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Nonprofit Radio for May 29, 2023: Equitable Project Management & Make Time For Professional Development

 

Rubin Singh: Equitable Project Management

An automated soap dispenser. One of the most innocuous objects imaginable. Unless it doesn’t dispense soap to people with dark skin. How does bias find its way into technology projects and hurt outcomes? How can we implement technology through an equity lens? Rubin Singh, from One Tenth Consulting, returns to help us understand.

 

 

Kelenda Allen-JamesMake Time For Professional Development

Kalenda Allen-James explains the value of investing in professional development and shares a lot of free resources along the way. She’s with Commonpoint Queens.

These both continue our coverage of NTEN’s 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference, #23NTC.

 

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[00:01:47.10] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with S A trope AEA if I had to see that you missed this week’s show. Equitable project management, an automated soap dispenser. One of the most innocuous objects imaginable unless it doesn’t dispense soap to people with dark skin. How does bias find its way into technology projects and hurt outcomes? How can we implement technology through an equity lens? Reuben Singh from 1/10 consulting returns to help us understand and make time for professional development. Kalinda Alan James explains the value of investing in professional development and shares a lot of free resources along the way. She’s with common point queens. These both continue our coverage of N Ten’s 2023 nonprofit technology conference on Tony’s take two. Sharing is caring. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is equitable project management.

[00:02:12.99] spk_1:
Welcome back to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C. We’re kicking off our day two coverage with Ruben Sing. We are sponsored at 23 N T C by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Reuben Singh. My guest now is founder and CEO of 1/10 consulting Reuben. Welcome back to non private radio. Thank

[00:02:21.10] spk_2:
you, tony second or third. This is our third time chatting to

[00:02:26.03] spk_1:
virtual. Yes.

[00:02:27.27] spk_2:
Good to meet you in person. Yes, for sure. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure to

[00:02:44.06] spk_1:
have you next to me, your session this year is managing projects with an equity lens. I think that’s pretty self explanatory. But why don’t you give us a 30,000 ft overview of why this is important for nonprofits?

[00:03:41.07] spk_2:
Yeah. You know, I, I feel like throughout my years of consulting, it’s been about 25 years of consulting. Now, I’ve, I’ve encountered some scenarios here and there that, you know, I, I’ve always thought were odd scenarios, you know, in the middle of the project, you know, working with consultants, working with our nonprofits where, you know, maybe something was borderline, discriminate, discriminatory or, you know, something just didn’t feel right. And, you know, I, when I was younger in the, in the consulting space, I didn’t really pay much mind to it. I said, hey, I’m just following, you know, my mentors and following best practices. Um you know, I’m learning the ropes. Um But, you know, as I got further in my career and I started talking to other technologists of color, other consultants. Um and uh and honestly, spaces like this at NTC where we have very frank and open discussion about race and technology and the intersection. It really um I realized a lot of these things, I was encountering these projects. We’re not, we’re not okay. They were problem at and in fact, we were allowing bias race um and uh to, to really seep its way into projects. Um And, and not only is that problematic in a, in a larger sense, but it also does not lead to good outcomes for the projects and the systems themselves. What,

[00:03:57.93] spk_1:
what does this look like? What, what kind of forms does the bias racism

[00:04:18.07] spk_2:
take? Um Well, let me give you an example if that’s OK. Yeah. So, um you know, I was working with one organization that uh you know, had really said that and actually, I was, I was very impressed with them that they had very, a very strong diversity statement, equity statement and they even extended it to their goals. They say, you know, what we’re, we have a lot of volunteers were a volunteer organization, but we um we realize that we don’t have a very diverse volunteer group. So this is going to be not only a statement of ours that we want to diversify our volunteer group, but we also want to, you know, we want to implement that in 20 you know, whatever the year was. Um, and just, what kind of work were they

[00:04:40.98] spk_1:
doing?

[00:04:42.87] spk_2:
Um, well, I mean, I don’t want to get

[00:04:45.46] spk_1:
to general

[00:05:57.20] spk_2:
social service. They, they were grassroots organizing, grassroots organizing. Let’s put it under that kind of, yeah, I mean, they’re great organization. So I’d hate to, um, I’m not asking you. Right. Right. But, but I think, um, the, uh, definitely in the, in the grassroots organizing and um you know, they kind of found that they are um uh you know, that they need to diversify their volunteer base. And I appreciated that not only was it a statement, but they had taken a step further to make it part of their goals for that particular year. But then, you know, statements aside, once we got into the project, we realized that um you know, there were certain, uh there were certain algorithms that were being that were implemented in their volunteer searches that actually filtered out a lot of criteria. So they said, oh, you know what, we, we have so many applicants, we can’t, we can’t screen everybody. So we implement these filters and the filters will, you know, the filter is kind of looking at them. I realize it’s really going to leave you with very privileged resource to people, you know, gets an education, family, education, household income, so on and so forth. And so, you know, we have this dialogue of, you know, if if these are really your goals that you want to diversify and you want different socioeconomic um groupings in your volunteer base, then you really need to reconsider this. And it was just a perfect example of how with all good intentions with great diversity statements. But even something as simple as an as an algorithm in their search um was was really letting bias find its way into the, into the implementation. And

[00:06:32.57] spk_1:
that’s an ideal example because it’s so buried. I mean, most people that may have been developed by a developer or it may have not even been developed in house, you know, some developer from like could been years ago may have created this algorithm unintentionally let’s assume biased and it just, it just perpetuates and nobody even knows that it’s there, it’s buried in code basically

[00:06:53.31] spk_2:
for sure for sure algorithms live. And if I’m a developer and someone comes to me and says we have too many applicants, we need to filter out X Y and Z to make it easier. Well, as a developer oftentimes, I’m thinking, oh how can I make this better? How can I make this more efficient? Um And they don’t really think about it. So, so this is where I think, you know, um I take it upon myself as a consultant to, to really and D I practitioner to, to raise these things because again, these organizations have great intentions. They’re just not always able to bridge the gaps unless it’s called out,

[00:07:16.45] spk_1:
unless it’s called out. Right. So, I mean, if you have something like this very deep, how would you ever discover

[00:08:06.07] spk_2:
it? Yeah, it, and that kind of goes to really the title of the session is, is managing projects with an equity lens. So the key point there is, is not really separating things. So it’s not about okay. Well, we have this diversity statement, let’s all celebrate it. And now let’s move on to our project. It’s really um taking every single part of the project anytime. In fact, when we start projects, now, I will ask for, let me see your diversity statement. Let me even if you know, chances are you may not be reflecting on it a lot. Let’s dust it off, you know, after 2020 and, and let’s take a look at it. Um And, and, and just like we review missions and visions of the organization before a project. I want to review your diversity statement that way I can make sure every step of the way I’m asking these questions because, hey, it’s your statement, it’s a priority for you. So as a, as a um a trusted partner of yours, I should make held you accountable to that.

[00:08:30.49] spk_1:
I’m just, I’m concerned, yeah, I understand we’re talking about managing projects. So from the outset concerned about organizations that have any kind of bias uh coded in somewhere that, that they just, they don’t know that. I know. I understand. We’re digressing from your topic. We got plenty of time. Yeah, we have plenty of time. You know, you’re, I’m forcing you asking you to digress, you know, but this is, this thing is buried somewhere or these things, these biases are buried. Uh, what’s our hope of ever uncovering

[00:09:23.13] spk_2:
them? Well, I mean, I think, um, you know, it’s interesting even in day one of the conference here at N T C I, I attended a couple sessions. Uh and, you know, the, the narratives are the points that I was bringing up was not just coming out of my session, but, you know, I attended a session that spoke about audience and campaigns and, you know, developing um content that’s, you know, that, that resonates with audiences um that are often overlooked. And, and, and so it was interesting because in their discussion, they were bringing up a lot of the same points that I was bringing up. So, um I’m most hopeful because of to be and I swear that intend to not put me to this. But I, I think like organizations like in 10 forums like NTC, um you know, we’re putting things out there and I think that’s what gives me hope more than anything. Um You know, we’re raising

[00:09:41.57] spk_1:
consciousness, 13,000 people are going

[00:09:43.61] spk_2:
to listen. Absolutely. So, so, I mean, if that’s, if that is, that alone gives me, it gives me a lot of hope Okay. Alright, we can

[00:10:10.60] spk_1:
circle back to your your specific topic about managing projects so that we have equity focus equity center from, from the outset. Okay. Um How are you? I’m just going to your like learning objectives, how bias finds its way into tech project? Well, I think we talked about that. It happens. I mean, I think probably do you think it’s usually innocuous?

[00:11:24.04] spk_2:
Yeah, I really do. Um and, and it finds its way and, and then I think it also finds its way through what we often refer to as best practices. Um, you know, if I can give you an example, um through most of my consulting career, we often use personas as a way of trying to understand our constituents. So, you know, Mary is a single mother of two and wants to attend the museum, but, you know, is unable to afford the, the, the, the, the entrance fee or the membership fee. Um And, you know, again, I kind of sat through a lot of these things with, you know, feeling uncomfortable but, you know, thinking it was just me. Um, but then I started doing a little research and I realized I’m definitely not the only problem with personas. Um And the idea of, you know, a group of mostly, you know, white folks are sitting in a room deciding, you know, what they’re black constituents think, um that, that makes me uncomfortable and, and, um to the point where I’ve, I’ve raised this and, and I think that although I think persona mapping is a good exercise and can and does have merit, it can be done without race, ethnicity, gender. Uh You can take a different approach to it. You can use archetypes, you can use different models, let’s say, hey, you know, so and so is a person who’s never been to the museum before? So and so is the person who is very interested in education, but not so much interested in the advocacy work that we do. There’s different ways that we can get at um persona mapping without having to get into race, ethnicity, gender. If, if I mean, personally, I don’t think it’s very useful, but um but at a minimum, it surely would make people uncomfortable.

[00:12:08.53] spk_1:
You know, I’m saying that these are these things maybe are embedded innocuously, but they come from the fact that so many software engineers, developers, coders are now middle aged white guys, right? I mean, so it’s, it’s, it’s their own inherent biases built into the code that we’re all living with

[00:12:31.70] spk_2:
and, and to be fair, tony, I also feel I’m guilty of it as well. I mean, because I went many, most of my career not speaking out against these things and um you know, incorporated into my own style. So I think, you know, while you’re right, I think like, you know, um it’s, it’s, it’s not, it’s also the onus on all folks, technologists of color as well. Um, to make sure we’re raising our hands when we’re seeing something like this. That, that, that feels, that feels wrong. Um, so, but yeah, I feel like I’ve, I’ve perpetuated this, I participated in this and, you know, starting my own company. It was, it was one thing that I felt like. Okay. Well, now that we’re, now that I understand now that I know now that I’ve seen it, you know, what can I do differently? What are some different, different things that we can do to, um, to kind of right the wrongs that, that we’ve seen in the space

[00:12:55.60] spk_1:
we’re gonna talk about how all this impacts outcomes. I do want you to remind folks why your company is called one

[00:13:53.63] spk_2:
10th. Yeah. You know, there’s a couple of plays on it. You know, we, um, uh, in the, in the sick tradition, which I’m from, we, uh, we have this concept of 1/10 of our, of our earnings that we give through either service or through funding to, um, to charity, back to the, back to the community, um, to help those in need to help humanity. And it was interesting that that’s a tradition that, you know, is, you know, I grew up with, but as I started delving into non profit work and, and consulting, I realized that we weren’t the only ones that, that, in fact, most religions actually have the same idea and the same, um, or faith traditions have this idea of this 10%. Exactly. So, so it was just one of those things I thought was, hey, this is a pretty cool thing about, you know, giving our money, investing our money in communities. Um And it’s something that, you know, so many different faith traditions and communities have in common. Um There’s another play on it also that nonprofits are really working with 1/10 of the resources that they, that they need. So, so it, it has sort of a couple different meanings. So let’s,

[00:14:03.69] spk_1:
let’s talk about the outcomes of these biases, impact outcome.

[00:15:22.60] spk_2:
Yeah. Um Well, you know, I was given an example yesterday in the presentation that one of the, the sort of suggestions I had about, you know, seven or eight different suggestions on how we can address these issues of bias and projects. And one of the ones I brought up was making sure that, you know, as you walk into as you day one or kick off of the, of the project implementation that you have the right team that’s ready for you. Um And when I say right, team oftentimes with I T projects I walk in and they’re like, okay, here’s our team, it’s the I T director, it’s super users and it’s all technical folks and, and okay, you know, I see the merit to that. But if this system is really meant to be for everyone that I’d like to see people, they’re of different age, of different technical proficiency, different ethnicities, different race. Um because we all sort of process things a little bit different based on our upbringing and our experiences are shared experiences. Um So make sure your team is more diverse. Um And, you know, I start thinking about where that has not happened. Um You know, and, and you, you’ve probably heard the stories of, you know, where facial recognition and AI can go wrong. But, you know, it’s still to this day where sometimes in a restroom that has automatic soap dispensers, I can put the back of my hand underneath it and it won’t, it won’t dispense soap until I, you know, put the palm of my hand up and it will, um, you know, I think back about when the COVID vaccine was first rolled out, it’s a real thing, are

[00:15:31.80] spk_1:
biased towards white.

[00:16:36.17] spk_2:
It’s a real thing. Yeah. And one thing to think about it. Yeah, but there’s, there’s so many examples of this and a slightly different one and probably something many people can relate to is when the COVID COVID vaccine was, was rolled out. Um You know, I was, I called my parents. I said, hey, did you sign up for it? Did you register for it? I said, oh no, we can’t fill out this form. And I was like wondering what’s going on. So I looked at the form and sure enough, I mean, and granted, this was in the early stages and perhaps it was just where I lived but it was multiple pages, four pages long. Uh, you couldn’t save throughout, it was medical history. It was health insurance. It was, um, all kinds of information that people may not have readily available when they’re signing up for a vaccine. Um, and then the entire time there’s this timer going where in 10 minutes if you don’t finish, you have to start over like you’re buying tickets. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Maybe this is okay for, for, for lots of people, but for the immigrant community or for my parents are in their eighties, it was not working for them. And then sure enough, you go on the news and they say, you know, older folks and, and immigrant communities are not not signing up for the vaccine. So, you know, here me and my friends are calling all our relatives and, you know, signing them up. Um So it was just yet another example where, um you know, and there’s many examples of this but of just how, you know, perhaps if there was different folks involved in the process of testing this out, um you know, different ages of different ethnicities and different communities, maybe there would have been a better response.

[00:17:48.12] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Stop the drop with donor box. Over 50,000 nonprofits in 96 countries use their online donation platform. It’s no wonder, four times faster. Checkout easy payment processing, setup fees, monthly fees, pasha contract. How many punitive donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your website? You can stop the drop donor box helping you help others at donor box dot org. Now back to equitable project management with Reuben

[00:17:55.13] spk_1:
Singh. Anything else about outcomes before we move to to some, some methodology about being better?

