And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be thrown into dysteiasis if I saw that you doubled down on the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s going on. Hey, Tony. We’ve got Nonprofit leadership for current and aspiring. There’s a new compassionate, inspiring, and valuable guidebook on nonprofit leadership. It’s aptly named How to Lead Nonprofits. The author, Nick Grono shares his thinking on the role of the CEO, your team, and diversity, equity and inclusion, because the success of the people leading throughout your nonprofit now and in the future is essential to your mission success. Nick is CEO of Freedom Fund. On Tony’s take 2. Gratitudes. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Here is nonprofit leadership for current and aspiring. It’s my pleasure to welcome Nick Groo to nonprofit Radio. Nick has decades of experience leading and chairing nonprofits. He is CEO of Freedom Fund. A charity dedicated to ending modern slavery around the world. His book, which brings him to the show is How to Lead nonprofits Turning Purpose into Impact to Change the World. You’ll find Nick on LinkedIn. Nick Roo, welcome to nonprofit Radio. Tony, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me on. The pleasure. Thank you for joining. Congratulations on your book published, uh, just last year, very recently last year, right? Yeah, published mid last year, so still kind of reasonably fresh off the presses. Good, congratulations again. Uh, leading nonprofits, why do you feel the, the how to lead nonprofits? Why do you feel the book is essential? Uh, you kind of, you say you’re filling a void between sort of business and nonprofit leadership. Please fill in that gap. Why, why this book now? Well, there are thousands of books on business leadership, right, you see new books every day, if you go to the airport, you see books on the shelf from prominent leaders, etc. Um, but, um, there’s not a lot on non-profit leadership. Um, so, you know, I kind of, when I was thinking about this, there were, there were 3 things that kind of were playing in my mind. The first is that leadership is different, and I’ve worked in the for-profit world. I’ve worked in the past for Goldman Sachs and as a corporate lawyer and I worked for government. And it really struck me that there are quite significant differences in many ways between kind of leadership in the, the business world and the government world, and, and, and that in a non-profit world, so that was one issue. um, another was there just wasn’t a lot of stuff out there, um, to my mind, uh, and had a look around. Um, and the third is that there is a real, um, desire for it, right? Whenever you get to a group of non-profit leaders together, we’re always talking about the challenges we face and the particular issues, and I’m sure on your podcast, you know, there’s kind of endless cycle of people saying, well, these are some of the real challenges and the hard things about leading non-profits. So kind of felt to me like there was, there was a, there was a gap to fill. You, uh, you said you, you’ve had a background in, uh, in law, in government, uh, in nonprofits. How did you find your way to, uh, to Freedom Fund? You fill in a little of the gaps of your, your, your history. It was a it was a it was a general path, you know, I started my, my professional career as a corporate lawyer in Australia, um, and then, um, at that time I’d done a bit of volunteering for a, a non-profit, a sail training non-profit, you know, one of these big old sailing ships that take, um, underprivileged youth out, so I had some non-profit experience, but I certainly wasn’t thinking of non-profits as a career. Um, but I, I was fortunate enough in my first couple of years as a lawyer to have something I think was a transformational experience, and that was my law firm offered to send one young lawyer to go work for the Legal aid commission for 6 months, so that was their pro bono efforts, right? We’ll, we’ll, we’ll offer you one of our young inexperienced lawyers. We’ll offload the pro bono on one, exactly, yeah, yeah. And so I applied for that and we had a big law firm. I thought lots and lots of people would be fighting for this position because you know, it’s a fascinating experience and I was the only one. Um, so I went off to work for Legal aid where you’re representing, you know, clients who can’t afford legal advice, um, so the, the some of the most, the least privileged in our society, um, often facing horrendous charges and, um, and it was just a real eye-opener to me about um how the system can really discriminate against people who are vulnerable and don’t have access to, Money, lawyers, etc. so that was quite interesting, after that, even though I continued as a corporate lawyer, I started volunteering commercial legal centers and, and my career went on for a little while, but um, I went to government. It was a kind of general progression, right, from corporate law into policy. I worked for the Attorney General, uh, the, the Federal Attorney General in Australia ended up being his chief of staff, so lots of interesting engagement on legal issues and legal policy, and I decided then that I wanted to kind of change my career, so I came to the US, I did a master’s degree in the US in public policy. And got my first job coming out of that, working for a, an amazing nonprofit based in Brussels called the International Crisis Group, which worked on conflicts around the world, like Afghanistan and Syria and Sudan and all those kinds of things. So that was the, the general path it took, took a little while, but I got there in the end. Interesting that, uh, at, at the big law firm, you were the only person to apply for the, for the 6 month pro bono position. That that’s kind of eye-opening about where you were versus what your real interests were. It, it probably tells you a few things about the incentives in these firms, right, you know, as in you’re on a track and, and the perception is that you need to kind of do certain things. Um, I, I had a slightly unusual upbringing, and maybe that made me more open to, um, to kind of jumping over to pro bono. My, my dad was a ship’s captain, so we spent 3 years while I was growing up on a 100 year old sailing ship sailing around the world. Um, so I kind of, Was more exposed to my parents taking risks, leaving their jobs, changing careers and all the rest of it, not that I’m saying this is the same thing, but I, I don’t know if that was, it’s always hard, I don’t know how it is with with the other guests that you get on, but you’re often in the non-profit space, you’re often, You want to tell a nice neat story, and there isn’t a nice neat story, there’s a whole lot of things going on here, isn’t there, but, but it was certainly one of the most influential decisions of my professional career, cos it just did open my eyes to different pathways and. And now I spend my whole time working on an issue of, you know, human trafficking one slavery, where, where it’s an issue where that’s illegal everywhere in the world, but the law doesn’t work. The rule of law is failing tens of millions of vulnerable people, so there’s still a connection with law, rule of law and all the rest of it. It’s just, uh, it’s just much more, um, it’s much more powerful. So your dad was a ship captain and, and your first nonprofit experience was volunteering on the three-masted 180 ft tall sailing ship uh for uh vulnerable under with training, training kids to work together, who came from underserved populations. So that, there, there’s a, there’s a little bit of a through line from your dad’s work to your first volunteer experience. Say a little more