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Nonprofit Radio for April 24, 2020: 5 Questions & Working Virtually

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Heather Yandow: 5 Questions

Heather Yandow’s article is “ 5 Questions to Answer Before You Call a Consultant,” and she’ll help you avoid making a costly mistake. She’s founder of Nonprofit.ist.

 

 

 

Heather Martin & Alice Hendricks: Working Virtually

We talk through the issues encountered when managing remote staff: technological; generational; emotional; measurement; recruiting and retaining. Our panel is Heather Martin from Interfaith Family and Alice Hendricks with Jackson River. (Originally aired 11/2/18)

 

 

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[00:00:14.04] spk_2:
Hello and welcome

[00:02:14.31] spk_3:
to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d come down with hydrogen itis if you made me sweat with the idea that you missed today’s show. Five questions Heather Yan does article is five questions to answer before you call a consultant, and she’ll help you avoid making a costly mistake. She’s founder of non profit IST and working Virtually. We talked through the issues encountered when managing remote staff. Technological, generational, emotional measurement, recruiting and retaining. Our panel is Heather Martin from Interfaith Family and Alice Hendricks with Jackson River that originally aired November 2nd 2018. Tony Take to Our Innovators Siri’s were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As, guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for non profits, Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. It’s a pleasure to welcome have a Ando to the show. She is founder of non profit ist an online resource that helps payer nonprofits with the right consultants. She’s also a lead consultant at Third Space Studio, where she helps with Strategic Planning Board and leadership development and going from Good to great. Previously she was director of development and communications with the North Carolina Conservation Network. Her consultancy is at third space studio dot com, and non profit ist is at non profit dot i s t Welcome to the show. Had the Endo thanks

[00:02:14.64] spk_5:
so much for having me. I’m glad to be here.

[00:02:21.29] spk_3:
Thank you. It’s a pleasure. Thank you. You’re welcome. You’re welcome. So you work. You are a consultant. Um, I can I guess, that people have made mistakes in,

[00:02:31.59] spk_4:
I don’t know, maybe made mistakes by hiring. You know, that’s not that’s not what I want to say. Scratch that. Scratch the the the opening clause of that sentence. But

[00:02:42.27] spk_3:
people can make mistakes in their consultant hiring. If they’re not thinking ahead.

[00:02:50.04] spk_5:
That’s absolutely right. Make really costly mistakes. And they can waste a lot of time, their time and consultant time by not really having your questions answered before they go into it.

[00:03:01.18] spk_4:
Okay. Have you been in a situation where you didn’t you felt that the organization had not thought through enough what they really wanted, and it it wasn’t the right time to hire you.

[00:03:33.12] spk_5:
Absolutely. What? What I see are a couple of different problems that are reflected in these questions Wound that I see all the time and others might see. This, too, is, but people come without a clear understanding of how much they have to budget for some kind of engagement with a consultant. So we’re talking about a project, and that project could be anywhere from five hours of my time to 25 hours of my time to 100 hours of my time, depending on how deep we want to go. And having a sense of budget is really helpful with the front end.

[00:03:51.37] spk_4:
That’s that’s something that I ask. I do plan to giving consultant and and before I do a proposal, I have Teoh. I have to have a budget range, at least not going to be a number, but I have to have an idea. So I know that the things we just spent the past hour talking about can be achieved with the budget that the organization has in mind?

[00:04:12.04] spk_5:
Absolutely, absolutely. And if people are getting multiple proposals for this kind of work, which often happens and I encourage, it’s really helpful to be able to compare apples to apples. So you’re not just comparing on costs because that’s often not the most important variable. You’re really comparing on approach on personality fit on culture fit on all of these other variables that are going to give you a much better outcome.

[00:04:49.80] spk_4:
Yeah, okay, very wise. All right, So you’ve been on both sides, give you you’ve been in a non profit, and as a consultant, you’ve been you’ve hired non. You’ve hired consultants when you were I

[00:04:52.08] spk_5:
have higher consultant. And certainly, over the past nine years of serving as a consultant, I have had many of these conversations about getting to the proposal or the contract phase.

[00:05:10.65] spk_4:
Well, I admire you putting this these thoughts down because I’ve been a consultant even longer, and I never you know, I do

[00:05:20.84] spk_3:
these things implicitly, but to say to organizations, these are the things you should have in place, or the These are the questions you should be asking internally before you get to

[00:05:22.27] spk_4:
the start. talking to the first consultant. I think that’s I think that’s valuable and helpful. So thank you for coming on. I’m glad you’re here to explain.

[00:05:30.87] spk_3:
So the first thing you want, you don’t You don’t want some vague plan like board development or strategic plan you want you need. You want something more than that?

[00:07:35.05] spk_5:
Yeah, the first question that I want you to answer is what the challenge you want to tackle. What’s the question you want answered? What’s the sticky thing that your organization has been having trouble with over the past few years? So there’s two ways that I see. Organizations often go when they talk to consultants that are not helpful. One is what you just mentioned, which is? They come with a very big desire for a strategic plan. And when you ask why, the answer might be well, because our old one ended last year, we need to do it again, which is somewhat helpful but really doesn’t tell you what’s driving this desire to have these conversations. And I think that a lot of time, these ideas that fundraising plans, marketing plans for development plans, they’re things that non profit leaders know they can ask or they know that they’re good things have. But they don’t give you much of a sense of what’s actually driving the the need for this or what kind of behind it. One of the questions keeping you up at night about this topic. One of the things you really want to tackle to this effort. So one of being too babe, The other thing I see a lot when organizations talked to me is that they are really, really specific. So they have not only figured out what the that they want a strategic plan. But they have figured out every single activity that’s gonna happen over the next six months to make that happen. So they have designed a whole process without the aid of somebody like me who does this a lot and can really bring some of that outside expertise so sometimes are also getting a little too specific and often times they’re not really addressing the right challenge. So getting clear about that challenge can help a co design something that would really address it.

[00:07:47.63] spk_4:
Yeah, okay, so two ends of the spectrum, either too vague or too specific in terms of precise tasks they want

[00:07:53.77] spk_3:
done. And they’re just hiring you to execute what they’ve developed. Yeah, I’ve never been in

[00:07:57.30] spk_4:
that situation. I’ve had the too vague, but ah, not that not to to speak

[00:07:58.72] spk_3:
well, I work in planned giving. So it’s such a black box. Unfortunately, it should not be a I’m constantly railing against that. It should not be a black box. It need not be a

[00:08:10.16] spk_4:
black box, but so I think people are not sure what activities to do in planned giving. But if it’s

[00:08:16.74] spk_5:
I think it shows up a lot in requests for proposals, which I’m actually writing an article now about how they’re the worst, and people should think about what else to do. But often in a request for proposals, it will be very, very detailed about the all of activities they want the consultant to undertake.

[00:08:35.49] spk_3:
Well, I I guess, yeah, depending how precise it is that you made man just having employees do it, you

[00:08:42.48] spk_5:
know,

[00:08:48.19] spk_3:
you developed it internally. You may as well just have the person who helped develop it to carry it out. If you’re such experts in what the plan should be, why don’t you go ahead and do it.

[00:08:53.82] spk_5:
Well.

[00:08:54.41] spk_4:
Yeah.

[00:08:54.85] spk_5:
And you’re really not getting the staying for your buck of hiring an outside expert.

[00:08:59.47] spk_3:
Because

[00:08:59.89] spk_5:
we really do understand the process of round a lot of these conversations and how to structure them. How to really engage people, how to help you make change and make that change.

[00:09:25.58] spk_4:
We’re gonna take our first break. Other. Um, we come out of this in about 30 seconds, or so I I want to dive into ah board development a little bit. Like what? What? What kind of specifics would you want to see their and then we’ll carry on with the rest of the questions. All right, so it’s time for this

[00:09:55.79] spk_3:
break wegner-C.P.As so that your 9 90 gets filed on time so that your audit gets finished on time so that you get the advice oven experienced partner, eat each tomb, been a guest on the show, and the full firm that has a nationwide non profit practice with thousands of nine nineties and audits under their belt wegner-C.P.As dot com. Now let’s go back to five questions. Okay, Heather, um, so instead of we want board development what? What would you like to see that. At what level would you like to see the The plan fleshed out.

[00:10:49.34] spk_5:
So what I would really love is for an executive director, Uh, maybe aboard. Care to call and say, you know, we’ve done some thinking about our board. Maybe we’ve even done a little bit of an assessment of our board and we figured out we have these couple of challenges. We’re really struggling with accountability around, following through on tax or we’ve done some training on fundraising, but the board still isn’t really engaged. And then we can have a conversation from there about Well, what have you tried? What do you think behind it? What might we try together to help the board shift in these particular ways? So the important pieces are that you’ve done some reflection about what the challenge might be and what’s really behind that.

[00:11:00.28] spk_4:
It’s

[00:11:14.54] spk_5:
interesting you bring out board development because that actually links into question number two, which is, does everybody agree that this is a challenge and that there’s some need for outside help? So if we’re talking about a board, the executive director might have a particular opinion. Does the board chair share that opinion and if they don’t both see the same challenges or even see a challenge with the board. Then again, you’re not setting up the consultancy for you’re not setting up this engagement for success.

[00:11:35.40] spk_4:
So does everybody agree about the challenge? Whether this even, like, what’s the source of the trouble? Is that Is that what you mean?

[00:12:07.66] spk_5:
Absolutely. So if you really if you as an executive director feel like the board really has trouble with accountability or they don’t understand their roles and responsibilities, does the board chair who is really the leader of the board have that same assessment? Would they agree? If I show up to do a training on roles and responsibilities, how is that going to be received by the board? Is everyone on the same page, or at least the leaders on the same page about what? That challenges?

[00:12:17.94] spk_4:
Okay, I see. Yeah, yeah. Um, so that so if it’s let’s let’s continue with the example that board development, um, you you want to know? Do you want to know that the full board has, uh, I don’t have formally approved it, but at least discussed the idea that you know we need some help here is you want to go to that? You want to know about the full board or really, just like the Executive committee or what?

[00:12:39.97] spk_5:
I think it depends on board culture. I would say more people buying it is always

[00:12:45.95] spk_4:
better.

[00:12:46.73] spk_5:
So if there is a conversation among the full board about devoting two hours at our next meeting to this topic to bring in an outside expert to talk about this, that was the ideal that really sets me and any other convulsant up for success.

[00:13:12.88] spk_4:
And so I guess likewise. If there’s some kind of staff, um, I don’t know, uh, staff work that’s going to be done. Um, you’d want to know that the staff is, uh, has bought into the idea. It’s not just coming from the vice president or the CEO.

[00:13:24.71] spk_5:
Absolutely. If you want to develop a fundraising clan, is your development team brought into bought into the need to do this? Have they talked about what the challenges are? How whatever this fundraising plan is might help them move past those challenges. So it’s really the kind of idea of who are the key stakeholders and are they in agreement with the desire to have an outside expert come in? Are they in agreement about the challenge at hand?

[00:13:52.31] spk_4:
Okay, okay. Yes, the key stakeholders. Right. All right, all right. So, yeah, if you’re driving home the point that there’s gotta be gotta be conversations internally before we start talking to somebody externally, we got to know what our trouble is. And beyond that,

[00:14:01.89] spk_5:
right?

[00:14:27.72] spk_4:
And the key people need to be invested in the process to solving the problem. Okay? Absolutely. Right now, I want todo let you know that I let you. I let you suddenly go from question 1 to 2 without my without my buy in. It’s okay. I’m, uh Let’s just just, uh, tread lightly as we go forward. Okay? Um, all

[00:14:30.63] spk_3:
right. So the next one is a timing. When when do you want the project?

[00:14:41.07] spk_5:
Absolutely. So this is really important, because often time, the timing really impact when a consultant is able to help or not. So if you want a board retreat next Saturday, I may not be able to help, or even next month, someone may be booked up if you already have really important date for that project on a calendar and a consultant isn’t isn’t available. You may have to move on to another person, or you may have to shift the timeline, if that’s really the right person.

[00:15:09.84] spk_4:
So

[00:15:47.65] spk_5:
there’s one question about a specific dates on the calendar. The other question is just what’s really driving the timeline for the organization? Do you need this to be done by a certain date? Because there’s a grant deadline? There’s turnover on your board. There’s something else externally driving it. So at the front end, really thinking through Where does this fit in? In terms of our schedules can be really helpful in figuring out in that first phone call is this person is this consultant a good fit and and what might need to be shifted to make them a good

[00:16:23.74] spk_4:
you know as well. There has to be some receptivity for the consultant to push back and say, You know, that’s not a That’s not a realistic timeline for the scope of the work that we’re talking about, you know, putting aside it’s, you know, a board retreat on a weekend or at a board meeting, but you no longer term engagement like for instance, planned giving. There’s not much we can do in planned giving in six months. I don’t I don’t consent Teoh. I don’t agree. Toe. Six month engagement’s got to be at least a year. So it’s got You have to be willing to hear that what we’ve just talked about can’t be done in the timeline that you defined.

[00:16:28.98] spk_5:
I’m so glad you brought that up. I

[00:16:30.81] spk_4:
think

[00:16:31.55] spk_5:
I would

[00:16:32.52] spk_4:
say

[00:16:32.91] spk_5:
90% of the folks I talked Teoh, uh, have a over ambitious timeline

[00:16:39.86] spk_4:
on.

[00:17:27.44] spk_5:
And when we really start to dig into, uh, what are all the past but need to be accomplished, who were all the people that need be engaged? What are all the schedule that need to be managed? Often times we’re having that same conversation, and and I believe, as you probably do that particularly for these bigger processes where you’re really in terms of plan giving, building something new, doing a lot of research, having these important conversations, it just takes more time. And that’s important because it also means that it’s more likely to stick if you were having more conversations over more time. So when I do strategic planning I really like for that. Have a six or nine months time horizon that gives people enough time to really think through all the implications of that he changes were making gives the board and the staff opportunities to engage with each other in different ways. So, yes, pushing back on the timeline is really important to

[00:18:13.51] spk_4:
the strategic planning, I would think, uh, I mean, that’s, uh so I’ve never I don’t I don’t do that kind of consulting at all, but, um, yeah, I mean, there’s their interviews and have to take place and coordinate with people’s schedules. You know which board members just started a new business. So she’s gonna be in Costa Rica for eight weeks, you know? Uh, yeah, that’s that’s a particularly strategic planning. And I would think that’s a particularly long time frame. And then and you have to Ah, you have to be willing toe recognize that it may not be finished, even in the time that we have to find.

[00:18:20.24] spk_5:
Yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:23.64] spk_4:
All right. All right. Um, so before we rush through Teoh points number four and five, uh, put now I’m putting on the spot about a bit tell Tell us a story. Um, something that, uh, you know,

[00:18:35.13] spk_3:
maybe maybe when the initial conversation took place, they hadn’t thought through it enough, and you advised them that they do some internal thinking and then you did command and you were genius, and they paid you

[00:18:56.61] spk_4:
double what? The contract amount, You know, anything like that where you know, the internal work was was made a big difference. You could tell.

[00:19:02.04] spk_5:
Yeah, I wish I had that. For where they paid me double. I

[00:19:16.69] spk_4:
don’t. You know, you haven’t been consulting long enough. I have a dozen of those. Oh, man, I have a dozen of those, but I’ve been consulting since 2003. 17 years. 17 years. You’ll get there, you’ll get there about it.

[00:19:34.04] spk_5:
I What I have is more of the lesson learned in failure of the cautionary tale, particularly early on in my consulting career, Um, kind of blindly believing one person’s viewpoint of the state of an organization and not truth checking that

[00:19:42.37] spk_4:
with

[00:19:43.04] spk_5:
other key stakeholders.

[00:19:44.75] spk_4:
What happened?

[00:20:45.44] spk_5:
And I was a new executive director, called for some work with their board. Um, the board was having some big problems with getting work done. Committees weren’t really functioning very well. They weren’t doing their fundraising. Very as I look back things that a lot of organizations are dealing with, I often hear some of some similar complaints. And so we talked about doing 1/2 day board retreat where we developed some action plans on how to get things back on track, and I discovered upon getting into the border treat. But the board did not see these as problems on, and that if I had done some more conversation or even some assessment survey work with the board, I would have discovered that they had a very different viewpoint of what the challenges were. And they were in some, some level of conflict with the executive director about whose work was this, how they wanted to be encouraged and Stewart as volunteers of the organization. And so it was a real lesson for me of that. That question Number two has the board chair in the executive director. Have they talked about that? There they in agreement. Does everyone see this challenge from the same viewpoint

[00:21:05.49] spk_4:
that sounds like, uh, may have become Ah, hopefully not tense, but at least awkward. While you were in front of the board.

[00:21:13.89] spk_5:
It was definitely awkward. It was definitely awkward. We recovered and they did some good work. Um, but

[00:21:20.98] spk_4:
it’s

[00:21:25.12] spk_5:
good. Waas. I learned definitely that I needed to have a more comprehensive understanding of organizations before I do that kind of work.

