Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the effects of tetrachromacy if I saw that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s up this week? Hey, Tony, returning to the 2024 nonprofit technology conference, we’ve got the essential craft of leaving your job. This provocative panel shares their real stories to inspire you if working at your job isn’t working for you. They recommend you leave well and share their advice for your hand over plan along with tips for setting up your successor or team for future success. They also help you manage your emotions. There are Carol Robberson from online news association, Laura Guzman at DEV Global Leanna Masina with the Aspen Institute and Aparna Kari, an independent consultant then data privacy, Kim Snyder, Lauren Feldman, Hay and Jonathan Geller remind you of the fundamental principles of data privacy. As Jonathan reveals his tragic story of data not adequately protected. They encourage all of us to be good data stewards. Kim is from Roundtable Technology. Lauren and Jonathan are with Fountain House on Tony’s take two. If he can go to the gym were sponsored by virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org here is the essential craft of leaving your job. Welcome back to the Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC, the 2024 nonprofit technology conference where we are all convened together in community at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. Our continuing coverage is sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for non profits with me for this conversation are Carol Robson, Laura Guzman, Leanna Masina, and Aparna Kari. Carol is director of communications at the online news association. Laura Guzman is director of Communications at DEV Global Leanna Malina is a senior project manager at the Aspen Institute and Aparna Kari is in an independent consultant. Carol. Laura Leanna Aparna, welcome. Welcome. You can talk into the mic. Yes, thank you. Yes, we’re sharing. It might be some jokes might be a little loud because we’re sharing. There are three microphones and four people, but I did not want to four guests. I, I make five but we didn’t, I did not want to sacrifice this sub just because there’s one mic, fewer than there are a number of panelists. So we’re gonna make it work because nonprofit radio perseveres and they all know each other very well. And so we’re sharing it’s communal and it’s gonna work perfectly because the important topic is the essential craft of leaving your job. All right, let’s start at the far end from where I am with Aparna. Ok. What was the genesis of this topic? What brought the four of you together around leaving your job? I might ping it to Carol as our fearless leader and panel organizer if that’s ok. Ok, Carol, you were the impetus for this. Please tell us why. Yeah. So I’ve been thinking a lot about transitions. I’ve had the experience of leaving a call jobs. Uh, one time with something lined up another time without anything lined up. And in the past year I took a leave a few months leave from my current work. And this happened at the same time that three other colleagues out of a team of 12 were also going on leave within a few months and we had a leadership transition. So the question of how do you leave your job? Well, when do you do that? What do you need to do everything from, um, the sort of very tactical pieces of that process to just how you feel about it has been keeping me up at night or getting me up in the morning, maybe both? Ok. And, and how did you uh convene these three? Uh, well, I just, I, Laura and I know each other from, I think we met at a conference years and years ago and sort of, you know, connected and had followed each other’s work over time. And, um, we caught up recently and I learned that she had recently left a job and I thought that’s perfect because I’m looking for people who had been in an organization for several years and um wanted to invite people to share their stories and use that as part inspiration, part provocation to invite other folks to think about conversations with their team and conversations with themselves about these transitions. Yeah. Your session descriptions, talks about inspiration and provocation. Yeah. Um And then from there, Laura introduced me to Liana and a partner and I recently met a couple of weeks ago. I think we recently connected. Um So, yeah. OK. So let’s turn to Laura. I want each of you to tell your stories. Inspiration provocation. Laura, why don’t you begin? That’s a, that’s a big one. But I’ll start with the role that I most recently left, which was uh I had spent about six or seven years at a nonprofit that I loved and continued to love and support, but realized that my road was kind of running out and I was in a leadership role and a moment of a lot of transition within the leadership of the organization itself. So it was pretty tricky and emotionally loaded, I would say. So I left in September and shortly thereafter, I heard from Carol to speak on this. Prior to that, I’ve kind of left roles in different ways and overseen a lot of transition. So I came at this with a deep care for wanting to talk about how we can do it well and how we can build cultures that support individuals and kind of the resilience of the organization. So you’re saying in your last role, there was a leadership void, but your road wasn’t uh wasn’t toward those leadership positions. I wouldn’t say that there was a void, but we had, we had someone leave for health reasons which just kind of precipitated a few years of just a lot of transition and shifting and changing. We were experimenting with co leadership, which was really powerful for us. I had a co deputy director at the time that I adored working with and I saw myself, the organization kind of going in slightly different directions in terms of my own interests and knew that the best thing for me was to figure out how to exit. And also honestly, the best thing for the ORG was to figure out how for me to exit. So I think it all came from a place of growth and longer term resilience, but it was still, you know, emotionally tough to leave a place I cared about for. So long, yeah, we’ll talk some about the emotions. Leanna please. My most recent transition was about a year ago. I had been at N 10 for almost eight years and left for a new role at the Aspen Institute. Um And, you know, in, in reflecting on sort of all of the prior transitions as well, I realized that in pretty much every single role I’ve held, I’ve been the first person in that role, meaning there were no transition documents for me. Um I was on boarding myself, I was creating a new role for myself. I was sort of establishing what the responsibilities are, what the structure is, cetera. And it made me much more mindful of how I wanted to leave a role um to make sure that my successor in whatever role I might be in actually has some documentation, has some tracking of relationships um so that they’re set up for success when they step in and they understand what the sort of the expectations are. Um the goals are and everything that sort of comes with the role that’s very altruistic of you to be concerned about your successor. I don’t know, I don’t know how common that is. Maybe it’s more common than I realize, but still altruistic Aparna. Yeah, I had a transition about a year and a half ago where I left an organization where I was for 10 years. So just taking stock of the responsibility of all of that information. Similarly just was the only person in the role, didn’t have anybody to necessarily hand off that role to at the time. And so I just, I was interested in this topic because I think there’s so much to say about how you, how you leave. Well, but how you take care of yourself as you’re leaving. I just think it’s so important because we do care about the mission in the organizations and I think sometimes it happens at the expense of our own well being. Um And I