about the, was it pronounced the the Lewin was the name of the the the as in like Leeward is that Leeward versus win in um no, it’s actually Dutch for lion and, and it was named after Kate Leeuwin which was named by some of the early Dutch sailors who came out and they, I don’t know where it was, the 1700s and got blown off course, so yeah, so the Leeuw. Oh, OK. I didn’t have to do with Leeward and Winward. But now, interesting through line from your dad’s professional work to your first volunteer experience. Yeah, it, well, so he um so he was a, a ship’s captain, uh, you know, he worked for the merchant navy and all the rest of it, then did this job sailing the ship around, and then he became um the captain of this sail training ship. So I came over during my holidays and volunteered during my holidays because there was opportunities, so there was a very direct connection, um, and it was something that, you know, I found, um, really um powerful and moving and enjoyed it immensely, so. I was fortunate to have that opportunity. And your career has uh culminated in uh uh leadership of nonprofits. Yeah Uh, so the, the book focuses on, um, on, on three areas of, of leadership and organizational development, I guess, uh, organizational structure. And the purpose of your three P’s, the purpose of the people and the partners, um, why don’t you give an overview. I’d, I’d like to focus on the people, but give the overview of, of all three, the, the, how essential they are. Sure. I mean, so the, the, the, the central point of my book is that non-profits have this really powerful motivating cause, their purpose, right, to change the world in big ways or small, and by changing the world it could be changing your community, changing your, your, your country or working globally, but you’re there to make positive change, um, and your 662 and so is your impact, right? Um, and you need both, you need a powerful cause, and then you need to deliver on it, cos I think there are lots of non-profits that kind of have, The best of intentions, but may not be as good as delivering delivering on those intentions. So, so the central thesis is, purpose, turn it into effective impact, and then the framework I set up, which is um a pretty straightforward one is, is around purpose, people and partners, purpose is your um direction of travel. Uh, and I talked there about the mission of your organization and the impact and how you measure it, and the strategy being the connection between your um your mission and your impact. People is looking inwards, that’s looking at first and foremost, the CEOs, what are the priorities for the CEO? It’s looking at your team, um, and culture and all the things that go with team, it’s looking at your board. And then the third PE partners is looking outwards, you know, it’s, it’s your. If we use the lingo, it’s it’s your external stakeholders, but that, you know, that’s kind of jargon, isn’t it? So for me, it’s the communities you serve, first and foremost, right? Why do you exist? You, you’re serving a population, a community, um, they should be at the center of your work. Uh, it’s about your funders, about your funders, then it’s very hard to do the work. And also, I think a really important areas around peers and networks and those that are in the space with you and how you mobilize them. So, so those are the three Ps. That’s the quick, quick, quick gallop through the. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. Um. So you’re the uh the section on, on people uh in the middle of the book starts with the CEO and the only thing I’d like to read is just uh uh uh this, this quote really struck me about leadership, uh, opens the, the, the, uh, the CEO chapter. Uh, from Mary Parker Follett, uh, uh, a 1924 book, Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power. But by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of the leader is to create more leaders. It’s inspirational. I, I, I, I, it’s aspirational and inspirational at the same time, um. Give us your, your, you know, I have some specific things I want to ask you about, but give us your overview of, of your, your role. You are the, you are the CEO of Freedom Fund. Um, give us your, um, give us your overview of what, what you’re supposed to be about. Sure, um, and I’ve, I’ve had the, I think it’s the benefit of being the CEO from day one of the organization. So we set up the organization 11 years ago, I was the first employee. Um, and there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is I, I, I had a fair say in what was gonna happen. Um, um, and then we build out the team and now we have, um, about 80 staff, um, so, um, some 10 years later, um. It’s How do I describe the role? I mean, there, there are many things going on, you know, I think there are many priorities and the priorities that I say for the CEO are the priorities I think for myself, you know, it’s about holding the vision for the organization, and the CEO, I think, I think what I would say to a lot of people is the CEO is often the only person in the organization that is looking over the horizon. And everyone else is kind of focused on specific tasks, you know, you’re running programs or you’re running your finance or dealing with HR, uh, working with volunteers, whereas CEO is always looking what comes next. Uh, I think of that particularly right now with everything that’s going on with kind of international finance and aid and all the rest of it, it’s a really turbulent time, so looking over there, um, it’s about motivating staff, it’s about kind of leading on strategy. Um, it’s, it’s making sure you focus on the stuff that really matters, not the stuff that you want to do or the stuff that you’re comfortable with, but the stuff that no one else can do, because I often feel like, if you run your team well, then the only decisions that come up to you are the really hard decisions because everyone else deals with the decisions that are easier to, to make, right? Um, so. That’s the way it should run, uh, and, and then finally the, the point is, if you’re fortunate enough to have a team, a leadership team, and so on, then, then it’s just really key as a leader to, to support that team and make sure it’s powerful and engaged and, and that you’re a a a a a really effective member of that team. And there’s lots to unpack on all of that, but, Um, they, yeah, that’s a quick run through of that. Yeah, we’re gonna get to a good bit of it. You, you, you, you devote a chapter to the team, which we, which we’ll talk about, uh, but, uh, just focused on the CEO and holding the vision. You, you said it, it was something I wanted to ask you about, expand on that a little more about hold the vision. So, I, I, I keep on talking about purpose being the central point of the organization. I mean, non-profits have lots of challenges, right? And we can talk a little about that with fundraising and the fact that you don’t earn income, people give you money and all the rest of it, and it’s really complicated. They have this superpower. Of purpose. It’s really powerful, right? I am deeply moved and inspired by the work we do to support some of the most vulnerable people that are being exploited, uh, you know, for, or at risk of sex trafficking or forced labor, or bonded labor or forced marriage. And, and so the vision that we have is about how do we have the biggest impact on those communities that we’re serving. And, and I think if you harness that, it’s really powerful for the team and the work, and particularly when things are challenging or difficult, I kind of keep on reminding people of the power of what we do and the importance and the privilege of what we do, um. They’re difficult times, or or when COVID hit, right, and when COVID hit and the organization’s reeling and there’s a lot of uncertainty, it was really powerful to say to the team, but look at the communities we serve, they are hit so much harder than we are, and we have such an important role to play in supporting them during this completely uncertain time and it was a really good. Way of mobilizing the team and get everyone focused at a difficult time, and I think it can be really powerful. So, so that to me is the vision. What are we always about? Bring it back to that. Always, if you have problems at work or if there are staffing issues or internal discord, you start with, what are we here for? And then we’ll work on everything else. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s DonorBox, a comprehensive suite of tools, services, and resources that gives fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs, helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to Nonprofit leadership for current and aspiring. Are you, uh, facing a lot of that, uh, a lot of challenge now with the, the, uh, USAID funding cuts and uncertainties and I imagine a lot of the organizations you fund are also funded by USAID. So this is all you’re living through this again, it’s COVID 5 years ago to the month actually, um, now 5 years later, you know, this, this funding uncertainty and, and turmoil. Yeah, there’s a huge amount of uncertainty, and it’s not just US government funding, you know, the Brits have announced that they’re cutting their foreign aid funding, the um the Dutch have cut their foreign aid funding, the Swiss have announced cuts to there, so there’s a, there’s a, um, we, we get um some funding from, it wasn’t USAID, it’s from the State Department, which was frozen for about 3 weeks but has been unfrozen. Um, and that we use to fund some 30 organizations on the ground, so we’re, we’re very fortunate compared to many, um, and historically trafficking has been largely a bipartisan, anti-trafficking work’s been largely bipartisan, so, so we hope that that will continue to be the case. Um, um, but it creates massive uncertainty, particularly on the ground where we don’t work in isolation, we work with local partners, so we fund some 150 local partners, but if, if, Um, aid is cut from any government that supports frontline organizations. Everyone becomes a bit more vulnerable, right? So, and for work on trafficking and slavery, vulnerability is the proxy for slavery. It’s vulnerable populations that are preyed upon, so if communities become more vulnerable because aid has been cut from various quarters, um, then the risk of trafficking and slavery grows, so even if we’re not directly impacted on the aid cuts, The demand for what we do is only going to grow because there is going to be increasing vulnerability um as, Rich countries withdraw somewhat from the aid space, at least temporarily. Are you finding yourself having to reassure your own staff of 80 some, again, you know, holding the vision for them? Yeah, absolutely, and, and, and reminding them, you know, one where we’re, we’re in a solid financial position, um, and so we’ve been able to continue supporting partners and the work will continue. Um, but, um, talking to staff about these scenarios, and it’s not so much just reassuring them, it’s, it’s giving them renewed purpose, right, because everyone struggles when they see what’s happening on the ground and greater vulnerability and you know, this work is emotionally very, very draining, and when you see um, Groups of people that are even more vulnerable to trafficking, it can be really tough, so it’s getting everyone aligned around the purpose and saying right, here’s our chance to have even greater impact, uh, doing the stuff that we care about. It kind of leads to, uh, leading on strategy, which, uh, you, you, you have several interviews through the book which I, I appreciate they, they add, they add color and, and, and depth and, uh, you one of your interviews is with, uh, uh, a man named LeFevre who says that, uh, leading uh they sort of expressing strategy is more of an inspirational sketch than a blueprint. So please uh say more about the, the CEO’s role in, in, you know, take from holding the vision to execution, to leading on strategy. Yeah, sure, so strategy, I kind of see strategy as the, the pathway, the route, the, the map that you set out that gets you from your, your vision, your purpose to the impact that you want to achieve, right? You kind of say, well, we’re here to end modern slavery or make a big measurable difference to modern slavery in the regions we work, and we can kind of say what that means in terms of percentage reductions and all the rest of it. So how do we get there? Um, and I think, I think in our space, there’s often a lot of overthinking of strategy, and I, I’m still trying to articulate this more clearly. I think, I think one of the big things that non-profits struggle with is that we don’t have the feedback mechanisms and the price signals that you have if you’re a business. Uh, if you’re a business and you’ve got a plan. And it’s not working, you know, pretty quickly because your customers are leaving you or your income is falling, and you have very strong price signals and feedback mechanisms that non-profits don’t really have, right? Um, because you’re doing a program and you think it might achieve something and it may or may not be, but it’s often very messy, and so, so, um, so strategy is important because you’ve gotta be really thoughtful about the plan that you have. And you’ve got to find ways of, of reflecting on it and changing or adapting as, as, as things progress, and so that’s what Matthew means about, You know, kind of sketching out a way of challenging, and I, I have another quote in there about a guy who kind of talks about, you know, it’s more of strategy is more a kind of a GPS sat-nav, you know, than map, because you have to adjust as you move along. um, and I think nonprofits too often can kind of think, OK, there’s a magic in a strategy and we’ll spend a year and um investing in a strategy and we’ll come up with a really detailed plan. And we’ll stick to that plan because we’ve all signed off on it, even if the world changes, uh, and I, I talk in the book about, you know, imagine, imagine you’re working on, Mental health issues, um before COVID, and you’ve got a nice plan and your income’s been going up each year for the last 4 or 5 years and you’ve got a good strategy to engage companies to become sponsors and partners. And then COVID hits. And two things happen, right? One is, the demand for your services just skyrockets, right, if you’re involved in mental health during COVID and all. And the other is your funders are probably initially at least running 100 miles an hour because, you know, the companies are really worried about their own financial bottom line, so often we’re drawing back from, from funding commitments and so on. So demand goes up, your income goes down, your strategy is out the door, right, and not every component of it, but I mean any detailed year by year plan is out the door. Now hopefully, And, and I talk about one of the things that I think is really key in the strategy is your theory of change. And, and theory of change often sounds very jargonistic, and I don’t like jargon, but theory of change is your insight. It’s like, what is special about what we do that is going to translate into the change that we want to see. And, and I, I think it’s really important because often, The work that we do doesn’t directly deliver the results that we want to see. Um, and I think one example might be working for a think