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Nonprofit Radio for August 17, 2018: Branding & Focus and Attention

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James Wu, Kristyna Jones & Rhiannon Tasker: Branding
How do you get people to care about your brand and your cause when there’s so much noise out there? It helps to be inclusive and authentic. Our panel from the Nonprofit Technology Conference (18NTC) explains how. They’re James Wu, brand consultant; Kristyna Jones with Brothers Empowered 2 Teach; and Rhiannon Tasker from The Public Theater.

 

 

Steve Rio: Focus and Attention
Steve Rio has been researching the intersection of mindfulness, creativity and productivity. He’s CEO of Briteweb.

 

 

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Oppcoll hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host today’s show is dedicated to my mom. She would have been eighty five today would have been her eighty fifth birthday. Hi, mom. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with zoho no sis, if you made me sick with the idea that you missed today’s show co-branding how do you get people to care about your brand and your cause? When there’s so much noise out there, it helps to be inclusive and authentic. Our panel from the non-profit technology conference eighteen ntc explains how they’re james woo brand consultant christina jones with brothers empowered to teach and ran in tasker from the public theater and focus and attention, steve rio has been researching the intersection of mindfulness, creativity and productivity. He’s ceo of bright webb on tony’s steak, too, baby boomers, we’re sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuing capital p wagner, cps guiding you beyond the numbers regular cps dot com bye tello’s durney credit card processing into your passive revenue stream tony dahna may slash tony tell us and by text to give mobile donations made easy text npr to four, four four nine, nine nine here is branding from the non-profit technology conference welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc that’s, a non-profit technology conference in new orleans hosted by the non-profit technology network interview like all our eighteen ntcdinosaur views is sponsored by network for good, easy to use donorsearch and fund-raising software for non-profits my guests are james wou christina jones and ran in tasker. James is an independent brand consultant. Christina is co founder and ceo. Seo of brothers empowered to teach by here in new orleans. Andre hannan tasker is donor communications project manager at the public theater. Welcome. Thank you for having a pleasant have all three of you. Your workshop topic is branding for the apocalypse very ominous how to get people to care about your cause when everything is horrible. Okay, eyes the horrible that we’re, uh, is part of the horrible that we’re thinking about the current political environment and how there’s something new every couple of hours. Do you like he’s a crisis? Yes, that that is exactly what we’re talking. About that was certainly that’s the driver of the conversation and that i remember one day, you know, logging off twitter for about thirty minutes, coming back on and literally, there are six new horrible things that happened that we’re very much tied to the current political climate in the country we just learned a couple hours ago that paul ryan is not going to run for for the house in wisconsin. Well, there you go. Speak something about what’s going on on dh there’s news like that very, very often. Yeah, our challenge is to stand out, okay? Apocalyptic? Yeah, we have an apocalyptic e i mean, i think that the khan, the environment that we’re in right now is very divided. And no matter how quickly things change and how every how fast news is happening, it still feels like we’re in a very sort of divided world in the way that we’re feeling after post election, especially no matter what side you’re on it’s feeling very divided and very sort of there’s a lot of tension right now, and so it feels a little bit of tense and uncomfortable sometimes, okay, but, kristina, we can’t overcome your your organ has done it. I guess you’ve got some lessons to share. Yes, i think that we have overcome that because one of the things that we always do, regardless of what’s happening politically in the world stay true to who we are is an organization. So, you know, part of you know, your branding is sort of interpreting that message for what’s happening in the world as long as it’s a part of who you are. Okay, so, is that your first advice for rising above this noise is staying true. Yes, you are. I think so. I think what happens when we have these, you know, something, something that happens with non-profit sometimes is that wear always putting out a fire, right? We’re responding to a crisis. And in responding to those crises, sometimes we can lose a part of who we are or staying kind of on message of what we’re trying to accomplish or what our mission is. And so i think it was sort of like being i think i used on the panel today is like being a bully and a storm, right? So that’s, my part might take. Okay, so your panel’s already done. You’re relaxing them. That’s. Right, guys, take it easy on us. All right? Congratulations. Yeah, this is fun. This is not from radio. No, no, you got yours here. Anything okay? And i gather from the session description. Christina and rhiannon. You’ve taken two different approaches in terms of politics. Hyre christina apolitical. Pretty much staying mostly apolitical and reaction. Uh, using the arts to be political, using theater to be political. Yeah. Anything, something about the public theater as we try and represent all sort of views were opened everyone and we want to tell all stories and especially in our branding, we did the same thing where we said, very true to who we were as an organization and the urgency that people are few going in the community in the power of storytelling, to sort of tell people to share different perspectives and the power that storytelling really has. Teo help people feel like they understand a different viewpoint than their own, whether that’s, depending on all sides of the political spectrum, i mean the public theater being in new york city, we do tend to lean a certain way, but we try toe be as open just all, all voices in all stories on dh, hopefully help other people understand, especially as i said, we’re divided right now, helping understand other people and under perspective helps sort of refused attention and help people come in issues in a different way. James, i think it’s pretty well recognized that storytelling is critical. We’re not a theater group that has a stage literally, yeah, how can we effectively, compellingly is better. Tell tell, have the storytelling or telling ourselves yeah, yeah, that is a great question and one question, that question that doesn’t have fans, we have to have a fan, i have know that we’re seeing a james now you both way or lindsay is a small town, there was astra, everybody about each other’s people and your, uh, your home i’m leaving now way that was legitimate, okay, just kind of make up having any family. So how do we do this compelling? You know, that’s a great question is actually question that came up in a in our panel conversation today from the audience and ran and answered it beautifully, and i’ll try my best kind of encapsulate her great response in that. At the end of the day, yes, we might not be affiliated with an organization that is in the arts or in the future, or use this storytelling as the primary medium or platform. But the work that were in in the nonprofit world is all about human stories, right, it’s all about change and transformation within humans and communities that they dwell in, that we serve. And so i think at the end of the day, you know, you might not have art as kind of the channel for telling these stories. But the better you can get at telling very human stories that connect to people at a very human emotional level. I think that’s, where you get really, really, really power. How do you do drill down into that? Getting that making that connection with with the leader of the viewer? S o i think one of the mistakes that a lot of organizations do is they get caught up in kind of explaining their model like this is our theory of change. And this is here all of our programs, right? We invest in building community, we invest in entrepreneurs, whatever it is way train leaders instead of thinking about why, like, why do you exist? What is your purpose? What is your reason for being right? If you can start there, then you can begin inspire people in a way that if you start talking about your products and programs, you might lose them. Right? So if you can start with why you exist, really drill down and get to your core purpose. I think anyone can really identify with that. Begin. Teo, resonate with that message. It’s. Time for a break pursuant the round up the fund-raising round up it’s called the pursuing e-giving outlook. They took all the latest fund-raising reports. Boiled it down to just what you need to know. Plus they did a webinar on it. And you can watch the archive of that it’s, an ensemble piece, the content paper and the webinar both. Are on the listener landing page that is at tony dot m a slash pursuant remember the capital p for please. Now, back to branding. Cristina’s doing a lot of nodding. Yeah, i what’s your way, you know, brothers and power to teach, unlike the public fears only four years old, right? Um and so we’re still kind of a startup, but when we first started, it was very much like, this is our model. We have these three steps. This is what we do, and people would be like dahna and so when we started telling the story about why we do the work and why we think the way we do, it matters, it was much easier for people to connect. And so i think that that’s really, really important and you’re trying to get black men to go into teaching, right? Right? Education. That’s right, brothers? Yeah. Weather’s empowered to teach brothers and power to teach and sister bras and power to teach. But, yes. Okay. Okay. Uh, and you’re you feel like you’re creating a lot of boats and a lot of conversation around your mission. How? Yeah, on the way of rising above you, get talking about you? Yeah, i mean, uh, one of the things that i said today was that, like, show up, right? So we show up to lots of different things, and we show up in lots of different ways. So we participate in lots of activities going on around town related to the issues that we work on, but also on larger issues like there’s, an initiative in new orleans called forward together politicians non-profits people who work in the private sector come together, so we go to those things. We’re all constantly wearing a b, right? So that’s one of your share, one of the ways we show up the every way is that we know on your shoulder turned my shoulder way. We have young people who are very much engaged in the work that we do, and so they do a lot of videos for us. They do a lot of tweeting for us. They we do a lot of social activities, so people see us collectively together, and they’re like, what, that beaming? What hashtag real bro teach? What does that mean? So that’s how we really driven people to think about it, brandon, how about the public theater. How are you creating buzz conversation about about the pub. I mean, the public theater is a definitely a growing brand, especially in new york city. We had hamilton, which was like a huge, huge threat. Hamilton before was on broadway. Yeah, we created hamilton here the way we did the workshops and, like, sort of helped. It could be that show. And then we did the first production. That was the production that moved to broadway. So we had a lot of sort of, like buzz from that show. And i were now in the place of like, okay, now that hamilton’s sort of moved on, continuing those conversations and keeping us in the forefront of people’s mind as a theatrical in student as well. Civic inge institution. We hold a lot of talk are that are hosted the republic form team at our home in astor place. We also were doing them a delacorte. We hold other sort of initiatives. We did. Voter registration was a big thing. We had a table on our lobby on bistro. Participated with other non-profit geever okay. Interesting voter registration. That’s. Um, that’s. Not something that intuitively i would. Link with with a theater? Yeah, it was initiative that was started by believing playwrights horizons. They got theaters throughout the country to set up voter registration foods for when people came and saw shows they could register for vote while they’re like waiting in line or internet during intermission or after the show. And the idea is just to help people engage civically within their communities in the country by voting, and we had a huge turnout. We also did some pushes on our social media and through emails, and we got a lot of people registered to vote and it’s our way of sort of helping people just be active within our community and engage socially not just with the conversations that we’re having with the work we’re resenting, but just like in the real world outside of what’s on our stage is james, you’re our resident consultant. How generally, how can we create conversation and buzz around our work? I mean, i think we just heard some great examples, but beyond those, yeah, i think it does at the end of the day, come back to having a clear sense of who you are, but also who your audience is and we talked a lot today about authenticity, right? Yeah, doing here too, yeah, allowed on non-profit radio on and i think the theme of authenticity is something that we keep the three of us keep coming back to and is a common thread in all of our work. But, you know, like rian instead of beginning organization that’s yours and organizations that tend to shift their messaging or change, they are in response to what’s happening the world today without remaining true to kind of their core purpose or kind of their their identity. I think there’s a real danger, they’re kind of losing sight of what you’re all about and why you exist. I think when you have a clear sense of who you are and more importantly, how your audience