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Nonprofit Radio for October 23, 2023: The Surprising Gift Of Doubt

 

Marc PitmanThe Surprising Gift Of Doubt

That’s Marc Pitman’s book. It’s stuffed with strategies to help leaders—and future leaders—lead better. Marc is founder of Concord Leadership Group. (This originally aired on August 2, 2021.)

 

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[00:00:11.68] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti Nonprofit

[00:00:46.62] spk_1:
radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. I’m traveling this week so I may not sound up to my usual. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of coccidioidomycosis if I had to breathe in the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with the highlights.

[00:01:13.59] spk_2:
Hey, tony, it’s the surprising gift of doubt. That’s Mark Pittman’s book. It’s Stuffed with strategies to help leaders and future leaders lead. Better. Mark is founder of Concord Leadership group. This originally aired on August 2nd 2021 on Tony’s Take two.

[00:01:16.36] spk_1:
Goodbye. Marian

[00:01:52.67] spk_2:
were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters generosity. This giving season donor box, the fast flexible and friendly fundraising platform for nonprofits, donor box dot org and buy Kila grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraisers, CRM visit, Kila dot co to join the thousands of fundraisers using Kela to exceed their goals. Here is the surprising gift of doubt.

[00:02:44.96] spk_0:
It’s my pleasure to welcome Mark Pittman to the show. He is founder of Concord Leadership Group. He helps leaders lead their teams with more effectiveness and less stress. His latest book is the surprising gift of doubt, use uncertainty to become the exceptional leader you are meant to be. You may know him. Also as the bow tie guy, Mark has caught the attention of media organizations as diverse as the chronicle of philanthropy, Al Jazeera Fox News Success Magazine and real simple. The book and the company are at Concord leadership group dot com and he’s at Mark a Pitman, Mark Pittman, an overdue. Welcome to non profit radio.

[00:02:48.81] spk_3:
It is an honor to be here. Thanks tony

[00:02:51.09] spk_0:
and I’m not sure why you haven’t been on years ago and, and many times before. So I uh I feel bad about that because you’re a smart guy and you have lots of good, you have lots of good content, lots of good ideas. And uh that’s why I say long overdue.

[00:03:03.92] spk_3:
Well, thank you. And my head may not fit out of the office after this kind of word. Don’t get carried away,

[00:03:27.54] spk_0:
but you do. You do have a lot of good ideas, including the uh the ideas that are in your new book. And I want to start with having you explain how agonizing doubt can be a gift. Please help us understand that.

[00:04:48.45] spk_3:
Um It’s I’ve been an executive coach for 18 years now and it’s one of the things that really surprises people the most is the fact that high performers, first of all, don’t tend to know how to ask for help and then they get derailed when they start feeling down because they start feeling like they’re, they’re faking it. The that they’re the, you know, the wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain, they don’t look at him um because they’re, they’re producing results, but they’re not sure how. Um and that doubt can be very destabilizing, but the gift is it can force us to look internally for our own cues. Uh Look to look, to look in areas where we’ve been told they’re soft or, you know, they’re, they’re woo woo. Um look at things that make us unique and it actually clarifies our, our leadership because it’s very much about the, the grain of our wood, the way that we put a spin on things as opposed to just doing all the best benchmarked activities that are out there. Um Yeah. So the surprising gift of that is it, it can make it to me what I’ve seen it do is instead of having that inner critic saying I must be broken, I must be just, I must, I probably shouldn’t even be in this position. It shifts the conversation to why might I be perfect for this role? Why might my organization be exactly the voice that the sector needs to have right now?

[00:05:00.90] spk_0:
And there is a lot of introspection involved in the I guess the overall work that you’re describing and we’ll go into some detail about, about. But uh you, you, you need to be reflective,

[00:05:58.28] spk_3:
introspective, right? Which often is something that a lot of leaders don’t. There’s not a lot of, there’s so much need in, in organizations that there’s not often a lot of time given for professional development or leadership growth. And so people don’t think of the time as, as doing reflection as legit leadership work. They feel like um when we’re in early in careers, we’re, or even in school, we get graded on what we accomplish, we take tests, we do tasks, we complete tasks and that becomes how we are promoted as we move into management and leadership. It’s taking that time to reflect uh is so incredibly important, but we haven’t seen it modeled that much. Um So there is, you’re right. Absolutely right. There’s a lot of introspection, but there’s also, that’s what leaders do. They no longer, they provide, they, they no longer are just making sure things get done. But they’re also looking forward to see where should we be going? Where, where should we skating to where the puck is? I guess even though I’m not a sports guy, I grew up in Maine, so there’s a lot of hockey there.

[00:06:12.61] spk_0:
Uh Thank you. Yeah. Any, any sports analogy will be largely lost on me, sports

[00:06:18.01] spk_3:
ball. So I, I’m

[00:06:26.47] spk_0:
not familiar with basketball. So I wouldn’t know that skating in the park uh uh metaphor now. And I want to reassure folks that this is not only material for current leaders but future emerging leaders.

[00:07:22.91] spk_3:
Absolutely. When part of what um what we, when we’re going through our leaders journey, if we can identify the earlier, we can identify what makes us different, what makes us unique. Where are our limits? Where, where are we really good? Um Where do, where can we excel? It can help us position our leadership roles so that we’re not being squeezed into somebody else’s box, uh as much as possible, the organizations are clear are artificial. They’re, they’re not um they’re not perfect. So we’re always gonna have to do things that we don’t enjoy or we don’t like, but we can definitely, there are things we can do in our environment and in our, our schedules and the people that are around us that can help us or can really hinder us. So the earlier we know, even as, as people are going through their own personal growth journey, uh the more that they can identify these, these uniqueness is uh that they, that they bring to the table, the better thinking somebody was asking in a previous podcast, can’t you throw these conversations? Can’t you throw some of the, you know, if you’re being interviewed for something, can’t you just answer the questions the way that you think they want them to be answered and you could, but you may get the job that you don’t want.

[00:07:50.98] spk_0:
Right. That may not be in your, your, your best self interest, your own self interest. Um, you know, I can see how, uh, you would, you, you’d be soothing as a coach, just your voice. I have that. I have that in New York. I grew up in New Jersey, but close enough to New York City, Stone’s throw. I got that, uh, east coast. But you have a, I mean, you’re northern. You said you grew up in Maine now. You’re in South Carolina. You have a, you have a soothing way about your

[00:08:11.83] spk_3:
voice. Well, thank you, Mark after dark was gonna be my, uh, my DJ handle Mark

[00:08:19.61] spk_0:
after dark. You and Alison Steele the Night

[00:08:21.44] spk_3:
Bird, then it turns out there was already a mark after dark. So I’d have to spell dark with AC. Ok. So we do it. Here

[00:08:27.68] spk_0:
we go. All right. Claim it. Yeah, you just, your voice has a, uh, a softening calming quality

[00:09:00.51] spk_3:
to it. I’ve been told that I’ve had some people come to me and want, um, they kind of want me to be their boss, uh, some business owners and some nonprofit executives or, well, I want a coach that’s gonna tell me exactly what to do and make it, you know, make it hurt to not do it and that’s not who I am. I’m sure there are those coaches out there that are drill sergeants but um I believe most leaders are really hard pressed and doing the best they can. And so I like to be able to encourage them and, and kind of blow on the coals that are the fire that’s almost going out and rekindle their, their passion to do it themselves. Coaching with compassion. Nice. Wow dot com. I’ll get that coaching

[00:09:31.50] spk_0:
with compassion, the compassionate coach, the bow tie guy and the compassionate coach. Um I wanna dive into something that uh very interesting to me but you have it buried, it’s buried on page 98. Ok. It’s the Pittman family homework that you used to do. Tell me about that you uh you, you covered in just a couple of sentences. I to me it was a little bit of a gloss over because I’m very interested in what got you to where you are and what informs your coaching and, and I got to believe that the Pittman Family homework is, is integral

[00:11:11.48] spk_3:
in, in here. Absolutely. As I look at my bookshelf, they all, many of the books are things that I, I grew up reading. So in my family, we had uh school work because we were students at school. But my sister and I also had uh homework for being pitman’s. So we were had to read positive mental attitude books and to listen to motivational speakers. Um and we had to go to events, seminars, rallies, the sort of things where people were talking about goal setting and, and uh living your dream and, and all, um, my parents were just amazed that they hadn’t been taught this. They were learning it with us and they were shocked that they’ve never been taught goal setting or dreaming or leadership or people skills and they didn’t want us to, to be inflicted with missing that before we left the house. So, um, I didn’t know other people might, I thought everybody had homework because they’re in their family. But I was started to read is I, I had been reading Dale Carnegie how to win friends and influence people. Uh, Frank Beers’s how I raised myself from failure to success in selling Charlie tremendous Jones. Life is tremendous. Listening to Zig Zigler Florence Let Tour, uh, Les Brown growing up that part of the part of the way, one of our kind of traditions too was having a motivational speaker on while we were in the shower. So we would always have a stack of tapes next to the, next to a, uh, a kind of boom box. And, uh, we would just put them on while we’re doing our thing. And then, you know, the person’s done when the tape goes off.

[00:11:18.65] spk_0:
That’s when you know your shower is done. Wow. So, yeah, I mean, this was the days before, uh, waterproof, uh, uh, phones and, and I ipods.

[00:11:45.86] spk_3:
So my wife knew that she said, she said she knew she was when we were dating, she knew she was dating an entrepreneur because I had a whole bunch of tapes. She had to clear off for the passenger seat of the car. I was just so used to listening to different tape series and uh you know, Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, poor dad. And yeah, all sorts of different, always learning. Trying to, always

[00:11:47.65] spk_0:
after Kawa, what did you say,

[00:12:33.18] spk_3:
Kyi? Uh Robert Kiyosaki wrote a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad in a series after that poor dad. Yeah, just different ways. People keep different uh mindsets, people have about money and um security and, and it’s really helpful and going into fundraising was really helpful to have this kind of being able to speak the language of your donors is one of the most important things um in fundraising and having been exposed to this literature that the other leaders were being exposed to, made it a lot easier to, to talk to them. In fact, my first talks in um first professional talks were translating marketing things in sales for fundraisers cause sales was the s word 25 years ago. And um so I would take like Seth Seth Godin’s idea, virus information, marketing and make it. So I’d fully attribute it, but I’d make it so that it was understandable to how this could work in a non profit.

[00:13:28.39] spk_2:
It’s time for a break. Are you looking to maximize your fundraising efforts and impact this giving season? Donor box’s online donation platform is designed to help you reach your fundraising goals from customizable donation forms too far reaching easy share, crowdfunding and peer to peer options. Plus seamless in-person giving with donor box, live kiosk. Donor box makes giving simple and fast for your donors and moves the needle on your mission, visit donor box dot org and let donor box help you help others. Now back to the surprising gift of doubt.

[00:13:47.56] spk_0:
So this Pittman family homework, which obviously, as you’re describing, you know, evolved through the, through the decades, you’re continually, continually learning to even today, you say that in the book a couple of places. Um But this was like elementary school. You were, I mean, they were, they were probably considered this indoctrination.

[00:14:34.22] spk_3:
Oh Absolutely. Yeah. Looking back on it, it totally was. And when Charlie, totally, well, my uh my Charlie tremendous Jones became a mentor of mine, which he’d been a hero of my universe cause I, I love his book. Um and he said, when I was looking with our kids, he said, oh, I would never do it that way with, as your parents said, I would teach, have them do stories, I’d have them. Uh have your kids read biographies and be inspired by, by stories as opposed to reading the how to literature. But um I probably because of my upbringing, I love, I love nonfiction. I love reading a good how to book on, on leadership or in goal setting or vision casting storytelling. Yeah. Credit to credit the

[00:14:35.26] spk_0:
pitman parents. Well,

[00:15:05.88] spk_3:
one time Sandy Reese was in interviewing me and she, uh, years ago and she came up with a, she cataloged all the books that I referenced in the talk. Uh, and my, just in a conversationally because I still read 50 to 75 books a year. Um, to, and, and I had to set a goal years ago to read nonfiction because that’ll make me a better storyteller. But I had to set it as a goal. Now. I can fully enjoy reading nonfiction. I mean, reading fiction. Sorry, reading, sorry. Yeah, reading the fiction books. Um, that are enjoyable. I always thought I was cheating but now it’s a goal. So I’m ok. I said a certain number of goals for fiction books I want to read in a year and 50 to 70

[00:15:14.91] spk_0:
five a year. Do you still

[00:15:34.33] spk_3:
read? Yeah. I, I’m cranking through books this year too. I don’t know why. But I love, well, part of it is, there’s just, I want to keep fresh when I’m writing a book. I try to not to not read in the genre that I’m writing it. So I didn’t read a lot of leadership books. So I was doing surprising gift of doubt because I didn’t want to, um, mistakenly, like I take, take over somebody else’s thought that should be attributed to them because I really do think crediting the source is really important. Um which this book even get more, more to the point. The editors were even more insistent that I, I double and triple checked my, my references, which I thought was wonderful. Yes, there’s a bunch of end notes. Yeah, I haven’t been pushed this hard in a while. So I’m really, really pleased with the team that helped me with this one,

[00:16:05.77] spk_0:
something you say early on is that the motivation is within you expand on that for us.

[00:16:11.89] spk_3:
Well, the um part the, I don’t remember exactly. I know that was part of the chapter. Sorry, you have to flip through the pages, you know, you write a book and then it’s a quiz

[00:16:19.84] spk_0:
on page 16 or something, but you talk about the motivation, the motivation for leadership and, and good and just good intentions is is within you.

[00:17:31.76] spk_3:
Yeah, I think part of what we um we spent so much of our life and another part of the book, I do this map of the leader’s journey where it’s a four quadrant section uh where we start off on the confidence scale, which is the vertical scale and we go down to unsure, we’re gonna talk about the leader’s journey. OK. Well, that’s part of it is that we are so used to looking externally for our cues that the, we forget to look internally and find out what, what are, what, what do we value? What are we passionate about what are two things we forget, we forget to, to actually give them air. And often we don’t really permit ourselves to, to define what we value or what we hold on to because we’re looking for others in uh for cues, either the culture or systems. But the other thing that we somehow don’t do is we don’t credit them as being unique traits. We think everybody must be like us. Uh, you and I both wear glasses and it’s almost like we forget that we’re wearing glasses at times. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the experience of trying to find your glasses and they’re right there on your face. They’re not even on your head, on your face. You, um, I get fingerprints all over my glasses when I do that. But we often, the stuff that’s within us is often the stuff that makes us unique, makes us, um, a, a valued part of the team and we just kind of write it off as a weird quirk of our own. Not something that’s worth giving attention to.

[00:17:54.92] spk_0:
It’s, it’s some of it’s among those natural strengths you talk about natural strengths versus learned skills.

[00:18:02.28] spk_3:
Well, yeah, some of our

[00:18:03.78] spk_0:
natural strengths. You, you’re right. We, I guess we, we, uh, we minimize them thinking everybody, everybody’s that smart or everybody

[00:19:48.77] spk_3:
thinks about that or if I can do it quickly, then it must not be work. Um, I remember being in a early job. I, I loved, I was fundraising for prep school and I loved it. I just loved the traveling. I loved the, you know, when I was home at the boarding school, being at the table with the 10 other students, the 10 students and my, my wife and I were the faculty parents. And um I love the kind of matching school’s mission with donors values and trying to see if there was a fit and being ok if there wasn’t but being excited if there were that all excited me, but I didn’t think I could enjoy work that much. So I was talking with a, with a faculty colleague and I tried to make it sound really hard, you know, because there’s a lot of stuff that is hard. The travel isn’t that in inspiring, there’s delays and all. So I tried to really accentuate the bad stuff and he looked over at me and he said, you love your work, don’t you? And I felt so guilty because I totally did. And then I found out he didn’t, he would never want to do what I was doing because every day was different. Every day I had to come up on the spot with different answers. And um and I didn’t know what I had no idea who’s gonna call what I was gonna, who I was gonna see what opportunities are gonna arise. He liked being in his classroom and knowing this is the curriculum and this is where I can adjust if we go too long on one area or if we go too fast on another. He, he loved that stability. Uh, and that’s where I started realizing that the stuff that I thought was just kind of everybody would want to do this. And I, you know, I kind of got lucky is, no, not everybody wants to do this and any fundraisers listening to this knows that because we’re usually the oddballs out the non profit. We’re the ones that are outward focused in ways that others aren’t. Why don’t we talk about

[00:19:49.68] spk_0:
the, the four quadrants of the leader’s journey. Um You have some self assessments that folks are just gonna have to buy the book to do. We’re not going to be able to talk through the details of self assessments, but, but the leader’s journey through the four through the four quadrants, I think that’s valuable and especially moving from quadrant 2 to 3.

[00:22:23.96] spk_3:
Sure. So the uh what I loved about creating part of, I’ve been trying for 18 years to explain what I do with, with as a coach. And this was the first time when I created this four quadrant methodology. It was the first time it, people repeated it back to me and they understood it. And my wife looked at it and said, well, this is me as learning, this isn’t just leadership, but the axes again are confidence uh vertically and then inputs horizontally quadrant one is where you’re high confidence and you’re looking externally. So we most leaders only get half the map. We don’t get the whole map, we only get the external half. So we, we start in a quadrant where we’ve seen other people lead and so we start copying them, somebody gives us the ability to run a project or to, to lead a team, um some sort of leadership and either we’re super excited because we’ve known we’re a leader and finally somebody else sees it or we’re scared, but we have the confidence from the other people that they’re gonna do it. That’s, and that’s where we just try to do what they’ve done. Um Some of the people that I listened to growing up, some of the motivational speakers would say if, if you’re leading a team and you turn around and there’s no one behind you, you’re just out for a walk and that’s when your confidence starts going down, which I dipping into the quadrant two, which is the experiment quadrant where you start trying to figure out, OK, what worked for tony didn’t work for me like tony has his own way of doing things and it’s not clearly not working for me. When I say jump, people don’t say how high, what do I need, where are the deficiencies and how do I fix them? And that’s where you start taking courses. You start getting cer certifications, reading books going to seminars, going to conferences, listening to podcasts. So it’s people skills or um closing uh on sales or fundraising. Um Anything. And me, most leaders kind of stay in quadrant too lurching from success to success. They have so much success that the people around them feel like. Oh yeah, this is they’re gonna pull the rabbit out of the hat again. We know that whatever she does, she’s an amazing leader. Um but she, the leader herself is, is wondering, is seeing all the deficits, all the deficiencies, all the stuff that they don’t have measured up. And that’s where the doubt builds up inside them to think. Well, maybe I’m not the right person. If they have the opportunity, sometimes it’s just through strain and stress, sometimes it’s through coaching to see that there’s a whole map. And the other half of the map is all the internal cues. So the external cues are great because it tells us how we learn. And there are good systems that we can learn from. But when we move

[00:23:10.83] spk_0:
before you, I want to just make sure folks are clear about what the, what the horizontal and these are labeled. So the, so the the the vertical is confident and unsure. So confidence is on top, unsure at the bottom and then the horizontal is external and internal. So when you’re in quadrant, when you’re in quadrant one, you’re uh observing and you’re, you’re confident and that’s the confident external quadrant, quadrant two, that’s the unsure external

[00:23:14.55] spk_3:
and you’re trying to fix this wrong.

[00:23:15.92] spk_0:
That’s what we’re talking about right now. I just wanna make sure

[00:23:35.59] spk_3:
everybody’s clear and that’s the cusp. So I find the magic happens at the, when people are moved from quadrant two to quadrant three, which is the, they’re still in the unsure half of the map, but you’re moving internally to figure out. So let me illustrate like this. Have you heard getting things done by David Allen? Uh No, I haven’t. Ok. Well, it’s 13,000 listeners. They’ve heard of it.

[00:23:40.71] spk_0:
The audience is better read than the host.

[00:24:57.94] spk_3:
So the uh if you, if you read a book, like getting things done is all in time management and you only implement 10% of it in quadrant two, you’re gonna think. Wow, I failed at another thing. I can only get 10% of this. The book says it changed people’s lives. It’s not changing my lives. I just write lists. That’s all I get out of this. Quarter three is where you shift the question to. Huh? I wonder why either. I wonder why that didn’t work for me. What is it, uh What is it about the book or it’s shifting the focus to? Wow, I got 10% that 10% is really helpful. This writing list things with the next action item really actually is, is really helpful. And as one of my mentors said, years ago, eat the chicken, spit out the bones. All right, the chicken for me in getting things done is writing lists. I don’t have to do the whole reviews and the files cabinets and all this other stuff that has helped other people. It’s not gonna help me. And as you start building in quadrant three were looking at your hard wiring, looking at your stories. You tell yourself, looking at your goal, setting your mission, your vision, your values, your personal style, it starts building up your confidence again because we in quadrant two, you’re just seeing all your, what you lack in that. You’re afraid somebody’s gonna figure out that you’re really just faking it. In quadrant three, you start seeing why some of the things work the way they do for you. Um Why your organization doesn’t necessarily do whatever all the other organizations are doing, but you don’t have it just a, it’s not just a whim or a feeling, it’s, you start being able to have the language to be able to express what, why you do what you do. And that builds your confidence back up to Quad four, which is a focused leader. Quadrant. OK?

[00:25:26.40] spk_0:
Before you go to four. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people get stuck in in the second quadrant and the transition from 2 to 3, you find a lot of people in your practice and generalize beyond that stuck in that second quadrant, what we working with, working with external systems that are not not being rewarded

[00:25:35.40] spk_3:
or not looking for the next guru looking for the next framework.