tank, right, now if you work for a think tank and you’re producing research reports, Your objective is not to publish reports, usually, right, that’s a, that’s a, that’s an output, that’s a tool to achieve. Usually your objective is to change policy or to change behavior in some way. And so your theory of change is not our think tank exists to publish 100 reports a year and to get 20 opinion pieces and papers. It’s our theory of change is that the most effective way to change policy is to produce thoughtfully well reduced, uh, well, well researched reports and go and advocate on those reports to policy makers and influence them to change what they do. And, and because that’s your theory of change, while you may not be able to guarantee all of the results, you can at least try and track whether or not it’s working. Are your reports influential? Are people referring to them? Are they being covered in the press? Do policymakers refer to them? Do they change policy? And so, so for me, strategy is kind of trying to get the fundamentals in place. What is your purpose, what is your, what is your, your insight that will get you to your objective and what is your objective? And then keep on, keep on looking at that and thinking about that as times and things change. You also spend time talking about the CEO’s role in in fundraising. Which can, ah, can be fraught with, with some, some founders especially who, uh, may have a lot of passion. And zeal about the work that they’re doing, but not really have a solid plan for how to fund it. So, share your thinking on the, the CEO’s role and, and need to embrace fundraising. Yeah, well, the thing about nonprofits is. For most nonprofits, You, your income comes from people giving you money, you know, you raise it from individuals or grants or governments. I mean sometimes you provide services and have a contract with government, but leaving that aside, you know, most of it is raising money from people who are giving to you, um, and, and that can be really tricky. Um, again, I kind of, you know, an example I use is, imagine if you’re a business, And you have a really good strategy and you execute really well and you’ve worked out your niche and you’re operating much more effectively than your competitors, you probably have people coming and wanting to invest, right, because it’s like, wow, this is a great business and it’s doing really well and we can make lots of money and all the rest of it where, I imagine you’re in a nonprofit and you’re doing really well on your strategy and, Um, you’re kind of more effective than your peers and your competitors. Well, you’ll often have donors, particularly foundations, say, mate, you’re doing just fine, you don’t need our support anymore, we can go fund others because look, you’ve done such a good job. And so it’s almost as if your success can be a, a contribute to reduced income. I know these are particular circumstances, but in my world, this is very real. Um, and so I think it’s part of one of the interviews where someone says that it’s easy to find funding in the first few years because there’s excitement and you have a, you have a, a new plan, a new model, but, but it becomes difficult after like year 5 and on. Yeah. And, and that’s often the case, you know what I mean, and it, and it kind of varies in various ways, but certainly, you know, when we started the Freedom Fund 10 years ago, initial enthusiasm and great interest, uh, and lots of people, and it’s new and it’s interesting, and, and it certainly helped us mobilize great funders, most of whom have stayed with us. So full credit to them. Um, so, but the way I look at it from the CEO is, you know, your organization can’t do anything without funding. And so it is an absolute priority for the CEO to make sure that you are getting the funding that you need, um, and increasing it over time if that’s what you want. Now, it doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself personally, but to be honest, usually the best spokesperson for an organization, a non-profit is the CEO. Um, and again, particularly if you’re raising grants from, from high net worth funders or from foundations, um, people want to hear from the CEO. Uh, and there are some CEOs who kind of think, well this is beneath me, right? I’m really interested in the, the programs and, and the, the, the real nitty gritty of the work. Well, sure, if you’ve built a team and you’re managing to raise the funding, great, but you won’t have programs if you don’t bring the funding in. So to my mind, the role of the CEO is to make sure all of the relevant bits are working and if fundraising is key. Then that’s where you spend your effort, and I would spend over 50% of my time doing fundraising and outreach because that’s where I can add the most value to my organization. I’ve got amazing program people. I’ve got people who know much more about modern slavery and human trafficking than I do, who’ve spent their lives working on these issues. I’ve got, you know, wonderful, Kind of finance teams and HR teams and all the rest of it, where I can add is selling the vision, building relationships, explaining to people why they should give us a chunk of funding, and for this issue, rather than to either a peer organization or a completely different issue. Um, so I think, um, it doesn’t always mean the CEO has to do it all, but the CEO is responsible. Uh, cos there’s nothing worse than being all virtuous about, well, I’m gonna focus on this work and find that you’ve got less and less money and you’re doing less and less work. So you devote, you think it’s more than half your time to, to fundraising? Fundraising, talking about the work, selling the message, it’s not all you know, it’s not all meetings, meetings with donors, right, it’s, it’s, it’s talking about the power of the issue, going to conferences where, where it’s appropriate, um, yeah, yeah. By the way, you, you, uh, mentioned your disdain for jargon, uh, here on nonprofit radio, we have jargon jail. You’re not likely to be, uh, you’re not likely to be subject to because if we’re, uh, we’re we’re, we’re simpatico on not liking it. It’s time for Tony’s steak too. Thank you, Kate. Gratitudes. I’ve been doing more of this gratitude practice. Well I’m actually saying out loud things that I am grateful for in my life. I do it usually in the mornings when I’m waking up, and not every morning, but A bunch of mornings and occasionally at night. Uh, and I just, I, I’m sharing that I do it because I’m encouraging you to do the same. It’s kind of especially with all the anxiety and chaos and turmoil and. The storm around us, not only in the nonprofit community, but just in our country. I think it helps to ground, at least it helps me ground myself, that there are things to be enormously grateful for. So I Say out loud, I’m grateful for my family. Except the the part where Kate lives in New Jersey, that that there’s an exception, but uh other other family, all, all, all other fam, no, no, of course, all my family, um, my wife Amy. The beautiful place that I’m privileged to live in uh on the beach, my clients, uh, friends, you know, and I name friends that are that are on my mind when you start doing this. The list grows long, and you realize that there’s so much in your life to be grateful for. I guess, again, I, I should say that’s what happens to me. I, I hope that that will happen for you also, that you start naming people and the names just keep coming and the uh the other, the other folks and and maybe even companies, you know, whatever it is that you’re grateful for, uh, just keep coming and coming and and that’s what I find so. It’s really valuable to me. I encourage you to