connects with that, then that kind of authenticity shines through no matter what is happening around you. And i’m sure these to concede say more about that. Yeah, i think a lot of the questions we have today, no matter what the question was, are always kind of brought back to that authenticity and who you are and sticking true to who you are. Whether it is like a post election end of your campaign where there’s a little different urgency within it, it’s still about those fundamental things that make your organization what it is people are going to see right through you if you’re trying to, like, do something urgent, that doesn’t feel authentic or real because they don’t want to give money to an organization that’s not going to do something with it, that’s what that is fundamental to who they are, and so the public theater and, like we have always stuck true to those values that were theater of by and for the people on that culture belongs to everyone one and this is we are places, storytelling, and those are the things that are important to us and just framing it in the way of the moment of it, whether it’s urgency or what, no matter what it is, it is it’s still, those things at every question we got today, we kept coming back to that authenticity and who you are, because, christina, you’re not only alienating your mission, but you’re also alienating your core supporters, right? You’re awful, haley expecting work for you, you and your employees, your staff, they have certain expectations. Now we’re adjusting just because there’s tha multi in the in the political economy, right? Exactly. I mean, we think of our brand is a person, right? So one of the activities we did when we did our brand refresh was okay. His brothers and power to teach was a person who are they use a person? This ah, james is a user persona, or i think that’s part of it certainly part of it and so, you know, kept coming up with all the things that we already do that sort of reinforce who we are as a person, so we’re twenty something creative, collaborative, fresh and fashionable group what we read, what we listen to way to our podcast, you know, all about those things that connects our brand to people who want to hear about the work we’re doing in more detail, and it translates into the photos we take into our website. All of those things signify that you think, tony, you just used an interesting word a minute ago, and then there was expectation, and i think, that’s one thing that we actually didn’t talk a lot about. Directly today but certainly was a theme that i see woven in a lot of the work, especially the tactics that both of your organizations have used in the past year and can be something as small as the public theater in there. You’re an fund-raising campaign last year instead of their typical just we’re just going toe send email after email appeal at the end of the year asking for our audience to give us money they actually hand wrote notes on postcards thanking people for their contributions for their engagement, a very analog old school approach in this very hyper, you know, social media, digital world, and they saw a huge bump in terms of kind of hoping to see a big bump in terms of renewal sze but did see a big bump in terms of engagement, justin, based in response to that tactic, which so that kind of analog very old fashioned, if you will approach really, really cut through the clutter when you’re just getting bombarded on social media or email today and similarly with brothers empire to teach, i think one of the things that was really interesting when they were going through their brand refresh. They had an exercise where there, you know, looking at something as mundane as colors which should our color palette be that represents our visual identity. It’s a very standard part of any branding exercise. But the way that they thought about colors was really provocative for me. And i should probably just, like christina tell the story herself. But essentially, you know what? What i heard was correct me if i’m wrong that yeah, you tell us. Thank you. S r color palette is soft. So its environs so it’s yellow, teal of, like, a lavender. And i grayce right. And the reason for those colors is because we did this today we had all feel like you’re hearing. Yes, you’re going down going down with you. Eventually wei had everybody close their eyes and say and think to themselves, not necessarily share like you think of a young black man. What do you see? Right? And so when they open their eyes and said the reason these colors are the colors they are because they signify liveliness and collaboration and nurturing. So a softening of the idea of a young black man is because we want people to see young men as nurturers, right as having potential to nurture so that’s why our color palette is the way it is. We talked about this idea of i used to come from the international development world in this this expression or phrase club poverty porn. But if you’ve heard that but it’s kind of this, you know, in our imagery we either really negative imagery that’s very exploitive in an effort to raise money and awareness, right? So malnourished kids and sub saharan african with flies on their faces, right? That kind of creates this sympathy or pity. On the other hand, the pendulum has swung in the complete opposite direction in the last five, ten years, where everyone uses just images filled with happiness and optimism and joy. And i feel like there needs to be a recall calibration again and something that’s kind of in between that prevent presents a mork, nuanced complete hole and maybe complex picture of what the issues are that we’re dealing with in the communities that we’re serving. I think that there’s a real danger and kind of dumbing down your message rebrand or simplifying it to say, this is this is who we are, this is what we’re all about and it’s it’s kind of playing into what people expect right versus some little what brothers in power to teach duitz he said, how do we create an image that is more about fostering this nurturing environment? And then also in some of the photographs, you see it’s, like, sometimes it’s really struggle on diversity that you see sometimes it’s real celebration enjoy and just the complete humanity that’s presented kind of a whole human being, i think that’s um, something that we don’t see enough of today, christine what’s a home run for you is that when when someone decides to and embark on a career in education is that i like the grand slam home run and a stadium fans would be if a young man starts with us and doesn’t want to teach, and by the time he leaves he’s like you know what i’m going to teach. So that’s that’s a grand slogan, the basic home run is basically a young man who should, who may want to teach what isn’t really sure and decides to teach, but we’ve had a lot of success with guys who had no intention of teaching because only three percent of all the teachers in the entire country are black men, they don’t see themselves and teaching, so the idea that they now see themselves with the teacher or working in education period is like, phenomenal, really, yeah, and you talked a bit about inclusive hyre say more about that in terms of the public’s brand. How do you feel being inclusive sets you? Aside from competition in new york city, the public theater, it’s one of our fundamental sort of missions is tio provide theatre to everyone no matter what background you are. And i mean, if we dio free shakespeare in the park where we give one hundred thousand tickets, world class shakespeare every summer, all for free heart is held to get to former new york come on, we’re making i mean that’s the thing that they are hard to get, people have to wait in line for hours. So what? We’re taking steps to make it easier to get tickets for everyone. So we do distributions in all five boroughs. We like what they’re like throughout the week we’ll be, we’ll be in queens one. Week will be in brooklyn will be in the bronx and staten island dahna distributing tickets there so that they don’t have to come into the city, wait in line for hours, maybe, or maybe not, get a ticket and then wait until the show in the evening. It’s a more accessible moment for them to get tickets there. We also have a digital online lottery so people could do it from work or from where they are. We do a lottery downtown, it are after a place home. So again, you’re not waiting in line. You can come enter the lottery, get john, be quick, we so we are trying to you offer more and more opportunities to help like to help expand who is seeing the theater versus the people who are able to write in line. We also do the mobile unit, which takes shakespeare to prisons, homeless shelters and community centers do out all five boroughs, and we do that twice a year. Once a year, we’ve now expanded twice a year, their twenty stopped tour, and then they come downtown and dio a three week, three week run at our theater and astor place and all those tickets are also free inclusion. Yeah, well, i just want to talk about. No, but the wraps. Okay, what else could we talk about you, you had your your workshop. We’ve got another five minutes or so together. What happened? We touched on anybody that we want to. You did ninety minutes. I know. We’re all talked out questions, maybe questions you got that we haven’t talked about yet. Well, one thing that that we didn’t that didn’t come up, that some folks ask me after our panel was, you know, it’s it’s interesting because you have a very founder lead organising your small organization, you’re young organization upmifa on the contrary, public theatre has been around for sixty five years, almost and their founder is not, you know, directly involved anymore, but oscar eustis who’s been there for how long? It was ten years when i started so twelve, thirteen years he’s kind of an iconic institution in another sound. And so how do you think about brandon relation too? The founders personality, and if you work in an organization that doesn’t have a strong founder with that really influences that culture than then what do you do? I don’t know if you guys have thoughts on that. Well, i’ve worked in no book fired-up buy-in my previous career, i was investment banker, community development and one organisation i work for went through a big brand refresh the founder had long been gone and what they did. Internally was sort of theater does with the stash and sent out a survey. Like, who are we way say we are. Who do you think we are? Wait, you think we should be? And they did a whole entire brand refresh based on sort of who’s in the building. Now, who works for the company now? Why did they come to this place to work here? And i think they did a great job rebranding themselves. Enterprise community partners. I haven’t looked at co-branding lately, but a few years ago, they did that. I thought that was a really great way to do it when you don’t have a strong founding founders culture anymore. The founder has, you know, your organization has evolved over the years. You’ve had another executive director, but you still want to stay kind of truth to your original mission. I thought that that was a great way, actually. Survey surveyed the staff surveyed the stand. Why are you here? Right? Right. Right. And i guess you know another question. Taking that a step further that i get all the time. Okay? We were sold. We should go through a branding exercise. That brand refresh. If you will, how do we get the leaders of our organization on board? How do we get the entire staff on board to really buy into this? So this doesn’t just feel like a bunch of pretty words that we stick in a mark getting drawer, but has riel impact on how we show up in every department throughout the organization every single day. So how do we get that buy-in that’s my question, i don’t know, i mean, you guys are both live and breathe this every single day, and i’m happy to share my thoughts, but i mean it’s, the public theater is such a deeply rooted mission and oscar, whose artistic director really lives and breathes the mission of the public and truly the people who work there want to be there. I want to be there for the mission of the public it’s, you know, it’s non-profit you want to be there for that, you you want to be there to help give thousands of people free tickets in the park and the work that goes behind it and to create good work. So we are kind of in a a very lucky situation and that we are very, very rooted in our mission and our brandon who we are on it, it stuns from having a strong artistic director leader who any speech he gives any from, like a staff meeting, agreed to the delicate and opening night of shakespeare in the park. It is so rooted and who we are and so rooted in the deep belief of who we are every so it really helps everyone in the organization really get behind it because you know that you’re working towards something not for our leader believes and i also that’s something that we believe in a cz group and as a theatre, so we’re kind of we’re lucky and that our way it’s so embedded in us is a public you don’t know, a lot of cedars don’t necessarily even have that theater is not something that people think of in these huge, huge, deeply founded missions and values and big we have brought their broad and really lofti of culture belongs to everyone and theatre should be free for all and all those things that but there are things to aspire to and there things that we all are working towards. Is an organization, james, if we don’t enjoy that luxury that the public has yeah, you yeah, i think one of the biggest things that i tried it teach my clients is that when they’re going through branding, exercise, it’s really critical to bring the entire organization on board throughout the process, right? There’s, nothing worse than going through a six month rebranding and the leadership says tata, we’re done look at our new brand and he says, what, like, how come i didn’t have my how come i wasn’t hurt happened? I didn’t get a chance to weigh in or at least share my opinions or and so i think that’s a really, um, the fine line between, you know, a successful branding and co-branding that ends up failing one of the i think it comes down to when you’re when you’re developing a mission or