[00:21:30.20] spk_4:
Yes, not one person’s perception. All right. Was the executive director in the room while this was unfolding?

[00:21:37.44] spk_5:
She waas

[00:21:38.56] spk_3:
way

[00:21:39.15] spk_5:
had some good conversations afterwards. It wasn’t It wasn’t terrible, but it really did draw more of a bright line of this is what you thought was going on. And this is what the board thinks is going on

[00:21:51.58] spk_4:
and their difference. And we

[00:21:56.16] spk_5:
need to talk about why and how we can deal with those.

[00:21:58.01] spk_4:
Okay, good that it was early on in your career. Not This was just not last week, was it?

[00:22:02.64] spk_5:
But I was not last week.

[00:22:05.46] spk_4:
Okay, So you’re going uphill. That’s good. That’s good, right? Uh, right. OK, Your next one is around money.

[00:22:53.86] spk_5:
Yes. So we already talked about this a little bit that it is so important on the front end to have an understanding of what your budget is for any work not only for other reasons we already discussed, but also because it really signals to a consultant and signal to your organization that you’re serious about addressing the challenge. Uh, so if you have money built into the budget for if you go back to the board and have them approved a revised budget with a little bit more funding for some kind of special project throughout the year, it also signals to everyone that this is a serious issue and we’re going to devote resources to it. Plus super useful for us consultants to know what we’re dealing with And if it’s even possible, As you said,

[00:23:12.24] spk_4:
Yeah, yeah, And and, uh, you know your point earlier. I want toe reemphasize. If you’re getting getting proposals that run the spectrum of costs, then you’re not really making fair comparisons?

[00:23:25.02] spk_5:
Absolutely, Absolutely. You I definitely have seen organizations to particularly for these, uh, catch all terms like strategic plan will get a $5000 proposal and a $50,000 proposal, and they’re just not comparable.

[00:24:03.22] spk_4:
And then you end up wondering Well, okay, way sounds. Let’s say we could spend the 50,000 but what would the over the 5000 person have done if we told them that our budget was 50,000 cause we like what they’re doing for five, but it’s not nearly as comprehensive. Obviously, G, what would they have done for 15? And then you got to go back to them and, you know Oh, our way. We can’t spend 25. And so neither one is quite right. You know, that’s a big botch. That’s that’s a big time. Waste time suck. All right, all right. Be up front.

[00:24:08.60] spk_3:
And there is a responsibility on consultants to I think Teoh toe Ask if if money hasn’t come up, you gotta ask What? What are we looking at? What kind of budget do you have?

[00:24:40.70] spk_5:
Absolutely having that money conversation. And I tend to do it even earlier in the conversation now because what I find is that we can daydream about all of the wonderful things we could do together. And then when they say and we have $10,000 I have to sometimes really some of those things back in or I have to have. They have to make hard choices about all of the potential beautiful options I put out on the table. So I’m even now early in the conversation, asking trick so that we can really right size. Or I can present options in a way that helps people understand what’s possible.

[00:25:00.45] spk_4:
Okay, Okay. Uh, let’s go to your last question. What do you got? You insurance? It’s

[00:25:57.32] spk_5:
the last question, but I think it might be the most important one. And that’s how much organizational time and energy do you have to address this challenge. So what’s the bandwidth for this piece of work? Um, a lot of times you may see this. Two organizations think Well, I have a problem. So we’re just gonna throw money at it. We’re gonna hire consultants and they’re gonna hear our woes and go off and fix it and come back and present us with perfect plan to solve all of our problems. Um, that’s not realistic. Uh, I don’t believe that’s how consultants who want to really make lasting change in organisations often operates. So we always need organizational help. We need board time. We need staff time. We need If we’re in the case of fundraising, we need some reports from your database. We might need to look at, um, sit down with you and really go over your last strategic plan and think about what worked and didn’t and why? But we’re definitely gonna need the executive director’s Dan with and then the other key stakeholders.

[00:26:18.04] spk_4:
Oh, getting

[00:26:18.89] spk_5:
clear. Yeah,

[00:26:20.11] spk_4:
go ahead. Now you’re finished, you finish. I’ll remember mine.

[00:26:23.62] spk_5:
Those getting clear about do you have the bandwidth? And if you are trying to do a huge capital campaign and move the office and you’ve got transition of a key staff person or you’re hiring a whole set of people because we’re ramping up for the election if there are other organizational priorities going on sometimes I’ll say If I it seems like this isn’t the right time to tackle up a big project that you really don’t have the band with, you got some other competing priorities?

[00:27:25.14] spk_4:
Uh huh. That often gets in the way of the final step. Engagement? Uh, because other things are coming up. There’s a database conversion. There’s a gala, um, et cetera. It’s valuable to to talk about. I think, at the at the granular level, how much time this is going to take a least. At least in my work. Um, you know, I need a staff person, and I’ll need maybe 4 to 5 hours a month of their time or something. You know something along those lines so that they know what they can plan around, You know, everything you just said. Just getting a little more granular with it.

[00:27:34.77] spk_5:
Yeah, I will. Often as we’re talking through, really think about what’s the board time and attention we might need?

[00:27:40.33] spk_4:
What’s the

[00:27:50.34] spk_5:
halftime in attention we might need, um and really thinking about how does that fit in with what you already have going on over the course of the year? Can we find an hour of this board meeting and three hours is aboard retreat to do this work? Or is it is your plate already full for this year? That might be OK.

[00:28:01.28] spk_4:
Okay, um, final thought Heather before, before we wrap up, Just got about a minute left.

[00:28:08.34] spk_5:
So the final about is all of these points to being really intentional about the conversations you have internally before you pick up the phone and call a consultant really thinking through what’s our challenge? How much how many resources we have to devote to this. With our time as we convert to this, that’s gonna be you’re gonna get much better proposal from consultants. And in the end, a better engagement and a better product.

[00:28:35.08] spk_4:
Have a endo. We’re gonna leave it there. Thank you very much.

[00:28:38.32] spk_5:
Thanks for having

[00:28:39.35] spk_4:
my pleasure, Heather. She’s founder of non profit dot I s t non profit ist and her consulting is at third

[00:30:11.64] spk_3:
space studio dot com. We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain software, Their accounting product Denali is built for non profits from the ground up so that you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and the exemplary support that understands how you work. They have a free 60 day trial on the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant non Tin. Now it’s time for tony Steak too. Our innovators Siri’s It just finished last week and I curated the eight Innovators into one post. We started way back in January with Edgar Villanueva that was de colonising wealth and Stephen Myers with personalized philanthropy. And it was back then in those dark days of January that I had to assure you that live innovators were coming and they did come. Um, we started off with Heather Macleod. Grant, that was social change is system change, and the innovators have been live ever since. Her Peter Shankman, Sherry, Kwame Taylor, Peter Heller, Jamie Bursts and Crisfield. They make up our innovators. Siri’s, um, you’ll find them curated, catalogued and captured with a video at tony-martignetti dot com. And that is tony. Take two. Now, here is the pre recorded working Virtually

[00:30:45.45] spk_6:
welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 18. 90. See the non profit Technology Conference 2018. We’re coming to you from the convention center in New Orleans. Second interview of the second day of our coverage. All our NTC interviews are sponsored by Network for Good, easy to use donor management and fundraising software for non profits. My guests right now are Heather Martin, CEO of Inter Paid family, and Alice Hendricks, CEO of Jackson River. Whether Alice welcome.

[00:30:46.64] spk_0:
Thank you. Welcome

[00:30:47.40] spk_6:
to non profit radio. What have you

[00:30:49.06] spk_7:
needed to be here?

[00:30:53.47] spk_6:
How’s the conference going for you, ladies? Great. Have you done? Yeah. OK, great. Excellent. Good superlative. Have you done your session yet?

[00:30:57.01] spk_0:
We did. We were on yesterday

[00:30:58.23] spk_6:
morning. Okay, so it’s all relaxing now.

[00:31:00.71] spk_7:
Now it’s partying

[00:31:17.03] spk_6:
drinks last night. Okay? All right. Your workshop topic is working. Virtual attracting and managing the best talent. I’m sure we have stats on how many org’s nonprofits have virtual employees, or at least what the trends are. It’s obviously growing growing wouldn’t be here.

[00:31:25.17] spk_0:
And not only in the nonprofit world in the for profit world as well. Um, especially in tech.

[00:31:30.24] spk_6:
Yeah. Okay,

[00:31:31.35] spk_7:
absolutely. It’s becoming it because of the technology that can a enable easily to work from home your chat technologies, videoconferencing. It’s become a thing and everyone is doing it now in exploring whether it works for their organizations a lot.

[00:32:10.25] spk_6:
Let me dive into the word everyone not to not to quibble with you at all. But I was thinking generationally, Are there 50 and 60 some things that are comfortable working, being virtual not well, maybe we’ll get to whether they’re comfortable having virtual employees. They will get to that. My voice was cracked like I’m 14. Get to that. But how about being virtual employees themselves? Are they comfortable? I’m over 50. So I include myself in that. Are we comfortable doing that or,

[00:32:37.59] spk_0:
you know, I think it actually depends on the organization, and it’s really dependent on the organization making the employee comfortable. And so I’m not sure I don’t know if you have any stats, but I don’t know. From an age perspective, there’s a very good question about an older generation being comfortable having virtual employees under them and managing them. However, as being the virtual employees, I think it’s all about how the organisation sets it up.

[00:32:48.94] spk_6:
Okay, so that there’s promise then for those 15. Absolutely. Let’s talk about it, since since we’re skirting around it, how about comfort or discomfort with having employees being virtual when you’re over 50?

[00:33:28.65] spk_0:
So I again, I I think that there might be an age discrepancy in the comfort. I also think it’s just personality, and I’m finding that when I talked to a lot of people who are looking to work virtual and they’re asking me, what can I do to go to my manager, my supervisor and quote unquote sell them on me, working virtually My answer to them is find out what the resistance is there is. Part of the resistance is we’ve always done it this way. I need to see my employees to know that they’re working. And how do you get around that some of the key things that we talked about in our session are setting very clear goals and making sure that those goals are being met.

[00:33:39.02] spk_6:
Let’s go to our talk about the gold goal setting.

[00:33:53.83] spk_7:
Yeah, I mean, I think that there’s not that much difference in terms of goal setting in terms of accountability for delivery, Bols, that you’re supposed to be doing so used that the real issue is communication, making sure you have a structure where there’s frequent communication and proof that you’re doing the delivery herbal. So you’re measured not on a punch clock style of. I get to work at nine and I leave at five, and therefore I must have worked during that eight hour period. You’re measured based on what is the work you were set out to do, And did you actually do that work in the time period? I said I would do it. So if you’re a project manager or working on a program area, you work with your you work with your supervisor on here, the things that I’m going to get done at a particular time, and if that’s not done, that’s, Ah that that could be a concern. That’s a problem with that view problem in a non workplace, too, but rather than time, it’s mostly based on work product.

[00:34:32.80] spk_6:
Okay, okay, so that should apply, Even if you don’t have any virtual, I

[00:34:36.21] spk_0:
think one of the things we’ve found is that working virtually is this or managing virtually is the same is managing in an office. But you just have to be much more intentional about what you’re doing. Much more intentional about your communication, understanding that you’re not gonna have that water cooler conversation, that someone’s not going over here something and understand where you are in a project and be ready to communicate with those people who are not physically in the office with the management and the psychology of the management is very similar.

[00:35:19.45] spk_6:
Very valuable to know on dhe make explicit. Um, how about attracting people, Teoh a virtual or attracting the right talent so that we’re comfortable that they’re gonna work in this work environment? What you thought

[00:36:07.43] spk_7:
Well, there’s two thoughts on that that I have one is What What is that? Your talent pool is the entire country or world should you see fit? And there are wonderfully talented people in places that aren’t in the city or town in which your organization is located, and it gives you this ability to recruit from a wide place. And you can also hire incredibly talented people from who have a wonderful lifestyle in a less cost of In my organization, we have people who live in a lower cost of living state than Washington, D. C. Where we’re based, and that allows me to provide a living wage and for my employees in that, um, but the other thing is just you. When you’re recruiting, you have to be very mindful of the interview process. And I think one of the things we talked about in our session was helping people figure out who these folks, how well they’ll respond to working virtually. How

[00:36:21.83] spk_6:
do you do that?

[00:36:25.92] spk_0:
Yeah, so some of the things that we recommend some of things that we recommend is number one. We use technology as a tool to enhance communication in a virtual environment, so sometimes you’re using video conferencing just for a regular meeting and you’re talking through Instant Messenger, and there’s other ways you’re using technology. So in the interview process, I always recommend that people use the technology that you’re going to require those employees to be using during their job if they can’t do an interview on Skype or zoom or appear in, and it’s very uncomfortable. It’s not to say that that might not be a good employee for you, but you have to be aware that there might need to be some training or development on that tool for them. And no going into that is important when you’re hiring that person.

[00:37:17.43] spk_6:
And if you see generally a discomfort with technology, that’s a pretty big red flag

[00:37:33.48] spk_0:
or a red flag that you might need to overcome or that person is not right for the position. And then the other question is some positions just don’t lend themselves to working virtually, and you have to be aware of that when you’re hiring also well. One of the the easiest ones that we look at is if your office manager and you’re managing the physical office days, it’s really difficult to be virtual when you need to notice that there’s a crack in the sailing where the vendor needs toe, you know, deliver something and be their

[00:37:47.97] spk_6:
way. Don’t have a tool for measuring the coffee level.

[00:37:54.40] spk_0:
Zack. Remotely There’s an app for that. You can probably

[00:38:19.72] spk_3:
time for our last break turn to communications. They’re former journalists so that you get help building relationships with journalists so that your call gets answered when there’s news you need to be on top of so that you stay relevant in your community. They are at turn hyphen two dot ceo. We’ve got but loads more time for working virtually with Heather Martin and Alice Hendrix or

[00:38:25.98] spk_6:
any others that stand out to you.

[00:38:38.00] spk_0:
I think it depends on the industry and what the job you’re doing. If you’re someone who does intake or you have to be there to welcome people into the office, you need someone physically there. There may be hybrids where sometimes people could work in the office, and sometimes people could work from home. And I think thinking this through before you move to a virtual environment or virtual job for that specific role is key. You can’t just say OK, tomorrow we’re just gonna go

[00:38:55.45] spk_6:
virtual Alice. How do you How do you create this environment That’s gonna be hospitable toe virtual. I

[00:39:00.49] spk_7:
mean, it’s all about culture. You have to create a culture where everyone is communicating well with each other, where people know what the expectation is on response times of communication.

[00:39:10.16] spk_6:
He’s gotta start at the top.

[00:39:11.37] spk_7:
It has to start

[00:39:14.72] spk_6:
a willingness to accommodate virtual employees. Okay, so it starts there. And then how does that out of the CEO trickling down?

[00:39:21.43] spk_7:
You adhere to it. So rather than walking from my office into someone else’s office and telling them what I think they should know that maybe two other people who aren’t physically there also need to know. I will do that on a slack channel, for example. So I’ll use an instant messenger chat program, and I’ll put them all on the channel and talk to them all together at once.

[00:39:39.10] spk_6:
You go through with a bar, or

[00:39:40.29] spk_7:
even if that’s the situation, because it requires amount of discipline because you don’t want to leave people out. The interstitial conversation that happens at the water cooler can also be done virtually, and that’s pretty important, too.

[00:39:58.41] spk_6:
Okay, Excellent. Excellent. All right, we’re gonna get the tools you mentioned. Slack Aslak Channel. Is that that a tool? Okay, okay. Chat. It’s a simple chance.

[00:39:59.54] spk_7:
Chance chance software. Yeah,

[00:40:01.53] spk_6:
you’re over my head, but I’m trainable. I could be a virtual employee trust

[00:40:05.65] spk_7:
way. Remind us in technology challenges there, but way remedial. You got the radio?

[00:40:16.81] spk_6:
Yeah, I’m very good at that. I mean, I got knobs and everything from buttons and old. I don’t know what they do. Um, okay, What else? Anything else about creating the environment making inhospitable.

[00:40:21.71] spk_0:
I think some of the things that some of the other things are making sure that your remote employees have the tools, whether it’s the technology or even a monitor to go along with that laptop that you’ve given them because some some people go into a new job, they’re given a laptop, they say work from home. And it’s not as easy as just. Is your home office conducive? And being able to help them think through what are the things that they need to set up in a virtual environment to make them successful and effective at what they’re doing? We talk about a little bit about security and knowing what the security measures are. You can’t go into a coffee shop and work from your computer. Number one. Are you on the Y? Fire? You on the public? WiFi? Are you on a virtual private network? Are you using your hot spot? You’ve to go the bathroom and your computer sitting in Starbucks. Do you leave it there and ask the person next to tow? Watch your computer while you go to I mean, we set policies around these things, especially in organizations that have a lot of regulations on data and accessibility for their information. These are things you have to think about when you’re creating a virtual environment.

