials, I mean conversations figura figuratively your conversations are about that. That’s what you’ve got in common with other folks. That’s what they want to talk to you about now. Of course you can build a relationship from there naturally. But that’s what you’ve got to start your relationship building with, that’s what you’ve got in common. So work from that and I wish you of course fruitful relationships of all types, all types of whether it’s volunteer or the folks you’re helping, wherever those relationships are, they come from your mission That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for nonprofit radio here is modernizing your I. T. Function.

[00:32:09.14] spk_7:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC. The 2021 nonprofit

[00:32:22.54] spk_4:
Technology Conference were sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn

[00:32:25.94] spk_7:
hyphen two dot C. O. I’m kicking off our 21 NTCC

[00:32:27.88] spk_4:
coverage right now. My very first guest of the

[00:32:30.63] spk_7:
conference is

[00:32:31.77] spk_1:
Derek G. Gilbert. He’s founder and chief business technologist at Gil Technology Group.

[00:32:37.38] spk_7:
He’s at D G. Gilbert

[00:32:42.04] spk_4:
I T. B A. Derek Welcome to

[00:32:43.65] spk_7:
Non private radio and uh kick off of the 21 NTC coverage.

[00:32:47.64] spk_0:
Thank you. Glad to be here, appreciate it. Been watching you last four or five. Ntc. So happy to be part of it. Yes,

[00:32:58.56] spk_1:
usually right. When we were on site, I’ve always been on the conference, the exhibit room floor. Cool. Thanks

[00:33:04.74] spk_7:
thanks for seeing us there.

[00:33:05.67] spk_4:
Okay.

[00:33:06.54] spk_7:
Um your topic is modernizing the I. T. Function people

[00:33:11.93] spk_1:
process and

[00:33:15.24] spk_7:
technology. I want to kick off by just asking what does modernization look like for nonprofits?

[00:33:22.14] spk_0:
Uh that’s the question of the day. Excuse me. I didn’t get a lot of coffee and we have a call.

[00:33:29.18] spk_7:
Okay thank you. Thank

[00:33:30.42] spk_1:
your time. We got plenty of time to talk about it. Don’t worry.

[00:34:50.94] spk_0:
Yeah. Uh non profit The whole principle proposed that session is that I believe in being able to leverage things in different industries into non profit. So I’m trying to to see how we can how the benefits the ceos of commercial enterprise leverage modernization and to improve their bottom line that nonprofits to definitely modernize their I. T. In order to their bottom line which is creating greater impact and and fulfilling the mission. So I’m organization It’s basically three phases. Once that people process and technology. I read an article. Mckinsey Company had an article about how Ceo with modernizing it for revenue games and you talked about the role of the I. T. Function needs to change a modern it uh organizations that actually become more strategic. And I know that the nonprofit has been quite a few years supporting nonprofit is technologies mostly seemed that the tactical solution to what the mission is versus a strategic element. So the first thing is to the role of I. T. Should be raised to be a strategic the culture should be more strategic and we so

[00:35:02.04] spk_1:
well so just we can you know we in the in the nonprofit community can can get the same types of benefits that we’re seeing with technology on the on the commercial side.

[00:36:59.73] spk_0:
Yes the different for different outcomes. Right? So permission for example, you know, in the commercial space, people may modernize to reduce costs in order to increase their profit line, increase better financial picture. The nonprofit space were modernized to reduce costs. But that’s also to put more money, uh, into investing into the mission or into services. But the idea is that when I see strategically, it’s like I can do more mission, more value to the constituents if I have more up to date in modern technology, uh, strategically thinking. So we look at the beginning of the front. So there are some financial and non financial benefits either way. So I was just trying to use the fact that, uh, let’s, let’s let’s position I think differently as a partner, uh, strategic partner as well as identified the right reasons we know that night, uh, non profits. They are challenged by funds for administrative or general services such as sad overhead. And so the second piece of that is you really got to have the right people that, I mean, I always quote Jim Collins book good to great to talk about the right people. So you gotta have talented and so I know you can’t have a whole slew of staff, but I think you need a leader there and you need a qualified leader. So the resources and then strategically use vendors, which were not a process. They do all the time they outsource but the right type of stuff. And then you look at how to modernize their technology infrastructure. And now we’re going to the cloud is obviously right where to go? There’s a lot of discounts for nonprofits to move to Microsoft 365, uh, and that the whole environment that right there is everything you need to do a nonprofit and then allows you to be able to scale and be more flexible. And if you do that, you just take the now you can spend more time focusing on how do we have greater impact in the work.

[00:37:21.23] spk_1:
Okay, so you’re right. Do you have this people process and technology framework, which I was, I want to drill down into a little bit. I do. But first I want to just, I want to flush out something. So folks get the idea,

[00:37:30.07] spk_7:
what does it mean

[00:37:31.49] spk_4:
to think of

[00:37:33.33] spk_1:
technology strategically versus tactically?

[00:37:36.92] spk_7:
How, what does that, what does that mind shift

[00:37:40.09] spk_1:
look like? How do we think about technology strategically rather than tactical?

[00:38:50.32] spk_0:
But the first thing is that he always teaches that technology basic has four primary purposes of roles for technology. Technology is not happen to be more efficient. What needs to have to be more efficient, Be more effective And enable you to do something extraordinary wouldn’t be able to do. And then the 4ft which is extra duct Jim Collins that put a lot of talk about technology accelerator, I had to find an E. So I had to say extra doctor. So so when you think about at a strategic level or business level or an executive level, productivity is key to being efficient in effect, when you see that technology is going to allow you to be more productive not just do more but be more effective than he becomes strategic. Now it’s imperative that you have the right technology solutions because your staff and resources are getting things done better more and more effectively and so therefore it is greater impact. So it’s not just technology keeping the lights on or utility, it’s actually helping me drive business dr missing, drive my outcomes that then openly makes me look better in the front of Okay. Yeah, So that that’s kind of, it’s

[00:39:12.82] spk_1:
kind of like, you know, adopting technology as a partner rather than like this necessary thing. Well, you know, we all need to process spreadsheets, so, you know, we need office 3 65 you know, we need we need the office suite if we’re not in the cloud, you know, whatever. Uh

[00:39:19.33] spk_7:
But

[00:39:40.22] spk_1:
yeah, so I’m thinking of it more as a partnership than like this thing that is aside, it just helps us do our work, but it doesn’t contribute to outcomes and and success. It just is like a tool. We, you know, we just, we need it because everybody’s because everybody’s got to have it. But all right, so that’s sort of that’s the way I’m I’m sort of processing what you’re describing.

[00:39:42.93] spk_0:
And in the 21st century we no longer technology just utility just keeping the lights on because now you can invest in that technology. Yeah. You’re not gonna put a lot of money. They’re gonna try to do as cheaply as possible because you don’t see how if I do invest money, my return is going to be greater for mission fundraising and everything else. So that’s that’s okay.

[00:40:09.91] spk_1:
Yeah. Excellent. No more like not just a commodity,

[00:40:13.37] spk_7:
but yeah, an integral part of your success. Okay. Uh, thank you. Thank you. I just want to make that clear for folks because because it’s hard

[00:40:23.00] spk_4:
to shift thinking,

[00:40:24.48] spk_1:
you know, we’re just used to technology is like, you know, like this commodity, this tool we, you know, everybody’s got to have it. But you know, so I like to drill down into

[00:42:05.60] spk_0:
and I can’t let me just to bring on the people process and technology got to know about infrastructure but the people that are getting the right people there you know what I find. And I had I saw this this week as well a lot of the I. T. Leaders in the nonprofit organizations didn’t come in as I. T. That came in as a programmatic person that took on responsibilities of I. T. So this is very important that you need to have an internal resource that their expertise is I. T. Planning. Leadership assessment understanding. So then you can strategically create this partnership. So there are I. T. Business partner roles in the commercial space right? Because I’ve been looking at a few of those roads and what we need to do a position I. T. As an I. T. Department in the organization. So we ride along with the programs area of development area. We’re sitting at the table with them because we can better be informed and have better information. And the process is is that that kind of leads to the processes that you’re involved in. The shaping the strategy, the development of business operations and things like that. Not because okay we need to talk about our crm. Bring in no no bring in the I. T. Director bringing it leads. You know the processes were multidisciplinary, let’s bring it at the table. And as you were strategizing around non technical things. Technology Leader the right leader will be able to see that and they understand and identify technology needs from those conversations. That can be very fruitful.

[00:42:26.60] spk_1:
Okay okay so in the on the people’s side uh you mentioned this but I want to I want to hit home that it begins with leadership because you’re talking about making I. T. Making your tech team or your tech lead. Who like you said may very well not be a person with a technical background. Making your tech lead

[00:42:32.52] spk_7:
a part of all

[00:42:33.73] spk_1:
the conversations. I mean that’s gotta start that’s gonna start with leadership and

[00:44:34.29] spk_0:
yes and I work for national the last seven years I was the I. T. Director for them and I just ended up relationship back in october so it’s fairly neat but that’s my country. And and what happened is that we got a new directive during my tenure there and actually I was promoted to director prior to him arriving then upon my arrival I had you know he was integrated into the organization. He was having all these conversations. So I believe position I teach Tv. Because I have an NBA. So I would have just fresh out of business school and not only did maybe permanent acting director but he also elevated my position to the leadership which was executive leadership team. This is where all the business units managing directors of those programs mission programs everything. So now I was at the leadership team table because he saw that it was I typically strategic to where he wanted to take a 21st century mission model ministry model he was pushing. And so that’s when the roads and the people promoting elevating I. T. To that not only just the I. T. Department but it would behoove us to have a senior I. T. Sitting at the executive table. That his role is not just like tea but it’s the shape family for an organization. So my objective director had to do that right? So no matter how well I was doing my job, the leader, the ceo of the executive director has to have see that as a true body. And so the Mackenzie are red on this recession. It talked about how what Ceos can do to drive that down in that organization. So it’s a culture change. So but definitely the leader of the organization, the one who the stuff you wouldn’t say, the buck stops at has to say you know what it is not just a utility for us. We don’t have the right technology in the right places and people understanding that we’re not going to be able to sustain our organization.

[00:44:58.39] spk_1:
Derek what is the small organization do that doesn’t have an I. T. Lead. Maybe they maybe they lean on a consultant to help them, you know? Uh Yeah so the smaller organization that doesn’t have that benefit of somebody that was in the position that you were in.

[00:47:03.48] spk_0:
Yeah. And the national Child Record, we didn’t have a funding issue, right? We had a nice endowment. So money wasn’t an issue. We didn’t spend on it because we didn’t have the money behind ever. And small organization is very talented. There are, you know, one thing is built technology group that I’m doing now been consulting had been worked for a while, but I developed this I. T. Advising the services company. But I saw this is what I thought that nonprofits small medium, they just need the right leadership. Now they can’t afford me individual right? As as an expert, but they need to have that relationship. So there’s a lot of so good partnership. So you need to have a relationship with someone you can trust I prefer. But I will have someone independent of the organization that you’re outsourcing to. But you may be obtained that advisory role, right. It could be very affordable. And actually my approach is similar to a financial advisor is that every a flat rate. Every year I come in, I spent maybe six, six times with you doing business analysis of your technology and advise you on these things and develop a plan. So once you have a plan, mm people within the organization with project management and programme management skills can actually execute, execute the plan. But the key thing is I think you need to get the right plan in place the right vision. If you engage someone independent of any vendor that you’re using, that’s just all over here is to properly advise you find out to be the fourth that amount of contractor consulting services. And I said, well I use I listen to dependent. We had a guy in our community conversations yesterday said you feel like the Ceo. Or E. D. Got in a three year contract vendor and he’s like that’s a bad idea but he didn’t no one to talk to, right? So because of the relationship they said well I’m just gonna listen to external person but you got to realize those vendors have a goal, they have to earn revenue, they gotta sell products.

[00:47:12.95] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:47:24.18] spk_0:
Alright. Yeah. So so that is tough. But I think there’s there’s opportunity independent consultants because a lot of people who have experienced but you negotiate what you need right? Uh Sorry about that. Do you know negotiate with the services that you need to look the part time come in and help us develop a three year plan and we can be able to execute that.

[00:47:40.08] spk_1:
Let’s talk about the process then we we talked about the people in the technology and maybe we’ll say more about the technology but let’s let’s move to the process. What’s what’s that part of this framework?

[00:48:34.17] spk_0:
Yeah the process is really the strategic planning process right every year. Technology assessment maybe do all those things but however you your process little little streamline I. T. Services and delivery. Right? So what I did in my role is not only the end is a top of the help this uh software package right with online through Microsoft 3 65. Again it was free versions included. Uh the main escapes from now but that allowed the I. T. Television from an operational standpoint to be able to mesh support calls better be able to manage the assets so you have the technology to do that. So The acquisition with acquisition process uh proactively meaning don’t wait two things break down to do that. Right. Right. Life people, people end up

[00:49:12.67] spk_1:
in crisis without, you know, if they don’t have a regular modernization plan, they end up in crisis when something something fails or you know, uh an outdated app is no longer supported that they’re relying on, you know, all of a sudden now it’s now it’s a crisis instead of having a I guess a modernization path, I mean

[00:49:13.89] spk_7:
it’s but

[00:49:15.42] spk_4:
really but

[00:49:16.46] spk_7:
your technology should be a part

[00:49:17.86] spk_1:
Of your strategic plan, right? I mean wherever the organization is going, the technology needs to be right alongside with I mean integrated the way we were just talking about 10 minutes ago.