[00:18:05.52] spk_2:
Yeah, outcomes. I mean, I think, um I think that’s, that’s a key one.

[00:18:07.49] spk_1:
Don’t hold out on non proper radio. Did your session. So you want to hear everything you shared yesterday?

[00:19:54.50] spk_2:
Yeah, I, I think um you know, another point we brought out was and I think it is tied to outcomes is uh iterative development. And you know, you may think that’s sort of a deep project management, you know, concept what does it have to do with equity. Um But I, I do believe that iterative project management is key because if you do bring together a diverse set of folks for you as your project team, they’re not all gonna be CRM experts or digital communication experts. So you cannot just um hand the project group 350 requirements and say, okay, approve them by the end of the week or disappear for two months and say okay, here’s the system test in a week and let us know if it’s done, it’s just not gonna work it if you want to do things with equity in mind. Um and you’re trying to get a diverse audience. You need very iterative development. You need multiple proof of concepts. You need uh several demos because they may just not understand all the terminology. They may not understand all the nuances until they see things. Um because that’s what’s most related to their day to day job when they can actually see the systems in place. So I can’t tell you, Tony how many times I’ve finished a project, you know, early in my career and, you know, someone will finally come to me and say, you know, I’ve, we finished the project. We’re on budget, we’re on time, we checked all the boxes, we’re all celebrating, but I have no idea how this is gonna work. I have no idea if this is gonna be successful or not and I don’t want anybody to feel that way. So, so that’s something that, you know, I, I believe we need to consult differently. We need to keep equity in mind and we need to, uh you know, really take them along for the ride and if the ride is not working, we, we change paths. Um And I surely do. I’m doing that right now for a project um where it’s like, you know, things are not sticking the way because, you know, this is not what the project team does day to day to design systems. So let’s step back, let’s figure out what’s gonna work for you and then we, we’ll adjust our, our project accordingly.

[00:19:57.37] spk_1:
Our listeners are not tech folks. Um, they’re C E O S fundraisers, board members. What can they on the, essentially your, your clients, the users, what, what can they and some of the main leadership positions, what, what can they do to make a difference around the projects that they’re hiring, they’re hiring other folks like you to

[00:20:21.33] spk_2:
do? Yeah. Well, I think, I think definitely, you know, going back to the assembling the right team and having a diverse uh team that’s there. So the

[00:20:28.18] spk_1:
project contributing match exactly what the

[00:22:15.36] spk_2:
users group. Exactly. Exactly. Um And you know, and the key thing is if you don’t have the expertise in house, it’s okay there, there’s, there’s, you know, uh consultants that can help you with accessibility, there’s consultants that can help you with Human Centered design. I’ve met several of the folks here, you know, over the last couple of days. So if you don’t have that expertise in house, this is where I think management leadership can, can bring in those appropriate people. Um And also, um I was working with one organization that said, well, you know, we don’t know how are, how are local community feels about our museum? Let’s say we’ll go ask them, you know, and it’s a different, it’s a different way of thinking. And so this is where leadership really comes into play to say, okay, well, you know, can we do something externally, can we do surveys? Can we do focus groups? Can we bring the community and understand why they’re not attending? Um But I think a key thing also and this may not be something that folks always think about is requesting the right team from the vendor that you bring in. So just as you want a diverse thoughtful team internally, you want your consultants or vendors that’s coming in to also represent that. Um you know, I was facilitating some vendor selections for a particular implementation on behalf of the client. And then towards the end of the selection process, they said to me, um well, you know, the last two that we met, they were pretty much neck and neck. I, you know, they seem to have the same delivery model, their prices are about the same, but I did notice that only one of them had any people of color or any women on their team that they brought to us to demo, this is the solution and to talk to us about the approach. And that right there shows us they’re more aligned with our values than the other one is. And so this is something I tell my, my peer organizations all the time, like if, if you don’t care about equity university in your projects, your clients will and that’s gonna affect your bottom line. So if nothing else, you know, look at it from that perspective. So, so that’s, that’s something I think leadership management can do is bring the right people internally, bring the right people in externally if need be and, and, and feeling comfortable enough to um to uh to ask for, for the right team. Another element of that is in leadership as you’re bringing in partners, incredibly valuable, excellent.

[00:22:36.37] spk_1:
This is what I mean, this is what the listeners need. They’re not the developers, so more of it, I appreciate it.

[00:22:42.86] spk_2:
Yeah, I’m trying get all riled up when I talk about. This is something I’m so passionate about. Feel free to

[00:22:46.88] spk_1:
use your hands. We’re not, we’re not, you can even be obscene gestures were

[00:24:15.56] spk_2:
not recording video, definitely walking around in yesterday’s session. There’s a lot, a lot of hand movement going on. Um But, you know, one of the points I mentioned yesterday also was his partner in vendor diversity. And, you know, this is something I feel strongly about I happen to serve on the Salesforce partner equality uh committee. Um And this is something I’ve been advocating for for a while that, you know, you have um these great tools that allow you to search for different partners. But why can’t we have filters on that to say I’m looking for a system implementer that is run by a person of color or someone from the L G B T Q I A community or from the indigenous community or whatever. Um And we should we know the information. So why we’ve been taking surveys for decades and we’ve identified that there’s a problem with diversity. Well, why not give the customers a choice, why not allow them to apply some filters to say, you know what, this is part of our goals to, to bring in more vendors of color, um or, or owned by, by vendors of color. So, so let’s uh so let’s uh make that a priority, but we have to give them the information. Um So this is something I encourage folks even when I’m asked. Um Okay, Ruben, you know, you’re, you focus on this particular area, but, you know, for digital communications, can you recommend someone? I will make sure in any 23 people that I recommend that one of them will represent a community that is often overlooked in this nonprofit technology space and give them the choice and tell them that and give them the choice. Um Yeah, you can work with this person that we’ve, we’ve worked with for a long time or here’s the advantages of working with, with, with this organization. And I think, you know, by us taking that initiative, you know, um and by leadership asking for it, we’re going to slowly start, you know, adjusting that, that, that power dynamic and creating more balance in the space

[00:24:59.02] spk_1:
so much of it. I think it’s just, it’s consciousness thinking about your software development projects, your, your, your new CRM, your new HR system, you know, whatever it is uh thinking about being thoughtful about the vendors that you talked to, perhaps the consultants that you hired to help you select a vendor. Because that um that’s, that’s an important step in the process of actually implementing, you know, choosing, choosing one is who’s helping you to choose.

[00:25:14.68] spk_2:
And I think that um you know, I get a lot of pushback when I bring this up, they say, oh, well, you know, uh you know, account execs, they have their relationships with people so they, they bring in their, their, their person, you know, they bring in their vendor, they bring in their partner, they bring in the person and there’s no real regulation over that. Um, and, um, you know, you take these larger software companies and they kind of leave it to the discretion of the account executive to make their decisions on, you know, what partners they bring in and frankly, you know, I, I, I work with organizations but this is where the client can say, client can

[00:25:43.46] spk_1:
say something. I’d like some choices, not just your, your preferred. Yeah, I’d like some choices and I want at least one to be a woman owned business or

[00:26:12.63] spk_2:
100% 100% because these preferred partners are not always the best and I speak firsthand. I’ve had undo a lot of messes from these preferred partners and I’d say that, um, and when I sit and talk to other partners, um, you know, uh, where that our partner organizations that are women owned or owned by people of color, they say, yeah, you know, we feel left out of this mix because we all know that if you just leave it to discretion, um that is as we’ve seen, you know, throughout history, that’s where privilege, race and racism and bias, you know, end up being the default.

[00:26:21.68] spk_1:
The cynic in me questions questions, why are these folks are preferred partners? What kind of preferences are they giving? Uh Okay,

[00:26:30.17] spk_2:
I’m, I’m

[00:26:39.84] spk_1:
purely speculating, but you know, the way you’re describing it, the preference seems to not be based on uh talent and, and positive

[00:27:29.55] spk_2:
outcome, not, not from what I’ve seen. And I think, you know, our company is an example of that, you know, we, we are often left out of the, you know, the big marketing efforts. Um you know, and, and um but, you know, when we work with organizations, um our business has been 100% referral after that. Um And, and because we, we are mindful of all these things, we, you know, we have a decent success rate. And so, um and so our business has been 100% referral based after that. We’ve stopped advertising, stop marketing, stop all of that. And, and we often find ourselves um uh being connected with other nonprofits that serve communities of color um because they’re like, hey, you know, just the fact that you’re thinking about these things, uh we are, our experiences are different and the fact that you can even recognize that, you know, we want to work with you. Um So, so, and we’ve been very grateful for that and, and, and, you know, take that very seriously when organizations come to us with that kind of approach,

[00:27:37.40] spk_1:
is there anything else you can recommend for our listeners on the, on the client side that, that they can do, You

[00:29:49.46] spk_2:
know, there’s, there’s probably a couple other things that, that I think are important, things like a project charter, which may seem um, well, everyone has a project charter or that’s really just a very, what’s the charter? It’s um it’s kind of like at the very beginning of the project, it outlines kind of who’s who, what the goals are, um how decisions will be made, um you know, the frequency of meetings who are the stakeholders. So it’s kind of like defines bylaws. That’s great. That’s a great way. Exactly. Exactly. And it’s, it’s always recommended that, you know, the project Management Institute recommends project charters has all kinds of templates for it. But I will say that, you know, practitioners don’t always invest a lot of time in it. It feels like an unnecessary step. Um I in the past have not spent a ton of time with it. But when I started looking at things through an equity lens, I said, you know what, this is really important. If nothing else, um definitely the stakeholders part in the decision making process because if we leave, um unless we have very clear ways where decisions are made, oftentimes, it can end up being the most influential person in the room, the loudest male voice in the room is going to sway the decision one way or another or, you know, a lot of sort of um uh you know, nice talk is happening in the larger meeting and then the executives go on a separate meeting to make it, you know, the real decision. Um And so like, you know, a good charter can help avoid these things and say, hey, look, you know, as a project team, we trust each other. So if there’s a executive decision it needs to be made, we’re gonna make it in the group, you know, at least everyone should be listening to it, everyone should be here for it. Um So I think a clear project charter, something very tangible that folks can do. I think having very clear meeting norms. Um and, you know, meeting norms are very common thing, you know, how we start the meeting, how we end the meeting, you know, who takes notes on and so forth. But I think looking at that from an equity lens, um uh is very important also. So making sure that, you know, the person who is leading the meeting or taking the notes or advising that those roles rotate. Um So again, we’re not leaving, we’re not letting decisions be made strictly through the power dynamic. We’re, we’re allowing everybody to participate equally. So if we allow people to participate equally, the outcomes are likely to be more equitable. Um So even something as simple that, you know, many project managers do charters and norms, you know, it’s just about looking at it through an equity lens uh and tweaking those charters and norms accordingly. Okay.

[00:30:03.00] spk_1:
Have we exhausted that? I think

[00:30:04.47] spk_2:
so. I think so. I think so. Yeah, very good.

[00:30:07.33] spk_1:
All valuable. Um What kind of questions did you get? Anything? Uh stick with you from your, from your session,

[00:32:11.78] spk_2:
you know. Um Yes. Uh There was a couple of questions that um one of the questions which I really had to think about was, well, you know, our organization um does projects with an agile approach and that is our, you know, that is our methodology and that is what we promote that as part of our marketing. That’s what we do. And um and then, you know, they said to me, you know, to the group that we’re also finding it’s not working for nonprofits. And I think there’s an equity, you know, foundation to this as well. And, you know, a lot of nodding heads in the, in the audience. And um and this is where I kind of said, well, you’re right, you know, and, and this is where we need to meet the nonprofits where they are. Um, and this is where the extension models or some of the more popular consulting models are just not, not going to fit nonprofits, organizations that may have a light I T staff or no I T staff or you have an event coordinator who’s gonna be your project manager, um, or, you know, a program manager who is going to be your primary contact. You can’t just use the same models as you would with an organization that had 20 people in I T um or an organization, you know, like I work with that, you know, um we’re midway through an implementation and then they said, you know, the governor of Texas just dropped off, you know, 200 people to our, um to our community center and we don’t, we have no plan for them right now. So, okay, we have to take a couple weeks off or, you know, this gala, you know, was, was, um was in person and now we’re gonna have to go virtual. Okay, we’re gonna take a couple weeks off. So most consulting models and especially agile methodologies can’t support this. But this is the reality of nonprofits in 2023. So it was a great question. A lot of nodding heads. In fact, someone came up to me afterwards and said, this is the third time I’ve heard someone say, you know, model X does not work for nonprofits. So, so I think, um that question was great. And it really, um you know, highlighted the point of, you know, kind of how important these forums are um to start realizing that, you know, the tried and true methods, the models that have worked for other corporations. That’s great. We can learn from it. But um nonprofits are a different entity and we have to take that into account and that’s for the

[00:32:23.72] spk_1:
vendor consultant uh community to be.

[00:33:25.96] spk_2:
Right. Right. And, and also sure and also for the client to, to speak up when, when they feel like things are not going, you know, you know, things are going awry or things are not feeling comfortable. So I think it’s, it’s, it’s on both. Yeah. Um There were other questions that I, I really didn’t have an answer for like, okay, but, but they were excellent questions nonetheless. It was, it was like, um okay. So let’s say that you do approach things with an equity lens. How do you, once the project is over? It was an excellent question. How do you know you succeeded? How do you know that, you know, you, you, how do you measure this? And I didn’t have a great answer for that. And in fact said, you know, I want to think about this and because I think there can be a rubric that can be put together to say, you know, even just the things that we’ve talked about today. Um Did we assemble a team that is diverse. Did we rotate the roles in the meeting norms? Did we make clear decision making details in our project charter? So I think there is a rubric that could be put together. In fact, I’m gonna talk to some of my friends here in the, in the intent community to see if that’s something we can, uh you know, we can draft because, because it feels like something that, that this forum can really add value to

[00:33:31.91] spk_1:
it. And what about comparison of outcomes, maybe a year after implementation versus the year before implementation?

[00:33:38.21] spk_2:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I mean, I think all these things can be measured. You know, it’s, it’s just a matter of just coming up with the right rubric or the right scorecard, we measure everything else. Why not measure this? Yeah,

[00:34:01.15] spk_1:
sounds good. You know, it, if you ever are at a loss for an example of where bias and discrimination have entered our culture for folks of color, think of that freaking soap. That’s, it’s, you know, it’s so insidious and so deep rooted yet it’s a soap dispenser. It’s on its face, it’s so innocuous, it just pushes out.