[00:41:22.50] spk_6:
OK? It could be hip. Maybe. What’s the credit card? P C M

[00:41:26.22] spk_7:
p c I

[00:41:28.93] spk_6:
c. I Okay, what do you do when you’re at Starbucks alone? You’re on. You’re on a VPN virtual private network. But you have to go the bathroom. You gotta close up your

[00:41:47.08] spk_7:
laptop. You use the diaper changing table in and you pull it down in the restroom and put your laptop on that. Take care of your business, OK? This is very

[00:41:47.64] spk_6:
all right, though. I love the nitty gritty. Listen,

[00:41:49.82] spk_7:
I mean, we’re all about real life here. Way need

[00:41:55.79] spk_6:
to detail. You need clear policies around

[00:41:56.47] spk_7:
policies that people sign. And everyone is very well aware of what the security policies are.

[00:42:09.48] spk_6:
Protection, use of technology. You said the company’s versus your pride. Your personal technology. Home versus away from home. Okay, All right. Help me out here. Getting else what else belongs. Just ask you what else belongs in our policy?

[00:42:49.40] spk_0:
Well, so there were talking about there’s communication policies. How? I mean, one of the things that we found when we first started having more virtual employees. We started as an in office. Everyone was in the office. And as we grew into different communities, we had employees in different cities and states than our headquarters were located in. And things like when I send an email, I just need you to acknowledge that the email was sent. If you’re in the office and I send you an email and you haven’t responded, I could walk into your office and say, Hey, you get my email. Even if you’re not ready to respond to it, I know you’ve gotten it. And by five oclock that day, I’ll get an answer when someone’s virtual and you send an email, you have no idea if it got lost. Did it go into there Spam and you have to get some kind of communication

[00:42:57.78] spk_6:
with water. Quick. Got it.

[00:42:58.71] spk_0:
So we said a communication policy that says If I asked you something or requested something, you send an email back saying I got it and I’ll get back to you by Wednesday period. The end. It’s all set. And so that that you need to be very much more aware of those types of things and other community way have communication policies that go along with that.

[00:43:19.18] spk_6:
Okay, Alice, you wanna add Teoh or policy statement? I

[00:43:30.17] spk_7:
mean, the security, I think, is the most important. You know, the email security, the hacking potentials. You know what happens also, when someone is let go the lockout procedures, they have access to all of your systems. And they’re, you know, in North Dakota, somewhere at a coffee shop, you have to shut down all of their access to things. So all of that needs to be planned at the I t level in the company. What are you going to do? And how are you handling staff with remote devices?

[00:43:48.36] spk_6:
Can we do this if we don’t have a dedicated T staff person?

[00:43:52.26] spk_0:
We don’t have a dedicated Yes, it is.

[00:43:53.19] spk_6:
So the family says the answer is yes. Okay, because our were small and midsize non profits in this audience of listeners. So

[00:43:59.85] spk_0:
you onboard someone with technology? When they leave, you do the same thing. Onley with a virtual person. You don’t physically have them there. And so you have to do the same thing you would do if someone was in the office. But make sure you couldn’t do it while they’re not physically there. How did they get your computer back to you? Do they FedEx it to you? Are you going to go pick it up somewhere if they’re not there? And so just those types of things need to be thought

[00:44:42.20] spk_6:
through. Okay. Excellent. I love the policy statement details, because this is the stuff you have to think through. And then Alice, to your point, it has to be activated. Implemented on from the top. You can’t just have a policy and ignore it. You know, if it’s the CEO. It’s a sea level person whose, whose distant they to have to say, I got your email and I’ll get back to you by Wednesday.

[00:44:49.42] spk_7:
Everybody has to play by the same rules. There shouldn’t be exceptions or any accommodations for anything else. Yeah,

[00:44:54.62] spk_6:
okay, Um, how about let’s talk about some of the needs that your remote staff has been talking about, like managing the office? What special needs to the people who we only see a couple of times a year have?

[00:45:07.27] spk_7:
That’s a great question. I think they

[00:45:10.10] spk_6:
it took that long.

[00:45:53.38] spk_7:
They need community. They need a partner. They need a buddy. They need to know that they’re not all alone. I’m so frequent meetings daily. Stand up calls, Um, and Heather’s organization. They stand up. Call it Well, it’s It’s a phrase for on a daily time when you just spend 15 minutes sort of role going around. The company’s saying, Who’s doing what? That day or a day or a team? If you’re working on a project together, you know everyone’s together on either a video chat or a conference call, or it could even be during on a slack channel or a Skype Group or a Google hangouts or any type of technology that people can come together for a period of time. The more frequent that happens, the more connected they feel. And there is an issue of feeling lonely. It’s not that you’re just going off on your back room and typing all day long on your own. You need to be part of a community and part of a team. And the technology helps enable that and a Heather’s organization. There’s you do. What is it, a buddy?

[00:47:02.84] spk_0:
So anyone who is new, who comes on board, there’s a couple things we do. One is no matter what level you’re at. You come to Boston for a couple days toe on board. You actually see physical people. That’s probably essential. It’s really it was one of like he learnings. When I started working virtually is to know that there’s a physical person in a physical space, or just seeing meeting someone face to face gives you much more of a connection to them immediately. The other thing we do is when we hire people, we kind of give them. We give them Ah ah, a partner. So we hire a new associate director in L. A. And we put them with the associate director in Atlanta. This is not a mentor. This is not a supervisor. This is someone you can ask the dumb questions too. Like, how do I get my expenses paid? Or I’m sure they told me this during orientation, but I don’t know what to do about X, y and Z. And just having that person that you know you can go to is critical. Especially when you’re by yourself in an office or in your home. And you’re trying to go up the learning curve of starting a new job.

[00:47:11.86] spk_6:
Okay. All right. What else? Uh, anything else to be empathetic to our remote employees

[00:47:20.49] spk_0:
again? This is a typical management. I would say this you should be doing this any time is just everyone’s intent is good. Assume that is good. And there’s a good intent all all the time.

[00:47:25.68] spk_6:
That could be that That that’s gonna have implications for chatting

[00:47:30.88] spk_0:
any

[00:47:31.25] spk_6:
female. No, you can’t. You’ll never hear the well, Not never, but most of the communications. You’re not gonna hear the inflection in the person

[00:47:38.19] spk_0:
you don’t see the Sometimes you don’t see the physical. You don’t see the physical, you don’t get the inflection. And so, before you jump into anything someone sent. And I get this all the time and sends me an email and says I need blank Well, that could be taken in so many different ways. Are you demanding something from me? Did ice not get you something? There’s so much in just those three words. And so my first thing is to okay, they have good intentions. Let me follow up. You need blank by when? What is this foot? Get more information. They’re not. Now. They could be like You haven’t done something. I need it now. And recovery screaming. It could be screaming at you, but the default is not do that. And what we do actually is we have everyone created communications charter that says how they like to be interacted with. And so I understand if you are one of these people who sends very short emails, I also have the flip side where someone sends me seven paragraph e mails to describe one thing. And so if I understand how you interact, I could read that email with that understanding not to immediately assume that you’re yelling at me in the email.

[00:48:50.38] spk_6:
Valuable. Um, anything else? Anything else to be supportive again, Empathetic to the remote employees we covered it, recovered it. But I

[00:48:51.72] spk_7:
want

[00:48:51.84] spk_6:
to make sure we’re

[00:48:52.29] spk_7:
the only other thing I can think of is definitely getting together at least once a year with the whole team culture building.

[00:49:31.07] spk_0:
It’s tough. It’s tough in a non profit environment where you’ve got a very tight budget. But we have prioritised an all in person meeting in Boston. So we’ve got staff in California, in Chicago, in Atlanta and Philadelphia. We make sure that we try in our budgeting process to bring everyone to Boston for two days during the summer, not only for good brainstorming and and thinking and strategy conversations, but also so they can connect with each other and have that community and build that in person conversation and feel comfortable with each

[00:49:32.86] spk_6:
other. And you feel like once a year is sufficient.

[00:49:35.34] spk_0:
You know, if I had the budget to do it more, I worked a

[00:49:38.09] spk_6:
little longer, but

[00:49:43.42] spk_0:
all of that, yes, and so you have to take it for one of the the tools that we talk about is the airplane. I mean, yes, it’s expensive, but it’s a really helpful tool to really get past some of the boundaries that are put up when you don’t actually physically meet in person.

[00:49:55.76] spk_6:
Alice, do you have virtual employees? Also Jackson River

[00:49:58.50] spk_7:
30 30 Working 30. Promoting entire organization is virtual

[00:50:04.94] spk_6:
Oh my God! OK, where’s the Is there a physical office?

[00:50:12.07] spk_7:
There is a physical office with three people in Washington, D. C. But so we all behave as if we’re virtual. And there are many days that I don’t go into the office. So in its you know, it saves a lot of money and transportation costs. It stays dry cleaning bills for everyone. It saves child care expenses that you know it’s a very great way to have a lifestyle, because you you have that flexibility. There’s also downsides to it. There are days that I wake up in the morning at 6 a.m. and check email, and all of a sudden it’s too, and I haven’t eaten breakfast yet, and then I’m until six at night. So you know it’s a It’s the same type of work life integration needs toe happen in a virtual environment as well as a physical office space. You know, you need to know how to take a break.

[00:50:58.95] spk_6:
You mentioned saving childcare expenses. So? So the the remote employees. It needs to be understood that the remote employees may not be immediately accessible, right for a quick for last minute way. Gotta talk right now,

[00:51:03.52] spk_7:
So I think it’s about

[00:51:04.34] spk_6:
have something going on that is gonna hold him up for 10 or 15

[00:51:31.76] spk_7:
way. Try and make sure that people have adequate coverage to do their job during the day, the hours that they need to work. So we have a lot of employees that are at 30 hours a week because they want to spend more time with their families. Um, older Children can be met at the bus stop and take care of themselves for a few hours in the afternoon. But the expectations of performance air still there, You know, we’re pretty high stress. High standards of that. You know, we don’t want you to be distracted from your work. How do you

[00:51:35.21] spk_6:
manage? The West Coast versus East Coast is the West Coast. People have to do the West Coast. People have to start at 6 a.m. Local time.

[00:51:39.53] spk_7:
I think a lot of people do different policies on that. Our policy is that you work for the day that work the business day in the time zone in which you live. So it’s sometimes hard if we’re dealing with Europe and the West Coast at the same time, because the time zones don’t overlap as well.

[00:51:53.17] spk_6:
Everybody’s in Europe.

[00:52:04.21] spk_7:
We don’t have employees in your village of clients in Europe, so it’s Ah, it’s a situation where we have to manage that. But there are organizations that have West Coast people working East Coast hours way don’t have

[00:52:06.85] spk_0:
a as explicit policy that you work those hours. But we asked people how early on the West Coast, how early would you be willing to have a meeting so we will not set meetings with some people? Some people are early morning people, and they would rather work from 7 to 3 rather than 9 to 5, and so we’ll work with your schedule individually. And so I said, there are some meetings I will have on the West Coast is seven in the morning, but that’s due to that person willing to do that.

[00:52:40.83] spk_6:
We have a few minutes left. Still, let’s talk about some of the tech tools I was gonna ask you about. Slack. What dot com How do we find it or what they do for us?

[00:52:42.95] spk_7:
Black dot com It’s how you find it. You know, it’s it’s equivalent to Skype. Or there’s Google chat any type of chat software where everyone can log into. And then there’s you can make groups in them, so the term for a group in Slack is called a channel. And in our organization, we have a channel for one of the channels is named lunch. And if you’re gonna be away for 20 minutes or going to lunch, we just take we just like everyone who’s in the company on that channel and say, Hey, stepping away for a bit, I’ll be back in half an hour. So we are all know it’s almost a ZX, though you would see me walk out the door, you know. And instead of walking out the door, I’m just telling that channel what’s happening. There’s channels reach project. Also, Slack is a good ones.

[00:53:22.33] spk_6:
Black has already a verb. It’s like someone

[00:53:31.93] spk_7:
just like someone. It’s a verbal. You Skype, someone you trust someone. Do you remember a well instant messenger that that was a one matter, that you could use that?

[00:53:38.86] spk_6:
Well, I was. But, um OK, so slack for, Ah, for chatting. A quick, quick chat about document sharing is simple. Google docks or something better.

[00:53:44.99] spk_7:
It’s a simple Google. Microsoft has a great

[00:54:16.27] spk_0:
product. Microsoft’s one Dr SharePoint Microsoft Suite has has a document sharing software. Ah, cloud based saving system. Um, Skype is now escape for businesses and integrated with it. And so we’re using that in the office. And then there’s There’s a ton of independent ones out there, and it’s whether it’s video conferencing or it’s document sharing or its chatting. There’s a ton out there, and I think it could be overwhelming. And for us, it was evaluating what was best for our organization and what our upper management was able to use. We talked about this before, is modeling the behavior you want from your staff, and so getting upper management on board was key. So one of our project management software, we use a sauna, and we’ve tried three or four of them, and our CEO liked asana. And so if she was going to use a sauna, we’re all going to use this on. And so I think that’s really important. It’s got to be easy to use and work for your organization.

[00:54:48.64] spk_6:
Calendar Ring Simple is

[00:54:50.53] spk_7:
callin during Yeah,

[00:54:51.97] spk_6:
you have any other tools besides Google Calendar

[00:54:54.43] spk_0:
were using outlooks Calendar.

[00:54:57.04] spk_6:
Microsoft. Yeah, all right,

[00:54:58.43] spk_7:
I think.

[00:55:00.51] spk_6:
What other ah categories we need toe

[00:55:02.54] spk_7:
video chat video is really important.

[00:55:05.24] spk_6:
Describe a couple

[00:55:14.14] spk_7:
I couldn’t do one on video with Skype, you can do video with Google hangouts, but any time you can actually have an opportunity to see someone’s face and most of the calls we try to do as videos and we find that that works really, really well,

[00:55:21.05] spk_6:
river again, the sense of community.

[00:55:47.46] spk_0:
And if you can’t get together, that’s almost the next best thing. And video has come a long way. The technology is more seamless than ever before, and so at least you’re seeing the person. You might not get all of the nuance of the physical that that’s in the room, but you can see a emotion, or you can see a reaction to something which is super or their cat walking the cat. We could get a lot of pets walking in front of the camera while people are on video. This

[00:55:47.99] spk_6:
can be a lot of fun to talk about cats, but, you know, you have 30 virtual employees. Alice. Um, you have fun doing it. I mean,

[00:55:56.18] spk_7:
it’s awesome. It’s completely awesome is I love it. And, you know, the best thing is that that people have really formed strong relationships with each other. They when you ask them what they like most about working here, is they say each other. They say, the people I’m here because I have connected relationships with other people on the team. And to be able to create a culture where people feel connected to each other in a remote environment is is like That’s the thing I’m most proud of. Anything we’ve ever done. It doesn’t have to do their software product or what we’ve done to impact non profits is the fact that we’ve had a culture of people that have had a wonderful time working and doing productive, impactful things.

[00:56:35.99] spk_6:
Jackson River always had a largest proportion of employees virtual from the beginning

[00:56:36.56] spk_7:
from the beginning

[00:56:38.64] spk_6:
in the culture of the start, about about family

[00:56:49.97] spk_0:
well, we started as a 2.5 person organization in the same way. We got to probably about 8 to 10 people in the office, and then our growth took us into different cities and communities. And that’s when we became virtual because of the growth. And so we’re probably half in the office in Boston, and then half of our staff is outside and there’s one or two people in a city by themselves.

[00:57:03.41] spk_6:
We’ll leave it there.

[00:57:04.30] spk_0:
Excellent, Thank you.

[00:57:05.82] spk_6:
All right. They are Heather Martin, CEO of Interfaith Family, and Alice Hendricks, CEO of Jackson River. This interview, sponsored by Network for Good, Easy to use donor management and fundraising software for non profits. And this is tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 18 NTC ladies. Thank you so much.

[00:57:23.70] spk_0:
Thank you, thank you. Pleasure.

[00:58:06.32] spk_3:
Next week there’s a good chance it’ll be privacy. Best practices on. If that’s not next week, it’ll be coming very, very soon, and something else will be excellent next week. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As. Guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com But Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund is there Complete accounting solution made for nonprofits. Tony done m a slash Cougar Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turn, to communications, PR and content for non profits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen. Two dot ceo Ah, creative

[00:58:45.84] spk_2:
producers Claire Meyerhoff Sadly, Boots is the line producer shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein You with me next week for not profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great talking alternative radio 24 hours a day.