just, yeah, so 10 years long time, the organization love the people of the organization. I think also just the perception of leaving a place that you love can feel like what am I missing? Who said this in the panel? But what’s underneath and sometimes there’s nothing, sometimes it’s very personal. But I think there’s just such so much conversation that happens around someone leaving after a long time, Carol. Do you want to share more detail of your story? You just said you had left and been in transition and felt strongly about what, what would share more. So we’re going through a lot of transitions. So some of the, some of the challenges they were just really tactical on a small team and you have four out of 12 people who are not going to be in the roles over the course of six months. Um And they hold a lot of responsibilities and then you have um a transition at the, you know, top leadership level as well. And so some of these challenges are just figuring out what documentation do you need. How do you, how do I talk to my boss about who’s going to cover these things when I’m not there? Um Again, altruistic, I don’t, I don’t know how many people think about what’s going to happen after they leave, they just leave and they figure that’s the organization’s responsibility. It’s not mine. I was leaving temporarily. So I went on, I went on parental leave for three months and we had four, taking those leaves at the same time that we had people leaving permanently at the leadership level, including my boss. So, um so, yeah, and, you know, being in the coms role, I’ve had to think through, um it’s not just handing off my, my role that works across the organization, but also thinking about helping other folks communicate about those transitions that they’re going through. Um So that, that was been top of mind in the past year. The other little piece um in my story that has sort of stuck with me and why I think why this keeps coming up is that at one point, I had a manager who from day one told me, you know, you’re here for a reason and this is, you know, we’re going to have this working relationship for a set time and all I want to know is when you’re ready to go. I don’t, I don’t want it to be a surprise and I didn’t believe that at the time is this person actually serious. You know, I, I would never just go to my manager and say I’m looking to leave my job. Um, but they really were serious and over time we built a kind of relationship where, um, I was able to go to them and say, you know, here are some of my goals here. Um Here are some things that I’m interested in. Can you help me talk about the impact of my work in this organization with other people beyond this work? Um And that, that stayed with me so strongly and that’s sort of how I work with folks that I manage now and why I feel so um why I feel so strongly about needing to have these conversations even when you’re not, you don’t even know yet that you’re ready to leave and building the kind of um the kind of culture, the kind of team where people are OK, talking about it that you’re not going to be there forever. You all call this in your session description, a handover plan. The handover plan is that does that is that put into place before a person is thinking about leaving? If it’s for like, like uh almost like a job description, there’s a handover plan when the person is not anticipating leaving, we were mostly um we were mostly talking about the, the plan for when you are leaving, like when you’re ready to go. So the, the session today, um, we split it between, here’s some things to think about to build the kind of team that can handle these kind of transitions. Well, before you even know that you want to go and then we sort of dove into the tactical pieces of, ok, you know, you want to go. here are some things to consider. When um who do you tell, when do you tell them, how much detail do they need? What kind of documentation do you need to put together? And I know a partner has done pretty extensive memos around the work that she led. Ok. Well, I mean, we’re not just going to talk about what you talked about, we’re going to talk about the details that because you’re not going to hold back on nonprofit radio listeners, I’m not gonna have that happen. So we’re not just gonna say, well, this is what we talked about, but we’re actually gonna talk about it. So, Aparna, are you the right person to start off with? This is, so this is what goes into your, your, your handover plan. Is that what we’re talking about? We identified some resources that folks might want to think about putting together before they leave. Some things we talk about were a succession plan, not just for leadership, but for people across the organization, regardless of position. What happens if you leave? What are the things that people need to know more concretely? We talked about an exit memo and different elements to consider an exit memo that are big picture and zoom in on the details and to make sure, yeah, you can hand something over and I don’t know if it’s altruistic. I think that even the fact that we’re having this session is unique to the sector. I think if it was more in the corporate world, it’s like more traditional, not traditional, but just outside of the nonprofit sector, I think you’re right. People do, they leave and they give notice and they’re out. But I think it’s just inherent in our sector that we care about the organizations and the mission and the people beyond just ourselves. And so maybe that is ultra, I don’t know, but I feel like there are so many people in the room, so we’re not alone in how we’re thinking. And so I think that carries forward to the resources that we put together. It’s for, we’ve been in position where we were handed nothing. And so thinking about, ok, someone walking into this role, what do they need to know about the things I’ve set up? So let’s talk about what the things are. What are those things? Ok. In the weeds. I would say things like contractors and consultants we’ve worked with before. How did it go? Would we work with them? Again? What went? Well, what didn’t, where did they leave off? We did a review. Are there introductions to these people if they like you at the time that you’re now, now we’re, now we’re hypothesizing. Now you’re getting ready to leave you, you’ve given your notice, you’re leaving in a month or six weeks or you know, whatever. Um Are there, are there introductions made to these vendors, consultants people you work with on the still live or potentially will need to be reactivated in the next year. So introductions to colleagues making sure people have the information. So the way I split my exit memo up was strategy initiatives and tools and in the initiatives, it was like, what are all the things that we’re doing now that still needs to be carried forward? So for example, we were rolling out our cybersecurity plan, password manager, like fishing, testing, like all kinds of things that we’re doing with a partner. So I hand that relationship over. So all the initiatives that are happening and then the tools we went into. What’s the tool? How do we use it? How much is it? When does it get renewed? Do I think we should use it again or what, what else is in there in the world? And then the strategy was the big picture around what’s the history of our technology program where, what’s what’s the future recommendations I have around staffing? How do I think it should be staff, if I could wave a magic wand a little bit, it’s like visioning. If I could wave a magic wand and you had all the money in the world and here’s what I think you should do. And here’s maybe a middle tier version of that, but big picture initiatives and tools for what I covered. And this is a written document as well. Do you have conversations with the successor? I guess if the successor is known, you’re able to make these introductions. We just talked about the successor is not known, this was more of a shared