[00:34:19.72] spk_0:
But the

[00:34:21.50] spk_1:
bias built into that technology, that’s

[00:34:31.16] spk_2:
a striking one for me. And there’s so many of this. And if I, if I may highlight the work of Benjamin who um who does has an excellent book called Race After Technology and many books on the same topic that just kind of talks about the intersection of race and technology and so many more examples of this that are, that are so shocking when, when you, when you read about this, about the bias that encourage the technology that we use every single day,

[00:35:03.44] spk_1:
Reuben Singh, he’s founder and CEO at 1/10. Consulting Rubin. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me, tony. Thanks for your honesty. Thanks for sharing. Thank you, appreciate it. And thank you for being with tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 20. Uh where are we? 2023 2023 the nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks so much for being with me.

[00:36:22.72] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two to sharing is caring. Who can you share non profit radio with friends, colleagues, people you used to be friends with, well know people used to be colleagues with. Yeah, uh your social channels possible for you to post on the show there. Certainly, if you tag me, I will give you a shout out. Might even make you listen over the week. I’d be grateful if you would think about who should be listening to non profit radio, who can benefit from our smart guests. That’s what it’s all about. It’s spreading the words, the wisdom of our savvy guests so that more nonprofits go out and be great. If you can share non profit radio, I’d be grateful. Thank you. That is tony Stick to, we’ve got Boo koo but loads more time, the boo koo is back here is make time for professional development.

[00:36:58.30] spk_1:
Welcome to our continuing coverage of 23 N T C the 2023 nonprofit technology conference. We’re at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits with me now is Kalinda Alan James. She is assistant vice President, Information Technology at a common point. Queens Kalinda, welcome.

[00:37:05.39] spk_3:
Thank you for having me. And I

[00:37:07.33] spk_1:
should have asked you, what are your pronouns? She

[00:37:10.46] spk_3:
her? Okay.

[00:37:30.01] spk_1:
She was good. I got, I got lucky. But I, I got to ask in the beginning, this was, this worked out perfectly because I have such a smart social manager who was organizing all these appointments and someone couldn’t make it. And Kalinda was on the wait list and it worked out perfectly that she’s available. So thank you. It’s kind of last minute, but it is last minute, but it’s perfect. Glad you glad it worked out

[00:37:33.04] spk_3:
with technology we worked with last

[00:37:46.76] spk_1:
minute. Yes. As long as the people are, the people are they’re ready for us to. Um So your session topic is making time for professional development. Do you feel like we are short changing ourselves and others around professional development in the nonprofit space? Yes,

[00:37:56.07] spk_3:
we are tasked with learning new things all the time, but we’re not always given the time or the resources to learn those things.

[00:38:06.72] spk_1:
So we need, it sounds like something from the top, from the top down, leadership down needs to be committed.

[00:38:35.02] spk_3:
So you can top down leadership will make it a much faster process. But from the ground level up also works. Um for example, pre pandemic, I was working in middle school technology three years before the pandemic, I became a Google, certified educator and trainer. When I put this information in the file cabinet at hr they were like, that’s nice to know. But once the pandemic came upon us and we had to move all our students online in three days. Having that information in the file cabinet allowed me to become a linchpin for my company.

[00:38:54.23] spk_1:
So let’s not, let’s not take this learning and stick it on a shelf in a file cabinet,

[00:39:23.54] spk_3:
right? And so this is where when you do get the learning, you have to advertise it. If you’re doing it from the ground up and going into the break room during staff meetings, letting people know that I’m a Google certified trainer allowed me to pick up two or three teachers on the staff who didn’t necessarily have leadership support but were interested and I was able to do internal training. And so this groundwork movement that I started three years before pandemic really prepared my environment to be ready when the time was upon us. Alright, love

[00:39:43.67] spk_1:
it ground up as well. Alright. It’ll but it’ll be easier if it’s top down. Yes. Okay. But not to, not to be discouraged if your leadership is uh I don’t know, reluctant. Yes.

[00:40:05.65] spk_3:
And even at the mid level, you know, with my staff, I have a lot of all my staff members to put two hours of professional development on their weekly work calendar to let them know that, hey, we’re giving you resources during the workday. So we’re not adding a burden to your home life. I also have the same two hours on my work calendar. So they know I have focused time. So I am leading by example. And also now that I am a leader in my organization, I am providing the resource of at least the two hours on the weekly calendar for professional development, which

[00:40:52.82] spk_1:
is a perfect lead into your first takeaway, which is we have time for professional development. Yes. So make the time. I mean, a lot of times, you know, you hear is an excuse of what could be for anything, not only professional development, you know, I can’t find the time and I always try to push back that you’re never gonna find the time you’re going to have to make it. So that’s exactly consistent with what you’re saying, two hours a week on your own schedule, as well as two hours a week on, on the schedule for everyone who works for you devoted to professional development.

[00:41:21.41] spk_3:
And that time is flexible like some of my workers are reading leadership books. Some of my workers are doing independent trailheads on sales force. Other people are like reinforcing things that they’ve been practicing on the job. Other people are collaborating with other people on the team who now have time on their calendar for collaboration. So, but just making the time, let the desired outcome have a place to flourish.

[00:41:29.11] spk_1:
What if we get um pushback from above? I mean, maybe they’re just not, not just reluctant but unwilling to let someone devote an hour a week or two hours a week to professional development. What are, what are like? I don’t know. Are there some talking points? We

[00:42:04.88] spk_3:
can? Yes, so we can start with the economics. Okay. If we have to send somebody to away training with airplanes and hotel rooms for one person to go or we can use the built in salary time to keep people in house and learning as a cost savings. It’s thousands of dollars.

[00:42:14.76] spk_1:
Okay. Very good. Right. Travel, accommodations, conference fees, etcetera. Okay. Okay. Um, anything else any other way to push back against our unwilling? See, sweet person

[00:42:45.26] spk_3:
also when we are doing in house development, we are more likely to align our training with what’s happening on the ground with our company. When we’re on the ground floor, we’re literally looking at improvements that we’re seeing every day in the company. Sometimes when we go away for the conferences, we get the big ideas and try to have to retrofit them to what our culture is. And so this way, if we start with the training internally, the learning is built around our culture. That

[00:43:30.47] spk_1:
makes perfect sense. Yeah. And it’s also going to be built around what we’re engaged in because we’re doing it weekly. So I guess we’re more likely to look for development that is consistent with what we’re maybe challenged with, you know, this month, this week or this month or this quarter. Versus as you said, putting the putting the broad strokes from a conference, you know, trying to squeeze your work into it. Okay, perfect. So um anything else you want to share about having, having time making time? So

[00:44:25.19] spk_3:
even in our personal life, because not all professional development is going to the job, sometimes that professional development is going for you to improve your confidence, to improve your skill level, to make you more dynamic for the dynamic job market. You know, and with that case, when we look at our entertainment time, let’s make sure that our entertainment is actually filling us up, there’s a lot of negative television. And so if your entertainment is not filled and you up maybe take one of those one hours from Netflix and chill and put into some professional development um during the pandemic with all the turmoil, one of the things I did when I couldn’t sleep at night was going to Microsoft Learn and just the raw technical documentation. Calm my mind. Let me know things were okay and I learned so much afterwards.

[00:45:00.73] spk_1:
Okay. Use your time wisely. Uh listeners. You may hear the nonprofit technology conference. It’s the opening keynote. There’s a lot of, a lot of audience raucousness in the background. But uh non profit radio perseveres nonetheless, just letting you know what you’re hearing in the background, we’re all on the exhibit floor together along with the uh the, the keynote audience this morning. Um Kalinda, let’s talk about um free resources. I love having free resources for listeners.

[00:45:34.94] spk_3:
Yes. So when I was getting my master’s degree in my small New York family apartment, I didn’t have a desk. So I used the ironing board and I got a whole master’s degree with a four point oh G P A from an ironing board. We must not be discouraged if we don’t have the latest greatest resources, what we have can get us very far. When my arning board was up, my family knew I was in study time and they left me alone when the iron board was down. It was family time resources that I got was

[00:45:43.14] spk_1:
able to. Were you able to fit a chair into your ironing board or you did your studying standing?

[00:46:37.46] spk_3:
So it was a standing desk at times and I did have a folding chair from the card table. And um free resources I used, I Lincoln learning is being offered by a lot of public libraries with your local library card. Once you register with your library card, you get the full breath of Lincoln learning and with the registration, your certificates for completion will have your name on it, which can be used as continuing education at your job. Another free resource is the library. My local library is the children’s library, but they do take book orders so I can look at the full library catalog and have technical books shipped to my children’s library for me to pick them up. Other free resources are um

[00:46:41.70] spk_1:
that’s a great one. By the way, I think, I think a lot of folks have forgotten about their local library.

[00:47:16.00] spk_3:
Yes. And many libraries have a complete schedule on their website, offering different hands on trainings for computer skills, resume writing and you can go to many of these free things and all is needed is your library membership. Other free resources that I have used is many of the major manufacturers like salesforce linkedin Google have a very robust free training for their technology on their website. Many of those websites do have a badge system. So if you would like to do metrics for your employees as a recommendation, you could do like oh in this time period, I want you to have 500 badges or 500 points. So there is still a way to track the free learning.

[00:47:33.90] spk_1:
Okay. Any other free resources,

[00:47:48.09] spk_3:
other free resources is when you’re on your manufacturer website for different skills. Um Places like Microsoft Google Salesforce, they offer challenges. If you can do a certain amount of self paced learning in a certain time, you will receive a free voucher to take their certification exam. And during the pandemic, I was able to become Salesforce certified for a grand total of $45 by using one of these challenges.

[00:48:09.94] spk_1:
What about the linkedin learning? What kind of topics can folks find their around professional development?

[00:49:03.14] spk_3:
So linkedin Learning has an amazing breath of information. They have products like learn Adobe Photoshop, they do have professional management skills like time management um leading from the top, they have different introductory course work on cloud computing and you get interesting information on the breath of the subject to see if you’re interested in the topic before you invest. So linkedin Learning is a great way to get um uh 11 distinct skill or to learn the breath of a topic to see if you would like to go for a more formalized information in that topic. So this way you can go and do five training videos on cloud computing before you sign up for a graduate certificate.

[00:49:12.11] spk_1:
Okay? And all free, all free. So when you said invest, invest time, yes,

[00:49:43.58] spk_3:
we’re investing time. So the first thing we can do that’s available to everybody is we invest the time and then we’ll invest the minimum resources. You can become a Google certified educator for $15 you know. And so there are entryways into technology and other industries that do have a low cost entry point. And these are the places where we explore and a lot of times when you can show commitment and self initiative and you can present how this is going to grow your position at your company. It’s then easier to come back and get funding from your job placement. All

[00:50:00.37] spk_1:
valuable. Okay. Yeah, you make the right. You can make the case so much stronger. Alright. Um Anything else about free resources before we move on?

[00:50:28.27] spk_3:
Um free resources change at all times, so always be on the lookout. Um I have a podcast um study hall with Kalinda the tech and I also have sorry, my podcast to study hall with Kalinda the Tech. And I also have an Instagram at Kalinda the Tech and on there, I post some of the free resources as I come by them. So follow technology leaders who are offering you these tips and always be on the lookout in your free newspaper and your local library for resources as they come by.

[00:50:47.72] spk_1:
And let’s move to um sharing. We have a responsibility you believe, to share what we learn.

[00:51:33.44] spk_3:
Yes. The first thing to do is if you learn something, let your job. No, you know, most hr departments are putting together in internal repository, what type of knowledge they have in their company like I said in the beginning, nobody was interested in my Google certification pre pandemic. But because it was on file with, hr they knew they had internal learning that they could tap when the time was right. Also letting people know what you’re studying because there’s people who are studying in silos and you can become a study buddy. Another thing is when you share what you’re learning, it encourages people around you. Um every day somebody is watching your life, a child, a neighbor, uh business partner, you have a community person that you shop with and when you show growth and change, it gives them hope that they can also have growth and change.

[00:52:01.13] spk_1:
Yes. All right. Um What about mentoring is that is that related to professional development? Having a mentor, mentoring? If you are more senior like you are, yes, you see a role in around mentoring for professional

[00:53:03.64] spk_3:
development. Yes, mentoring does um definitely help and have a place in professional development. But what mentees need to know is they’re going to have to do the work to drive the relationship. So when you show up for your mentor session, you need to come with direct questions, you need to come with focused thought. And if you are given task tools or recommendations, make sure you follow through and report back. Um Mentors generally are at a place in their life where their time is being called in different directions. So entering a mentee relationship thinking that you’re speaking to an oracle that’s going to give you all the answers with a magic wand is the wrong approach. So, entering the mentee, mentor relationship as a mentee, come prepared, come focus and be prepared to work.

[00:53:13.35] spk_1:
What do you see as the mentors responsibilities?

[00:53:42.46] spk_3:
The mentors responsibility is to let them know that they have to be their first advocate that you have to have a direction. And I’m here as a guide and that my blueprint as a mentor came in a distinct time and place in history. So what worked for me might not actually work for you if you’re looking at my life as an exact blueprint, but I do have guiding principles that can help you in any time and place. It sounds like

[00:54:01.19] spk_1:
you’ve done mentoring, formal mentoring. Um any story you can you care to share about mentoring, maybe, maybe something you learned as a mentor or of course a great outcome for a mentee. And

[00:55:24.99] spk_3:
so the thing is we have stories. So the thing is when I started my career way back in 2001 black women in technology, technology leadership was not what I saw. There was nobody like looking like me in the corner office. So my first mentors were black women in the secretary pool. And what they offered me was a deep dive lesson in the company culture, letting me know who the movers and players were explaining the fiscal calendar to me knowing when would be the appropriate time to ask for a raise when people would be having money discussions. And so when we’re looking for mentorship, we have to realize there’s a lot of breath of life experience as well as technical experience that can be shared in these relationships. One of my mentors that was invaluable was a professional woman who had a um personal tragedy in her life. And like what she shared with me was how to grieve on your lunch break, fix your makeup and go back into a board meeting. You know,

[00:55:25.92] spk_1:
that’s, that’s touching and sweet and also enormously practical and

[00:56:39.75] spk_3:
valuable because people are introducing the bring your whole self to work mantra, but not all companies are there. So having mentorship like that about how to read a room, how to understand my company culture is great. I recently had a summer intern that I was mentoring with my company. We offer internships for many of the people in New York City through the summer youth employment program. And so we’re working with young people all the time at the first steps of their careers through internship. And one of the things I remind my intern was when looking for a job, please understand you cannot work for a company without participating in their culture. And he had a secondary internship for the fall and he relayed back to me. Thank you so much for the advice, all the interns who skipped the social gatherings over the summer were not offered full time jobs for after graduation. Um Because at these social gatherings, they were able to meet people throughout the whole company and different departments hire at different times versus being at your internship in one department, not realizing what’s going on with the rest of the company.

[00:57:19.89] spk_1:
Also, the social time is just an opportunity to get to know somebody in a, in a wider breath. You know, I think a lot of hiring is, is this somebody I’d like to have lunch with, you know, that I could socialize with there may or may not be that opportunity once you’re hired. But is it somebody, you know, basically like somebody I like and they’ll get to figure out that they like you if they can see more of you than just your work self.