[00:49:54.87] spk_0:
correct? And that’s like that’s they in that non profit prop for profit That needs to be true and that’s the strategic nature of it right now that you develop your organizational business plan, mission plan and strategies and then say okay I. T. Director this is what we’re trying to do. They they’re looking at now you really handcuffed right? So he may look at and say well we don’t we don’t have this we don’t have that. So let’s, oh so

[00:50:16.96] spk_1:
now you’re strategic right now your strategic plan is no longer feasible because you don’t have the because the technology wasn’t a part of the conversation now you find out you can’t fund the technology to support the plan that you’re bored is just just adopted last week. Yeah I just got foisted on the I. T. Vendor whatever the I. T. Person whoever is responsible for it and what your

[00:50:22.85] spk_0:
plan. Yeah. Yeah

[00:50:26.52] spk_1:
it doesn’t. Yeah it does.

[00:50:27.93] spk_7:
Now hopefully folks are avoiding this

[00:50:29.83] spk_1:
because all right so yeah it’s gotta be technology’s gonna be integrated. All right. All right.

[00:50:35.76] spk_4:
Um

[00:50:36.86] spk_7:
Should we say more about

[00:50:37.76] spk_4:
the technology that’s

[00:50:38.90] spk_7:
out there? I mean you

[00:50:44.56] spk_1:
mentioned like the office 3 65 sweet shall we say more about movement to the cloud. I mean there are a lot of organizations still not cloud based and so you

[00:51:55.56] spk_0:
know that’s like cloud breaks, it is out there. People know that they know it provides a reducing costs and infrastructure and that kind of stuff. But the key thing not only just technology infrastructure also the technology personality to manage that. Right? So we had an opportunity we actually I’ve told people this week I said well I was lucky because we was actually the last two years we actually had to get out of our building and moved to a new location. So we bought a new building and we got into the new building and had to build everything from scratch. So I was like oh great. I not only have my I. T. Budget money, I got capital money from building out a building that I can invest in a new data center. Uh You know I had one server on prim and had moved to Microsoft, We moved Microsoft 365, remove the Azure and all that and all the security thing, firewall, we use the Iraqi system product which has the I can manage to find myself in the cloud. Right? So all that flex do that modern environment that uh maybe 30 $30 square feet. I had 500 so internet connections in the buildings and wireless. We had stated R. A. V. But

[00:52:09.35] spk_1:
now you’re now you’re bragging you know now but I can do this by a building. That’s the beginning,

[00:56:15.43] spk_0:
right? Because money, so there was some purpose is not because of it because we have the opportunity. So as I looked and said, not only that, but just minimal as mobile computers. And I’m one of the greatest thing I would say is that We was prepared when the pandemic last 12 months ago because I had already began the process of upgrading and moving people first of all off of uh that solitude because because I was at the senior lower table, I understood that the mission was going to be more robust and remote, right? We had to cut down on travel and all these other things. So I said, well you have to be more mobile than staff, kind of people in mobile. So I started moving people off of desktops. Then I started moving people to from them at that time because I needed some lighter, right, lighter and doable. And I experimented with a few but I ended up with no, you know how that quality of the product, but very like, you know, I think that they passed uh IBM product computers and and so I had moved everything by the time the last March I had completely got everybody off desktop so we had to go home. Uh that was no, there was no big, the only problem was printing right? And but we wasn’t closed so people could come in a little bit locally and have to do print jobs that come in and copy and print jobs, but I was very ahead of the curve so in order to teach it to you being be more proactive and preventive and not always a break fix and usually non process, that’s kind of what we do, we’ll get the money once it really has to spend it or we get in trouble. But that impact your you don’t need technology should be helping you execute things more versus hindering and so, and that’s why it’s important to modernize not only your people infrastructure, your process infrastructure, but the technology because there’s no technology so affordable now you’re right. Microsoft text, you can now non prosecuted the technology so there’s no excuse from a monetary standpoint and then its consumer base, not consumers consumption based versus uh, you know, such an overhead costs, right, appreciate operating from the however, but you’re gonna have these large capitalist incident to upgrade servers by more servers and start getting people on digital platforms and remotely. Uh, we have a lot of access databases. I’m trying to get them out, put them in the cloud or put them in some case. And the technology for VPN now, although that’s a, it’s a trend not too big BP because some security and some other things like that. But at the time I was trying to do this completely remote thing with Microsoft 365, they have the ability to, your network can always be accessible and you need this application. Uh things happen too fast and I didn’t get that, but I can jump this app, everybody’s contributing, then they need to get the resources, but none of the resources in the house, all the resources in the cloud. So you don’t need BP. Right, you still have the security of Microsoft. And so that’s where the modern infrastructure technology, computer technology, we didn’t do something with printing technology. I invested in Canon, multi function printers can do copy and all that throughout the building. So we before I left, I was getting ready to do this. Print anywhere in the building. So no matter where you go, just put your badge in your print. So that’s modern technology that afforded you move that way. But a lot of that is if you got the right leader negotiated work with the right vendors because there’s always a win win. Right? So uh some vendors I brought in a very top non suspenders uh but they do have, they want to get in non profit, they don’t want to leave non profit money on the table. So they’re willing to work with the problem.

[00:56:18.28] spk_7:
Well plus there

[00:56:19.59] spk_1:
are other resources like you mentioned Techsoup. Techsoup gives grants. Um you mentioned, did you mention IBM is there, is there are there grants from IBM?

[00:58:01.22] spk_0:
No, I didn’t get to the great texture protection. They have a noble thing. You know I’m talking like $1500 off of a $3000 backed up, you know. And I told him this week, I said if there’s no if you’re 513 seeded you register with them. But the key thing is you’ve got the resources but what I’m trying to sell it you can no longer get away without having a leadership right smaller organizations you need to consult with somebody is in your best interest for that advisory role. Leadership role or thinking about. It’s not uncommon for I. T. Directors or leaders to be hands on. So I’m not saying that I was very hands on. I was sitting there trying to fix computers update a server but majority of my work was leadership and management M. I. T. T. So you can have a leader there that can do some hands on work but then outsource the real day to day level one level two kind of things. And so that strategy is what I enforce. So before I left I had a 24 7 infrastructure management contract. You may have heard one hammer systems is out of create and uh their affordable that in order to manage the state of the art network they told me you would need like two additional engineers, one specialized security And suburb and all this kind of stuff. And that’s that’s 200 k. For that happened. And and I was just playing a third of that for them. There’s something that probably wouldn’t be a problem because he wasn’t that high. Eric.

[00:58:06.21] spk_1:
I want to leave us with 111 I don’t maybe not necessarily a tip but one thing that small small shops without without an IT. lead

[00:58:15.82] spk_7:
could be thinking about technology wise let’s

[00:58:18.13] spk_1:
leave us leave us with something that whether it’s security related or you know whatever. What what’s your one like one top idea that a small shop should be looking at technology

[00:58:35.12] spk_0:
wise, uh minimize

[00:58:36.32] spk_7:
your technology. What

[00:59:57.02] spk_0:
footprint? Yeah. So meaning your infrastructure layout. So moving considering the cloud particularly with the Microsoft environment and shoot about what AWS has. But right now I was Windows Microsoft stopped. So I just went to Microsoft and I news relationships with some people who are certified Microsoft vendors gold and I went that right. But that’s you minimize the amount of technology because the challenges if you see if you spend too much time trying to fix technology problem where you’re changing over and trying to support these, that’s that’s the issue. So you want to minimize the amount of support needed by simplifying your technology, footprint infrastructure operation and a printing quick. Like you know, hey, you don’t need individual apprentice, get him off the desk, your network printers because they only a desk that’s gonna appreciate technical support automatically but definitely modernizing infrastructure by taking advantage of the child. And last I would say it’s always see business technology business decision that people make organizations make affects their ability to effectively leverage technology. The right technology right cost at the right time. So really think about their mission decision business decisions and make sure I. T. Is at the table before you can finalize that because that impact your ability to be successful.

[01:00:27.01] spk_1:
You mentioned the uh we’re gonna wrap up but you mentioned the the I. T. Footprint sometimes that footprint is a leaky uh like a leaky closet where the server is. The old server is like uncalled. And and it’s a it’s a humid closet where maybe there’s a slop sink in or something and somebody stuck a server up on top or something. You know it’s uh that all needs to be up in the cloud. You know, we gotta, we gotta get our servers out of these little little uncalled closets that a lot of folks have.

[01:01:27.51] spk_0:
Yeah, you think about it once we have a virus or some love or something like that, it would take two days for our managed service providers, managed our infrastructure to resource some And then you miss all these, you know, all that was like, that was a headache. And I was like, no, we can’t do this in 2020, 2019 2018. So at the end of the day, please think hard about address and putting technology in the right place and realize that it’s an investment. Technology is not investment in technology, is investment into your mission organization? Success and sustainability. I think if they change that mindset that if I invest for weird, then that’s going to help me be more sustainable in my mission, then I don’t think that the argument to to find the money or you can raise the money, you can raise money specifically for technology advancements when they’re going to connect to you bending to deliver more mission for greater mission to have greater impact.

[01:01:36.11] spk_1:
All right, let’s leave it there. Excellent. Thank you. Derek Gilbert, founder and chief business technologist, guilt Technology Group. He’s at D G Gilbert I T B A. Derek. Thank you very very much.

[01:01:48.91] spk_0:
My pleasure talking with my pleasure. Thank you. Okay.

[01:01:55.70] spk_1:
And this is tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc. The 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we’re sponsored at 21

[01:02:08.10] spk_7:
ntc by turn to communications turn

[01:02:08.46] spk_4:
Hyphen 2.c

[01:02:10.60] spk_7:
o. Thanks very much for being with us.

[01:02:33.00] spk_4:
Next week. We’re all about email. 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. There’s no way you’re gonna be forgetting that.

[01:03:07.70] spk_6:
Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff to show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott style. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Mm hmm. What?