purpose statement, if you’re developing core values for the organization that you don’t fall into the trap, which is choosing empty words, right? We’ve also core values like empathy, innovation, honesty, well, who’s, who’s not going to be honest, like, who wants to be the opposite of that, right? So those kind of be empty, meaningless core values. How can you create a set of values that really change the way we show up to work every single day? And so one of the things that i do is my clients is after we have this branding, we bring everyone along throughout the process there entirely bought in, we say, okay, now we have this new set of values. Now we have these new purpose. Maybe we’ve written a manifesto. Really? Look at these words break up into teams. So finance department, accounting department marketing department operations team i want you each to go and meet and look at these words and really understand what they mean and have a conversation about what’s going to change. What you going to start doing mohr of today that you’re not doing enough of what you going to stop doing as a result of the language on the words at the end of the day, a lot of rebranding tze come down to a language and words and the intention that you put into those really can go a long way. Okay, we’re gonna leave it there, ok? Alright, right they are james woo, independent brand. Consultant christina jones, co founder, ceo of brothers empowered to teach rehan in tasker dahna communications project manager at the public theater. Thank you all. Thank you all very much things interview scheduled sponsored by network for good. Easy to use donor-centric software for now. Non-profits thank you so much for being with non-profit radio coverage of eighteen. Auntie si. We need to take a break. Regular cps, please talk to eat. Which tomb? You heard him on the four hundredth show. Plus he’s. Been a guest on the show a couple of times. Check out the firm. Of course. Do your research, then talk to e tell him what you need. He’ll tell you whether wagner can help you with your accounting needs. No pressure, all professional. Got to do your due diligence. Get started at wagner cps dot com now, tony’s, take two. I’m paying attention to baby boomers. Millennials get a lot of attention. Of course on dh that’s deserved. That could be a very, very important part of your fund-raising prospect pool course. Depending on your mission, they’ll be donors for fifty or sixty years. I am not saying ignore millennials at all we’ve covered in here on the show many times what the trends involving millennials, etcetera and will continue to but that i don’t mean that is the universal no gator along with that my consulting, and hence my focus is on baby boomers. They’ll be around because i’m one and i’ll be around for a good forty years. Actually, i’ll be around for another forty four because i’m living two hundred so they’ll be around there’s a lot of wealth in the baby boomer generation, they have proven to be generous with their wealth, lots of reasons to pay attention to baby boomers and to promote and market the state and retirement plan gifts to them, as well as paying attention a millennial’s again, this is not an either or depending on your mission and depending on the makeup of your constituents, they may both very well fit in. Okay, my video saying a little more on that is at tony martignetti dot com it’s my pleasure to welcome steve rio to the show. He is founder and ceo of bright webb, a social impact consultancy delivering strategy, branding and digital. He aims to build the world’s most flexible, engaged and efficient company. He’s, an expert in exponential organizations, remote and distributed teams and workforce, wellness and performance. He consults with impact leaders to reimagine their organizational strategies, systems and company cultures. The companies that bright webb b r i t e web dot com and he’s at steve rio. Welcome to the show, steve. Hi, how are you? I’m very well. How you doing? I’m doing great. Good. Were you calling in from? I’m calling from my home office on bowen island in british columbia, canada. Wonderful bowing island. How far offshore is bowen island? Probono island is the closest island to vancouver. It’s about a twenty minute fairy. But it’s a small little community about thirty, five hundred people. So just a small, small island. Okay. And you’re a good, uh, i don’t know. Six, seven thousand miles from new york city. That’s about right. That’s. All right. Right now. Yeah. Okay. That’s where i’m sitting so, uh, okay. It doesn’t matter who got twenty. Eighteen. It hasn’t mattered for a long time. Okay. Um, you’ve been you’ve been spending a lot of time learning about researching the science of focus and attention. What? What? What brought you to this? Yeah. So, i mean, i’ve been thinking about this, i guess, as a leader of a company of about five years ago, we moved to more of a remote model where we’re kind of embracing twenty first century practices around, you know, organizing people, so we started allowing people to work remotely and and travel while working and doing things like that. And then a couple years ago, we launched a distributed workforce of freelancers, so we have freelancers in twenty five cities around the world now and, you know, over that time, one of what i’ve learned for knowledge workers there’s an increasing onus on the individual to think about how they manage their time, their work have it how we organize our offices, whether those air, virtual or physical spaces and just really thinking about, you know, the capacity and capabilities of our teams. And so i guess even for myself thinking about how to maximize productivity and howto really achieved the most impact i can have in the work we do it’s become a key part of my thinking on howto really maximize their teams. So it’s been a few years now where i’ve been focused pretty heavily. On this subject did you used to have a more traditional office where all our most people worked in one place? Yeah, i guess that would have been about four years ago was when we started making that transition. We were we were working out of an office. So we have an officer, vancouver. But we serve clients mainly in the united states. So we have an office in new york as well. So as soon as we had two officers that’s when we started to think about howto have you no more of a distributed approach toe work. And so four years ago, we started making that transition. Okay, i see what drove you to that. All right. So you could have come to the studio. You you could’ve visited the new york office and come to our studio here. That’s, right? But it happens to be summertime and summer time on the island is pretty good. So i understand how you could be with you in new york. That’s okay? We tried, tio. We tried to, but the schedules were just, you know, i’m not in new york all the time, either. I’m, uh, i spend a lot. Of time in north carolina, where the beach yes, i have a beach house there, and the beach is also very nice. During the summer, you might have heard rumors to that effect the ocean and beach life. Very nice in the summer months. Um, yeah, okay, so you’re and you’re interested not only in the not only interested, but you’ve been spending time researching not only the conscious aspects of this, but unconscious earth. Yeah, well, so to me, there’s sort of a couple of key components. One thing is how we organize our time. You know, i think about this from if we’re thinking about the social sector, which is who our clients are in a lot of who i consult with and work with. I think about the capacity of our teams because i think we have pretty severe limitations on budgets on operational budget specifically and thinking about howto increase the capacity of our workforce. And i think one of the ways we can do that is by really looking at the way we structure our time and the way we you know what kind of habits we reinforce in the office place and i think first off, there’s the component of just getting focused, work done and thinking about distractions, thinking about how we’re implementing technology and the sort of core components of that, i think a second component is around creativity and around creating space and allowing people actually have the time to think big and come up with creative solutions, which doesn’t happen in a busy, distracted work environment. And when you’re right in front of technology all the time, it kind of requires ah level of space to be created for people and so let’s. Ah, let’s, get some ideas. How do you how do you create that space? So i think creating spaces, it comes with first off and understanding what it means, you know, what’s interesting, like, you know, we’re starting to work with universities in canada as well as the u s and thinking about how we start to educate people from a younger age about what it means to be productive. I think we have, you know, his knowledge workers. Most of us are knowledge workers in today’s world who were working in front of a computer, and we’re creating documents or information products or things like that. Were a lot of communications, so oftentimes we feel like productivity is time spent in front of the computer o r on our devices and and i think it’s really important to realize that productivity and creativity comes also when you create space, when you go for a walk, when you take breaks when you actually disengage from the, you know, actual document creation or the actual work you’re doing and take time to process what’s happened so what’s interesting is that we have a conscious mind in a subconscious mind, and, for instance, when we learn new information, um, about six percent of that goes into our conscious mind, which is immediately available, and the other ninety four percent goes in our conscious mind, and that takes time to process and that’s where we kind of put things together and think that’s where correlation happened, that’s where true creativity happens. So, you know, i think most people would, you know, relate to the idea of the best ideas might come to them in the shower when they’re doing the dishes or when they’re, you know, doing some task that requires very little cognitive effort and that and that’s when our creativity strikes, and so what i what i try and teach my team and what i talked to people about in our workshops and the work we’re doing is about think rethinking what productivity’s means and how creating space in your days and you’re weak can actually be a very productive way to be a more creative contributor to your work. This reminds me of the dark days when i practiced law, and in those days we didn’t have why didn’t you have a computer at my desk? We’re talking about nineteen, ninety four, nine, nine, nine nine to nineteen ninety two andi i i’d have to stare at a blank ledger every day, and i knew i had to fill it up with atleast ten hours of billable activity. Otherwise i’d be working that weekend to make up the difference, and there were all kinds of building codes for for producing tangible output, but there was never a code for thinking. You know what? I just spent time thinking about your case, thinking about what the best strategy would be thinking about how to manage the relationship with this adversarial party, but i could never build for i thought and i i i had to build it into some document, some letter memo to the file or to the client that i had written this thinking time was never a billable activity, that it wasn’t a recognized thing that we should ask clients to pay for. Yeah, sorry, we feel the exact same thing as a consultant, you know, we were able to build for designing a website or creating a strategic brief for leading a workshop, but a lot of that that the thinking time is sort of out in space that we’re not. We’re not ableto billed for, which creates on, as, you know, an inverse relationship with the actual quality of the work that we’re trying to deliver. Yeah, wait, we just have a minute before a break tell me how you enforce this. How do you get people to it’s create this white space in their in their work days? Well, i think you just i mean, it’s been very interesting trying to implement this with my own company over the last couple of years and the hardest route to do this with his with young folks with the millennials grownup as digital natives. In so it’s kind of repeatedly letting them know that they’re a part of their job is delivering value like deep, valuable thinking, and to do that, they need to create some separation from technology and from their devices, and they need to create space and so really encouraging people to get up and walk around to take way. Taking meditation moments through our days, we have these virtual meditations we do throughout the week that are just three to five minutes, because i don’t think it could be. It could be a short period of time or a longer period of time longer the better. But even to destry minutes can make a big difference in your day where you’re actually fully disengaged in either in a short meditation or even just day dreaming and looking out the window. Hold that’s all we’ve got to take a break. Yeah, tell us you’ve heard the tell us mony als from charities that referred companies for credit card processing and, of course, they’re getting the revenue each month on dh from companies who are using tello’s for credit card processing can use more revenue big question can use more revenue that long stream of passive revenue. Ah, i’ll bet you could watch the video at tony dahna slash tony tello’s that’s the way to get started now back to steve rio. Steve, i am guessing that a part of this is the especially the millennials where the tougher nuts to crack, he said they need to see you doing these things a swell like you’re you’re taking the virtual meditations with them, of course, that’s, right? Yeah. So so i think i mean, i think what’s very key for organizations realized that has to start with leadership, and so i think in my case, i’m the ceo of my company, i’m the founder of my company, so i’m ableto teo live this toe live this thes recommendations and these ideas and to really create that opportunity for people to pick it up. Now, it’s a serious behavior change for a lot of people who are very accustomed and, you know, perhaps