resource. Uh Laura, did you have contribution? That’s Laura, I’m sorry. Um Leanna, did you uh did you have contributions to the to the handover plan? My handover plan was pretty similar to Parnas. The one thing I would add is my role was or has been in many different organizations, very engaged with community organizations and partners. And so in addition to sort of handing off the relationship, a lot of relationship tracking. So, um you know, writing down the names of all of the community members that were engaging or the community partners and giving some background information, not just like this is the mission, this is the person, this is their email, but some context around this person never responds to emails. You have to pick up the phone or this person is really busy. Don’t ask them for anything unless it’s really critical and then they will step up. So just providing some context and then some historical knowledge of that relationship because people don’t, they don’t love it when someone new steps in and they have no idea about their importance or their relevance. So filling them in on this person has been in the community for 10 years and this is all the ways that they’ve engaged with us. And this is why they’re critical and this is who they partner with. So that relationship management piece um is really important. And then, you know, we, we’ve also talked quite a bit about how the handover document is one thing, but ideally in our organizations, we’re creating all of these, not specifically the exit memo, but a lot of the documentation during our time there when we’re not even thinking about leaving. So documenting how we do certain processes where possible building in redundancy. So like having someone shadow you when you do something so that if you have to step out, someone else can step in um making sure that you’re not working in a complete silo, which I know is really hard in a small organization because everyone is so busy, but just as much as possible trying to build in some crossover. And um like a partner, I was saying sort of succession planning where like once a year you sit down, you look at, you know, your job description, the responsibilities you have, who can back you up and just making sure that’s up to date because at any point, even if you’re not planning on leaving, anything could happen and you really want to leave, not just the organization a good place back to the altruism comment, but also you want to make sure that the people that you’re supporting, like the community and the partners and you know, your fellows, in my case, you want to make sure that they don’t get dropped and they feel supported in the transition. Did you Leanna, did you meet the person who was going to take your place? Take your job? I knew the person but I did not know they were going to take my role. So they were the person who ended up in my role and is currently in my former role, was a fellow. So I had connected with her as a fellow, which was awesome because she was the right person. She knew the programming, but we didn’t get to do a handover just because, you know, that hiring process took time. And so all there was at that point was sort of documentation. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world. And in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact virtuous.org. Now back to the essential craft of leaving your job. Laura, do you have anything to add to the to the holdover plan guidelines? I think kind of the direction Lena was taking it of there is that document I put together plenty of shared Google Docs as I was exiting. But ideally, that’s just kind of the icing on top. And ideally you’re building on a culture where it is just normal to keep things documented and to work in the open is a value that we had of, I’m not supposed to be working in a document that only I have access to because I eventually want my colleagues to be able to feed in whether it’s to contribute or just to understand and be able to check in. So I think again, circling back to the initial question of why even this topic, I think places that are resilient and healthy places to work often are places where it’s OK and normalized to leave because we’re individuals with vibrant lives and vice versa. A place that feels like awesome Carol’s moving on to something new. That’s fantastic. Probably also has already existing. A lot of processes like the redundancy Leanna is talking about or the documentation culture or just openness and frankness. So I see it all as very, I don’t know, connected to well being of people and organizations. I still think that’s altruism. Laura, did you, did you know who your successor was going to be? And did you talk to that person about the job? I didn’t, I was in a co leadership role at the time, like I mentioned, so I knew that she would be taking forward a lot of things, but I didn’t meet my immediate successor yet. Did anyone, did anyone ever in any job? Never? Ok. I don’t know. I was wondering if that would be awkward but, but you’re all so generous and altruistic that it might not be awkward at all. Um OK. Well, we don’t know, we, we’ll just say that it wouldn’t be awkward because you have the, you have the best interests of the organization in mind as well as your own best interests. That’s why you’re departing, right? Ok. Ok. Um Have we said everything about the Hold the, um, thinking of the movie, the movie The Holdovers? So I was thinking of Paul Giamatti and the Holdovers, the, the Academy Award nominated movie that the handover plan. Have we said everything that you said in the session about the handover plan? Did we leave anything out? Ok. I don’t want nonprofit radio listeners to get short shrift. We covered the handover plan. Well, we created a couple of templates and gather some resources that are related to that documentation piece. And so we did share that out with attendees on the collaborative notes for the session. Um just as an example of what we’re talking about to make it, would that be possible to share with the public or it’s just, is that like just through the NTC 24 NTC app, it’s in the app. But I mean, if someone listening to this wanted to reach out to one of us, I’m sure we can just send a link and I think the URL is public anyway, so anyone can access it. OK. So what would you search for N 10? I think there’s usually after NTC, a list of all the collaborative notes from the sessions, but I don’t know the Exactly right. Right. OK. Yeah, because I saw it for last year’s 2023. Right. So if you go to N ten.org and you look up 24 NTC, you’ll find the list of publicly available resources there because I know it’s available from last year’s so. Alright. Um Checklist of what I’m just drawing from your session description. I’m not imposing these things on you. You, this is I’m taking from you sample checklist of what to address in your job handover. Well, we kind of covered that. Yeah. Right. Right. OK. I wanna make sure we cover everything, tips for setting up your team or successor for success. Yeah, we talked about that. Alright, but we’ve only been talking for like 23 minutes and we did a 60 minute session. The emotions. Thank you. Yes, the emotions how to leave. Well, let’s um ok, uh Laura, you brought up, you mentioned emotions. So why don’t you? I suspect that I would get caught. You volunteered. You were gracious enough to volunteer the idea. So thank you for sharing. Well, I mean, I hope my lovely folks here in because what I realized actually through the process of getting ready for this panel was that the emotions I had to deal with were my own, were my own fears that I decided after a long period of deliberation that I needed to leave and not directly to another role, which is sometimes harder to talk about. It’s easy to say, look, I’m going to this really cool shiny place. It’s a little harder to say, I’m going to my couch now, like I’m going to rest and recharge and all of that, Lena, you had that