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of fei bro dysplasia, pacific cans progressive. If you exhibited the tendency to miss today’s show i t c suite cross talk how do we improve the relationship between it and management? Our panel from the non-profit technology conference is joshua peskay, eh? At round table technology and robin jenkins with the hope program and capacity call out capacity means nothing until we unlock what kind technical managerial fund-raising board steve, hi with nets sweet encourages introspection and shares assessment tools and models that’s also recorded at the non-profit technology conference on tony steak, too. A big lump of thanks, responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant radio by wagner, cps guiding you beyond the numbers wagner, cps dot com and by tell us turning credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash tony tello’s here are joshua peskay, eh and robin jenkins. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ninety sea it’s a non-profit. Technology conference in new orleans were at the convention center, and this kicks off day three of our coverage coverage, cracking like a fourteen year old. This interview is sponsored by network for good, not by the penguins. It’s actually sponsored by network for good, easy to use dorner management and fund-raising software for non-profits i’m joined by penguin one joshua peskay eh? And robin jenkins and robin also robin’s show your penguin for those who are not do not have the privilege of the video. Robin and joshua both have blow up penguins, probably three feet tall. Blackfeet black beak andi joshua, who were these courtesy is a courtesy of soap box engaged. They have a booth entirely filled with these giant inflatable penguins and have been doing that for the last ten years started when there was a lennox day preceding the conference that they brought the penguins for. Okay, so the penguins are not gonna be able to join us. We do have enough head sametz easy, joshua put it, had you on his? Yeah, we’re goingto neo-sage you’re putting the heck out of my head, said it’s, all stretched out now i think i have a fat head amy could take that for you. Thank you, amy. I don’t know. Wait. I would just leave this here. Okay. Uh, penguin madness on the third day of the and thank you to woobox who’s it’s a fox and gabe woobox neo-sage thank you very much for that. Nice folks. Joshua peskay a is vice president of round table technology. And robin jenkins is chief financial and operating officer at the hope program. And your seminar topic is unmet. Expectations and intervention between tea and non-profit leadership. Is that correct? That’s, correct way. Yesterday waited another session yesterday. All right, strategic tech planning. Yeah. Now you’re complicating my problems are today. We’re talking about bringing penguins i t and management together. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Can d’oh? Well, we did mostly multi task. You can’t wait to be single. Single focus. All right. Like direct mail. The best direct mail, you know, single single purpose. Yes. That’s. What non-profit radio? Okay, so, let’s, start with you, robin. What what’s the problem between management and why? Why? Why do we need this session? Well, sometimes they can’t talk past each other with different languages on dso, making sure that we can converse and a common language helps us to get to our end goals? Yeah, and joshua what’s the implication if we’re talking across each other well, i think that technology people in particular are guilty of not thinking of communications as a really critical part of their job and one main component sessions to be here. It is, yeah, it is an absolutely critical part of their job. And when they fail to communicate effectively, two executives about technology than the organization’s needs are ultimately unmet. That’s the unmet expectation in the title. Okay, so, robin, i understand. So, robin, you’re the you’re the leader in the leadership, a strata of this organisation, correct. And joshua was the vice president of technology. And what technology and technology strategy. Okay, tech guy robbins, the leadership. So he’s, actually, our vendor. So we actually a chance to practice in real time. Okay? Workflows kayman okay. You work together? Yeah. Let’s. See, you mentioned something. Well, now we’ll get to that about offers of children and skills. We’ll get to that. How do we how do we start? All right. Everybody needs to come to the center, you know, in a common language, right? I mean, he’s got their technical language. They tend to be very graphical. Maybe leadership, maybe not so much interested in the graphics. Is that? Is that a part of it? Okay, well, i was gonna say in the session were actually encouraging people there’s, there’s something in marketing that’s called a buyer persona where a market are actually develops an overall picture of the person that they’re attempting to sell. Tio what are they looking, what they read, what they listen exactly, you’re familiar with that, so we’re persona donorsearch dona we’re we’re giving them a template to develop an executive persona and encouraging people to actually create one. And then look at that when they’re thinking about communicating with executives around important strategic technology initiatives right now. But is it only the tech people who have toe come to leadership? Shouldn’t leadership be coming coming now? I was coming down. That’s not right, but coming, yeah. Reaching across the aisle wuebben their circle toward the circle that common space is that a common elliptical between the two circles? Yes, it’s. Not all on it. So, that’s, how i take my role is being able to straddle. Both groups and making sure that leadership is held accountable for how they communicate and what they need. Okay, so they are accountable as well. So should we start with our leadership persona? Is that is that a good place to can we develop together? Way could yeah. E-giving visual on someone you get included in the thing. Okay. Could be a link to it or were shooting video. We can. You don’t have. We don’t have a visual with you. I have it on my phone. But abila small. Okay? Yeah. If you had something penguin size, i do not have anything coincides and for just a small persona, but it’s a big personality. Okay, so how do we start now? The persona is different for every organization i write. I mean, for every person in every way. But we’re trying to reach to the c suite. Exactly. Or for the people who spend the money, you could okay. Who could be sponsors? Could be champions. Okay. Yeah. In a small organ might only be the executive director. Correct. We’re talking a lot of mean were there are twelve thousand listeners are small and midsize. Shop some of the marrow, you know, two or three people, right? So it may be a fundraiser. Executive director on dh, you know, maybe a marketing person. Morning communications. All right. I think these skills, though, in this workshop are are incredibly useful for anyone’s who’s communicating with someone who has a different perspective from themselves, which is essentially everybody all right. Because that’s really not more complicated, the fact that their executives is just part of the session title ultimately it’s about how do i who has one perspective communicate effectively with someone else who has a different perspective about a common need that we have but don’t think we have. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. So, it’s not only i t and management let’s. See? Amy, you have those, okay? The penguins are local. We’re going to call on them. Right? I told you this is this’s improvised penguins, by the way. Incredibly effective communicators. I mean, it zoho their way. They have to find each other right in a sea of penguins. Where are they? All look the same. What? Find each other? Oh, yeah. Find individual penguin you’ve never seen like march of the penguins. That thing with the guy? You know that the female penguin comes back with the fish he’s gotta find like her killed turner in, like, a million penguins. That all look the same. Like, how do you do that? We’re gonna call doing through communication. They have a unique calls that are very, you know, very effective. Why don’t we just create a penguin persona? Oh, yeah. It’s got the alliteration like a really big fan of fish cold weather extremes lighting on belly bilich magazine reader subscriber like water parks love the slides in water polo yeah, okay, all right. Let’s, let’s stick with our likes, polar bears. You know, you know, sharks are just starting with joshua peskay non-profit radio, so watch it or i’m shutting our eyes. They put the penguin in your seat and you’re out. Penguin talks a lot less than you do on robin and i will continue all right. It’s time for a break pursuant. Their newest paper is the digital donation revolution. You’re online donors have high expectations of you because of the swift transactions that they could do it amazon, zappos and other fine retailers that have easy user experiences the digital giving bar has been raised how do you get over it? Get the digital donation revolution the latest it’s on the listener landing page. Tony dahna em a slash pursuing to radio now back to it. See sweet cross talk. Okay, let’s, build our see sweet persona. How do we how do we start with this? So if i think of actual examples in my own organization, so i have a staff member who was very open and eager for change change but doesn’t always understand how that can impact their lives. So i have to make the tool that we’re thinking about implementing real to this person. How will it change? So i asked them questions. What do you do? And what would this have with this tool? Improve your work efficiency, your understanding, communicating with others, getting things done quickly worked quickly. So that’s how i begin to approach it. Okay on dh who is it? That’s asking these questions? Eso i’m asking the questions of the staff person of the person no more of this just not even someone who has either. Is aversa rights he or someone who doesn’t have much experience with it? Ok, ok, so we’re going a little broader than just okay. Okay, good. By the way, the penguin is also better dressed in you. The color blue is not becoming skin like pencil radio. Howard stern was nicer way sometime. Okay? And then what do we do with the answers to these questions? Right? So then i translate them to round table or two. Joshua i say this is the thieves or the people that i have. Then how can we make sure that we can communicate our pitch the proposal properly in the way that they can understand it and approve it? I mean, in the end goal, my goal is to get it approved. So how do i get to that place? Okay, joshua. And then what are you doing with this information that robin’s giving you? I’m really helping to make sure that we’re understanding not on ly what problems the organization has, but what challenges the executives have that we need to understand and communicate about how we’re going to overcome a lot of executives may be pressed by either they are intimidated by the technology that that might be changing, and they might not want to talk about that with other staff, but that could be a block for them or they have other pressing priorities that aren’t technology related and don’t think this is really worth their time, so if if we need their time and we need their buy-in what? Usually we d’oh understanding their challenger, okay, is critical something? I heard it in an interview i did yesterday duitz seems related come to me with a solution, not a problem. So you’re you’re suggesting not not just coming to the leadership in the decision makers with what the issue is, but with technology solution, but that also includes recognizing their needs and what their challenges are not just the challenge that you’ve identified, i’ll put it really succinctly, i shouldn’t come, teo, if you’re the executive, tony, i shouldn’t go, and i’m the me and robin like that like that i should like asking you for the problem. You’re the one who tells me the problems we say, oh, great here’s a way that we think we can solve that, then you say here’s some challenges that i have with that, like, oh, if i have to learn a new piece of software, i’m not sure that i’m ready to do that? We say, oh, here’s, that we can help you overcome that challenge so that we can solve this problem for you. Okay, if i don’t know those things and i don’t ask, you’re not you’re not querying the leadership. You don’t know what the troubles are, so i can build on that a little bit with a specific example. So my executive director, she has a really special quality of asking a lot of questions. That’s what i’ve learned is, if i can think through what she’s going to ask and what she’s going to need it, i can get it down to two questions based on our conversations, and i know i have i’ve solved a lot of her problems if i come out she’s still asking questions, and i haven’t predicted and i don’t know very well what her what her issues. Okay, so you’re you’re you’re you’re putting a thought into your that’s, right? You’re whatever weekly meetings are your proposal, executive directors were proposal. Okay? Yeah. Okay. How do we move this persona along? I feel like i feel like we haven’t developed this person yet. Yeah, well, i could get you. More specifics of the persona when you’re breaking it out, your whoever your person is right, you’re kind of saying here’s a little bit about them. So this is the one we have in this in that session is erin the is the first one, right? Just air in the diner, erin e r i n her and and she’s she’s got an avatar of a unicorn, right? Our unicorn executive director and, you know, she’s, super smart, but super busy. She probably has personal demands on her life as well as professional demands. And she really wants her organization to thrive and be successful and her staff to be, you know, well equipped with all the things they need. We should hope so. But she also she also has a lot of pressures around budget around the board asking to do things so so that’s kind of like a snapshot of her right. Then you have in the middle section, like here’s, the things that are most important to her that she’s working on right now, like these air, the air forms are top priority rights fund-raising i’m trying to fundraise for, you know, two thousand nineteen, you know? The next one is i’m dealing with hr issues right in the next one like these air, so from my perspective, like the it guy, like i need to understand that, like, it is not in her top four things, this is just not, you know, so unless i can appeal to these problems and say that the work that robin and i are doing is going to help with these things or help you focus on them even more, i’m fighting a losing battle, right? Okay, yeah, okay. Okay. And then was there another component to the they’re going to the three point is yes, so the third probono hand is then is so if you think of these, like, three columns, right? So we’ve got like, this is about erin. These are the problems and challenges she faces than the last one is here. In order to successfully communicate with aaron, here are the things i’m going to dio, right? I’m going to ask her about the problems that she’s facing in the organization. Okay? And this is what robin, this is what you try to anticipate, and i’m going to communicate the why, what and how if everything were doing very clearly. I’m going to prepare fully from conversations with her, so i don’t not ever waste her time, right? I’m going to anticipate questions she’s goingto ask about things we want to do. This is where robbins. Incredible, right? So, robin, when we had a big meeting with her executive director, she reached out to me and said, we need teo spend probably four hours making a slide deck and here’s all the questions i think she’s gonna have, right? So you you take the time to do that and it’s, in my opinion, it’s stuff we all i think i know, but i think doing it, we’re not regularly. We’re not being fundez being intentional about it. Yeah. Okay, so and so that’s and so it’s. Like a little one sheet thing, you can stick on your office. And and now it’s a reminder to you like, okay, these are all the things i need to do before i go talk to aaron or send her an email or ask her for something, right? I need to understand these is her problems. And these are the things i need to do to communicate successfully, okay? Okay? And is that what about in terms of actual words like, i mean, your your your session to talk about language? Does it get down to that granular level or words? Natural words? How does that how do we find the commonality in the words like avoiding jar? I mean, avoiding technical jargon. All right, you help me? Yeah shouldn’t be trying, you know, i guess if you tell me no, i think you’re you’re right, it’s that sometimes even the number of words someone may not have enough time, do you have to really keep its distinct? In short, i’d say there’s a even bigger gap between fund-raising and where we need to translate it into fund-raising funders will understand too healthy development team to communicate their proposals. So a couple of times we’ve had to go back multiple times to understand how to phrase something, even to the point where we have a specific budget of twenty five thousand that means i may only be ableto order for laptops and not five, because i really am above twenty five thousand with five so it really there are, you know, boundaries that we have to follow on dh. Communicate. Get down, tio. Okay, okay. Joshua language. Anything you want to add about this is a language really specific example that we give in the session. We’ll give it here, too. And hold out on video. Listen, i’m not going. Teo, cut your mike again. We’ll get the penguin’s. I have offstage talent breeding. I would never i would never claim to be more effective than the penguin at a change management executive communication. One of the questions is if you’re, you know, expressing like, hey, i think we should go to sales forthis is another problem that comes up the executive, maybe read something in the times or maybe here’s something from a boardmember and says, you know, we should use slack everybody else using slacks, we should you slack and a lot of people or folks like robin, your operations are kind of like, is that really what we need to be doing right now? And the pushback on that with an executive? Give me challenging. So a question, a specific phrases. What? Help me understand what problems we have at this organization that slack is going to solve for it. Right? And then then follow-up question. Is how does solving that problem help our organization and it’s a softer way of kind of, you know, walking them back from an idea that might be a bit something came from a boardmember has a wild hair, right? Exactly right? And so that that question i always push people to come back to the question of please tell me what problem we’re trying to solve here, that’s what i have to understand and then on lee then cannot communicate. You know, whether slack is the right resource, right tool to do that exact or, you know, maybe there isn’t really a problem or maybe there’s a better way to solve it. Okay, yeah. That’s related. Teo. Something you mentioned in your description, which is, uh, the boardmember child and nephew. Uh, i have a nephew took a coding course. Yep. And, uh, i think he could help the organization with his computer science skill. Right? Rare. You’re found course certificate, right way do with joshua. Well, i mean, i’m not going to sound really redundant, but it’s the same. So help me understand what problem we have in this organization that a recently graduated she’s