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Kathleen Kelly Janus: Scale Up & Sustain
It’s a question I hear often from nonprofit leaders: “How does my organization get to the next level?” Kathleen Kelly Janus’s research leads her to the answers and she shares them with you. Her new book is “Social Startup Success.”
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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 knee or throw sis, if you gave me the false impression that you missed today’s show scale up and sustained it’s a question i here often from non-profit leaders. How does my organisation get to the next level? Kathleen kelly janice’s research leads her to the answers and she shares them with all of us her new book is social startup success on tony’s take two next month’s non-profit radio we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna i’m a slash pursuant and by wagner cpas guiding you beyond the numbers weinger cps dot com, you’re not a business. You’re non-profit at close accounting software designed for non-profits non-profit wizard dot com and tell us turning payment processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash tony tell us i’m very glad to welcome kathleen kelly janice to the show. She is a social entrepreneur, author and lecturer at stanford university. Her work in philanthropy millennia oppcoll millennial engagement and scaling early stage organizations has been featured in the wall street journal, huffington post, stanford social innovation review non-profit radio is there techcrunch and the san francisco chronicle. I’ve been in the wall street journal too, so you know she’s, the co founder of spark i haven’t cofounded anything that’s the largest network of millennial donors in the world. Her new book is social startup success. How the best non-profits launch scale up and make a difference she’s at cake janice and i’m very glad and pleased. Thrilled that kathleen’s book brings her to non-profit radio. Welcome, kathleen kelly. Janice. Thank you so much for having me. Tony it’s, my it’s. My real pleasure. I am. I am anxious to talk to you about this book. As anxious as i was to read it because i do always get that question. How do we get to the next level? And i believe you have. I believe you have the answer. Answers, answers. I believe you can point us in the right direction. I hope so. Okay. Okay. I want i’m going to start with reading something. I’m actually gonna start with the conclusion of your book. Thiss paragraph. Just it struck me. So it says the journey. And we’re going to talk about your journey has made me even more keenly aware of how many non-profits are operating on a month to month basis, scrambling to raise money to sustain them. While so much innovation has occurred in the nonprofit world in recent decades, my conversations with organizational leaders and my observations of their daily routines have impressed upon me how considerable the challenges any non-profit faces are, no matter how innovative its model or impactful its services. What’s going on out there? Kathleen kelly jansen, janice well, i think you you really summed it up nicely. There. Those are your words, not mine. I just give you something up. I just i’m a copycat. What what’s happening is that we’re we’re on the one hand living in a philanthropic renaissance, it’s a really exciting time for non-profit innovation. So many incl, credible ideas are happening, and i’ve really had a front row seat here in the silicon valley watching so many non-profits capitalizing on a lot of the growth that we’ve seen in the tech industry as well, organizations like key by using crowd fending teo, be able teo support organizations in the developing world. And then, on the other hand, we have so many incredible ideas that are dying on the vine because organisations can’t get the financial support that they need to get to the next level to get to a level of sustainability, and i became really interested in this question myself. I was really, really curious. Why are some organizations succeeding and wire others really flailing? And it turns out that in fact, two thirds of non-profits in the united states are five hundred thousand dollars in below revenue, and many of these organizations should stay small, community based organizations and are feeling an important role in the non-profit community. But many of these organizations want to scale. They figured out a proven model that is working to support their beneficiaries. T help create a more just world, and they simply can’t get the capital they need to grow. And so might research really explores the foundations of success. What is it that organizations need to do in order to take that next step, and to grow their impact to the next level? You talk about the struggle to scale, which is essentially what you just said, even more eloquently. So? So? So let’s, we’re not gonna have time to go through the the entire book, you know, you’ve got five elements of what you think it takes toe scale and be sustainable, so i’m gonna i’m just gonna start with encouraging people. You just, you know, if you want to get to the next level, you just got to buy the book. I mean, non-profit radio is good as it is cannot substitute for this for this book. So all right, i may mention that a couple times, so why don’t you walk us through the five parts of what you believe, you know, your researches, you know, lead youto believe are the essential parts of what what’s needed? Sure. So there’s five strategies that i identify at that came up over and over again and one hundred interviews that i did around the country of organizations that have scaled past two million dollars and beyond and and that’s really the level that i define as a certain level of sustainability. And so the organizations that tend to scale really all exhibited these five strategies. So the first one is that they began testing their ideas very