because you were, you knew where you were going to the Aspirin Institute at the time you left. So you experienced that, right? Yeah. So I had the first step for me was validating my own feelings and recognizing that going to nothing, going to rest, going to myself was valid. And once I got past that. There was a lot of concern about how is my co deputy director going to take this? I love working with her. If I could, I would work with her forever. I don’t want her to feel bad. How is the rest of the leadership going to feel? How is the team going to feel? And that’s all on me, that’s all on the person who’s ruminating on these things more so than the actual departure. Guilt. It sounds like departure, guilt. Yeah, I think we talked about guilt and shame as well, particularly perhaps in the nonprofit sector where folks have a sense of identity and like uh see themselves as their work or their work as themselves and take it very personally. So for me, the biggest bit was my own emotions that anybody else want to share about. I’m not going to call anybody, anybody else want to share about the emotions they felt in the, in the transition for themselves, for the for family, pressure from family, friends, a partner, I think similar to what you’re saying, I think I realized so many of my emotions around it were not misplaced but blown out of proportion by myself. Like when I actually announced that I was leaving and people were really happy for me. Like I, I just, I had assumed that I don’t know what I assumed the worst, right? You assume the worst you hope for the best, but they were such on opposite ends of the spectrum that end up being, ended up being really great, I think for me, because I was taking a leap to not another organization to independent consulting. I think there was just a lot of fear and it was a realization of how much of my own self worth I had tied up into having a job like a traditional 40 hour a week job. And I was like, who am I? If I don’t do that? Am I worth worth less to who? I don’t know. It just now that in retrospect, when I think about it, it feels silly. But at the moment, at the time, I was like, I don’t know any other way and it felt like a huge leap to say, I want to try something different. So it was more, you’re right. It’s so much internal pressure. And once you make that decision, once you announce it, Carol is talking about a comms plan of like, who do you tell first? And then who do you tell? And what’s that whole list? And I feel like with each little bit of telling, it feels a little bit more freeing and like, oh, this is real and it’s ok and life will go on, someone will get hired and the work will happen and it’ll be fine, Leanna Yeah, that I think, you know, announcing it to or sharing it with your colleagues, some will take it well and encourage you and others might not take it well. And part of my learning was that if someone did not take it well, or they felt like why are you abandoning us? This is your loyalty is here. You know. But I think we think about nonprofits as like family, we’re going to be here forever. And so even I think unintentionally sometimes someone’s first reaction might be like, but why I don’t understand, it just doesn’t compute even if eventually they get to a place of like, I’m happy for you. I get it. But I think for me, it was a learning to, like in the beginning, I was very much trying to manage their feelings and justify and be like, wait, wait, wait. But don’t be sad. But let me explain, but let me make you feel better. And then at a certain point, I realized that wasn’t really up to me. It was not my responsibility. I still as a good colleague and friend wanted to be there for folks, but I couldn’t really control what was going on for them. You know, they might have, I don’t know, maybe they were also wanting to leave and they felt like a little, I don’t know who knows what they call survivor guilt, right? And so it’s hard because you feel like I’m the one that’s creating the hurt. So I also need to manage the hurt, but really it’s not up to you to do that. And it’s hard, it’s hard to sort of set that boundary and be like, I understand where you’re coming from. And also I can’t, I can’t fix this feeling for you. Emotion, Carol, we talked a little bit about, I mentioned the coms plan maybe because I have my coms hat on, but we talked a little bit about um actually having a huddle and thinking through and writing out here’s, here’s who needs to know about this internally. And before a public announcement goes out, here’s who needs to about this, what level of detail, um what level of detail or context that they need to know how is it going to be delivered to them? And so what we found is that sometimes for, for one person, it might be that it needs to be a phone call or one on one conversation with someone you worked really closely with for a very long time. And it would be really shocking if they found this in a public announcement, even though you hadn’t been in touch with them the past year. For other folks, it might be, it might just be a group email. You, you were in touch with this organization at one point in Fy, I, you know, um the transition is happening in this role and, but in all of that, I think you can, you can do a lot of homework and planning how you share it. But in the end, humans are humans and they will really surprise you and sometimes they will surprise you and how supportive they are and how, you know, they, they help you navigate some of those questions that you’re struggling with yourself and sometimes they really might just not take it very well. Um And I think so you can do your homework, but in the end, humans will be, humans will be humans. And that is, that’s not on you. And you know, it’s not your responsibility to figure out how um how the role is going to be filled once you’re gone. I think we’re taking on. We feel like it’s our responsibility to leave it well, but it’s not on us to chart out what it looks like beyond our time there. I think one thing we don’t talk about enough and even I am guilty of hiding. This part is I made the decision to leave when I was on parental leave and that happens to so many people. It’s such a monumental change in your life. And I think there’s so much shame attached with like, oh my gosh, but I owe them X amount of time, whoever it is or I have to go back. I don’t want people to think this is what happens when you go out on parental leave that you don’t come back. And there’s so much complexity that goes into that. But we don’t honor the actual huge change in your life that it feels like for some people. And I think we live on Congress may repeal parental leave. If I abuse, if I abuse it, it may, it may be withdrawn from the nation if I Yeah, maybe like it will affect the policy. The ORG policy. I’m like, you don’t want people to you. And then at the end of the day, I was like, but it’s, it’s my life. I have this one beautiful life to live and I don’t want to make stay for the wrong reason. I want to be there and I want to be present. And so I made the decision kind of halfway into my leave and I didn’t just not go back. I went back part time. I phased out there’s ways to do it with care and compassion that you feel. So it wasn’t betrayal to myself. But I think we just, it feels like an all or nothing like you have your leave and you go back and you just pretend nothing happened in your life. And I think in this age of social media, I was looking at so many people that do that and I did that with my first kid and this is my second kid. And I was like, I don’t want to repeat that for myself. It had to be such an individual decision. And I was like, oh, but all these other people, they can do everything and they’re so happy and they make the home cooked meals and they work outside the home and why can’t I cut it? That is what I asked myself and I had to really let go of that. It’s not me, this is such an individual decision and we owe