try it. It’s quite simple, just saying out loud the things that you’re grateful for. And that is Tony’s take too. Kate I think that’s a great way to start your day and even end it. Do it both in the morning and the evening, cause then you’re starting on good thoughts and then you’re also ending on good thoughts. Excellent. I, I agree. All right. You could do both. Absolutely. The more, the more gratitude that you recognize, uh, the better. You could, sure, book into your day with gratitude. And, yeah. We’ve got Boou but loads more time. Here’s the rest of nonprofit leadership for Current and aspiring with Nick Groo. You spent some time on leadership styles, and I’d like you to share what your uh what your advice is around soft power. Yeah, so there are lots of different styles of leadership as anyone who has worked for anyone or anyone who has led will understand, um, and, and certainly I’ve been on a journey with my own leadership style, um, and I think often lots of new non-profit leaders are. Um, you know, I, I’m sometimes asked what’s the, what’s, what’s the one of the best pieces of leadership advice that you could give someone, and, you know, one of my pieces of advice will be the, the skills and the behaviors that get you into leadership positions aren’t often the skills and behaviors that make you a really good leader. Uh, and in my case, you know, I was very happy to make decisions, and when I was a #2, my boss kind of loved it because she would throw things to me and I’d sort them out and kind of barrel through. But if you bring that approach when you’re the CEO you’re not building a team, you’re not bringing people along with you, you’re not, you’re not giving people the space to kind of be their best selves, um, and so my learning over time has been, and it’s still an ongoing process, you know, the kind of approach that I think for them, in most cases, not always, that’s really effective as a leader is bringing a coaching approach to leadership. Uh, kind of giving people the space to work out how they can do the job most effectively, asking questions, listening, providing some guidance, but not just charging in and making decisions. Um, and with new non-profit leaders in particular, you know, particularly if you’re a bit insecure, it’s your first time in a CEO job, you’ve, you’ve maybe been recruited from, from the organization internally and so you’ve moved a step above your peers and, you know, you can, it can be really tough, and you’re kind of, and again, speaking from experience, you sometimes respond by like micromanaging everything and, you know, kind of making sure that you’re on top of everything and, Second guessing everyone’s decisions, that’s not good leadership. Uh, if you, if you start jumping in and making decisions for everyone, you know what happens very quickly, no one makes decisions, because it’s like, well, Nick’s gonna decide this, so why should I spend all this time working out the very best approach on this issue, be it how to approach a fun a funder or, How to design a program if Nick’s just gonna jump in and make up his own mind, and then everything ends up being elevated to Nick. Yeah, and then suddenly you say, well, I’m the only person that can do this, because look, it’s all coming up to me, you know, it’s a kind of self reinforcing cycle of, of, uh, narcissism. Um, you share a good story, uh, uh, one that was revealing to you, uh, also from, uh, from the pandemic about when you were at uh International Crisis Group. Why don’t you share that little story, yeah. So that was, it wasn’t um it wasn’t the pandemic, it was the financial crisis, so another great recession, sorry, yeah, yeah, so, so, but, but, but similar, similar and you know, what happened was that basically we knew that our income was going down by at least 10%. Um, and I worked with it, so I was number 2 there, and I worked with the CEO and we went to the board and said we need to cut by at least 10%. The board said, yep, off you go. And we, um, we were heading, so we had about 120 staff then maybe, uh, spread all around the world, you know, Crisis Group’s are an amazing organization. And once a year we’d bring the top 30 staff or so together at a senior staff retreat, and this just happened to be about a week after the board meeting. And so my boss said, OK, well, we need to now work out how to deliver on these cuts, and, and I, um, and he gave me a lot of responsibility for this, and I thought, well, there’s a couple of things we wanna do. One is we need to move fairly quickly with cuts because the quicker we make cuts, the quicker we’ll enjoy the savings, right? If you take a year to implement your cuts, well, there’s a year you’ve spent the money that you could otherwise save. And then the other thing I thought was, you know, instead of just squeezing everywhere and making, we should, Use this opportunity to cut a couple of areas deeply that are just perhaps less effective or not the same priority, and both of those acceptable propositions, you know, in and around, but, so I then just decided where this was gonna happen and I kind of briefed my boss and then I kind of went up to the division heads and said, hey, you know, we had to the cut, so here’s what we’re gonna do. And surprise, surprise, they, they, they weren’t very happy about the process, um, and you’ve got this convening now, everybody gets together and they start to conspire. So, so I managed to, I, I, I did achieve one thing which they managed to unite pretty well everyone against me, you, um, you know, so it was great morale building because there was a coherence, um, and, and they actually called a meeting that night that me and the CFO weren’t invited to and the um, And the next morning, we, we had our staff rebellion, and they said, well look, we, we don’t want you, the CEO to run this process because obviously it’s not being run very well, and my boss, who’s a former Foreign Minister of Australia, who wasn’t not noted for his patience, handled this remarkably well, and he was smart enough to understand, OK, well let’s just play this cool, and so he said fine, let’s do this, and, and the staff said right, we wanna do this properly and we wanna workshop, you know, we’ll sit down and program teams and, We’ll sit down with Nick and we’ll sit down with the CFO and see if, if there are better ways of making savings. And so it was somewhat humiliating, um, and but it was also really informative in a number of ways. And first of all, everyone accepted the need to make cuts, so it wasn’t like saying we don’t need to make cuts, you’re, you know. And then of course, the wisdom of the group between them could identify areas where we could make easy savings. That had very little impact. I mean, to take one example, we used to publish about 100 reports a year and we used to send them out to, you know, each report to targeted audience, maybe 2000, 3000 copies. We didn’t need to send that many out, but we’d just been doing it for years, and that cost $400,000 a year. And by cutting it down to maybe 20 copies per to absolutely essential and putting a bit of more work, we saved $350,000 right? I hadn’t thought of it. I haven’t thought of it. Um, um, and so we did some other things, I mean, the organization did get squeezed because people offered up salary and all the rest of it, but perhaps the most striking thing about it was, OK, we came out with a plan, and we ended up cutting by 15% because people had offered up instead of the kind of 10, 11% that we’d we’d targeted, which served us very well at that time. Um, and 2 years later, our income was significantly higher than when we’d gone then pre-cuts. So we cut deeply, um, we rallied around