[00:57:44.89] spk_3:
Yes. And this is the great time to bring up the professional development you’ve been doing that is outside the scope of your every day, you know, this is where, oh, we’re talking about this over the pool table. Oh, I just was taking a geology class online, you know, this fits in so well with that, it just gives you more organic conversations to talk about the things you’re interested in, the things you’re pursuing?

[00:57:53.84] spk_1:
Alright, Kalinda, anything else that you want to share about professional development that we haven’t talked about yet? And you’re gonna, I don’t, I don’t want to shortchange non profit radio listeners. So anything you’re going to cover in the session tomorrow that we haven’t talked about.

[00:58:22.01] spk_3:
So I would also like you to remember that all professional development doesn’t have to be formalized. You know, even taking time to listen to a book on tape that gives you three new ideas or changes your mindset. So you walk into work happier, more fulfilled is also valuable. So not all professional development is going to take a semester long. It could just be a nice beach read in the summer one that includes a professional leadership book

[00:58:57.15] spk_1:
and you know, you should, you should share your professional development formally. Also, I’m sure you said this earlier, but I’m just kind of reinforcing for myself. You want your supervisors to know how you’re spending your professional development time. Yes. What you’ve achieved certificates or even just learning, just learning that maybe not doesn’t come with a certificate. Yes.

[01:00:19.78] spk_3:
And you definitely, it’s always great to let people know what you’re working on, what ideas you’re like, brainstorming that you can bring to the company. And these are like at the water cooler during your official Super Vision’s setting your goal sets for the year. These are all great times to talk about it and self promotion could be self advocacy. So we are not being Braggarts, we’re sharing the information we have so we can be a resource. That’s why I’m telling you that I have a master’s degree that’s why I’m telling you what I’m certified in. So I can be a resource. Like my whole goal is to learn and give back and change my community. Like when I learned that we can do free cover letters in Google and they have a whole online training, teaching you the Google products based on a cover letter. This is going to totally help my neighbor who can’t invest in a $2000 employment coach being advertised on linkedin.

[01:00:50.37] spk_1:
You make a very good point too about self promotion. So many folks are, you know, fearful of that, they feel they are bragging like you said, and it’s not you, you position it very well to say, you know, you’re positioning yourself as a resource to the, to the organization, to your superiors, to your peers, to not only your supervisors, but, um, it’s unfortunate that so many folks are hesitant to talk themselves

[01:00:56.16] spk_3:
up. Yes. And this is where like a good leadership book can help you to help you refine that mindset. You know, in the classroom, we’re not supposed to talk about grades, you know, we’re supposed to keep them secret. We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. But like that mindset doesn’t necessarily work in the work force.

[01:01:43.20] spk_1:
There’s a session here at N T C and I’m interviewing the woman who’s running it about having a powerful voice. What is like, what is voice for power, something like that? I’m talking to her later today. That’s just 11 instance of uh I guess building confidence, you know, sounding confident exudes confidence may be trembling inside, but can you at least sound confident? Yes.

[01:01:45.57] spk_3:
And the thing is it’s much easier to access your confidence when you understand your purpose.

[01:01:53.91] spk_1:
Oh, very good. Spell that out a little. That’s excellent.

[01:02:41.13] spk_3:
So for me, I am a messenger and it is my job to get the message out. Public speaking wasn’t my first choice but public speaking and doing panels at places like N T C allows me to get this much needed information out. There are so many people in these current times who just can’t invest a $10,000 cash payment into a boot camp to change their life. But there are entry point for the free level, the linkedin learning level, the $15 cert certificate level that can get you on the path of change. And those are the messages that I have to get out because my purpose is being a messenger. It’s not being a know it all. It’s not being a brag ID. It’s being a messenger to change people’s lives. And when I know this is my purpose, it’s so much easier to get up and talk on this radio show, to do these panels, to get on the plane and go across the country to have these conversations. Because I know my message is so valuable to my community.

[01:03:26.56] spk_1:
I feel like it’s a perfect place to stop. It’s beautiful. Thank you, Kalinda Alan James, assistant vice president for Information Technology at a common point queens. And she did come across the country. She came from New York to Denver, Colorado and her podcast is study hall with Kalinda the Tech. Alright, thank you very much, Kalinda. Thanks for sharing. Loved it. And thank you for being with our coverage of 23 N T C the nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us

[01:04:44.77] spk_0:
next week, Artificial Intelligence for nonprofits with an esteemed panel, Beth Kanter Allison. Fine, a few Bruce and George Whiner. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box. I’m grateful to Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The 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 B with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

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 May 30, 2022: Mentoring

 

Don Gatewood: Mentoring
Don Gatewood shares his extensive experience with professional and personal mentoring—as both mentor and mentee—so you know what to think about before you enter a mentoring relationship, and what to expect. He’s with The Initiative Baltimore.

 

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[00:02:34.44] spk_0:
mm hmm. 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 embarrassment of blepharoplasty. Jah if I saw that you missed this week’s show mentoring Don Gatewood shares his extensive experience with professional and personal mentoring as both mentor and mentee. So you know what to think about before you enter a mentoring relationship and what to expect He’s with the initiative Baltimore And Tony’s take two help for Uvalde texas. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c. O. And by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. We had audio issues in the recording for this show. I cleaned it up as best I can. Um there were actually a lot of problems in the introduction. So to give Don Gatewood a proper introduction, I’m going to read it now. Don Gatewood is co founder and ceo of the initiative Baltimore. He’s a professional leadership consultant and hosts the podcast. Leadership and professional development with Don Gatewood. He’s lead large teams in program operations, strategic planning, accounting communications, compliance and fundraising for several organizations like the center for workforce inclusion. American red cross and Goodwill industries of greater Detroit and Washington D. C. The initiative Baltimore is at the initiative Baltimore dot com and Don is at Don Gatewood dot com. Here is mentoring. Don Gatewood Welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:02:36.94] spk_1:
thank you so much for having me today. I’m super excited to be here.

[00:02:51.74] spk_0:
I can tell. Thank you, Thank you for being excited. It’s a pleasure. Pleasure’s. So we’re talking all about what was your, what was your entree to mentoring? What did it start as a mentee or did you start as a mentor? How did you begin your mentoring?

[00:03:37.84] spk_1:
Absolutely, absolutely. I’ll never forget it. I was 19 years old at Wayne State University, which is where I went to college, my undergrad and I had recently pledged a fraternity alpha phi alpha fraternity incorporated and shortly after I crossed and became an alpha, I had to decide what contribution or impact that I was going to have on the chapter. After all, they weren’t having people become a member of this prestigious organization and you just sit around and do nothing. So some of my pro fights that you call them, they encouraged me to consider mentoring because there was this new initiative with the big brothers, big sisters of America. It was a new partnership that we had and I said, Wow, that sounds interesting. I’d like to mentor a young man that lives in the Detroit area. I was 19 going on 20 and I was connected with a young man named Jerome who was in middle school headed to high school and that’s where the mentorship bug started for me at the age of 19 years old.

[00:04:04.14] spk_0:
Okay, see at 19, I expected you to say at college that you had a professor or someone who was mentoring, you

[00:04:05.76] spk_1:
know,

[00:04:06.53] spk_0:
jumped in, you took the, you took the role as Mentor, 19. Okay, Alright,

[00:04:11.28] spk_1:
Right. Absolutely, but to be fair I did have some folks who mentored me in an unofficial capacity and I don’t think I had the language to know that it was mentoring in some cases because it wasn’t official, but this was the first time that I felt like I was in an official mentoring capacity where it was defined and understood. So that’s how it all started.

[00:04:46.74] spk_0:
Thank you, you just have the word to find uh since, you know, I think most, most folks have a general sense of mentoring but since you and I are talking in detail about the importance of it and the power of it, what you’re the expert, how do you define mentoring?

[00:05:19.04] spk_1:
Right. So the thing about mentoring, truthfully the term, it’s, it could look a lot of different ways. It just depends on the, the contract, whether it’s verbal or official, whether it’s professional or more social, but there is, there are regulations that are sometimes established with the mentoring in some cases it may be weekly, in other cases, it may be monthly, quarterly, so it just depends on the relationship that was established in the case of the Big brothers program though, I understood that there was an expectation that I would meet with the young person at least monthly and that I would make a commitment to reach out to them or they will reach out to me once a week via phone, email or text. So that was the general expectation. Now to be fair you don’t want mentoring to be so formulaic and so robotic that it feels unnatural for either party cause that’s not fun at all, ideally the relationship will be developed and you’ll find a groove. But in the beginning there has to be some type of parameter of expectations for both parties so that each person feels that their needs and expectations are being met.

[00:05:59.55] spk_0:
So it could even sometimes being writing

[00:06:45.84] spk_1:
absolutely absolutely in the case of like for the Big Brothers Big sisters, it could be in writing and I know for some other organizations when young folks are being mentored in a mentoring uh space right now where with initiative Baltimore, of course we meet with them on a monthly basis, but absolutely in writing it really can help both people understand expectations because see that’s the thing about mentoring someone, we have our own needs, but the mentee, they have needs as well and our job is to make sure that we meet in the middle. So all of those expectations are met because sometimes these mentoring relationships don’t go as well as both parties would hope. And so those written expectations can prevent some of those unfortunate things from happening. And boy do they happen?

[00:06:54.34] spk_0:
Okay, well, since you, since you teased the idea, what are some of the potential problems pitfalls that can arise? So we so we can avoid them.

[00:08:08.54] spk_1:
Absolutely. So depending on the reason for mentorship, there usually is a need, whether it’s a professional development need, whether it’s a young person preparing for college or whether it’s just learning how to be, you know, an effective member of society, people have needs and sometimes that need could be more time sensitive than others. So let’s say for example, I’m in a position where I’m mentoring someone who’s preparing to become a manager, that’s their goal, so I’m there to help mentor them because they’re wanting to become a manager, but yet they have a specific timeline, they’re trying to make this change happen within the next year and so that’s not a long amount of time. So in theory, you would need to be engaging with one another more frequently for both parties to get the benefit of the relationship. So if the mentee has this goal of achieving the goal in a year, but yet the mentor is only available once a quarter, then that process the whole, the information sharing and relationship building that’s supposed to happen so that the information is given and received and learn, it may not happen in a timely way and that could affect the person’s ability to achieve their goal. So that’s in a professional example of what could happen because some people really do need the mentorship, they don’t have it, they need the help, they need the guidance and they’re relying on you to provide that guidance and if you can’t be there in a reasonable timeframe it may stymie their development or their their expected outcomes and that’s not good.

[00:08:57.34] spk_0:
So that goes back to what you had said earlier about expectations, you know if this person is trying to advance their career within a year, make a make a move to management within a year and the mentor is only available four times in that year, you know that that sounds to me like a doomed relationship is not going to get what he or she needs

[00:09:02.04] spk_1:
Absolutely absolutely

[00:09:04.73] spk_0:
right.

[00:09:54.34] spk_1:
And then one other thing to consider in any mentoring relationship, there is a period of trust, so in order for the outcome to be achieved and this is the part that often time isn’t talked about as much as it maybe needs to be is that there’s a trust factor because this person who is the mentee, they may have needs from the mentor but they have to be trusting in order to be open and honest and allow themselves to be vulnerable so they can get that information and so that’s a process that can be developed with the relationship and the bonding, but if that relationship isn’t there, if there’s too much space in between, then the person may not feel comfortable, even when you do talk and so those conversations may not be as effective because the trust in the relationship building did not happen and so as a result they’re not as open. So that’s another thing to consider when we’re talking about engagement and just how that relationship building works.

[00:10:07.54] spk_0:
How do you establish that trust early on in the relationship?

[00:10:19.94] spk_1:
One of the most important things that people like to feel is they like to feel heard and so and understood and so in any mentor mentee relationship, people, they have vulnerabilities, that’s why they’re in the space where they’re asking to be mentor to begin

[00:10:31.10] spk_0:
with

[00:11:58.04] spk_1:
and and so with those vulnerabilities, there could be sensitivities where people can feel shy or maybe feel that they’re not good enough and so there could be a lot of emotional feelings around this area while you’re in their life to begin with as a mentor. So one of the best things that the mentor can do is to, you know, help them feel heard, help them feel understood even in areas where there’s a lot of work to be done, we still have to understand where we are and how we got there and appreciate that person for where they are while we’re working toward getting to a different place, but people have to feel appreciated and heard and not judged because again you’re vulnerable in the mentor capacity and then on the other side, this person who’s mentoring you, they have the skills, they’ve reached a certain level of success and so that can feel intimidating naturally, even if that’s not the intended, you know, dynamic, but sometimes when people look at you, whether you realize it or not, they may feel intimidated or they may say this person has everything that I that I want and I don’t have that and so we have to be mindful of the psychology of the person who’s receiving the mentorship because there’s a lot that could be going on, so by not feeling judged and feeling heard and understood is really helpful towards a person wanting to open up and to continue productively and healthy in a relationship

[00:12:00.98] spk_0:
alright and and building that trust,

[00:12:02.84] spk_1:
absolutely

[00:12:07.54] spk_0:
what’s in it for the mentor, um there’s gotta be benefits, there’s gotta be value for the mentor that that maybe folks don’t think about.

[00:12:17.34] spk_1:
Absolutely, I think that there are tons of opportunities for growth

[00:12:19.92] spk_0:
um for

[00:13:17.74] spk_1:
a person who is a mentor first and foremost, um each of us, None of us are at the pinnacle, I mean we all are growing and evolving essentially, some of us may be more skilled in one area or another, but ultimately we all are still growing and when you are mentoring someone, first of all you’re ensuring that this person has the tools they need to to be successful, um but you in order to achieve that you have to have effective communication skills um in in empathy skills that are not just important in a mentor mentee relationship, but also in the relationships that you have at your 9-5 or whatever professional space that you’re working. Oftentimes the mark of a good leader, a good manager isn’t just their ability to do the function of a job as an engineer, a doctor teacher. Okay, so fine, you can do the job technically you have the background and education, but if you’re in a leadership position, how you understand your team, how you’re able to effectively inspire them, motivate them to achieve the goal, which is bigger than any one person is. The organizational department goal is essential. So some of the tools that you use in the individual mentor mentee relationship are some of the exact same vital tools that you need to use for the team that’s reporting to you, who have goals and objectives to reach on a weekly and quarterly basis. And often times when you ask the person what’s one of their biggest concerns in the in the workplace is that they don’t feel heard they’re not getting the training that they need. And so these, this comes at a cost because companies suffer when organizations and leaders are not in sync with the team. So mentorship can certainly help develop those tools necessary to inspire the people who work for you. So it absolutely has a huge benefit to, to the mentee and the mentor,

[00:15:19.54] spk_0:
it’s time for a break. Turn to communications, They’ll develop your media strategy that means identifying your core messages, defining the channels and the outlets where those messages ought to be heard and then doing the legwork to approach those outlets and as they close those opportunities, crafting your message is appropriately that is a media strategy. Turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o now, back to mentoring I would think for for for both to just satisfaction as you’re seeing the mentee grow, develop, you know, whatever whatever their objectives are, I would say that’s got to be enormously satisfying to the mentor, but then also the the as the, as the comfort of the relationship grows, I mean I could see that being satisfying to both to the mentee also, you know, I could see like personal satisfaction and fulfillment.