it to ourselves to really think about it as carefully as possible. Anyway, I didn’t want to not mention that. Thank you. I’m glad you did. Thank you. What about the role of family, friends? Is that, uh is that important? I mean, a lot of you are saying that it’s in, well, you’re all saying it’s individual so you don’t not that you need the support. You, you’re, you’ve made the choice for yourselves. Um And you’re, and you’re learning, you come to respect it but family and friends, any, any role, uh doesn’t really matter what they think you can say that I don’t want to put out a directive that you must discuss with your family and friends. I think, you know, we all have different kinds of relationships and, um you know, I have friends who are peer mentors in a way that, you know, people that I can discuss some of these transitions or questions with, um, in a way that’s really where I can be really safe and vulnerable because they’re not in, you know, involved in the work that I’ve invested in. Um And I’m sure there’s a lot of conversations with families about what it means if you’re, especially if you’re leaving without something. Um one thing that came up towards the end of the session is someone, uh, one of the folks who were there, asked, you know, did you have a, was there a particular thing that made you realize I got to go like this is the moment and I raised my hand and I was like, very easy. I’ve left a job because of money and, you know, if I, if I can’t, um, you know, if I don’t see a way that that can change at all, that’s, that’s me sacrificing something for myself and for my family. So Rihanna, we also talked about how not all um situations leaving a job are by choice. Sometimes leaving a job is also because you’re getting laid off, right? Um And in that case, like you can’t really prepare for it necessarily by talking to your family and friends. But um having been through a layoff, like your friends and your family are your number one support system. Um And it is so critical to be able to lean on those people to sort of figure out both from a logistical aspect like your finances and your insurance and all of that, but also just the mental and emotional support of how to deal with um leaving a job when you’re also like, have maybe even more feelings about it than you would had you made the choice on your own. Ok. How about a closing remark? Uh Carol will let you book in since you were, you were the impetus for this. You kicked us off. Uh Leave us with uh some closing thoughts on the essential craft of leaving your job of leaving your job. I love how you call it a craft too. You could, you could have chosen art. I don’t know if you consider it art. Uh But anyway, you chose craft, the craft of leaving your job. Leave us, leave us with some closing thoughts. And then um I guess my main thing is talk about it, talk about it, talk about it from day one and towards the end of the recession, a few people came up and um some folks said, oh, I’m, I’m thinking about leaving my role. You know, I, I’m so glad I sat through this. Another person said, I just left a role that was not working out and sitting here felt so healing to be together with other folks who are sharing about their experience and speaking with us. So I think um in the lead up to this session, I had connected with other folks about it as well and even arriving here when people would ask, oh, like, are you presenting? And I would mention this is the session that I was, um I was speaking on. Most people had a pretty strong reaction to it. Like I think we just don’t talk about it enough. So, um you know, sit with yourself and, and think about it for yourself, but also talk about it with your team as you build out those teams. Thank you. That’s Carol Robison, Director of Communications at the online news Association with her is Laura Guzman, Director of Communications at DEV Global. Also Leanna Malina, senior project manager at the Aspen Institute and Aparna Kari, independent consultant. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you for sharing. Thank you all. So that’s you’re gonna leave us book ended. You remember I was like, I’m gonna stop talking. People have better things to say than me. Thank you all very much. And thank you for your, for being with us for the 2024 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for non profits. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. It’s time free break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money but also supports you in retaining your donors, a partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability, your organization needs, helping you help others visit donor box.org to learn more its time for Tonys T to thank you, Kate. There’s a new Jim guy. Uh I’ve been overhearing. Uh I haven’t seen the previous gym guy, I’m sure he’ll be back. The one who, uh, gave me the, the lesson in motor boat, uh, engine troubleshooting and, um, the, uh, narration for the Blue Angels, uh Memorial Day show. I haven’t seen him, seen or heard him. I haven’t heard him lately. He hasn’t been in the same time that I go, but there’s another guy a little loud, you know, loud, uh, older easily. I’d say 75 or so. Uh And he has recently been diagnosed. Uh, of course, I’m learning this as I’m forced to listen to him at the gym with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Now, I knew right away idiopathic means the, the doctor can’t determine the cause. It’s just an unknown cause and pulmonary fibrosis, I wasn’t so sure about. So I, I mean, obviously I knew with lungs, pulmonary lungs, but uh, so idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, they don’t know the cause but your lungs thicken and harden. Uh and, and they sort of grow these fibers, they become fibrous and lung tissue is supposed to be uh loose and expandable and contractible and flexible and permeable. So he’s got a serious and it’s a serious disease. Um, he comes to the gym with a supplemental oxygen tank, he’s got a tank strapped across his shoulder like a, like a woman might wear a, a purse in a crowded subway or, you know, in a, in a busy uh in, in a busy city, you know, like, so you don’t want it to be taken off your shoulders. You’d wear it across your shoulder. And that’s the way he wears his supplemental oxygen tank. And I was thinking if this guy with a supplemental oxygen tank can get himself to the gym and he’s working his ass out, he works on a bike. Uh, that, that seems to be all, that’s all I saw him doing. I think that’s all he does. He’s on a bike, but this guy’s got supplemental oxygen and he’s, he’s pushing himself to get to the gym and work out. So I think if idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis guy can get to the gym, we all can do some form of exercise, whether it’s go to a gym or run or yoga or even meditation is exercise. What, whatever it is, pick your, pick your workout, free weights, Pilates, whatever, Peloton, whatever it is. If this guy can work out, I think he’s an inspiration for all of us. And that Stony take two Kate. Now, I feel inspired to go to my Monday yoga class. Now, I wish it was tonight. I’m gonna go do yoga now. You, well, maybe there’s two classes a week you can go to. Now, I gotta figure out if there’s Thursday night yogas. All right. Do it. It working out if, if this guy can do it, any of us can. We’ve got vuko but loads more time here is data privacy. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit. Radio coverage of the third day of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference you might be able to hear in my voice just a little bit that this is the third day we’re sponsored at 24 NTC by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits with me. For this conversation are Kim Snyder, vice president of data strategy at Roundtable Technology, Lauren Feldman Hay, the Chief Information Officer at Fountain House, and Jonathan Geller, a member of Fountain House, Kim Lauren, Jonathan, welcome, welcome to nonprofit radio. You’ve done your session already? Have you or is it this afternoon? Ok. Ok. Very good. First day you took care of it. So maybe we’ll talk about some of the questions perhaps that emerged from there. We’re gonna talk about a little more privacy. Please diving into data privacy for nonprofits. Jonathan, let’s start down the end with you seated. Uh furthest from me. Well, you know who you are, but for the folks, uh folks who don’t have the advantage of video, Jonathan is seated uh furthest. Why do we need this? Why do we need the session, Jonathan, what, what was the impetus for this? Well, for me, uh being a member of Fountain House, uh first of all, something that I that I’ve been screaming, screaming about from the mountain top for over 20 years is data privacy just personally. So once I became a member of Found House and I saw how seriously they treated my data. It was, it was refreshing. All right. So you, you, you saw the impact of uh Fountain House’s scrutiny, scrupulousness, scrupulousness, not scrutiny. Um Alright, so Lauren, why don’t you share a little bit about what, what fountain house is about and uh why, why you are so scrupulous about your members data. So um Fountain House is an organization um that was one of the first uh the first clubhouse for folks with serious mental illness. Um It was formed by members um for members and so staff and members work really closely alongside each other, which means that members and staff um work with member data. And um and we want to make sure that members and staff um know about data privacy and know why it’s important um especially when dealing with really sensitive personal information for folks. Um And I guess, yeah, that would sum it up. We’ll go into more detail. That’s a good, that’s a good kick off. Thank you. And um Kim, can you uh add your your perspective to the, to the overview the why for the topic? Um Well, besides for the fact that data privacy protects data that belongs to people, and I think that’s what we need to remember. There have been numerous data privacy regulation, numerous laws passed in, in states and we’re seeing an increasing number of that, of those kinds of laws. So it does speak to something that nonprofits need to think about being compliant with or being able to answer to at a time when people are thinking about their own privacy more and might be asking questions about it. Privacy is very aligned on in terms of ethics with a lot of nonprofits and nonprofit values and very human centered approach to data. But now it is entering the kind of we’ll call it regulatory world. Um So I think it does need to, it, it has implications for how nonprofits work with data, the regulatory world. So you’re referring to the pi i the personally identifiable information and, and states, I mean, there are a lot of states that are enacting laws uh that what we’re referring to. Yeah, they’re, they’re picking up steam because federally we haven’t been able to pass a law. So GDPR, which is the general data privacy regulation that came from the EU really created a framework for data privacy and what it means that an individual has rights to their privacy. So if I give you my data, I have certain rights, my data does not become your data. So that, that comes with certain implications and in the absence of a federal regulation, we’re seeing more states pick it up. And in 2023 7 states pass privacy laws, they’re all a little different and not all of them will cover nonprofits necessarily. But in a time when people are more privacy focused, you need to be able to answer to the kind of data practices that would allow you to comply with these regulations. Are there some state laws that exempt nonprofits? You, you just, you just mentioned some don’t apply to nonprofits. Are, are there states that exempt nonprofits explicitly? Well, I’ll say I won’t say they exempt them explicitly as well. There’s a, there are carve outs for nonprofits in some states. Yes. And because some of these laws will are more designed around higher revenue, for profit sales of data, things like that the law might apply to a certain threshold of annual revenue that a lot of nonprofits wouldn’t meet. But that said there are other laws that apply to nonprofit organizations and as we operate in a more boundary world, uh uh in terms of different states and, and also collecting data of people who live around the world in different countries, we need to be thinking about the implications of these kinds of laws. So while there may not be a law in your state, um it still is relevant because these laws cover the residents of the States and the countries um for the people whose data that you collect doesn’t, doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with where your place of business is. Also. Some of the laws also deal with that. So, so it’s based on the individual’s state of residence and uh your and or your, where you’re doing business. OK. So in other words, you need to be acquainted with what your state law is around privacy and data protection. That’s because we’re not gonna be able to, you know, we can’t, we can’t survey the whole country. You need to know what is, what applies to. But it’s also to your states where your, where your folks are, where you are. And yeah, might include donors across the country. Might include donors in Europe and other folks too. So you might not naturally think, you know, Fountain House is a New York based nonprofit, but we’re starting to do work with more clubhouses around the country. We have a history of working with clubhouses around the world. Um But when, when a lot of folks think about Fountain House data, they might first think about our own member data or employee data and having that based in New York. Um But really, you know, we are collecting data about people um donors like from, from around the country around the world. So the law would say you’re doing business in all these states where your, where your donors are. Ok. And that gives them that gives the state jurisdiction over your practices. Yeah, I’d like to add something though about um not getting too state focused but thinking of the framework that was laid out by the GDPR because all the laws are based on that. There’s some variation of GDPR thinking of that instead as a framework for trust and responsible data practices because it may not be in a state that you’re in today, but it could come and we’re in a time of more, the, the term digital trust speaks to do people trust what places are doing with their data. And I think as nonprofits, we want to be able to have the most human centered data practices and be able to answer to questions say, if a donor, um whether or not their state has a law says, you know, II I would like my data deleted. Do you want to be the nonprofit that says, well, if it’s a donor, then you legally are obligated to hold on to that data. But so that then you can say that. But if it’s just like a marketing or, or something that you’re not, you’re not legally required. Do you want to say, well, you know, you’re not from a state where that applies. So we’re not gonna do that. So it, it, you want to start thinking about this because it is and it’s the right thing to do the right thing to do. Jonathan, let’s go back to you. Take it from the organizational level to the individual. What, what were your, what were your concerns? What are your, well, you’re still concerned. Fountain House is treating you right? But other organizations, companies that you deal with may not. What are your concerns around data privacy? Well, my concerns stem from the fact that as someone that was the victim of identity theft and uh poor data practices. Um um I’m very concerned about what organizations are doing with my data. And even after being uh becoming a member of Fountain House, after dealing with my own mental health challenges, I certainly wanted to be more aware of what data was