addicted to their devices into being engaged with technology and those things so really creating behavior change, which could take some time, but it does start with leadership. Mm. And i think it all you know, it also we also have to rethink the way we organize our offices and the way we organize our work days and start to create, you know, periods of the day where people are allowed to work uninterrupted without the expectation that they’re going to re responding to emails or or taps on the shoulder or slack black messages that air coming in. I mean, the amount of distractions were seeing in our workplace today is is pretty insane, actually, when you think about how the brain works and what we actually need to do, teo, to be focused, creative and productive. So again, maybe maybe enforcement is not quite the right word, but encouragement or, uh, seems sounds like you’re stronger than just encouraging. Do you have these periods where people are no, during which people are not expected to to respond? So that’s their long term, you know, sort of thinking time and creative time. Yeah, we yeah, we do. We encourage way encouraged people to to use their calendars as a tool to block out time for that they’re weak. Where it’s very clear to everyone if they’re looking at other, you know, trying to find a time to book a meeting that these, you know, we encouraged ninety minute blocks of time because that’s really the amount of time that the the brain can, you know, we can focus on a hard cognitive tasks without meeting a break. So these ninety minute blocks, we encouraged those in the morning whenever possible because that’s really the most, uh, energy or your brain is going to have for the for the day. And we also created some tools, so we use black, like many, you know, like many companies, we use flak for internal communications, kind of quick, quick communications, but we’ve created a tool where people can basically turn on a snooze button for their slack, which notifies others when they messaged them to say, this person is in a focus what we call a focus block for x amount of minutes, and it indicates the amount of minutes before that person will be available again. Okay, so both some tools as well as practices and then what we’re what we’re looking at now is looking at sort of a shared a shared timeline throughout the day that works because we work on both the primarily the west coast in east coast time zones in north america, but basically looking at a calendar format that works for both, where there’s specific periods of the day where everyone is encouraged to focus in on their work and other shorter periods of time where everyone is focused to then use those periods to collaborate, communicate, ask questions and do all the regular sort of things that are necessary to move project forward. When you’re interviewing people to work for you, do you bring up these topics and sort of assess their their willingness? We do we? I mean, i don’t expect i don’t really feel like it a subject that is taught in universities or that many workplaces have ever really considered, so i don’t necessarily expect people to come in with a knowledge of it, but i do expect people to be open to it and willing to adopt it, and actually, as we’ve developed this content, more and more we’ve done two things one is internally, we’re starting to build a curriculum for this that will be basically required learning it’ll be part of our onboarding process that people will go through over the first a month or two of being being part of our company, where they will, they’re basically build these habits up, and these will be poor expectations of our of our work, of our workforce. The second thing we’re doing is is creating we’ve created a new entity called right well on break wells, you know, mandate is to help train and educate people through workshops were working like i said, we’re about to embark on a university tour to start teaching this as a supplementary content to college students. So my my my goal would be that people start to recognize this is the core necessity for for the workforce, not just being a subject matter expert and say, fund-raising or marketing or whatever, you know, your your specific areas, but also your work habits. So really thinking about both as as critical to success. How often do you do the virtual meditations? We have those happening every day of the week and there in a couple different times and what they are, they’re basically optional five minute meditations where people can jump on a video call, yeah, like on a video link, and they every we jump on the video and we just start with everybody sharing a one word kind of update on where they’re at so it could be stressed or excited or tired or just something to check in really quickly. And then we have a three, three, two, four minute guided medication that we all listen to. What it was really interesting is that the the actual active taking those three to four minutes is really relaxing and rejuvenating, you know, energetically, but it also brings people together in a very interesting way that we always end the calls of people, the big smile on their face and kind of connected in a way, even though we’ve been mostly silent together for those three to four minutes pretty neat how many of those do you participate in? I try to do them at least three or four times a week. I participate in a lot of them, i don’t i don’t leave them, but yeah, i try to participate in them a lot. I mean, i think, like i say, a lot of this is lead by example and and show that even a busy ceo of the company can take that time, you know, creating that space is possible, it’s a matter of sort of changing your mind set around how you structure your day no, we’re going tow. We’ll take another break and when we come back, i want to i want to start talking about your encouragement for non-cash hour, mindfulness and and attention. Great text to give. You’ll get more revenue because they make e-giving easy for your donors is our newest sponsor welcoming them again? If your donor’s consent a text, they could make a donation. How much simpler could it be? It’s simple, affordable, it’s secure the ceo is chad chad boyd. You can talk to him. The way to get started is text npr to four, four, four, nine, nine, nine for info and to claim a special listener offer. We got about six more minutes for focus and attention. And so, steve really let’s make that shift what’s your encouragement for people outside the work day. Yeah, this is to me is a such a critical area and it’s very interesting to try and, you know, impact people’s personal behaviors, right? And i think it’s a critical component of our success that work is their success out of work. And i think to me, they’re all combined these days. So there’s a few things we really focus in on one is people’s morning habit. So how did they start their day? Particularly the first thirty minutes to their day. So really encouraging people to wake up without technology. So just stay off of of the internet, on off social media and off their email and things like that for the first thirty minutes of the day. It’s proven it’s a very critical time where we’re shifting mind state from, you know, from asleep to a conscious state, and it is a key time to sort of tell the tell the brain what type of what type of hey, am i gonna have is going to be a fragmented, distracted day where there’s all sorts of news and e mails and alert coming in? Or is it going to be a day where i’m focused on my priority? So the morning routine, we talk a lot about there’s, other aspects of that too, where we wait, just think about can you get some physical time in o r sum? Like even if it’s just yoga or a walk or something like that? But how? Do you think about your morning? And similarly before you okay? Before you move on, i want to focus on the morning. All right, so so you’re recommending eso. Okay. So, it’s, fine to wake up with your phone. Okay, your phone is your alarm. Okay? You silence. That sounds like don’t put it on snooze taken extra ten to fifteen minutes. Right? That’s bad. Probably, uh, okay. And now set aside. Don’t check e mail. Don’t look at the latest alerts. Um, what do you want? What do you want me to do? Right after i hit that silence button on the alarm. Yeah. So i think probably the most. The healthiest thing you could do for your day is to wake up to spend the first few minutes of your day, perhaps thinking about your top, you know, maybe what you want to achieve that day, maybe thinking about what? Your great before, like, you know, taking a few minutes to have a bit of a gratitude practice. So a simple way to think about that is just every morning. Think about three things that you’re grateful for and those could be, you know, somebody important in your life some projects you’re working on, you know, the sun is out. It could be very simple things, but taking a few moments to be grateful and two to to, you know, feel good and excited about your day. And then i think also spending the first few minutes, uh, doing something physical, if possible, if you can get up in the first thing you do is get outside and breathe fresh air and go for a walk. That’s a very healthy way to start your day and to warm up your body in your mind so i can stop in the bathroom first, right on my way to the walk. Absolutely. Okay, but don’t eat anything, you know, okay, because otherwise out of bladder pain be terrible walk so yeah, and it could you might, you know, you could wake up and make your coffee or make your tea or, like, i think, just having basically a morning routine that is calm and present, where you’re spending time in the present moment, whether it’s like a lot of people for them it’s the ritual of making a great coffee and thinking about their day and looking out the window. And just, you know, taking a few moments to be very present at the beginning here today is a great way to ground your energy and be more resilient when you do start, you know, getting your work environment and you start getting emails or not you and all sorts of information, you’re a lot. You have a lot more resilience and ability to be, you know, president and capable of handling whatever stone at you. Now, this sounds good intuitively is their research that bears this out. What this is this effect throughout the day that you’re describing there is a lot of there is research around, yeah, around the way that you start your day. So when people, when people start today with technology, whether it’s, whether it’s work related, so se e mails rather kind of alert first off, any type of work e mails or things like that can immediately trigger an anxiety response, even if it’s not necessarily a negative thing, it could just mean hope there’s an urgent thing or something pops up, and so when you start your day with that way, you’re basically haven’t heightened, uh, heightened dose of what we call cortical zoho yeah, yeah, and this is where your stress is, one of those one of reaction to stress hormones well, basically spike right out of the gate without having a warm up to the day and then there’s also research that shows when you start your day with technology, your brain is basically triggered into a highly reactive state, which means that you’re more likely to be distracted on dh less able to stay on task through the morning after the day. I mean, so so you’re more likely you’re basically telling your brain if you think about our brain in a more about, you know, primitive sense, if you wake up and you’re immediately alerted to thirty different things, you’re basically telling your brain today is a day where i just need to be aware of anything that moves around me, which is not necessarily the state you want to be in when you wantto get him focused. Work done. Okay, so the research bears it out. All right, all right, all right. What? Anything else we have? Just about two minutes or so left. Anything else for outside the work hours that you reckon e i would. Say the at, like, the absolute most important thing people should be thinking about outside of their work is their sleep. And and in north america, we have a serious issue. One into adults are sleep deprived. You know, one in three adults in north america are working our surviving on less than six or left hours of sleep, and this is having a massive effect on not only our cognitive ability, but our health and well being and our mood and our mindset. And so i think, it’s one of the most undervalued, most important things we should be thinking about is getting the necessary amount of sleep there’s just an incredible amount of research, not only showing the health issues that are related to a lack of sleep and by a lack of sleep, i really mean six hours or less, or anything in that area which a lot of people consider to be a fairly normal amount osili but also the amount of cognitive decline that you that you experience. So i think a lot of times we have this this this relationship with time where we think, well, there’s not enough time to sleep. There’s so much i got to get done, but then when we don’t sleep, our productivity in our capacity and our ability to process is so low that we’re actually kind of creating a creating a negative feedback loop on where we’re getting less done with our time. I think sleep is the other area that i think people should be really focused in on and for optimal sleep. You want a dark and quiet space? I’ve done the way. Yes, we’re gonna leave it there those steve. But thank you for saying one hundred percent steve rio, you want to learn more from him finding that bright b r i t web dot com and treat him directly at steve rio. Thank you, steve. Thank you every day. Thank you. And a good night, too. Next week, amy sample ward returns with over marketing. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant capital p weather. See piela is guiding you beyond the numbers when you’re cps dot com bye tello’s credit card. And payment processing your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna, slash tony tell us and by text to give mobile donations made easy text npr. To four, four, four, nine, nine, nine ah, creative producers, clam meyerhoff, sam leave lorts is the line producer shows social media is by susan chavez. Mark silverman is our web guys, and this 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. You’re listening to the talking alternative network duitz to get you thinking. Dahna cubine you’re listening to the talking alternative network, are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down? Hi, i’m nor in sometime, potentially, ater tune in every tuesday at nine to ten p m eastern time and listen for new ideas on my show. Yawned potential. 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Nonprofit Radio for June 1, 2018: Tech Mindfulness & Fringe Benefits Trigger UBIT