Nonprofit Radio for November 2, 2018: Working Virtual & Map Your Data To Your Audiences

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Heather Martin & Alice Hendricks: Working Virtual
We talk through the issues encountered when managing remote staff: technological; generational; emotional; measurement; recruiting and retaining. Our panel is Heather Martin from Interfaith Family and Alice Hendricks with Jackson River. (Recorded at #18NTC, the Nonprofit Technology Conference.)

 

 

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Feed your folks the data they crave. Courtney Clark and David Mascarina have identified 5 audience types and their data needs. She’s with Forum One and he’s from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. (Also recorded at #18NTC.)

 

 

 

 

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with strep. Oh, simba, leah if i had to read that you missed today’s show working virtual we talk through the issues encountered when managing remote staff technological, generational, emotional measurement, recruiting and retaining. Our panel is heather martin from inter faith family and alice hendricks with jackson river. I was recorded at eighteen ntcdinosaur non-profit technology conference and map your data to your audiences. Feed your folks the data they crave. Courtney clarke and david mask arena have identified five audience types and their data needs she’s with forum one and he’s fromthe conrad and hilton foundation that’s also recorded at eighteen. Auntie si, tony, take two who’s on first, we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising david driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant capital p well, you see, piela is guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner, cps dot com bye! Tell us attorney credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash tony tell us and by text to give mobile donations made. Easy text npr to four, four, four, nine, nine, nine. Here’s working virtual welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc non-profit technology conference twenty eighteen we’re coming to you from the convention center in new orleans second interview of the second day of our coverage all our ntcdinosaur interviews are sponsored by network for good, easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits my guests right now are heather martin, ceo of inter paid family, and alice hendricks, ceo of jackson river. Heather alice, welcome. Thank you. Welcome to non-profit radio. What have you wanted to be here? How’s? The conference going for you ladies? Great. Have you done? Yeah. Excellent. Okay, great. Next one. That goes good. Superlative. Have you done your session yet? We did. We were on yesterday morning. Okay. So, it’s all relaxing now? Right now, we’re just partying. Drinks last night. Exactly. Okay, all right. Your workshop topic is working virtual attracting and managing the best talent. I’m sure we have stats on how many organs non-profits have virtual employees. Or at least what the trends are. It’s it’s obviously growing. It’s really growing wouldn’t be here. And not only in the nonprofit world in the for-profit world as well, and especially in tech. Yeah, okay, absolutely it’s becoming it because of the technology that can enable easily to work from home, your chat technologies, videoconferencing, it’s become a thing and everyone is doing it now on exploring whether it works for their organizations a lot. Let me dive into the word, everyone not to quibble with you at all, but i was thinking generationally, are there fifty and sixty some things that are comfortable working, being virtual? Not well, maybe we’ll get to whether they’re comfortable having virtual employees. They will get to that. My voice is cracked like i’m fourteen get that, but how about being virtual employees themselves? Are they comfortable? I’m over fifty, so include myself in that? Are we comfortable doing that? Or, you know, i think it actually depends on the organization and it’s really dependent on the organization making the employees comfortable, and so i’m not sure i don’t know if you have any stats, but i don’t know from an age perspective, there’s a very good question about an older generation being comfortable having virtual employees under the managing them, however, as being the virtual employee, i think it’s all about how the organisation sets it up. Okay. Excellent. All right, so that there’s promised them for those fifteen. Sixty something? Absolutely. Okay. Okay, let’s, talk about it. Since since we’re skirting around it, how about comfort or discomfort with having employees being virtual when you’re over fifty? So i again, i i think that there might be an age discrepancy in the comfort, but i also think it’s just personality, and i’m finding that when i talked to a lot of people who are looking to work virtual and they’re asking me, what can i do to go to my manager, my supervisor and quote unquote, sell them on me working virtually my answer to them is find out what the resistance is. There is part of the resistance as we’ve always done it this way i need to see my employees to know that they’re working. And how do you get around that? Some of the key things that we talked about in our session are setting very clear goals and making sure that those goals are being met. But let’s, go to alice talk to flush out the gold. Gold setting a little. Yeah, i mean, i think that there’s not that much difference in terms of goal setting in terms of accountability for delivery, bols, that you’re supposed to be doing so used that the real issue is communication making sure you have a structure where there’s frequent communication and proof that you’re doing the delivery ble. So you’re measured not on a punch clock style of i get to work at nine. And i leave at five. And therefore i must have worked during that eight hour period you’re measured based on what is the work you were set out to do. And did you actually do that work in the time period? I said i would do it. So if you’re a project manager are working on a program area you work with your you work with your supervisor on here, the things that i’m going to get done at a particular time. And if that’s not done that’s ah, that that could be a concerned that’s a problem, but that’d be a problem in the non workplace too, but rather than time. It’s mostly based on work product. Okay, okay. So that should apply even if you don’t have any virtual, i think one of the things we found is that working virtually is this, or managing virtually is the same as managing in an office. But you just have to be much more intentional about what you’re doing. Much more intentional about your communication, understanding that you’re not gonna have that water cooler conversation, that someone’s not going over here. Something and understand where you are in a project and b ready to communicate with those people who are not physically in the office. But the management and the psychology of the management is very similar. Okay, it’s, very valuable, you know, and make explicit. Yeah. How about attracting people, teo a virtual or attracting the right talent so that we’re comfortable that they’re gonna work in this work environment? What do you, what you thought? Well, there’s. Two thoughts on that that i have one is what one is that your talent pool is the entire country or world, should you see fit? And there are wonderfully talented people in places that aren’t in the city or town in which your organization is located, and it gives you this ability to recruit from a wide place. And you can also hyre incredibly talented people from who have a wonderful life style. In a less cost of in my organization, we have people who live in a lower cost of living state than washington, d c where were based, and that allows me to provide a living wage and for my employees in that. But the other thing is just you, when you’re recruiting, you have to be very mindful of the interview process, and i think one of the things we talked about in our session was helping people figure out who these folks, how well they’ll respond to working virtually how do you do that in an interview? Yeah, who’s best with that, heather so so some of the things that that we recommend, some of the things that we recommend is number one, we use technology as a tool to enhance communication in a virtual environment. So sometimes you’re using video comp, renting just for a regular meeting, and you’re talking through instant messenger and there’s other ways you’re using technology. So in the interview process, i always recommend that people use the technology that you’re going to require those employees to be using during their job if they can’t do an interview on skype or zoom or appearance and it’s very uncomfortable, it’s not to say that that might not be a good employee for you, but you have to be aware that there might need to be some training or development on that tool for them and no going. Into that is important when you’re hiring that person, and if you see generally a discomfort with technology that’s a pretty big red flag, or or or a red flag that you might need to overcome or that person’s not right for the position, and then the other question is some positions just don’t lend themselves to working virtually, and you have to be aware of that when you’re hiring also what are from? Well, one of the easiest ones that we look at it if you’re an office manager and you’re managing the physical office days, it’s really difficult to be virtual when you need thio notice that there’s a crack in the ceiling where the vendor needs toe, you know, deliver something and be their way. We don’t have a tool for measuring the coffee level. Zack remotely happen. And now there’s an app for that you can probably it’s time for a break pursuing they’re e book is fast non-profit growth stealing from the start ups. They want you to see this because they’ve taken the secrets from the fastest growing startups and applied those to your non-profit it’s free as all the pursuant resource is, are you accustomed to that? Come on, it doesn’t even bear saying it’s on the listener landing page that’s at do you know where tony dahna slash pursuant capital p for please now back to working virtual or any others that stand out to you? I think it depends on the industry and what the job you’re doing. If you’re someone who does intake or you have to be there to welcome people into the office, you need someone physically there. There may be hybrids where sometimes people could work in the office and sometimes people could work from home. And i think thinking this through before you moved to a virtual environment or virtual job for that specific role is ki you can’t just say, ok, tomorrow we’re just gonna go virtual zoho alice, how do you how do you create this environment? Gonna be hospitable? Toe virtual? I mean it’s all about culture. You have to create a culture where everyone is communicating well with each other, where people know what the expectation is on response times of communication has got to start at the top. It has to start a willingness that you absolutely to accommodate virtual employees. Okay, so it starts there and how does that how does the ceo trickling down? You adhere to it. So rather than walking from my office into someone else’s office and telling them what i think they should know that maybe two other people who aren’t physically, they’re also need to know i will do that on a slack channel, for example. So i’ll use an instant messenger chat program, and i’ll put them all on the channel and talk to them all together at once, even though you were the mark, even if that’s the situation. Yeah, because it requires amount of discipline because you don’t want to leave people out. The interstitial conversation that happens at the water cooler can also be done virtually and that’s pretty important, too. Okay. All right. We’re going to get the tools you mentioned. Slack, slack channel. Is that that it’s? All okay, okay. A chat. It’s. Simple chance a chance. A chance for you. You’re over my head, but i’m trainable. Alt-right i could be a virtual employees trust way. Mind of some technology challenges there, but we could get there. I’ll be there immediately. Got the radio stuff? Yeah. I’m very good at that. I mean, i got knobs and everything in front of buttons and all. I don’t know what they do. Okay, what else? Uh, anything else about creating the environment, making inhospitable? I think some of the things that seem or some of the other things are making sure that your remote employees have the tools, whether it’s, the technology or even a monitor to go along with that laptop that you’ve given them because some some people who go into a new job, they’re given a laptop, they say work from home and it’s not as easy as just is your home office conducive and being able to help them think through what are the things that they need to set up in a virtual environment to make them successful and effective at what they’re doing. We talked about it a little bit about security and knowing what the security measures are. You can’t go into a coffee shop and work from your computer. Number one. Are you on the y fire you on the public wifi? Are you on a virtual private network? Are you using your hot spot? You’ve to go the bathroom and your computer’s sitting in starbucks do you leave it there and ask the person next youto watch your computer while you go to i mean, we set policies around these things, especially in organizations that have a lot of regulations on data and accessibility for their information. These are things you have to think about when you’re creating a virtual environment. Okay? It could be hip, baby what’s the credit card p c m p c i b c i okay, what do you do when you’re at starbucks alone? You’re on you’re on a vpn virtual private network? Yeah, you have to go the bathroom. You gotta close up. You use the diaper changing table in and you pull it down in the restroom and put your laptop on that. Take care of your business. Okay? It’s? Very. You know, i love the ditty gritty. This are listen, i mean, we’re all about real life here. Way need detail. You need clear policies around policies that people sign and everyone is very well aware of what the security policies, our protection use of technology. You said the company’s versus your pride, your personal technology home versus away from home. Okay, all right. Help me out here. Getting else what else belongs all this? What else belongs in our policy? Well, so there’s, we’re talking about there’s communication policies. How? I mean, one of the things that we found when we first started having more virtual employees. We started as an in office, evan was in the office, and as we grew into different communities, we had employees in different cities and states than our headquarters were located in and things like when i sent an email, i just need you to acknowledge that the email resent if you’re in the office and i send you an e mail and you haven’t responded, i could walk into your office and say, hey, you get my e mail even if you’re not ready to respond to it. I know you’ve gotten it, and by five o’clock that day, i’ll get an answer when someone’s virtual and you send an e mail, you have no idea if it got lost, did it go into their spam and you have to get some kind of communication with one quick got it. So we said a communication policy that says if i asked you something or requested something, you send an email back saying, i got it, and i’ll get back to you by wednesday period the end it’s all set, and so that that you need to be very much more aware of those types of things and other community way have communication policies that go along with that. Okay, alice, you want teo or policy statement? I mean, the security, i think, is the most important, you know, the email security, the hacking potentials. You know what happens also, when someone is let go, the lockout procedures, they have access to all of your systems, and they’re, you know, in north dakota somewhere to coffee shop, you have to shut down all of their access to things. So all of that needs to be planned at the level in the company. What are you going to do and how you handling staff with remote devices? Can we do this if we don’t have a dedicated staff person? And we don’t have a dedicated staff person? Yes, face-to-face so the family says the answer is yes, okay, because are you know, we’re small and midsize non-profits in this audience, listeners. So you you on board someone with technology when they leave, you do the same thing on lee with a virtual person, you don’t physically have them there, and so you have to do the same thing you would do if someone was in the office, but make sure you couldn’t do it while they’re not physically there. How did they get your computer back to you? Do they fedex it to you? Are you going to go pick it up somewhere if they’re not there? And so just those types of things need to be thought through, okay? No. Excellent. I love the policy statement details because this is stuff you have to think through, and then alice to your point, has to be activated, implemented on from the top absolutely can’t just have a policy and ignore it. You know, if if it’s the ceo hyre it’s a sea level person whose whose distant you know, they too have to say, i got your e mail and i’ll get back to you by wednesday, everybody has to play by the same rules. There shouldn’t be exceptions or any accommodations or anything else. Yeah. Okay, um, how about let’s talk about some of the needs that your remote staff has we’ve been talking about managing the office? What what special needs to the people? But we only see a couple of times a year that’s a great question, okay? I mean, i think they way it took that long, they need community, they need a partner, they need a buddy, they need to know that they’re not all alone. I’m so frequent meetings daily standup calls on dh heather’s organization native oppcoll standup called well, it’s a it’s, a phrase for a daily time when you just spend fifteen minutes sort of roll going around the company’s saying who’s doing what that day or our a team, if you’re working on a project together, you know everyone’s together on either a video chat or a conference call, or it could even be during us dahna slack channel or a skype group or a google hangout, or any type of technology that people can come together for a period of time. The more frequent that happens, the more connected they feel, and there is an issue of feeling lonely, it’s not that you’re just going off on your back room and typing all day long on your own, you need to be part of a community and part of a team. And the technology helps enable that. And heather’s organization there’s you do? What is it a buddy? So anyone who is new who comes on board there’s a couple things we do one is, no matter what level you’re at, you come to boston for a couple days, toe on board. You actually see physical people that’s probably essential. It’s, really? It was one of like he learnings when i started working virtually is to know that there’s a physical person and a physical space or just seeing meeting someone face-to-face gives you much more of a connection to them immediately. The other thing we do is when we hire people we kind of give them we give them a partner. So we hyre associate director her in l a and we put them with the associate director in atlanta. This is not a mentor. This is not a supervisor. This is someone you can ask the dumb questions too. Like, how do i get my expenses paid? Or i’m sure they told me this during orientation, but i don’t know what. To do about x, y and z and just having that person that you know you can go to is critical, especially when