going programmer could could be effectively applied to solving right if we can identify that, that, in fact, there may be an opportunity for that person to help us, but if we’re hammer looking for a nail and we’re not a nail it’s going to hurt? Yeah, you know? And so okay, andi, rock god, robert doesn’t add to that we actually had an example where we wanted to show a boardmember how much something costs and what we folded into that was the cost of me spending time with that person who was volunteering, so they sold them, they see true cost. So there’s a real life example, this is a real life example, and we show them the true class, and they were shocked, so i would say, don’t be afraid to show them under the hood so they truly understand the impact of what they’re asking for you in your your role as cfo. You get a lot of that, you know, coming down from boardmember zor, maybe your executive director sort of these ad hoc, you know, i read this article type or i heard about slack type, you know, we should be looking at this there’s a lot. Of that that come to you. So i want to get compliments through our board before i sit, go any fire there until they’re an amazing forward. I really mean that, so no, we don’t get too much. But when we do that’s where this example came in, where we really showed the true cost of personnel time training, if this person doesn’t stay, you know, this person doesn’t last long enough to actually get the work done. What does that cost? So so we have a good bounce with our board, but we do want them to understand sometimes what their suggestions metoo institutional costs and including time, right, right, and what that’s resulted? That is, of course, because they fundez us. Then they understand they’re going to raise that much more. But this other person, the way they responded was actually very helpful. They said, look, you know what, let’s, let me join the committee with you so i can dig in and understand how this works. And so now he’s working with us, you threw an opportunity. That’s, right? Yes. Excellent. And pick you up on that? Yes, you may be okay, but i appreciate you asking. For you, teo, turn around to the other side of that close to your mind. Sorry, so i’m picking up on what robin said i’m go and going back to his redundant any of the problems, if if executive director came to me with that and said the boardmember want that if i’m i have a good, strong relationship, i’m okay having candid conversations, we actually have some in our workshop on howto, like develop resilience toe having difficult conversations, i might ask the exact director is the real problem here that we need to find something for this person to do, to engage with the organization to satisfy this boardmember if that’s actually the problem we have to solve, then i will solve it right? But that’s not the problem, then maybe this isn’t the right opportunity, right? But let’s, be honest about what the problem is exactly i can find something if that’s if that’s what you’re asking me to dio, you know, and we’re guard listen, whether benefits organization, because it may be on a macro level benefits because this this boardmember or yours and you will be happy donor, exactly important insider to the organization and and that’s, the perfect example of, like, i may not be able to see that as a mighty person, so i’m not open to seeing it and don’t know how to ask the questions. I’m hopeless. Okay, okay, now you teach something maybe that’s because it was in your other session which i which i forbid you from bringing you said, push back and difficult conversations no that’s in this session that’s it it’s going to be a way we don’t have a hard time keeping my boundary. I’m enforcing that and let’s let’s talk about that, some having having that difficult conversation, who wants to start? So actually, the topic is now pushing back. When when you’re getting resistance, is that it? Yes, doing it appropriately and right. Eso joshua could speak really well to this because we talked about this thing other evening, but in my case, i think i’m very clear on where we need to end up, but open to changes in the path and because i’m very clear on where we need to end up it’s not problematic when people push back. Okay, so you know, if you’re not confident, what? Where you think you need to go, then you question in yourself if people you know push back on you but a cz long as i’m clear on where i think we need to go, then it’s much easier to have those cards. Conversation you’re advocating for something that you really believe in. That’s. Good for the organization. That’s. Right. Ok. All right. So how do we do it? Well, essentially, there’s there’s. I think people think there are other good or not good at having difficult conversations with people and it’s a skill that you can build like any other skill. And were we give a couple examples. This will sound kind of out there, but the example, the first example, we give us something called the ten percent challenge. Where for a week you go. And this was not something i came up with this they got him. Noah kegan who came up with this and you go. Any retail transaction you have? I go to starbucks to buy coffee. I asked for ten percent off. And if the city of a coupon, you have a discount code, i said no, i’ve just i would like you to give me a ten. Percent discount because i just, um, asking and i’m hoping that you’ll give it to me and you’re not pushy about it or anything you just you just and you do that every time you bison, you force yourself to do that every time for a week, and what you’re doing is essentially, like the equivalent of a push up for having difficult conversations. You’re building the muscle? Yeah, you’re building the muscle for, you know, dealing with that discomfort around having may be a difficult conversation, what that there’s other things you can do, and it allows you to maybe talk to your executive about something that you think they’re not going to be very happy about and say, you know what? This thing that we set up isn’t going very well, here’s, why it’s not going well, here’s what i think we need to do to fix it and have that, you know, very candidly because our tendency is due over promise and under deliver constantly because it’s easier on an interpersonal level for me to promise you the world and then once i’m not in the room with you and doing stuff, just get it good enough. And then hope that you don’t notice that. It’s. Not really what i promised. And you want to do exactly the opposite. When i’m with you. I want to really calibrate expectations conservatively, even though you’re you may not like it, right? And if i, if i can get over that difficulty, that discomfort and get really used to it, and i’m going to be much more effective with that, okay? And where do you go? Out? Ten percent. Ten percent challenge? No kegan k a g a n you did it, it’s it’s. Kind of it’ll seem kind of cheesy because it’s kind of been like what i refer to is the opto bro community, you know, like all that, you know, like the, uh, you know, the tim. I mean, with all due respect to this group who i’m a huge fan of. And i suppose i should be dead, but you know what? They’re like the kind of young dot com guys who are, like here’s, how you optimize everything in your life. So it’s, like the young white venture capitalist crowd, got almost exclusively male who were like yours, that you optimize your fitness, your diet, your productivity or everything to be like a super you know, dotcom entrepreneur. So i refer to them. I shorthand them is opto bro’s? Isn’t that what we all aspire? Yes. Okay, let’s. See, we’re going to aa. We’re gonna bring the penguins back. Amy! Hey, could we get the penguins? Oh, and i was so dull. What did i say? Penguin wanted penguin. You know, this is aaron here’s, the arrows! Aaron the yeah, this is air in the air in the back, headset back honor because they’re stretching out, but, well, they’re in the on dh er wait, you need robbins to caress way brought in the frame garrett to bring robin another one. Okay, we need teo or we got everybody now. I guess that’ll do it right. Okay, now that you’re showing that penguin, don’t do that. Okay, there we go again. But it’s, aaron and yu want t this is the other one said, oh, that’s our other next hour, both very dapper in both eyes. All right, all right. This is the panel, aaron and cedric. Oh, and also joshua peskay a vice president, roundtable technology and also robin jenkins, cfo, chief financial on operating officer at the hope of program. Thank you so much. Thank you. Last thiss interview sponsored exclusively by network for good, easy to use donordigital and fund-raising software for non-profits thank you so much for being with non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc we need to take a break. Wagner, cps. We recently had segments on storytelling, but you don’t want your excellent storytelling to be so excellent, so compelling. That it leads to too many restricted gif ts based on the stories that’s where wagner comes in their block post is avoiding restrictions from donations inspired by storytelling. Regular cps dot com quick resource is then belong in a moment its capacity call out right now. Time for tony’s take two. A big lump of listener. Thank you. No discrimination, no hierarchical. Thank you’s. If you are supporting listening to this show, supporting this show, gaining knowledge and help from this show for your organization, for your work. I’m glad. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. You’re getting something out of it. But we are on this end too. And i certainly am so glad that the show helps you. It helps you do the good work that you need to do. Thank you for being with us, it’s that simple. My video of gratitude if you wanna get a little more complex at tony martignetti dot com now time for steve. Hi and capacity. Call out. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc non-profit technology conference in new orleans. This interview is sponsored by network for good, easy to use donorsearch and fund-raising. Self aware for non-profits and my guest is steve. Hi, he’s. Solution consultant at net sweet. Welcome, steve. I thank you. Welcome pleasure. You want to welcome you to my own show? Well, i feel welcome. You are. You are genuinely welcome. Your seminar topic is capacity is more than a buzzword. Yep. Alright, that’s short. But i feel like there’s a lot in there. Iss what are we talking about? When we say capacity? What do you mean? And that was the whole point in the session. The whole point of the session was varies depending on where you’re sitting and yet there’s so many definitions of capacity. Everybody talks about it differently. So the idea of this session was too, really walk through all the different ways that people talk about capacity, how you can measure it, how you act on it when you know what it is. And so one of the key things was providing context to the word capacity. So the only way you can really talk about capacities by putting something in front of it. Like if you think about a car, it has seating capacity. Where if you think about, you know, a truck. It has towing capacity. All right, so that was a lot of our framework. So what are some things that might go? A friend of, uh, acquisition capacity fund-raising capacity. So fund-raising bassett is a good example. Organizational capacity program capacity, you know, financial capacity, technical. So we did it’s been quite a bit of time on technology, cassidy. So we’re around, you know, duvette right systems, right operations, the right technology, the right tech staff skills also. So there’s, you know, layers to how you can talk about capacity within an organization to meet their mission. All right, what with it being the non-profit technology conference? I feel like we should start with technology capacity. Absolute, which is a phrase i’ve never heard. Yes, i’ve heard those two words never put together. Yeah, what now, make sure you know that our listeners are large over twelve thousand there in small and midsize non-profits so they may very well not have any devoted technology staff correct. They probably sure they still have some some technology capacity right on, and we’re gonna help them try to measure it right? And we’ll flush it out more because i can’t even think about other things, too, say about it right now, but i’ll know more in about twenty minutes. Exactly. Um okay, but so, you know, a very good chance they don’t have dedicated technology staff, right? They’re outsourcing everything that they need or they’re piecing it together through. Ah, they’re executive director. And maybe you don’t an office manager or something. Okay? Technology capacity. Okay. What is that? So one thing to think about is the technical capacity. So what do you have enough? Do you have someone on staff that knows enough to able to talk to the vendors you work with and to be able to do the right sort of planning so that you at least understand the systems you have and the need you have so it’s a simple term of technical questioning. Meaning you know the right questions to ask. You know, you have a person driving the strategy. You have somebody making the decisions around your technique technology. And so one of the things that we do at my work is we donate software. Yes. Through social impact. Yes. And so what? My role is before we donate to software what we want to do. Is ask a simple set of questions to see if they have enough technical capacity to be able to implement the software. Oh, i know how you fit into this. Because i had peggy duvette on the show. Yes, just maybe two months ago. Or so you could. You could. If you miss that one, you go to twenty martignetti dot com and you could search her last name. Do you, e t and you can listen to how oracle net sweet social impact has all kinds of free not only product, but also consulting to go along with that to help you build your capacity for use the product that you will get from social impact from from oracle, that sweet social done. You could go back and listen to that. Okay. So now, steve, hi. You fit in determining whether an organisation has the capacity in a technical side. Correct. Tio tio, use what? Your company don’t generously donate. Correct. Okay, so how do you measure it? So we e so one of the challenges we had way had all kinds of grand ideas of how to measure. So he had all these thoughts around, you know, really? Deep interviews and but all of those things take time. So what we ended up doing as we came up with a very simple set of, like, twelve questions, and they’re all kind of very high level questions, but give us a set of information. For example, we asked, do you have a tech plan? These are these questions answered online? Yes. It’s a form that they fill out a hell of a lie you’re building your capacity for for intake to the donation program through social impact. Correct. You are. Congratulations. We had our own constraints and your talk. You’re walking your walk? Yes, it was one questions in your do you have a tech plan? One is. Do you have an i t staff and most people say no, but the second the answer is no, we don’t. But we have a volunteer that has a lot of tech skills that helps all of us allow it a lot. Another question was around. How much time are you willing to commit to a project? How much do you have? A financial understanding accounting in those kind of questions. Right? So the software is khun khun take on financial financial management, right. And i just use this is the one example of measuring technical capacity. And so then the idea is ok. Now we understand our capacity. Where do we where do we have gaps? And then what are some creative ways to fill that so for our non-profit to think about their technique capacity, that’s simple to just sit down and look at it. And then if you decide good. Okay, i got to stop for a minute. Yeah. What if what if an organization is not planning to apply? Tio oracle, that sweet social impact for donation? Can they still use these question? I mean, how would they manage our measure, their technical capacity? So our questions are pretty specific to our program. If they have an organization i think is looking to measure their own, i would look at the end ten and ten just lost the new launched a new technical capacity survey as well. That one is much more broad and open. Okay, so i would look to somebody, something like that for a more generic won. The example i use is just a little straight. Why? You would measure it in what you would do with a one way of measuring the inten a technical capacity survey. You could find it. And ten and tn dot org’s. Yes, kruckel second capacity and that’s a new one that they’ve just launched. And it kind of helps you give, get a clear picture of the technical capacity of your full organization as a whole and then gives you when you take the survey, it will spit out results afterwards of oh, you were a little short here. Go read this book here. Oh, you’re short here. Here’s a website. You should go visit. So it gives us set of recommendations as well. So that once you understand you capacity now you have a set of actions to follow-up right as well. So there is that much more public. Ours is for a very specific purpose. Yeah. So that was a key part of our whole presentation. My presentation of capacity was the there before you even talk about capacity. The key is to understand what? What? What capacity? Trying to understand what gold you have once you understand your capacity. And that would help you determine what type of assessment to do so, for example. Yeah, help. If your goal was to increase your outcomes, your program outcomes so you want to be more effective in the work you do to meet your mission. That would probably mean you would need to do like two different assessments. One is organizational effectiveness. How well do your staff work and how clear our their goals and isn’t tied to the outcomes versus a resource falik assessment to figure out ofyour right funding? Do you have the right revenue streams to support the right staff and then to do a staff have the right skills? So tying those two things together then allows you determine what needs to change in order to have more outcomes from your organization? Ok, boy, that’s a mouthful. It’s a lot. A lot. I’m gonna take a little aggression. So what is your work now, if you’re you strictly devoted to measuring the capacity of potential grantees for the social impact program, so no, i do two things. One is i designed this. The assessments that we use to figure out their capacity design that survey. Okay? And then i designed the interventions that go with it. So once we have their assessment, then we figure out what path they need to go down and what they need to get ready to be able to implement the software. And then once they’re implemented, i figure out, well, there there’s this capacity, we create interventions along the way to help them grow in their capacity so that they’re more successful in what they’re trying to do. Okay, like, but i know a standard part of a program is there’s a monthly monthly webinar for grantees drive that right? So there’s quarterly probono and then there’s regular opportunities to get help and assistance? Yes, we don’t know that there was something webinar maybe i’m wrong, okay? Yeah, i know i’m not sure, but i do a lot of interviews. Yeah, you’re being kind because it doesn’t exist. Not only you’re not sure about it does exist. I just realized you’re you’re good. He has branded oh yeah, you’re branded with nets sweet it’s, the old it’s our old logo on the old alright doesn’t say work along. All right? Yeah. Okay. All right. We got a good amount of time together. Yeah. How do we know what i’d love to talk about it? Unless you were going to