[00:25:38.37] spk_0:
Why is it, why is, why are so many people stuck into looking for this external help? That’s it’s routinely not not fulfilling for them.

[00:26:38.23] spk_3:
I think part of it is because we are, we were raised that way. We look for parents for cues, we look for coaches, for cues, we look for, we look to externally to teachers uh to grade our work uh bosses to give us um you know, performance reviews. And I think we’re taught probably at least in the cultures that I work in to not really trust ourselves to not trust the inner voice, the nudges that we’re getting because those are soft. We should look for hard data, we should look for benchmarking, we should, we should see what others are doing. Um There, there are good things with looking at others, but it’s just not the complete picture. I think it really needs, it’s like an introvert that is trying to copy an extrovert boss. So the extrovert uh mentor walks around the office, talks to people gets energized by doing that has a high level of energy with the personal relationships. Um an introvert boss, this introvert that’s trying to be, you know, an emerging leader maybe will get drained from that. It’s not that they can’t be social and be engaging, but it’s that it’s not energizing for them. So they’ll need to take a lot of time to recharge their batteries but they won’t necessarily give them the, if they don’t look internally to realize. 00, I wire differently. They’ll try to keep forcing themselves into somebody else’s mold. Um, you know, the, the, the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

[00:27:01.64] spk_0:
Ok. Somebody else’s mold being based on the way we grew up, like you’re

[00:27:05.48] spk_3:
saying, the external. Yeah,

[00:27:06.71] spk_0:
teachers, parents, bosses you’re trying to fit into, we’re accustomed to trying to fit their molds

[00:27:40.92] spk_3:
and think about it nonprofits too. Yeah. Boards, every board member seems to come in with their own kind of mold for how a nonprofit should work or how a leader should work or how something should get done. And what is incumbent on us as, as nonprofits to help with the boards is to on board them, to train them to. This is how our, our nonprofit works. These are our values as a nonprofit. This is how we do things. This is the communication styles we’ll have, we will not go back behind each other’s back and gossip. That is not how we operate here. Um But that often that on boarding and, and board uh board orientation of often doesn’t happen. So you’re stuck with a bunch of people that have these external moles that they want to try to force the leaders and the staff and the nonprofit into that aren’t necessarily helpful or in line with what the nonprofits there for

[00:27:58.12] spk_0:
or even worse than not helpful.

[00:28:00.05] spk_3:
Yeah. Thank you.

[00:28:05.47] spk_0:
Detrimental, hazardous, toxic, you know. So then moving from 2 to 3, I know you, I know you, you already did this but because you were ready to go from 3 to 4, but I

[00:28:11.95] spk_3:
go for it. This is great. You’re suffering a lackluster

[00:28:27.57] spk_0:
host. So I, I’m, I’m, I’m just processing it. You’ve been thinking about this for decades, but I’m still, I’m still processing. So the movie from 2 to 3, I I kind of saw that as, as a synthesis of all these different systems that you don’t call it synthesis.

[00:28:32.18] spk_3:
I don’t, that’s me

[00:28:56.84] spk_0:
doing all your work. You’ve been thinking about it for decades, you call it analyze, I call it synthesis. I like it. You, you, you’re free to call it analyze. Of course, I, I thought of it as a synthesis of all the things that you attempted in, in these external systems, the books, the webinars, the, the, the week long leadership conferences, whatever they were that were only partially or maybe not at all helping you, you, but you extract out what does, what does have values you and, and you make sense of it and you emerge in a better place. And that’s to me that was the synthesis of I

[00:29:51.51] spk_3:
like that. And the next quadrant and you also learn some of the um some of the patterns that you fall, fall into. You start reflecting enough to say, oh, wait, I’m doing that again. Does that mean I’m stressed or? Um, there’s one of the assessments of he’s ability battery, um, which tests you on how you actually perform on things. It’s not, how do you feel about, would you rather read a book or go to a movie? It’s not questions like that, but it’s do this task under time pressure and it shows what comes quickly to you. One of the things that came out for me early in my career was rhythm memory, which is a kinesthetic type of learning. Um It’s a and it’s also tied to a desire to move around. So I’ve always looked for jobs that involve moving around because I knew that that would be more life giving and energizing for me. What that meant was that I never work at the, at the

[00:29:53.51] spk_0:
prep school.

[00:30:59.38] spk_3:
Right. Absolutely. Right. But that also changed my career trajectory because I realized many of the major gift fundraisers that I’d seen that went into management became very frustrated because they had to manage other people that were doing the work and they actually wanted to do the work. So I, I took some ownership of my own career path and moved into positions that um allowed me to still have that kind of external, I mean, extrovert um you know, movement. So that kind of synthesis is also the internal synthesis of this is my way of operating in the world and I want to try to put myself as much as possible in ways that work with that. Um Not that I don’t wanna grow, not that I don’t wanna be stretched or, or challenged, but I also don’t wanna put myself in a position where I’m just gonna languish. Although that’s sometimes what the right career path should be when the head hunters call, they, they want to see, you know, a paper, career path of associate to the manager, to director to senior VP or something, which may not be the way that is realistic for, for people talking from experience.

[00:31:50.54] spk_2:
It’s time for a break. Kela increase donations and foster collaborative teamwork with Kela. The fundraisers, Crm maximize your team’s productivity and spend more time building strong connections with donors through features that were built specifically for fundraisers. A fundraiser. CRM goes beyond a data management platform. It’s designed with the unique needs of fundraisers in mind and aims to unify fundraising, communications and donor management tools into one single source of truth visit. Kila dot co to sign up for a coming group demo and explore how to exceed your fundraising goals. Like never before. It’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:31:53.76] spk_0:
Thank you, Kate.

[00:34:27.70] spk_1:
The downside of doing planned giving fundraising is that you working with older donors. Most most typically folks in their eighties nineties and these folks often die while you’re working with them. And that happened. I had the oldest donor that I’ve ever worked with. Her name is Marian. Uh, I met her when she was just 96. She was young. Um, and she just died a few weeks ago, right on her 1/100 birthday. The actual birthday where she turned 100. That’s the day that she died. Of course, you know, that is sad. Uh, but there’s a lesson that I’m taking away from my four years with Marion. Lots of times when I would ask her how she’s doing, she would say I’m content, I’m content. And I, I always thought about that, not just now since she’s died, but that contentment was just what she was looking for and was very content with, was very satisfied with, you know, she had her opera recordings on records, of course, with her phonograph. Uh she had her daily newspaper, she had WQXR, the public radio, classical music station. Uh She had her memories, she had her lovely one bedroom apartment with a view of the Hudson River and always well kept, I mean neat, very neatly kept. She was very, very capable of taking care of herself. So contentment, you know, she had these things and she was just content. And II, I feel like that’s something that I am striving for contentment, contentment. So, so uh Marian, I, I salute you, I admire your contentment and, and I thank you for passing on something very, very valuable for me that is Tony’s take two Kate

[00:34:29.83] spk_2:
she seems like a wonderful woman. And that story is very touching and the words that you said were very touching. And so she lives on in your memories, which is

[00:34:38.59] spk_1:
wonderful. She absolutely does. And, and the idea of striving to be content will always stay with me from her.

[00:34:51.82] spk_2:
We’ve got Buku, but loads more time. Let’s go back to the surprising gift of doubt

[00:35:15.75] spk_0:
you at least would, would be, uh would look good on paper and do look good on paper. I, I would, I would never be, I, I can’t be an employee. I, I would, I would fail the, I would, I would fail the screening interview with the, with the, with the headhunter, uh, assistant assistant. I, I wouldn’t even get to the associate level.

[00:35:18.81] spk_3:
I remember the managing director. I don’t know how I get the head hunter.

[00:35:22.43] spk_0:
I’d be 20 minutes late just because I, I felt like why should I be on time for you? And then if I ever made it to the, if I ever made it to the interview, which I never would. But if I met, if I met a principal in the organization, I’d be showing, I’d show up late. I’d be in sneakers. No, I just, I

[00:35:38.50] spk_3:
do everything

[00:35:43.91] spk_0:
I could because I know I’d be, I would be a shitty employee. I just don’t fit them up. So I, I would, I’d be doing them a favor by wasting their time.

[00:35:50.62] spk_3:
That’s awesome.

[00:35:52.31] spk_0:
So move us into the fourth for those uh for those who are, are more suited to uh work in an organization, you’re moving to a level of you mentioned at one point, grace you’re leading with grace and finesse, I think you say

[00:37:37.78] spk_3:
right? And, and there’s a the, it’s because you’ve got the kind of confidence and the peace of mind of knowing why you’re doing things differently. So instead of just thinking about, I must be so bad because I can’t get energized. I don’t like going to all those social events night after night. Um You start realizing why, what fills you up and what fills your organization, your team, your, whatever your organization is. Uh And that grows your confidence to that fourth quadrant which I, I called focus. Um But I don’t want to make it sound like it’s Nirvana. Uh It’s not all blissful because we’re still dealing with human beings and we’re one ourselves. Leadership is still a challenge. And yeah, but you now have a much, you have the full map you can look at and look at. Do I need to find somebody to copy? Do I need to learn skills from people? Do I need to uh go to a class or get a podcast or read a book or do I need to actually figure out what, what the synthesizing do I need to analyze what I’ve consumed already? Or our organizations consumed to figure out why are we doing it differently. Um, one of the things I also want to be clear on is that the data can be helpful. So, I don’t want to discredit external stuff with fundraising, in particular, uh, when fundraising letters, we know if they’re chat and they use you, they get better response than if they’re, uh, boring things. Essays that would get a, uh, high school, a grade a, from a high school teacher. Um, and we know that we know that and there are some nonprofits that might be tempted to say, ah, we don’t, we want to be more business like, um, and so it’s not just throwing out all the data that’s out there, but uh synthesizing it, I’m really stuck on that word. Thank you for that tony. Oh,

[00:38:14.13] spk_0:
the third quadrant synthesis. Yeah, that’s the way I, I’m one reader, just one reader that, that’s the way I conceived of it. Um All right. So, all right. So we got these quadrants that sort of progression. The four quadrants sounds like something out of the Matrix. But, um I didn’t watch much of that series, so I can’t go beyond that. Uh That. So let’s leave it there. That analogy. Um You talk about ST and you mentioned early earlier storytelling and you talk a good bit about different stories, stories that we tell ourselves, stories about the organization, talk, talk some about uh the stories we tell

[00:39:47.79] spk_3:
ourselves. That’s one of the things that I, I think a lot of us don’t reflect on is the kind of the self talk that’s going on in our head all the time. Um, the two that I talk about in that are the, I call them stock stories. They’re either the ones that you tell people when you’re meeting them for the first time. So we often have kind of go to stories where it helps position, helps people position us in their mind. Um, so maybe some people like Laline, some people like, uh, you know what their education history is or their career history, there are certain things we go to as we start paying attention to those, we can start seeing if they really reflect what we’re trying to do. Often we get stuck in these from a different time in our life and we just kind of tell the same stories because we think we’re gonna get the same response. The one that the other type of stock story that that happens is, um, with Jessica Sharp here in Greenville is really cat, has her clients just catalog the self talk going through and just for a day or a couple of days listing all the different things that enter your head and that takes some discipline, especially to do it non judgmentally. But things like, ah, I always fail, I always mess that up, but I can’t, I’m never good at that. Um, writing them down on a piece of paper. And then after your time holding that paper up and just asking, well, reviewing them and then she asks her clients to say, would you talk to a friend like this? And oftentimes our thoughts are so toxic, we’re, we’re actually filling, we’re polluting our heads because we’re so hard on ourselves. We’re saying to

[00:39:55.86] spk_0:
ourselves that we wouldn’t even say to others, right

[00:40:11.52] spk_3:
ourselves with them. Right. Exactly. So her, her invitation is, why don’t you become a better friend to yourself? Um, which I, I think it’s really, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this today but it’s very hard sometimes when, when you’re used to being hard on yourself to loosen up, lighten up because it feels like you might just go. I, I feel like I might just go off the rails if I’m too kind to myself, I need to be really hard, you know, and, and

[00:40:23.52] spk_0:
be a discipline like you need to be a little stricter. Otherwise I’m gonna get

[00:40:28.08] spk_3:
reckless. Right.

[00:40:29.74] spk_0:
You know, if I, if I, if I loosen up and, you know, something, something, something careless, I’ll do something careless or, you know, something

[00:40:36.46] spk_3:
along those lines, I’m self employed. But I often joke that my boss is kind of a jerk.

[00:40:42.45] spk_0:
Well, I am too, but I, I don’t have a good joke like that. My wife, the

[00:40:46.32] spk_3:
lackluster host. There you go. My wife, my wife reminds me that I am the boss so I can, you know, you listen,

[00:41:40.64] spk_0:
as a coach, you listen to a lot of, a lot of people who are stuck in quadrant two, beating themselves up and whatever they are and they might even be in, they might even be in the gray and finesse quadrant quadrant four, but they’re still, they’re still hard on themselves or the, or the work is hard on them. How, how does it, how do you not generalize all coaches? How do you as a coach keep, uh stay positive, like go from one coaching session to the next to the next to the next in a day or even if there’s a couple of days, I mean, how do you continue to relate as a positive human being when you’re hearing tough story after tough story after, you know, maybe insurmountable challenge. Uh

[00:43:51.53] spk_3:
I find people incredibly fa that’s a great question. I find people incredibly fascinating and um I, I’m a glass is always full kind of guy, not half full or half empty, it’s always full of water or air. So, um there’s a strong, strong sense of optimism that II I bring to the table and resiliency, I guess because um even people that are going through hard things, it’s one of one of the postcards I carry in my bag when I, when I used to travel, hopefully I’ll start again. Uh So just when the caterpillar thought his life was over, he became a beautiful butterfly. Um And so there’s that sense of even the ends are often beginnings for people. Um, uh, there’s definitely times where I have to do some of my, some of my own stuff like, um, center, you know, some meditation practices and other things just to exercise to keep the headset. But, um, I’ve seen so many people can transform themselves into people that they’ve wanted to be but they, they weren’t really sure they could be. That, that gives me the hope as I keep going from call to call and sometimes it does seem like the calls gang up one toxicity to another toxicity. Um I mean, you need your own, you need self care. Yeah. And I also one of the things the privilege of being a coach is that you get to not be in the hiring and firing space with these people. So you get to be with them and it’s, it’s almost, I’ve heard this, I haven’t experienced this, but I’ve heard in the Midwest, they, they used to have blizzards where you couldn’t back in the day when you needed to walk to the barn and milk the cows that you could get lost on the way back to the house because the blizzard was so, so um so, you know, covering or severe, maybe. Ok, great. So you needed a rope between the two buildings. And sometimes I feel like as a coach, I’m the one that’s either the rope or I’m able to connect between calls saying hey, but remember just three calls ago, you, you already talked about that and this is what you were gonna do. Oh, that’s right. I forget, I forgot I did that. That’s super. Ok. And just kind of get pointing the way, pointing some of the rocks uh and the path for people to take. And that’s, that’s incredibly uh life giving for sure.

[00:43:54.03] spk_0:
Blinding, blinding. The blizzard was blinding. Thank you. That’s what we wanted. We’re both, we’re both 50 plus so blind. That’s what you want. Um Yeah, the rope. I said, you’re uh you’re the, you’re the the rope back. That’s I like that quite a metaphor. Good one. And so

[00:45:14.04] spk_3:
because yeah, the demands of life can really be blinding to this. Uh people we are, they’re so the center for creative leadership tried to figure out what the one thing was for business leaders. That would be the most stressful. And it turns out there were four and they were all as one as somebody else pointed out to me. They’re all people, peers, colleagues, customers and supervisors or bosses. And in the non profit, it’s often boards, donors, uh staff and, and um and the and the clients, those are all pulling people apart. So it’s really easy to lose our way and to have somebody that’s, that’s sole job is there to be there to help you be better. Um That I became a coach because in my experience, I grew more through talking to coaches, uh than I did. Consultants are great. They have a, they have a blueprint that they were hired them to, to put on to the organization. But talking to a coach that didn’t even know my work helped me to grow as an individual. And I could figure out how to do be a better individual in my job when I understood a little bit more about myself. And

[00:45:14.99] spk_0:
you also have the voice

[00:45:16.30] spk_3:
so well. There we go because it is mostly by phone, so compassionate voice.

[00:45:35.87] spk_0:
You were destined some more, a little more about stories. Maybe you digress a little bit, but uh you talk about the future eulogy. This is so this is other stories that other people would say would tell about you. How do you, you know, influence your future history and talk about the future eulogy and that kind of storytelling?

[00:47:38.86] spk_3:
Sure. Well, and stories because our phones may have an Android or I OS operating system. Some people may sell blackberry. I don’t know. But our human as human beings, it’s uh story is our operating system and one of the ways we can program that is by figuring out what’s the story we want to be living uh for me and for many people, because if you google your eulogy, you’ll find this as a coaching practice that’s been well used is to think about at your funeral. What will people say about you as what will your closest people, maybe your family, uh community members, colleagues, what are they gonna say? Um And some of us that’s a little bit too hypothetical. So it’s the other way to look at it is if you were to die today, what would they say about you today? And writing it down, even in bullet points doesn’t have to be complete sentences can bring some clarity to how they perceive you or how you think you’re being perceived versus how you want to be had one leader. That was we before the pandemic had uh quarter, three leadership days where we do, people would fly into Greenville and we’d hold the whole day and we’d kind of work together as a group through some of these exercises. And when, um the kind of the story that she wanted for her apartment and she realized profi that her staff would never know that she wanted it to be a joyful place because she was so focused on policies and procedures and tightening, you know, um, routines that had been really lax and not non-existent. Um But she said now I have an opportunity to, to live into this story that I’ve written and it was sort of like for her, it was a history of the future. It wasn’t a eulogy, but thinking about that kind of final beginning with the end in mind, uh Franklin Covey’s uh habit too can be very helpful for us. Uh My example was when I did this in my twenties, I realized I want my kids to know I love them. But going away to work didn’t necessarily communicate that love. So it allowed me to be, I wasn’t gonna stop going away to work cause that providing for my family was something that was pretty important to me. But um I was able to then figure out what are other ways that we can, I can communicate that love so that they know that I love them. Um, despite my going away,

[00:47:59.35] spk_0:
you just buy them things when you go away.

[00:48:01.41] spk_3:
That could definitely be part of it. Yeah, until my wife said palpable items. No more stuffed animals. I used to get one in every place I was going and she’s like that’s enough. They have enough stuffed animals.

[00:48:13.41] spk_0:
I would just, I just reduce it to the tangible goods. Just, just send, just send presents. We know love is equivalent to tangible tangible items. The more

[00:48:22.41] spk_3:
and the shot glasses in the airport stores were a little bit confusing to kids. Like what, why is this a doll cop? What is this

[00:48:30.39] spk_0:
shot glasses? The I I heart New York shot glasses. Great. Just send things, sending things that’s equivalent to love if you’re gonna be away re replace yourself with items with

[00:48:40.22] spk_3:
items. I would,

[00:48:43.68] spk_0:
um, I, so that I thought that was very interesting. The future eulogy. Uh,

[00:48:48.44] spk_3:
have you ever done an exercise like that? No,

[00:48:52.97] spk_0:
no, I haven’t. Or, or what even, even making it simpler, what, what folks would say about you now?

[00:49:00.56] spk_3:
Yeah, it’s, it’s very clarifying and a little chilling for some people.

[00:49:52.46] spk_0:
Let’s talk a little bit. See, uh So just the listeners know, see, we’re bouncing around on different things that, that I think are interesting because, you know, we can’t really do the self assessments that are, that are part of Mark’s book. You just gotta, you gotta get the damn book, surprising gift of doubt. Mark a pitman, you got to get the book to do the self assessments to move yourself from the quadrant two. You may be stuck in or to yourself from whatever quadrant you’re in to advance your, your, your current leadership effectiveness or your future leadership. We’re all potentially future leaders, even those of us who don’t work in an organization, we’re still leading, I lead, I lead folks, I, I just, they’re not on my payroll but an organization payroll that I, that I am leading, but I’m leading them. So leadership still applies. Even if you’re an entrepreneur, Solone, however you want to call yourself.

[00:49:58.77] spk_3:
Well, I’m really glad you said that because I think a lot of people think leaders uh is, is a title which that is a form of leadership, like you’re saying, it’s influencing others and as human beings, we’re always influencing other people and that is a form of leadership. And so I try to take the broadest view a absolutely.

[00:51:05.50] spk_0:
And I find it, you know. All right, I’m doing, my synesthesia is kicked in. I just got to chill because I’m thinking about times when I’ve been able to influence someone, I’m not gonna, I can divulge any details but influence someone to a way of thinking that I’m, that I’m, that I saw that they didn’t and I’ve moved there. I, you can move people’s thinking and it’s not, it’s not, uh, conniving or anything. It’s just, it’s moving, it’s just consensus building and I’m not saying I’m successful at it every time, you know, but, but when you, when you, when you’re successful at helping people see things in a different way, you know, whether it’s, uh, I don’t know, it’s a concept or it’s money or it’s a, it’s a path forward to, in a relationship to bring it to fundraising. Um, it’s, it’s very, very gratifying. I mean, like I said, it’s giving me a couple of instances where, uh, where it’s happened. So that’s all to me. That’s all

[00:51:14.18] spk_3:
leadership. Yes, absolutely. I firmly agree. Yes.

[00:51:19.00] spk_0:
OK. Otherwise we’re shutting you off, you know, got 46 minutes. That’s the end,

[00:51:23.54] spk_3:
that’s the end of the show.