[00:15:23.34] spk_1:
Absolutely, and I want to say this, there’s a very big difference between being an expert in the field are good in the field and being able to explain to inspire and to teach their many experts who are really good, but that doesn’t always translate. In fact it could be a disaster when the person is trying to inspire or teach. And so I think in mentorship you learn that there may be some areas where you have to make adjustments to be effective and how your training and how you’re explaining things. So you do learn a lot about yourself your strengths and opportunities. Um, you know, if you’re being self aware of course, but absolutely you learn a lot

[00:16:16.04] spk_0:
interesting, I’m gonna put you on the spot. Can you, can you share something that you learned? You know, uh, you know what I opening for you in a, in a, in a mentoring relationship

[00:16:19.24] spk_1:
like

[00:16:19.63] spk_0:
that you learned about yourself or maybe the organization?

[00:17:30.14] spk_1:
Oh, absolutely. I mean there’s been so many, so many moments that I’ve that I’ve had in my life when I’ve mentored and I’ve learned, but let me see if one example that I’d like to share. Okay, so I once worked in a capacity where I am, I worked with people have been coming out of prison, they had been in prison for whether it’s 10 years or 17 years for whatever decisions they had made in their youth in the past and they had come out and wanted to start their lives in a different direction. And so I was in a position where I had a chance to mentor someone. who was a man who was older than me. And so of course, you know, you make assumptions sometimes when someone is older than you that they have a certain mindset and, and and that wasn’t, that wasn’t the case, that wasn’t the case at all. So I had made some assumptions and I had made some liberties in, in, in judging a situation, but in fact I got it all wrong, I misfired. I misunderstood the situation and where it was. And so what I walked away understanding was that you know, you can look at people and and make an assessment based off what you think you see and what you think you know? But sometimes what you think you see and what you think, you know isn’t true at all. So taking the time to when you communicate with people communicate in a measured way in a thoughtful way and not making assumptions based off what you think, you know was a lesson that I learned because I did make a mistake and quickly though I was able to identify it and make adjustments. But yeah, I absolutely made a mistake. I made assessments that just were not correct at all.

[00:18:05.88] spk_0:
Alright. Thanks thanks for sharing.

[00:18:07.24] spk_1:
Absolutely.

[00:18:38.44] spk_0:
What if the relationship isn’t going so well? Uh you know like both parties realize, you know there’s some frustration. Um you know do you do you take a step back? When do you or when do you say you know we need to stop. You know I need to mentor someone else and you need to find someone else to mentor? You know like what what do you what do you before you get to that point? What what if what if both parties just no it’s not, there’s just something wrong. How do you how do you fix it?

[00:18:41.29] spk_1:
Right. Well that’s a really good question.

[00:18:44.60] spk_0:
I mean like how do you try to, how do you address it at least?

[00:18:48.25] spk_1:
Right. Well, the first thing that the mentor has to remember is that you’re being called on to mentor for a specific reason. There is some need or some deficit

[00:19:00.34] spk_0:
or

[00:22:21.44] spk_1:
some area for improvement that the meant he has. So it’s important to truly understand that because if you understand that, then when you’re met with certain challenges and behaviors that are out of line with how it should go, just remember that this person doesn’t have all of the, that the skills, that’s why you’re the mentor to begin with. So that understanding that could be very humbling. Number two, I think that we should always anticipate that there will be moments where there will be difference of understanding thought and opinion and that’s the reason why I would suggest earlier on in the mentor mentee relationship, you talk about the fact that hey, you know, we’re here too. So I can share with you some of the lessons I’ve learned and maybe it can help you as you grow. But there there may be some things that I say that you don’t understand that you don’t agree with and you know when those moments happen, you know, we want to have open dialogue so we can talk about those things. So when you set that expectation in the beginning where you let them know, hey, it’s very likely that there will be moments where you and I are don’t see things exactly the same way uh those points are important points for us because through those moments will grow and you’ll get the, the lessons that I think that you, you intend to get from me. So we should address that from the beginning and not make it seem like a disagreement or difference and thought it’s such a bad thing. In fact it’s inevitable, it’s going to happen. The question is, how large will it be? Will it be smaller? Will it be larger? But I think by identifying it in the beginning that can help expectations be set? But then also when a person is there is a, there’s you’re out of sync that you don’t seem to be able to be on the same page. I think it’s important to deal with those things directly. And one way to do it is by establishing an advanced a weekly or monthly check in. So it’s already established that on a monthly basis you all are going to check in and see how are things going? What are things that’s going well, what are some of the things that could be going better? So you don’t wait until the problem arises to have these emergency meetings already, have it built into your, your program so that there is a safe space that’s understood to be the time that we’ll deal with these things. And then when you have those conversations, you’re able to say, this is what I’m noticing and this is what I’d like to see and then you can learn from their standpoint why it’s happening and if they can make those adjustments and if not why and then we can come to something maybe in the center, but it may not always work out. It may, but I would still say before, you know, walking away from the mentor mentee relationship, we do need to try to struggle to set new expectations and new boundaries because if you set expectations and then they didn’t work out, the question becomes do you keep setting those same expectations in the future or do you make adjustments to them? Sometimes we have to be willing to be flexible with because at first we maybe thought that this was gonna be the outcome, but based off of what you’re learning, you’re realizing that no, maybe the in goal is going to have to look different now. And once you’re able to accept that truth that it may look different. You’re relieving yourself of pressure and you’re leaving them with pressure because you’re not trying to hold to the same standard that you came up with that you realize now is not realistic. So we have to have some real honest conversations but some more thoughtful um internal conversations as well.

[00:22:30.64] spk_0:
I think it’s there’s great value in having that periodic check in where

[00:22:35.00] spk_1:
you said

[00:22:42.54] spk_0:
it’s a safe space, Tell me how you’re feeling about the relationship, I’ll tell you how I’m feeling, you know, so that it’s not, it doesn’t, it doesn’t break to a crisis,

[00:23:21.14] spk_1:
right? But one thing I do want to say that’s really important because I had a difficult moment once and it’s actually pretty recently And it wasn’t in a mentor relationship, but I’ll say this when there are difficult moments that are happening. It is important that we prioritize the issues or issues that were going to deal with because in some cases you may have identified five or six issues that are a problem. But you have to ask yourself, will it be effective for me to just list all of these issues and problems that I have, you may well not prioritize and identify the top two and deal with those because when you overwhelm people with all these things that you feel are going wrong, it can be hard to process. So we have to figure out what’s realistic and what you need to talk about and deal with and what are some of the things that you can maybe let go and deal with that another time.

[00:24:12.24] spk_0:
Are the mentor and the mentee equal in this relationship or or is the mentor have more of a leadership role? Uh, do you, do you you and, and, you know, I think for our listeners, you know, in small and mid sized nonprofits, they’re most likely to be doing professional mentoring mentoring someone new to nonprofits or new to administration maybe or management or new to fundraising or if not new, you know, junior to them, but conspiring to, to something greater. Um, is it, is it a relationship of equals or or it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t be

[00:25:19.94] spk_1:
right. I think that’s a wonderful question and I think absolutely it’s a relationship of equals. All parties involved in the mentor mentee relationship, they are equal. Even if it’s a dynamic where the person is much younger and the other person is much older, One is a male or female, you know, that one has a PhD, the other has a no degree. The everybody that’s in that relationship are equal in terms of, because each person has to fully show up and participate in the relationship in order for it to work. Now with that being said though, each person has a different responsibility. The mentor inherently has more information about the subject than the mentee. And so when it comes to being a subject matter expert, of course, the mentor has more information. They have more responsibility to help frame the experience and the, and to help guide the mentee when they’re on track or off track. But the minty also has to has to show up and be participatory and they have to again be feel comfortable with the relationship in order to for it to be a healthy relationship. I think that that relationship cannot be successful if both people aren’t showing up fully and the relationship cannot be successful if one person is entering it, thinking that they have more authority and in more power because absolutely not, each person has a role to play and it’s important to understand the limits of that role and not to overstep or under step it because that’s when things can just go bad.

[00:26:30.54] spk_0:
Cool. Thanks. What what are what are some ways you’ve seen folks grow and and mature and and that that could be, you know, that could be the mentor growing and maturing too. I’m not assuming it’s the mentee, but you know, sort of like getting a uh some of that really valuable outcomes. I don’t I don’t really want to make it sound quantifiable or anything like that, but but you know, more of the squishy, you know, like more than the humanity of it. What’s some of the ways you’ve seen either party or both parties, you know, develop, grow, maybe mature? You know, what, what what what what can we aspire to in a relationship like this?

[00:27:54.74] spk_1:
Absolutely. So when to answer that question, I want to think about a relationship that I have or that I’ve had with a with a mentor. Um I have a a gentleman who has served as a de facto mentor in my life. Um and we don’t talk all the time. It isn’t the monthly or it isn’t, you know, weekly conversation, I should have said it’s not weekly, but we do engage in professional and some of the other goals that I do have in my life and one of the things, the biggest benefits that I’ve gotten from that membership or that relationship is the fact that I understand that the journey that I’m on and the challenges and shortsightedness that I no doubt have, it isn’t something that’s unique to me and it isn’t something that other people have not experienced in a similar type of way, if not exactly 100% the same. And just knowing that there’s someone there that can help um honor and validate my experiences and where I am, it has been life changing, not just in that relationship with that mentor, but just in general, me knowing that as I’m on a journey, whatever that new journey or old journey might be that the travels I experienced the challenges or the successes, they aren’t something that’s new, that or impossible, but what I’m on is a journey that is pretty um pretty normal and it’s something that I I can, I can achieve on because others have done it and I think that that’s probably one of the biggest lessons is not, you know, it’s not about learning how to, you know use micro software or how to do this one particular thing that your mentor may have taught you, but it’s more so about that understanding that you know, you have an opportunity to grow, as long as you rely on the resources and the tools around you that you can use to grow and I think that mentorship it teaches that basic lesson that could be utilized well beyond that official relationship ending. It is something that I I lean on with with you know with all of my relationships

[00:28:53.84] spk_0:
so valuable to know that you’re not the only person going having this these frustrations. You’re not the first person to suffer with something or that that that context I think can be and the perspective can be very reassuring.

[00:29:11.54] spk_1:
Yeah and you’re not stupid you’re not a failure because you you you you made a mistake or there was an oversight it happens it’s just a part of the process.

[00:32:03.44] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. Their I. T. Solution is I. T. Infra. In a box budget friendly holistic. You pick what you need and you leave the rest your I. T. Buffet. In other words some of the offerings in the buffet I. T. Assessment, multifactor authentication, lots of other security methods, cost analysis help desk and there is more you choose what’s right for your situation and for your budget it’s the I. T. Buffet I thi infra in a box At 4th Dimension Technologies tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper It’s time for Tony Take two. The murders of 21 people in Uvalde Texas were this week if you’re a quick listener then this is still fresh and raw for you. If you listen to the time shift, it could be two weeks, 468 weeks since these killings the world and our attention have moved on. The people of Yuval Day have not, I’m not sure they ever can, it depends on what moving on would look like. They need our help. If you’d like to make a gift, a vetted place is the san Antonio area Foundation, the Foundation set up to funds. Uvalde a strong fund and Uvalde Strong survivors fund. If you’d like to contribute, it’s san Antonio area Foundation. S A F D N dot org. S A A f D N dot org. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got a lot more time for mentoring with Don Gatewood. If we’re a potential, well we could be either one, you know, we we could be Mentees are listening and potential mentors are listening to. What should we look for If if we if we’re thinking about this relationship as a mentee, let’s take someone there. What what would they be looking for in a potential mentor? You know, before they approached somebody, what what kind of, I don’t know attributes or you know, like what are you looking for in a person?

[00:32:24.14] spk_1:
Right. So the first thing that we all have to do, number one, Congratulations for anyone who’s even thinking about finding a mentor, that is a wonderful step because it identifies that, you know that there’s an opportunity there that currently isn’t in your life. So, congratulations to thinking in that way. But after that point we have to really think about what exactly is it about my life that I think that

[00:32:30.48] spk_0:
I could

[00:33:10.14] spk_1:
use some support or some advice or some guidance in whether it’s professional, whether it’s spirituality, whether it’s, you know, a relationship with a child or a loved one or you know, a wife or husband, what exactly, you know, ceo of yourself managing your own affairs, what exactly is going on? Or are there different areas that you are looking to be mentored in simultaneously? So identifying which it does take some level of self awareness, knowing oneself, knowing oneself, strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. So once you’re able to identify that look within and maybe write it down, I believe in writing things down, people write things down because it it makes it real when you write it down or type it in the computer and once you’ve identified those things, then you can move forward, recognizing the the type of person you need to connect with because they have skills or success in those areas where you have determined to be areas where you’re wanting to grow. So I think it starts with self evaluation and understanding what it is that you are trying to grow in, what are your goals? What are your objectives? What are those areas? And that would be the first step I would suggest.

[00:34:19.74] spk_0:
Okay, and then what what, what is still you know going further than what what are you looking for in someone who or what are you asking them to to commit to? Um Well no that’s different, that’s different. You and you you talked about that you know early on and verbal versus written and the expectations but um you know in terms of maturity um you know accountability you know do they are they someone I I think I can rely on

[00:34:24.76] spk_1:
right?

[00:34:26.02] spk_0:
I’m I’m I’m really just kind of stabbing at the dark in the dark, you’re the you’re the subject matter expert,

[00:36:01.73] spk_1:
right? And so there’s a so there’s a certain level of preparation that you can make which is what I’ve suggested with you know framing the mentorship as well as asking yourself introspective questions. So there are some things you can do on the front end to the best of your ability to create an environment where the mentor mentee relationship can possibly be successful. But you gotta remember we all are just human beings and a person could have all the skills in the world on paper but that does not mean it’s going to translate into a relationship that’s gonna be fruitful for both. So there’s there’s there’s an extent to how much preparation that that you can do in in advance but in terms of you know finding a person of course you want them to be available. You want them to be in a position to to listen and to to be empathetic and you want them to have demonstrated experience in the area that that you’re looking for. But you got to remember that your mentor is just a human to who’s juggling life and has challenges and may have periods where they’re more available and less. And we can’t be so quick to dismiss someone because the mentor who you are, you sort out is imperfect or they are not able to do everything exactly as you had hoped because that’s not the way that it goes. So I think that they do have to have expectations that are grounded in real realism as well because I do think that a mentee if not careful, can put expectations on the mentor. That could be unrealistic. And those expectations can be the reason why the relationship isn’t working. It may not even have anything to do with the value of the person, but it’s just how you envision and when they’re not meeting your your vision then you see it as a failure with really what needs to be adjusted is your expectation.