early on. And before they went out and raised money, they figured out some ways tow pilot it the programs so that they could figure out what was working at what was not about that by the time they went out to market, they had they had awesome impact to show and were able to get funded for that and b we’re able tio, then integrate a culture of innovation that helped them constantly improve their models as they grow. The second strategy is that these organizations that the organizations that tended to scale more quickly in a large survey that i did the survey results show that these organizations, we’re able to say that they began measuring impact from the very start from day one and that’s that makes sense because those are the organizations that were able to go out and tio show donors that they were having an impact. And but those are also the organizations that are able teo increase their impact by letting go of programs that aren’t working or tweaking them and making them better. So that impact measurement is really key and it’s, often something that organizations struggle with the third strategy is funding experimentation. And developing a plan to test both earned income sources as well as philanthropic income to figure out a funding model that works, and teo to be able to take the organization to scale there is no one size fits all sending model for nonprofit organizations. Every organization has to figure out what’s gonna work for them. And so putting some processes in place to test out different sources of income is going to be the best way for organizations to figure out what that is. The fourth strategy is developing a culture of collective leadership. I think we all have this tendency in today’s society, tio to revere the founder to put founders on the pedestal, whether it’s in the for-profit world with mark zuckerberg, the founder of facebook, or associating apple with steve jobs or even in the nonprofit world. And, you know, the quintessential example is mohammed yunus is is the founder of the grameen bank and won the nobel prize, and leaders should be honored. But at the same time, they’re the best organizations figure out that greatness is not built on one person it’s built on the backs of teamwork and the best organizations figure. Out how to bring in senior leadership early on so that founders can go out and spend time on fund-raising and strategy that they have really strong boards of directors that help help them grow their organization. And they flipped that hierarchical pyramid on its head and put the staff up front because they realize that they’re staff are the ones that are on the front lines making an impact and have the closest connections often to the beneficiaries is really the key to their work. The final strategy is storytelling with purpose. I think we all have a tendency to listen, teo a ted talk or ah, great political speech and think, wow, that person is just a natural. But when i went out and talked with all of these leaders, the best storytellers spend a lot of time practicing their craft. I had one social entrepreneur tell me that her she feels she’s an olympic athlete, and her olympics sport is storytelling and speech making, and because she could be speaking the word of god. But if it’s told in a boring way, then no one’s going to listen to her and these leaders figure out that organizations can have impact when they’re able to build a movement, and that comes with telling a good story and getting people on board and it’s not just that the leadership level is at every level of the organization because these organizations realized that staff members, board members, beneficiaries and champions can all be brand ambassadors for their organizations. And so they work hard. Teo help them with their storytelling so that everybody can go out and be champions for the cause of the five strategies. And to me, what was most exciting about this research is that i kept waiting for someone to say, you know, it’s, just charisma or grid or some sort of innate trait that makes an organization succeed or not. But no one said that on, and in fact it really came down. Teo thes strategies that any non-profit can implement, no matter what kind of resources they have at their fingertips. Kathleen, we had to take it’s time for a break. I wanted to do the overview. Hang with me while we take a break. Sounds great. Pursuant. The art and science of acquisition. That is their newest paper to help you bring in new donors paper covers strategies that work from successful acquisition campaigns you want to think of this as your campaign for new donors. Now i know this is fourth quarter, and you’re probably not devoted to acquisition. You’re more focused on ly bones and sideburns. Tryingto get those people back in and you’re and a renewal gift from your current donors for this year. So download it, check us out and keep it for next year’s acquisition work because it is it’s available now, you know that pursuing his data driven so research is going to be based on numbers, their research and what they have found is going to be most successful for you in your acquisition work, which metrics are most important for you to track? What is success look like et cetera. It’s not easy to bring in new donors let pursuing help you it’s, the art and science of acquisition, and it’s at tony dot m a slash pursuing capital. P in brovey okay, kathleen, i’m sorry. Thank you. Thanks for holding on their kapin. Okay. Excellent. I want to do some with our live listener love. Okay, kathleen, you are there, right? Yes. Absolutely. Ok, wonderful. I feel like doing the live lister love a little early. So let’s shout out to tampa, florida would ridge, new jersey woodbridge. So consistent with the listening i’ve some believe in. Would you please identify yourself? Woodbridge, newjersey, please come forward. I want to shout you out in person. Um, new york, new york, multiple new