[00:51:26.20] spk_0:
I, I figured you would, of course. Um, so, you know, we’re moving around to different things that we can help you, help, you understand, the self assessments, help you move your leadership forward. And another one that Mark talks about in the book is, is goal setting, different types of goals, very important goal setting, talk about

[00:52:21.43] spk_3:
that. Well, so one of the things that we do with goal, there’s a lot of books written on goal setting. So this is the, the third of the three major areas that I focused on. But what I did was I took about 18 years ago, 17 years ago, I took all the different goal setting things. Uh not only did I study as a kid growing up in my family, but I also was in a program in college that actually required me to get a lower grade because I was supposed to take leadership and, and learn goal setting as a extracurricular, not just as part of my course of study, but I also my master’s in organizational leadership. So I had these all sorts of formal education on goal setting as well as you just said

[00:52:24.43] spk_0:
something, a course required you to get a lower grade.

[00:52:45.61] spk_3:
Yeah, there was a, there was a scholarship at the undergrad college. I went to that required me to get, I, I had a lower not required. I shouldn’t say that that there was a lower grade expectation because there was an expectation that you were gonna be all in on leadership and student activities. And part of that was having a mentor with a staff member and having regular meetings with them, teaching you goal setting and teaching you how to do mission statements and how to create strategic plans and that sort of thing. And that was all sort of extracurricular

[00:52:59.71] spk_0:
and you got too high a grade. Is that what happened?

[00:53:01.61] spk_3:
No, no, no. Fortunately they let my high grades still stand. But, but there are other, some of my other friends who had a different scholarship had to keep a higher GPA, I didn’t have the pressure of having to keep a GPA to keep the scholarship I had. So I see.

[00:53:14.82] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:53:40.76] spk_3:
All right. So, goal setting anyway. So, so what I did was I tried to take a bunch of the parts that I didn’t realize I was doing quarter three work at the time. But I tried to take a bunch of the different parts that I liked and this, this system that I use, um I submit to it, it’s in the book and I use my clients. Uh It isn’t the end, all, be all, but it’s a good one to try. Uh The first step you do is write a list of 100 things to accomplish in the next year or in your life. Um It’s, uh and, and why 100 for me is because it forces you to get silly and it forces you to think creatively because at some point you’re just trying to fill lines. Um What most people that I’ve got done this with, they get 10 pretty quickly because it’s job related. Probably things that are going to be on the performance

[00:53:58.64] spk_0:
review 10 goals in a lifetime or even in a

[00:56:19.53] spk_3:
year. That’s not. No, but then the next 10 become really hard. And when we were doing these uh intensives here in Greenville, people would call me over to the table and say, Mark. Um Can I uh this, can I put this, this goal on my list? Uh It’s like planting a garden. I want to plant a garden. Can I put that on my list? Chuck? Of course, you can, it’s your list and that’s the point. Um It gets the personal and the professional together. And what I have found with so many leaders is that they get so fragmented in their life. They have their professional side, they have their family side, they have different sides that when they’re looking at their goals comprehensively and they’re listing out 100 forces you to do that in some way. Um It, the amount of um centering that, that brings to human beings, the energy in the room invariably goes up because people see themselves, their full cells represented there. And it’s not like you’re gonna necessarily share your board or your boss that you’re doing a garden goal, but it’s your life. So you get to set the goals for that you wanna have. Um So the first step is that is writing the 100 the second step is then the history of the future, which is you read through all of them and it will take days usually to do the 100 read through the, uh, read through them and then just project forward. What does it look like? 12 months from now? If you’ve accomplished everything on that list, even the most far out crazy ones. What are people saying about you? What awards you have? What degrees you have? What do you, how are you feeling about yourself and then let that sit. Um If you did nothing else, you’d be shocked in 12 months. How many of those things you can accomplish? I’ve tested this with groups and it’s fascinating. Uh but then you, then you can map them out. You, you go back over the list and um look for two different types of goals. Either the ones that make sense, like planting a garden that if you’ve also to fill in 100 lines, you also plant carrots, plant cabbage, plant potatoes, planting a garden will kind of scoop up a bunch of those others, other goals, the smaller goals in it. So you could use, that’s one type of magnet goal. The other ones are some that just kind of pop off this the the page or you kind of get a little kind of jolt of joy. There’s, there’s, it’s not really rational why some of those are there but paying attention to those and, and trying to call the list down to about 3 to 5 of the rational goals. And the irrational goals. Um, and then plotting those out and focusing on those. Um, some people get it done in a quarter. I usually have to take the full year for each of those goals. But

[00:56:31.61] spk_0:
on one of your books shelves behind you, you have a license plate that says go guy.

[00:57:26.65] spk_3:
And that’s because of this process to basketball again. No, it’s not. It was my, my first ever training was with the equine vet and my second training was because of his referral was with a physical therapy practice who was owned, they were owned by physicians and they wanted to prove that they needed an admin help to do the billing so they could keep doing more care of patients. So we set up, uh, we broke down their goals, uh over the course of a year, what their revenue had to be, what, how they’re gonna communicate it to the people that own the practice, all the different things. 12 months of them, uh We worked also how they can operate, operationalize their, their strengths. So the people, what did the people like doing? What didn’t they like doing? They’d never asked them, they just did the work that was in front of them. They found out one person really loves knees, somebody else loved ankles. So they started shifting the workload so they could do better at a higher quality. Um Within four months of that training, they’d hit their annual goals within the twelvemonth goals they had accomplished in four months. And so I saw this, uh, Pippy, uh, I saw her at a store and she said that’s the goal guy. That’s the guy I was telling you about pointing at me. So I got a license plate to say, go guy. I thought that was pretty cool.

[00:57:45.93] spk_0:
The equine veterinary practice, you could have been the full guy

[00:57:50.42] spk_3:
that’s

[00:57:51.95] spk_0:
ps are always the worst. Unless you think of them first.

[00:57:55.72] spk_3:
I’m trying to get in there. But, um, guy,

[00:58:09.90] spk_0:
all right. All right, Mark. Leave us with, uh, some, some, uh, Mark a pittman, surprising gift of doubt, wisdom and, uh, and, and we’ll leave it there,

[00:59:00.53] spk_3:
please. Well, thanks so much for having me on the show and it’s my pleasure. One of the things that I think is really important. Well, there’s two things I’d like to end with. One is that we’ve hinted at assessments if you’re doing assessments as part of your teamwork, um, part of your own personal growth. I love them. Don’t let them confine you. They’re not, they’re meant to help you grow and grace and understanding of other people not to slap labels on people and pigeonhole them. So I’ll just, that’s one thing that’s a big, big ax. I like to grind. But I think going forward just people leaving, you know, listening to this, um, as you work through the, whatever the days are ahead of you and you find yourself asking, you know, criticizing yourself being really hard on yourself, try to pause and just say, well, what if this is exactly the gift that I have for the sector? What if, what if this limitation is actually the strength and the, the unique bend that I give? Because I feel like when you’re feel like you’re broken, you may be but you could be on the verge of greatness.

[00:59:17.66] spk_0:
The old guy, the book is the surprising gift of doubt, use uncertainty to become the exceptional leader. You are meant to be, get the book do the assessments. Don’t let them pigeonhole you, Mark Pitman, you’ll find him and his company at Concord leadership group dot com and he’s at Mark a pitman. Thank you again. Mark real pleasure.

[00:59:42.14] spk_3:
Thank you

[00:59:51.58] spk_2:
next week and we won’t let you down if you missed any part of this week’s show,

[00:59:54.63] spk_1:
I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com

[01:00:44.39] spk_2:
were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. This giving season donor box, the fast flexible and friendly fundraising platform for nonprofits donor box dot org and by Kela grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraisers crm visit Kila dot co to join the thousands of fundraisers using Kila to exceed their goals. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

[01:01:10.21] spk_0:
Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and the beach brand.

Nonprofit Radio for February 20, 2023: Talent Development

 

Preeta Nayak & Lindsey WaldronTalent Development

With a few practices, you can turn your talent development process into an employee retention tool, a leadership pipeline and a step toward greater inclusivity. Preeta Nayak and Lindsey Waldron, both from The Bridgespan Group, talk through their article, “How Nonprofit Leadership Development Sustains Organizations and Their Teams.”

 

 

 

 

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[00:02:28.03] spk_0:
It’s a pleasure to welcome Preta Nyack and Lindsay waldron to nonprofit radio Pretty Nyack is a partner in the bridge span. We’re gonna do that again. No, I can’t have that, I can’t watch the first three words, it’s terrible. All right, let’s do it again. Bridge span group. Do people have trouble with that bridge span group? No, I don’t know why, I don’t know why people would, I did Okay bridge span group, the bridge span group, the bridge span group and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of necrotizing ulcerative ginger vos dermatitis. If you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show talent development with a few practices, you can turn your talent development process into an employee retention tool, leadership pipeline and a step toward greater inclusivity. Preta Nyack and Lindsay waldron, both from the bridge span group. Talk through their article On Tony’s take two. Non profit radio 50 redox here is talent development. It’s a pleasure to welcome to nonprofit radio free to Nyack and Lindsay waldron. Preta Nyack is a partner in the bridge span groups SAN Francisco office and head of bridge spans leadership and community services, she’s co author of the book nonprofit leadership development what’s your plan a for growing future leaders Lindsay waldron is manager in the bridge span groups boston office. She worked on the development and facilitation of leading for impact bridge spans, two year consulting and capacity building program for nonprofit executive teams. Bridge span is at bridge span dot org to lindsey. Welcome to the show.

[00:02:35.58] spk_1:
Thank you. tony It’s great to be here.

[00:03:18.23] spk_0:
I don’t know who’s the expert in which subjects. So you know, if I call on somebody and then, you know, if you want to pass it off and say no, peter knows that better lindsey or vice versa. Of course, you know, feel free to do that. It’s not, I won’t consider it anarchic. If you, if the person I asked doesn’t, doesn’t fulfill the, you know, fulfill the question. So let’s see overview. I’ll just throw it out and one of you can take it and then maybe the other wants to contribute something more. What is not going well for nonprofits generally in, uh, in talent development? Well, why don’t you start us off? There we go. Yeah. You

[00:04:36.92] spk_1:
jump in. I’ll jump in and, and, and name some some challenges. Um, and then, and then Lindsay definitely invite you. I invite you to jump in as well. I mean, I think let’s, let’s be clear everyone in this moment. Every organization across all sectors is, uh, facing a set of talent challenges that, um, you know, that have been precipitated by sort of layers of crisis. Right? So we, we had, we experienced covid. Um, and what that meant in terms of the workplace. We’ve experienced the racial reckoning and the questions that has led us to ask, We are, we’ve, we’re facing is it inflation recession is in both our people quiet quitting or are they getting laid off? Like there’s just a, there’s just a set of things that is also affecting the nonprofit sector now in particular, I think I would say that for the nonprofit sector, if you’re a nonprofit leader, you know, you have historically and probably even today not had the resources at your disposal to really invest in your leaders. We, we invest first in, you know, in our constituents and our clients and the people were serving and we put ourselves last often times and that means we don’t have some of the habits we should have. And it means all of these pressures than can hit us harder. So I know I’m talking about at a high level there, but I do think it’s a very real challenge.

[00:05:25.18] spk_0:
We put our own selves last. It’s like the, it’s like the founder who doesn’t pay themselves for the first three years of the, of the nonprofits existence. You know, we, we, we put our, we set up maybe perpetuate that and we put our teams are, I don’t know, arguably our most important resource, our, our staff, our teams. Um, you know, last, right?

[00:05:28.28] spk_1:
Yeah. And then, and that might, you can maybe do a sprint that way. Right. But what is social change? Not a sprint. Right? More than America cannot

[00:05:39.08] spk_0:
right lindsey, please.

[00:06:42.36] spk_2:
Well, just to just to build on that, you know, I think what, so what that leads to then that lack of investment is the turnover and increased rates of turnover that we’ve, that we’ve seen. So bridge fan has done some research. We cite a lot of other research in the, in our article as well. Um, you know, estimate, we estimate that one in four senior leaders leaves their role every two years. Right? So eight years you’re kind of looking at a whole new, a whole new team, which is, which is just difficult. And we also know that a huge reason for so much of voluntary turnover among nonprofits is for lack of career development and opportunities. Right? So that, that turn over that turnover treadmill that has a real cost associated with it. Both a financial cost for organization, The cost of recruiting hires, the cost of training new people and it has a cost on the impact side as well trying to fill new positions kind of, you know, constrains the amount of impact we’re able to have through the programs and services that nonprofits run. So I think that really kind of puts a pin in the problem itself.

[00:07:00.28] spk_0:
It takes a new employee three months just to know for sure. You know where the bathrooms are. I mean it takes, there’s a lot of, there’s a learning curve and so right. That impacts the services. Um, very interesting what you said about the volunteer 40% of voluntary Tony over is not feeling like there’s opportunity. So basically like I’m in a dead end job, I don’t see any advancement here for me. So I’ll go somewhere else. Is that, is that it essentially putting it crassly dead end job.

[00:07:48.21] spk_2:
Yeah. Or you know, not feeling an opportunity for professional development, right? Like not every organization is structured like a professional services firm, like a law firm for example, that has a clear ladder up. But regardless of whether or not there’s, you know, a clear, a clear up the task at a given organization. I think the point that we try to make, um, in this in this piece is that there are many ways to grow professionally. Um, whether or not, you know, there’s a new role or a specific new job on the, on the horizon.

[00:09:16.58] spk_0:
Funny you mentioned law firm, you know, a normal progression like associate partner maybe name partners. You know, I practiced law for two. Well in some respects they were two short years, but for me, there were two of the longest years of my life and I, I couldn’t stand it because in large measure I was dreading the partnership path because I was looking at the partners, they were all gray eyed, miserable divorced from their spouses or estranged from their Children. Like that was the last thing I wanted to do was follow their path, but I know that’s, that’s not the, that’s not the example you were giving. But your example conjured, uh, some hysteria in me as I recalled Not wanting to be like, I don’t want to be like those people, I don’t want, I don’t want to advance in this career. If I have to look like those people 15 years from now, I’ll be miserable. So I bailed out after two. Okay. But on to more, more, uh, more encouraging talent development progressions and scenarios. They’re not all, they’re not all bad in law firms, but a lot of them are outside. So, uh, so like we’re looking for, you know, like transparency, right? We want to transfer you, you cite the arctic in your article, which we’ll, we’ll give folks a link to shortly, you know, transparency and consistency. We’re looking for some, we’re looking for something, some bedrock that we can rely on so that we, uh, we know there’s a future for us in this, in this organization.

[00:11:13.49] spk_1:
I think, I think that, yeah, I think that’s right. And I, I think that one of the things that, um, because we don’t have, you know, the habit of investing in ourselves investing in our people or that, you know, it’s when it does happen, it tends to be a little bit at hot, right? You’re sort of a little bit making it up as you go along and the real, there’s, there’s sort of two challenges there, right, at least, right. One is that you’re right Tony you don’t get, you’re not providing anyone with visibility of like, how is this gonna happen, right? How how will will somebody invest in me? Right? You just don’t know. It’s not, it’s not predictable. The second is, and this is a really important point that we try to make repeatedly throughout the article, is that when you do things in that ad hoc way, inevitably it leads to inequity in the results, right? Inevitably. It’s the people who are the least connected, often the most different from people who are in the most senior thoughts, who aren’t going to get what they deserve right, because it’s going to be through some informal relationship or oh, Lindsay, you’re just like me in this way we connect and then like I give you an opportunity and if we don’t stop to actually ask ourselves, oh, is everyone, are all the lindsey’s getting opportunities and what kind of opportunities are they getting? And are we systematically having that conversation with everybody? That’s the only way you’re gonna get to some of the equity goals that I know many of our, many of our nonprofit leaders have rightfully kind of established now for themselves. They said we want to have a more inclusive culture, we want a leadership team that looks different from the team today, but the only way you’re gonna get that is by creating some systems and habits

[00:12:00.32] spk_0:
you say that, um, nonprofits fill the top leadership positions internally at only half the rate that for profit employers do. So it feels like we’re, we’re abandoning the people that we know the best, the ones that have worked for us. We’re, we’re not, we’re not promoting them. We’re doing it only half the rate that, that companies do it. So we’re not like we’re not investing and we’re abandoning the folks who seemed like the best shot because we know them, they have a history with us rather than bringing somebody from the outside

[00:12:37.68] spk_1:
well. And the other, the other piece there is that those people from the outside there, there are moments to be clear, you should have a mix of hires in your organization. People, you’re growing internal leadership. But the, the success rate on external hires is for all the reasons you would imagine not as not as high, right? Because those are people who are to some extent unknown and who don’t know you. And so it’s not just that you’re not giving people internally a chance. You, you may also then be like, it may take a lot longer to get to a two to a higher that really works

[00:12:45.70] spk_0:
Lindsay, was there something you wanted

[00:13:06.41] spk_2:
to add there? No, just the point that, you know, as as pre dimension, external hires are kind of less likely to be successful and they’re, they’re also more expensive to attract, right? It’s like this, the cost of turnover and kind of relying over indexing on external hire to fill leadership gaps in your organization is, you know, there’s a real cost to that, which again, it just like all builds the case for a thoughtful approach to leadership and talent development that that we outline and are excited to talk about

[00:13:23.14] spk_1:
today. Okay,

[00:13:43.57] spk_0:
so let’s, so we’re gonna, we’re gonna make improvements in D. E. I were going to make improvements in retention, we’re gonna reduce turnover. Your first idea is craft competencies who wants to wants to introduce us to crafting competencies? Just pointed to Lindsay Lindsay. I guess that means you do, if you had pointed first, peter would, but she did you go,

[00:15:36.99] spk_2:
No, I got it. Well. So I think you know, the first, the first question is what’s a competency was kind of a big, big words are just to break it down. We talk about competencies at the end of the day. They are kind of a unique set of skills and capabilities that people need to perform, you know, and develop in their work today and and to develop in order to be successful in an organization going forward. Um so a competency could be something like strategic thinking or communication or you know, data analysis analytics, mission orientation, there’s, there’s a whole number and we kind of outline some of the more popular competencies that we’ve seen in our work with nonprofits over the years. But the idea is, you know, there’s such, there can be such value in, you know, as a nonprofit leadership team, Distilling the set of competencies. It shouldn’t be an endless list. But say, you know, what are the top five or the top 10 that matter most for the people in your organization, Right. It’s really critical that, you know, folks in our organization are able to bring an equity mindset to this work. So what does that actually mean? Let’s spell it out right and name that as a competency. We want people to invest in developing or, you know, ability to communicate with our clients with people. We serve with funders with policymakers. That is a critical competency. So what is good look like on that dimension for people in our organization? So the process of kind of naming the, the skills and capabilities that are critical for people in our, our organization to develop in order to promote our mission, advance our our work um, that in and of itself, you know, we found both with our clients in a bridge band right to be a really a really valuable exercise that kind of lays the foundation for this approach to talent development

[00:16:04.63] spk_0:
pre to you. You distinguish between core competencies and leadership competencies. Why did you flush those out for

[00:17:12.09] spk_1:
us? Yeah, I think one of the things that um, you know, Lindsay mentioned that it’s, it’s valuable to to name together as an organization, A relatively small set of competencies that you’re trying to build in all your your employees right. Um at the same time we recognize that there are going to be a set of folks who may be taking on broader leadership or more complex challenges for the organization and they may need to have an additional and slightly different set of competencies that they have to grow into as well. And so we encourage teams again to just think still try and keep lists short. You’ll see in the article we name some of the most popular but but also recognize that yeah, there are some things as you take on more that that you may need to build um additionally to what beyond the core competencies and those are the leadership, we call them leadership competencies, you could call them all sorts of things but but we distinguish between core, which is something that you know, everyone in the organization you would hope would grow on and leadership which would be for a subset of folks taking on more complex tasks.

[00:17:50.26] spk_0:
And it’s important, let’s just stay with you preta it’s important to recognize that the competencies today may be very different than the competencies that we need both. Core and leadership in the future. Although I would think especially leadership would would change but if we’re gonna look ahead, I think it was, well it was one of you who said earlier, you know what what what got us here basically what got us here is not what’s gonna get us ahead, you didn’t, you said it more elegant ever said, it said it more eloquently than I just did but but what what got us here is not gonna work for the future so we gotta, we gotta be looking ahead to competencies as well.

[00:20:10.22] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. And this is where I’ll just name, you know lindsey and I have both had the opportunity to be in, I don’t know, hundreds of leadership team conversations where the, where where folks are sitting together and actually trying to wrestle with this question of like oh yeah what are, what is it we mean by leadership or talent in our organization, what are the competencies we want to name? And those are really energizing conversations right? Because to your pump point tony you realize like you’re not trying to, you know, just name what you do now, you’re trying to think ahead like what what is the organization we may be in the future and what does that mean? We’re gonna need in our staff and in our leaders and you know some of that’s gonna be the same, there’s some things that you want to continue but some of it’s gonna be different and that that can be a really exciting conversation, I think the other thing is that um what’s what’s often fun about those conversations is you can just have, you know, I think Lindsay you use use the, you think, you said strategic thinking or strategic mindset like you could actually just like even sitting together with others and being like well when I mean when I say that when I say someone’s being strategic, this is what I mean and then like you’ll realize that like you’re not always even speaking the same language and actually one of the most important things about competencies is is actually then going one layer more to describe them and describe them in like observable ways because that means then like tony when you join my team and I say look I want you to be more strategic a lot of times people will walk away and be like I don’t even know what you meant, what what is she talking about but instead I have to say like so here actually is what I mean tony like I mean when when a problem comes your way, I want you to I want you to show me that you can break it into pieces and and tackle that piece, piece by piece with with your staff right? That’s what strategic means and that’s the kind of language you need in these competency definitions so that everybody can kind of say like oh that’s what I need to do, that’s what this organization needs, it was really powerful,

[00:20:30.11] spk_0:
peter trust me you would not want me working on your team, I would be a terrible employee of any company, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t even get, I wouldn’t even get hired. I would just I would probably just not even show up for the interview. I would I would book it and then just to prove that I’m independent, I wouldn’t show up. I wouldn’t

[00:20:31.15] spk_1:
even then you’re right. There are some core competencies that were they missing out

[00:20:36.22] spk_0:
on. I have core arrogance. I think that’s that’s my arrogance is arrogance. One of the core skill sets. One of the core competencies.