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Beth Kanter, Carrie Rice & Meico Whitlock: Tech Mindfulness
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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 forced to endure the pain of zoho iq andthe assis if you stung me with the idea that you missed today’s show tech mindfulness our non-profit technology conference panel wants you to avoid technology burnout or overcome it if you’re already there, they have mindfulness advice for your entire office, your teams and you. They are beth cantor carry rice from carry rice consulting and miko whitlock of mindful techie and fringe benefits trigger you b i t tax law now requires your non-profit to pay unrelated business income tax on parking and commuting expenses you provide for your employees. Our legal contributor, jean takagi shepherds you through the new land he’s, principal of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law firm i’m tony, take two, show your gratitude. We’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant radio by wagner, cpas guiding you beyond the numbers wagner, cps, dot com and by tell us turning credit card processing into your passive revenue. Stream tony dahna slash tony tello’s here’s our panel on tech mindfulness welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc you know what that is? It’s the two thousand eighteen non-profit technology conference coming to you from the convention center in new orleans. This interview, along with all our eighteen, ninety si interviews, is sponsored by network for good, easy to use donorsearch and fund-raising software for non-profits my guests right now are beth cantor carry rice and miko whitlock welcome all three of you. Thanks for having us. Our pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you very much. Carrie with cantor is master trainer, speaker, author, blogger and her latest book is the happy, healthy non-profit carry rice is principal at carry rice consulting, and miko whitlock is founder and ceo of mindful tiki. All right, your workshop topic is had a conker technology distraction and burn out and be more present for yourself, team and organization. All right, that’s pretty lofty presents. I feel like starting right in the middle. Carrie, we’re not so president so often, are we? Well, we broke up our session into our presence for ourselves, our presence for our team and our presence. For our overall organization, that was my focus was really about what are we doing to make it possible for those of us who aren’t members of the paid staff necessarily to remain present for the organization in a way, that’s not pushing them past their use of technology in a mindful way that to their own benefit as well as for the organization. Okay, so so each of you, i guess, has has ah, part of this three tiered presentation. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. So then carry is the organization, right? Isn’t in the organization. Okay, the host needs some notes to keep this straight. And beth was yours. Climb the we the wean? Yes, ourselves that we being of teams or internal organization staff working together. Okay. And, miko, what is your part of this? The eye, the individual? Oh, you’re the individual. Okay. Okay. So how do beth and carry distinguish the two? The two years of years the organization so you’re outside the organization, extra marries outside the organization and remaining being present. And you’re here in the internal. Okay. Got it. Yeah, i do. Alright. So far. I hope i don’t lose it. I got it? Okay. We’re also trying to overcome tech burnout. You’re we’re all concerned about tech burn out what’s the trouble here, rico? Well, the trouble is twofold. So one is what i described his intention deficit disorder, where we have a lack of clarity about what it is. We’re actually focus on it in a particular moment. I don’t think that’s a crazy coin. I mean, i think that’s out there is an attention deficit disorder. Intention? Oh, intention. Attention. Oh, well, i’m glad i okay. Intention. Definite deficit disorder. I’d yes idea. Okay. I made that clear. Yes. And so part of the work i do is around people to take a step back and really reflect on what it is that you’re trying to do in particular the context of a non profit organization, what’s your role. And what are you pushing in terms of the actual mission and the outcomes for this one aspect of it? The other aspect of it is that we have to recognize that the technology is designed in such a way that is intentionally draining our attention. Right? So is, you know, we have push notifications that are set up by default, for example. For social media, for our mobile devices. And we have to understand that that’s intentional. But they’re also ways for us to control that we can turn off those modifications. We canoe certain absent applications to regain our attention, to be more present. But those are sort of two aspects of it lack of intention and then also the intentional effort by companies to actually take and hold and keep our attention. Attention. Okay, thank you. And welcome back to non-profit radio. Thank you. And i talked in twenty sixteen and the other person on the panel who i spoke to in twenty sixteen was best cancer. We’re talking about your was then your new book? Yes. Ok. Healthy non-profit healthy non-profit, which is still you can still get it. It’s. Not like it’s out of print or anything. But in twenty sixteen, it was new. And your co author wass lisa sherman. He’s a sherman. Is she here? Not this year, but this year. Okay. And how is this work today? Different than what we talked about in twenty sixteen and happy, healthy number off it. Well, if we go back to that radio program in your archives, we talked about self care and taking care of ourselves and talk on a culture of well being. So this is a subset of it on dh specifically how staff working together can be highly productive unless distract less distracted and get their works done. And i think what we’re faced with is something called collaborative overload, which is back to back meetings, too many emails, too many platforms, and that keeps us from getting things done. So a lot of what i talked about is how could you be more intentional about your work together to combat this distraction? Okay, we’re cement wristing phrases that lack of intention intension deficit disorder, collaborative overload. Carrie, did you come with the special phrase? Welcome to non-profit a radio is very ous a newcomer. Welcome, i always surround myself with the best, so you’re you’re non-profit radio. Exactly. I’m a non-profit radio way with you and beth in mikko doesn’t get much better than that. Um, well, i come from a world where my branding is called empathetic non-profit management, which is basically that all the stakeholders of the organisation should be treating each other the same way that we treat the recipients. Of the services that we provide so the empathy that we have towards the poppies or the homeless people, we provide the same level of empathy tours, donors towards board members towards members that we’re looking at each of those groups through that same empathetic lens. And so by doing that, and then combining that with technology it’s about changing the expectation of what we do internally on our team or what we do is individuals based on the work that meeko is suggesting that we’re saying, well, maybe that doesn’t all apply to the external stakeholders who aren’t actually getting paid to do the work that we’re doing as professional does not okay, there’s a lot here, we’re gonna unpack it. I’m the remedial person on the panel, okay? Because you all have been thinking about this for years, or at least, you know, it’s, right? I mean, years or at least months in collaborating around this on the newcomer. Well, same way. Okay. Right. Well, ok. I want everyone thinking out of an average. Okay, on average are so you’re quick learner. So bring me along. Yeah. Be respectful. Okay. Uh, it’s. Time for a break. Pursuing they have a new paper, the digital donation revolution how do you keep up in our one click to buy amazon world? Can you use more revenue? A loaded question? The paper has five online fund-raising tactics proven to work and save money proven tactics you will find the digital donation revolution on the non-profit radio listener landing page. Tony dahna slash pursuing radio now back to tech mindfulness look, i don’t know where should we go? I want to start with the i’d like to start with the i actually down the end. Okay, i will start the individual. This the lack of intention this is all around helping us to stay focused right now so that we can be more mission successful ways all it’s all for the good of the of the of the social yes, there’s the societal good. But if we don’t bring it down to the if we don’t start with the individual, we can’t be maximally efficient in helping change the world. Yes, my yeah. Is that a decent contacts i put in an early yes, and so it it starts. I use a framework to people to sort of have ah place to go when they get distracted, right? So distraction is inevitable. So we’re talking about is getting a tool, a framework that they can walk through. It starts with understanding your why or your purpose. So why you showing up? Why are you committed to the work that you’re doing and then understanding based on your based on your wine, your purpose? What your actual goals? And you might have many goals that you’re focused on any point in time. And once you identify what your goals are, you actually prioritize because he recognized that with multitasking were actually mohr effectively be focused on a few things, that we’re not very good. Multi taskers, actually, are we even though we think we are what there’s actually wait, i thought we were not. Are we? Am i wrong? Well, you could say i’m wrong, i’m wrong. Why? In the technical sense, one way you could talk to this is not only me and nico, am i wrong about them? I’m walking about multitasking, i thought we were not really, truly you can’t really multi task exactly on what it when you’re doing two different task, your brain is just switching back between. The two on every time it switch treyz delays, and it also uses up brain cells and raises quarters all of cortisol levels that raises cortisol levels. So i was right. Okay, how come nobody said i was right? I am going to tell you that i think you’re right. It depends on the way to find monisha audiocasting so silent when i know for me i was seeking information that wasn’t next time, i’ll give it to him as long as it’s deserved. I mean, of course, it’s wrong if i’m wrong say, i’m wrong, but if i’m right jump on it, you know, it doesn’t happen that often. There you go, give credit where credit is, tio. Yeah, i actually like transitioning between projects, it’s just that for me i have to set aside an amount of time that works best for me to make those transition and that time is probably more than ninety second i s actually it is more than ninety seconds. Another thing about multi tasking is it takes you several seconds to re find yourself. We acquaint yourself with the task that you left, but you’re not going back to that could take his lorts nine or ten seconds for more, you know, when you’re like bouncing just quickly. I mean, it could take it could take ten minutes if you were writing something, you know, if it is a bigger piece or something. All right, because it’s not just the switching cost is also the cost of actually getting back to the place where you left off, right, and then take some time, they sort of speed up again, right? Right. Okay. Okay. All right. So good. We’re focusing on the on the you know what? I have a question for you, though. Sure. How does the eye how does what you’re describing relate to what carries part of this is she’s here you’re talking about carrie, talk about the individual as off site worker or as a as a consultant to the organization, but you’re also talking about individual. How do your how do your topics today differ? Well, i was so that they overlap, and so when we talk about why we’re talking about obviously, the individual right organizations are not just things they’re made up of people and the same thing when we talk about boards and other external stakeholders, we’re talking about people and individually way have to be able to show oppa’s out best cells so that collectively, when we come together, we can maximize our collective right, carrie okay, carrie where’s the overlap, right? So if someone were following amigos presentation yesterday about thie ability to say yes and to be able to say no with intentionality, then i want a board member who feels comfortable saying no to me because then when they say yes to me, i know they really mean it because i know that they have the skill set to say my schedule is too busy to be doing that right now or it doesn’t fit into my why of why i’m involved with this organization specifically. Okay. Okay. Um, i saw you nodding. You wanted you wanted anything with beth that’s about this promise not to swear this time you can go back, tio? No, it was twenty sixteen. Or was it fund-raising day in new york city, so, like twenty, fourteen or something? My boys just cracked fourteen and the two thousand thirteen thirteen remember better than okay. Two thousand thirteen fund-raising day n y c and best drop the f bomb, but she promised not to do now because i have affiliate stations that are governed by the fcc way, we can’t use the seven, we can’t use the seven words that george carlin had a lot of fun with, okay, okay, in any case, the whole context or yeah, long term listeners will remember best dropping everything twice in the same, the same discussion that