york, new york. We’ve got charlotte, north carolina live was naralo vago. And after charlotte and jersey city, new jersey my, my, uh my dad’s, my dad’s hometown, that’s, where he was born on mcadoo, half jersey city, new jersey live listeners love to you college station, texas is with us. So our germany good dog, seoul, south korea, on your haserot comes a ham nida mexico city. No! Yes, mexico city, mexico we’ve got multiple there. Good afternoon. Born a smart bona bona santa that zilly bonem start is is italy with us pornos era if you are, tehran is with us and took a result japan and the united kingdom live lesser love to each of you. We’re gonna divide it up today. The other two thirds are going to come a little later on all right. Kathleen. Now you don’t, you don’t like to go by katie or kate or cath or k. You’re strictly a kathleen girl. Is that right? That’s, my name kathleen. Okay, no, katie’s. Okay, okay. Um let’s, talk about your journeys i mentioned in when i read a little bit from the conclusion your parents were very active and promoted a spirit of giving when you were young. This is that seems to be the genesis of your interest in this hole in the whole sector. It was definitely an inspiration for me. I’m really lucky that i grew up in this amazing little small town and napa, california and my parents were very involved in the nonprofit sector. My dad was a community banker and my mom was a teacher, and they they served on dozens of non-profit boards throughout the year, so when i think about our weekends, we often spent time volunteering in soup kitchens or serving at the local medical clinic for low income workers, but our volunteer efforts and there we we sat around the dinner table and talked about how organizations often struggle. So my parents were talking about fundraisers they were hosting tio try and help support an organization that was struggling to get the resource is that needed to do that important service work. That’s what was where his thiss was actually this was dinner table conversation for you? Yeah. You know that that’s that’s ah that’s not comin right. I didn’t know any different. I know, i know. Yeah, but, you know, it’s, not it’s, not. I mean, i know you’ve realized that since then, but that’s a remarkable okay. I’m sorry. You know, that’s just that’s. Just remarkable, as i was reading about you having these conversations with your parents about sustainability, even though that word we weren’t using that word, but that’s what you were talking about? Well, yeah, and it’s. Not that my family was very sophisticated, it’s, just that they believed really strongly that there are people in our community who are not as fortunate as us and that it’s our duty to give back to those people. But that it’s not just about giving back teo, people who are less fortunate it’s about making sure that the organizations that are supporting them are strong so that they can provide those important social services. That something that was very much a part of my upbringing. Yeah. That’s outstanding, um and let’s. Now come to the research that lead you to the er to the overviewing that you gave us earlier. What was thea? Was the process for this lots of interviews? Yeah, so i really came at it because i had experienced this issue myself personally when i graduated from law school, i started my own small non-profit with a group of women and san francisco called spark, we engage young professionals and gender equality issues, and we also had this problem where we had a ton of buzz. In the beginning, we were growing our revenue every few months, doubling our annual budget, and then at a certain point, just when we were hitting our stride, we hit a wall and we couldn’t get the capital that we needed in the door to get to the next level and increases the impact that we wanted. So that was around the half a million dollar mark wasn’t it has a million dollars for us and for every for every non-profit it it could be different, but i have found that that half million dollar mark is a really critical st hump because it is a place that a lot of organizations struggled to get beyond that kind of like initial grant funding and initial seed capital to really get some more sustainable grant in the door. So to get back to your question about the process for me and when i began teaching social entrepreneurship at stanford wearing my research cap, i began looking at this question more critically. I developed survey and sent it out tio thousand organizations in the united states that were in some of the top social entrepreneurship portfolios, like echoing green and a show cow and school. And so i heard back from them, and i tested everything from, you know, was their social media better and helping them scale? Or was it there impact measurement in the way that they were measuring impact? And i came up with some initial findings that i went out and tested and got to go out and interview in person one hundred organization founders there they’re funders their beneficiaries, their staff, and really just asked them a key question, which is what is the secret to non-profit success and the findings they’re based on the stories that they told me in those interviews, the the parts that i wantto start to focus on is that that early stage you call it testing, testing ideas, i think of it is sort of you know, mastering as much as you can. The problem. Like trying to get your mind around what the problem is and testing solutions to it. Um, i is it okay if i describe it that way? Absolutely. What i found in my research is that the best social entrepreneurs fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Well, if there is a lot harder when you fall in love with that solution, teo, let it go even if it’s not working, but if we really focus on the problem, then you’re going to be a ble. Teo, figure out the best strategy to address the problem. You talk about ideation and brainstorming