together, and then over the next 18 months or so, we managed to raise significant additional funding, so we ended up being in a better position than we had been at the time when we, when we were worried about the funding cuts. So, I learned, I mean, you learn from your mistakes, don’t you, more than you, you learn from your successes, ah. And I just learned that um you know, powers of teams need to proper process, need to consult, and, and, and don’t mistake these things, you know, consultation doesn’t mean surrendering necessarily uh decision making authority to the crowd, unless you handle it really badly. It just means giving people an opportunity to provide input and feel heard and and often, and usually they have really good things to say. That story of what not to do just uh sort of exemplifies why I, I admire the book. There’s a lot of introspection in the book. You, you routinely say, you know, you’re still learning, you’re a work in progress, uh particularly uh with the, the chapter I want to talk about with, uh, diversity, equity and inclusion. But throughout, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re honest, you’re open. You’re vulnerable. Uh, uh, I admire that. Uh, uh, uh, a lot of folks see vulnerability as a weakness, and I’ve always thought it, it, it’s a, a sign of, uh, a strong leader. Well it’s very kind of you and it, it, it also, you know, on the feedback, and I’ve got lots of lovely feedback on the book and and probably the feedback that resonates most and the most consistent feedback is, well, we really appreciate it because you know, you’re not saying that CEO has to be this perfect, you know, infallible model, right, because we know it’s really hard and hearing other people say that they struggle with this is a real gift. Uh, and again, for, for young or new non-profit leaders, I think that’s often the thing they’re struggling with the most. It’s like damn, I’m in charge of this organization, it’s really hard and I don’t have anyone to turn to and I’m terrified I’m gonna make mistakes, and I can’t admit that I get anything wrong because everyone will judge me, um, so. You spend time on, uh, self-care too for the CEO, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s funny you, uh, you open that section, and you talk about, uh, overwork, micromanagement, your loneliness, and I’m thinking this, why would I keep, why, why would I aspire to leadership? This sounds like a suicide path to, or a path to self-destruction. Um, so, so, but there are way, you know, of course, methods of overcoming strategies for overcoming. The the negatives like, like mentoring and peer, peer groups and coaching, um, and your own mental health. So say, say something about the, the, the essential self-care uh uh uh uh for a CEO to before you can care for others. Uh, well, the starting point is. It’s a tough and lonely job. I mean, it’s a wonderful job. I love my job, right, and I love being in charge, and I love working with a team, but it is tough and lonely, and I, I thought about it, uh, particularly when crises happen, right? And so COVID was an obvious one, but even now with kind of turmoil with financial assistance all around the world and all the rest of it. And there’s this, and, and, and you feel a sense, an intense sense of responsibility. Like if I get this wrong, and if I do badly, It impacts on the lives, first and foremost of the 80 or so staff that we have, very directly, right, who’s, it’s their jobs and their livelihoods and all around. I feel a huge sense of responsibility, but then it, it packs on the 150 grassroots organizations that we work with, and then the millions and millions of people that are served by those. So, you, if you sit back and think about this, it can, can be somewhat overwhelming, um, and, And then also there are these drivers, so one is, Leadership can be lonely in any organization, not just non-profits and business, uh, because, The buck stops with you and so you’ve got to make the final decision and um and even if you don’t make decisions, that’s a decision, so you know, you, you, you’ve you’ve got the responsibility, um, um, you often don’t have people that you feel comfortable turning to and but that’s something we, we can talk about, um, and so, so it can just be really, really challenging. Um, and then, again, particularly working with non-profits, there’s always this sense of, well, we exist for a, for a bigger purpose and so if I just work harder, we can achieve more. I mean, how, how do you stand by, I think of people working, In Humanitarian disaster zones in Sudan or where we’re just seeing, you know, horrendous things happen right now. And malnutrition, babies dying and all the rest of it, and how, how do you um, How do you not kind of think, well, if I just work a bit harder, um, we can do more. So, so lots of reasons why it can be overwhelming, and I think the starting point is for CEOs to think, OK, well, I do no one any favors if I burn out, right, so stop trying to prove yourself when it’s not being effective, right, if you’re working 80, 90 hours, weeks consistently, you’re not gonna do anyone any good, you’re not doing your job properly, you just aren’t, because you’re not effective. Um, so stop making yourself into a martyr, work out how you can support your own mental health, wellbeing so that you are just a better leader. Um, and then there are strategies for it, right? You can establish, I think one of the best things that’s happened in my non-profit career is kind of small peer groups. Uh, I have a wonderful friend, she was, she was #2. At a um at an organization, um, and she kind of said, why don’t a few of us come together once every 9 months or so and just share some of the challenges that were going on. And, and we just got, initially we set these kind of days and we’d kind of have a tight program of what we were gonna talk through and all the rest of it. In the end it just became a sharing opportunity and we’d go out for dinner and we’d just be sharing all of the challenges and, you know, these are the challenges we’re all kind of around the number 2 level, so often it was like these are the challenges we had with my boss, right, um, but also, you know, have you had this problem with funders or impact or whatever, and it’s just a huge relief to be able to share, um. And then personally, I also, you know, I try and meditate, I try and stay fit and healthy, I try and exercise, um, all as a way of just dealing with, with the pressures and, and stresses of running an organization. You spend time, uh, you have a chapter devoted to the team as part of the, the, the people, there’s the CEO and then the team, uh, you, I think a lot of insightful advice around culture and so talk about culture, psychological safety, how important that is as a part of culture for the, for the team that uh that that you’ve built that you invested in. Please share there. Sure, so, I think one of the things with teams that, Some non-profit leaders don’t, some leaders don’t understand is. Teams are an amazing resource. It’s not that teams exist for you to issue commands and then just to execute, right, because if that’s what, if that’s how you see your team and that’s how you’re doing it, you’re missing out on the real richness and power of a team. And to me, the best thing about a team is that I get access to really smart ideas from smart engaged people and can pick and choose these ideas and work together, but you know, and come up with better decisions. And, and it is so helpful for me when I say, hey, I was thinking about this, and, you know, I’m gonna do this. Now if, if the team wasn’t engaged, they say, Sure, Nick, great, whatever, off