[00:36:31.73] spk_0:
Yeah. I I guess what I’m getting what I was getting at is you know, something that you said earlier, you know the greatest subject matter expert in the world on something, you know, doesn’t mean that they’re the greatest mentor. No, no,

[00:36:40.16] spk_1:
no, no not not not at all. But I will say this a lot of a lot of folks they do, you know, want to be mentored by someone who has a certain name or a certain reputation in the community and I do get that, but sometimes those folks are not available or they may not be the best mentor because of the other obligations that they do

[00:37:31.03] spk_0:
have. Alright. And if you’re a mentor looking at a potential mentee, it sounds like and correct me if I’m if I’m presuming if I’m presuming wrong, but I’m thinking it would sound like you would want someone who’s done some introspective work, thought about what it is they want to get from the relationship, you know, what, how do they want to grow if if you’re if you’re a mentor looking at a potential menti sounds like you would want someone who’s done that, that that personal work.

[00:39:12.82] spk_1:
Right. Right. But at the same time remembering though that there’s a spectrum, so people show up at different phases and some need more support and some need less support. So you got to remember that depending on who you’re connected with, they may just need more support or there may be some foundational things that you presume that they should or would have, they may not have. So a mentor has to be aware that there may be some things that they will learn about the mentee along the way that maybe they did not see in the beginning of that relationship and if that occurs, how do you respond to it, the easiest thing to do would be to let it go. But I would argue that understanding that there’s a possibility that some things are gonna show up and you got to be prepared and have some space and some latitude that you’ve built into this equation so that when it happens you’re not completely thrown off and you’re really ready to throw in the towel because a mentor, it’s almost like when you think about a you know a basketball team or a tennis person or an ice skater, they have a coach and sometimes there may be a gap there something that they thought the team would be able to learn faster. Or maybe Simona had a tennis player. We thought that with this sort of coaching, she would learn this the slice sooner but she just didn’t. And so whether you do do you just let the person go because they’re moving slower than what you thought. No, maybe you look at your coaching style and trying to problem solve. So it’s problem solving is a huge um part of mentorship or coaching. You know, you can’t just let the team go and let the players because then they’re not where you thought they should be,

[00:39:33.42] spk_0:
there’s such enormous value in this. I I see you know for professional growth for personal growth for both the mentor and the mentee. No it’s just it sounds so rewarding. You know, you’re you’re motivating

[00:39:35.42] spk_1:
at it is very rewarding because here’s the thing, we all have our area of expertise, whether

[00:39:41.52] spk_0:
it’s

[00:40:18.81] spk_1:
education, whether it’s medicine, nursing and it’s not enough for you to be good or passionate about your job. You want to make sure that your field is in the hands of other people who are equally passionate, equally qualified and have the skills to do um good and good faith in their positions. And there’s no people don’t just wake up and swallow a magic pill and have these skills. I mean, some of us really need the guidance from someone. And so for the love of the this professional space or whatever space it is, whether it’s, you know, religious or whatever it is that you do, you know, it’s it’s making sure that the people have what they need to be successful because it it rewards the greater good and we ensure that quality uh is the priority when when we sold back into it. Quality, it’s about quality.

[00:40:57.51] spk_0:
That’s very inspiring. Yeah, thank you. Don. It almost should be the place where we end, but I still want to I want to I don’t want to end yet because I want to give you a chance to. Uh so, so I guess listeners like I’m gonna ask, don you know what he wants to talk about because I’ve been asking all the questions. But so then if you want the inspirational part, you have to go back and play what, what don just said the past two minutes, that’ll be like close inspirational closing. So you’re stuck with a lackluster host, I’m sorry, you know your

[00:41:04.92] spk_1:
but

[00:41:18.51] spk_0:
you know, but you said something very that was very inspirational, but I still want to give you more time. So you know, what is it, what what would you like us to know that that I haven’t asked you about yet? You know, I can’t, you’re again, you’re the expert. What what what more is there that you want us? You want us to know about mentoring?

[00:42:03.90] spk_1:
Well when I turn on the news, when I walk into work spaces and my job, when I think about previous positions that I’ve held when I see the kids walking to school because I have a school, the math of high school right across from the building that I live in and I just see so much opportunity and and so much need across the board. I mean people wake up everyday wanting to do their absolute best. I believe that the majority of us truly feel that way now some of us, I don’t think that’s what we want, but that’s what we think, but I believe that the great majority of us, we really do want to be successful and we really do want to do the best we can, but sometimes we don’t know how sometimes ego, sometimes we don’t have the blueprint or the support

[00:42:17.70] spk_0:
and

[00:42:30.90] spk_1:
so that’s where mentorship comes in and mentorship, it doesn’t have to necessarily be something that you have to do you know regularly. Um I think about my my dad, God rest his soul, he passed away, but my nephew who didn’t, his father wasn’t as involved in his life, but I remember at my dad’s funeral, he talked about the conversations that he had with my dad and it wasn’t a whole lot because they lived in different states, but those conversations were very impactful and they, they helped shape the way he thought. And so I just want you to know that you don’t have to spend seven days a week, you know, for 15 years mentoring someone, uh sometimes some of those valuable lessons and jewels that you have that you impart onto people, even if it’s not every single day they can really have an impact on people. So we should always be thinking about how we can influence someone and how we can have an impact on someone, even if we’re not in a mentorship capacity, we all still have a responsibility, mentor or not to look at people around us and say, hey I see an opportunity right here and although I don’t have a whole year to give, I have this one statement to give and this one statement could have an impact and I think that that’s a way that we all can be involved in mentoring on a small or in a larger way

[00:43:38.30] spk_0:
more inspiration, You’re amazing. Thank

[00:43:40.40] spk_1:
you. Thank

[00:43:44.50] spk_0:
you. He’s Don Gatewood, you’ll find him and his professional leadership consulting at Don gatewood dot com. Don thank you so much for sharing. Thank

[00:43:53.70] spk_1:
you so much. It’s been an honor being here today.

[00:45:09.39] spk_0:
Oh my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Next week. Back to 22. NTC with responding to micro aggressions. 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 4th dimension Technologies IT Infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. A creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy. And this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty Be with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Mm hmm

Nonprofit Radio for September 26, 2014: Critical Development Committee & Creative Commons 101

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Greg Cohen: Critical Development Committee

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Greg Cohen is senior associate at Cause Effective. He wants you to understand how important your development committee is to your board and your organization. What does a high performing committee do and how can you support them? Plus tips on recruiting and mentoring.

 

 

 

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Carly Leinheiser explains what Creative Commons is and how valuable it can be if you need video, images or pubs or want to release your own to raise awareness. She’s an attorney at Perlman+Perlman. (Recorded at NTC 2014, the Nonprofit Technology Conference.)

 