take it out. Please go ahead. Thistle. Abstruse for me? Yes, absolutely. Zoho that was the whole purpose of the session was because when people talk about capacity, they it’s such a buzz word that it means nothing like this whole session, if we’re not careful, belongs in george in jail. It’s. And it is the whole thing was jargon joe and that’s. What? Really? So so what? The way i’ve structured the session was i first talked about. There are standard models of doing organizational capacity assessment. Mckinsey has one there’s, an organization called lisk that has one that’s called cap map. And then there’s an organization called the unit. I think it’s a unity foundation. And they have a model so it’s, a very purposeful, driven model. And they measure it in different ways. So you can do a capacity assessment as a self assessment where you just every staff person kind of takes a survey. You look at avery quantitative way to figure out what your what your capacity looks like that way, then you khun benchmark yourself against others that have taken the same survey or what they do is usually give you a report that says here’s your capacity here’s the actions need take here’s your strengths, here’s your weaknesses that’s quite an algorithm. How did they figure all that out? Yeah, and that’s that? Yeah. Then that’s. Why? You should leave something like that to the professionals? Because i don’t know. Okay, you are a professional. You designed a twelve question survey. Yeah, yeah. It’s a week really scaled ours. Now you’re touching at the perimeters of this, but gosh, i mean all right. What? What are the factors that go into it? Depends what kind of capacity you’re measuring me. We gotta break it down so i can break it down. So we had a list of six things. So is it really hold your list? Hold you. Listen, it sounds like something interesting, but is it really worthless to say the phrase organizational capacity? It is useless. It doesn’t mean anything. Yes, it factors in all these different capacities, right? That that is so it’s a broad. It really is unhelpful. Right? And organizational capacity. For what? For what? That’s? My follow up question. Capacity for what? Okay, okay. So that was one of my biggest struggles was as i walk around, you know, the vendor booths, and i will go to sessions and i could hear people and, you know, all of these vendors and several of, like, capacity building initiative. So what? What does that what does that mean? And what does that? How does their non-profit actually act on that? It just becomes, you know, like other words that people throw around there, just buzzwords, and it doesn’t have enough of a meeting. So that was my goal. Was that really actually give it a meaningful contact? Okay, now i see how worthless that is. Georgia. Organizational capacity really is all right. You had your your your clickbait and i’m clicking six list of six. Yeah. So though, so when the when the those three surveys, when they would do their type of assessment, they can’t keyed in a on key areas. One was leadership in governance. So that’s the top level? Do you have the right leadership? You have the right board structure because that really drives a lot of things. The second level then was around do have the right strategy and plan. And then the third was like program delivery. The fourth was around the right staff and structure to do that part. And then the last was resource is in the last was the final, final one with zsystems. Okay, so the penultimate was resource is, yes, the ultimate was back-up saying last night wasn’t the last one that was my sixth and ultimate. Yes, uh, okay, s so all right, so we have these six areas that okay, so these are the two categories that the tools that you mentioned, like the mackenzie said, this is what they’re surveying, yet they’re breaking down into differently. Yeah, okay, different layers of capacity, okay. And then that that broad. All right, go ahead. Yeah. So when you take those six, then it becomes much more meaningful to talk about capacity. Because if you break those down, you take the first two for example, leadership in governance and strategy and planning. If you if you do an assessment on that to see how effective you are, the gore, the and creating a strategy driving towards your mission and then does the board actually have the right governance structure and the leadership have the right tools in place to actually make changes that build your ability to meet those things. So that becomes more meaningful, rather entire organization capacity, which is such a fluffy where that means nothing. When you get into the details of does your leadership do the right things to move you closer to meeting your mission? Okay. So now you’re talking about tying capacity goals yet to the to your plan. Yeah, well, see your organization? Yes, exactly. Organization as it exists. And then you need a plan for filling the gap between what you need and what you have yet to reach the capacity that you’re striving for. Right? Okay. Okay. That makes sense. Those sentences makes sense. What i just said they make sense. Okay, all right. Got to take a break. Tell us this new tellis moughniyah liz from a company tell us, has been has allowed my business to support my favorite charity without even feeling the pinch of writing a check. I am donating money every month that i would have spent on credit card processing anyway. Also, their customer service is far better than we’ve ever had. End quote, one hundred percent business satisfaction with tell us the businesses you refer are going to love it. You will get the money. Watch the video at tony dahna slash tony. Tell us now. Back to capacity. Call out with steve. Hi. All right. So if you don’t have the means, you need one of these tools. You need some kind of professional. You said that earlier? Yeah. That’s. Where? Bringing bringing the professional. You really need some help measuring your capacity in whatever it was through. Whatever chadband whatever channel you want to talk about correct way that you’re concerned about you. And if you’re concerned about your whole organization, then it’s the six sound like the place to start, but you need help, right? And so on, but i think it’s, in a large organization, you really, really help if you’re small and you only have six staff, right? There’s really boils down to is simple questions, because then you don’t need the complex question because you don’t have eight departments to interview, you don’t have one hundred staff, you don’t have this big, unknown kind of presents from my wife’s organization that is no full time staff, you know, they just have a couple, you know, like, eat part time staff, they’re never going to need an organizational capacity assessment. They know they know what they can and can’t do, but so at that level, what they need to acknowledge, though, is do they have a strategic plan? Do they have a mission statement? Do they have a vision statement? Is their board engage, you know, and asking some simple questions like that and then doing it on a quarterly basis and then actually investing in that and finding someone that could maybe come in on a pro bono basis and just provide an outside opinion of whether things were going well or not on that organizational top level leadership? Because i think with small organizations what tends to happen is obviously they don’t need this, you know, one hundred question assessment, but what they do need is to have somebody tell them if they’re spending enough time strategically thinking versus just meeting today’s needs. So that’s, where we really spent the rest, that second half of our session was we were focused in on well, i gave an analogy, so the analogy i used was beer. So my whole session was your themed. My slides had beer on it. I gave away beer during my session was wonderful. It was a nice ice breaker. So the idea was, i gave somebody a beer. I said here, hold this beer. And then i threw a ball to them and told him to catch the ball. They were able to catch the ball, and then i did it again, and then somebody in the audience says, well, why don’t they set down their beer so they can catch the ball use here? And so i was like, oh, that’s, a great question. I was hoping somebody would ask that that was the whole idea for the exercise and i said, the reason you don’t want to sit down your beer is what we want to do is pretend to beers your mission and what often happens at a small non-profit is we put all of our capacity into catching the everyday balls we set down our beer, which is our mission, and nobody ever takes enough time to really think about how do we meet the one year goal, the three year goal in the five year goal? What changes do we need to make today? So for example, was going go back back to my wife’s small non-profit they wanted in five years from now, they wanted to be able to have my wife retire as the founder, but as an unpaid executive director, you can’t hire another executive director and tell him that it’s a freak job. Yeah, so she’s like, well, if i could want to retire, i need to be able to pay an executive tractor, so but in order to do that, i need to have more students in our program and in order to have more students in our program, i need to have a second studio, but in order have a second studio, i need to have a better staff set of of skills so that i can handle capacity, so i don’t have enough people in my organization to handle more students, so she worked backwards from there and figure out which capacity she needed to start with fixing, and what she needed to start with was management. So she took her executive director roll started breaking into an admin role, a program role and an executive director role, which usually doesn’t happen it tiny non-profits usually it has one leader, and they control all the power and it’s that founder syndrome of a lyman charge, and then what happens over time those that when that founder leaves, you have that? Oh, my gosh, is that huge hole? So she saw the capacity need of ok at the leadership level on strategy level can’t be me. We’re going to spread the beer around everybody’s, going to have a cup full of beer, and we’re all going to hold the mission and hold onto it together, and we’re going to share a part of it. So i think that’s the difference between what’s needed at a tiny organization versus a large one if you’re complicated, if you’ve a lot of politics, a lot of messiness, you need someone from the outside to come in with a very rigid tested nice framework. Toby, evaluate your capacity at the leadership level at a small one. It’s usually it’s just having coffee with a friend that understands is coming to a conference like this and having somebody just sit down. You share what you d’oh give you a beer and throw balls at yes, exactly. So what? The way my wife did it was she went to a dance studio owner conference she’s a non-profit dance studio. She had other studio owners tell her and do an evaluation of how she was working. So she benchmarked against them. She told him how she was doing and they’re like all you’re doing this wrong. You’re doing this wrong and the leadership level. So it was a peer evaluation rather than a formal evaluation. All right, first of all, shout out the name of the organization. Oh, my wife’s organisations called leap of faith arts ministries. So it’s a very small non-profit in the chicago land area. Okay, okay. All right, so this is very helpful because we’re breaking it down now for smaller organizations. Yeah, there’s also there’s a good degree of self assessment. I mean, inspection going, yes, there are a lot of founders who would not be willing to divide their job. Yeah, the way your wife did in tow three parts and that’s a that’s, a real struggle because you’re putting all the burden on one person, which is great because that that one person is there for a reason they’re really good at their job and they do it well, so it makes sense tow have them keep all of that stuff. But at the same time, you’re not building a long term capacity for that organization cause when the founder leaves, then the whole order dies. And it’s also not healthy for all these different functions to be in right, ready in one place, because even if the founder doesn’t leave or doesn’t die, eventually they go on vacation. Yeah, they do on dh if if if if getting to the next level which i hear a lot right, you know, how do i do? It is important to you? Yes. Then having a founder. Or maybe two people, maybe not literally just one. But write one or two people holding all the keys and the power that’s all the potential for the organization is is unhealthy. Limited instrument, of course. So yeah. So that was a start assessing start looking in for introspection. Yeah. Figuring out where the you know where the consolidation of power is, so that you can spread it out so that more people are involved. So then we then we continue the conversation to a much more tactical level. So we ended with all right. So if we want to be able to spend more time thinking, capacity, thinking, strategy, thinking, leadership, the on ly way we can do that is to stop doing other things. So you you need to be able to sit down and okay, where am i spending my time? That isn’t helping the mission. What tasks am i doing? What tax my staff doing mohr introspection. Right? So then you look down and you go, okay, well, wow. We’re spending a lot of time on our finances were spending a lot of time tracking our donors that we’re spending a lot of time. Tracking manual pieces of paper for our students doing registration, doing so you talked to start to take those things that there are systems in ways to automate those things. So it’s almost taking a laundry list of, you know, work for three weeks, right down where you spend your hour every hour to write down. Oh, i spent this on adam and i spent this some finance. I spent this and just doing like, a catalogue of your time and then looking back and going so well, i spent a lot of time doing stuff that really doesn’t change our outcomes. It makes us run, and it has to be done. But i could probably give that decided piela won doing it. Yeah. So so then that’s where you start to break down and build capacity because it allows you to focus on the mission in the vision and strategy, and you start to offload those things. And almost everybody went to get a capacity. Says that the first two things they think it’s all i need to raise more money. I need to hire more staff. That’s the only way that we’re going to build capacity and really to me, it’s not that you, khun. If you get your staff trained, they may be able to work better if you get the right systems. It may take away some of the work that you spent all your time doing. If you start to bring in probono staff to do some of this look for a probono accountant look for probono lawyer look for, you know, ways to supplement your staff because of you, in my experience every non-profit that i’ve been at when we ask for more money, or we ask for more staff, the answer is always no. So when i talk about capacity, i say let’s, just stop talking about the illusion that there’s more money and more staff so let’s take and go in two directions. The only way you can do it is supplement your staff, increase the skills of your staff, or look for ways to automate things that your staff shouldn’t be doing that a system can do for you that’s where we ended and that was a really fun cover, that that was the fun part of the conversation to me once we get past the gobbledygook of the word capacity. And the words organizational capacity because really what all what it’s all about is what do you choose to spend your time on? What tasks do you choose as your priorities and what? Where do you invest? The resource is thatyou’re non-profit has been given to meet your mission. What kind of questions did you get? The questions i got from the audience were really about one a lot about the tools. Which tools should i use? Of course, that’s where we started the other one, though, was what do you do? One leadership stands in the way and doesn’t want to change. Or what do you do when thie organization is so small that you know, these tools get away don’t know. Sorry latto clothe first one leadership leadership is resistant. Yeah, so i think when leadership is resistant to this, i think the best way to do it is to celebrate small winds, so arguing with the leadership and trying to prove your point usually doesn’t work. So i think what the way i’ve approached this in the past was do small experiments with just the other staff around you find ways to involve a volunteer or automata. Task and then celebrate it and show hey, you know, we did this little thing over here, and it saved me three hours a week, and now i’m able to do this other work. So i think a way to convince leadership is to prove success when you change capacity on your own, and then eventually you can show them dahna that it is worthwhile for them to spend time, maybe bite it off in small bit and do a test and show show the improvement. Yeah, exactly. Small level. Okay, we got time for one more question that you were asked and but because you can provide the answer. So the last one that since this is a technology conference is doesn’t make sense to do a technology specific assessment and i think that’s another way to answer the first question. So one of the ways that you can get around if somebody doesn’t want to do a full organization assessment, there are some great ways to have somebody just come in. Look at your technology set up, you know, hyre of endor or ask money report members. If they have a solid person, have them come into an inventory of your look at your tax strategy, i think that’s a simple way to start to prove the worth wildness of spending time looking at capacity is just to start with a technology capacity assessment and just have a vendor committed. Do it for you. That it’s. Not all that expensive. If you can find it probono it it’s. Very effective, too. Okay, we’re gonna leave it there. Yeah, steve. Hi. Thank you very much. Thank you. I hope i didn’t confuse you too much of a good overview. I mean, it’s a it’s, a dense topic. But it is a really done you broke it down. Well, for the small order. Good. Steve. Hi, he’s. The solution consultant at net sweet. Thank you again. Thank you. Appreciate it. My pleasure. This interview sponsored by network for good, easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits. And you are with tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc wrapping up our coverage right now. This interview. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. Next week. Attentive and productive with steve rio at bright webb. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported by pursuing toe online tools for small and midsize non-profit it’s, data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant radio by wagner, cps, guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner, cps, dot com and by telus, credit card and payment processing. Your passive revenue stream, tony dahna slash tony tell us, are pretty creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows social media is by susan chavez, and our music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. You’re listening to the talking alternate network to get you thinking. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down? Hi, i’m nor in sometime, potentially, ater tune in every tuesday at nine to ten p m eastern time and listen for new ideas on my show. Yawned potential. Live life your way on talk radio dot n y c hey, hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? 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Nonprofit Radio for March 9, 2018: Risk Management & Your Disaster Recovery Plan