[00:20:43.16] spk_1:
We it has not been frequently named. It has not been frequently. Not

[00:20:51.04] spk_0:
frequently. It’s very diplomatic of you. Thank you. Um Alright let’s so lindsey, let’s go. Was there anything else about crafting the competencies from anybody that that we didn’t talk about? You think folks should know?

[00:21:44.34] spk_1:
Oh I will say I will, I’ll name one more thing which is just that a mantra we have in the in the competency sort of list processes. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So do not be the organization that spends 6 to 12 months trying to identify your competencies. That’s 6 to 12 months that have not been developing those competencies in your people, right? Because you’ve been worrying about the words that you’re using. I’m not saying words don’t matter at all. But like you know get most of the way there and try it and then you can always come back and adapt your list if you need to. So yeah, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good Lindsay

[00:21:48.27] spk_0:
you wanna introduce us to uh, co creating professional development plans.

[00:22:13.76] spk_2:
Yeah, sure. This is a fun one. you know the, the way that we introduce the concept of an effective um, professional development plan um, is through kind of a really fun example, um, which is by asking, you know, nonprofit leaders that we work with. Let’s reflect on how you learned how to ride a bike for the first time, right. Um, and tony if I asked you that question, right, assuming you know how to ride a bike. Um, what, what did that, what did that look like?

[00:23:00.03] spk_0:
Well, my, my mom and dad would take me out and I had a bike with, well started with a tricycle, right? We start with a tricycle and then we, we got, I graduated to a bike and they would put training wheels on it, of course it had training wheels and they would kind of hold the handlebars one of them with me as I rode even with, even with the training wheels in the beginning I think and then eventually the training wheels come off and mom and dad are left behind and I bike away.

[00:26:08.07] spk_2:
Yeah, and now here you are a bike rider. Um, no, it’s a helpful, like what you just described is a very kind of active and involved process of you kind of learning while doing right with people kind of by your side, you know, making sure you don’t like fall too hard and and coaching you along the way. Um and I think that’s a really helpful kind of picture to keep in mind as we think through well, how do people learn, how do we expect people to kind of grow and develop some of the competencies that we just developed. Um and it’s not by just reading about it, it’s not by attending a training on how to ride a bike or by watching a video. And I think I elevate that contrast because what we, what we often, what we often see like many nonprofits are, are guilty of this is, you know, an expense budget that’s kind of tied to training and development and more often and then not like that, you know, that the default is well, attend this training online or go to go to a seminar or kind of like learn about it, read about it, which is fine and which is necessary to a certain extent, but that’s not gonna help you develop the skill. Um and so there’s a, there’s a body of research that has kind of resulted in a framework called the 70 2010 around how how people learn, which is that 70 per percent of learning happens on the job that happens while doing it happens while you’re kind of pursuing that stretch assignment, right? 20% of learning really is kind of anchored in thoughtful coaching mentoring and development, right? So pre to for example giving me pointers along the way the work that your parents were doing right, kind of coaching you along the side, holding the handlebars, making sure that you knew what you were doing, Giving you tips, you know, and then there is a role for kind of learning through reading through more formal training, but that’s really you know closer to 10% and so it’s you know that that mindset, that allocation of how I think through how I want to develop myself, how I’m going to kind of become better on some of these dimensions that we that we name as organizations, those competencies that matter. I think we we encourage and we even include a template in our set of resources around like a development plan that kind of brings to life the 70 2010 approach and the great news is this right I mentioned before a lot of, a lot of organizations out there, they have a training and expense budget, Right? But that’s really at the end of the day, that’s kind of like the 10%, so much of learning happens on the job. So if if we could invest more in thoughtfully developing those stretch opportunities that preda alluded to kind of at the beginning of this conversation, um that’s great, that’s the most effective way people learn and it’s also one of the least expensive way to kind of teach our people to, to mentor them through more of an apprenticeship model.

[00:26:53.88] spk_0:
So how do we develop and we’re supposed to co create these right between the manager and the person who reports to the manager co co create the plan. But how do we Make the plan when we don’t know what the, what the opportunities are gonna be for the 70% part of the 70 2010 rule, how are we going to craft up? I mean, we don’t just create opportunities to see the person succeed or not. I mean, how do we how do we develop a plan around something that’s uncertain for the future? The the 70% part, the on the job part, we don’t we’re not really sure what’s coming.

[00:28:00.88] spk_1:
Well, i if I can jump in Lindsay, I’ll just say, I mean, no, you’re not sure of everything that’s coming, but you know, a good amount of what’s coming. Right? So if you’re, you know, you know, um in particular, I mean, obviously will vary by um by competency. Right, let’s remember that, right? You’re picking your your decided in advance together, there are these two or three competencies maybe that you’re going to really focus on? Well, let’s say it is about communications, it was one that that Lindsay mentioned earlier. Well, you might not know all the big presentations that are, that are gonna come up in the next year, but you know that there’s, you know, there’s the annual staff gathering. There’s the there’s um, you know, there’ll be at least a couple of updates to the board, you know, that, you know, you have a sense of what’s coming right and so you can, you and then you can together look for those opportunities. So the other thing to know is that if we agree, you’re gonna work on communications tony we might pick out a couple of things that we think are gonna be opportunities in the next couple of months. But then we should also revisit this plan at least once a quarter and say like, okay, what, what opportunities came up and what might be coming up in the next quarter so that you can continuously be updating it right? You can’t plan out a year and can’t plan out a year,

[00:29:11.81] spk_0:
especially for the, the arrogance building skill set. No, we didn’t, those are gonna be particularly particularly hard to come by, but, but I’ll fight for them anyway, let’s flush out the coaching and mentoring part a little bit the 20 and the 70 2010 that I think maybe, I don’t know, it feels like sometimes it’s left to sort of, you know, people kind of find a mentor on their own might be in the company, maybe, maybe you’re saying ideally it should be in the, in the organization or, but it’s, it’s left too much informality and it’s left up to the mentee to go find somebody who will mentor and coach them. I think you want it to be much more formalized in the organization, don’t you Lindsay? Go ahead lindsey.

[00:31:16.80] spk_2:
Yeah, yeah, well I was, I was just kind of observing, observing Preta’s like head nodding and I think, you know, I think that is ultimately the goal and then I think that that it speaks to kind of like the third piece of this puzzle that really makes it all work, is making sure that your, your supervisors, your managers throughout your organization are kind of taking ownership over their team’s development are kind of stepping into that role of coach so that my team of, to my team of five, my team of however many I’m aware of what they’re working on, right? I’m thinking about what opportunities I can help create for them and with them and I’m and I’m actively kind of coaching them through providing providing constructive feedback on what they’re doing well on what they need to to improve. And so often it’s the case that me in a supervisor role, I could be that coat, I should be approached to my, to my teams, those I’m supervising and at the same time it may be that, you know, there’s a, there’s a certain competency that I’m really focused on developing and my current supervisor isn’t the right person to support me on that. Right? So they’re, there are certainly opportunities where I might seek outside counsel, um, an expert on a certain topic to help coach me on something like public speaking, for example on on data analysis or or something like that. Or I may I may, I may seek out coaches from folks within my organization that don’t directly supervise me. So it’s not kind of a one size fits all situation, there are kind of different avenues and at the same time I think it’s our, our perspective that that talent development often hinges on an organization’s ability to kind of equip and hold their their management, their their supervisors accountable for developing their teams. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Oh,

[00:31:43.22] spk_1:
I you know, honestly, I just keep imagining tony like learning to ride this bike and his parents at his side. And as you were describing, I was thinking to myself, I guess we should all whatever that competency is that we’re trying to develop whatever that skill is. We should be asking ourselves who’s gonna be like those parents who trusted tony enough to get him a bike right to put him on the bike, but then who he trusted enough that if he was going to fall, they would be there to help him right? Like it’s like you’re gonna kind of asking that question of yourself as you’re building the skills is who are the people and it’s probably not just one person, right? It’s probably a set of people you go to under different circumstances, but it’s that environment of management support that I think the best kind of like talent rich organizations have created, they’ve created that environment.

[00:35:38.89] spk_0:
You, you all are making me picture my little block on uh orient way in Rutherford New Jersey where I learned to ride a bike and there were too many, there were too many trees, you know, because the trees upend the sidewalk slabs so it’s all bumpy and it wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a good environment, but you know, that’s where I grew up orient way Rutherford New Jersey, I hope they’ve repaired the sidewalks in the past 55 years or so. It’s time for Tony’s take two nonprofit radio 50 for the planned giving accelerator, it’s the re ducks, it’s a reminder that you can get 50% off planned giving accelerator tuition by using the code non profit radio 50 the accelerator, the class begins in early March and you’ll be done with it with me. We all together will be done by memorial Day, so no impact on your summer March april and May will spend an hour a week together, you’ll meet with me and all your peers in the class and I will step you through launching planned giving at your non profit there’s no homework from week to week, there’s incredible peer support. We share challenges as well as successes together. The outcomes are incredible like $4 million from a small humane society in Georgia and $2 million from community development organization in Oregon and five new board gifts from another small organization in also in Georgia, a child development agency. So lots of lots of good outcomes. Your outcomes can be just as good. It’s all, it’s all available to you. It’s at planned giving accelerator dot com, You’ll see how to proceed and you’ll get the 50% off with non profit radio 50. Any questions about the accelerator naturally you ask me tony at tony-martignetti dot com. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got the book. Ooh, we’ve got boo koo but loads more time for talent development with pre to Nyack and Lindsay waldron. What about the idea of not leaving this to the mentees? Like the organization should be assigning or how do we, but it might the leadership might not know who the best mentor is for somebody. How do we, are we leaving it to the mentees to go find their own or what, how we, how do we formalize this but not make it overburden over overbearing. I’m very interested in this mentor mentor relationship. Maybe I never had a mentor as an attorney that maybe that’s why I dreaded. Uh I dreaded from promotion. I didn’t want to be like those people. Maybe I didn’t have a good mentor in in the law firm. How do we, how do we help Pope folks not have the same crushing defeat in their career that I had.

[00:35:42.41] spk_1:
I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to manage that tony but

[00:35:49.27] spk_0:
I’m unmanageable. I told you I don’t want, you don’t want me to work for you. Trust me. Exactly. You just said it, I’m unmanageable. But for the other folks who are, who are manageable, how do we help them get the right mentor?

[00:36:51.79] spk_1:
I would actually one question I would suggest even before that is like, is actually trying to just get a sense of who has, who has someone that they’re relying on that they’re able to turn to. And again, these development plans are an opportunity to ask that question. Who’s got me and you know, who doesn’t because I think that like you may not, it may not be that big a stretch. It may be, you know, a small set of people who don’t already have the connections they need that. You can then focus your energy on. Um, and, and so I think just the other thing I’ll just name is, I think generally when organizations for profit, nonprofit ask this question, they do find that the folks who are often left out are those who aren’t, haven’t traditionally been in that employment space, You see women who don’t, who often are lacking a mentor, people of color. And so you know, again, some areas where you can kind of double down and focus if other folks are, are seem like they’re doing okay

[00:37:41.56] spk_0:
alright. I see. So we can use these at least quarterly check ins to which we’re gonna get to the check in. All right. So then the remaining we got 70 2010, the remaining 10% is formal Lindsay like you said, go to a webinar seminar, go to attend a conference, that’s the 10%. That’s I mean we need to budget for that because there is a role I would think especially in in developing like a new competency that may be an early stage of developing a lacking competency skill set, you know, hearing, hearing listening to a webinar or going to a conference on it might be very valuable. So we need to budget that also.

[00:38:16.15] spk_2:
Yeah, for sure. Like a concrete example we use in at our organization at at bridge band which is focused on strategy, right? And operating effectiveness. But a lot of, you know folks that come in to our organization like need a pretty solid like quantitative background because a lot of our, you know, we use a data driven approach right? But if I’ve never opened Excel Microsoft Excel for example, It’s gonna be hard to just start doing immediately. And so there are so many tutorials kind of online and person around like what are the basics, right? How can I invest again? Not 100%, but like 10% of my capacity to just kind of familiarize myself with this thing, understand the basics, get my bearings and then start to apply that learning um on the job.

[00:39:04.71] spk_0:
Uh I should have asked you earlier. So it’s your suffering under a lackluster host who’s unmanageable, lackluster, arrogant. See these are all the traits you don’t know all the reasons you don’t want me working for you rita, you don’t want, you don’t want me in the bridge band organization. Um, you know, what’s the, what’s the basis for the, the conclusions that you drew? What? This is all based on Lindsay. You referenced hundreds of conversations but was this a survey or was this intentional research or it’s just organically grown, gained over time. What who wants to talk to why you have the credibility in this space to help

[00:40:27.68] spk_1:
us? I can talk a little bit about the path. Um, because tony you actually mentioned at the top, top of our time together the, the book I’ve written with a colleague plan a right on developing developing future leaders and that was over a decade ago we wrote that and we did that was research that was talking with um, uh, folks in the field who are leadership and talent development experts to understand what are the best for profits and nonprofits doing to create leadership pipelines. We then have like a set of general practice is to anchor our work in and building on that. We have then worked with. I think we are now probably at over 200 teams we’ve worked with in cohorts to apply these principles and that’s where we get the reps and refined it and where like some of these stories that you see even in the article come from. So, so it’s been a, we’ve tried to take our own medicine, so to speak, like we did the 10% desk research and then we wanted to apply it in the field and like actually just understand what’s going on and what’s hard, you know, what, what’s easy on paper, hard to do in practice, what kinds of tools might help that sort of thing. Anything else you’d add Lindsay?

[00:41:51.97] spk_2:
Um, I think we’ve also like in addition to coaching those nonprofits right around the country around the world at this point we also are learning within our organization, right? So, so a lot of like the structures that we, that we discussed were kind of trying to like eat and breathe ourselves. So I I have a development plan, right, 70 2010, I revisit it um, twice a year actually with my mentor, we talk about it, I talk about my strengths, my weaknesses, you know, where I need to, where I need to develop what that could look like to kind of reach the, the next level within my career at the organization, whether or not really that means a new role, so to speak, I know that I’m kind of growing regardless. Um, and, and so that, you know, it kind of motivates me to, to stay at this organization because I know I’m constantly learning, I know there are people who are investing in me and I have clear insight into what it takes to be successful in our organization because we’ve kind of spelled out those competencies, we’ve we’ve made what is often implicit explicit for everyone in our organization, right? Not just the folks that kind of our proactive in seeking it out.

[00:42:13.74] spk_0:
Are you supposed to be revisiting your plan at least quarterly? I thought you said you said you’re only doing it twice a year.

[00:42:20.92] spk_2:
I’m Oh I I will say I I have development conversations and we’ll get to this next right? I have development conversations with my supervisors and with those, I supervise, you know, every every couple of weeks or so. Right. So regularly we’re talking about like what am I doing? Well where do I need to improve? And we kind of have this framework of the competencies we care about to kind of reference.

[00:42:47.66] spk_0:
Okay. I just wanna make sure you’re not violating

[00:42:49.63] spk_1:
your I

[00:42:51.89] spk_0:
mean, I can’t lessons from a bunch of hypocrites, but Okay, you’re not you’re not you’re not hypocrites. Okay, Okay, what are you saying? I’m sorry, I was just talking

[00:43:02.95] spk_1:
unmanageable,

[00:43:04.33] spk_0:
I talk over my manager, it’s terrible. He’s unmanageable. I get him out, get him out. He’s unmanageable.

[00:43:11.36] spk_1:
Sorry, I was gonna say it’s a feedback rich environment and and tony maybe that’s another reason why you would not you would not you would not want to be with us because we would be telling you regularly what we love and what you can do better. How’s that?

[00:43:51.36] spk_0:
Yes, what I can do better. It’s again very, very tactfully put. Thank you. Uh there are there are there are expletives that could substitute but you use the tactful way. Um let’s tell a story peter you mentioned. Yeah, you have you have three examples for each of the three, you know, we have craft competencies, co create professional development plans and and then we’re gonna get to consistent development conversations those check ins um tell a story. Somebody, somebody this is worth talking about the professional development plans. Your your your example was shocked to see if I said it right shocked the Sustainable Energy Foundation, which I love Shaq Shaq T and Energy going together. I don’t know if they intended that when they created their Foundation, but I like it. Who wants to tell the story about shocked and their professional development plans?

[00:45:09.01] spk_2:
Yeah, I’m happy too. I’m happy to kick us off. Yeah, shocked is an as an organization based in India um that we supported through through a version of this process, through this kind of offering that we um that we deliver for cohorts of nonprofits and our main point of contact was actually an HR professional who had been doing this work for, you know, over a decade, but was was still new to this framework of of 70 2010. Um and so, you know worked with his leadership team with his ceo um to develop a set of competencies as we discussed right? They went through that process with with some bridge span support, we’re able to articulate what matters and then focus first on developing you know that what we often see with the organizations we work with is they don’t roll it all out at once. That would be really hard. But often first you know the it’s the work typically of the executive team of the leadership team to align on what competencies matter most in their future leaders

[00:45:27.93] spk_0:
you make that point that leadership has to set the example

[00:47:35.76] spk_2:
exactly, leadership has to set the example. So once they’ve done that then they kind of you know they start to walk the walk and this hR professional who was in a leadership position um He provides the example which we highlight in the article around a competency that he was working on which was improved communication right in public speaking. And so he named that as something that he needed to develop. It went on, his development plan, you know? And in this case he actually sought out somebody who was not his kind of like direct supervisor, direct boss, I’m forgetting exactly who it was but say it was a board member right who he admired who had a very strong concise and effective communication style and he he sought out that individual as a mentor and what they I would do is check in again like every quarter um to kind of review and assess how am I doing, How am I progressing against this really important skill that will help me grow in this role. That will help me be successful as a leader within this organization. And so that’s just one example and I think you know you point to a piece that we name like you leader you have to lead by example right? Because this is the type of thing as Preda mentioned up front, like it’s easy not to invest in talent, right? It’s easy to focus all of our attention on the programs we’re running on the services we’re offering on the clients that we are serving because those needs never never stop. Right? It’s and so the grind of just our day to day is it’s real but taking the time and discipline to pull up and reflect on our own learning our own development, our own professional growth um is critical and so if a Ceo or director of HR can find the time to do that can be candid and transparent about their growth areas, right? Everyone has growth there areas right? Even the C. E. O. S of the top companies out there, nobody’s perfect. We’re all growing right? That in turn kind of helps make visible um to others throughout the organization that like oh if the Ceo or the director of whatever department has time to do this and is taking charge of their professional development, then I can do that too. And that helps create this kind of culture of learning development of feedback

[00:48:30.51] spk_0:
completely contrary to the Jack Welch at general electric style of management to I know everything I am perfect. I have all the answers. Just just come to me. Uh, but he’s he’s long been his theories anyway. I think I’ve been debunked. All right, thank you. Good story about shock. T Yeah, it’s interesting that he chose a board member to, to uh, to help. I mean, he went to a volunteer leader, you’re saying,

[00:49:20.64] spk_2:
Yeah, and it can’t, I mean that’s, that’s the point. I think it’s, you know, I think an organization can play a role in kind of making those connections like the mentor match, so to speak. But I think it, you know, it also requires there’s a role for kind of your supervisor or manager to play and there’s also a role for each individual to play and taking ownership over their professional development and growth, right? So I might say, oh wow. Like creed is so awesome at the way that she engages clients, right? And I really, I really want to learn from from her. So, you know, I to have the agency to kind of reach out and seek, seek out mentors that spike on some of the skills and dimensions I care about. Um you know, is very much like that’s totally possible. There’s nothing preventing me from from doing that. And if you kind of like create the culture within your organization that, that is, you know, that that happens. So that is the norm that people are receptive to that. Um, I think that that can enable great things.