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with red know cora did itis if i saw that you missed today’s show critical development committee greg cohen is senior associate at cause effective. He wants you to understand how important your development committee is to your board and your organisation. What is the high performing committee do? And how do you support them? Plus tips on recruiting and mentoring and creative commons one oh one carly leinheiser explains what creative commons is and how valuable it khun b if you need video images or publications or want to release your own to raise awareness. She’s, an attorney at perlman and pearlman we talked at ntcdinosaur fourteen the non-profit technology conference on tony’s take two, get off a less is back and a very special, a less show next week. Responsive by generosity siri’s you know them. They host multi charity five k runs and walks. I’m very glad that greg cohen is in the studio with me. He is a senior associate at cause effective since two. Thousand six he has provided training and coaching on fund-raising and governance to the boards and staffs of hundreds of non-profits for over thirty years, he’s worked to the wide range of non-profits greg cohen, welcome to studio very glad to be here. We had your colleague susan gabriel on about three weeks ago or so, and i am so in love with what cause defectives work does and how smart you all are on when she introduced me to you, i said, yes, this is definitely an important topic development committee. Please just remind us what cause effective does it’s a non-profits were non-profit ourselves, we’ve been around for over thirty years and where a capacity building group with a focus on helping other non-profits build communities of supporters with a particular emphasis on individual donors. We help them strengthen their boards both for governance and stewardship functions, as well as to make boardmember sze confident and effective fundraisers, aki function and the third area is to advise groups on the strategic use of special events. So not event management, but more the big picture of if we’re going to do something special this year, how do we make? Sure, it aligns with our capacity in our long term organisational objectives, and we don’t steer off the cliff running an event that doesn’t really fit who we are and who our audiences are and that’s related, the third part is related to what susan and i talked about using anniversaries exact effectively, basically when i would say that in a nutshell, it helps you get to the next level for small organizations that are struggling, particularly with fund-raising but also governance? Well, they may not really know that they have governance issues. Um, i think cause effective is a very good place for these organizations again, so it’s, particularly about diversifying funding when we’re talking about fund-raising for groups that have been very dependent on government or foundation, a few sources to diversify into individual donors and don’t know quite what the first steps are in aa strengthening, i think everything every organization feels its board could get to the next level so very much helping boards figure out how to be better planners and stewards of their organization. How does cause effective charge for its work? So about half our clients have a third party like united way. Or a foundation like new york women’s foundation who have funded us to work with them to strengthen them in a particular area. And about half come in having found a source of funding, either unrest, districted or a boardmember someone who feels the topic is important and helps fund our work with them. We also do a lot of work for free through partners like the foundation center and the non-profit coordinating committee, where we offer workshops, i do a lot speaking at the foundation center, i’ve never done non-profit coordinating committee, maybe you can get me in there. I don’t i’m on the board, so you are i’m talking e expected to get me, but i have done a lot of the foundation’s enter through the years on either planned e-giving or charity registration. They have an open house in november foundation center i’m speaking on plant giving a great that open house our development committee? Yes. Why is well, let’s start with why it’s important that we get to whether everybody needs one? Why is your function so important on the board as a committee? So i’m going to get a little high concept for a minute. And talk about the sociology of philanthropy and one of the key principles is that people are motivated to give and respond to their peers people who are like them in a socioeconomic way, perhaps, but i’m sure staff people listening are familiar with the fact that after a while, because they are always speaking to their boards about every possible topic, they’re urging them to fundraise becomes part of the wallpaper just become something that becomes routine. So how do we break through that to encourage and support boardmember sze to fundraise in ways that they can really here and the development committee, which is made up of their peer board members, is a key way for board members to talk to board members as a team about how we’re going to approach fund-raising for this organization, it sounds like even a small board six people should have ah, development committee absolutely so even if it’s a committee of two, although i would work to grow the board and grow that committee that’s important because the other thing is every critical function of a non-profit needs somebody who owns it. So if ah, a lot of organizations think, well the whole board should be fund-raising that’s absolutely true, the function of the development committee is to be the little wheel that turns the big wheel board fund-raising not to be the people who the rest of the board has delegated to go out and raise the money that the port thinks it should be raising, but rather it’s, the people who leave the meeting thinking about how do we move the board forward towards some fund-raising goals in between those meetings, just the way the staff does. A lot of times, i think boards delegate the fund-raising to the staff person, and they see maybe hiring their first director of development as the panacea, the cure all that’s right now, we can relax now we don’t have worry about fund-raising cause we have a director, we hired a director development so it’s his or her job. So this is why that peer-to-peer concept is so important because if we can visualize around every boardmember their facebook and lengthen networks, they’re connected to dozens, if not hundreds of people, but the staff would never have access to those folks were it not for board members willingness to be in front. Of those folk shin’s share their passion for the mission of the organization. So and typically, staff members don’t come in with the multiple of networks that aboard represents. So we say aboard is the vanguard of individual fund-raising and they have to be willing to reach out themselves to connect with other people and that can’t be delegated to staff, even if that the director of development does have networks, they’re not the networks that you, khun that person can bring to the organization their networks of other professional fundraisers, friends and family. But but it’s it’s not appropriate for this staff person to be asking their friends and family just be supporting argast that they work for well, we like staff people teo fund-raising actually, but it’s limited to their network. And if you have six, eight, ten boardmember sze sitting around the table who might offer access to hundreds more people, you’re leaving that resource untapped if you only rely on the staff to do that individual relationship building within their circles. Okay, then what is the relationship between the board development committee and either the director of development or even let’s? Consider a smaller shop that don’t even have a director development where it’s, the executive director. Sure. Well, let me start, actually, with the functions of the development committee, then it’s easier to understand. Taking taking over. All right now, i just think it’s a little. All right, well, okay. You know, i’ll say that it’s in a way the staff leads from behind. So they’re the ones who are the professionals who are thinking of, in a sophisticated way about where the organization could go for fund-raising collecting the information on what’s effective and but what they’re doing is they’re guiding the board leadership into howto have the conversation about fund-raising and supporting their fellow board members, kind of from behind, right? Okay, so so they they may in fact be either masterminding or thinking in conjunction with the head of the development committee or the board chair how we’re going to move this group, but they’re they’re letting the board voices lead the conversation around the table instead of it being their voices thie other thing is there plenty of tools that board members need? They need elevator speeches. They need talking points. They need help thinking out cultivation events to bring their friends in aa lot of different activities and events that are going to need the support of staff, the most valuable thing the boardmember brings is the ability to get someone to respond to their phone call or their appeal. Excellent. Ok, i just wanted to lay out, yeah, i didn’t want to get into detail, okay, don’t upset you, okay, we’re gonna go because right after this break was going to take right now, we’re definitely going to get into what does this committee do? Great. And then we can talk more in detail about the the staff functions to support that in detail. Sure, i just want to lay out the general landscape relationship. Thank you very much for indulging me. All right, we’ll go out for a couple minutes. When you come back, greg and i are going to keep talking about your critical development committee. E-giving didn’t think dick tooting good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, get in. I think. Cubine this’s, the cook said about wear hosting part of my french new york city guests come from all over the world, from mali to new caledonia. From paris to keep back. French is a common language. Yes, they all come from different cultures, background or countries, and it common desires to make new york they’re home. Listen to them, shed their story, join us, part of my french new york city. Every monday from one to two p, m. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Greg let’s, let’s, move right into this. Now, what does this important development committee do? Right? So i said, it’s, the little wheel that turns the big wheel aboard fund-raising so what are the functions of that cock? First thing is, it helps the board have a conversation about what are its goals for fund-raising as a subset of the goals of the overall organization, sometimes an organization says, okay, we want to raise fifty thousand dollars from individual donations this year through a combination of our event staff driven fund-raising inboard fund-raising and that goal sits there. However, the the board itself doesn’t have its own thermometer for its own activities, and commonly there’ll be a board meeting and every will say, you know, we have the big anniversary gala coming up. I know everybody’s going to go out and sell tickets and sponsorships, right? And everybody agrees at that moment, there’s a good feeling in the room, and then they go back to their regular lives and expect, as in the past executive director and the board chair going to pull the rabbit out of the hat so what we want to do is set goals for the board specifics, both for events and overall so of that fifty thousand what’s our board promised to the organization that we’re going to do let’s say we’re going to twenty thousand of it minimum, and we’re going to have a stretch goal a thirty five toward the fifty that way, the exact director knows one they can write that number into the budget and actually spend on it rather than live in suspense until the end of the year to see are the boardmember is actually able to come through and two, it gives a rallying point throughout the year for that board development committee toe work with the other boardmember sze to say, hey, we’re up to fifteen, you know, with this spring reception, we could get toward twenty five of our goal who you thinking of bringing and how much do you think they’d be able to do? So, you know, they say what gets measured gets done and setting goals for board specific fund-raising and having knows that gold monitored, but and supported by members of the board itself is a strong way to actually tow actualize those girls. What happens if the development committee brings these goals to the larger board and there isn’t support for them, so it has to be consensus, right? You can’t the ah, one of the most important characteristics of non-profit is it’s, not a command and control culture, it’s by consensus and, of course, what’s. Most important is that you bring in the board members who have the most ability in terms of your financial goals. But if you have a board with varied economic impact in a diverse board, then you also want goals that have to do with capacity. How many new people worry bringing into the organization? How many new donors without regard to the size of their gifts, how many people are we asking and those air goals that every boardmember can embrace without regard to? Hey, i don’t know anyone of high net worth and your point earlier was that these this is peer-to-peer so its board members in the development committee bringing these goals eggs, activities exactly to their fellow board members versus the staff, and it voids the awkwardness of saying, hey, reach a bigger goal that goes for my salary. Right, you can see where that might not be a most comfortable conversation foran executive director not to set a goal, but to exhort boardmember is that’s kind of hard when it when it’s partly your livelihood that’s at stake, so that’s goal setting the second thing is i mentioned is monitoring toward the goals. The third thing is supporting board members, so checking in and saying, how’s it going? What are you hearing when you’re out talking with your friends about the work or your colleagues at work? Are there additional tools that you need? What kind of events would help you bring in the folks that you think might be most interested in your circle in our work? So they’re they’re getting the chance to ask the board members how’s this process going rather than again? Exhorting people have him leave the room and be on their own teo to meet their individual fund-raising goals there’s the idea that they’re backing them up, and in fact, we advocate a buddy system where each member the development committee takes a few people on the board if you have a board that’s large enough who are not on the development. Committee and works with them over the course of the year in partnership to help them reach their goals. All right, we’re gonna have some more time talking about the buddy system of that. Because it’s ah, it brings back to my boy scout data on ah, we had troops whims. You have a swim in the water front now on the waterfront of been inspected. That’s a part of the truth from you had a buddy system and everybody had to be near their buddy swimming. And these are body checks. So we’re going aboard united now checks and hopefully they’re not drowning in the water. The board members, they’re i’ve taken that foreign so away. Other things that the committee does but let’s sze check in which this support role is this, i guess it’s not on ly at board meetings, but but we can be particularly between the time right took in board meetings is when we’re together. We have ah good feeling of working as a group and being aligned. The hard part is when we go back to the rest of our lives, family and work and our board responsibilities tend to fade in the face of the immediacy of those other things having development committee people checking in with board members in those periods between board meetings is a way to keep that present in their lives. All right, so that’s the monitoring and support role that’s that’s, right of the committee that’s right and listening, you know, there’s such a key thing in all fund-raising but hearing how’s it going for this difficulty thing of asking for money and and and finding out what’s, easy, what’s, hard, and and also because each development committee person is talking to a few people, they start to see what the commonalities are, you know, something’s missing from our pitch, i’m hearing that from several people. What about dealing with the recalcitrant board members so kind of in a version of everybody bring in stories, but sure, if you want to tell me so in a version of the buddy system, one one great system is to take boardmember sze who are experienced and confident and match them up, whether they’re on the development committee or not matched them up with newer boardmember czar or board members who are more reluctant to ask and have them go. Out together, for instance, on and ask so that the lesser experienced person had has a chance to see how it’s done and participate first. So great great example a peer-to-peer support there thie other area that often happens is chaillou i think i’d liketo have host a house party to get some of my friends, but i’m not sure enough people will turn up, and i wouldn’t want the embarrassment of having an empty room. Well, is there another boardmember thatyou could pair up and co host together, for instance? Excellent. Okay, and we’re going to talk about the recruiting, but but just it’s coming to my now the ah fund-raising expectations e-giving of board members at the recruitment stage can we just can we talk about that confession? How explicit should we be? Should it be in writing? Not in writing? How do we have this conversation about fund-raising expectations at recruitment? Great questions so that that’s really the next evolution of board fund-raising goal setting, which is ok overall, is aboard. We’re going to set some goals and then the next step is to say, what does each person think over the course of the year, they khun do toward those various goals. Can they host an event? Will they show up at other events? How many new people do they think they can bring into the fold? How many people do they think they can ask for money and at what levels? And, of course, for their own giving what? What between events and an annual gift? Do they think they’ll give and that’s important? Because that’s really where the rubber meets the road and being able to match the aspirations of a goal with what’s actually likely toe happen over the course of the year, and it let’s board members reflect on what they can, what there actually able to do? Dahna what’s easy and then what becomes a stretch? And if you add up, if you get people to write down on ah pledged pledge form pledge is probably the wrong word, but a projection form of what they can do, and you add that up, you see two people’s own projections of what they do get anywhere close to what we’re projecting as a goal overall, and if it’s too far apart than either you have to lower your goal or ask people. To redouble their efforts. All right, but still sticking with the recruitment stage. Yes, we putting all this, these expectations in writing for the boardmember the the potential boardmember boardmember including yeah, ideally, yes, because particularly if you’re trying to recruit people who are experienced and fund-raising the more organized and clear you are about what’s expected the more comfort that they’re going to feel in joining your board. You know, they say you want something done, ask a busy person. Yes, the worst thing you could do is say you’re so great and experienced wolf will find lots of roles for you. I think busy people run from vagueness. If you say we are looking to recruit five sponsors from fortune five hundred companies, you work for such a company and you have a network. It is our hope that you will help us, particularly the sponsorship area. Then the person can evaluate. Can i step into that role? And can i meet those expectations or not? Versus so often we recruits on because we have unspoken sense of what their connections will bring spoken and and then it turns out either the person’s already committed those connections to another cause or they’re not a confident fundraiser and the last thing they’re going to do is turn around, use their business relationships for the charity. Okay, okay. Let’s, let’s. Go back, tio the functions of the of the development committee beyond the goal setting and monitoring. And so there’s ah, one really critical one, which is to celebrate success. And that doesn’t mean just when the check arrives. But when that person who was a recalcitrant, ask her, ask their first person whether they get a yes or a no, we want to say, i want to acknowledge tony for stepping forward and actually sending out that appeal that we might then want to be the step pick somebody else. Okay, okay. I don’t want the recalcitrant. Okay. Ah, so we’re doing this in public at the board meeting at the board neo-sage celebration is the best way tio provide positive feedback for somebody’s step so that’s another aspect of that pure culture, which is we all have an equivalency of effort. And when we when we step forward to do that and show her on the bus ah, the rest of us acknowledge it and celebrated and in all forms you notice? I wasn’t talking about the amount of money i’m really talking about nufer fund-raising activities, right? And what other one of their activities should we be should be celebrating the first ask the first ask turning out ah, above and beyond kind of number of people to an event taking a leadership role by hosting an event or at the event itself, doing a great job with follow-up and saying thank you to donors on behalf of the organization and the board there’s so many activities that don’t involve asking that any boardmember can undertake, and then we want to say, great job, you know, both to reward that person and also to give the message to the other people around the table, you have the chance to step in the limelight as well. That’s cool the celebration. I haven’t heard that you mentioned the board members thanking i love that. I have heard that suggestion that at a board meeting or a special event, i’m a special evening, a bunch of board members around a table, and they’re just thanking donors for having made recent gift so i love a one to one thank so encouraging board members to make a phone call, maybe to someone that they haven’t met, you don’t know me. My name is greg on the border cause effective and, ah, i’m calling to thank you for your support and ah, and then you wantto what’s that person thinking there’s an ask buried here and then you have the boardmember say, i just have one question for you, and they think here’s, where the shoe drops, why did you choose to support our cause? And then they’re going to hear a bunch of extraordinary reasons that come from the heart of that donor it’s reinforcing to the boardmember oh, you know, we’re not out there with our tin cup. People are giving because of a connection to our mission and when’s the last time you got a thank you call from a board member of a charity you donate to never happens. So even the smallest organization that’s their comparative advantage against channel thirteen. Yes, they can thank every single one of their donors personally, right? Logistically, do you like to do those where? It’s a bunch of board members in a room together, and they’re they’re encouraging each other? They’re making individual falls or you rather have people do it from their home or their office depends on the size of the charity, you know, university’s love those call a thon. Alumni call it on things. Thank you. Call. Thank you. Write well for whatever i think it’s hard enough to get a board together for its general deliberations so i wouldn’t complicate matters. Ah, and let people also let people make those calls on their own schedule. So you’re giving them a list of dahna people little information about them? Ah, script that’s one of the forms of support staff can provide so that until someone gets their sea legs in these calls, they know what to say after a few it’s going to go easy and yeah, and you’re gonna hear terrific, heartwarming stories about why this is it right? So that, yes, your point that reinforces for the boardmember there are people all of us and it says now now now there is a step toward their getting confidence to be askanase themselves. Excellent that’s a great one. Okay, this celebration and the thank you’s. What else is there more this committee can be doing to turn the bigger wheel. Well, do you want to touch on recruitment? Not yet. It felt more that the committee khun do other functions. Those air, those air, the main function. Okay, can we talk about staff support? I have time to go short. The agenda with you. You’re you’re the board meeting with an agenda. I’d rather talk about a staff support for all these activities for yes. And then we’ll come to recruitment and mentoring. Right? Our buddy staff support. So ah, this could be the executive director without who doesn’t have a director of development supporting this a ll this committee work that’s correct. It’s always the exact director who has some involvement. Even with the development director. Just the way you observed the board can’t relax when they hyre their first development director. To manage all this. The staff can’t relax just because the board’s formed the development committee and there’s a good, vital conversation about board fund-raising taking place. They’ve got to be providing those tools. And that support because boardmember don’t have the time toe manage the infrastructure of fundrasing that’s still falls to the staff, including very importantly, if this is working, having a system for tracking all the contacts, all the people and the contacts that are made with those folks over time. So there’s a good record of the relationship that’s important staff function yes entering into r r fund-raising database are exactly our cr m database that’s, right? The contacts that are made calls that i made the right back we get, and then something very basic when so in response to a board appeal, so let the boardmember know that it happened so that they can say thank you and avoid the embarrassment of running into the person who is waiting to be thanked and the boardmember doesn’t realize the person made a gift, right? So keeping the board members up to date on what’s happening in terms of their contacts and overall for that monitoring function is really critical. All right, so the running of these reports, right for right? For the for the