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Ted Bilich: Risk Management

“Not all risks are bad,” says Ted Bilich. He’ll help you identify the good and bad ones and get them into your risk inventory. He’s CEO of Risk Alternatives, LLC.

 

 

 

Dar Veverka: Your Disaster Recovery Plan

An IT disaster is one of the bad risks. What belongs in your DR plan? Dar Veverka is from LIFT and she’ll help you sort it out. (Originally aired 5/1/15)

 

 


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Buy-in hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d break out with cering go sista noma, if you made me sweat with the idea that you missed today’s show risk management, not all risk is bad, says ted village. We’ll walk you through why you should care about the good and bad and how to get going with your risk inventory he’s ceo of risk-alternatives and your disaster recovery plan one bad risk is you’re going to put ignore it at your own peril. What belongs in your d our plan darva arika is from lift that originally aired on may fifth twenty fifteen i’ll take two charity registration and plan giving podcasts responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant radio and by weinger cps guiding you beyond the numbers regular cps dot com tell us turning credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dot, m a slash tony tell us it’s my pleasure to welcome ted village. He is ceo of risk-alternatives llc, providing risk management and process improvement. Solutions for non-profits and start ups he used to practice law and has served on the boards of numerous organizations. Ted has written about risk management and process improvement in stanford social innovation review, where you can also hear this show. Corporate responsibility magazine. This show is not on corporate sponsors. What magazine and risk management magazine were also not there. He’s at t bilich and the company is at risk. Hyphen alternatives dot com welcome to non-profit radio. Ted. Tony it’s. Great to be here. I hope you’re doing well. Thank you. I am. And how are you? I have to ask. I’m doing great. Thanks. I’m glad. Everybody’s. Good today. All right. Um all right. You’ve been in some magazines that non-profits are most likely not reading responsability magazine. Corpse. Sorry. Corporate responsibility magazine risk management magazine. I’m sure you’re not unfamiliar with this risk management sounds boring. Why either boring or scary? Alright. And if this was not on some affiliate stations, i might use stronger language. I might put it. Put an adjective on before the word for before the word boring. Oh, my god. Why should we be paying attention to this? You know you. Hit on one of the most important issues that i face, which is when people think about risk management, they think about either the fact that it’s one more obligation for them or that they don’t wanna lift up rocks because they’re afraid of what what’s under them and and, you know, what i say to people time and time again is that risk management is a critical part of your business because especially if you’re a non-profit you are dealing with more risks than almost any other organization you could possibly think of, you know, think of the non-profit business model, toni it’s, your taking money from strangers in order to deal with intractable problems. And if you do your job really well, your business should go out of business that’s a risky model, so it really pays to pay attention to risk management, and we could get into sort of what that means if you’d like, yeah, we’re going to, um you do say that not all risk is bad. That’s exactly right? Flush it out. Yeah. Yeah, sure. You know, one of the one of the issues in risk management is what do you mean by rich? And risk matt necessarily mean bad things risk. So i always tell people, when you’re talking about risk talking about uncertainty management, you could have bad risk that could go go, go wrong, and we call those threats. He could also have good rick, you know, opportunities either opportunities for improvement of your current processes or opportunities in the sense of new initiatives, and all of that is within the framework of a good risk management process. Okay, so i like the idea of we don’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s. Just it’s something we don’t know, right? So it does not. Of course, it does not have to be bad. It could be fantastic, right? Okay, absolutely. You know, it could be that that that there is a new donor who is waiting to not give you money if you expand your programs in a new direction, but simply wants to give you money to do mohr of what you’re doing now. And you believe that this is important for non-profit sustainability? Oh, gosh, yes, if you don’t, if you don’t have a risk management process, tony, then let’s say, you’re thinking about having a strategic plan or you have a strategic plan, how can you possibly have confidence that that strategic plan is going to accomplish its its objective if you don’t have a really strong awareness of what your current capabilities are, including what the threats and opportunities are that face your organization? So there’s this thing out there called a swot tte or swat analysis? Um s w o t the o’s opportunities in the tear threats i forget with the what do you what’s the s and the w its strength and weak she’s. So weak threat. Thank you. All right. Yeah. And and people use that sometime during strategic planning process. Okay, so this is s so we’re calling altum positive risks or good risks. That that’s the opportunity. That’s, right? Those are opportunities there. Potential opportunities? Ok. Yes, exactly. And one of the things that i talk to people about when when they talk about a swat analysis, is that swat analysis tends to be a static once every couple of years, activity done during strategic planning. One way to think about risk took that slot and alan and you operationalized it so that you were as a matter of routine, looking at your strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats. That’s one way to think about a risk management structure is it’s taking the swat process and making it something that is ongoing over time. I think it should be swope i think it’s a long hour, i know not to quibble, but i think it’s, of course, equivalent, but i think it’s a long oh, i think so long, so might be, but i don’t think that negates anything that you just said, i don’t know listeners thinking that all right, so so an ongoing process. Now you you have this cool article. Stanford social innovation review called a call for non-profit risk management, you make very clear in that, and we have about a minute before first break make very clear that that this is not really appropriate for start ups. If you start up basically, your your argument is you can cover this most of your problems or potential risks with insurance. But so when when should we start doing formalized risk analysis? You know, a good signal for that, tony and briefly before break good signal is when you start doing, when you start having regular audit, um, that usually happens when a non-profit is going into growth phase, and at that point, it’s useful to start having a risk management process because after all, you’re becoming a grown up organization. Okay, so when you start when you start having going through an audit process with your right when you and then that usually in love that you know, depending on the state seven hundred fifty thousand dollars to a million dollars of annual revenue, okay, let’s, take our first break pursuant, their newest paper demystifying the donor journey. You need to be intentional, deliberate about stuart in your donors, we’re talking about being delivered today, assessing risk. You also need to be deliberate about stewarding your donors so you don’t lose them. Pursue it will help you create and fine tune your donorsearch stewardship plan. Keep your donors with you so you don’t have to replace them each year. Demystifying the donor journey it’s at tony dot m a slash pursuant, radio let’s, go back to ted village and let’s continue our talk about risk management thiss ongoing assessment process so all right, so we know when we should begin. Um, what shall we begin with? Is it? Is it the risk inventory? That’s exactly right, tony the first step still, this good risk management process is too take stock of where you are now because you can’t start prioritizing if you don’t have awareness of what your current threats and opportunities are so there’s a process risk-alternatives hq inventory it’s simply a structured exercise that you take your staff through to help them identify threats and opportunities not just within operations, but operations and finance that i t and a talent management and development and all those different functions within the non-profit and it usually takes about, you know, two or three hours of work total for your staff to do something like this spread out over a couple of weeks, and at the end of it, you have a really good idea of the threats and opportunities you currently face, really only two to three hours for each put threespot actually not that hard of a process in fact, your listeners could go to our website, risk-alternatives risk-alternatives dot com and download a little report that shows you how to do it on your own when we do it as a facilitated manner. It takes about an hour to train people about risk management, and then they go off on their own and each person takes about forty minutes to use an online tool toe identify these threats and opportunity. So it’s really not a long involved process. I love the online resource. Thank you for that. So again, risk hyphen alternatives dot com let’s say i want to flush this risk inventory a little bit. So who should be involved in this process? First of all? Well, when when we advise customers to do it, we always say you should have your c sweet team. I’m assuming that that you have a small, that this is a fairly small organization were small. There were small to midsize non-profits here, however you think one point five, two million dollars to five million dollars in revenues, you probably have a ceo cfo, a head of development in in some form or another, and probably someone in charge of programs. You would want to have those people, but we also also always advised get one person who’s simply a staff member right on the front line and have them do it along with the senior team because they’re no thing that that the senior staff don’t have any id dea is going on. Yeah, i know that there. That could be very eye opening on ly one person, though, from from down in the trenches. Well, on in your initial risk inventory, tony wanna balance thoroughness with efficiency. And so with this initial inventory, i think it’s good to have one person from the trenches. But this is mostly going to be a bottom down identification process. His first run through the idea behind it, though, is that risk management is not a one and done thing. You do an inventory, you prioritize, you respond to those you assess and improve, and then you do another inventory and so on and so forth. And as as you grow this within your organization, you would want to make sure that mohr and more people are involved in that risk identification process. All right, so i see we’ve got an interpretive process. Let’s, go back to our initial one now. All right, so we’ve got this were basically creating a committee, that’s going to meet a couple of times, you said over, like two or three weeks. We’re creating a committee. A risk risk assessment committee is not going to scare people like we think committee, right? Okay, that sounds like when, when, when people below the c suite start hearing there’s, a risk assessment committee being formed. That sounds like they’re going to firings, coming, eyes firing or they know about. They know about the seven deadly plagues that are ten deadly plagues, depending on which version bible you read. There’s, locusts and blood and darkness coming on dh, what else we got flies really was that part of the buy-in frogs, frogs that was the effort, the other fellow. So this sounds a little scary to me if i’m not on the committee, no that’s exactly right, which is why one of the things that we advise the senior staff to do when they decide to go through this sort of exercise is to send in all staff e mail out saying, you know, we’re doing this process so that we can dip our toe in the in the waters of risk management. It’s not a matter of something to worry about. In fact, the idea over time is to get everyone in the organization involved in this process, okay? So yeah, and we’re actually trying to do is reduce worry by identifying what’s out there that we don’t know. So we’re identifying are known unknowns. What about our unknown unknowns? Can we get to them? They’re always going to be things that are unknowable, you know, there’s, a wonderful book by, uh, well, it’s called the black swan. Have you read it, tony? You know, i think i saw a movie called black swan, but i don’t i don’t think it’s very different now a very different from what i’m talking about, okay, this book is about how, no matter how well you might try to predict the future, there are always going to be significant jolt of one sort or another that you can’t possibly predict beforehand. And so you know, i again, i always tell people, risk management is not a crystal ball. The better analogy is risk management is a flashlight in the dark, it allows you to see things you might not otherwise see. It makes the path a little safer because you can see some of the things that that might be bad along the way and some of the things that might be good, that can help you, but it also gives you a healthy sense of maybe we shouldn’t be running too fast, because if we run too fast, we’re not going to see the things that could trip let’s. Let’s, go back to our to our initial committee now. So so how do we ah wei, is that there’s a risk assessment committee? Yeah. Can we call that? Okay, managing committee, risk inventory shoretz are risking our r i c were first our first rick. So way get the group together. What do we do? How do we get the process started? If we don’t, we don’t have the luxury of the of a professional facilitator, right? Well, if i were doing it and i didn’t want to bring my company or some other company and it’s, what i would do is i would cheat in the following way, i would go get that that report that that we have on our website and i would download that and it says, ah, this is how you do it. These air, the various different functions that you want to look at, and it lists eleven different functions of the organization, and it says what you ought to do is you hot auto, have each team member within each function, identify three things that could go wrong, and one thing that could go right in the near future either because it’s a new process that we could adopt, or a new initiative or a process that we could tweak in some way. So each one of the people goes off and does and and they identify three threats and one opportunity in each function of the organization. Okay, then they do it, but they do it, tony, even if it’s not their function oh, you’re going all right. Well, let’s, take one step at a time. First of all, just just name a couple of the functions. You know, talent management. Okay. Hiring, developing and if necessary, firing people that’s one funky reputation management, you know, how do you influence what? What people think about your organization. Um, fernand is another function. How do you account for the money that flows through the the organization? Just give us one. Give us one more. We don’t want to eleven. Because because there are available on the title is the big ones. You know, how do you use elektronik technology in order to enhance the services you provide? Why’re we waited three, three potential bad and one potential. Good. Why can’t we be? Do equalize it out two and two. You could do it that way. I’ve found just over time that people are going to be very, very, um, free with identifying things that could go wrong. People have lots of worries, especially during an initial risk inventory. They like to dump a lot of stuff out on on the table it the reason why we emphasize identifying at least one opportunity is that we want them to be balanced in their presentation to some extent. Nevertheless, it always is that people are going to identify more threats than opportunities, and so we’ve set it up as a rubric of three to one to at least get the one in each because really not balance it’s tze, twenty five percent good and seventy five percent bad, but but you see, people are thinking mohr negatively, people thinking more about the bad risks that’s, right? And and also when when you know, when we reconvene after after having people look at those things out on their own. One thing that that happens is that the team the committee that you’ve developed is going to find that they identified it ah lot of the same risk, so you might get a list of one hundred risks, but really it’s going to end up with about sixty sixty to seventy risks and and a lot of those things that they identify as bad things aren’t going to stand up to the light of day one person might be worried, but another person has a full explanation, and so it will simply go away. You’ll end up with about forty or fifty for challenge either positive challenges or negative challenges, and and at the end of that process, i can almost guarantee that someone who does this will be aware of two or three things that are low hanging fruit, that they can pick very rapidly in order to help their organization thrives. Now, are we allowed to come back to the committee then with mohr than the four that you challenged us with? And then the committee and