[00:49:39.92] spk_0:
So preta let’s talk about what we’ve, we’ve alluded to a couple of times. The the 3rd 3rd recommendation, consistent development conversations, these check

[00:51:58.23] spk_1:
ins. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was just, um, I was just thinking as for, you know, for folks who are listening to this. You know, there, there there’s value in the whole system, there’s value in putting in place these competencies and, and development plans and, and all of that. And you know, there’s also a question of like, well, what could I do as an individual tomorrow, Right? What could I start doing? And I, and, and I think actually the important there’s a lot because at the heart of all of this is regular conversation between a manager and a direct report or someone in their sort of network about where is it you’re headed? What are the skills you’re trying to build and how do we make sure you’re actually getting effective opportunities to build it right. And those effective opportunities are probably going to be on the job. And so that and it’s the regular conversation, right? So I had a, had a conversation Um, just yesterday with for 30 minutes with a mentee relatively new mentee someone when I’ve just been chatting with regularly for a couple of months and you know we we spent most of the time just kind of kind of getting to know each other and then talked about one particular problem that was on his mind and it was 30 minutes and we’ll do it again in a month. you know, and it’s a it’s just a little bit of a muscle you start to build and then in six months I will we will know a lot about each other and there will be a lot of space for that hard moment for him to pick up the phone or send the chat or whatever he needs to do because because those moments you can’t really schedule, can you write those are those are those are unscripted. Right, So so I just think it’s that muscle that gets everybody comfortable with like sharing feedback, sharing ideas, celebrating the winds, you know, sometimes like having a good cry, whatever it is that it’s that pattern that I think um really sustains that the relationship. But then actually if you have a web of those in an organization, it really sustains the organization

[00:52:20.38] spk_0:
and and to your point earlier was that the the formal check ins with with with the the supervisor, those should be at least quarterly, but but but mentors you’re saying, you know mentors mentees, I mean that can be on the fly as as ad hoc as needed or you know, maybe could could also be scheduled to?

[00:52:31.42] spk_1:
Yeah, I mean I like I’m a huge fan both in my professional and personal life of the recurring, the recurring appointment, you know, set the recurring appointment, have it for the half an hour monthly, you may end up canceling it or not using it, but like put it in there and and I I just really encourage everyone to be doing that with with the advisors in their life, whether they’re formal managers or or mentors or something else.

[00:53:21.30] spk_0:
Do you have any other action steps or for either of you? I love stuff that people listen on a Tuesday and they can think about it Wednesday and then they implement on thursday. What anything else for from either of you that we can act on immediately start taking action steps. No, this is all 100% theoretical, there’s no value

[00:53:58.99] spk_1:
in. Yeah, no, I think that I mean that the This the simple sort of thought exercise I would encourage people to do is like if you download there’s a 70 2010 template, we’ll share the materials but you can probably make this yourself. It’s not rocket science, right? It’s a couple of what are the couple of skills or competency areas, you can use our list or you can come up with your own or Google, there’s plenty of banks online available and then what do you think the 70, is going to be for you in the next few months on that thing. What’s the activity you’re going to do? What’s the coach, you’ll have do it for yourself as the first step and then share it with your manager or maybe or actually even better share it with the person you manage, right? Let them know how you’re thinking about this and maybe those, their wheels will start turning too. So I know that would be uh, just an easy way to get started lindsey. Any other suggestions?

[00:56:03.01] spk_2:
Well, I think just, you know, I feel like most of the people, I imagine a lot of folks listening like they may not have a set, a very like clear, explicit set of like what are the qualities, characteristics and skills I need to develop to be, to be great at my role in my organization over the long term and if that doesn’t exist, that’s, that’s okay. I think I think just kind of carving out some time for some self reflection um, on, you know, what, what are the assets that I bring to my role to my organization? How can I build on those, what are some things that I’m that I’m working on, right? That I need to continue to develop and then, you know, that becomes, you know, the, that becomes in large part the focus of my development plan, but again, it shouldn’t be like, we want this to be an asset based approach, right? So like building on strength. This is all I think one of the, one of the lines going through my head that I’ve I’ve, you know, started to appreciate um you know, at this point in my career is just this notion that feedback is a gift, right? It can be easy to get defensive, it can be easy to think like, oh, what am I not good enough at what am I doing wrong? But at the end of the day, like creating this culture of feedback is so critical because it it helps us grow as individuals. How am I going to get better if I don’t know, kind of where I need to to grow. Um So I just keep kind of thinking about that like self self reflection. Um I think is is really a critical piece of this

[00:56:04.79] spk_0:
process. Self reflection, introspection. I like I like I like introspection. It doesn’t do me any good, but I like I think it’s an admirable thing to spend time on where can we get the article? So because there are a lot of links to other to other research, other articles, there’s two other stories where where can we read the article?

[00:56:54.44] spk_2:
Yeah, well it’s available on our website, right www dot and dot org. Um and you know, we’re really excited actually because it’s we’re we’re kind of in the process of developing a new a new space on our website, um, that houses all like, not just this article, but all of the nonprofit knowledge we’ve, we’ve collected over the years on areas such as talents, on financial sustainability, on strategy, on organizational effectiveness and so our goal at bridge fans to kind of disseminate these tools, these resources which are all free as far and as wide as possible so that, you know, nonprofit leaders across the country around the world can can pick them up and apply for them like what, what is most useful? So go to our website.

[00:57:38.63] spk_0:
So Okay, so is there a spot at bridge span dot org that uh, someone just politely put it in the chat I guess was preta while while lindsey was talking. So bridge band bridge span dot org slash insights and then slash library. Alright, we’ll put it in the show notes.

[00:57:44.25] spk_1:
It’s unfortunately a bit of a mouthful of a U. R. L. So,

[00:58:05.82] spk_0:
okay, we’ll include it. I feel like craft competencies, co create professional development plans, consistent development conversations. Those are the three, three Tenets of the article. I know you three CS if you had, if you could tease out four more sees, you could do like the seven seas of talent development. Wouldn’t that be clever? The seven seas of talent development and there’s a bridge band group so that the bridges spanning the seven seas of talent development. If you could tease out four more sees, you know, I would, I would recommend it.

[00:58:26.15] spk_1:
But

[00:58:28.82] spk_0:
There are three, Pardon

[00:58:30.70] spk_1:
Me, we can come back with the next 4Cs.

[00:59:00.78] spk_0:
Yeah, so we’ll do a follow on with the with the remaining forces. Now these are very three very valuable sees and they are free to Nyack and Lindsay waldron. Preta is a partner in the bridge band groups san Francisco office, Lindsay, waldron manager in the bridge bands, bridge span groups, boston office and the company, the organization pardon me, is at bridge span dot org. So Preta Lindsay, thank you very much. Thanks for sharing all this.

[00:59:05.07] spk_1:
Thank you.

[00:59:06.37] spk_2:
Thanks tony

[00:59:46.52] spk_0:
next week managing your nonprofit for resilience with ted village. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein, Thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for August 22, 2022: Accounting For Nonprofit Leaders

 

Tosha Anderson & Zanni Miranda: Accounting For Nonprofit Leaders

In our penultimate #22NTC show, Tosha Anderson and Zanni Miranda introduce key accounting concepts to help nonprofit leadership avoid the common pitfalls they see. Tosha is CEO of The Charity CFO and Zanni is with Nonprofit Solutions.

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[00:01:51.40] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of pseudo papillae Dema if I saw that you missed this week’s show Accounting for nonprofit leaders in our penultimate 22. NTC show Tasha Anderson and Zanny Miranda introduce key accounting concepts to help nonprofit leadership avoid the common pitfalls. They see Tasha is ceo of the charity CFO and Zanny is with nonprofit solutions on tony take to the endowment excitement webinar, we’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c. O. And by fourth dimension technologies I. Tion for in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D just like three d but they go on to mention deeper here is accounting for nonprofit leaders. Welcome to nonprofit radio coverage of 22 N. T. C. The 2022 nonprofit technology conference. My guests now are Tasha Anderson and Zanny Miranda. Tasha is founder and ceo of the charity cf. Oh Zanny Miranda is operations Manager at nonprofit solutions. Tasha Zani. Welcome to nonprofit radio Thank

[00:02:05.94] spk_1:
you for having us. Yeah,

[00:02:07.50] spk_2:
thank you so much for having us on

[00:02:11.89] spk_0:
pleasure. I’m glad we’re gonna talk about this. But 10 things every nonprofit leader should know about their accounting

[00:02:17.66] spk_1:
Alright.

[00:02:23.44] spk_0:
I I suspect this is an often ignored um ignored area by by nonprofit leaders until there’s some kind of a problem I guess or until the the 9 90 has to be filed, you know, so maybe once a year they become, or maybe there’s board reports, but in between all that, um I suspect it’s ignored. Uh Tasha, do I have that? You’re nodding? Is that

[00:03:12.03] spk_1:
yeah, I think, yeah, I think it’s ignored because it’s for a lot of small organizations. It’s not their primary role. It’s not what they’re experienced in. It’s not their skill set and it becomes one of those things, it’s not an immediate issue. It’s not something I’m particularly good at, it’s something I’m gonna have to teach myself and I’m gonna have to um very kind of the procrastination that I put into it. And then it’s when things kind of abrupt Show up like our 9 90 return or we realized we have an audit or our books have gotten further and further behind and now we have to hurry up and scramble for that, you know, board meeting or something to that effect. Um that’s kind of best case scenario. Um worst case scenarios are other more significant things that might come up with our accounting. Um that that all of a sudden becomes more of a priority.

[00:03:34.21] spk_0:
Like, alright, we’re focused on motivation. What are what are one or two of those worst case scenarios?

[00:04:46.20] spk_1:
Well, some of those worst case scenarios, I think more abruptly we get a lot of clients that work with us that have a lot of government funding and government funding usually includes um some pop up surprise what they call site visits. So if you anticipate uh your site visit or kind of your audit, I use the word loosely with audit. But if you expect your funder to show up on, you know, this period and then they end up coming in sooner or more regularly, either normal or whatever. They just changed their protocol and you’re not prepared for that. That then calls into question your ability to manage the program, your ability to manage the finances of that particular program. And we’ve seen organizations be at risk for losing their funding. And we’ve seen that more often than not, which we’ve kind of talked about and the original presentation that Danny and I did some of the challenges around um not just, you know, keeping caught up with the accounting, but the succession planning um in the transition. I mean, we’re in the midst of what they call the great recession. And so what organizations do that put all of their eggs in one basket with respect to this kind of swiss be nice if you will position that holds also financial management. And when those positions turn over, we’ve seen organizations find themselves really vulnerable situations and it becomes very apparent when it’s time to start sending those periodic reports to your funders or when they start to come out, when you look at your records, it’s a problem.

[00:05:06.79] spk_0:
You’re referring to the great resignation. You mean succession planning. Okay.

[00:05:16.60] spk_1:
I’m

[00:05:35.54] spk_0:
listening. I’m listening channel. I’m channeling listeners. They’re gonna say, wait, great recession. That was many years. Alright. We know we know what you meant. Alright. So Zanny, why don’t you why don’t you kick us off? We got 10 things people are supposed to know nonprofit leaders are supposed to know. So let me ask you before we kick off with our our list. Is this specifically the C the C. E. O. Are we, are we at that level? You know, listeners here are small and midsize nonprofits. So that could be like one or two people up to. I mean 100 or 250 employees could be a midsize nonprofit. Are we in the meat with this? We’re talking about nonprofit leaders. I assume we are.

[00:05:57.71] spk_1:
I

[00:05:57.89] spk_2:
actually think that this information can be for any leader that is self designated or you know, does hold one of those executive positions. I think what we share in this presentation is really about making sure everyone is on the same page across the entire organization. So it’s really for anyone,

[00:06:28.03] spk_0:
uh, with, uh, okay. But we don’t want our Ceo and other other C suite executives ignoring these things. Certainly.

[00:06:30.92] spk_2:
No. Okay.

[00:06:32.33] spk_0:
Okay. All right. So why don’t you kick us off? What’s uh, what’s your

[00:06:37.25] spk_2:
first one is definitely benchmarks and metrics and making sure that you have defined expectations about what those are and how they fit with your organization and I’ll actually pass this one over to Tasha because this is definitely her area of expertise as the C. P. A expert.

[00:07:54.23] spk_1:
Yeah, sure. Uh, so really what we mean by defining benchmarks? Oftentimes, what we see is that not just the tactical work of bookkeeping and accounting is delegated to one individual, but almost the full financial management and responsibility. Understanding how much money is in the bank account. Are we receiving the funding that we thought we were, Are we utilizing the contracts that we’ve committed to our to our funders? Really high level, even where we are with our fundraising goals. And I’ve personally been someone that kind of delegated that responsibility and financial oversight. And I just think it’s imperative whether you’re a for profit business and non profit business at the end of the day, it’s a tax designation. It’s not just because you’re a nonprofit, you should not be delegating full financial ownership and responsibility of your organization to one single person. This is really where that leadership at the ceo level or executive director level, there needs to be some understanding of what your benchmarks are. What are you trying to measure in the holding people accountable to it? And I’ve seen so often where the accountant or the bookkeeper is delegated the responsibility of the budget and they might be doing the bookkeeping in the reconciliations and all that. But is anybody really looking at that budget and holding anybody accountable to it? So what we’re really encouraging is that the leader, you need to understand where things are and what expectations do you have? What processes do you have in place to make sure that you’re moving in the right direction? So

[00:08:19.70] spk_0:
following the budget doesn’t belong with the bookkeeper.

[00:08:23.50] spk_1:
The

[00:08:23.97] spk_0:
bookkeeper does the work.

[00:08:49.29] spk_1:
Yes, the bookkeeper prepares the reports, diving into Why is this off from what we expected? That is joint ownership, frankly, in my opinion, from from the individuals that are charged with that. So your program team, maybe your fundraising team. And I recognize we’re talking with small to middle size at a minimum. The Ceo is looking at this or the executive director and so often times I see uh leadership teams that are just delegating that responsibility and they’re not really immersing themselves in the financial management, the way that I think they should

[00:09:00.00] spk_0:
be alright. You didn’t have to, you know, you two don’t have to go in sequence. You could have picked one that you’re, that you’re an expert on. You know, you don’t have to do it the same sequence. You did it in your in your in your seminar. Alright.

[00:09:13.07] spk_2:
Well, I definitely wanted to make sure Tasha kind of came from the C P a standpoint,

[00:09:18.39] spk_0:
you know, make

[00:09:21.36] spk_2:
sure they all knew, Yeah,

[00:09:22.75] spk_0:
she’s the charity. CFO so

[00:09:24.30] spk_2:
she knows what she’s talking

[00:09:26.01] spk_0:
about

[00:10:08.64] spk_2:
and I have to say I come from the small nonprofit side. So we have a mighty team of three full time and one part time person. So we are, you know, definitely representative of some of the groups that are probably listening. So and these are all things, these are all things that we have learned through working with Tasha that um are very important and we went through a transition and planning and uh had a transition in leadership which then created a transition into changing our bookkeeper um to the charity CFO. So we went through a lot of what we’re talking about in terms of the the sort of scarier situations of how did we get ourselves in this situation? What does this all mean? Where all the, you know, how do we get everybody on the same page? So we definitely learned our lessons.

[00:10:21.81] spk_0:
Let pick one that you are familiar with that you can talk about what’s next.

[00:11:23.37] spk_2:
Yeah, let me take a look. So I know that so kind of speaking about like getting into a sticky situation or number four is I would have understand my compliance needs. And I think that when you do like Tasha was saying, when you have those government funders or even really complicated funding grants from foundations, sometimes they require progress reports, they require year end um reports that can be really calm complicated to do at the last minute and they can be really complicated if you have not set yourself up for success at the very beginning. And so one of the things that we sort of have said is that you really need to take a look at what the grant is requesting from you when they’re, when you’re in that grant search process. And before you apply or maybe right after you apply, making sure that you’ve got things set up with your accountant and things set up in your chart of accounts to make sure that when you’re going through and processing and actually spending money related to these grants, you’ve got everything in place, you know, from the onset, so that it makes it a lot easier to pull those reports and to get that information instead of scrambling and going through, you know, a year’s worth of credit card receipts.

[00:11:50.57] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:11:53.20] spk_2:
Mentioned

[00:12:17.33] spk_0:
compliance. And there’s, there’s state state laws also depending on what state you’re in. You know, there are, there are the laws that you have to be registered in each state where you solicit donations, that whole charity registration morass that I used to have as part of my practice. Um, you know, keeping keeping track of that. Um, there, there could be, uh, other, I mean, there are federal, there are federal rules that have to stay in compliance with, so there’s, there’s a lot, there’s a lot in that word, compliance.

[00:12:35.20] spk_2:
Yeah, exactly. It’s not just the funding that you get, it’s making sure that, you know, the things that you’re doing are following the law all year, not just when someone comes knocking

[00:12:43.02] spk_0:
and and Tasha, these often come up in audits right? They’ll be they’ll be uh I forget with the technical terms, but they’ll be like memo items in uh report items in an audit that you know, you’re not in compliance with something here. Things like

[00:14:10.94] spk_1:
that. Yeah, findings. And what’s really interesting. I have a funny story when so I used to be a CFO of a non profit organization and we had 14 different government contracts that were a little larger probably than maybe an average listener. We’re about, you know, 6 to 8 million a year. And uh that’s that’s that’s to me that seems large because so many organizations are much smaller than that. But really that’s not huge and what’s really, we went through every single one of our program contracts and wrote down all of the things we’re responsible reporting out to them. So not just on the financial compliance side but also like program outcomes and those sort of things. Anyway, we had five pages front and back on an Excel spreadsheet when we printed it out was five pages, front and back of all of the things that we were responsible for reporting out to someone. And so the more more complex your funding gets, whether it’s multiple foundations or government funding sources. When we hear the word audit. I think we think at the end of the year we have a C. P. A firm that comes in and does an audit. But oftentimes what people don’t realize that you may have multiple audits or inspections or reviews or whatever word you want to use for the same funding, right? You might get um, you know, kind of beat up at a local level through some pass through fun. Then you might have that sourced through the feds and then the feds might come in and do an audit, right? And then your auditors that come in at the end of the year that you hire will also do an audit. So I think that sometimes I’ve seen our clients not necessarily read the fine print of those grant agreements to know what they’re going to be responsible for doing and what frequency. So they find themselves kind of working reactively and scrambling to get that stuff.

[00:15:57.46] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications media relationships and thought leadership. You need one to get the other. You got to have the media relationships. So you get exposure and become the thought leader. Turn to will help you build those relationships. They’re former journalists themselves. And by the way, as you’re getting that exposure, they’ll help you craft your messaging. You get the increased exposure. You’re seen as a thought leader in your field. The thought Leader, the thought leader in your field, they can make it happen. Turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to accounting for nonprofit leaders. You wanna know as any said, you want to know ahead of time what the requirements are. First to make sure that you can comply with them. You have the infrastructure either internally or or through a provider to do it, you know, and if it’s if it’s beyond you, then that that’s not a grant that you should be applying for because you can’t keep up with the I mean the money may look nice, but you can’t keep up with the back end requirements and you’re gonna end up in a bad situation. Okay.

[00:15:58.93] spk_1:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:16:00.26] spk_2:
Absolutely. No.

[00:16:01.56] spk_0:
In advance. I’m sure this especially applies to a government, a government agency. Yeah.

[00:16:07.28] spk_1:
And that’s funny. We we talked about that a little bit in our session just because there’s money available may not be a good deal. Just what you’re doing, not just the infrastructure. Um, there’s a lot of considerations where it might make sense for an organization to not accept funding. Um, it just doesn’t make sense. And asking ourselves those hard questions before we just

[00:16:25.90] spk_0:
before, Yeah. Look, look closely at what your obligations, your responsibilities are gonna be. All right. All right, well, let’s stay with you, Tasha. Why don’t you give us another another thing. Leadership should know about.

[00:17:33.03] spk_1:
Alright. I think another thing that leaders don’t always realize again, because most leaders of nonprofit organizations, they don’t come from the financial business management side of the biz right? Oftentimes you’ll see leaders that maybe come from the programmatic side of things. Um, and that’s fantastic for a lot of reasons. But what I think some people default to hearing, well this just can’t be done or this financial report can’t be created in the way that you want. And I really encourage leaders of organizations again, to define those expectations of what they’re looking for and ask their account to develop tools that help them measure if we’re on track or not. And this is usually by way of financial reports. And I hear this all the time. Tasha, you know, I get the standard set of financial reports from my accountants. It doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense to my board. We don’t know where we’re at, we don’t know which direction we’re heading and what I tell people all the time that financial reports, Yes, your auditors will require to look in this perfect box and it has to look exactly like that. But that’s for the outside world. Think about what your organization needs internally and create those measurements, those tools, those financial reports. That makes sense for you internally. So that you can make business decisions based upon that and what a lot of people don’t realize.

[00:17:52.75] spk_2:
We

[00:18:53.12] spk_1:
Have over 150 clients. Probably many, if not all of them have some level of customization to their reports. So they need to get reports that make sense to them, not already nonprofits have to have the same internal financial statements. In fact, you shouldn’t have the same internal financial statements and start asking yourself what do you need to see? So I’ll give you an example. I have one organization that was really, really cash strapped. They had all the revenue sources in place. They could not understand why are we cash poor, Why do we not have any money? And the reality. After a quick look at some of the financial reports, I realized they were building their funders but they were never collecting them. There were some issues with the quality of their invoicing and some problems they weren’t troubleshooting and poor training and just some other issues that are actually pretty easily fixed. But going forward once we were able to get caught up on that building, the ceo want to make sure that never happened again. So she wanted to make sure she got a detailed listing of what invoices were still outstanding because she started understanding the, the, the timing of when payments were expected to come in and once things started to go off track

[00:18:59.15] spk_0:
basically

[00:18:59.70] spk_1:
immediately, basically

[00:19:01.09] spk_0:
talking about tracking your accounts payable.

[00:19:02.88] spk_1:
Yeah, accounts receivable in this case or payable

[00:19:14.25] spk_0:
receivable? Your receivables? Yeah. I took, I took accounting for poets in college. So I do remember that, um, assets equal liabilities plus owner equity. Is that still true?

[00:19:19.74] spk_1:
That is true.

[00:19:20.97] spk_0:
Axiom still still valid. Like a law of physics doesn’t change. Okay.