you go. Whereas, in fact, they’ll say, oh, that’s interesting, but what about this or what about this? And then I can step back and say, well, actually that’s a really good idea, let’s explore that. And, and as a leader, it’s just a huge benefit because I’ve got other people’s wisdom, and then we’ll work together. Uh, and I just don’t understand why people don’t understand the value of being able to draw on all of this expertise if you run your team well and build an effective team. But that won’t happen unless you build an effective team. So if you run it in a hierarchical way and you just, as we said earlier, make all the decisions, and no one’s gonna offer up any ideas because Nick’s gonna say, uh, you know. Um, so that’s one point, but it’s not enough just to kind of not, not listen to people’s ideas. You actually got to actively create a space for ideas to come up because you may say you’re really, you may say to your team, give me your ideas, I really want to hear them, and we’re gonna, but if you can’t. poo poo a couple of those ideas. Nice try, but really, you know, they’re not going to offer up their ideas in the future. So this is the idea of psychological safety, right? Fancy word, jargons, but, but the idea is pretty straightforward. It’s you, you show that you are actually willing to hear ideas and be contradicted. Right? So you start off a conversation by saying, well, I got this wrong last time we did this. Anyone got any idea, you know, so you’re admitting, you’re admitting that you don’t get it right all the time, it creates space. Someone puts up an idea and you say, this is really, you don’t have to say it’s brilliant and all the rest of it, but say I really appreciate that. And let’s draw in some more ideas. You don’t have to grab everyone’s ideas. You create a, so, and this is all about culture as well. So, you know, a culture of psychological safety means the leader signaling very clearly that they are open to people expressing views and a range of views. And I thought, I referred to it in the book, a study that this all comes, well, it it it it’s all demonstrated very powerfully in a, in a research um study that Google did when it was trying to work out what are the most effective functioning teams, and it, Google has more information on its staff than anyone ever has on their staff, right? It’s a data company. And so he was trying to work out, OK, we’ve got these really high performing teams, we know they’re really high performing, what makes them distinct from other teams, and now we’re trying to work it out, is it where all the team members are are alike, are homogeneous, or is it where all the team members are really diverse and different, or is it where the team members like hanging out, not just at work, but after work, or is it where the team members are all acutely focused. And none of these really predicted the effective teams, it was the teams that had psychological safety. Um, that, and so they kind of helped popularize this concept of basically just giving people space to input and contribute and be thoughtful and drawing on the wisdom of the group. Um, so, so that’s what I see as a really important part of culture, and I think if you’re going to be intentional about it and culture across the organization, you know, as a leader you have to think about culture all the time. Uh, and to me, culture for companies is like character for individuals, um, and it just doesn’t happen, it’s developed, right, and I think one of the ways you develop culture, and it can’t just be the leader, but the leader obviously sets the tone, uh, is there are values that you, as an organ that the organization cares about. Um, for individuals, their virtues, they’re good values, right? Values that advance the purpose of the organization, it’s not just enough to say we care about these things, you have to turn them into habits or into norms. And so it’s turning values into norms, and you do that by identifying things that matter and then consistently implementing or behaving accordingly, and that becomes a norm or a habit, and, and it’s values and norms that make up culture. Um, and so our staff. You you say behaving accordingly. And you, you talked, uh, throughout the book about modeling the behaviors that you know are important in, in yourself doing, as you said, you know, being open, for instance, being not, not uh negating ideas when you ask for people’s ideas, but you know, throughout, you talk about modeling behaviors. Everyone watches the CEO, right, and it always surprises me how much they watch the CEO, right, and I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve been a CEO now for 12 years, but it’s still, everyone watches the CEO, so everything you do, and it’s pointless saying this is what kind of organization we are and we’re, I have an open door policy when in fact you’re slamming a door on everyone, uh, and people work it out pretty quickly, right, uh, I treat people well when I don’t, or whatever, um, and so, you know, I mean one thing that I do, That I think is quite useful um for us in building culture. I used to do quarterly CEO calls where I’d just have an all-staff call and I’d update everyone, and I’d be pretty open about what happened at the board, and I thought, OK, well this is a good way of keeping people informed. And then I’d ask for questions at the end and I’d get no questions, right, no one was gonna put up their hand virtually in front of 70, 80 people and ask questions and, and, And so I thought we’re not using this as effectively as possible, so then we changed the system where one staff member gets to interview me on these calls. And they’re allowed to ask anything they want, and they know they are because they’ve seen other people have been allowed to ask me anything that they want, and I will ask the questions. And more importantly, they can solicit questions from any of the staff that come into them, so I don’t know where the questions are coming from. That’s the part that I love, that you don’t know the questions in advance. It’s, it’s total vulnerability. Yeah, and, but, but people generally, one they respect it and even if they, you know, I mean I I just did one a couple of weeks ago, and, you know, there were questions about, um, Impact of the financial crisis and are, are we gonna be making people redundant, what impact does it make on partners? There are questions about my mental health and how is, how is I managing the stress and all the rest of it. Um, and these are great questions, because then I can, I can then share my thoughts, and it’s not me just kind of delivering from on top what I think people want to hear, it’s being responsive to questions. There are questions about, um, you know, our culture or learning and development within the organization. And I think it’s just super helpful to have that conversation, uh, and hopefully contributing to a culture where people feel like, OK, well we can ask these questions. Time. The DEI work. You, uh, you say you were initially, uh, nervous about. And, uh, and you make the point here, as I said, said earlier, it’s it’s, it’s a work in progress and, and we’ve had a good number of uh guests through the years, um, you know, emphasizing that it’s a journey, it’s not a check box, um, but, you know, talk a little about your own, uh, again, some introspection, some vulnerability, which again, I admire, uh, your own initial, uh, anxiety about You know, embarking on a, on a, on a process to, to be more diverse, equitable, inclusive. Yeah, so, Freedom Fund started 11 years ago, so, um, you know, when we started and we were recruiting, and we were based in London, initially, even though we work in countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, and Bangladesh and Brazil, um, and recruiting really talented staff, and it turned out at the end of year one or so, we had half a dozen staff and they were all white. I think all were university graduates, all deeply expert and knowledgeable. Um, and, and, you know, hugely talented, but it wasn’t a particularly diverse, um, kind of group of people, um, and particularly given that, as I said, we’re working with and partnering with organizations in Ethiopia, and Brazil and elsewhere, uh, and raising money and getting it to frontline partners and, um, and, This is before Black Lives Matter and before a lot of the debates happened, and in fact my initial kind of focus on DEI was more on my board, where we had a board of 8 and there were 2 women and 6 men. And so I thought, well, you know, we need a, a more balanced gender breakdown on a board. So I was trying to recruit the board, and the board is much more diverse, um, in various ways, and the organization was always diverse on gender, but, you know, often, often gender was a, and still is an aspect of diversity that seems to be overlooked these days when we’re looking at other characteristics. Um, and then, um, when, uh, there was a lot more focus on, On issues around, um, race and ethnicity and so on, particularly after George Floyd and, you know, the Freedom Fund works on slavery and, and there’s arguments about structural racism and being a legacy of slavery, and staff were just saying, well, what are we doing about this? And so my nervousness was in part because I could see that, um, some of these debates, Were being badly handled internally around um how, what does diversity, equity inclusion, or what does it mean to be more diverse and more inclusive as an organization. Some of them were being really badly handled and were tearing organizations apart. Um, and, and that was happening for a lot of reasons, and, and it could happen for the best of intentions, right, that people care about these issues and just can’t converse. But often, you know, leadership people might say, well, you know, we’re doing amazing work, so why are you looking internally, right? Look at what we do, we’re serving all of these underserved populations, stop, you know, it’s not about being internally focused, it’s about doing the work, and then, Staff could legitimately say well hold it, you know, we’re not representative and we don’t, and we’re not particularly inclusive and so I think, but, But also, and this is, OK, this is, we, we can have this discussion, I think, you know, it’s not just about leadership failing. I think, I think there were aspects of the way this was handled where staff who didn’t have a lot of power thought that they could use this as a very powerful tool to engage on issues that they wouldn’t otherwise do. And, and that can be really destructive, like if you kind of insist that, I don’t know, we have to change all of our policies because this is what we think. You should be doing in terms of pay policy or recruitment policy and you’ve got no responsibility for running the organization as a whole, and if you don’t manage this debate well, it can just be extremely destructive. We um, we had a a long internal discussion about this, uh, and so lots of working groups because I thought we’ve got to live our values and talk it all through and um and it wasn’t easy, um. But, but through the process, I, you know, I, I started doing my own reading and, and, and a few things were pretty obvious. One is, um, yeah, I keep on talking about teams and drawing on a pair of teams, well, if your team isn’t, if you’re drawing your team from a fairly narrow pool or not a broad enough pool, you are not accessing the best talent, right? You are not accessing the people who might know the most about the issues and when you’re working on slavery, people who know most about what is the living experience of exploitation are those that have, Been through it or come from the communities that are hugely vulnerable to it. And so if you’re just talking about a position, a situation of expertise, then you have to be drawing from the communities you serve more effectively, and you have to be drawing from the regions that you work that are closest to, uh, the places you serve, and that was just a no-brainer, so, um, and, and then again, there’s an issue of being reflective of, Um, the community you live in. Um, so we went through a process, I think that we ended up in a very good place where it was just clear that we could do better in drawing from all of the people who could help us be a better organization and be more effective, um, and be more knowledgeable about the partners we’re working with, the communities we’re working with, the issues that we’re working with. Um, and so I’m quite happy where we’ve gone, but I think, I think it’s really, Tragic that people have turned DEI into a punching bag, and they’ve turned it into a, an identity issue in a way that is not helpful, and this is people on all sides of the debate where your starting point should be, Who’s expert, how do we have the best possible team, how do we have the greatest impact by bringing in the people who know the most about the issue, uh, without being pro forma about identity one way or another. Um, so I don’t know if that’s clear and, you know, as you can see it’s something I still kind of, yeah, working my way through, but what do you see as the CEO’s role in this? how do you best facilitate? Well, it took me a while to work this out, but the way you facilitate it is exactly the way I started this whole conversation. How does this advance our purpose? Right, how, how do we, how do we become a more it doesn’t advance our purpose to say we must recruit from certain populations or other just for the sake of it. How do we get better or we’re an anti-slavery organization, right? How are we better at our anti-slavery work? Well, by having people who are deeply knowledgeable about what that means. Now, that means a whole bunch of things, right, it can mean people from the communities or the countries that we’re working, but it also can mean the best anti-slavery experts who may or may not come from particular regions, but it’s bringing a whole team together, not just kind of having a single lens of what it means. How does that advance? So, and and framing the discussions when they get heated. How does this advance, you know, it’s not about your ideology or your views. Tell me how this advances what we’re trying to do. And then let’s work backwards from that. Um, and so that’s, that would be my biggest learning was like, start with purpose, always. Tell us how this gets us there. Tell us why this will make us a better organization and a more effective organization. You say it’s the right thing to do, well, obviously, if it’s the right thing to do, it advances our purpose, how does it advance our purpose? Nick, that’s a beautiful 360 from where we began, purpose and, and holding the vision. Thank you. Thank you. So folks, the, the book is how to lead nonprofits, turning purpose into impact to change the world. Um, I think it’s a, it’s a very compassionate, uh, introspective guidebook for, for leaders and aspiring leaders. So check, check the book, please. Uh, Nick Grono, you’ll find him on LinkedIn. Nick, thank you so much for sharing all your thinking, your wisdom over uh over all these years. Very grateful. Thank you. Tony, thanks for having me on, thanks for a really wonderful rich discussion. It’s my pleasure. Next week, your improved messaging. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, Donorbox.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.