the committee flushes them out to get down to this forty or fifty? Is that the way it works? Yes, if someone wants to identify more than three threats and one opportunity, i would never say, no, you can’t, but but on the other hand, you don’t want someone, for instance, to focus so much on this that they become, you know, all engrossed in in their potential worries rather than doing their job. So you wanted to be somewhat manageable, all right? We’re in the details of this, which is where i want to be. So so our first meeting is introductory. And then we give some homework second meeting you’re coming back in a week or maybe give him ten days. All right, maybe it’s a it was a long weekend in there, so e-giving e-giving ten days you’re coming back with your your analysis of threats and opportunities with the understanding that we’re going to narrow, we as a committee are going to narrow it down to three, three and one for each functional area, okay? No, no, no, that that i think i misled you on that one. Well, you’re going to narrow it down to a certain number of risks. It may be that there are that that the committee ends up saying, yeah, there really are seventeen risks in the development function. And they all are really rich. Each person would have identified only three. But, you know, maybe maybe it ended up that that you had ah, fifteen at least, um, legitimate risks threats that were identified, that is, you don’t limit it artificially as far as the total number of risk that could be identified within a function. Okay, i think you did mislead me, but that’s all right? You know, character. So listeners going go back, listen to what ted originally set the record will now pass that’s, right? I think it’ll show that i’m correct, but, um, so all right, so and you had also said that people can identify threats and opportunities outside their their own functional area, so a cfo can comment on it, and i can’t comment on hr and talent development, et cetera. Okay, um, that’s our second meeting, what happens after that? Now, we’ve now we’ve got our core of forty to fifty yeah, you’ve got your core of forty to fifty. The next step in that in the process would be to prioritize along those risks, because if you have forty two, fifty two, sixty risks and you think they’re all equally important, well, you’re just going to be frozen in inaction. So the next step is to use whatever tool you wish to use to prioritize those risks down to the most important ones that your organization face. And when i’m advising r our clients, i say the simpler the better, as far as prioritization, use a simple, you know, ah, point system, where each person on the team gets a certain number of points and they can allocate those points, however they wish among the fifty or sixty rhys so that if you want to push him all of your chips on toe one risk because you think that’s really important and should be really high priority for the organization, you could do that. Um, and and by doing that, you end up with your top ten or fifteen risk that got the most points and those become your first prioritized punch list of high value items that your organization should focus on during the coming period of time. You could do this like a poker game. You could all be you could buy everybody a stack of chips and okay, number one, we’re going to go through all forty or fifty. Number one who wants to throw is number one throwing your chips. But when you have a chip on that one that you exactly right, good bet judiciously, because when you’re out of chips, then you’re silent. There’s no taking chips back. Alright, right? Yeah. And? And what is happening is that people will take different different approaches to deciding what you know what their priority risks are and and the reason why. I say it needs to be a simple process is that deciding priority really is a judgment call? It has something to do with how dangerous or how good is this opportunity of its opportunity? How, how, how big is the risk if it comes about, how likely is it to come about? And if it comes about, how much lead time are we going to get before it manifest? Seldman now, you know, if you’re a multi billion dollar corporation, you khun create huge financial models to make those sorts of decision, but for the average non-profit you have to rely on people’s considered judgment, and so having a simple prioritization process where people are told, you know, consider those three factors and then put your chips the way they should. It ends up being a pretty powerful system for identifying the core risk organization and say those three three factors again, yes, it is it’s, the magnitude of the risk if it comes about the likelihood of the risk coming about and how much lead time you’re going tohave once the risk manifests itself before the full impact hit, okay, that third one could be it could be a day or so? I mean, that could be short term and they could on the end. And that might mean that you would get several rank that risk hyre because you don’t get that much lead. On the other hand, if you’re talking about a legislative change, you might have not in front. Okay? Yes, exactly. Yeah. So you’re aware, of course, weighing the factors, it might be low, like a low, low, low probability, but xero lead time and great magnitude you’re going to rank that thing. Hyre okay. All right, all right. So now we’ve got our ten. We’ve got our top ten. Yeah. Now, do we continue in just the committee and dealing with these? Or do we start to open it up in, like, meeting three or four guard to open it up? Ok, start opening up when you, when you boil that tend the risks down to your poor wrist, then you start opening it up to the rest of your staff by bringing those the list of those risks to your staff meetings and talking about those with your staff asking, ah, you know, for for their reactions tow those risks. Signing those. Risks, too. Particular people tto be dealt with a signing check in dates for when when you’re going to check back, you know that that list of core risks, which is second big tool that risk managers use, they call it a risk register. But that prioritized list becomes the operational judge document that you share with your staff in all staff meetings and and other staff meetings. You also share that up to your board of directors because those are the core risk that the organisation face and the board may want to weigh in on some of those risks. Excellent. Ted. We’re gonna leave it there. That’s a perfect place to ah overviewing on dh, of course, there’s get you could get thie get the format at risk. Hyphen alternatives dot com. You could follow ted at t bilich b i l i c h ted village. Thank you so much for sharing. Uh, tony was great to be here. Thank you so much for having me on my pleasure. We need to take a break. Wittner, cps, anek cerp from the latest testimonial quote, they’re accessible. They care about their clients. End quote, can you say that about your accounting and audit firm? This is another way that wagner goes beyond the numbers remember all the guides and the templates you heard me rattle on about, but they’re valuable. So it’s rattling and it’s valuable rattle. Yes, it was very it was a high tone rattle, good tone, so there’s that but then there’s also they’re accessible. They care let’s make it personal. Talk to eat. Which tomb he’s. The guy you want to talk to? Check out wagner, cpas, dot com he’s a very good guy. Now time for tony’s take two two people have me on their podcasts, it’s their lives joe correct, and i talked about charity registration. Now, first of all, i have to apologize to joe correct, who i’ve always called joe garrick, including what he was on the show. Why he didn’t correct me, i guess. It’s too polite. I don’t know. I think i take notes. Well, as long as they’re not from my wife, i think i’m open so i would. Appreciate it, but joe correct did not. So i have to correct, correct and eso yes, joe, correct, and i did charity registration and i did, launching a planned e-giving program with heather yan tao. Those are my two tricks to trick pony that’s what i know, plan giving and charity registration heimans lots of people say they feel passionate, passionate about their their work you need i love you. The twitter bios air are actually pretty interesting there’s a lot of passion out there, they’re passionate about whatever they do. I don’t know, i like it. I like playing giving i like charity registration let’s just leave it at that let’s not get carried away about passion. Um, so those are the two things i talked about. So the plan the plan giving with heather watching apollo program? Not surprisingly, i talked about charitable bequests that is the place to begin your plan giving program, as you know, and it could be the place to stop. If you’re a smaller, maybe even midsize shop, you don’t want to invest in more and more like infrastructure and further expertise or something it’s not necessary, you can have a very respectable program with charitable bequests start and stop there so you’ll hear that message. And then, of course, we’re going to more detail about starting a plan giving program against marketing tips that i shared with heather et cetera and for charity registration that was the one with job. Correct? Um, you know, the biggest hook with that is your donate. Now button, if you have a donate now button on your website, you’re accepting gifts on your site. That thing is a solicitation in lots of states the day that it goes live, and it doesn’t matter whether anybody in montana ever clicks on it. I don’t know if montana is one states you gotta register is like ten or twelve states where you don’t but let’s just don’t don’t fight the hypothetical, um, it’s it’s a solicitation in a lot of states, the moment it goes live because people in those states can see it so that’s a big hook you donate now button and just generally, of course, charity registration. You need to be registered in each state where you solicit donations, and joe and i went into some of the generalities about registration because it’s a morass. But there are some generalizations you could draw about what the states require in terms of timing and forms and fees, things like that when you get into the weeds of charity registration, then that’s where it’s it’s a morass because every state has its own let’s be polite and say video sync christie’s that they’re their own personalities that must emerge through the charity registration channel so you can’t make a lot of you can’t go into a lot of detail and, you know, like a forty minute podcast, but there are generalizations you can draw, and so we talk about exemptions also exemptions or key, you know, once you find a state that you need to register in because, you know you’re soliciting in that state, the first thing you want to do is look at the exemptions in that state. What do those look like? Because you might very well be exempt. Then, of course, drill down to the details of exemptions and that’s where the morass comes in is in a state where you apply for the exemption or the state, and you have to be approved for the exemption. Or is it a state where? You could just walk away, throw up your hands and go to the next state because you just deem yourself exempt, right? So joe, correct, and i talked about the exemption, of course, too, because, you know, you could save a lot of time if you find that you are exempt. All right. So carrie restoration job, correct planned e-giving beginning of launching a plant e-giving program that’s with heather, you, lando and i’ve got links to those two podcasts, of course, there’s. My video. I have to have my own personality and nuances. So my video, with the links to the those two podcasts where i was a guest, is that tony martignetti dot com live. 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Thanks to your station for carrying us affiliate affections that’s the liveliest or love the podcast pleasantries and the affiliate affections. Now let’s, go to darby, barca and your disaster recovery plan. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc twenty fifteen the non-profit technology conference were in day two. We’re in austin, texas, at the convention center and my guest is dar vivir ca she’s vice president of technology for lift a lefty and her workshop topic is avoiding disaster a practical guide for backup systems and disaster recovery planning. Dar welcome, thank you very much. Good to be here. It’s a pleasure to have you this day two we’re highlighting one swag item at ntc per for interview and, uh, i have a double chip biscotti from ah sputnik moment the hashtag is hashtag is sputnik smiles and i’m told that the glasses go with the biscotti, so this is essential. This is this interview’s swag moment. Thank you very much. Sputnik smiles and it goes into the goes into the swag collection. There it is. Okay, door. Um, we need to know some ah, little basic turn. Well, you know what? Before we even get into why is disaster recovery and the related and included back-up so i don’t know if it’s just for gotten ignored, not done well, what inspired the session is a organization i used to work for. We were required by auditors to do a disaster recovery plans. So when it came time for the annual audit, i got out the current disaster recovery plan and went all right, i’m going to go ahead and update this and when i discovered when i read the plan was there were servers, there were eight years old gone for the last eight years server and reading the planet was very clear that what the previous person had done was simply change the date and update the plan for auditors. And as i thought about it and talk to other people, i found that that actually happens a lot people it’s d r is sort of that thing they don’t have time for because no one ever thinks it’ll happen to them, so you push it off and you push it off, and you either just download the template, you know, a template off the internet, and you slap a date on it and basically fill it out just for the auditors. But a lot of organizations never actually think through their disaster recovery, they don’t get into the details, they don’t worry about it, and then when a disaster actually happens to them, they’re sort of stuck. You don’t have a plan that i don’t have a functioning crush on, they’ve never tried it out, so that was what inspired the session and as we dug into it. We we tried to give the thirty thousand foot view because disaster it cover, you know, there’s an entire industry, the deals with technology, disaster recovery. You can spend days on this topic, and obviously we didn’t have days. We had a ninety minute session, so we tried to give the thirty thousand foot view of the practical items you need to pay attention to if you’re not confident in your organisation’s d our plan, if you don’t have a d our plan or if you do and you really don’t, you know, you think it really needs an overhaul that sort of the top ten of items of what you should really be looking at when you’re dealing with disaster recovering backups. And we tried to give some several practical examples myself and the other speaker and andrew, who could not make it this morning of disasters we’ve had to deal with as well as other well known ones. Yeah, okay, do we need some basic language? Miree before we get into the d r disaster recovery topic short jr is one of them. Disaster recovers, often referred to his d r it’s often spoken about in terms of business continuity or bc, which is sort of the larger plan for the entire organisation should’ve disaster strike there’s the others very d are specific things such as our poet recovery point objective that we could talk about your rto, which is recovery time objective there’s very specific language like that for disasters. It’s usually just revert to de ours. So whenever we say d arts disaster recovery okay, we’ll see if we get into those eyes and i could explain to ms wick. Okay, um, all right? So clearly we should have a disaster recovery written, just recovery plan. Even if we’re an organization that small enough that doesn’t have an annual audit, we still should have something in place. Yes. Okay. What belongs in our day? Our plan top ten things. You need a contact list for your team. So if you have a top ten of the d r i do of what should your plan d our plan? You know, it could be anything from a five page outline that just covers the basics. And in in our sessions slides, which i’ve posted in the ntc library gives it some good resource is for doing andy. Our plan, or it could be a, you know, a huge hundred page document, it covers absolutely every aspect of business continuity or something in between it’s going very by organization, and the reality is, if you’re a small organisation with a small team, you might only be able to do the five page outline but that’s better than nothing that’s better than no d our plan or a d r plan that realistically hasn’t been updated in the last ten years, but i would say, you know, the top ten you really should have in your day. Our plan is number one, a contact list for your team members. What is the contact for your team, folks, your business continuity folks, if you normally would get that out of your email and you’re in a disastrous situation, you know you can’t get to your email or, you know, like we’re ever going through, and i want listeners to know that she’s doing this without notes, i it seems very confident that she’s got the hopefully i’ve ever altum in-kind get seven out of seven or eight ten will be ecstatic, but so continue. Oh, but i want to say yeah, as we’re going through, consider two organizations that may not have someone devoted to it. Correct, that is, our listeners are small and midsize non-profits right? They very, very well just all be outsourced or it falls on the executive