[00:19:25.52] spk_1:
In the nonprofit world, we say we don’t have equity because there’s no ownership. But the concept is still the same. We called net assets in the nonprofit world, but the concept is still the same

[00:19:34.74] spk_0:
assets equals net assets. Oh no, we

[00:19:37.60] spk_1:
called the net assets. Yeah.

[00:19:39.61] spk_0:
But the other side is assets, assets equals net assets.

[00:19:43.54] spk_1:
You could do assets minus liabilities equal net assets or assets, you know, equal, you know, however you want to do the algebra of the formula, you could say in multiple different ways. But um, yeah, we say assets minus liabilities equals net assets, but

[00:19:58.75] spk_0:
assets, my stuff, that makes sense to me, assets. Everything you have minus what you owe your liabilities, which I know, I know I’m grossly oversimplifying by when I said what? You know, but again, I took accounting for poets. So you’ll have to excuse that. I’m trainable. I guess I wasn’t, uh, yeah, equals your net assets. Right. Everything you have minus what you owe is is the net

[00:20:21.20] spk_1:
okay.

[00:20:22.47] spk_0:
We don’t have to go any deeper than that. We shouldn’t.

[00:20:24.85] spk_1:
No one wants to hear that. But

[00:20:26.63] spk_0:
Not profit leaders should not profit leaders should, I’m not a nonprofit leader. So I’m not, I’m not on the hook for this. Alright. Um, name another one. Somebody. Somebody throw out another another top 10.

[00:21:32.17] spk_2:
Well, I think, um, following up to sort of, what Tasha was already saying is that you can have all those in place, but if you don’t have anyone, um, doing checks and balances or even around to take over key processes. If someone goes or if someone’s out on vacation, that’s a really major risk. You know, we were in the training or the workshop last week and a lot of people really resonated with this, you know, don’t burn out the one person you have on your team who knows how to do payroll? Who knows how to do vendor payments? Who knows how to do the bank deposits. There can’t be just one person on your team who knows how to do all these things. There needs to be some, you know, some thought to succession planning. Some thought too. Um,

[00:21:32.59] spk_0:
or not even not even succession planning, just like you said vacation.

[00:21:36.04] spk_2:
Yeah, just process documentation.

[00:21:38.00] spk_0:
You know, we got somebody goes out on maternity leave. We still have to process, we still have to process vendor purchase orders.

[00:21:52.11] spk_2:
Yeah, we had someone chat in the comments saying I’m going out on maternity leave, but I still have to process payroll, which is not

[00:21:53.91] spk_0:
great.

[00:22:14.59] spk_2:
That’s not great for your staff’s morale. So definitely just making sure you’ve got some of those basic processes written down, trained, um, cross trained with different people and having backups in place so that people can take a break and people can, you know, not have that looming over their head when they’re supposed to be on maternity leave

[00:22:20.03] spk_0:
or, or

[00:22:21.18] spk_2:
family leave, you know, it’s not sustainable.

[00:22:37.49] spk_0:
Um, I have seen that too, in, in uh, clients that I’ve worked with. I do plan giving fundraising. Um, and you know, we have, we need vendor, we have vendors, there might be, there’s, uh, you know, there’s a company that that manages the soft that provides the software for playing giving calculations. Well that purchase order has to be paid. You know, my purchase order has to be

[00:22:49.87] spk_2:
paid. It

[00:22:51.37] spk_0:
seems sometimes to be one person who can do it and we’re all, we’re all screwed if that person is busy or away or whatever. Alright, let’s stick with you. Give us another one.

[00:23:26.25] spk_2:
Sure. Another thing that you brought up was having the right software to use. So, um, you know, we found when we were in our sort of leadership transition in our, uh, you know, transition between bookkeepers. We just had someone who was, you know, taking our information and then,

[00:23:27.07] spk_0:
you know,

[00:23:27.81] spk_2:
kind of piecemeal putting it together, like looking at the paper receipts, looking at this and really it’s just not sustainable long term to do that. And there are so many options with technology

[00:23:38.44] spk_0:
now to

[00:23:39.84] spk_2:
really make the transition easier. And a lot of nonprofits do qualify for

[00:23:46.85] spk_0:
discounts

[00:24:08.43] spk_2:
for some of these larger tech companies, they have a lot of for profit people using their services. So they, most of the time will have a nonprofit discount or even offer their their software for free. And really it just becomes a matter of making sure that the people in your organization are up to speed. And um, I think Tasha had an incredible case study that she shared about what, how she saw this kind of go sideways um, in her own practice. Okay,

[00:24:35.66] spk_0:
Natasha before you tell that story, aren’t there? There’s also scores of smaller companies that are devoted to nonprofit financial management we through the years. And non profit radio I’ve had one or maybe two of them as sponsors. You know, there they’ll say that, you know, quickbooks is basically they’re they’re, they’re thinking is Quickbooks is not made for non profits. You have to be able to do fund accounting and things and you know, so we’ve got, we’ve got the software solution that’s an accounting financial management devoted to non profits. You don’t have to modify Quickbooks or Intuit or something. Or maybe intuit’s Quickbooks, I don’t even know.

[00:24:58.47] spk_2:
But

[00:25:03.05] spk_0:
counting for poets, but you know, um, so you don’t have to use these major companies that there’s smaller, smaller apps devoted to nonprofit financial management. Right?

[00:26:34.72] spk_1:
That’s right. That’s right. And it’s funny, I was gonna talk a little bit about that because I think that there are a lot of organization accountants that will say nonprofit accounting is super special and we have to have everything special. Um, and I, I don’t disagree with that completely. But the challenge is it creates a, it creates barriers for nonprofit organizations to be able to um work with some of these providers, especially if the proprietor like proprietary software or things of this nature, What I try to do with our clients is create software solutions that can work with nonprofits have a really low cost point price point on those things. And more importantly, the software is very user friendly. There’s a lot of free training resources. So we actually use Quickbooks. I’m not being paid to say that I have no formal partnership with Quickbooks, but I like the software because if they needed to bring their accounting back in house when working with us, they could find bookkeepers or accountants that have experience with with Quickbooks. And so sometimes I think it’s a matter of preference. I say as an account that has my own preferences for how I like to do things. I think it’s, I can say that, but what I think is um important for nonprofits to understand what technology is available out there to Sandy’s point and how can they use that to alleviate some of the manual um time consuming task going back to not burning out your one person that does everything. If you can find ways to autumn streamline that they can maybe focus on bigger value added work or just simply take a breather or focus on work that feeds their soul a little bit more than just doing data entry into the accounting. So

[00:26:50.44] spk_0:
Okay, Zanny said you have a story well

[00:26:51.15] spk_1:
in this particular case. Sure. Yeah, sure. So

[00:26:54.90] spk_0:
speaking

[00:26:55.97] spk_1:
of tedious work that burns people out and it’s very time consuming. So I started working with an organization way way back many, many years ago and

[00:27:04.76] spk_0:
they, this is not, this is not a story about.

[00:27:07.30] spk_2:
No not

[00:27:12.05] spk_0:
but it’s not okay.

[00:27:14.12] spk_1:
No I have a friend. No it’s

[00:27:15.73] spk_0:
not. Yeah

[00:29:06.76] spk_1:
exactly. No it’s about software and how software can change how we do things. So I started working with an organization which actually is now a client of ours um in a very contract away a few years ago and we realized that they were heavy credit card users, credit cards are debating the existence of all accountants out there for every nonprofit. I promised you can quote me on that. I’m sure. Uh And the problem is that there’s not a good system for collecting the receipts, it’s very manual. Um You have got a copy, you gotta scan, you got a code, you got to get into all the people. Anyway, they have about 20 credit cards that have hundreds if not thousands of transactions a month. The accountant, the finance director um is they hired that person for that high level skill analysis, Financial thought leadership. That person was spending a good week of her month. So 25% of her working days, reconciling and tracking down all of these hundreds of receipt if not thousands depending on the time of the year. And one of the things that we immediately realized this person actually left the organization and the organization was left scrambling trying to replace it. And one of the things we realized immediately, we could save a lot of time. If we just have software, your team is already making copies of the recedes, forwarding it to the account, the account has to use all these Softwares to stamp it with electronic approvals and all that. We could replace that whole manual back and forth email flurry of system with the software, like many of nonprofits out there now use things like expensive fi or dext or or something like this where the user of the credit card actually just takes an image identifies what type of expense it is if it’s designated to a specific funder, um, if it’s restricted or not and then submits it off to the accountant and the accountant just matches them up with what’s actually ending the bank account. So this whole flurry of hundreds and hundreds of unnecessary emails, all of this monotonous detailed work that you’re bogging your accountant down with. Um, now has freed up their time to be able to do other things. In this case, it actually saved them cost because we don’t have to do that much work and it’s not as labor intensive, but if you did have somebody in house that you wanted them to focus on higher value work that that’s more valuable to the organization. You can use technology to do that sort of thing. So I’ll echo what Danny had said.

[00:30:27.33] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. The free offer. It’s still out there exclusively for nonprofit radio listeners, complimentary 24 7 monitoring of your I. T. Assets for three months. They’ll monitor your servers, network and cloud performance, they’ll monitor your backup performance all 24 7. If there are any issues, they’ll let you know ASAP and you will get a comprehensive report on how you’re doing at the end of the three month monitoring. And they’re gonna throw in a few surprise offers as well. It’s complimentary, it’s on the listener landing page, tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant mention deeper. Let’s return to accounting for nonprofit leaders. Tasha, name those couple of resources that folks could look at again.

[00:31:03.46] spk_1:
So again, I like kind of uh out of the box like package is really easy to use expensive. Fi is a really popular one. Um dext formerly known as receipt bank is one. So those are two that work really well with Quickbooks are very user friendly. Um, you can have your people that use credit cards a lot of times they’ll have like apps on their smartphones and so they just take a picture of it while they’re out spending, you know, the money rather than worrying about lost receipts and things like that. So those are two really common ones that are again, really low price point and easy to implement. Easy to use

[00:31:09.49] spk_0:
is dexter D. E. X.

[00:31:11.25] spk_1:
T. That’s right, yep.

[00:31:12.88] spk_0:
Okay. And expense if I. Okay. Yeah. Alright let’s stay with you. Tasha give us another, we’re halfway through our list by the way I’ve been keeping track,

[00:31:22.99] spk_1:
we’re not combining any of these.

[00:31:24.99] spk_0:
Alright if we end up as long as

[00:31:26.49] spk_1:
well we’ll tell you when we run out,

[00:31:29.94] spk_0:
as long as we cover the content. You know it doesn’t we end up doing them uh 10 things but we ate you know ate under eight topics as long as as long as you’re not holding back on non profit radio listeners that

[00:31:39.14] spk_1:
we’re not holding.

[00:31:40.16] spk_0:
That’s my concern. That’s my audit. That is my benchmark. Is that the content is there doesn’t have to be under 10 distinct rubrics. But we have done five anyway. Alright.

[00:34:04.12] spk_1:
Okay so the next one I would say uh that uh nonprofits don’t necessarily realize that there’s not a one size fits all with accountants. And I think I realized this when I started hiring my own accountants and staffing um the work as the charity CFO for on behalf of our other clients. And what do I mean by this like any profession accountants and their experiences, skills and expertise vary. So I kind of divide up in this 80 20. Roll the infamous 80 20 rule 80% of accounting is very transactional input output. You need somebody that’s very good at attention to detail, very consistent, very reliable thrives and routine. They like doing the same things over and over again. There are a lot of accountants out there like that. Um They do a great job Then there’s like the 20% of accounting, that’s the creative accounting but not you know, go to jail creative accounting. I’m talking moving the needle with the organization, building better budgets, building financial models, really thinking how we can implement best practices or re imagining what our accounting function can look like implementing software. For example these are the visionaries. If you will, you can probably guess which one of those I am. I find that most organizations, all organizations need both of those skill sets, the challenge is oftentimes, although the label on the title on the resume or the job is accountant or CFO or controller or whatever, but the reality is there’s two different types of accountants. Now, some people could try to do both but that’s not where their skill set is. So if you took someone like me a 20% and you put me in a job where 80% of my time is doing, you know, detailed work on routine tasks. I’m not gonna stick around for a long time, I want to do things that feed my soul and on the flip side if you take a more transactional tactical accountant, that’s really good and you expect them to solve all of your financial world problems, you’re probably not going to get as far as you would hope. And I think that many organizations think that they could hire an accountant to do all of those things and and I think that that’s not realistic and that’s why we see some turnover in these roles um or organizations struggle with, I just need somebody that does both of these things. And I don’t think people really realize that accountants are not all the same. And so many organizations, money is not such an abundance that we can just both of those accountants.

[00:34:13.35] spk_0:
So

[00:35:27.46] spk_1:
a lot of nonprofits have to decide what’s most important. How can I get both of those um Accounting needs met tactical detail because that’s 80% of the work, you know keep the wheels turning and the bills paid. Um and but how can I also get that financial thought leadership that I’m looking for. So what I’ve seen in some cases that organizations will maybe higher and operate person, I just did a podcast the other day saying like nonprofits are quitting their accountant and what I meant by that is non profits are moving um similar to Danny actually probably speak better to this than I organizations are moving to more of an operations person that’s kind of the hub and spoke and they’re outsourcing outsourcing some of that technical work right? Maybe it’s hr maybe it’s accounting, maybe it’s I. T. But you still have somebody that can maybe do some of the tactical work because they’re on the front lines. They’re interacting with the staff in a more significant way. Or maybe they’re outsourcing that financial thought leadership. Or maybe they have a financial thought leadership in house but they’re using some other staff people to help do some of the bookkeeping. So that again you keep people doing what they do best um and creating work that’s meaningful for them. So not all accounts are created the same.

[00:35:31.32] spk_0:
Not all made the same

[00:35:32.19] spk_1:
as the biggest takeaway.

[00:35:33.35] spk_0:
Alright. Um I have to ask though, are there any accountants who would say I’m in the 80%?

[00:35:39.97] spk_1:
Absolutely.

[00:35:41.15] spk_0:
I’ve got a whole team.

[00:35:42.20] spk_1:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny because I have 32 employees and I would say probably 70% of my staff falls into that and we need to make sure that people see a path that they can take on additional responsibilities but not so much that they’re gonna be overwhelmed. Um

[00:35:59.67] spk_0:
I thought maybe all accountants think they’re in the creative,

[00:36:03.16] spk_1:
definitely not.

[00:36:06.28] spk_0:
Not that they actually are but that they think they are. It’s it’s a self image question.

[00:36:10.31] spk_1:
Well that’s a great point. I sometimes think as accountants are known to have maybe inflated egos of herself. If I dare to

[00:36:20.20] spk_0:
say. All right. That’s that’s where it was coming. That’s where I was coming

[00:36:22.06] spk_1:
from not

[00:36:23.07] spk_0:
where they are but where they think they are. All right, well, we’ll uh we’ll concede that you’re definitely in the 20% because you you can’t run a company called the charity CFO if if you’re if you’re not be the otherwise you’d be the charity bookkeeper,

[00:36:37.98] spk_2:
you’re

[00:36:39.11] spk_0:
not the charity bookkeeper. Alright. Um Danny, you want to contribute something.

[00:38:53.16] spk_2:
Yeah. So, you know, as Tasha was talking and and sort of talking about how, you know, technology needs. Like everyone can just use decks to take a picture and know what account to send it to and have everything all easy peasy kind of ready to go and like technology takes care of it, blah blah blah. Well, you can really get yourself into trouble if you don’t actually know what the structure of your accounting system is. So let’s say you have a program person who is using dext or even just you know, trying to code something on their receipt to share with their accountant. But they put the wrong chart of accounts. Well, the accountants just gonna do what the person told them to do. Say, okay, it’s in this one you told me to put it in there. Um And you don’t want them to be creative with that. You want the budget to match the chart of accounts. You want the chart of accounts and all of the expenses to go to the right place. But you don’t really know if that’s going to happen correctly. If you don’t train the people on the ground making the expenses sending in receipts if they don’t have the right information and you’re not kind of sharing that widely and having everyone understand with the chart of just the very basic things are and what, how to code things for your accountant. You’re really gonna get way off by the end of the year, you’re gonna, it doesn’t matter what fancy technology you have or if you have a 20% or 80% accountant, they’re doing what you’ve asked them to do. And so making sure that you’ve kind of got everybody buttoned up and, and learning what the basics are for your chart of accounts. And there’s not gonna be uh, one size fits all, like list of chart of account for every organization. That’s definitely something that comes out of programming comes out of requirements from your funders, It’s all related to your specific business. So we definitely went through some growing pains as we transitioned and had to essentially redo a lot of our chart of accounts because we realized our accountant that we had previously was sort of getting a little creative about which we didn’t provide any direction. And so they got creative on each month where these different same expense was going in a different chart. And so you have to sort of figure out how to unravel that. And then if it gets too far down the line, it’s really hard to do, it takes

[00:39:22.55] spk_0:
a lot, I don’t I don’t quite understand this one that you have to, you have to, so so you can educate me the way we were all supposed to educate the people who are spending the money when you say the chart of accounts, what why? I don’t understand why this is to everybody who’s out spending money, like you said, share the structure of your accounting system with widely, I don’t I don’t see what why that’s important.

[00:40:27.22] spk_2:
So let’s say, I mean I do this on a regular basis, so this is sort of my job is to make sure everyone in our organization knows what’s going on and how things code correctly. So, you know, let’s say at the beginning of the year, we’ve coded our organization provides professional development training, leadership training and um does some consulting work related to that as well. So we take a lot of our programming and we’ll bring it in house to people. So those are two different things. We have workshops that are open to the public and we have specialized consulting work that we do. So let’s say we have a consultant or a facilitator that we’ve hired to do a workshop. Well we’ve got a different chart of accounts essentially for saying how to split that consultants time. So we have one bucket that says, oh this is our consulting expense. But if you just put it in there and say, oh that’s a consulting expense or you know, this is a hired outside facilitator that we’ve brought in. But we don’t say whether it was for our workshops or for the, you know, the on site consulting specialized work that we’ve been contractually obligated to do with an organization.

[00:40:47.28] spk_0:
How

[00:40:48.49] spk_2:
are you going to know how much you spent

[00:40:50.86] spk_0:
for

[00:41:12.37] spk_2:
each of those different program types? So you really can have, and we have the same facilitators and they do different types of work for us at at all times, but we want to know at the end of the year what was our expense for our consulting work? What was our expense for our workshops and things like that? So we have to be very deliberate and understand when someone’s sending in an invoice or sending in a receipt that they’ve sort of coded that correctly.

[00:41:50.67] spk_0:
Okay, so it’s all a matter of like allocation to the right allocation to the right uh budget line or or general program area. The way you’re describing, you know, you have to you have two distinct areas, You are Alright, so allocating expenses and revenue, obviously two to the right, you know, not just that, it’s it’s just not generic revenue, but, you know, because at the end of the year we want to know what our expenses and our revenues are like in across. Well, in your example, you know, on both sides of the work that you’re doing, right? The public workshops and also the private consulting,

[00:41:58.74] spk_2:
right? Yeah. And so that can be really complicated if you let it sort of go down the wrong path. But you’ve got one of those really complicated federal funding grants and you’re not supposed to allocated a certain amount to this program. It’s really supposed to go to this program. Um,

[00:42:16.88] spk_0:
and

[00:42:17.10] spk_2:
you can kind of, you know, can be a lot of a bigger process to undo later on.

[00:42:22.88] spk_0:
Right, do it right the first time instead of trying to do forensic accounting to try to figure

[00:42:27.65] spk_1:
out. So

[00:42:28.76] spk_2:
it’s important for people who are, who are sending in those, you know, those pictures of their receipts on decks or expense. If I too have coded it correctly, before they send it to the accountant to make sure that they understand what account it’s supposed to go into or come out of.

[00:45:01.97] spk_0:
Okay, very helpful. Thank you. It’s time for Tony Take two. I’ll be on a panel endowment excitement, fundraising and management end quote. So where are you with your endowment? Do you have an endowment? You might be at zero or maybe you have a mid size middling endowment or you’ve got a vast endowment. The other three folks will be able to help you with endowment management principles. You probably don’t have a vast endowment. I bet there aren’t too many listeners who have vast endowments, but for the outliers, there’s something for you in this panel as well, for the vast majority of folks, no endowment or teensy weensy, itsy bitsy endowment or something in the middle. I’ll be doing the planned giving fundraising part of endowment excitement, fundraising and management. I’ll be the fundraising part. Talk about how planned giving is enormously valuable for endowment starting or endowment building. The other three folks there, the smart folks in endowment management. So we got the fundraising, we got the management doesn’t matter where you are in your endowment status capacity robustness, if you like. There’s something for you. It’s August 25 at noon eastern time. Oh and I should say we are sponsored graciously by an ex unite. Thank you and next unite. So to make your reservation, you go to N X unite dot com and you click webinars and panels and if you can’t join us on august 25th at noon, sign up and you’ll get the video. Of course it’s 2022 naturally. So I hope you’ll be with us either live or archive. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for accounting for nonprofit leaders with Tasha Anderson and Zanny Miranda. Tasha. Your turn. You wanna, you wanna contribute.