certainly new visitors can go to your archives. Thirteen was only on one time that year, you find cantor at twenty martignetti dot com get the twenty thirteen appearance from fund-raising day in new york city. Okay, with that contact. Well, there’s something you want to add to the discussion. So, yeah, i think the collaborative overload is made up of four, four things the four piece and they’re not bad words. I don’t get what you don’t sow planning, planning priorities, being president and then people. So our relationships, interaction with staff and how we work together, communicate and collaborate on projects can lead to burn out in stress and certainly having, you know, just for example, let’s say my phone’s here, right? Yeah. This is like techno fear in ce and a bunch of people are doing this at a staff meeting it’s getting in the way of getting things done. We’re not giving each other our full attention and intentionality. I even considered that maybe you have a word for this cycle of insulting, well talking techno fear with techno parents? Yeah, insulting technology. A little offended you? No, i’m not talking in a meeting and people were picking up their phones. I’d rather they walk out this way. I think they’re going to the bathroom and i’m not tracking their time, so they’re gone for fifteen minutes do-it-yourself trouble may i’d rather they leave and come back and do it while i’m talking. But here’s the thing and it’s a lot of what i talked about in terms of the week. We have to be intentional about the way we’re working together. So if there are work and we’re being explicit at a meeting, we’re not checking our phones during the meeting or a technology unless it’s supporting the technology or else it’s a device free meeting. Okay, all right, so waken new can help with policies. Ground rules were also are also trying. Teo set norms that have to do with acknowledging riel life happening. So for me, some having someone come into a staff meeting and say, i’m waiting to find out if my father’s okay in the hospital. So i’m going to be looking at my phone during the meaning of exception exactly, but sat having that norm set so that someone is sneaking away to look at their phone and distracted from the meeting, but to be able to share with the members of the team. This is why i’m distracted right now i’m doing the best i can than everybody else khun give that person support and make them more successful. I agree, and then the knot intentionality around it. Here’s the reason why? Okay, okay were rough about halfway through and we we’ve talked around way talked about this. Why this is important. I want to spend time on strategies. What is our listeners? They’re in small and midsize non-profits how can they apply this work to them? Or if they are an outsider? Or maybe even a virtual employees carry reitman might you’re you’re part of this. I told myself i also applied a virtual employees. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, i don’t want to drill down through yeah, yeah, and specifically, when it comes to technology wellness with external stakeholders, my rule is simplicity is that sometimes the complicated solutions like using, for example, slack for us to keep track of our conversations for a lot of people who don’t work in a corporation or in an office or in a non-profit they don’t know anything about that program, so coming up with a simpler solution and saying, oh, let’s, just use google chat or let’s, just use text messaging or something like that it’s a simpler solution for an external stakeholder than an internal stakeholder like the teams that that’s talking about where you can actually say, okay, everybody needs to get up to speed on this particular technology, but it’s really hard to do that when it’s someone who is a donor or a boardmember or an external consultant or someone who’s working off site, so you’d probably rather i didn’t say we’re willing it down for the lowest common denominator. I prefer not to use that phrase whenever possible, but i will i’ll stick with simplicity because that people keep it simple, silly, i won’t say stupid keep it simple, silly. Okay, good enough. Miko, how about cem cem, drill down tto strategies. Teo, you know, overcome this tech burnout. So the first thing i will say is that not every solution is a digital technology solution. And so starting with just taking time to really get clear about your intentions and as i was saying, establishing norms in terms of policies around how you actually meet and how technology is involved or not in those meetings and using the time at the beginning of the meeting just run through really quickly. Hey, guys, this is what we agreed to. No cellphone today. Is everyone okay with that and running through it that way? Don’t think i was out, and that would be the time to raise your hand and say my father’s in the hospital. I do. I’m doing the best i can. Okay. Okay, so but if you’re looking for a technology solution, there are a number of aps out there that are really cool that really help you too be clear about their intention and to help you not to spend as much time on your device is doing things that aren’t moving your mission. Or your wife forward. So i think a moment for example, moment is an app that you can download for the iphone and for android moment, yes, moments ok? And it simply keeps track of how often you’re actually using your phone and how often you’re actually using different aps. And so you can look at the data that you’re getting from this and actually haven’t awareness. Oh, i’m spending two hours a day on facebook. I’m spending three hours, you know, looking at instagram like us five hours out of my day. Maybe i could be spending that time doing something else so that simple awareness could be oh, really begins to instigate a shift in behavior. Okay, okay. Strategy strategy for the we the team one one one that’s real popular’s tohave an email charter which includes things like what is your policy around after hours emails which can cause a lot of stress. It’s not so much the amount of time it’s this sense that you’re on call all the time it’s just it’s just the just the existence of it. Right? So having a really formal policy about, you know, for normal business email, i mean emergencies and disaster relief and all that it’s an exception way. Don’t expect youto at reply to your email right away between seven p m and seven a m sometimes it takes, you know, making sure that the senior leadership understands this and is modeling that behaviour as well. Yes, i know it does not. If not c e o on down buy-in none of these strategies, they’re going to be our gonna be adopted, right? Exactly those exceptions ceo is allowed to look at her phone during the meetings. The whole thing crumbles, right? I mean, we got nothing to bases, all right? And that came up in our session as well. Someone asked that my ceo’s looking at the phone all the time and what i know there’s so many things i want to implement, but i can’t and i ask that person well, do you manage a team? She said, my senior management won’t listen to me and i said, you managed to team and i said, yeah, just your team listen to you well, most the time they said we’ll create that culture on your team exact change. You can change the way we roll yet. Okay, okay. That came out and came out on the previous conversation today to try to think about what the the context of that was. Oh, it was trying to get buy-in from above, actually way. Label them buy-in bitches. Bitches is okay. All right, all right, all right. It is ok. Carrie and laura, i think they’re very good team. They’re very good together that used to be at the humane society of us. And anyway, we dump them two buy-in bitches, but one of them said, if you can’t, you can’t make them get get the buy-in above. Then manage what you can on your on your team. So same same idea and then show it off to you know, when your boss sees how productive your name is being, they say what’s the secret why’s your morale so good, why is your productivity so good? And then you’re able to say, because we we managed expectations, we set norms and you’re actually you’re managing up and there was another, another instance that came up with in this case, it was a consultant, mike. My clients expect me to respond to them right away. How do i address? That expectation and it’s kind of well, you. If you reply, you set up the expectations. We know you break the norms. Yes. You know, when that you teach people how to treat you essentially you notice that the boundaries early? Yeah, yeah. Beth is right the first time if you respond immediately, that’s that’s the rule and that becomes, however, if you reply with or if you maybe make make a call instead of replying with email, you know, i don’t i don’t do after hours. I don’t do after eight p m e mails or whatever. I mean, i you know, i have my own life. You said the boundaries of the expectations early and i ninety nine people out of a hundred going to respect that, i think. And i read it it’s in my consulting contracts, actually, that i only do work between norvig snusz hours. Okay, well, you’re the mindful technique. You if your story miss up and get off that shot his mic off. Great, but but i saw kivi, larry miller speak recently if bloom khan and she was talking about the types of roles where we want to be responsive to our members in real time, and so having there be certain members of your staff who have a different work schedule where they’re in the office only twenty five hours a week and then they’re available evenings and weekends fifteen hours a week to be checking so that if someone posts and says, oh my gosh, what do i do about my dog there’s someone who can respond in real time and say, we can’t help you with that? Why don’t you try calling this emergency number but that they don’t have to work full time in the office if they’re going to be available during alternative hours? That’s something that they actually negotiate with their workplace and the expectations air managed and that it actually works really well? Kibby it was an example that give you gave, and i thought that was it great way of thinking of it when we do want to be able to be responsive during weird times, that’s also has implications across time zones yes, yeah, likewise world where the people on the west coast what’s the expectation and carrying your you know, maybe you’re a consultant to a virtual employees on the west coast. Are you? Are you expected to be up and working at six a? M or do you work the hours of your zone? There are policies that cuts both ways, right? But what are what is our policy? That’s when it gets back to the normal? No, we need to go with the norms are what the ground rules are. Yeah. What’s bloom con it’s a balloon khanna blew the bloomerang unconference they do a column around here? Yeah, yeah. Bloomerang does an educational conference, which i know a lot of other vendors do as well so that their their clients are actually getting a lot of information as well as using excellent products, you know, across the board. Okay, that j lo j love involving bloomerang, i guess founded bloomerang. Actually, i think he’s been on the show. A lot of good people now and even more good people. Like i said, i only i only surround myself with the best company. All right, you can place carrie. You still got a couple minutes left. Let’s. Go back to yumiko. You got another another strategy. Tip tool. Best practice? Yes. So you can take control when you come to digital vices like your tablets in your mobile devices, you can actually take control so the defaults might be set to push notifications to you. For example, every time you get an email every time someone likes a post on facebook, but you can actually adjust those setting so that you’re not getting pained every time. Is it really necessary to get a get a email every time somebody likes a post your comments on it? Is it really? That is a really essential? Is it essential? I don’t, i think not. Right? Well, israel, i imagine that could be circumstances where i might be the case. If you’re managing social media on behalf of her brand, maybe it does make sense if you’re monitoring comments, but as an individual, maybe not if it’s, especially if it’s getting in the way of you getting meaningful work. Okay. Okay. Excellent. So look at those defaults. Yes, because the platforms want you engaged. Exactly. Uh, that’s how they make their money? Yes, yes. Yeah. Linked in with the with the what is like that you can you can vote somebody with you. Give somebody a endorsement. Endorsement? Yes, with the endorsement. Oh. My god, it’s rampant? What do i mean? That first of all, they’re meaningless. It’s just an engagement hook. Yes, i think. All right, we don’t need to be notified. I’m obviously i’m sure you’re sharing my bias. Uh, sorry. Okay, but its host. No, no smiling. Now, you don’t think it is all right. Listeners are accustomed to this he’s rants. Okay, another strategy. Ground of something else we can do within the organization. Uh, what? What could we do? Root. Nice reflection. Okay, right out. How are your liberation? Okay, so, uh, because the stress and burnout is what i call fired-up leadership, our fire drill culture, which is basically oh, my god. The grants to tomorrow. All hands in the conference room let’s, get this done and and kind of if there are fired rell’s, you know which happened? It’s having the discipline toe push the pause button and figure out, is there a bigger systems issue or something we can address toe? So we don’t have this fire drill next time. Yeah. Weekly fire drills latto program. No, no one. And it pulls people off their work. It creates a lot of stress. And if the leader has that fire drill, leadership, culture, it’s, the shrill voice. It just causes a lot of stress. Yeah, and that’s, not productive, it’s giving me. I got a chill. I mean, i got a i got a physiological reaction, just as you were, and i didn’t even do it. And full fire drill voice. She didn’t run around or anything. I think it is all my fault. Okay, excellent. Zoho what about you said you call that routinized reflection? Yes. Ok. Ok. What about what about in the organization? Dahna dahna i don’t know. A collective time together. Devoted collective time. That’s not devoted to