you’re by yourself in an office or in your home, and you’re trying to go up the learning curve of starting a new job. Okay? All right? What else? Uh, anything else to be a empathetic to our remote employees again, this is a typical management. I would say this you should be doing this any time is just everyone’s intent is good. Assume that is good and there’s a good intent all all the time. That could be that that that’s going to have implications for chatting any female? No, you can’t you’ll never hear the well, not never, but most of the communications you’re not going to hear the inflection in the person you don’t see the sometimes you don’t see the physical, you don’t see the physical, you don’t get the inflection, and so before you jump into anything or someone sent and i get this all the time and sends me an email and says i need blank, well, that could be taken in so many different ways. Are you demanding something from me did ice not get you something there’s so much in just those three words? And so my first thing is tio okay, they have good intentions. Let me follow-up you need blank by when? What is this for? Get mohr information, they’re not now. They could be like you haven’t done something, i need it now and could be screaming it could be screaming at you with the default is the default is not do that and what we do actually, as we have everyone’s created communications charter that says how they like to be interacted with. And so i understand if you are one of these people who sends very short emails, i also have the flipside where someone sends me seven paragraph emails to describe one thing. And so if i understand how you interact, i could read that email with that understanding, not teo immediately assume that you’re yelling at me in the e mails. Excellent. Okay, very valuable. Are anything else? Anything else to be supportive again? Empathetic to the remote employees if we covered it, recovered it? But i want to make sure we’re the only other thing i can think of is definitely getting together at least once a year with the whole team culture building wants that, yeah, it’s tough, it’s, tough in a non-profit environment where you’ve got a very tight budget, but we have prioritized and all in person meeting in boston, so we’ve got staff in california, in chicago, in atlanta and philadelphia. We make sure that we try in our budgeting process to bring everyone to boston for two days during the summer, not only for good brainstorming and thinking and strategy conversations, but also so they can connect with each other and have that community and build that in person conversation and feel comfortable with each other, and you feel like once a year is sufficient, you know, if i had the budget to do it more, i want a little longer, but all of that, yes. And so you have to take it for one of the that the tools that we talk about is the airplane. I mean, yes, it’s expensive, but it’s a really helpful tool to really get past some of the boundaries that are put up when you don’t actually physically meet in person. Alice, do you have a virtual employees also? Jackson river, thirty thirty. Thirty. Revoting entire organization is ritual. Oh, my god. Okay, where’s, the is there a physical office? There is a physical office with three people in washington d c yeah, but so we all behave as if were virtual. And there are many days that i don’t go into the office so in it. So you know, it saves a lot of money and transportation costs. It stays dry cleaning bills for everyone. It saves child care expenses. If you know it’s a very great way to have a lifestyle. Because yu yu have that flexibility, there’s also downsides to it. There are days that i wake up in the morning at six a, m and check email and all the sudden it’s too. And i haven’t eaten breakfast yet. And then i’m until six at night. So you know it’s a the same type of work-life integration needs to happen in a virtual environment as well as a physical office space. You know, you need to know how to take a break. You mentioned saving childcare expenses. So so the the remote employee it needs to be understood that the remote employee may not be immediately accessible right for a quick, you know, for for a last minute way gotta talk right now. So i think it’s about have something going on that is going to hold him up for ten or fifteen way try and make sure that people have adequate coverage to do their job during the day, the hours that they need to work. So we have a lot of employees that are at thirty hours a week because they want to spend more time with their families. Um, older children can be met at the bus stop and take care of themselves for a few hours in the afternoon, but the expectations of performance are still there. You know, we’re pretty high street standards of that, you know, we don’t want you to be distracted from your work. He managed the west coast versus east coast. Well, what is the west coast people have to do? The westfield people have to start at six a m local time. I think a lot of people do different policies on that. Our policy is that you work for the day that work the business day in the time zone in which you live. So it’s, sometimes hard if we’re dealing with europe and the west coast at at the same time because the time zones i don’t overlap is, well, every boy’s in europe, we don’t have employees in your body to have clients in europe. So it’s ah it’s a situation where we have to manage that, but there are organizations that have west coast people working east coast, ours you have that way don’t have explicit policy that you work those hours, but we ask people how early on the west coast, how early would you be willing to have a meeting? So we will not set meetings with some people? Some people are early morning people and they would rather work from seven to three rather than nine to five, and so we’ll work with your schedule individually and so we so there are some meetings i will have on the west coast is seven o’clock in the morning, but that’s due to that person willing to do that, we have a few minutes left still let’s talk about some of the tech tech tools back-up that was i gotta ask you about slack. But what? Black dot com how? Do we find it or what you do for us? Blackbaud comets, how you find it, you know, it’s it’s equivalent to skype or there’s google chat any type of chat software where everyone can log into and then there’s you can make groups in them. So the term for a group in slack is called a channel. And in our organization we have a channel for one of the channels is named lunch and if you’re going to be away for twenty minutes are going to lunch. We just take we just like everyone who’s in the company on that channel and say, hey, stepping away for a bit, i’ll be back in half an hour so we are all know it’s almost a cz though you would see me walk out the door, you know, and i instead of walking out the door i’m just telling that channel what’s happening there’s channels for each project also. So slack is a good one. Scott argast black is already a verb. Just like someone you’d like someone it’s a verbal. You skype someone you trust someone. Do you remember a well, instant messenger? That that was a one man was that you could use that well, i was. But okay, so slack for for chatting. A quick, quick chat about document sharing is simple google docks or something better. It’s a simple a school back and microsoft has a great year. We have this product microsoft’s one dr sharepoint microsoft suite has has a document sharing software. Ah, cloud based saving system skype is now skype for businesses and integrated with it. And so we’re using that in the office and then there’s there’s a ton of independent ones out there. And it’s, whether it’s, videoconferencing or it’s document sharing or it’s chatting there’s a ton out there. And i think it could be overwhelming. And for us it was evaluating what was best for our organisation and what our upper management was able. Teo use we talked about this before is modeling the behavior you want from your staff and so getting upper management on board was key. So one of our project management software we use a sauna, and we’ve tried three or four of them and our ceo like hassan, and so if she was going to use a sauna, we’re all going to use this on you and so i think that’s really important. It’s got to be easy to use and work for your organization. Calenda ring simple is good calendar ring, yet you have any other tools besides google calendar? We’re using outlooks calendar. Yeah, okay. Microsoft again. Yeah. All right. I think what other categories we need. Teo a video chat video is really important to scrape. A couple couldn’t do one on video with skype you khun duvette dio with google hangouts, but any time you can actually have an opportunity to see someone’s face and most of the calls we try to do as videos on dh, we find that that works really well. River again, the sense of community and if you can’t get together, that’s almost the next best thing and video has come a long way. The technology is more seamless than ever before, and so at least you’re seeing the person you might not get all of the nuance of the physical that that’s in the room. But you can see it in emotion or you can see a reaction to something which is super helpful or their cat walking of the cat we could get a lot of pets walking in front of the camera while people are on video that’s gonna be a lot of fun to talk about cats, but, you know, you have thirty virtual employees. You have fun doing it. I mean, oh, it’s awesome. Oh, it’s completely awesome is i love it. And well, you know, the best thing is that that people have really formed strong relationships with each other, they when you ask them what they like most about working here is they say each other, they say the people i’m here because i have connected relationships with other people on the team and to be able to create a culture where people feel connected to each other in a remote environment is is like, that’s the thing i’m most proud of, anything we’ve ever done, it doesn’t have to do their software product or what we’ve done to impact non-profits is the fact that we’ve had a culture of people that have had a wonderful time working and doing productive, impactful things. Jackson river always had a largest proportion of employees virtual from the beginning, when the beginnings and the culture to start about about it in the family way started as a two and a half person organization in the same way got to probably about eight to ten people in the office. And then our growth took us into different cities and communities. And that’s when we became virtual because of the growth, and so were probably half in the office in boston. And then half of our staff is outside and there’s one or two people in a city by themselves. We’re gonna leave it there. Excellent. Very much. Thank you. Alright. They are heather martin, ceo of interfaith family and alice hendricks, ceo of jackson river. This interview sponsored by network for good, easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits. And this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc ladies. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Way. We need to take a break. Wagner, cps. Do you need help with your nine? Ninety or your brooks? Are your brooks or your books of those books? And brooks properly managed? Well, i could help you with the books. Eyes financial oversight in place so that your money isn’t going to fly out the door over the brook talkto wagner, partner, eat huge tomb. I’ve gotten to know him. I trust him. He’ll be honest about whether wagner is able to help you. You know where to go. Wagner, cps dot com now, tony steak too. I was at the lou costello statue in paterson, new jersey. Remember lou costello of abbott and costello and who’s on first. So what’s the connection, i hope, you know what’s on first is you’ve got to know that i mean who’s on first. Now who’s, what’s on second. I don’t know’s on third. I hope you know what i’m talking about. The connection is you gotta have some sense of history because this this comedy routine and the abbott and costello you they were from the forties, and if you want to be really successful, implant giving and you going to be actively talking to planned giving donors, you need to have some sense of history from the forties or fifties and vietnam. My video is that tony martignetti dot com now it’s time to map your data to your audience. Nces, welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntcdinosaur the twenty eighteen non-profit technology conference day two we’re kicking off our date to coverage with courtney clarke and david mask arena all of our eighteen ntcdinosaur views are sponsored by network for good, easy to use donor-centric software for non-profits courtney clarke. Hello. Hello to you. Welcome. Let me give you a proper introduction. David, you could say hello. Hello, david. Mastering it from the convent and hilton foundation introduced himself. All right, david happens to be the digital communications manager at the conrad hilton foundation. And courtney clarke is managing director of user experience forum one. Welcome. Good morning. Thanks for having us kicking off. Thanks for kicking off with us. Hey, happy to be here. You’re workshop topic is data and audience connecting to create impact. Okay, let’s, start with you. David. What do you think? Non-profits aren’t getting quite right in this subject. Like, why do we need this workshop? To be honest with you, tell you, please beyond yeah, don’t wear really blunt with the arika there’s a lot of data collection that’s happening in the nonprofit sector, but people don’t really do anything with it. There’s like a statistics where it’s like a very, very small percentage of non-profits you do something with data? And, you know, for example, there’s so many data points that in any day, that non-profit collectibe we have overload, i mean, really was data over there’s like there’s, like this just beautiful dash was like, what do we do with this? You have to stay close to michael, okay? All right, so we’re overloaded. So courtney, what we’re trying to do and have you had your workshop yet? Yes, we had it yesterday, so you’re on the downside. Yeah, this is easy for you. So what you were doing and then? And what we’re going to do now is trying make sense of data that well don’t feel overloaded. Well, it’s, it’s mostly around communicating data and really being clear about who your audiences are when you’re doing that cause we have identified five different data, sort of consumers or data people who will consume your data, but they all need different amounts of information, different formats. So for example, like a data consumer, this is like an interested person in the public. Maybe they’re a news consumer. They don’t have a lot of domain knowledge always, and they don’t have a lot of data skills, so what, you’re giving them is going to be very different than, say, a policy maker or a date. A producer. Okay, someone who’s more in depth in the details of it already knows, has has a yeah, you’ve identified let’s. Take it from there. We’ve identified five different audiences. Is that right? That’s? Different, different types of audiences. Okay, what are what are the five? We should start there. Yeah. That’s okay, what? Five? I’ll start. Okay. The next one. So data consumer two and then three e before there’s a ping pong tournament here. But we’re not. We’re not going out today. Okay, fair enough. So first is i mentioned the data consumer. This is i hate it when people say general public, because here you’re not really targeting everyone in the whole world. So let’s be a little bit more specific news consumers, people who are already interested a little bit. Okay, okay. Like i said, not a lot of dough mean knowledge. Not a lot of data skill. What you’re calling this group the data consumer. So this is the person you’re like scrolling through your news feed you’re looking at your phone. Ahn, do you see an instagram? Post or something on facebook, or even in the press in the news. And what do you see? You see an infographic that’s, simple right language that’s easy to understand. The point is very clear. That’s for the data consumer. They don’t have a lot of power, but there are a lot of those people. Okay? Hey, name another one. The next one is the data actor. So this is who everybody is targeting. This is decision makers, policymakers on dh. These folks may have some domi. Knowledge may have a lot of durney domain knowledge, but they don’t have time. So even if they do have dana skills, the ability to analyze and understand massive amounts of data didn’t have time to do that. They have analysts who are helping them do that sort of thing. But very important people. They have the staff, they have the cloud. They have our policymakers decision. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Okay, david, just give us our remaining three. So, of course, to consume someone has to share it. So you got a date? A promoter. So these were the bloggers he got you get the journalist. The advocacy for folks. This software developers, the entrepreneur. So these people are the ones who are, like projecting that data out there so that the consumer and the actor be able to see that. And then you have the analyst, which is very, very important a lot. You missed this one too. It’s, like now i have all these data is beautifully being shared out being read, who in a way is a domain expert, this staffer that’s going to be able to analyze and help advice, what to do with the data. And then finally, the researcher you got, you know, these air, the phd folks, these are you know, i was talking about like jin ho was their learning officer, that comet and hilton foundation she’s a researcher, and we recently did a site visit nairobi, kenya, for one of our grantees, shopko shining hope for community and they have rich, rich data they’re collecting around there, committing kibera and compare, by the way, is the largest of informal settlement in africa and think about, like, a size of, you know, central park in a compressor that seven thousand people and there’s so much data that they’re collecting about the community and helping them with their health care and, you know, with an education and such and community services in the way when she’s taught dana, she was just, like, drooling all over it. But she’s, like, i want to do something that and she’s such an academic she just wants to, like, basically designed something around it. So these air, like the data modelers is with the academics of phd folks that will help let’s take the data to a new level. Alright, much so our audience is small and midsize. Yeah, non-profit twelve thousand. So we’re talking a lot of people there in small, small and midsize shop. Yeah, they need to identify which of these audiences they’re talking to some some may never be talking to to the researcher, right? Or the or the data actor. They might not be doing lobbying, so they may not be. So you have to identify which audiences you’re talking to, right? You guys hear me? Okay. And your headsets? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. I don’t hear myself too well, but as long as you hear me, ok, you have to identify who you’re talking to you and then okay, so so i guess we’re going to get through now there are different data needs different ways of conversing about data with data to each of these different audience that’s right? You don’t have that, right? Yes, we’re mapping needs and method to the five different audiences and the knowledge that they have tio and the time, right? So i mentioned the policymaker. They may have some expertise. They don’t have time right on time, don’t time like the researcher. Whereas the researchers, like, get out of my way. Just give me the spreadsheet, all query my own database, okay? And then also in the spirit of being totally honest, so they have to be honest with yourself who you’re going to deliver the data to, like. If it’s your board, it’s your board and it’s. Okay, you know, and some people are like, oh, this is only for one very specific orders and that’s. Good, you know, because they’re being very, very honest with yourself. Okay, very good. So let’s, start with the ones that are most likely for a small and midsize not to be talking. So certainly data consumer. Yeah. That’s your nose. Your nose could be your donors. I know you’re not calling your donor’s, maybe even just board members. Okay? Data actor. Maybe it could be any decision maker that could be your board as well. It could be. It could be your boss. It could be somebody who is influencing budgets influencing programming. This is the person who has the power to make a change. So it’s therein you figure out which ones were going teo so they’re they’re in data promoter. That could be a journalist. Yes. Right. So that’s potential. The analyst remind me. What’s what’s the likelihood of a small mid size shot talking to the analyst sometimes yeah, for smaller medium non-profit portable. Forget it. Yeah, yeah. Bonem altum but scale that xero scales up now we’re not going right. We’re not going treatable, but let’s, just talk about it, okay? I think what i think what’s different, though, for smaller midsize non-profits is that the people listening may be the ones doing the analysis themselves. They may not have a supper analyst. Okay. Yeah, and many came from currently hilton foundations. They get smaller foundation. And a lot of us were multiple hats. So someone might be liberta both, but yet, yet they still move every important. Okay? They’re all in. Okay? Yeah. All right. So what do we do for the data consumer? How do we have a retailer to that audience? Yeah. They’re a couple of key things. That’s. What we need. Yeah. So one is use plain language when you’re communicating to them, they may not know who you are, what you do, why it matters. Plain language is really key. Sometimes people get a little too marketing me. Sometimes they get a little too research. E you need to be able to say what you want to say in a really simple visual with some simple language like you’re talking to your friends. Yeah, we were at a dinner party. You’ve got ten seconds to explain what this is and what matter-ness schooling for. Graphic. That will do it for you or something like that, right? Or even just like a data point point. Okay, we got to take a break. Tell us, for pete’s sake, think of the companies you can refer and start asking them that’s the first step. Well, actually, the first step is watching the video. Then you start referring the companies and talking. To them, you’ve heard the testimonials from the charity’s. You’ve heard the testimony from the companies. It’s. Time to get that long stream of passive revenue for yourself. Start with the video. That is the first step video. Is that tony dot, m a slash tony tello’s. Now back to courtney clarke and david mask arena from eighteen. Ntc what’s. The summary. Yeah, and a couple of that with something you mentioned visually could be motion. Could be a visual visualization of data. It could be a story. It could be a video that couples with the data because just it’s. Just a lot more impact for when you, when you when you pair it, but okay, let’s, start to make sense. Your data consumer is gonna be a lot more interesting story then your analyst or your research eggs? Absolutely. And during our session yesterday, there are people in the audience who talked. We talked a lot about how we paired data with stories because the narrative makes it so much more riel, it elevates the people that are actually being affected by this data. So there were some great stories about that. Okay, okay. Back-up let’s, go to the well, anything else about the consumer? I mean, this is this is this is probably our largest constituency. Yeah, so i think the other thing is to be clear about what action you want them to take because your data should support that action don’t just and and actually that came up from an audience member yesterday who said people weren’t being moved by the data and so that’s why they started pairing it with stories and once somebody gets hooked and they feel those heartstrings being cold or they feel that passion rise that’s when you gotta capitalize and be really clear what the action is, whether it’s donating, volunteering on asking for more information yeah, signing up for the male daughter, give us your new gives your email yeah, and think about the safety step back a little bit this like you have to identify goal, like whether you’re trying to accomplish with this data set and it would help you help you with to decide like what to share in how to share that welfare that’s always important place to start gold. What was the purpose of this, exactly what we’re trying to move people and then we try to move people to do and then be clear about exactly called. Okay? That’s, right? And the goal is the hardest part. Frankly, knowing the goal is the hardest part. It’s on so simple, but it’s like that ask why five times you got to get to the real root of why you’re doing this. All right? We’re talking about our actor actor. Okay, refresh my recollection, who’s, this decision makers, policymakers, people who are going to make the change that you want, sir. Yeah. Okay. Okay. How do we talk to these people that data. So the format is briefings sometimes it’s in the form of a press release. They need, like, think about a policy maker who has a staff and maybe they have to vote on a bill or make a decision. The staff member is the one who’s calling non-profits calling agencies and saying what’s happening in my district around this topic. So being able to slice your data by topic and location is really valuable to these folks and getting this summary out and again the action. What? Why does this matter and their actions going to be different than the consumer? Usually you’re looking for a decision, a vote, something exactly what you want to say more about the actual, i think something that’s adjustable something that if you could package it for them, like staying here, the key takeaways from this a swell, you know, think of this, like, you know, you know, working the communications team. And, you know, we provide press kits for people. And if you could provided that, you know, so so they could easily digest and help, um, guide them through the decision making process, i think will be the key. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And i guess also keeping in mind you you may not be talking to the principal. Yeah, right, right. It could be a staff staff, something. Usually it is so it’s. Gotta be it’s. Gotta be so your your urine for always going through someone to the decision maker way don’t love that. Right? Twice removed, twice removed from your there once removed from your data. Yeah, it happens. I mean, that’s what? Any communication, though. Anytime you’re putting something out, somebody could take it. Andi at their own commentary around it. That’s what? The data promoter that’s a that’s a benefit in a risk, right? Because they could date a promoter could be multiplying. Your audience is your audience, but they could be putting their own message. They could be manipulating the data in a way that may not be true to it. But, you know, were you everybody has had, you know, that journalist didn’t get the quote quite right? Yeah, you are taking over simplification exactly. If the press often has to do to make something interesting to readers, you know, put in a headline. Yeah, yeah, and the promoter should also think about, like, segmenting looking if they could do, like, a more targeted in a way, like, if they know specifically that they’re going to try to communicate. Teo, i think they’ll be the key as well. And you get to know your trusted data promoters, right? You know, the journalists or the bloggers are the advocates who you trust, who you align with the messaging around. So identifying those folks or maybe you don’t know them and you do a little research and you find out who you are, where, wes, you need to know within your sector who the influencers are. Absolutely yeah, i get a little bit of research. Goes a long way. Yeah. Back-up how do you feel about the standard press release? Since we’re talking about the audience of promoters, we’ll be sending it to either of you have, ah, opinion on press releases. Are they outdated there? Some school of thought that press release is dead. But it’s it’s still being used is using it. You’re still using journalists say they ignore them. Yeah, andi, and honestly goes back to relationship building, you know, like in communications, that our primary key is build relationships with with journalists. So when our press release passes through their deaths, they’d be able to, like sick. Oh, let me take a look at this and then dig deeper into the story for us. Just a little more let’s. Talk about building a relationship with a journalist before you want them. Tio, take some action for you to write about you in to quote you on that day’s breaking news. Yeah. How do we build that relationship when we don’t have a need? But, you know, we want to be in front of the person. Yeah. I mean, honestly, like i just it’s a good old fashioned relation building, you know, you have called them, reach out them email and called, you know, like you have no agenda, but i mean, this marketplace exactly you often cover way. Have coffee, exactly. What a concept. I mean, like, i’m also part of communications network conference, just another communications based non-profit unconference and a lot of journalists attend that and it’s a great opportunity, this plate, this form and ten is a another great form to meet people like i would add to that you need to be you need to understand that audience and you need to be curious about they have their own set of requirements that they’re trying to meet. They’ve got an editorial calendar there. Boss has told them what topics to focus on. They’re looking for. They need they need to youto help them connect the dots. So maybe don’t start with the ask, understand what they’ve been working on for the last month. What stories? What topics? And then being able to which, which, by the way, does not mean ask them what have you been writing me out? It means doing your research before you do the outreach, so that you know, so that, you know, you’ve shown that, you know, you show that you’ve taken the time to know what their beat is exactly not just asking you what do you write about lately? Well, it’s in the paper buy-in there dubai it’s on it’s, on the site, in the research, and then and then what are you working on next or what’s? The story you’ve been dying to write that you haven’t had the chance to there’s always a good answer for that and there’s a great conversation starter, especially like imagine putting yourself in their shoes, you know, like someone just roundly wants to have coffee with you, but you have no idea who they are didn’t even do any sort of research like and, you know, you have very, very busy schedule, and you have multiple crowdster headlines like we just need to remember they’re people tio don’t waste their time any more than you would waste. Teo spend the time with a potential donor. Exactly ask them what you’re worth. You’re not gonna ask them things that you want to know already write, write, write what is it about our work that he loves? Well. I’ve been giving to you for fifteen years, i think it’s, probably in my e-giving history, you know, don’t waste people’s time exactly, but but it is important to build relationships with exactly these influences. Okay, i would add to that there channels are largely on social media. If you talk to any journalists, they spend all their time on twitter. So if your twitter gene is not great it’s time it’s time. Learn what hashtags there using. Follow those channels, see who they’re following. See what they’re talking about. A great way to do research on also how to start to engage early on, even if it’s just observing. Okay. Okay. Very good. Okay, so i want you. I want to spend more time on that. I want to check my mike. Want to make sure that everything is good here. Okay, a little insecure about the way i sound. I don’t know. I sound you don’t sound good to me, it’s. Not okay to you, though, right? It’s? A little soft. Like i can hear myself. Really? I could hear myself, teo. You don’t hear me. According to richard it’s. Not as clear. Yeah, in-kind okay. And give. Myself a lot more volume. All right, now, my too loud. Ok, it’s. Good. Allright. Thank you. Time for our last break. Hoexter give quote, i compared a bunch of companies in my search for it hoexter donate company and text to give is the best hands down. They have b been beyond helpful. I can’t imagine anyone doing this better exclamation mark end quote that’s lauren bouchard from global commission partners in clermont, florida. Satisfied? She is with text to give you will be, too for info text npr to four, four, four, nine nine, nine. We’ve got several more minutes, and here they are for map your data to your audiences. Let’s, continue the analysts. Right. Data analyst. Refresh our recollection. David who is this? So this is the data expert this’s. The staffer that’s or consultant? That would help be a read data. Okay, and analyze it for you, like they be in a foundation. Now. I like the way i sound better. Okay? Like they’d be a foundation program, officer. It could be. Is that an example or no, i’m not necessarily. I mean, it could be a learning officer for the foundation meeting the one. Who’s like analyzing all the learning and data sets. Ok, he could be a data manager, you know, within an organization. Where would you? Where would you put a program, officer out of foundation? Someone who’s evaluating your grant proposal. Where? Where would they fit in these audience? Most like, i mean, it’s a little bit of both between the consumer and the actor, to be honest with you, because they’re both a decision maker. So they’re going to read the data and they’re also going to get this just like, okay, this is how my program is going and here’s how i’m going to act upon it. And here’s how i’m gonna adjust my strategy with it. Okay? Yeah. All right. So, let’s, go back to the analyst. How do we, uh, david? You keep going. What do we do with this? How do we talk to the analyst with our data? Go. No. Gosh, just give it all to them. Honestly, rod, they love him. They loved it. They love spreadsheets there. Said if they see a string of numbers, imagine like matrix type of thing. They’re like oh, my gosh, this is habit. Okay, okay. Yeah. It’s that simple? Well, they have, i would add that they usually have the domain a knowledge. Do you think of a policy maker? They haven’t education expert on staff or they may have an expert in international relations it’s that person who knows the domain quite well and feels comfortable digging through the data and furthermore to add to that, too is like if he providing which your goals and what your strategy is for and what they’re trying to provide the otherwise they’d be able to help you got guide you through the breeding process say more about that? Yeah, what shit a little bit, so think of him like, you know, like, if i’m like, if i am se the heather communications in the foundation and i’m like, i’m gonna talk to a data analyst we’re trying to accomplish x can you help me read through this day that what types of data sets can leave first collect and what’s up days says comey can provide so they’ll be able to accomplish that goal, then they were able to narrow down because otherwise they could they could. You stand in any sort of ways, but if you provide some sort of direction or gold. They’re able to, like filter things a little bit better for you. Okay, yeah, very good. Really good. And our last left audiences the researcher buy-in courtney yeah, the researchers are get out of my way and give me this red sheet they the like they may scan through your infographic, your visualization, your query tool. But really, they’re going to build their own query tool. They’re goingto grab that they’re the ones who are in sequel making pivot table like they’re doing all of it. Okay, we have jargon jail on twenty sequel i think people will know, but i’m going to pivot table. Alright, excel itself. Okay, sorry, i’m taking a data analytics class so i’m learning this stuff, so i’m excited to be able to talk about it just dropping, dropping top, but, yeah, i imagine you’ve got an excel table that is so large that you can’t open it x l can’t open it. That is what these researchers are are working in and they’re very comfortable working in and they’re the ones who may even be collecting data as well as analyze sing it for themselves, so think of it like a like a layer deeper than unless they got analysts who may rely also some visualizations. And of course, like a deep amount of pressure. But these guys are like they’re just like neck or forehead, deep of like numbers and data, and they want to do everything themselves. Yeah, yeah. So one one important thing here we have worked on a number of data projects and for non-profits or foundations any group who wants to attract many of these audiences, the keeping with researchers is you have, like, the get data page or sometimes we’ll put it in the footer and it’s, like, just download the excel spreadsheet because i keep saying it, but you got to get out of their way. Just give them what they want, okay? Okay. We have, like, another minute and a half or so do you have tools? And, uh, in your description, you mentioned choosing the right data tools. Any tools we can introduce briefly that you like, i mean, to be honest and this is like, tio, you get off being out of keeping it will be really hash tag riel here, please place if you’re old website have google and alex installed. I mean, you’d be surprised how many webs are out there and smashing non-profits believe that twenty nine, twenty nine percent of them are using do or not. Okay, okay did not have google and licks and police bare minimum do that and they said, like have i think the fun? Nothing is like have goals, you know, before it was like before you venture into the day the world? Yeah, there is there’s a great study that every action did called the state of non-profit data. And you can it’s from twenty sixteen. But it’s a great read a page i recommended. Okay, we’re gonna leave it with we’ll leave it there without recommendation. All right, all right. They’re courtney clarke, managing director of user experience at forum one. And david mask arena digital communications manager at the conrad hilton foundation. Courtney and david. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Pleasure. This interview along with all of our eighteen ntcdinosaur views sponsored by network for good, easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits. Thank you for being with non-profit radios coverage of eighteen ntc next week the buy-in bitches getting buy-in from your leadership. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com, responsive by pursuing toe online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant capital p well, you see, piela is guiding you beyond the numbers. Bradunas cps dot com by tello’s, credit card payment processing, your passive revenue stream. 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Nonprofit Radio for May 20, 2016: Fundraising and Finance Friendship & Your Modern Digital Team