collected and what, what they’re doing with the data. Um So one, once I became a member and then within uh the unit that I’m a part of which is the research unit, we do a lot of work with other members, data, not just uh my own. So it was required that we get hi, a trained hi A certified so that we handle the data in the appropriate manner and that we treat other people’s data like our own data. Um What was your own story that uh of the the where you were victimized? Um Basically all of my information, people would just approach me and hey, this is your social security number. Hey, this is where you live and I’d be sitting there saying how did you get this information? There was some bank account stuff that happened and it all just some of that contributed to my declining mental health? I see. All right. Thank you for the personal side of this. I don’t think people think of that at all, you know, they think about the the credit report impacts the, you know, the credit worthiness impacts. Thank you. Alright. Um Lauren, let’s turn to you. For some I’m taking from your session descriptions. I’m not, I’m not imposing this on the on the three of you. That’s what you wrote up. Uh fundamental principles of data privacy. We started to touch on some, but let’s go into some detail. You’re our Chief Information Officer representative. So um like Kim said, I think starting from a culture of trust is really important, knowing the regulations, important, but also not getting overwhelmed by the amount of regulations because there are a lot and working at a nonprofit, you have limited resources, you usually have staff and constituents members who have varying levels of digital literacy and digital understanding and comfort with technology. So you have to meet people where they are. Um and, and, and have conversations about data and about keeping data secure, you know, which has a relationship to cybersecurity as well and learning about things that could compromise your data, conversations with. You’re talking about employees, volunteers, anybody who’s in touch with other people’s data. So it’s useful especially to have conversations with folks because whether you’re a new employee, be a new member, you might not know the types of information that are being gathered, the pieces of data that are being gathered to accomplish your everyday work. You know, because our organization Fountain House is complex. We’re growing, we’re growing quickly. Um We’ve been around for a long time but things change over time and, and how we process our membership. Um app applications, how we um either share information with external stakeholders or partners like health insurance, um managed care organizations that evolves and we need to have the conversations to be able to know, you know, what does this department or area of Fountain House want to do with information in order to serve folks better or outreach to more folks. Um And if you don’t have those conversations and if we don’t communicate, we don’t always know what’s going on aside from conversations. Can you share another best practice with us for, for listeners? Yeah. Um I would say um I really like documenting things in different ways because people learn in different ways and especially working in an organization where um you know, folks are at different levels of digital literacy, it really helps to have maybe like a visual a diagram um and some written documentation and then conversations uh we have a very verbal culture, I would say at Fountain House. So being comfortable with conversations, but then also having other ways for folks to learn and absorb information or go back. Um And, and see the, the documentation about, oh, now I know when I enter information into this system, it’s also used by this other system because I can see the visual connection between the two systems in this diagram. Whereas just interacting with them on the computer or on a tablet, I thought they were completely separate. So that type of thing II I found has been helpful as well. Kim. Can you add to our list of best practices for data privacy? Sure. Well, one of the things that’s really important to is to, well, first of all, getting to know what data do you collect, you can’t protect that, which you don’t know you collect. So, and it is a lot about, that’s adorable. Sort of a poem. Data privacy poem. I’ll work on a better one for you next year. Um But uh where was I? Um you can’t know how to protect what you don’t know that you? Um So, OK, so one of the things that’s really important because this is overwhelming, maybe you can come back with a haiku next year. I will do that. In fact, I’m sorry now. So, one of the things that’s really important is getting to know what data you collect. And I’ve been working with nonprofits for um 30 years and data actually got my start at Fountain House, which is interesting to be back working with them. But um um data in nonprofits tends to, tends to be by its nature rather siloed because a lot of nonprofits are program driven. So there isn’t a sense of what all do we collect? Whose data do we collect that might be sensitive. So the first real task in any of it is getting to know what data you collect. Well, how do you do that? That’s kind of for people who have a full plate. That’s, that’s a lot to also take on, right, the data inventory if you will and that is done or that is that job is made easier when you have what’s known as data stewards or different people. Departmental champions of data, they don’t have to be data analysts. There are people, in fact, sometimes it’s better if they’re not. Right. It’s more important that they know your organizations, what programs, what’s happening with programs and what’s going on in each of these different areas and departments, you kind of appoint folks as a data steward. I those are anointing with Excalibur like King Arthur and the round. I was thinking of what is uh uh from the Lady of the Lake that’s from um Monty Python, the Lady of the Lake. OK? Not like that. Um But, but you ID these, you identify them, they’re not always like the, the the program director, right? It’s people who find they have a, they kind of get along with data. You find those people, those are your gems and the fountain house. It’s, it’s, it’s so great because it’s members and staff and it’s, and those people will know your data stewards will know what you collect and you engage them in the process of understanding what you collect, understanding how data moves, right? Lauren was talking about diagrams but understanding like how do we get this data and then what happens to it and what are the steward’s responsibilities. Why are we anointing these folks? We are? Well, I don’t officially have an anointing process. That’s my word, but I encourage every organization. What do they do? What do our stewards do they get to know the data? They, um we actually have templates and things like that. These are the kinds of things we gave out in the webinar. Uh They document what it like the flow of information through their various area. It could be very specific to one program. It could be a department. Um It really depends on what their perspective is, but they there and there’s a certain template for interviewing kind of to understand mapping, start to map the structure to the flow of data through your organization. And at that point you can identify. Wow. OK. We’re collecting very sensitive information in XYZ program. OK. Wow. What are we doing with that? How do we protect that? Where is it all going? Do we share it? Do we allow people to download it to their computers? Hopefully not Jonathan. What does, what does Fountain House do specifically that you as a member? See? And that reassures you. Well, again, I’m just basing this off of my experience. Um This is as Kim was mentioning before about the data stewards. It’s something that I wasn’t anointed. The Lady of the Lake did not know it didn’t happen in a way at all. They