work. Well, i was kind of other reflection or something. Well, well, two things too quick. Tips. Okay, so so there’s the five wise, which is an exercise. When the fire drill happens, sit down with the team, do a twenty minute brainstorm. Why did this happen? Oh, because we didn’t have the grant on the calendar. So why did that happen? Oh, well, we don’t have a grantspace started before you drilling down, asking why? Why? Why? Why so that’s a really good practice? We actually find out the root cause we’re right through all the symptoms, right? If your record and try to fix it, thie other one is because we have bad time management tools were not using time management tools or headline management, right? Well, saliva flying there that’s mine. You know, sex on that time i was on the table didn’t hurt anybody. Okay? And the other thing is having look ahead. Rituals and ah, latto non-profits do this many don’t just like looking at you probably do this because you’re scheduling what’s coming up the next quarter, the next month, one organization that i know they have stopped days and stop days are they don’t have any internal meetings that one day a month, it’s actually a development team, and they work on getting that deep thinking done the creative planning, finishing up the proposal they didn’t right so it’s not filled with all the meetings and deadlines and stress. Carrie, i’m gonna give you the last shot. Unbelievably, this is we’re almost done last last tool tip strategy tech. I mean, idea what what you got both of my tools would be empathy and empathy. It would be self empathy. It would be taking a moment and assessing yourself and looking at all the expectations you have for yourself and others have for yourself and then empathizing and really thinking about what you’re actually going through. And then every other stakeholder you work with just walking a mile in their shoes and just imagining what’s challenging them. And how can you make it easier for them as well? The empathetic, empathetic also. Thankyou. All three. Very much. This one flew. Flew. Sometimes i gotta pull teeth. This one. Not like that. Okay, they are beth cancer, master trainer, speaker, author, blogger carry rice principal carry race consulting mika whitlock, founder and ceo mindful techie. And you are with non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc this interview sponsored by network for good, easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits. Thank you so much for being with us. Need to take a break, wagner. Cps before they go beyond the numbers, they cover the essentials for you. Nine ninety and your audit. Check them out at wagner cps dot com. You get to know them in one dimension on the screen. Then go three d real life. Pick up the phone. Talk to the partner. You huge tomb. Or of course, you can use the contact page on the site. If you prefer. I like to talk to people. I like to get on the phone with you. Very nice guy. Not going to let you down. Wittner, cpas, dot com they will take care of you and your auditing. The end accounting needs. Jean takagi is coming up now. It’s, time for tony’s. Take two. I hit this last week, the ninety six year old secretary um i didn’t know who writes this crap. I didn’t hit the ninety six year old secretary she’s already dead. But i did mention this last week and i should write this. I need an intern to blame. She this woman gave eight million dollars to two non-profits in her will had very unassuming lifestyle all of our old life. Nobody knew that she was anywhere near ah millionaire, you know, able to give away eight million dollars in her will. Ah, my takeaway from this is in the video, the little teases i want you to show gratitude toe all your donors. She was not a donor, but she could have been. And she if she had been, she would have been very modest. So that’s sort of a tease. Take a look at the video at twenty martignetti dot com leinheiser love we got we got we got tons where’s it going to it’s going tio let’s start with cambodia and ottawa, canada you’ve been with us a few times. Ottawa welcome back. Germany, gooden tog gergen, india i’m sorry. I can’t i don’t know. How to say hello in indian but the live listener love goes to you brooklyn, new york that is not foreign att least not in my in my book, maybe from people in queens. It is taipei, taiwan ni hao where’s our china. No one in no one checking in from china today. Um, bring it back to the u s, tampa, florida, brooklyn, new york, multiple new york, new york get the to get the two borrows know staten island, queens bronx not checking in today. San francisco, california is with us washington, d c and new bern, new bern, north carolina. The live love goes toe all each and every live listener and the podcast pleasantries that the vast majority of our audience over twelve thousand listeners each week the podcast pleasantries to you. Whatever. However you fit it into your schedule, you binge listen. Six hours on a time on on sundays, pleasantries to the podcast listeners and the affiliate affections to our am and fm station listeners throughout the country. I’m grateful that your station carries us in your schedule and i’m grateful that you are listening. Analog analog will never die. I don’t care what anybody says analog is not going to die am and fm listeners affections to you now it’s. Time for fringe benefits trigger you b i t i i i can hear his heart beating it’s racing. He knows he’s coming in and he’s jean takagi he is managing attorney of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. Of course he’s, our legal contributor he edits the non-profit the popular non-profit law blogged dot com you should you should be bookmarking that are subscribing to that non-profit law block dot com he’s the american bar association’s twenty sixteen outstanding non-profit lawyer he’s at g tak welcome back, team takagi. Thank you, tony, how are you? Hey, you’re coming in booming. I love it. I’m doing very well. Thank you. Thank you, it’s. Good to talk to you, it’s. Been it’s been some time? I think it’s it feels like it’s been too long. I don’t know what has been but it feels like it. Welcome back. Thank you so much. Great to be back, tony. Thank you. So we’re talking about ah, cem cem tax law changes one specifically regarding is narrow category of fringe benefits and you be i tv. Ah, unrelated business income tax. We haven’t even talked about this for quite some time years. So remind us what unrelated business income tax is. Please? Sure. I mean it’s a great starting point. Because, um, a lot of folks have never had to deal with it before. And i are going all of a sudden have to have to have to deal with it now. But generally speaking, the unrelated business tax is on income tax that’s imposed on unrelated business trade income, which is income from a trader business that’s regularly carried on. So basically, with the same frequency and continuity is for-profit would do it. And that’s not substantially related to the organization’s advancement of its own charitable or other five a onesie three purpose unrelated business taxable income. That’s what? What? The income tax is going to hit now that people call it. You bit right, cubine? Yeah. Cubine for unrelated business tax. The acronym? Yeah. I’m wondering why it’s not a bit. Because it’s it’s unrelated to not eun it’s, not eun related. So i was. As i was thinking about this, i may adopt a bit you can stick with. You but if you want to be a dinosaur but the trend is moving now because one data point creates trend. It’s now moving toward a bit. Okay, so, quite roll off the tongue is nicely, but it really doesn’t. I think it’s coming is better because it’s unrelated itt’s a it’s, a sin tactically, grammatically, you know. Ah, naturalistic. All right, um all right. So, wait. So we have taxes on we have in minor ways or in, in narrow ways has put it that way in narrow ways on tax exempt organizations because the irs says that they’re primarily tax exempt, right? That what’s up. Yeah, well, i think what they are, they’re tax exempt on income from donations and on income from related activities that those air activities that substantially contribute to advancement of their their charitable purposes, and we never look at how their profits are deployed. So if, for example, a social services organization runs the coffee shop that had nothing to do with job training or anything like that, it was just ah, they bought a franchise coffee shop and they were making money. But using all the profits to go back into the social service stuff. That’s still unrelated, so any earnings coming out of that business would be taxable. Okay, um, and this gets to the three pronged test you mentioned it’s, trader business regularly carried on and, uh, not substantially related to the organization’s exempt purpose. That’s. Right. Ok, ok, we may. We may come back to these because i want to i want to get to the crux of this thing, and then i wanted tear it apart a little bit. I have a lot questions about why, why we’re getting, why, why this is being imposed on us. It doesn’t seem to fit, so you’re going to help you, khun, help all of us out. Hopefully, other people are questioning this, too. Although it’s, too late, it’s not like this is a proposal, i mean, it’s, it’s. A done deal. You have to deal with this thing so so if you have a bit liability, then you have to calculate how much tax you owe to the irs each year. Is that right? That’s? Right? So you’re gonna have to pay now, it’s a flat rate of twenty one percent attack on your puppet and you have to file. Thank you, john. Thank you for that thousand dollars arm or of of the unrelated business taxable income you’re going to have to file form nine, ninety with the irs, so that goes along with your regular form nine ninety siri’s filing, and this is important because this is going to hit churches as well that otherwise don’t have to file nine nineties, but if they’ve got unrelated business taxable income of a thousand dollars or more now they’ve got a file in nine ninety and paid twenty one percent tax on it. Oh, very yes, very interested, right. Churches are exempt from the nine ninety requirement, but now they’re going to file this nine ninety t assume t is for tony handup pick up. Okay? Yes. Interesting churches were swept into the nine. Ninety requirement under this. All right, what? They’ve always say if they if they had over a thousand dollars about unrelated. They always had to file this. But we’re creating new sources of this. We’re gonna have a lot more organizations and that’s. Why it’s important for churches to be aware of it now as well. Interesting. Yes. All right. Let’s, let’s. Get to the crux of it. What is the new source? What are the new sources that we are here talking about today? New sources of of it. So this all stems from what’s known as the tax cuts and jobs act on dh that’s basically congress’s new tax act. So i think most of us and we on an earlier show we talked about the tax reform act that hit and started to apply as of january first of this year two thousand eighteen. So under this tack fact there’s several provisions that affected non-profit on tax exempt organizations and one of these had to do their several that applied to to the labbate unrelated business income tax. But one particular thank you. Thank you very much. When in particular that’s. Quite distressing. Is that now a qualified transportation fringe benefits that’s provided by an employer to an employee is going to be taxable so it’s not any income that the non-profit is receiving it’s, actually, for most of them, an expense that they’re paying for a fringe benefit for their employees. Um and all of a sudden now they didn’t have to last year, but starting this year, they have to pay tax on giving a qualified transportation prince benefit to an employee. Okay, now it sounds like you’re you’re ah, you’re consistent with my thinking because you just drive. It is distressing, and i didn’t see how it was income because typically pre-tax income, but all right, so let’s, let’s define what is a i guess the acronym is q t fbi? What is a qualified but i’ve drug in jail, so, you know, i’m not could put myself in jargon jail. What is a qualified transportation fringe benefit now that is going to trigger a bit under the tax law, so it would include things like any employer provided shuttles to work transit passes that that you might give teo your employees so that they can take the metro or whatever hyre transit that that they have to get, get to work and workplace parking. Zaf employers air providing any of these things to their employees? Not that they’re getting any income from it, but the expenses that they pay out. You’re gonna actually have to pay an additional tax on that now. Yeah, i can’t believe this. Well, it’s dis incentivizing mass transit because they’re going to get tax, the organization that gives you money toward your transit pass or pay, but gives you the transit pass directly. Uh, this is like it’s, like the global warming and climate change enhancement act. Dis incentivizing that’s a lot of levels. I can’t believe the dis incentivizing mass transit usage by taxing the benefit. Ah non-profit employer giving it to employees it’s ludicrous. So i’ll give you a little bit of their ration. Now, if you call this a restless since jean so calm of the calming voice as i’m ranting. All right, go ahead. Yes. Give us the rational please. They’ve taken this away as a deduction from for-profit sa’s. Well, so before a for-profit employer that provided thes qualified transportation bridge benefits, upleaf shuttles and transit classes, workplace parking could deduct it. Yeah, before they pay income taxes on their net income, that kind of made sense, right? You know, it’s an expense to run your business and you’re trying to do do a good thing. Yeah, trying to attract attract labour that may come from a distance, so you’re helping them pay for or offset the cost of their commute? Yep. Then durand non-profits for-profit do not get teo. They lost that deduction. They lost that as of this year. So that’s part of the text you no cuts in jobs act so that that’s one area of new revenue for the government is despite the tax cuts. This is one area new revenue that businesses can’t deduct this and non-profits