and not allowing any solutions to be censored at at the early stages. Yeah, and that’s you know that is that this human-centered design theory that has come up at stanford, at the d school or in various capacities? It’s really? Just a fancy way of talking about problem solving and a process for understanding how to brainstorm ideas, and it doesn’t really have to be fancy. I also do an example. An organization that i interviewed. It was wishbone, which is ah, crowdfunding site for low income kids who want teo have summer experiences in the arts are in fillmore and cooking helped them following their follow their dreams, and when the organization started, they didn’t start by launching this huge website in this platform and investing a lot of money, and then, you know, then find the kids, they did it the other way around. They did a really low cost test to figure out whether the model would work, so the founder was a teacher for low income students in los angeles at the time she assigned an essay to them and ask them to write about their passion. Then she took some of her favorite papers, and she photocopied them, and she stuck them in a male in the mail with a stamp and sent them to her relatives and her friends to say, would you fund these kids to be able to follow their passions in the summer? And she got a bunch of money from those people, and she was able to send them to summer camps and do internships and realize that there was really something there, and so it was really just this kind of low cost testing. In the beginning, that helped her figure out what worked and what didn’t and helped her develop an engine that she could then grow too scale and it is hard to to throw off solutions. I mean, you know, remove solutions, eliminate them, you know, you feel like you’ve got some resources devoted to it, but the outcomes are just not coming. It’s it’s hard to throw off, throw them off, though, and and started a family a lot of work to overcome that a lot of organizations get stuck in that cycle for two reasons. One is because it’s really hard, teo admit failure. So i think that’s a big problem in the sector is just getting more comfortable with failure, but because oftentimes sees these programs are doing important work and it’s not that they’re necessarily bad, maybe not the most impactful they be. I’ll tell you a story of one really successful example of this, an organization called last mile health founded in liberia. Tto help get help care for some of the poorest communities there, tio decrease their mortality rates had when it started thirteen different programs, everything from women’s health programs, tio aids programs helping patients with hiv aids as they started to grow, they realised that the program that was having the biggest impact was this program that was helping bring community based care to the rural areas of liberia, so there were no doctors there, there were people who had to walk, sometimes twelve, thirteen hours to get to the capital city on dh they had very few doctors serving millions of people, and so these community health care workers were able, teo give them the treatment that they needed, sometimes using cell phone service, teo get care remotely and as it turned out, because it was so successful, they decided they made a very hard decision of closing down all these other programs that were very good programs but just weren’t having that kind of level of impact they wanted to see. And when the ebola crisis hit in two thousand twelve, that was absolutely critical because they had focused their efforts on these community health care workers, those community health care workers were able to prevent it’s a global health crisis, so i can’t think of a better story, you know, that they really because they were able to focus their energy on a program that was working, they were ableto have massive impact, and so i think we all have to keep that kind of end goal in mind when we’re when we’re doing this, that it’s really about maximizing the potential of the impact that we can have and let’s talk about measuring that impact let’s start with the distinction between you’re outputs and your outcomes or your impact. Well, what i found is that a lot of organizations tend to to focus on the outcome on the on the outputs, those air, the vanity mac tricks that are very easy, tio t c so for example, how many people are participating in your programs or how many people are coming to your website to get social services but ultimately it’s not showing how the programs are having a change on their life, their long term outcome, it might even be something physical, like how many’s ah, backpack kits we put together for homeless outreach. Yeah, but then what is the home of the people do with them? And how did that change their lives? Great and does not change their lives? Thank you. Get out of homeless because it was really the ultimate goal, and so this is something that i think a lot of organizations struggle with because non-profit leaders are not data scientists, and sometimes it can be overwhelming to think about, like, how do you measure outcomes? How do you measure the ripple effect of providing that backpack to a homeless youth and what that does to get him in the door to a shelter that does that help him ultimately get a job and ultimately get him off the streets? That’s a really hard path to follow, but you don’t have to be a data scientist, and it doesn’t have to be so hard, and in the book, i give a lot of really tangible strategies that non-profit organizations can use to help figure out what are the long term outcomes and get past these vanity, not metrics that just make us feel good about our impact but aren’t really telling us whether we’re making progress toward the old nicole kathleen, we just have about a minute or so before next break, talk a little about the, uh, using this data to help you tell your story. Yeah, that was something