director’s desk. Excellent point. Would you cover that in the session? So t finish at the top ten contactless three team members contact list for your vendors, a call tree and some sort of communications. How do you tell your organization in your members that you’ve had a disaster? Either your servers have gone down your parts of burst and your communications air underwater? How do you do that? What is your network look like? So? Network diagram process outline how you’re actually going to do your disaster recovery a timeline? How long do you expect these activities to take before you? Khun b live again, a list of systems and applications that you’re going to recover if you’re a large enough or gore, you can afford a hot site what’s called a hot or warm site where you can immediately switch over two other equipment. You know information about that, you’d need that to start your recovery and then also information about your backups. You know, who’s got your back ups? What system are you using? How do you, you know? Get those back. So those air sort of like the top ten things or d our plan should have. Alright, let’s dive intothe process. Ok a bit, because that intrigues me. And hopefully listeners. I think so. I think i have a fare beat on what’s. Interesting. I hope i do. Um, yeah. What? How do we start to think about what our dear process should be? First, you have to think about what all could be a disaster for your organization. A lot of people think about things, you know, earthquakes, hurricane, sandy, hurricane katrina. But it could also be water pipes bursting in your building. That is one of the most common thing. If your server is not properly protected, which a lot aren’t a lot of stuck in closets. Ah, dripping pipe water. We call those water events and that seems to be the most common thing departments encounter is leaking pipes in the building or some sort of a flooding situation. But it could also be an elektronik. Disasters such i’ve worked at an organization that underwent what’s called a ddos attack, which is a distributed denial of service. It took out our entire web presence because malicious hacker hacker went after that’s where there’s millions of right the network and they just flood your network seconds you’re overloaded and yeah, and that’s a disaster situations. So one, why would they attack like that? Why wasn’t non-profit attack malicious? The cp dot organ are attacked out with avon marchenese travon martin decision. Folks attacked our our petition site way. We were able to get it back online, but for a couple of hours. Yeah, we were off line. And that could be considered a disaster situation. For sure. Yeah. How do you help us think through what potential disasters are not even identify them all i think about what could affect your or what you wear. You vulnerable? Some of the things we talked about in the session and we’ll think about it. How would you get back online if the’s various things happen to you are your are your services sort of in the cloud? Do you have servers on site and start there when thinking about your process is what would you have to recover if these various scenarios affected you or with these various scenarios. Scenarios affect you if your website is completely outsourced to a vendor that has de dos protection. Okay, that’s, not a scenario you have to worry about so kind of analyze it and every organs going to be different. You know, if you live on the west coast, you’re probably concerned more about earthquakes than other regions. So it’s it’s going to vary for each organization, what sort of disaster you’re going to be worried about? And then you start getting down into the practical nuts and bolts in terms of who are your disaster recovery people, who’s your team, if you’re really small lorry, that might just be you or as you mentioned before, if you’re using outsourced, manage service provider and your vendors responsible for that, make sure your vendor has a d our plan for you. Ah lot of folks just assume your vendors taking care of that, but when it comes right down to it, do they actually have d our experience? Can they recover your items? Actually sit down and have that conversation? Because so many of the small org’s as you pointed out, do youse outsourced thes days and there’s there’s a lot of manage service providers that specialize in non-profit, but you need to have that conversation. Don’t wait till you’re under a disaster scenario to discover that groups they don’t actually have that experience have that conversation ahead of time. What else belongs in our process? Outline in your process latto outline if you’ve got a another site either a cold, a warmer, hot site or if your stuff is based in the cloud, where would you recover to the hot side is some place you go to drink cold water or hot? Sure, a cold site would be where you’ve got another location let’s say you have a dozen servers at your location, and in the case of, you know, your building being inaccessible or underwater. A cold site would be where you’ve got another location you could go to, but you don’t really have any equipment stage there, but it is another location you can begin operations out if that’s a cold sight there’s nothing ready to go, but you’ve got a sight a warm site would be where you sort of have a skeletal equipment there it’s far less capacity than you’re currently at, but you’ve got something there it’s not live, but you got stuff ready to go that you can restore to and get going. And a hot site is where you can flip over immediately. Your live replicating to somewhere else, it’s ready to go? It might not be full capacity, so it might not have, you know, full blown data line size that you’re used to might not have your full range of service, but it is live and you could switch over near instantaneously. That’s a hot site, ok, eso you’d want that in your process, and you’re going to want to think about what are you restoring and that’s where we get into the backups? What comes first and that’s, where you start getting into terms such as recovery point, objective and recovery time objective those air to very common d our terms recovery time is how far back are you recovering, too? And what does that mean for each system? So if it’s your donorsearch system that’s probably fairly critical, you want a recent restore of that? If it’s a system that doesn’t change very much, maybe a week ago restores okay for that and sorry that’s recovery point objective recovery time objective is how long does it take you to get back online after a disaster? You know, ifyou’ve got to download your data from an external source. Has anyone thought about how long that’s going to take you to get the data back? Is it going to take you fifteen hours or three days? So it’s in a lot of folks don’t think about that ahead of time, they just go oh, you know, we’ll we’ll pull it back down if we have a disaster, but they don’t think about instead of their nice normal data communications, they’re going to be on a tiny d s l line trying to pull down one hundred fifty gigs of information and it’s going to take a week to get it back down. I have to say you’re very good about explaining terms and thank you, proper radio. We have jargon jail? Yes, we try not teo transcend. You haven’t transgressed cause your immediate about explaining exactly what recovery point river and recovery time objectives are. It could be very confusing, you know, if you don’t understand the terms in tech, you can be confusing what folks are talking about, and that was one of the the focus is of our station session is making it less confusing and being very practical, practical about what you can or cannot do. And if folks go and look at our slides, they’ll see on several of the items we did a good, better best, and we tried to talk about that all throughout the session because we realized again for a small ork or, you know, even a large order that just doesn’t have the resources to devote to it. You might not be able to do best practice, but you could at least try a good practice that would be better than nothing. And then so we do a good, better best for each each type of thing like what does a good d our plan look like? Versace best day our plan and at least try and get to that good, because at least you’ll have something and it could be a continuum where you try and improve it along the way. But you’ve got to start somewhere it’s better than just ignoring it, which is what happens. At a lot of places. Got to take a break. Tell us credit card and payment processing. You know these people check out the video at tony dot m a slash tony tello’s that will start to explain to you the long tail of revenue that you can earn from. Tell us when you get companies to look att tello’s. Let tell us look at their processing fees. Then they switch to tell us you get fifty percent of the revenue forever. Tony dahna slash tony. Tell us now back to your disaster recovery plan with dar do we need to prioritize what what’s mission critical. And, yes, we can work with out for a time. Yes. How do we determine that? Definitely. We talk about that in terms of its not just a knight each decision either because we may think that the emails the most critical thing out there, but development may see the donor system as the most critical out there program might think that the case management system is the most critical out there. So you finance wants their account. They want their accounting system up. Obviously you’ve got to have an order in which you bring these things up. You’re probably not gonna have enough staff for bandwith or, you know, equipment to bring everything back online, so there needs to be and hopefully your executive team would be involved in deciding for the organization what is most critical in what order are you going to bring those things up? And that needs to be part of your d r plan? Because otherwise, if you’re in a disaster scenario, you’re not going to know where to start and there’s going to be a lot of disagreement of who starts where so you guys need to decide on the order, okay, we still have a few minutes left, but what more can we say about d r and related back-up that’s not going to wait till i’m back up because i think we could do a little bit in terms of d r i would say the key points on backups are check them because a lot of time, yes, monthly or quarterly, at least is anyone looking at your back-up back-up work-life one of the scenarios that we talked about that actually happened to my co speaker, andrew, was that their server room flooded and it hit their razor’s edge server, which is their entire c, m, s, c r, e, m and donorsearch system, and they thought it was backing up, but no one had actually check the backups in the last two months, and it was on, and it was not s o in terms of back-up just typical, you know, pay attention to the maintenance. What do you backing up? Has anyone checked it? And again, if you’re using a manage service provider, make sure if they’re responsible for for looking at your backups of managing them, make sure they’re doing that, you know, double check and make sure that they understand that your backups are critical and they can’t just ignore the alerts about your backups. You know, you don’t want to be in the unpleasant situation of three of our servers just got flooded. We need the data and discover nobody was backing it up. It ain’t exactly okay. All right. Anything else? You wanna leave people about back-up before we go to the broader diar? No, i think that’s. Good for those were the highlights for it. All right. So back to the disaster recovery. What more can we say about that. There are going to be a lot of watches if you’re in a large d our situation and so one of things we stress is one getting down into the details of your d our plan before disaster hits, you see, if you’ve never thought about how you’re actually going to do the restores air, actually, how you’re going to be rebuild those servers, you need two ahead of time. A lot of folks never practice have a fire drill. I hate fire drill, but and you don’t have a live fire drills in this case, it might be a live fire drill. You don’t want to have that, so you should make some effort to practice, even if it’s just something small, you know, trying to restore one server. I mentioned in this session that i was put in a situation years ago at johns hopkins university, where we were required to have verification of live tr practice. So i was put in a room that had a table, a telephone, a server, and we were carrying two laptops, and we couldn’t come out of the room, and so we had completely restored our domain. We had a set. Of backups on the thumb drive and added the second laptop to that domain improve that we had restored the domain, and an independent person that was not connected to our department was monitoring to make sure we had done it and we had to prove it, and that was an eye opening experience is as experienced as i was doing that i’d never done it live, and it took me three tries to do it so that’s, right? Encourage folks to really try and practice this stuff ahead of time and get down into the you know, the weeds on there on their d our planet on also to think about it. You weren’t fired because way, john no, no, no. I actually like too much john soft. No, we did complete it within the time frame, but we were a little startled when we discovered that we thought we knew how to do it first time out. And we kept making little mistakes. There were two of us and they’re doing it. And we were surprised ourselves that we thought, oh, of course we know this. This is not a problem, but no, we were making little mistakes. Because we didn’t have the documentation down, a specific is it needed to be, and so that was a very eye opening experience. There’s a couple of their d r gotchas we talked about, which is crossed, people don’t think about the cost ahead of time. How much is going to cost to get you that data? Back in the instance of my co presenter who had the damaged drives, they weren’t expecting a near ten thousand dollars cost to recover those drives, but that’s what happened when they didn’t have the backups? They had to take those hard drives to a data recovery place, and the price tag was nearly ten thousand dollars. Dealing with insurance is another big one that people don’t think about having to account for all of the equipment that was lost, and dealing with that insurance morass often gets dumped on the auntie department in a small organization. There’s not, you know, a legal department that’s going to deal with that it’s going to be you so to, you know, kind of talk to your insurance provider ahead of time and see what all you have to deal with in a disaster situation, so you don’t get an unpleasant surprise if you’re ever, in one a cz well, on the insurance topic, just are you covered? Exactly what what, exactly, is your equipment covered, and what do you have to do with that? In terms of accounting for it, if you suffer a disaster and you know the gooch is, we get so a couple of minutes, if if oh, about conscious. Trying to think about somebody we don’t hold back on provoc video, i think some of the other ones that we covered in their thick wit mint again to the cost, how much is it going to cost you? Two gets new equipment and did you account for that when you were doing your d our plan and a time to recover? A lot of folks don’t understand how long it may take them to do a recovery and also deciding what is important and what is not important, not just in terms of what should be restored in what order, but in terms of practical things, do you really need to restore your domain? Er, or could you just start over from scratch if your domain only contains maybe fifty accounts and doesn’t have any associated servers faster for you to just start over and just recreate the domain immediately? Especially if a lot of your emails in office three, sixty five or google maps, you could reconnect it very quickly. So, you know, thinking about more practical gotsch is like that that you should think about have time, you know, obviously it’s that’s the best practice to think? Of all these details, and he realized folks may not be able to, so we provided someone sheets and some samples of them of just quick, yes or no questions and thinking this through and things to think about and where will we that is not notice provoc radio has a professional sound i don’t know about ntcdinosaur ten, but that was a way over there. They’re on their own. They can come to us for expertise if they if they need to. But, uh uh, now i messed myself up because i ask you about something. What were you just talking about? How much? How long will actually take you to recover things? And whether or not you should practically skipped recovering something because it might be faster to rebuild it. Okay, i have a follow up to that my smart ass humor, maybe lose it. All right, so why did you leave us with one take away? Dror back-up the session was a little bit misnamed because technically, you’re not going to avoid a disaster you really can’t in many cases, you’re not gonna avoid the flood. You’re not going to avoid the earthquake if you’re in that. Region so you need to plan on how to deal with it. So it’s more like avoiding avoiding your d are becoming the disaster because you’re not going to avoid the disaster itself, so you might as well plan for it. Outstanding. Thank you very much. Door. Thank you much. Darby america vice president of technology for lift. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc non-profit technology conference two thousand fifteen. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. Next week date your donor’s returns with jonah helper. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. 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