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Rich Dietz & Dan Murphy: Fundraising and Finance Friendship

Abila has a study about the challenges between your fundraising and finance folks, and the opportunities for collaboration that will make your nonprofit a happier and more productive organization. In the ring are the study co-authors: Rich Dietz, fighting in the fundraising corner, and Dan Murphy for finance. How do these pugilists make peace?

Rich Dietz
Dan Murphy

Misty McLaughlin & Michelle Egan: Your Modern Digital Team

Misty McLaughlin & Michelle Egan at 16NTC

What does it mean to be a native digital nonprofit and what are the advantages of making the transition? Should you? Misty McLaughlin does organizational development at Jackson River, LLC and Michelle Egan is deputy director for marketing and engagement at NRDC. We talked at the 2016 Nonprofit Technology Conference.

 

 


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Duitz 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. We have a listener of the week. Oren louis sample ward, amy sample ward, our social media contributor and her husband, max had a baby or in louis, mom and baby are home. They’re doing great she’s not going to be with us for a few months, but she wolf course will be back. Some people do anything to grow the non-profit radio audience congratulations, amy and max very thrilled for you. Welcome oren lewis, your first major award of your life, our non-profit radio listeners of the week oh, i’m glad you’re with me! I’d be stricken with lim fangio and dauthuille yoma! If you floated the lymph idea that you missed today’s show fund-raising and finance friendship abila has a study about the challenges between your fund-raising and finance folks and the opportunities for collaboration that will make your non-profit a happier and more productive organization in the ring are like study co authors rich dietz fighting in the fund-raising corner and dan murphy for finance. How do these pugilists make peace and your modern digital? Team, what does it mean to be a native digital non-profit and what are the advantages of making the transition should you? Mr mclaughlin does organisational development at jackson river llc, and michelle egan is deputy director for marketing and management at the nrdc. We talked at the twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference on tony’s take two our new promo riel we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuing dot com, also by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay for mobile donations. Crowdster dot com very pleased to welcome excuse me, rich dietz and dan murphy to the show rich dietz is director of fund-raising strategy for abila he has spent the last twenty years working with and in a wide variety of non-profit political and government organizations, as well as technology companies focused on the nonprofit sector. Dan murphy is product manager for my p fund accounting at abila he has an extensive background in financial management with degrees in finance and accounting, and over ten years of non-profit accounting experience and he’s bored treasurer of a non-profit in austin, texas rich, welcome back. To the show. Dan. Welcome to non-profit radio. Thanks for having me here. Pleasure. I did. I mr pronounce the name of the company that when i was first introducing its abila abila abila that is correct. In case i didn’t say that in the in the opening, that is the correct pronunciation and it’s a b l a. Okay, dan, you’re on the on the finance side, rich on the fund-raising side. Rich let’s, start with you. What was this study about? Fund-raising and finance all about why did you feel it was necessary? Yeah. That’s. Kind of interesting, though. You know, as a software company focused on the non profit sector, we have products for fund accountants. You know, for accountant, we have products for fundraisers, and dan works mostly on that finance side. I work mostly on the fund-raising side, we we we realized we’re not collaborating amongst ourselves, even here at the office. And then dan and i started talking, and we’re like, hey, we have all this all this anecdotal evidence from our past working at non-profits of this sort of adversarial relationship. And so we thought, hey, let’s, get there. Especially get to what’s. Going on and actually ask non-profits is this, you know, collaboration? Or is it really an adversarial relationship? So we surveyed a fourteen hundred non-profits and we really wanted to dig into what is this perception of collaboration what’s the biggest challenges on maybe some way that we could, you know, help that that that collaboration actually increased. Yes, dan, a perception of collaboration. It’s it’s not really all that collaborative, a lot of people feel that’s, right? Yeah, it actually turns out that more than half the fundraisers that we, uh, surveyed, as well as almost half of the financial professionals, thought that their relationship with their respective collaborates other departments was either not collaborative or very little collaboration was happening. So we saw there’s a lot of room for opportunity, both in the actual collaboration processes, as well as the perception of whether collaboration could be a value to the organizations that is very glass, half full of youto recognize it as an opportunity rather than r r these kids are key departments are not talking to each other on and there’s also some very interesting differences across the generations, which will, which we’ll get to you very shortly. Um okay. What? What are what are some of the problems? Let’s us stay with you. Dan knows what’s. What? What’s causing some of this lack of collaboration, sir. I mean, there’s a lot of contributing factors to you know why these organizations may not be collaborating as much as they could. They have different reporting metrics that they’re using to evaluate their success and their their progress toward their milestones. Some of them, you know, have very distinctly goes, especially on the financial side. You know, we talked about gap. We talked about cosby and there’s. All these other acronyms that we use that our counterparts and development may not be used to using may not understand very well as well. On the fundrasing side, you know, there’s there’s also the very specific acronyms and different ways of speaking that maybe a little bit different than what the finance side of the house is used to. And then just in the top. You know what? One sector down. Now we have joined in jail on tony martignetti non-profit radio. So already you, the finance trouble guy have ah, you’ve transgressed. What? What did you have to tell us? What gap and fast b stand for everybody doesn’t know. Okay, yeah. Gases generally accepted accounting principles. So it’s kind of a principal guiding philosophy of accounting in the united states. And fast because the financial accounting standards board and their governing agency responsible for regulation of accounting practices. Okay, thank you. So we’re trying to bridget tronvig? Yeah. Okay. We’re trying to bridge the gap here. That’s, right? Let’s not make a warrant and you make it work. So it just in daily activities that the two different development and finance department have very different priorities. So, you know, one side of the house is tryingto raise money to make sure that the organization can continue to find its activities and expanded commission on dh. Then, of course, the financial side of the house is wanting to make sure that the resources of the organization are responsibly managed. The finances are adequately classified and reported the stakeholders so just two different philosophies to achieve the same mission organizations trying to achieve rich over to you. The even metrics. Right? What? What metrics the two different sides look at are very different. Yeah, and this is interesting. Dan and i spent a lot of time talking about it because it first, so so we asked the fundraisers and the finance folks what’s your top five challenges and all that stuff and metrics and reporting was in both of their tops five and it was different metrics and reporting at first we were like, oh, wow, that that could be a problem, but then as we dug deeper, we thought, no that’s, actually, right? I think the fund-raising teams and the finance team should have different metrics and reporting, they’re actually reporting on different things. The problem is when we don’t have common goals and and overarching goals that both of those metrics and reporting feet up into and so when we get into the recommendations in the report that’s where we really start talking about joint goal setting before you even get to figuring out what you’re going to report on figuring out what the over our goals of the organization are, and then how to both those departments feet into those overall goals, we think that’s going to help overcome a lot of those, those differences that that people are saying a greater understanding way we need to meet. In the middle and there’s a lot obviously that’s in common. Now everybody wants to advance the mission. They wouldn’t be there otherwise, but but let’s let’s find what’s comin and understand what’s outside the common areas for exactly yeah, all right, let’s, go out for a for a quick break and when we come back, the three of us we will we’ll keep talking all have our little ah, we’re going to find out more about the differences across generations. Very interesting. Stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Then you are ah, product manager for m i p fundez counting at abila now already. This is three acronyms from the finance side we’ve had known from the fan fund-raising side, so i’m starting to see where the problems lie. What is m i p or mip? I don’t know. It’s micro information processes. It’s ah, name that we’ve had for a significant amount of time. That’s very well recognized in the non-profit finance sector. Okay, very well recognized. The non-profit in the finance sector. Okay. That’s, right? We’re trying to bridge gaps now. Damn, i not break down bridges all right now. Okay. Um, s o rich acquaint us with some of the difference is this is really interesting across the generations, boomers feel that three things everything’s fine and the millennials are not as content. Yeah, this is really interesting. And it’s something we’re doing a lot in our research studies now is we’re kind of breaking out a lot of the answers based on generation, you know, boomer’s, gen xers and millennials, especially because that’s who’s in the work force right now and when? We ask the questions about how they felt, you know? Did they feel collaborative? We saw the boomers felt pretty collaborative on both the finance and the fund-raising side, fifty seven percent, two, sixty percent on the fine outside, but the millennials felt way less collaborative on the fund-raising side on dh dan and i talked about it. Dan actually had a really interesting theory on this, so i’ll actually kick it over to him so he could talk about that. I thought it was really interesting and something i think we can address. Okay, let me ask first, though. Am i the only baby boomer in this, uh, in this conversation born before nineteen. Sixty four. I believe that i’m a gen xer. You are. So we have one of each. Okay, dan, your millennial. Is that right? No, i actually fall into genetic. You’re ok. You have a baby face. Okay? Uh, that’s. Too bad. Because i was going to beat up on you as a representative of millennials. Why? Why? The millennials are causing so much havoc in the workplace. Why? They can’t be more content. But go ahead. What is your what is your theory? Well my theory is that if you look at the data, there really seems to be a tendency for the boomers too collaborate together is somewhat, but to communicate definitely directly, but there definitely seems to be a tendency on the finance side of the house for both the djinn xers and the millennials to have more communication in contact with the senior members on the fund-raising side of the house and i suspect, and we’ll probably dig into this a bit more, but it’s most likely because of the, you know, i strive for efficiency and kind of just wanting to get to the the answer of something rather than build relationships focus. So i think a lot of that is probably more driven by the finance side of the house, which is why you can see the collaborators collaboration, sentiment hyre on that side, unfortunately think that means that the millennials into next er’s on the development side of the house might be kind of circum bennett in some of these conversations on dh left out in some cases. What about personality, too? I’m generalizing here, but i don’t think you’re average finance side person is is as outgoing. You know, it’s, you know, relationship oriented extroverts, aziz, you’ll find on the fund-raising side. So i mean, i think that’s definitely fair to say not just say that accountants are incredibly wake up on and find accounting i know beating on their friend, the accounting and finance side i know i’m trying not to, but i don’t know, zo stereotype, but so, you know, call it that’s what that’s, what i’m doing, but i think fundez sorry, but i think fundraisers arm or, like, extroverted and so they’re seeking mohr collaboration than the people on the finance side of the same age, even well, i think you could also just very clearly make the argument that inherent in the development role is a focus on relationships that is part of that role within the organization that doesn’t exist as much on the finance side. Okay, all right. So you yeah, and so yes, certainly job responsibilities on the way the two the two sides are organized and what their purpose is our butt. And so i think as a result of that, you get personalities that are different in the two different teams. All right? I don’t know you. Know you don’t agree with the personality theory now that we agree that degree of that, and you’re back in the report when we get into the recommendations, we actually talked about kind of breaking down some of those personality, you know, division’s, like, actually start doing some joint activities, you know? Do you know i’m a big fan of doing something outside of work, a happy hour after work at the finance and fund-raising folks together outside of the workplace, you know, maybe have a drink and start talking about other things besides work once you get to know someone as a person and of course, on the fundraiser saying this because that’s what we do, you know, you go out and you get to know people you learned about their kids, their pets, all that stuff, and it makes that next conversation you have with them at work even easier. So we have to drag the finance people to this happy hour that’s, right? And then stopped them from just talking to each other, right? We have to penetrate their circle. I’m beating up on the, uh okay, small organizations, let’s give that damn small organizations a lot. More potential well, depends how you want to describe it. Small organizations are a lot more collaborative. That’s, right? Yeah. We found that there’s a significant difference between large organizations and small organizations in the level of collaboration that’s happening. We also theorized that a large contributing factor to this is that in the smaller organizations you have smaller staff, and so people are forced to collaborate, you know, there’s fewer people to get the job done. A lot of organizations, people may wear multiple hats or, you know, play different roles in the organization. So there’s a hot a lot higher level of interaction, there’s, more frequency of interaction on and a lot of time people are, you know, just physically located closer together. And so whether you know, if the small organization and only has a single office or small office space many times, these finance and development individuals responsible for those roles are physically closer to each other. And so there’s a lot of a lot higher level of interaction that leads to more collaboration. That makes a lot of intuitive sense. But i think it’s important to point out, you define smaller organizations as less than ten million dollars, right? Listen, krauz million annual revenue. So we’re not talking about necessarily tiny shops where it’s two or three people, and obviously there more collaborative than bigger organizations. But, you know, a ten million dollar annual revenue that could have dozens of employees that’s, right and that’s a good point there, not there not, you know, five or ten person shops, but at the strategic planning level on the less than ten million dollar organizations we saw a lot hyre interaction in the strategic planning processes and the budgeting process is and, you know, kind of the key processes for each role. And so we also saw smaller staff size, and so their just was a lot higher level of interaction required to get things done. And so, you know, there’s kind of a necessity there for these for these roles to interact more and there’s more opportunity from to do so as opposed to above ten million. There started to be, you know, significant layers within the organization that lead to inflation. Right? Right, rich. Anything you want to add about the small versus large organizations? No, i think it’s pretty much what dan said. Where? You know, if you have a smaller office, you’re gonna bump into people in the hallway more, and then, you know, you’re not you’re not divided by department as much, you know, there’s, not a finance department over on floor four and the fund-raising department on floor three, when you’re not even a ten million dollar zorg, you’re probably all in the same office and you do see each other in the break room and everything in those again hi. Always go back to the human interaction. That human interaction is what really breaks down those silos. Also reporting structures. No smaller organization like that have fewer vice presidents. So teams are more cohesive because they’re clustered together. Yeah. All right. So we got some problem areas, you know, lying around like goals and priorities. Language, metrics, personalities, let’s. Move to the positive now and start identifying some opportunities for ah, making things, making the world a happier place. So this is not a boxing match between fund-raising and finance. Rich want to stay with you? What? What? What’s. Ah, let’s. Talk about the social ideas first since you already touched on that. Yeah, i mean, definitely social ideas. It’s. You know, finding ways to get more human interaction there, and you’re like you’re saying, you know, dragging the finance folks out to happy hour in a lot of them may not want to go to that happy hours. So maybe start with a brown bag lunch, you know, hat at happy office, everyone gets in the same room, bring your own lunch. Um and, you know, watch a movie, you know, just talk about something else. Just start to get those interactions to start anyway. That you can do it. Andi, andi, you have to keep pushing that, you know, so that that would be not maya. Number one tip. Okay? Yes, i like. I like the social ideas, too. That’s. Why? I was i was glad you mentioned it, but we could be more formal to some training. Right? Some basic training. Dan that’s, right? Yeah. You can really structure your onboarding process and offer training to, you know, cross training between the two different departments to facilitate the interaction too. You know, in increase that cohesion between the two teams to work toward the joint mission of the organization. And that could be, you know, it’s simple. As modifying our onboarding processes to have, you know, an explanation and as part of those processes of what the different departments do, what their goals are, kind of what they’re key processes are, and it could even advanced something where there might be a periodic schedule training where one department will train the other one. And you know what they do, how the reporting works, how their systems work, or even just a collaborative meeting that’s on the calendar every month or, you know, every other week or however frequently it might be in order to keep each each other aware of what’s going on within your respective department so that you’re kind of synchronized on on what’s going on and what the priorities are across the organization and maybe in in orientation, we can have a day or so, you know, whatever, where the fundraiser goes over to the finance department spend or is at least onboarding by someone in finance, and so from day one we’re getting and empathy for what’s happening on the other side, right? And making sure that you understand how your processes are, you know, feed into the processes of the other departments. So for fund-raising maybe that’s gift entry and understanding how you know, downstream that goes into the accounting system and how that kind of goes through the financial reporting process. So you understand what you’re doing, it directly impacts the finance department and the reports that they produce and on the finance department side an accounting, understanding the gift solicitation process and what it takes to get that money in the door and entered into your c r, m or whatever your dahna records system is on dh, then how that gets to you in accounting. So you understand that full process because nobody really operates in a vacuum, so we’re really making sure that you connect the dots between the organizational department. Dan was a part of the tension i thought i read that finance doesn’t understand the need for spending money on relationship building. Yeah, it definitely can be a challenge to understand why you would spend resource is on something as abstract it’s relationships that that’s definitely a story that resonates more with some than it does others for accountants and finance related in, you know oriented individuals, you want to be able to sew direct outcomes. For resource is use their money spent and its hard to quantify that whenever you’re saying you’re investing in relationships. But you know that. But that is required to cultivate relationships with donors that will ultimately lead revenue in the front door. And so there is a return on that it’s, just very hard to quantify that through report, you know, through the traditional financial reporting process. So it can be hard for to rationalize and justify spending funds or resource is in that way. But i think that through collaboration, that story can be told jointly from the department of, you know, development, narrating kind of the relationship side of that and helping them finance to quantify what the return on that is and communicate that out. Do either of you know our master’s programs in if non-profit management brake, bringing these these two department’s together and helping people with a finance background understand mohr of fund-raising and vice versa? Do you know if that’s happening at the but the degree level or certificate level? I don’t know if it’s happening at the degree level. I do know that there are sort of think it’s available for non-profit management and leadership, that tight kind of the executive roles, the finance rolls, the development rolls, some degree the volunteer roles together for people that are enrolled in that program, to give people kind of three hundred sixty degree view of the organization. I don’t know that the intention is specifically for collaboration, but it is too kind of enhance the literally of the pro dispensing the various areas so that they can be effective leaders. Yeah, okay, i mean, i hope that’s going on we have meteo thie only degree i have is a law degree and i don’t have a certificate on in-kind classically under credential to even host the show. I don’t know what somebody’s looking like in front of me six years ago. I don’t know what happened. Ah, all right. Isa dan, you start of ah alluded to this. Talking about the budget let’s jump over to rich. We can work together on our budgeting. Yeah, most definitely eye on me and i touch on this earlier little bit is, you know we have these different priorities and these different metrics that were that were held accountable for in both departments on and i think, instead of starting at that point, which is where most budgets get put together, the fund-raising side says, we need this in the finance side says, well, i got all these departments say they need all this stuff, taking a step back and going to that joint goal setting and budgeting as step one look at the look at the big bucket first and then break out into your department’s and trying to figure that out. I think some of the frustration we heard a lot in the in the open ended answers of the survey was, you know, fund-raising sango finance just gave us this number to go fund-raising it doesn’t really mean anything. They just pick the number out of the sky, it felt like and i’m sure finances saying the same thing, you know, who are these fundraisers that are just throwing these numbers at us? You mean? And so if you just take a step back and out of that silo and do that joint gold setting and budgeting, i think that everyone knows where the where the basis is, and then we break and do and figure out our, you know, our specific goals from there, and then come back together again to make sure that those makes sense for everybody. So it is it’s really a three hundred sixty degree ah process there on again, just another one. Another way to break us out of those silos. And i think that’s going to increase the collaboration greatly when you understand what the other side is struggling with, then you do a much better job of making sure your data clean, making sure your data is getting to them in a way that they need, and then everything just flows better. Have you had any feedback on the survey that it’s stimulated conversations, or we used it as a way to start? Well, that’s a stimulating conversation, it helped bridge this gap. Any feedback like that way, actually have our vp of marketing test that gerard has some really good friends in the industry, and he talked to one of his fundraiser guys, and he said they took the report with the his counterpart on the thunder on the finance side and they went out to lunch and just talked about the report, and they said it was one of the best conversations that they’ve ever had in, like, ten years. So we are getting really good anecdotal evidence that it just it gives you something to talk about, something to start with and then go. Okay, so how how do we match against that? Are we doing better? We doing worse? Who? Where can we improve? You know, it’s sometimes easier to have at least something in common that you’re talking about. And then, you know, again, break down those by-laws that’s, outstanding that’s, a that’s, a that’s, a grand slam. I hope some listeners will. But, you know, we hear this first and then bring it to the people that can help start to start the conversation. You know, listening to this you can get the study at abila dot com slash collaboration study and abila is a b piela abila dot com slash collaboration study. Yeah, i mean, it’s, you know, it’s, great to hear. Okay. Glad you got that kind of feedback. Excellent. Um we’ll see what else we can let’s drown. Another opportunity, dan let’s, go to you, cem cem, shared terminology we can we can put together, yeah, something that could help, and it can also kind of jointly work with the train and onboarding is to create a reporting in metric, so we called chee cheat, and that is just a place where, you know, both departments can kind of see what the critical metrics for each department are, how they’re being used, kind of how they’re derived and then what? The important reports that are being generated for stakeholder consumption for public use, whatever the case may be, basically, what the story of the organization that’s being communicated is through reporting so you could make sure that you’re both on the same page, that you’re being consistent what’s being reported on dh really, i mean both from a practical point of view to make sure that, you know, i know boardmember you’re not telling two different stories to your board and also from a community and mission point of you to make sure that you’re really making the most out of the data that you have out of the stories the organization have, that you’re effectively communicating the missions so that you can raise the most and really, you know, put your best foot forward as an organization for your mission that sounds like a cz much as the the the outcome of that, that that that deliver a ble will have value just the collaborative process of putting it together together. We’ll have value. Absolutely. We’re gonna work together. We gotta define what are unknown terms are to each other and things like that’s going to start the conversation, right? You have to be able to communicate effectively internally before you can communicate externally. Okay? All right, rich, we’re going to wrap it up, which is just like, a minute or so. You have some opportunities around software integration. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Integration was another one. And, you know, we definitely go deeper into the into the report on that. But we ask, you know, how important was integration, you know, to to the finance and fund-raising quotes and we saw some interesting things there, including it seemed the younger the person was, the more they wanted integration, which, you know, you would would would make sense. Millennials have had their lives integrated online forever, so they’re very much in the integration some of the older boomers, ah tended to be a little more skeptical of of integration. So there’s definitely some stuff to teo look at their what dan and i found on the integration pieces that there might be some fear around integration about, oh, that’s, our data and i don’t know if i trust, you know, a machine to actually move the data correctly. I’d rather do it myself manually. So i think we need to do a lot of training on dh showing folks that that that software integration, you know, data going from your finance from your fund-raising software to your finances are and actually save a lot of time can actually save a lot of double entry on and and and keep your data very clean. So i think that’s something that’s gonna take a little time for people to get comfortable with it. That’s rich dietz, director of fund-raising strategy at abila also dand murphy, product manager for was it micro integrated processes fund accounting and my pea it’s? It might be. Might be. I got it wrong in other words. Okay, we’ll stick with that. Might be also it abila gentlemen. Thank you very much. Thank you, my pleasure. Coming up next is your modern digital team first, pursuant and crowdster one of pursuance tools is prospector uses your existing data to find high priority potential donors in your data were not goa is now on external scan using the database you’ve already got, and that helps you focus your time on those donors or potential donors who are most likely to upgrade their giving you focus more time you could be more efficient, you’re going to raise more money. That’s, the prospector tool at pursuant dot com crowdster we know them for easy to use peer-to-peer fund-raising sites that you get on crowdster are easy to put up easy for you in your management of the campaign. Easy for your donors to navigate. Easy for the networks that your donors are bringing, too your campaign all very simple to use and also good looking sites, you’re volunteers going to be impressed. So will, what am i trying to say? You’re volunteers going depressed and so are the people that they bring in their friends, their networks that bring into your campaign crowdster dot com now tony’s, take two. I’ve got a new non-profit radio promo riel there there are interview clips and some stand up comedy clips and also how to follow the show. I understand one hundred percent that you don’t need to know how to follow the show, you’re already you’re here, but what’s he talking about i understand that, but you have friends, you have co workers you have colleagues in in either in your office or in other non-profits they need non-profit radio there yearning thirsting, they’re hungry. Please satiate them, feed them, quench their thirst. They need to know non-profit radio please share that promo reel. I’d be grateful. The video is that tony martignetti dot com and it’s also on youtube where my channel israel r e a l tony martignetti thank you that’s tony’s, take two here are mr mclaughlin and michelle egon from non-profit technology conference on your modern digital team. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc non-profit technology conference. We’re in san jose, california, at the convention center. My guests now are misty mclaughlin and michelle egon. Misty is responsible for organizational development at jackson river llc, and michelle is deputy director for marketing and engagement at the natural resources defense. Council ladies, welcome. Thank you, tony. Thank you. Pleasure. Pleasure to have you before we get to your workshop topic, i have to shout out the ntcdinosaur swag items for the for this interview, which is from every action you’ve got build the world you want lookbook and postcards built the world you want from every action. And one of the postcards defines what it do good or is a dreamer and a doer. So we’re gonna add this to the swag file, which is very well organized. Throwdown. They’re well organized. All right. Okay. Seminar your workshop. Your program was all about the modern digital team bilich digital program. That works show. What are you organisations sometimes not getting quite right about there. Internal digital team. Well, i think for us, we were really struggling with how teo integrate digital into the strategies where we were a very print centric organization, actually. And making that transition teo a digital organization, was it natural for us? When did that sort of start? I joined the n r d c two years ago. I think i think it’s been in the works for a while. Ever since. People have been talking. About digital, but it just wasn’t getting traction until we had a significant leadership support to do it. So that was about two years ago. We talked about the importance of leadership. Yeah, it’s going to trickle down from the top. Well, it’s helpful when they are supporting change happen. Misty. Welcome back. Thank you to non-profit radio. Thank you. What would you like to add, teo? Sort of our overview. What? What, what? Why do we need this session? Well, nrdc is an interesting example. They were sort of a case study that we looked at in detail with michelle. They’re interesting because there are giant organization with a pretty large budget, but they still have the same kinds of challenges in terms of integrating digital. Even in twenty sixteen, even after the web has been around and maturing for the last twenty years, they were having some of the same challenges we see with organizations of all shapes and sizes doing all kinds of work that it’s really hard to transition from a kind of print heavy direct mail program into the new digital era and to adapt to all of the channels and all of the changes. That comes so fast in the way that we work now. All right. And the conversation we’re gonna have about having this high high efficiency digital team applies regardless of how many people are on your team. So it’s just two people or if it’s forty or fifty still applies? Yes, yes. Okay. Excellent cause we got small and midsize shop listening and some may have very large teams, but most probably have pretty small digital teams. Yes, made. And they may have other responsibilities, too, like marketing communications guests, including the print work, perhaps. Okay, where do we start? Well, i think the frame for our session is an interesting one. Of course i say that, but because i think that for a long time, especially at conferences like ntcdinosaur talk about best practices were really we’ve been talking about channels and tactics in tools that when you talk about digital it’s been a lot of, like, what should i do on social media or what are the top ten things that my website needs to do? And with the session, we sort of said, you know, there’s, lots of ways to get strategy, what we really need to be talking about now is a methodology for how you adapt to the changing times. Things are not going to stop changing. At this rate, you’re not going to stop being asked to be responsive, to be integrated across all your channels. Tohave consistent messaging, in fact, going to be pushed to do that more and more so, we talked about a digital of digital first approach to how you do communications, not just your web channels or your social media channels, but all of your communications in an organization really radically changing the way that you do work to be digital first data. Our native digital. Yeah, yeah, so it’s about ways of planning, ways of thinking about what your audience needs, ways of doing listening. So you’re responsive to what you’re actually hearing from your supporters that they want, and you’re kind of taking your messages to them in the places that they are. They are versus where you want them to be. Exactly. Okay, so there’s a lot to break this down. Hyre how do we know what channels will be best for our constituency now? I know that obviously varies from organization. How do we assess? Where is this a listening campaign? When you start with them how we figure out where should wear, we should be putting our focus because that’s where the you want to talk to arm that’s a great question. So one of the things we really focused on in the session was about becoming a measurement and data driven organization. Do you hear a lot about that? Let’s write a lot about that. How do we become one? How do we? Well, one of the things that digital gives you is a lot of tools for seeing what’s working and what’s not working in the channel that your guardian, we we talked a ton about sprawl. So, michelle, maybe you want to comment on when you got to nrdc, how many digital properties were you dealing with? I’m quite a few like, i think we had collectively over one hundred, like thirty six different microsite, sixty different and our dc twitter handles, so i think the first step that we were talking about is really taking an inventory of what’s happening because i think often times with lack of ah focus strategy mohr is better is what often prevails. And so starting with taking an audit to see how many do you actually have? Seems to be a good first step to getting digital first and making sure that what you’re doing has perfect purpose and could be measured. Okay, how many do you have? All right, that doesn’t take too long. But then how do we start? It depends who you are. Come out there, you know? Oh, yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. And it’s still emerging. It’s like an amazing archaeology dig for how many properties we have? Because because it’s, an organization that has a lot of funding and lots of passionate people who want to get the message out there and you, khun, start a blogger’s started microsite and capture that work. Ok? And then all of a sudden and argast he’s name is on it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, exactly. But the person who did it leaves and it’s still out there and no one’s taking. Then how do you manage this inventory? Curate your inventory of what you’ve got. How do you decide? What’s what’s. Most important. What? What? Less important and what shouldn’t even be done anymore. How do you do? You make those? Well, i can talk about specifically what we did at n r d c and so what? What we ended up doing as we we collected all of the sights, and we focused down teo. Really? Just the sites that talked about our issues directly and shut down all the other sites that were random brand them sites that were being run by other it’s. Gotta be it’s. Gotta be mission related, right closely. Mission relieved. Right. So that’s the place to start. I mean, not start. But at this stage of the process, yeah, how close is closely related? Is it? Yeah, that was the first. So the two was, is it mission related and how much traffic? How many people are coming to it? And then we looked at that and developed a strategy for how to merge it together and get more focused. Okay, just say anything one at there? Well, one of the things that i think kept coming up and having this conversation is that they’re all these kind of moments in the life cycle its life cycle of an organization that you can do this. So if you’re rolling out a new website, it’s a great time to inventory everything and go from this kind of sprawl approach to your digital ecosystem to something that’s more like planned growth, where you’re rolling things in your consolidating, you take that opportunity to really do it right and to pull in so that you can really align what you’re going to be doing in an ongoing basis with the actual staff and resources and budget that you have to do a few things really well. Okay, where are the other opportune moment website? There are many, so getting new leadership in the organization is a great one in energy sees case it was driven by a rebrand, although, as michelle said, you know, they’re probably better moments a website is a better moment to do that because you can really get into the meat of the issues of the organization and assess what’s really aligned with where we’re going rolling on a strategic plan sometimes it doesn’t even have to be something so giant like you might have a security attack that makes you realize you have all of these websites out there that aren’t being properly maintained and secured. Someone said an adwords campaign, you know, something that worked out really well or a terrible fund-raising year, any of those things can be catalysts for having the conversation about how to pull back on what you’re doing and really see what’s working. Another thing that came up in the session today was even a news moment, so if you’re if you were issue is particularly highlighted in the news. That’s a great time toe look and assess about how how you could do more with that. All right, in the instant you want to be reacting? Yeah. You wanna be seizing that moment right after that? Yeah, exactly if you capitalized on the headlines. Right. Okay. Okay. All right. So those are some opportunities. Where do we go after we we found opportunities. Now that what? Help me along here. It’s. A big process. Yeah. So there are a lot of things that that you want to do over a period of time. One of the things that i think is really useful. Communicate can cream communiqu o p a team a couple. Of years ago did a really thorough study of non-profits non-profit digital models across the spectrum. So large organisation, small organizations, people in a lot of different sectors, and they came up with these four models of digital governance. I won’t go into all of them, but they’re basically ways that digital programs are structured inside of an organisation to keep this sprawl from happening. And there are some model that lead to everyone just going off and doing their own thing, and you get a very, very fragmented brand presence. Where is there other models that were kind of seeing in this digital first world really work well? Toa have some centralized governance and to allow digital to kind of drive a communication strategy, but where you capitalize on the talent and the ideas of people across the organization to contribute to having a really rich digital presence and that’s, what in r d c is trying to implement, right? That was a communiqu, copia, communiqu opiate, yet is a digital teams report. You can actually see it a digital teams dot or ge it’s. A great set of resource is. Let me ask you, michelle, about maybe having to drag some people along who are not accustomed to being digital natives and having communications be that way. How do we get buy-in from the reluctant members of our team and we have had to have a lot of conversations and and education just talking about, you know, how it’s different, why it’s valuable? How it’s going to help their work? How you know, in a digital world just writing something and hitting publishes only the first step. Then you have to figure out how you’re promoting at how you’re getting it out to different audiences and building that engagement lupin, where you’re sending people so it’s it’s ah, we found through conversations has been the way that we can make the most progress and bringing people along now imagine having leadership but leadership buy-in is valuable, right? I mean, if the leaders air involved and engaged, then it’s going be a lot easier to bring your team members along. Yeah, i think i think the leadership is is a very valuable and helping to instigate it and tow help make it happen, but i think that the buy-in really comes. From the people that you’re working with and doing the work so the leadership provides the permission to have the conversations, but then really working with the people in our organization to help thumb understand is the thing that’s actually making the change. Okay, okay, mr let’s, follow on something that michelle just mentioned. What are some of the advantages of doing it this way? What? Why? Why shouldn’t be thinking digital first that’s a great question. I got one out being up thirteen minutes. Excellent, excellent question so there are a lot of advantages. I think that the truth is that digital staff right now at all different kinds of organizations, they are burnt out non-profit people have burned out digital staff are being asked to respond twenty four hours a day, seven days a week in an environment that is always on, and they’re almost all doing it, even it very big organizations, even for nrdc, they’re understaffed, they don’t have the people that they need to be able to operate and as many channels tto learn new channels to be responsive to what they’re hearing, to do the measurement and then to try to go throughout the organization and educate all of the people who really need to be learning from what’s happening online. So the operating in a digital first way kind of gives you a framework for prioritizing for making decisions. For aligning resource is in capacity with the actual budget that you have, and for stopping doing some things which i think is sometimes the biggest challenge, that there’s so much opportunity. It’s really hard to say no. And as internal stakeholders and organizations get smarter, they want more from the digital presence. They want to see themselves able to be reflected in their work, able to be reflected in all of these different places. But there’s, not always the r a y on that, particularly for small budgets. So this gives you a way of kind of going and saying, what should we be doing? How do we invest right in our communications capacity period? Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist market of eco enterprises charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m jonah helper, author of date your donors. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. And of course, we’re talking about digital first doesn’t mean digital only, right? So we’re not abandoning our traditional channel that’s, exactly, right? No, we’re acknowledging that all of those channels work together and they have to work together. Where is if you kind of stick with the old way of communicating something that’s really offline first and digital as an afterthought? You’re never going to align those messages across channels because the channels air so different. Where is the digital gives you the ability to really learn as you’re going along and into informed all of your communications by doing that planning and concert together? Michelle, you’re doing a lot of nodding and teo, anything mr was just, yeah, i just that i agree. And i think because the digital is such a different way of consuming information that if you’re not approaching that first in your thought process for how you’re getting those messages out, then you’re really losing on the opportunity. Yeah, okay, okay. Do we have measures, mr? You brought up? You know, r o i and sometimes how difficult that can be. You mentioned for small organizations, but but even small or not how do? We start to a year later, prove to our teams and our leadership that this transition to digital first has been worth it. Well, i think introduce. He is a great case study in this area. Do you want to mention some of the i’ll set you up, if you want, okay, so michelle worked great team, just like this on the way over here, like you said, okay, now get out of the park. So michelle, i’m going to to michelle’s horns, she doesn’t toot our own horn nearly enough so she’s just gone through a very rigorous two year process, which is which is still very much under way of kind of going top to bottom to align all of the components of the communications program. So starting with a rebrand, then working through a website redesign that was really used to focus in on the issues and to look at all of that digital sprawl and rein it in into a a cohesive set of properties than to look at the social strategy and to kind of make sure that their organizational structure all of their processes, in fact, like all of the relationships inside of the organization, were sort of set up to be able to support the strategy that they were trying to achieve. So we talked about a couple of case studies. One is the website that’s rolling out and some of the early gains that you’ve seen, but also some of the social gains that you’ve seen in the last year just organizing around this model for talking aboutthe work that nrdc does, yeah, so i would say specific to your question, with the metrics so we really just with the content component alone starting teo deliver at consistent stream of content that looked at a narrative arc to make sure that we weren’t just, you know, act on this act on this act on this, but creating a story over a year we grew every social channel and we ing increased our likes and shares buy it over a hundred percent just within facebook. Yeah, so huge just by again, and no advertising dollars spent just really looking at how we were playing our content. Now, aside from the likes of i’m particularly interested in the engagement, the real engagement patrick’s not what? What else should we be? Looking abila engagement way measure that that’s a great question. I feel like that’s the next step for you guys? Yeah. Okay, i’m gonna stop saying your questions. Great. They’re all great time, everyone. Hee, i have to take whatever i get it so it doesn’t come off. You’re being a particular general. No. Okay. Real metrics, not vanity metrics. Yeah, we’re looking well. I think that a year ago you were looking at vanity metrics, right? It was. Like all we could really measure was reach s o it was our people even seeing the stuff in the first place. Now i feel like you’re you’re kind of in the process of moving towards metrics that air about what are people doing with what they see and that the next frontier, in my opinion, is and how? What? How does what they’re doing? Lead teo long term stepped engagement over a period of time, particularly in the fund-raising and an advocacy space. Would you agree with that? Yeah, i agree, you say long term stepped engagement, so people moving from a growing awareness of the issues which education and awareness is actually one of the major components, or what in our dcs trying to do, they’re trying to build environmental awareness across a number of issues so likes and shares are really important for them that’s kind of a cz much as you’re going to get in the way of measuring oppcoll issue awareness. But then there’s how awareness translates into activism and two donations and tio engagement with a particular set of issues. You want to say anything more about that? Yeah, no, i mean, i it’s. Something that we need to develop because i think part of the challenge for us is that we were doing all of these things and very isolated ways and s o our membership, a digital presence was really, you know, it was the fund-raising and it was growing members, but that was different than advocacy for sending out action alerts to sign a petition on something so we’re bringing those together, and i think those softer metrics are we’re seeing a trend, the hypotheses that since those air going up, we’re getting more petition signed, we’re getting more members were increasing our dollars, but we don’t have the concrete percentages yet that, like true engagement metrics to prove it out. So that’s, your next step, okay? Yeah, okay, yeah. You want to say some more, mr ko, yet we still have a few more minutes together. What have we not talked about around you’re building this high performing digital team murcott you have a whole session way have hours of content of that carried away. All right, so i think one of the things that we spend a lot of time on and actually we did a survey in preparation. For for the session, you can see some of the survey results and also some of the q and a that we did. We took questions and we answered them in a narrative format you can look at jackson river dot com will post that they’re after the conference, but people wanted to talk about hiring and recruiting digital staff. And so what we put out there, what we posited in the session, that’s that you know, you need to think about getting those digital capabilities that you need from a mix of in house and vendors and contractors, freelancers, and that everybody needs a pretty wide variety of skills. Twenty years ago, people needed the web master and you were trying to make all website. It didn’t even have to be a good website. We’re not there anymore. You actually need a ton of different roles. You need campaign strategy. You need front and development any back in development. Project management, typically digital director of some sort. And the organization someone playing that role. You need user experience, you need to seo expertise. I could go on and on and on social management. A lot of the time organizations. Are still doing that with one person, but that is an impossible expectation if you do not supplement that those generalised skills with specialist skillsets from outside the organization or you cultivate internal talent that might exist in little pockets and other parts of the organization that can support your program. Aa one person team is just really struggling at this point to do it. Alone’s not realistic, it’s. Not at all realistic. And everyone on the ground knew that. I mean, i think half the people in the audience were digital teams have one it’s, one or two? Yeah, why don’t you really common? But their bosses don’t know that they don’t know that the skills to manage a social property really different from coding and implementing a website. So tell your boss to listen non-profit radio yes, this is too late for them to come. Tc missed your session. They can listen. Tc conversations. They can listen. This episode of non-profit radio bosses are you listening? Pizza? Open your ears. Look in your eyes. Invest in one of two persons. Digital teams are stuffed stuffing their struggle struggle pompel god’s sake hyre no, i think we’re gonna leave. It there, i give myself the last word, but take it. I was only i was only riffing off what you already. Oh, mr mclaughlin deshele, thank you very much. Thank you, thanks durney thing on our property, being back on the radio for misty’s case is ditigal doing organisational development at jackson river llc, where you can go for the resource that she was talking about. Research that led up to this session. Deshele egan, deputy director, marketing and engagement at the natural resources defense council. And this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen non-profit technology conference. Thank you so much for being with us next week. John kazarian and online auctions. If you missed any part of today’s show, i press you find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world? I’m at a crossroads, responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuing dot com, and by crowdster, online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez. On our music is by scott stein. Thank you, scotty. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and i agree. 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