have to be taxed on it. So it’s kind of ridiculous, but this sweeps end a ton of charities, small charities included and churches that have no unrelated businesses they’ve never had to understand. You bet or a bit because i’ve never had any unresolved business better elearning income so that they would never file the nine, ninety they would never worry about paying this type of income tax, and all of a sudden they’re not making any more income, but they have been providing parting to their employees. Yeah, park and now i’m in transit. If they don’t file the night nineteen, they don’t pay the tax and they could get it, you know, with interest and penalties as well. What’s the rationale for equalizing corporate and non the corporate and nonprofit sectors. Why? Just because one loses a deduction, which also is a disincentive, teo mass transit and commuting it’s equally. But, you know, removing that deduction for for the corporate community is unequal disincentive tio teo taxing it on the non-profits but where’s, the what’s, the reason for having two equivalent make these two equivalent way if we remove the deduction for corporations and we have to, we have to tax it on the on the non-profit sides like they’re competing. What? What? What? What’s the rationale for trying teo equalize thes yeah, it’s a good question, tony, and i don’t know that i have a policy answer just no that’s, basically, that their explanation is to put everybody on the same playing field. But this doesn’t make sense. Non-profits inc organizations, because they’re doing public good, that businesses aren’t required to do so. I don’t get it either. All right, thank you. Let’s. Take a break, gene. Tell us moughniyah lll have a talisman eal ly elementary school is receiving a monthly donation from tello’s for the credit card processing of a company one of our parents owns likely the easiest donation source we have ever secured. End quote, monthly passive revenue that’s what? Tell us we’ll get you the easiest donation source ever think of people who are close to your organization? Who owned businesses who would be willing to switch their credit card processing. That’s what it’s all about. You get passive revenue indefinitely. Start with the video at tony dot m a slash tony. Tell us now, let’s. Go back to fringe benefits that trigger labbate with jeanty jeanty. That could be like you could be a deejay. Or so our rapid jeanty. You like it? Jean d’you did a rap for us once. Didn’t you think you write a rap ones? I’ve written a few you well, i only labbate really perform. Yeah, you did one. You have many. But you performed one on the show like jean t gene t the gene gene t the law machine. Remember, jean, you could be ging t the legal of machine. Remember rum? What was that with chuck barris? Oh. Gosh! Oh, gosh. Oh, don’t got anything geever gene, gene, the dancing machine. Oh, yeah, i remember him. You’re going to be your gene gene the law machine. Gene gene, the law machine gt. All right, jean jean don’t think i’m going to forget this either. Gene gene, the la mission. All right, gene t i love it. Um, okay, so you’re you’re is as dismayed as as i am i i just i cannot see them. Well, i’ve ranted i can’t see the rationale for the equivalent ing equalizing the corporate and nonprofit sector dis incentivizing mass transit. All right. And then so let’s go through. I mean, how does this work in the in the three pronged test? Trader a. You bit a bit of it. I made a mistake. Labbate is has been, um um created when it’s something that’s ah non-profits carrying on a trader business that’s regularly carried on and not substantial related to the organization’s exempt purpose. I mean that this is not even doing this for-profit it. So, it’s not it’s a trader of business. This is not a profit. This is a fringe benefit, employees. How does this fit? And there’s no. Income generated either so it doesn’t fit. They just threw it in because there’s a system of taxing non-profit that has nothing to do with prince benefits, but they found a way to teo just stick it in, and it doesn’t fit your right so that part of the problem, although in one aspect what you said was true, you know, this is the law now, there’s, not much we can do about it, but in another part we can actually do something about it. So while the basic laws are there, there’s just a lot of open questions and a lot of misunderstandings and ambiguities and no way to understand exactly where it applies and where it doesn’t apply in certain circumstances and a whole bunch of organizations, including the national council non-profits the american institute of e p, a american society of association executives are calling on the treasury department, the irs to say, hey, don’t implement these, you know, laws yet because we have no clear guidance and we don’t have a way to tax plan for this because we don’t understand where it applies and where it doesn’t apply, and you’re saying it already takes effect. As of two thousand eighteen, the laws were rushed through without understanding. There are no regulations yet, so treasury hasn’t built regulations yet, right? So how do they enforce something where nobody understands exactly what it means? Our eddie, these organizations challenging the existence of this prevision or they’re just asking questions about it. Do you know? Well, they’re asking for a delay and implementation until there are regulations that are promulgated and regulations require comments. And so it takes a while to get done. But there are so many open questions, i don’t know that they can change the law in and of itself on left congress to become the law, but the regulations that are underneath it and we can discuss some of the open questions that are out there, they’re asking people to comment to the irs directly. And you, khun, you know, if you googled irs comment and tax forms ah, and you put the form nine ninety it’s it’s on ly basically email form nine ninety and say delay. You know, uh, imposing any liability on us until you tell us exactly what the rules are you all right? Now we will get to some. Of the questions i do want to make it clear that we’re not talking about employee’s losing the income exclusion for these benefits, right? That that remains intact. That’s that’s, right? So employees that get these fringe benefits don’t have to pay tax on it. So it’s pre-tax you’re not losing your pre-tax benefits up to two hundred sixty bucks a month for commuting and two sixty month for parking. That’s not right, that’s not employers that are paying for it are now being advised by some of their accountants. It doesn’t fit into their budget additional tax cut that benefits. Yeah, because the tax rate is twenty one percent, right? Correct. So twenty percent of two, sixty is fifty two. So this is costing if you’re giving your if e-giving the max for either commuting or parking, of course will be one hundred for if you’re doing a max for unemployed e you know, this could be roughly fifty bucks to one hundred bucks per employee in tax. Well, it will be over a year, you know, five hundred twenty bucks expand on this. All right? I was just doing it by the month. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. One hundred sixty bucks per person? Yeah. Additional tax on the non-profit. So if you have ten employees that you’re doing it for that over five thousand on dh that’s, a modest size non-profit right? All right, um okay, so you have to. So what? What’s what’s your guidance before we get to the questions? What do you recommend? Non-profits do gene be the voice of reason while i’m ranting, please? Well, first you got to understand how many employees you’re actually providing these fringe benefits to and do do you think that they are covered by the tack? So there are these open questions that that we haven’t started to talk about yet, but open questions. So if you’re providing parking transit passes or shuttle bus service is tio any of your employees consider how much tax you may have to pay on it, then you’re gonna have to figure it out in your budget. Can you continue to provide all of these fringe benefits and pay the tax, or do you actually have to do something else? And one of the other things he might do is take away the fringe benefits and just pay employees the income. For them to do with themselves now, that’s not a very attractive option toe a lot of employees. So it’s more than just the money you’re gonna have to think about in doing this. But those discussions have to be had now and comment to the irs and say we can’t we don’t even know how to plan for this until you tell us what the rules no. Yeah, because giving them giving it to the employees of straight income obviously raises their income tax liability. Exactly. All right? Okay. Any any, any more guidance how to proceed or that that exhausted? But i think that’s all the guidance i can give now, but the one area that we’re really uncertain about it, the whole parking area, okay? What’s going to pass the question and stuff on shuttle buses, which not too many small non-profits would do it’s pretty clear, but parking is like it’s just so full of opening that we don’t know what that means. Like suppose you suppose you offer parking too. Ah, guests of your office, you have a parking lot next to your building. My boys just cracked like i’m a fourteen year old building. On dure employees use that, too. What? What? What does that mean? Yeah, that that’s. One of the questions that we have is if the parking is available for anybody for free, then presumably allowing your employees to use it to shouldn’t count. But what if there are a limited number of spaces? So so we know that really, the general public is not using those bases. Or what if the spaces say employee parking only. So those are some of the questions that we have about parking. And what if you know what if the building is is owned by the employers? That doesn’t cost them anything to provide the parking. How do you figure out what the cost is? And how much do you pay tax on it? A lot. A lot of open questions. Okay. Uh, yeah. Um all right. So should we suppose were in that situation. Suppose we do. We we have a parking lot. We owned the building and the lot. Um, we should be talking to our tax adviser. Yeah, but times are tax adviser, and you ask for help again. Delay implementation of the rules. The irs should tell us in treasury. Department should tell us exactly when it applies and when it doesn’t apply, and right now they’re not saying anything because they happened figured it out yet either. So ah, and one more area i wanted to touch on sometimes it the charity isn’t really even providing the benefit themselves because it’s subject to this salary reduction, so basically the employees saying reduce my salary by two hundred bucks and, uh uh, you know, because i want to use that for parking is a pre-tax benefit, so the charity isn’t even paying for it, but the irs seems to have told us at least unofficial coyness when when officials, you know, told attendees at a big conference a couple months ago that the irs would impose you bit on these payments. Employers are made, you know, it’s coming from the boys themselves, it’s over jean okay, committed to this and and what aren’t there some some towns that require ah pra vision of transit benefits? And so aren’t there circumstances where employers might be doing it? Because it’s required by law? Yeah, and that’s so it’s not really a fringe benefit? Is it it’s a required benefit that you have? To give in new york city, washington, d c san francisco shot out. I’ll tell those cities and then the non-profits there you you’ve got some issues. Those are places that require require the benefit is a pre-tax salary reduction. Oh, come on. I mean that. Well, yes, clearly this has not been thought through, but that has to be an exception. That’s that’s not a fringe benefit. That’s ah that’s following the law that’s a legal requirement wrecks that are going to make that clear. But right now, we’ve just got the word of one official that says yes, they’re going to oppose you bit on it. And so that’s the best guidance we have right now. But we have no official guidance labbate gene of it. Um, did we know this was in the in the tax law? I know the thing was enormous. Nobody in congress read it. That was notorious. It was too big to read. It was rushed through. Didn’t have those the hearings that air routine and major tax revisions. Do we know this was buried in there? We well, only those who are paying a lot of attention. I knew it was in there. But it wasn’t the biggest problem that charity, you know, we’re facing. There are other issues with bill, so this particular provisions didn’t get a lot of attention until more recently. Ok, i see. Yeah, there were. There were concerns about. Taxes on large endowments, which we did get on the very high end right there. Remember, there was discussion about whether churches would be exempt from the the politicking. That’s, not the right word, what’s. The help me actually election nearing election, hearing that that still is a big concern for a lot of people that it’s been put into another bill again that that the irs can’t enforce against five twenty three’s, not just churches, engaging an election year. Oh, that’s in a bill that’s in the bill now it’s in the bill. Next. Oh, so and they’re certain factions of congress that continue to slip it into all sorts of bills because there’s a very strong republican platform buy-in that that is to really destroy, and i think that was president trump’s words destroy the johnson amendment, which is the part of five a onesie three that says five, twenty three can’t engage in election hearings, can’t, you know, become partisan political actors? Yeah, right, the johnson amendment yes, we’ve heard a lot about that. All right? Um, we got like, we’ve got to wrap it up so jean, i don’t know if the next time i talk to you will be ah, we’ll be the four hundredth show on july twenty seventh. Maybe we’ll get you in june. We’ll try. I’m not sure, but thank you very much for today and i look forward to talking again. That’s so do i, tony. Very excited. Teo, join you on the four hundred show as well. Cool. Congratulations, creek. Preliminary. Congrats. Thank you again. 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