[00:45:49.01] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah, I’ll contribute a little bit more to that one. But to kind of sum it up for me what I tell people. There’s usually a lot of frustration. I don’t understand my accounting and I usually tell people, it’s not that you’re using quickbooks and quickbooks is not sophisticated enough. It’s that it’s not set up the right way and then the user that’s using it is limited. And what I tell people kind of garbage and not that the work is entirely wrong. Right? It’s accurate. The dollar amounts accurate, the vendor is accurate, but if it’s not in put a certain way, then you’re not gonna be able to get reports out a certain way. So you kind of have to think more globally. Uh, you know, how do you want this to come out and then you have to understand the intricacies of the system in order to get the end result. So what Danny is referring to is just understanding high level, what is it that you want to see? How is that information can be put out and then making sure that the inputs are going in the right way so that you don’t have that forensic accounting that you mentioned trying to go back and figure that out. And so many organizations go through that forensic accounting exercise every time they have a simple report. Um, a simple report.

[00:46:17.39] spk_0:
Yeah, I’ve seen some of that. I know it’s it’s expensive. It’s, it’s time consuming. Didn’t have didn’t have to have been done badly to start with. All right. Let’s move on. Let’s move on,

[00:48:42.83] spk_1:
moving on. So the next one I would say, um, that nonprofit leader should share more about their financial information in their financial position with other people within the organization. And what do I mean by that? I kind of alluded to it earlier that I have been in situations where it’s just the Ceo and I carry the weight of the financial management, the financial, he’s right. And I’m not just talking like, oh my gosh, we have enough money to make payroll. I’m talking about being the person, the point person to explain to the board why we didn’t hit our fundraising goals, why our program contracts not fully utilized, why we were over underspending and salary expenses because we have vacancies in the various departments or what have you. Um, and that’s kind of what we’re talking about. It all kind of feeds together. So if we understand what those KPI S, those benchmarks, those metrics for measuring, we have an accounting structure in place to properly categorize and track these things, not just by thunder, but by department we customize our reporting in a way that’s meaningful. Maybe that that translates to creating a income statement or a financial report, a budget actual by department and then sharing with those that run those divisions of the business, their area of responsibility. That’s where I like to get to that the fundraising, you know, professional within the organization actually gets a periodic report. So they know what they spent in order to raise the money and where we’re at and what we expected them to do the same with the program team, same with anyone else that has that area of significant responsibility. And so often I see that again, the financial person and the ceo bear that responsibility and they end up being the money. Police, can I spend money for training? No, can I do that? It’s kind of crushing for morale a little bit that you have to police every dollar spent. And in a perfect world we would include all of these individuals in the budgeting process. Okay, fundraising department, what what do you need to spend this year? And how much honey are you bringing it? Same with the program team. You know, all of the different people involved. I like to get input from them. They give me their budgets on what they believe they need to spend to meet the outcomes and the objectives that they’ve laid out to do. So if that means we need to add another staff person, if that means we need to pay for more programs, supplies or go to a couple conferences, whatever it is. Um, let me know. So that when whenever you come and say, hey, can I, you know, attend this conference this year, I can then in return say was that in your budget and assuming the cash is available, people start owning their own things and there and we hold them accountable right,

[00:49:19.57] spk_0:
Right? Like delegating responsibility for the budget that you’re responsible for rather than rather than as you said, you know, having to ask, I mean you’re, you’re empowering folks, you’re educating them and empowering them to spend their budget responsibly. And obviously, you know, that’s part of performance review and, and, and through the benchmarks and the metrics that we talked about first, we’ll know whether you’re, whether you’re doing it accurately or

[00:49:26.46] spk_1:
not

[00:49:27.23] spk_0:
wisely or not. I guess it’s probably better than accurately, but Okay, Alright. So like delegating, delegating budget responsibility and accountability as well, of course.

[00:49:39.06] spk_1:
Alright, where’s

[00:49:43.20] spk_0:
the role of the board here, Tasha in should it just be a quarterly review of of the overall financial picture? Should it be every board meeting? Let’s take a board that meets, take a worst case scenario, a board that meets monthly. Do they need to see a monthly financial picture? Can it just be quarterly, semi annual? What, what do you think?

[00:52:09.36] spk_1:
Yeah, So that’s a great question. I think it kind of depends on the organization, uh, small struggling organization, I think probably needs more oversight than one. That’s pretty well figured it out and they’re pretty mature. I would say kind of best practices that you always provide financial reports at every board meeting. Um, maybe you don’t pour over it in a huge level of detail, but the reality of the fiduciary responsibility is up there with one of the top board responsibilities. So I personally would never recommend having a board meeting for which finances were not considered solely for that reason. Um, I will say a lot of the nuts and bolts of the oversight, the financial oversight. Oftentimes happens at the finance committee level. So oftentimes the finance committees will be reviewing more detailed reports on a monthly basis, asking whatever questions they need to ask, then, you know, usually a summarized version of that information is given to the overall board. I mean, we don’t definitely don’t want to spend board time discussing why we’re overspending and office supplies. Right? When we’re ignoring the, you know, the big elephant in the room on why we’re off of our fundraising projections by 50%. I think you had those conversations before. So we want to keep it really high level. Um, but the, the details get done at the finance committee level and the, um, the, the high level discussions happen at the board level. And I’ve seen the spectrum of some boards that are really involved in the financial management so much to say that it probably crosses the, uh, you know, some boundaries in terms of your role is oversight and not actually managing the organization. Um, and then I’ve seen some words that are probably too passive, uh, and will come back around once financially the organization starts struggling. And what I’ve seen that consistent, um, a consistent presence and a consistent accountability from the board. That’s what keeps organizations in a good place. I mean, if you just keep coming in and out once things start to get a little rocky may be having some consistency and some accountability will keep the pendulum swinging from one way to the other. So to answer your direct question, every board meeting I think should have a financial review. Um even if it’s only five minutes to just update everybody on, are we on track or we off track is usually what I like to tell people

[00:52:31.79] spk_0:
and it helps to have a finance committee that’s paying closer attention. If you’re, you know, if your board is has that expertise and and frankly is big enough, you know, a five person board may not, may not be big enough to have a finance committee and you don’t want to have just one person looking at it because that that’s a mistake. I think

[00:54:00.86] spk_1:
I want to say something to before we go into the last one, I don’t want to run out of time. But what I think is the most important thing cause I wanna, I wanna validate what you’re saying that not every board is big enough to have a finance committee. Um and not every board has an abundance of accountants lined up trying to join their board. I recognize that fact, what I think is really important, what I think what I like to do for our clients is to create the financial information um presented in such a way that they can have the board can ask questions and have fruitful conversation. What do I mean by that? Oftentimes they get all these really long reports with all these numbers. They don’t actually know what any of it means. And there’s this intimidation level where many board members just don’t feel comfortable asking questions out of fear of looking silly or uneducated. Right. And so what we do, we put together an executive summary. And so I would encourage anybody listening to have their account and create some sort of executive summary to give a narrative that explains the context or what’s really going on and more of a written format. Because if you just simply give financial reports, you’re gonna keep butting up against the same problem. So what I try to do is create a process that will drive conversations at the board level. So if we write, hey, we are off from our fundraising goals. This is a red flag or you know, maybe not in those exact alarming words, but they may not necessarily interpret that just by looking at the report. So, but if somebody read that, they could say, well, what are we going to do about fundraising?

[00:54:11.56] spk_0:
Right, context.

[00:54:14.57] spk_1:
Yes. Yes. And I think that that engages boards more to have some of those financial conversations. Um, so if that’s not being done, I would really recommend

[00:54:24.64] spk_0:
that. All right. Sandy, you have, we should be wrapping up with another one or two unless we combined or something. But as long as the content is there, you have, Do

[00:54:31.81] spk_2:
you think we combined a couple, particularly around succession planning and making sure you’ve got your processes in place? Because they’re sort of,

[00:54:39.89] spk_0:
we didn’t leave anything out there. Well,

[00:56:31.28] spk_2:
there’s one thing that I think Tasha was almost alluding to and if you if you’re answering yes to any of these questions, does my organization feel siloed? Are we not getting the right reports from my accountant as my program staff and development team, not communicating any of those details about what requirements are or when reports are due. If your board is sort of questioning things and they can’t figure out what’s happening if any of those things are happening, it’s really not your accounting, it’s your culture and so making sure that across the board accounting doesn’t just stop with the accounting team. It doesn’t just stop at the Ceo or the chief or executive level, I should say. You know, it’s really a team effort. Everyone in the organization, from the receptionist to the program staff to the board president, they all need to know maybe not every single detail of course, but they need to have a general picture and an idea of what is happening in the organization. And some people need to have more information than others. Like I would say, a program staff person needs to know very detailed information about their accounting as much or as the same amount. So they can have a great conversation with the accountant to make sure that they’re on track that they’ve got their budgets aligned and sort of creating a culture where you’re unsure what the other program team is making and how much money they have to work with versus how much you have. You know, why does my executive director keeps saying no to me spending money on these things that I think will boost morale or will actually get better outcomes for our program. What’s happening is that if those are questions that you’re having, it’s really time to examine what’s happening in your culture and maybe try to change some of that, um, sort of fear or change some of that mindset around sharing information about money,

[00:56:56.55] spk_0:
accounting may not be your problem. Maybe something deeper. Sometimes technology is blamed to the technology may not be the problem that maybe the culture in the organization Zanny where is nonprofit solutions and where are you? You may not be in the same place as

[00:57:46.31] spk_2:
I know. Now, now everyone can be everywhere. Of course we are based in SAn Diego. Uh, that is not our geographic limit though for nonprofit solutions. I also live in SAN Diego. Um, but we are online, so we do a lot of virtual workshops and trainings and we can also do our contractual work. Um, so if anyone wanted to hire us for leadership training and um, we do have a lot of management training for new managers. So that is all can be done virtually and we’re now that things are starting to get a little bit easier to to come together. We used to do everything in person and so now we’re slowly getting back to in person but I would say the majority of our work is virtual so we can really be anywhere in any time zone. What’s

[00:58:04.96] spk_0:
the website for nonprofit solutions?

[00:58:06.91] spk_2:
It’s N. P. Solutions dot org.

[00:58:11.39] spk_0:
Okay, Tasha, where where’s the charity CFO, wherever you are, That’s where the charity CFO is.

[00:58:27.72] spk_1:
That’s right. Well, our office, our headquarters and all of our team are based here in ST louis Missouri. So although we work remotely with our clients, our team is centered here in ST louis. We do have not Office, we collaborate here, however, um only about 30% of our clients are here in ST Louis, the rest are all over the country from coast to coast. So we work with clients all over the place in the United States

[00:58:38.12] spk_0:
and what’s what’s the website for charity? CFO,

[00:58:40.91] spk_1:
yep, it’s the charity CFO dot com.

[00:58:44.29] spk_0:
Okay, I love I love Missouri because I lived for five years in Warrensburg. Warrensburg where where Whiteman Air Force Base is,

[00:58:53.37] spk_1:
I

[00:59:03.01] spk_0:
was in the Air Force for five years. So I lived in Warrensburg, we used to spend more time in Kansas city because it was closer but we went to some ball games in ST louis. Okay. All right. Uh Tasha Anderson, founder and Ceo of the charity CFO and Zani Miranda Operations Manager at nonprofit solutions. Thank you very much. Thanks for each of you sharing. Thank you.

[00:59:19.83] spk_1:
Got

[00:59:22.92] spk_0:
a great balance between professional C P A. And the the practicing learning client who’s who’s got some significant accounting responsibility but not a C P A. I love the balance. Thank you

[00:59:32.47] spk_1:
very much. Thank

[00:59:33.73] spk_2:
you. Thanks

[01:00:48.65] spk_0:
to our listeners for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 N. T. C. Thanks so much for being with us Next week. Our final 22. NTC show your tech problem is actually a people’s problem. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c. O. And by fourth dimension technologies. Their product is I. T. Infra in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits, but they’ve got the free offer going on. So that is at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D just like three D. But they do want to mention deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, Thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for March 14, 2022: Nonprofit Emeriti With JoAnn Goldberger

JoAnn Goldberger: Nonprofit Emeriti With JoAnn Goldberger

We’re kicking off a new feature, highlighting long-career retirees from the nonprofit community who have ideas, wisdom and experience to share. JoAnn Goldberger is our inaugural Nonprofit Emeriti guest. She shares strategies for getting your org to the next level. You’ll find her on LinkedIn.

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:00:10.04] spk_0:
Hello and

[00:02:07.34] spk_1:
Welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. You’re aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh I’m glad you’re with me, I’d be forced to endure the pain of pancreatitis analysis if you secreted the idea that you missed this week’s show, non profit temerity with Joanne Goldberger, we’re kicking off a new feature highlighting long career retirees from the nonprofit community who have ideas, wisdom and experience to share Joanne Goldberger is my inaugural non profit temerity guest on tony steak too. The jargon jail rules, we’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O. It’s a big pleasure to welcome my inaugural non profit temerity guest, Joanne Goldberger, She had a successful 45 year career as an idea confetti bomb in nonprofit management and fundraising. She’s looking forward to retirement at the end of this month. Her only for profit job was many years ago with the largest Mcdonald’s franchisee on Long Island in new york. Since then it was Mount Sinai Medical Center of greater Miami alexander muss high school in Israel headquartered in Miami carol Child care center in Baltimore junior achievement of central Maryland and finally retirement out of barks Baltimore animal rescue and care shelter Where she grew their $750,000 budget to over $5 million dollars you can find Joanne on facebook she’s retired and linkedin why bother Joanne Goldberger, welcome to nonprofit radio and nonprofit emeritus.

[00:02:12.04] spk_2:
Thank you so much tony and hello to all of our guests today.

[00:02:16.84] spk_1:
Yes, well you’re the guest there. The listeners,

[00:02:19.49] spk_2:
you bring

[00:02:23.94] spk_1:
Them in as guests. Yes, we have 13,000 guests. Absolutes. Congratulations. Congratulations on your retirement.

[00:02:26.58] spk_2:
Thank you. Thank you so much.

[00:02:29.14] spk_1:
What a career.

[00:02:30.24] spk_2:
It’s hard to believe 40

[00:02:32.21] spk_1:
five years.

[00:02:36.54] spk_2:
Who? Thanks now I feel old. Oh, come on. No, you got you have wisdom. It’s not, it’s not longer than most of your listeners lives. That

[00:03:18.84] spk_1:
Could be, I don’t know. Yeah, there’s a lot of listeners who are under 45. That’s probably, that’s, that’s true. But you have wisdom, its wisdom, not age. It’s wisdom, wisdom and experience. Um, no, it’s terrific. Congratulations. And uh, so you have, you have advice around and you’ve done this at many organizations getting to the next level like getting off a treadmill. What does, what does it look like? What, what does, what does the problem look like before we get into your, your ideas about get growing beyond it.

[00:04:03.34] spk_2:
Well, first of all, I’ve been with some grassroots organization and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a grassroots movement to conceive about the organization and what it can be and it’s, it’s a lengthy journey. It’s, it’s not an overnight process. So especially for those newer nonprofits and even the middle nonprofits, you need to give yourself about five years and I was very fortunate when I joined barks because I was there at the time, their first director of development. And they were wise enough to know that they wouldn’t see major results until about five years and that’s an important thought for executive directors and their boards to know when you’re embarking upon a process that it does take time and it really did take every bit of five years.

[00:04:38.74] spk_1:
Yeah. All right. So you need a long term view. But, but what is the problem look like? What what what is the, what is a nonprofit that needs to get to the next level? You know what like small, there’s lots of small donors pursuing small gifts. Talk about, talk about what the symptoms are. You know what it looks like.

[00:05:06.54] spk_2:
Um, I like to call it the moneygram because that’s what we were doing. We, um, our goal was to raise $8 million 750,000 And most of the gifts are small gifts like 50 or $65. So we were burning ourselves out trying to grab all these small gifts and you can’t do that.

[00:05:08.50] spk_1:
And your your goal was $8 million. And you were coming nowhere near

[00:05:11.82] spk_2:
It, nowhere near, not even near $1 million. Yeah. Because that’s an awful lot of small gifts to grab.

[00:05:20.23] spk_1:
It. Can’t be done. It can’t be done 50

[00:05:32.94] spk_2:
dollars at a time. No, it can’t not. And with a small staff no less to um, very few people juggling so many plates and you also need a strong board with a fiduciary responsibility. The board also has to help lead the process.

[00:05:53.14] spk_1:
Okay. And we’re gonna, we’re gonna get to, we’re gonna get to them. Absolutely. Um and events right. It’s like hosting small events That bring in $1000

[00:06:34.24] spk_2:
or $1900 like two or $300 or 300 at the time. There were only 3.5 of us in the development department and we were doing literally dozens of these tiny events every week. So we were killing ourselves and not really raising it any money but we were working around the clock, go to this event on monday and this one on Tuesday and free on Wednesday and you really need to keep the big picture in mind and really grab towards the larger dollar events and also major donors as well because it’s wonderful to have those small gifts but you really need some serious cash infusions.

[00:07:08.64] spk_1:
Yeah. Alright. So It starts with you and you just mentioned it, you know, thinking bigger, realizing what you could be. I mean so barks had an $8 million dollars goal. They were coming nowhere near raising any, not even close to that. But so they had a conception of themselves as a much bigger agency but they didn’t have a plan for getting there. They just kept doing the same thing like you can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting different results year after year after year.

[00:08:59.84] spk_2:
And that’s exactly right. And we, we felt the need to break away from the norm and that took the buy in of our executive director, who was also the founder of Bar barks to take a leap of faith and say, okay, we’re gonna stop this, tell me a minute, see the bigger picture and envision how barks could be raising millions of dollars. And one of the things we started to do right off the bat is we had an annual signature event. We still do, it’s called barks Tober fest and it’s our largest fundraiser of the year. And we struggled, struggled to raise $165,000 each year without one event. And that was through sponsorships and other smaller donations. And it it was a struggle. And then we said, okay, we’re gonna try something new. We’re gonna try instead of it being a community celebration of pets, it was going to be a celebration and reward for peer to peer fundraising for people who raised the funds for pets. And then they’re gonna party hardy at park Stober fist. And we went from the first year of raising 165,000 to over $300,000 just in the first year because we had people who are our supporters were actually raising the funds for us instead of the department, struggling to raise those funds, which of course we did too in terms of sponsorships, but it was awesome to have hundreds of people raising the funds for us and also building awareness remarks at the same time.

[00:11:10.84] spk_1:
All right. So you need to, you need to be willing to experiment right to pivot away from what you’ve been doing for year after year and it’s not getting you even to 1/8 of your goal. Uh, you need to be, you need to be willing to try something different. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They have a free webinar coming up. It’s on March 24 crisis communications, they’re gonna walk you step by step through a crisis communications protocol because you ought to have a plan for a crisis or at least the outline of a plan for how you’re going to manage internally and to the outside some kind of major problem crisis that that befalls you. Um, you know, we don’t even, we don’t even want to get into what the possible crises are. You can imagine them. So I have a plan. If you don’t have a plan or at least the outline You can join turn to its on March 24. If you can’t join live, then you sign up and they’ll send you a link to the recording. That’s the key is the recording. So you go to turn hyphen two dot c o slash webinars now back to nonprofit temerity with Joanne Goldberger, let’s talk about getting this, the executive buy in on, you know, not only the october fest, but you know, on, on, on the, the bigger conception. I mean the Ceo had it in mind though because, because there was an $8 million goal. But how did you get the buy in for pivoting the plan or just like scrapping what you had been doing and moving to something very different? How did you get the Ceo to buy into

[00:11:51.14] spk_2:
that? You know, that concept? Well, it was a process. She was already almost there because she knew we had to raise millions of dollars or the organization was going to falter. So in order to do that, just like what you said, we can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting bigger results. You already proved like this is what you can raise, but this is what we need to raise. Um, and by hiring a director of development because I was the first one that they ever had. Um, they were already half on board with the idea. They knew they had to do it. And so she was trusting and we, we’ve had failures, but we’ve had more successes than failures.

[00:12:59.54] spk_1:
Alright. We’re gonna get to the, the need, you know, talking to donors about the need, We’re gonna, we’re gonna come to that, but we gotta get the, we gotta get the internal first. Um, and you know, of course, you’re sharing your experience from barks, but this was experience gained over 45 Well before barks, I guess it was 35 year career. You know, you knew what needed to be done. It’s not just, you know, this is just come to you and barks. It takes time to develop the confidence in, in a different strategy and then being able to persuade the C. Suite or the one person, the Ceo and then the, and then we’re going to get to the board, you know, about what the potential is and how best to go about this. You know, this, you know, Barcs was the culmination of a 45 year career. So you know, you gain this wisdom over a career and then Barks became the, The lucky recipient of all your 35 years of

[00:14:38.04] spk_2:
experience. And as a matter of fact, um, I had a background in marketing and public relations in nonprofit management. So it all came together at bark. So I didn’t know what to do. I was a little mortified that it was just me and 2.5 other people that had this lofty goal because I knew how much work it would take, but I was very motivated to do it. I wanted us to succeed. Um, and so I started to put a plan in place and you’ve probably heard this other times that those people that can achieve the most get the most handed to them. So in addition to having to raise at that point, several million dollars, I also had to do all the marketing, all the pr all the social media and raise the money and so everything I would come in, I looked like a deer in the headlights, like how could this be? And back in the day. I love how you’re laughing about it now. But oh dear. It wasn’t funny at the time. I know. Um but at the time if I could make one post to facebook and then two months later make another post, that would be an accomplishment instead of engaging others like you’re supposed to. But there was like no way I could get it all done. So I always kept my eye on the prize of how are we gonna raise more money because we need all hands on deck.

[00:14:44.94] spk_1:
All right, the board. How did you get the volunteer leadership to accept this? Radical change in in fundraising strategy.