board, right? And it’s it’s, partly the staff celebrating with the board to say, hey, your donor came back this year with an even bigger gift when you give me a call and say thanks that’s. Great, yes called. All right, um, i have to talk. Ah, i’d like to talk about ah, an organization sponsors non-profit radio generosity siri’s and i don’t know do doo ahh and your strategic use of events, teo do runs and walks ever ever figure in so some of our groups do do walks, we don’t get involved in any of the you’re not planning on you know, but but we’ll ask the question, you know, do you have a broad enough constituency base to have confidence that you’ll recruit enough people to make a walk or run successful? You know, you need zack, i need a word pretty well established network, and you need people who are willing to be the cheerleaders to bring people together in that, for instance, for organizations that can’t generate hundreds of unity’s hundreds. If you’re gonna have your own stand alone event for organization that can’t do that generosity, siri’s generosity, siri’s dot com their sponsor and they host multi charity five k runs and walks i am seed one of theirs last november, little chilly day. But it’s still great fun. There were about a dozen charities they had about no two hundred or so to fifty runners. Among these dozen charities, one hundred thirty, one hundred forty thousand dollars was raised, and it was great fun. And none of the charities could generate enough support. Enough participants on their own. But collectively through generosity siri’s they had this great event and generosity. Siri’s does all the all the back end work of licensing. We were in what’s the huge park in brooklyn that take part. We’re provoc piece of problem back park. They got the licence to get the port a johns to get the amplification and the big start the starting gate way in the finished gateway. And, um, it’s all done. Very smart, great. And its collective that’s. Quite if you would like tio. See if it makes sense for you to be a charity partner of generosity. Siri’s do what i do. You know, i like to talk to people. Pick up the phone. Devlin is the ceo and he’s at seven. One eight five o six. Nine, triple seven if you prefer generosity siri’s dot com a l s i’m keeping this video on the top of my sight tony martignetti dot com for a third week because i want people to get off a less is back let’s give them a chance to see how they’re going to manage this enormous growth. And next week we’re going to hear directly from the ceo and president of l s she’s going to be my guest. Barbara newhouse, we’ll hear first hand how they plan to manage this enormous spike in donors and dollars. The show next week is going to be a google plus hang out on air. We’re doing it from the chronicle of philanthropy offices in washington that’s where l s is that’s where the chronicle it obviously and that’s where i’ll be, because i’d like to be face to face with with barbara new house so you will join the google plus hang out on air at tony martignetti dot com that’s the place to view. We are definitely taking questions for barbara throughout the hour if you know how hang out on air works, you just type in your questions if you don’t, we’ll explain at the beginning, so very exciting show. Next week and very different format you come here to, well, not don’t come here, come to tony martignetti dot com and that’s, where you’ll watch the hang out on air with a less is president and ceo barbara newhouse, and that is tony take two for friday, twenty sixth of september thirty eighth show of this year thank you, greg, for indulging me little pleasure. Um, let’s, let’s, talk about let’s continue the staff support training. I’m glad you brought it up. Of course that’s one of krauz defectives great loves as something we provide, which is so few people come to a board with either fund-raising experience or a positive fund-raising experience, right? We’re lucky if we can recruit someone who’s been a great fundraiser for their alumni association or another non-profit but most often we’re recruiting people who are willing and interested, but i haven’t had the chance to fund-raising a systematic way before and of course, like everything else that we need to master in our lives, we need some training and information so staff arranging for training to make boardmember more confident is a great idea and cause effective could be the real happy that makes you happy to be a provider of such training latto onboarding persuasive years of experience, i could see you moving and motivating boardmember toe task that they’re not comfortable with at the beginning of your of your so i’d say it’s a little bit like arthur murray’s dance studio, we paint the steps on the floor, we get people toe awkwardly, try those steps and it gets more and more fluid until they discover you know what? I really like this so let’s, move them. Tio recruiting yes, talk some about recruiting to the development committee, so we have our board who were responding specifically for this committee, so i always take the extreme position not often embraced by every board. Every new member of the board should be placed on the development committee, plus one other committee. So i like to give the message right, it’s just a place to start. Absolutely because one people are at their highest point of enthusiasm, usually when they’re joining aboard two they don’t know better, right? If the culture of the board is a few people carry all the weight for fund-raising we don’t want them to sink to the lowest. Common denominator after going to a few meetings, so let’s grab them while they’re hot and put him on that development committee and then if you’re organized enough maybe to serve on one other committee as well, so that would be my preferred position. But i would say, of course, anyone who’s got prior experience ought to be recruited because they can help with the planning function and be creative about how the board can be fund-raising but really, what it really is a question of there’s someone have to desire to give it a try, and if you’re providing the tools and the training than anyone who’s willing ought to be added to that committee and bring in that new energy, can they also be mentors? Now they’re new board members? Can they be mentor? They’ve got what has the Numbers and actually 1 of the great ways to turn around the culture of a board that has gotten a little stagnant on fund-raising or has never stepped up is to bring in some fresh blood who are able to say when i did it over here, this is what worked and really help revitalize that culture i’ve even seen that work with some organizations that have young professional boards or junior boards where the enthusiasm of those young folks actually ah, crosses over and helps the established board embrace some goals with greater energy infecting them. They’re like their youthful energy that’s, right and vigor that’s right? Who do we look forward to lead our development committee? That’s a great question, so good question forty minutes, that’s a pretty good now they’re evolving right chair the development committee. You want someone who’s, a good cheerleader who relates well to other board members can communicate well, they don’t have to be the most generous giver on the board or necessarily the greatest getter. In fact, you probably don’t necessarily want the wealthiest person on your board to behead development committee because other people will look and say, well, they have the resource is of course they do. It seems effortless. You don’t identify with the right, right? So you want someone who’s really out there showing their commitment to the organization, but both by e-giving stretch gift themselves and out there asking widely in their circles durney ideally, that person would have prior experience, but it’s really the effort? They’re willing to put in that counts the most in their willingness to be a role model, because and this is true for all bored fund-raising if you’re not a giver yourself, it’s very hard to ask others to do something you’re not doing beyond that. I think it’s great to get experienced people for that mentoring and butting up, they can help with the training. They can help build the confidence. So you do want a cadre of people who are comfortable around the fund-raising conversation and who are well regarded by other board members so that they can induce them to join that conversation. Let’s, have a body check? Yes, the buddy system could we say more about how the development committee is mentoring and buddying with shirts? Are what’s the idea that you’re providing focus on fund-raising gear around and you have somebody on the development committee who really comes to understand what’s going on in the mind of their fellow boardmember who their networks are can be a thought partner and how to reach them. I can understand where their fears or inhibitions are and helped develop ways of overcoming them also hears what do you need to be successful? Would you like practice in making the elevator speech? Would you like to be paired with someone who’s going out, making an athlete, see how it works? Do you want a staff person to join you? And you’re asking because you’re not confident that you could answer detailed question about the organization’s program so that someone who can check in and ah, that the boardmember can reveal themselves to without exposing the fact that they might feel like to write about a topic and facing the professional staff, that might be an important aspect. We have just a minute left, okay, i really would like to hear what it is that you love about the work that you’re doing with boards. Well, you know, we say that boards are the most important volunteers of any organization, so we work with so many fantastic organizations and missions and boards are the place where you see people who, despite busy lives, step forward to make these organizations successful, make incredible sacrifices are incredibly generous with their time and expertise. So it’s fantastic to be in a room with people who are thes chief cheerleaders as volunteers around the widest range of causes it’s very noble calling great going senior associate at cause effective on twitter, they are at cause effective, and greg on twitter is greg causevox greg cause you want to follow him. Greg, thank you so much. My pleasure. Thanks so much. Now the interview that i did at ntcdinosaur profit technology conference on ah, creative commons one o one with carly leinheiser welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology conference and t c twenty fourteen we’re at the marriott wardman park hotel in washington, d c with me is carly leinheiser she’s, an associate at perlman and pearlman that’s, a law firm in new york city. And her workshop topic is share use remix an introduction to creative commons. Carly welcome. Thank you. It’s. A pleasure to have you. Thanks, it’s. Great to be here. Thanks. And thank you for taking time on a pretty busy conference day. What is creative commons that i think a lot of people have heard of and not so familiar with? Sure. So creative commons is itself a non-profit they were founded in two thousand won with a mission of making the basically making content. On the internet accessible, so they developed a suite of licenses, which are basic copyright licenses that allow creators, artists, authors to distribute work under one of these licenses, and that signals to anyone who might find their work that it’s freely available for use subject to certain different restrictions. So this is quite a service, really it’s a certain unorganised ation serving non-profits and making content available, right? I mean, they’re serving not only non-profits but sort of ah, the larger idea of basically the commons there, they’re making a easier to put more works into not exactly the public domain because they’re still under copyright but making more works freely available for anyone to use. So the idea is that right now, the way copyright works is any time that somebody creates a work it’s automatically subject to copyright, you don’t have to register it. You don’t have to put a notice on it if you’ve created a work it’s copyrighted on dso that’s what is known as the all rights reserved model and that’s what happens automatically so if you are an artist and you get benefit from distributing your photos online and having other people take them and incorporate them into their works. It’s hard to do that because somebody would have to seek you out and get individual written permission from you in order to do that. Otherwise they’d be infringing your copyrights. But most people’s experiences it’s incredibly easy to find content online that you can just, you know, screen. Grab our download and creative commons brings the law in line with that experience that it’s fine it’s easy to find content online, it’s easy to incorporate it into new works. And so by with using these licenses, it makes it easy for people to know they have permission from the artist to do that. Do we need to know a little bit the basics of intellectual property law before we go to into too much detail? Well, i think that that sort of covers it so i could say copyright well, i could talk a little bit about it. Copyright is ah, is basically a bundle of rights that anybody who creates a creative work gets in their in their work. So you have a set of exclusive rights that you’re the only one that you khun the only one who can exercise those rights with respect to your work and um and then you can also assigned those rights or licenses rights out to other people. So you have the right to use the work to distribute it, to make copies, to make derivative works or a new work based on the original work, so that something like a translation or collage would be a derivative work and to license that out to other people. So what you’re doing with the creative commons licenses, you have your bundle of rights and you’re saying anybody can use my work. Anyone has access to my work. Andi anyone can exercise those same rights as long as with all creative commons licenses, you have to give attribution or credit s o you link back to the original work and then there’s certain other restrictions that are in some of the different licenses. Okay, on dh. Some of those different restrictions is get a little too technical. Know that’s that’s, sort of the heart of creative commons there’s. Six basic licenses. So all of them, including attribution requirements. So say i post a photo online and i license it under a creative commons attribution. License that means anybody who came across my photograph could take it, download it, use it, put it into a new work. All they have to do is give me attribution. So that means maybe linking back to my web page just putting my name on it. And i i would normally specify how i want to be attributed. So some of the other restrictions are share alike. Which means that i would license my photo under a creative commons attribution share alike license meaning anyone could take my photo, download it, use it, make a new work with it. But if they did that and distributed that new york new work, they’d have to release it under the same license. On this is a concept called the copy left and the ideas that i’ve created a work that someone else is used. And then now their work is also in the commons for anyone to use s o, for example, wikipedia’s content is licensed under c c it’s, cc by essays are creative commons attribution share alike license so anyone can use the content on wikipedia and incorporated into a new work. But then they have to also license it in the same way, so grows the body of work. Exactly. They’re two other restrictions. One is no derivatives, meaning you can download my work. You can share it or distribute it, but you can’t change it in any way, so i’m not allowed to make a new work based on it. So you’ll see this sometimes with some sort of reports that in the case of non-profits, maybe report that you’ve published on a particular policy issue, and you want that shared as widely as possible. But you don’t want people sort of taking accepts. Reinardy. Or, you know, photos, or maybe personal histories, things that, like you want shared sort of intact on dh. The last restriction is a noncommercial restriction, so that means anybody could use the work as long as what they do with it is for a non commercial purposes. Ok, thank you, little detail. But details, i think, are interesting. I think they are. You think they are. I think they are all right. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. I’m christine cronin, president of n y charities dot orc. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. How do we how doesn’t know provoc about using creative commons? What do we need to do right xero assumes we create something. I understand we have a bundle of automatic rights, but we’re talking about now making it available under creative commons license. Sure. So if you want teo well, i guess i’ll start with how do you find works that you could better license? Okay? Because they think that’s a lot more people have experienced with searching on flicker, for example. So if you’re looking for save photographs to put on your website or incorporate into a brochure and you want to find a photo that’s, all you have to do is give attribution to the person who made it. You can go on. Flicker flicker has a search feature and also the creative commons website itself has a search feature where you can go in and specify what you want to do with the work, whether it’s going to be for commercial or non commercial purposes. O r all you want, you want the least restrictive license and you put in your search terms and it pops up. So when i was putting together my talk, i wanted to find pictures of cute cats because that’s, what people like to look at on a saturday morning esso i search for cute cats license under creative commons license and found a whole bunch as far as really seeing your work under creative commons license if you’re distributing it online, creative comments has a licensed chooser on their website, so you don’t even have to really know the technical restrictions you go in and you say, i want people to give me attribution. I want to allow derivative works or not if i allowed derivative works, i want them to be released center share, like license or not, and i’m ok or not with the commercial uses, and then creative commons tells you which license you’ve picked on degenerates thiss html code that you can embed on your site, which then makes your work searchable by license. Okay, you become part of the search results and and it generates a little button you can put on the work, so you’ll see in a lot of like footers of websites thiss you know this pages published under creative commons license in which one? Okay, now the search function sounds pretty. Easy finding finding going back to finding content. Pretty simple. Yeah, it’s really simple the the only risk is you want to make sure that that thing’s air correctly tagged so but it is really pretty intuitive and you khun search you can search flicker you khun search through google images i think that there are more and more search engines that are supporting a search by license, so it is really easy to use and in terms of releasing your own content, any restrictions on what that content is? Well, i mean, it’s basically anything that’s subject to copyright so you wouldn’t you use a creative commons license with se your trademark or something that was protected by patent law, not copyright law. It also doesn’t deal with model writes in photographs, so if you have a photograph that includes an image of a person, creative commons doesn’t really deal with that person’s right of publicity or protections that they get for being in the photograph. So there was actually a litigation over this issue where a company used a photograph that included an image of a person, and the photographer had released the image under creative commons license. But never secured the model rights s o the person in the image sued the company and ask them to stop using it. Okay, are there other other cases that air don’t necessarily mean litigation case? Maybe client examples? You know that air that interesting, that and somewhat, you know, instructive. Yeah, so, no, i don’t have any specific client examples. They do have some examples i found in researching for my talk. One of my favorites actually is the brooklyn museum, which is i live in brooklyn, so i have a lot of pride for the brooklyn museum. They do really interesting things with their they’ve done two very interesting things. One is that a lot of their collection, they made their collection searchable by license. So much of their collection is very old and in the public domain, so you can now search their collection online and see what’s in the public domain and use those images if you want, and i actually incorporated a few of their images into my presentation and where stuffs not out of copyright but they on the right, innit? They’ve released it under creative commons license so you can use some of the works in their collection, another interesting thing that they did was in connection with the show they did a few years ago, go called who shot rock n roll, which was a series of portrait it’s and photographs relating to rock n roll. They did a remix contest, so they had chris stein and believes his name from blondie put together a bunch of tracks that he released under a creative commons license. And then anybody could download those tracks, remix them, upload them and those tracks would again be really center creative commons license. And they picked a winner, and they’re all available on their website. Um, it’s really interesting. So it was this great way to engage with their community and sort of further their mission of, like, getting culture out to the public on really engaged people while completely avoiding the issue of having to get signed releases and have people wave their their rights or sign rights toe in their tracks that they made to the brooklyn museum. They were just available to use, which i think is a really interesting example of what you could do. So photo contest anything like that video as well, video yeah, absolutely. I think on a new tube, isn’t there? Ah, little pull down window, whether you want to use a have a standard creative commons license to your video yeah, i wouldn’t be surprised i’m not positive, but i think that sounds right. Ok, i think they have a three or maybe four licensing options, and one of them, i think, is standard creative commons license. Yeah, and actually, when i was uploading my slides, teo the ntc, they asked whether i wanted to release my slides under creative commons license or not, so they’re they’re on top of it. Excellent. Well, you know, i don’t know what teo asked specifically, but what more do you want to share that we haven’t talked about? Let’s see, i think i mean, one of the things that i think is most interesting for me is they think a lot of non-profits have have sort of limited experience using creative commons in looking for photos and things like that on flicker, but i think that there are a lot of great examples of non-profits really saying they’re content under creative commons license, so not only so the brooklyn museum is a good one, but and wikipedia is another one. There’s, another organization called teach aids that creative commons features it’s a case study on their site. They big, they make sort of educational health materials that are really sandorkraut of commons license so anybody can download materials from their sight, redistribute them on, and i think for non-profits that have any kind of educational mission thie idea that you could create these materials and then just release them out into the world and they would be freely shared and no one had to worry about, like, violating your copyright if they wanted to download a report or, you know, i know your rights pamphlet or health materials, those kind of things i think are really great uses for creative commons, particularly for non-profits that have a mission based on education, where you’re not worried about so much selling individual copies of your materials, but that the more you get the word out about your organization by distributing materials, you’ll get your name out donordigital here about you, and you don’t have to worry about the transaction costs of negotiating, you know? Oh, okay, that person could buy a copy to do this or that. So i think it’s one of the more interesting things, all right, i hope listeners will pay attention to a creative commons both in terms of their own you’re your own work and and searching for others as well. Sounds like it, sze i’ve learned a lot more about the community then thin. I knew. Thank you very much, carly. Yeah. Thank you for the pleasure. Carly leinheiser is associate perlman and roman. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc non-profit technology conference twenty fourteen. Thanks so much for being with us. My thanks to everybody at the non-profit technology network and ten next week. Barbara newhouse ellis is president and ceo for the hour joined the hangout on air at tony martignetti dot com regular time one p m eastern. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com it’s, the store it’s, the center of universe you’re seeing this so all things emanate from there generosity siri’s and their charity support team that helps you in your fund-raising think about them for multi charity five k runs and walks generosity siri’s dot com seven one eight, five or six. Nine, triple seven our creative producers, claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer. Shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell. Social marketing and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Our music is by scott stein. You with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. I didn’t even think that shooting the ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. E-giving dahna cubine come. Join us for the thirteenth annual vigil for international peace and ecology on sunday, september twenty one. From nine a, m to six p, m celebration of live music and dance performances spoke a word human-centered line art installations in a world peace flag ceremony that celebrates the united nations international day of peace. That’s sunday, september twenty one from nine a, m to six p, m central park numbered band shell by the bethesda fountain. For more information or volunteer, go to www. Dot vigil number four. International peace dot borg that’s, the number four in the earl, or call to want to chip in to five, four, three two to want to triple. Two, five, four, three two we’ll see you there. Heimans you’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Talking. Hyre