basically said you seem to have an apt some some level of aptitude for this. So you need to get HIPAA certified. And I said, sure I’ve had experience with that in the past. Um Basically, now again, this is more from the member side, not so much the donor side. Um Anything from processing the nece uh the necessary membership applications as Lauren was mentioning before just uh inputting the data within into certain systems, sometimes migrating that data over to other systems. And then for me, what’s the most important part about it is I treat everyone’s data like I’m handling my own data and you feel like others in Fountain House do the same. I’m looking for, you know what reassures you about what they do. It’s just again, as Kim was had mentioned, just the conversations you have with people, they’ll sit there, privacy is something that’s very important to me. So they’ll sit there and due to the fact that it’s just it’s an open culture, but it’s also a respectful culture. So it’s someone sitting there saying listen, is this something you would like to talk about in private? Come here, let’s talk about this in private. So we could go over this, we could find out what to do. If you have any questions, there’s, there’s boundaries put in place and their unspoken boundaries. But it it’s I think it’s more of a respect than anything else. Respect, respect for the person and, and their data. I mean, and this could be as simple as like address. I mean, I’m thinking of maybe an animal shelter. Well, they need to have your address, they need to know where they’re placing adoptions, right. I mean, it doesn’t have to be social security number and credit cards and children’s names necessarily address and phone number, email. All of that is considered personally identifiable information and we want to make sure we protect it. Um, we in our clubhouse locations, uh we have members and staff working together with contact information of other members reaching out um conducting outreach, phone calls, emails, texts, and people take that information seriously. Um And um they want to engage with the member and they know that other members also will be engaging with their information and reaching out to them. So I think that participation, that direct participation really lends itself to both understanding why it’s important to protect information. Um because data is information, you know, it could be on paper as well. We haven’t really talked about that aspect of it. Um And, and also identifying and working with, with people’s strengths. Um That’s something that’s really important in our culture too, to identify people’s strengths and come from that approach. And, and that’s kind of a similar, a nice parallel with identifying data stewards, identifying folks who, who might be doing things and they don’t consider themselves a data person at all. Um They might be really focused on, on helping folks find employment or housing. Um And then they learn more and more about data and then, you know, a new, a new phase of their partnership and membership in Found House emerges, which is pretty cool. What came out of your uh your session? Like what, what questions that uh you remember uh were, were poignant, interesting questions or comments or comments from the audience. Uh One that stood out for me was there was a gentleman who informed us that he, he became sort of the accidental techie at his organization. And he said, how do I start this conversation? And it’s a simple question because is, is there, you know, it, it sounds like is there a specific approach, is there a way to do this? And I’ve had experience in sales and marketing in the past. So I just, it stood out to me as a very unique question because the answer is just simple. Just start talking to someone. What do you do? What’s what throughout your workflow day? What is it that you do? What is it that you handle? What is it that you come across? What do you use to? What do you use to navigate this? What do you use to complete it? Just ask a question. That’s all you have to do. And I think I was thinking of that same, that same person and that same question because a lot of times if you end up being the accidental techie or the person who’s, you know, maybe the first person to, to start talking about, about data privacy and, and the risks that we have as nonprofit organizations having lots of personal information on, on lots of different folks. And how do you, when you’re say a small nonprofit, especially where you don’t necessarily have someone in charge of operations as a whole or technology as a whole. Um How do you start having those conversations with people, you know, who aren’t necessarily on your team? They might be on a different team. Um You know, working in finance or you might be working in like marketing and like keeping all the social media accounts up to date. And so having having conversations can then help you start to have a venue like a regular, you know, meeting series where you talk about things like data privacy that maybe didn’t have a home before and then by, by having these conversations, you start to build a home for it and more and more people begin to learn about it and realize its importance. Anything else from the session that stood out comments, questions that maybe questions you weren’t anticipating. We didn’t have that much time. I will be honest um in the side because it was a full plate, let’s put it that way. Um Wish we had more time for people’s individual questions. I think one of the, I can talk about one of the takeaways that we wanted people to have and I think both Jonathan and Lauren have spoken to this already. But the idea of this is a journey and you can find a way to mesh it with your culture. This does not require lots of technical tools, getting to know your data is by and large, not a technical task. It’s one of having conversations, it’s talking to people and often people want to sit down and have these conversations and to build that knowledge base in your organization to start to, you know, educate your staff, your colleagues on this is what we collect. Well, these are kind of the policies we might wanna put in place in order to make sure that we’re handling data uh in a way that’s, you know, both respectful and enables us to get our work done. Jonathan, I’m gonna ask you to close us out as the, as the person who was uh sounds like devastated by AAA breach of, of data. So talk to our listeners in small and mid size nonprofits and remind them how important it is and what you want them to take away. I think um when you’re dealing with sensitive data again, as Kim had mentioned, no, and Lauren has mentioned, know what your data is, know what it is that you, you have your hands on and take the necessary steps to ensure that you treat others data like you would treat your own data. That’s Jonathan Geller. He’s a member at Fountain House with him is uh Lauren Feldman Hay, the Chief Information Officer at Fountain House, and Kim Snyder, Vice President of Data Strategy at Roundtable Technology, formerly of Fountain House. All right, Kim Lauren Jonathan. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you a pleasure. Thanks for having. Thanks for sharing and thank you for being with our coverage of 24 NTC where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us next week. Use your tech to enable generosity. If you missed any part of this weeks show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by Virtuous. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and go giving virtuous.org and by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Fast, flexible, friendly fundraising forms. II, I can’t get over the alliteration. Love it and I didn’t write it. You know, they write it. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. The show, social media is by Susan Chavez, Mark Silverman is our report guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 percent go out and be great.