[00:15:15.44] spk_2:
That too was a process because I was used to working with very high powered boards. Certainly a junior achievement. It’s all suite c suite executives from the Fortune 500 companies. And even when I worked at the alexander must high School in Israel, our benefactor with Stephen must The son who owned the fountain blue for 50 years. The fountain blue

[00:15:19.94] spk_1:
in the fountain blue in

[00:17:37.64] spk_2:
Miami in Miami. Absolute. So he wrote, I had to go pick up a check, he wrote us a check for $1 million dollars just like that, just like without the checkbook and wrote it. So when I came to barks who’s on the board, of course nobody I recognized, but it was all crazy cat ladies and I’m one of them, so I could say that and you know, pet loving people, but they had absolutely no sphere of influence. Um they weren’t able to give on their own give or get for that matter. So that was one of the hardest and longest term processes process um, to turn the board over into a fundraising board. And that took pretty much almost my entire time at barks, which got to start somewhere um because without a board with a fiduciary responsibility, you’re never going to get into the, to the bigger fundraising dollars so slowly but surely we were able to have those board members roll off and they were very dear kind people. We found other places for them at, but not on the board. And one of the first things we did was we increased the giver get which they didn’t have one. You didn’t have to even make a financial donation to be on the board at that time, but we increased it to only $3000 and that got rid of the vast majority because none of them were able to give it or raise it or get it. Um and so slowly but surely we started to bring in more notable people because as many people know if you want C suite executives on your board, they’re only going to be on a board with other C Suite executives. They need other people. And so that was a long process in identifying um members of the board that we wanted and to go after them to attract them. How do you

[00:17:42.34] spk_1:
entice the first couple of of transformational board members? The first one or two or three? How do you? And then I could see, you know, okay, now I could be affiliated with somebody else who is prominent in the area, but but that first one or two, how do you get? How do you

[00:18:36.74] spk_2:
get them? That’s a great question. tony The first thing we did was mine our database to see who’s I mean we had thousands of people in there, but who are they? And lo and behold we had a few Baltimore Orioles and at the time, but it was right across the street from Ravens Stadium, M and T Bank Stadium and Camden yards, we were right, a stone’s baseball throw away. And so we saw that one of our not donors, but one of our adopters was matt Wieters at the time. And so we reached out to him.

[00:18:40.74] spk_1:
I don’t know anything about, I don’t know anything about

[00:18:42.59] spk_2:
sports. It’s OK, he’s not an Orioles anymore, but his wife is still on our board.

[00:18:48.02] spk_1:
The Orioles. The Orioles is a football

[00:18:49.91] spk_2:
team. And now it’s it’s Baltimore oil Maryland’s baseball team.

[00:18:54.14] spk_1:
They played baseball.

[00:19:41.64] spk_2:
Okay, okay. And they used to be quite famous. Not so much now that they’re reconfiguring, but back in the day, that was a big deal to have a sports figure tied to Bart’s. So we reached out and they love their pets where they adopted from us and they agreed to be on the board. Oh, that’s fabulous. Amongst our volunteers. Of which parts has 400 active volunteers. We had somebody that was very engaged and he was um higher up in the Teamsters Union and he was very interested in joining the board and he had he knew everybody in Maryland. He really did. And so he brought with him several other board members and that’s how it started to

[00:19:52.29] spk_1:
get started. Alright, brilliant. So you, by the way, I knew that the Orioles is a baseball team. I was I was I was messing with you. Um

[00:19:59.74] spk_2:
They don’t know now though,

[00:20:02.04] spk_1:
that’s what

[00:20:03.00] spk_2:
most people don’t know who the Orioles are now. All right. What happened to them? Well, they had a changeover in players and they’re they’re they’re they’re struggling but they’re they’re on their way back.

[00:20:16.04] spk_1:
Okay, but they’re still there. They’re

[00:20:17.54] spk_2:
still in Baltimore. Okay.

[00:20:34.44] spk_1:
Go Yes of course I say that all every day I wake up saying goes um All right, so that’s alright, brilliant. You mind your own database, you found a prominent person who has a multiple adopter? All right, so it was in it was there all that time?

[00:20:37.84] spk_2:
It was

[00:20:39.14] spk_1:
right. And someone who could be a very uh major donor to you also.

[00:20:44.64] spk_2:
It

[00:20:45.95] spk_1:
is there you go. Alright, I see. And then then you got your guy from the teamsters union and then it snowballed from there

[00:20:53.54] spk_2:
and, and that’s okay.

[00:21:20.44] spk_1:
And these are folks who are going to want to be on a high powered board. Uh, so they’re gonna start to recruit their own folks as the, as the union guy did, uh, their own friends as as as donors as well as fellow board members. And the organization starts to gain prestige and not these, you know, $350 events on a Wednesday afternoon. They’re gonna think these are folks who are going to think bigger.

[00:22:34.84] spk_2:
And I have to add in that all along the process. We were building the bark story because it started off as a very sad story. We took over the animal shelter from the city who was euthanizing 98 Of 12,000 animals that came to us annually. And by raising more money we put in, we put into place more life saving programs. So gradually over time our live release rate has been at 90% since 2018. So it became the gem of Baltimore city that has so many sad stories coming out of it. But this was really a wonderful story to tell of how we were saving animals lives. And it was due to the entire city. I mean the donors, the supporters, the government, everything. Um, truly took a village. So by creating that story for barks more donors came and larger donors came and more board members came because they all wanted to be part.

[00:22:55.44] spk_1:
Okay. telling the story telling the story of how you turned it around from the, from what a city agency was doing. You almost turned it upside down from 98% kill to 90% live live and survival. Alright. Um, how does grants, How did grants? Manship grants writing play a role in this transition.

[00:24:33.14] spk_2:
So that was a very, very important role because in the beginning we had no $1000 donors, very few $100 donors for that matter. And here I came from a background with people, you know, writing a check for $10,000 or a million dollars and we don’t even have our 1st $1000 donor. So I knew from my past history in grant writing but to get a large cash infusion in the door so that we could start building programs for bars. We needed to write grants. And of course that fell on my shoulders also. Um, But I started investigating grants writing and I got our first grant and probably the first four months that we were there, um, for over $25,000 and then grew it from that point on. But that too is a process because while grants is a huge portion still of the barks budget, it brings in now almost three quarters of $1 million, you have to have okay support from your staff or your volunteers to maintain that grant, you have to implement the program, but you also have to be good stewards of that funding and do all the grant reporting that’s necessary. That comes along with it. But you can always look for volunteers. You can always look for freelance grants, writers. But it was one way I knew to get large amounts of money in the door somewhat quickly

[00:25:16.34] spk_1:
and look if you need to go outside, you know, if you do need to hire someone to do grants as you said, either on a freelance basis or maybe a part time basis, you know, maybe maybe one of your transformational donors can fund that fund that for you. So, you know, you’re, you’re trying to do you share with them the vision for where you’re trying to get to, you need some bridge money. You need grants manship, you know, could it could a donor or to help you across that bridge with by funding some professional help. If you don’t have it in in, in the form of a volunteer or in their inbox case, you know, you were there. Um, but if you have to pay for it, maybe you can get a donor to help

[00:25:30.94] spk_2:
you. That was another thing that barks always does. We always try to get everything. We can donated first before we would ever lay out any money. Um, there’s a wealth of places you can turn to for anything,

[00:29:21.14] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two just recently on linkedin, someone that I follow posted about jargon. So I of course had to mention that I have drug in jail on nonprofit radio and she said, oh, you know, sounds like a good idea she had posted against jargon. I’m not sure if there is a pro jargon lobby, but she was anti jargon. So she loved the idea and then she asked, how does somebody get out of jargon jail? So that was the impetus for me to uh codify jargon jail enforcement. So we now have a jargon jail enforcement protocol, which I am going to read from because you know, I don’t want to misquote the statute because the slightest comma or word, you know, can make a difference in statutory interpretation. So here’s our drug and jail statute. If a guest defines the jargon on their own, they’re sentenced to only probation, no jail time. Then if I have to call them out as offenders and they show contrition and then define their jargon, they’re granted parole. So if I have to identify it and then um, they do show contrition and then they define their jargon. Okay, they get parole. But if there’s no contrition and or no definition of their jargon, they remain in drug in jail and I shut off their mic end quote. Now that draconian punishment has never been meted out on nonprofit radio but it remains on the books, it’s on the books show host. Oh well I guess there is a little bit more show host is judge and jury and there are no appeals available. Okay, end quote. So there’s our jargon jail enforcement regimen statute for jargon jail. I have to give credit to Claire Meyerhoff, our creative producer. She came up with this idea At the beginning of the show 12 years ago. She thought of Jargon jail of course when when someone transgresses the drug in jail statutory enforcement mechanism is triggered against that scofflaw. It has to be, we have to have a, we live in a society based on law and order, right? We know this. So there has to be guardrails boundaries around bad behavior That is Tony’s take two, we’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for nonprofit temerity with Joanne Goldberger and I hope that you are enjoying this new nonprofit radio feature, non profit temerity, let’s turn outside now you start, you’ve got a, you’ve got a much stronger board, a giving board. You’re telling a very different story about barks. Um, the Ceo has been on board for years now you’re starting to go out to external folks. You know, attracting major donors. Let’s talk about how you get those uh, you know or whatever stage it came at, you get those first several $1000 donors and then you’re looking for investment level donors, 10,015 25 $50,000 donors. How do you start attracting these folks?

[00:31:36.84] spk_2:
Well, one thing that we did when we started to get some funding in the door, it was a necessity, a necessity to grow the development staff, Joanne couldn’t do it all anymore. It was, it was too hard. So we started to grow the development staff, which today from 3.5 people when I started is now 10 people. So it’s huge. But we were very fortunate that the leadership and the executive director saw the need like, oh, who wants to add development staff? Nobody wants to do that. They want to add everything else, but they realized in order to make money, you have to invest in the staff. And so we started to grow people internally who could cultivate these major donors and take the time again to look in the database. Because what good was amassing a database if you’re not doing anything with it. Um, and looking to see who those people are. And as you probably know, people love to give to success, not rats off a sinking ship. They want to get, you know, gone are the days of um, terrified fundraising, where it’s like, oh my God, we’re gonna close our doors if you don’t give us money, well, nobody’s gonna give you money because you’re closing your doors. So why should they? But if you could build a story of success and get that out there, um, the donors come to you and that’s exactly what was happening. As soon as we started to get a few $1000 donors, we got more and more and then we started to get monthly donors, which we never had. Um, so we started to build up that base of monthly donors as well. And the board was doing and is doing a tremendous job of attracting others to also donate to Barks.

[00:32:07.14] spk_1:
So the organization has to invest in growth and then the, and in which includes investing in fundraising. You know, you hire professional fundraisers and then you can get those donors to invest in the organization, but you have to invest in growth first in your own growth and then you can attract those investment level gifts

[00:32:36.94] spk_2:
and you’ll also have to paint your organization’s picture as once as, as one of success, no matter what’s happening internally, you still have to paint a positive picture because if you don’t, unfortunately you’ll be dead in the water. Um, because for many years, Barks was euthanizing for space every day Every day. But we didn’t paint that picture. We painted a much brighter picture and a better day where we would be able to reach a 90% live release rate and that’s what people wanted to hear. And that’s what we were able to achieve with their help

[00:32:54.64] spk_1:
right now, we’re getting into the, uh, Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos territory. Remember you know the woman with the pin prick, you know what I’m talking about? She just just had her

[00:33:04.75] spk_2:
trial the

[00:33:06.50] spk_1:
Pin the pin prick technology that was going to diagnose 30 or three

[00:33:09.89] spk_2:
100 different

[00:33:15.14] spk_1:
additions. Yeah. Alright. Right. But you you achieved, You got to where you were telling people you wanted to be, you got to that 90% live release rate

[00:33:46.14] spk_2:
and that was always um the apple or the carrot that we were reaching for um That that was always the mission of barks to turn around that 2% live release rate and change it to 90%. So we knew what we had to do internally. Forget fundraising. We knew what we had to do internally and add all those life saving programs to do it. So that’s why I said in addition to fundraising, you have to be building your organization story and that’s what we were doing behind the scenes and that’s what we were doing with every penny that we raised.

[00:34:09.84] spk_1:
Okay, excellent. Thank you. What did you do with some of those crazy cat lady, former board members. How did they

[00:35:24.84] spk_2:
were really crazy tony It’s a, it’s a term of endearment in animal welfare to call somebody a crazy cat and they’re crazy about cats. But we had like I said a huge volunteer program, we needed cats socialize ear’s and dog walkers. So they clearly loved cats, so we trained them and it’s like come in every day and work with the 110 cats that we have every day, they need socialization so that they could get adopted. So they were happy to do that. And I kid you not somewhere quite piste off that we all of a sudden said, Okay the give or get is $3,000 and they just like stormed off and you know, there was nothing really we could do about that because in essence while we would love to have them back as a volunteer, we wouldn’t love to have them back as a board member. So we had to let those people walk. But um some of them stayed on as volunteers and either door walking of cats socializing. So we’re happy to have them. And I think they were much happier doing that than being on the board.

[00:35:29.54] spk_1:
Okay. Alright. What else? What else haven’t I asked you about now that to make this transformational change.

[00:38:36.52] spk_2:
What other advice do you have? One other thing that barks is really known for is out of the box thinking for how to raise money. Um and I’m gonna give you a few examples in a moment. But if you know who your constituents are and what they love, You play to that audience. So let me explain still to this day are average gifts is only $65, but we get thousands of them and when Joanne was doing social media, that was a joke because I really wasn’t. Right. Right and never looked back. But when we had enough funding, the first person that we hired with, somebody that lived with social media and did social media for bart. And she’ll tell you um, that she was working 24 7 because 23 in the morning, she was checking her phone for anything that she posted, she was engaging donors, um, or engaging followers. And so we used to have a following of 7500 followers and today it’s almost 200,000 and having that many also attracts many corporate sponsors and other people interested in you being an influencer. So that was one of the things we did and she was super creative. So we know that our funding bases primary primarily millennials. And so what do we do? We and this is all attributed to her who is now. She’s taking my role as I twilight away. She’s the director of community engagement we had. And some of you, some of your listeners may have seen it or may have seen it around the country Because everybody knocked us off once we did it bad pet portraits for $10 And our staff and our volunteers draw the most hideous pet portraits you’d ever want. Um, you would pay $10 and send us a photo of your pet and somebody would draw it. Now some of them were beautiful but some look like the pointed teeth. They look like vampires. It was great, but it was so funny and so unusual That it raised us $10,000 with just $10 donations. We had a dog wedding a few years ago because we knew our audience would eat it up and they did the tickets sold out like crazy. And we raised $30,000 from it and we got every single thing donated including The hotel Banquet Hall, all the food, all the liquor, all the music, everything was donated. I don’t think we laid out $300 for the whole thing.

[00:38:49.92] spk_1:
And you married

[00:39:38.52] spk_2:
a dog couple because that was blasted across social media. Everybody couldn’t wait for the big day. We had flour kittens, not flower girls with flour kittens. I mean that was the whole shebang. And one thing I always wanted to do was have a bark mitzvah and I never got to do it, but will one day, but I always had a tiny one. It was many years ago, but I really wanted to do a big one based on the success of the dog wedding and the bride I had was handicapped and had a wheelchair attached to our hind quarters and a very handsome groom. That’s that’s just a well I love you know, yeah,

[00:39:44.55] spk_1:
I love the bark mitzvah too.

[00:39:45.92] spk_2:
That’s yeah, I always wanted to do

[00:39:48.70] spk_1:
that’s better bark mitzvah is better than barks to Beerfest Octoberfest. Alright. But bark mitzvah

[00:39:54.96] spk_2:
works better. Alright.

[00:40:10.91] spk_1:
They’ll get there. All right. But the but the lessons are again, investing in the organization. They they they hired a social manager, somebody or somebody who was deeply invested, obviously deeply loved animals and

[00:41:19.61] spk_2:
All those stories. And that’s another thing. You know, when I was doing my one post every other month, barks gets in 30 to 35 animals every day of the year. There’s so many stories were never lacking for stories and that’s prime for social media, but I couldn’t do it. I definitely needed a person and now we have almost three people at barks doing it because there’s so many followers and there’s so much engagement. A lot of it comes from it and I have to add one other thing. We raised $350,000 a year. Just on Facebook, just from those followers, be it their birthday celebration and they have a fundraiser or just asking outright for donations for very specific animals. Um we raise a lot of money just on facebook, so it was well well worth the investment because the board and the executive director would say, well, you know, we’ve got to pay 40 or $50,000 at the time to hire somebody plus the benefit package. How do we know we’re gonna make that back, We’ll just in facebook we’re raising $350,000 a year. So I think we made it back? Excellent investment,

[00:41:49.81] spk_1:
right? Multiple times. Alright. But that’s an interesting point. What do you say to that? Well, how do we know, how do we know we’re going to get a return on this person? We got to pay $50,000 plus 20 or 30% for benefits. What, how do we know this is gonna be fruitful for us?

[00:42:22.60] spk_2:
And again, it’s just a matter of trust and knowing what could be. And it was a gamble. We had to see and everybody at barks a super motivated, they truly loved animals and will do anything to succeed. And she certainly did. And the money started rolling in. But it could have gone the other way. It could have. But we did our research and we were pretty confident that we would be able to raise a vast amount of money just with social media.

[00:42:37.20] spk_1:
Okay, Again, the willingness to try, you can’t keep doing things the same way as we said, willingness to try something different. Make make the investment

[00:42:38.44] spk_2:
All right. And I should add one other thing if it was to fail. We had plenty of roles in fundraising for her to take over instead. So even though she was doing social media, believe me, there was plenty of place for her if it didn’t pay off.

[00:42:58.90] spk_1:
Yeah. All right. So what does barks look like now after the transformation, you said you said 10 people is that 10 people doing fundraising

[00:43:55.60] spk_2:
all, all different aspects of it, including marketing, public relations and social media. Um it’s all lumped together as um community engagement. So we have somebody just working with corporate donors. Two people working with social media. I was doing grants writing. Um, and then we had other people working with donors under $250 and over $250. So everybody has a little piece of the puzzle so that it’s manageable because in the beginning it wasn’t manageable. Um, we just had to try everything. But you know, this high burnout when you, when you’re juggling that many plates, um, without extra help. So we’re very fortunate now that everybody is doing a certain aspect of development.

[00:44:05.69] spk_1:
So what does barks overall look like now is a $5 million dollar a year agency.

[00:44:10.37] spk_2:
So the goal is still $8 million. Alright, well you’re a lot

[00:44:14.92] spk_1:
held a lot closer than you

[00:45:12.99] spk_2:
were. That that would be the tipping point for barks where we would be able to do everything that we really wanted to do. So we were already raising close to 5,000,002 years ago before Covid, then Covid struck. So of course we had to pivot along with the rest of the world and it was truly grants and the payroll protection plan that helped keep barks afloat during Covid because everybody feared their fundraising tanking and we were very fortunate for the past two years To maintain our fundraising level at $5 million. So we sustained it? But we didn’t grow, but at least we didn’t shrink either. So now we’re starting to bring back in person events, dog weddings coming back again this year. Um, And so we’re poised to start increasing and heading again to that $8 million dollars goal, which is achievable. It’s just, we had a two year slowdown along with everybody else.

[00:45:45.39] spk_1:
All right. Uh, it’s a, it’s a terrific story of transformation, but it’s built on your, On your 35 years before that and now a 45 year career, you know, that that’s the, that’s the value of experience. You know, what to do

[00:45:50.08] spk_2:
have survived

[00:46:31.08] spk_1:
And, and or how to get it done. You know, it’s fine to have an $8 million dollars goal, but you have to have a plan for getting there. So, you know, all the things we talked about about conceiving your organization differently. Getting executive buy in dealing with the board, getting thereby in talking to and transforming the board. Talking to donors about the need, expanding the donor base, grants manship as a transitional tool. That was key. Um, telling the right story, transforming the organization. You know, it’s, these are great lessons, Joanne, your, your, your perfect. Thank you. Congratulations.

[00:46:33.27] spk_2:
Congratulations.

[00:46:41.08] spk_1:
What you did at barks, Congratulations on your retirement, Joanne Goldberger, you’ll find her on facebook, which makes a lot of sense, linkedin. How long is that linkedin? You’re gonna, you’re gonna stay on

[00:46:44.99] spk_2:
linkedin. Why why bother it’s gonna say retired job. Okay, right, yeah,

[00:46:56.88] spk_1:
put some confetti bomb around that. Exactly right, all right, Joanne, thank you very much.

[00:46:58.33] spk_2:
Thanks for sharing your most welcome. Thank you tony

[00:48:16.88] spk_1:
If you know someone appropriate for nonprofit radio temerity, non profit temerity on nonprofit radio please nominate them. You can use tony-martignetti dot com. You can email me tony at tony-martignetti dot com. They should have retired From a long career in nonprofits at least 30 years and please they should have good ideas. Please don’t nominate a mediocre lackluster retiree that’s the status is reserved for me, although I’m not retired yet but I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna have to tell somebody that their ideas are mediocre or middling so please don’t put me in that position. Smart retirees, those are the ones we want smart retirees with a long non profit career, let me know about those folks that is non profit temerity next week fail forward if you missed any part of this week’s show I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c. O our creative producer is claire Meyerhoff

[00:48:34.48] spk_0:
shows social media is by Susan Chavez marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein? Thank you for that affirmation scotty be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the The other 95

[00:48:43.68] spk_1:
Go out and be great, mm hmm.

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