that i saw. Over and over again is we have a situation where seventy five percent of non-profits collect data, but only six percent of them feel like they really know what to do with that data on the best non-profits figure out how to get it into bite sized chunks of information that someone can easily digest in just a few minutes and that khun b, whether you’re a small organization or whether you’re a huge organization, it really just comes down to those bite-sized pieces of information, indulge me while we take another break, wagner, cps they really do go way beyond the numbers for you, lots of resource is on their at their sight. When you’re cps dot com, you’ve heard me talk about the different guides and templates that they have there’s a lot of help for your nine ninety if you are preparing that yourself, i know you may very well be outsourcing that, but if you’re if you’re doing it yourself, there’s nine ninety help there’s help for your board different board committees like finance versus audit. What? What are the different roles that your boardmember and those two different committees should be filling? And how do? They complement each other. How do you keep them separate or didn’t finance committees there’s a conflict of interest policy for board members? There’s. An ethical statement, forbush, board members. So lots of board help. Employee’s versus independent contractors that’s a morass for for a lot of offices you know, you don’t want to get penalized by your state department of labor for mischaracterizing so there’s a checklist for employees versus independent contractor all right, so that those are some examples of the guys that are out there when you see piela is there more than just cpas, as i say, way beyond the numbers you go to regular cps dot com click resource is and then guides abila software, you are a non-profit but there’s a good chance you’re using accounting software that was made for a business like quickbooks or turbo cash, or and the problem there is that those don’t include fund accounting, so to cover yourself, you are probably using some external spreadsheets to keep your funds separate, or you’re using separate bank accounts to keep things separate because you don’t want to spend one one designated fund for a different purpose, like the jim renovation money on the lunch program. So you want to use a ah, a software and accounting software that includes fund accounting and that he’s made for non-profits and that is appaloosa counting helps you separately. Account for each of these different designated funds that you probably have and need to keep separate. You go to non-profit wizard dot com, and that is the landing page for non-profit radio listeners non-profit wizard dot com now time for tony’s take two next month non-profit radio is dedicated to your plans for twenty eighteen for instance, we’re gonna have something on the oracle net sweet social impact offerings, there’s software that allowed people may be aware of, but there’s also consulting from social impact the social impact team at oracle net sweet. We’ve got somebody to talk about that picky duvette from oracle net suite or business advice from score this is theirs. It’s free to you as a taxpayer funded in large part by the small business administration, we’ve got somebody from scored explain what’s available there. Where’s, the new tax law mean for you in the new year, jean takagi is going to explain it. You know him, of course, are legal contributor plus maria simple with prospect research amy sample ward on social media they’ll both be with me in january. Also talking about your twenty eighteen plan so the month of january devoted to next year’s planning. The video is at twenty martignetti dot com, and that will be very shortly. All right. And that is tony’s take two. Let’s, let’s continue with the podcast pleasantries. He was surprised i divided it up. We say on the heels of the live listen, love has to come. The podcast pleasantries well, the heels a little longer this time it’s a stiletto this time podcast pleasant few star over twelve thousand listening in the time shift. The vast majority of our audience is there, and i’m thank youl thankful that you are with us pleasantries to the podcast listeners and the affiliate affections to our am and fm affiliate station listeners throughout the country. Thank you so much for being with us. I’m grateful that your station includes us in their weekly schedule, and i’m glad that you are listening on the on the terrestrial on the terrestrial side, the am and fm affections to the affiliate listeners, thanks very much. Kathleen kelly. Janice. Thank you. You’re welcome. You’re still there, right? Yes. I’m here. Okay, cool. Um i noticed you. Ah er is going back to your parents. You you dedicated the book to your parents. And you say for my parents who taught me the value of citizenship? How do you define that citizenship. What do you think of a citizenship? Well, for me, i’ve been raised with this idea that we all have a duty to give back to making the world a better place, and so we all have the capacity to make impact in some way and to me that’s really exciting, and i think getting even mohr and more prevalent, i acknowledge that not everybody was is lucky to have been raised with that mentality as i was, although i’m sure there are others who had those really important dinner conversations about social impact where no, no, i’m not sure how called prevalent there you are, but more and more what i see with my students at stanford when i see the next generation, is that there is this changing mentality that non-profit work used to be just about writing a check to a foundation or teo non-profit and then being on your way, people want to roll up their sleeves now they want to get involved non-profit work is no longer relegated, tio, you know, when you leave the office at five p m that millennials are thinking about how can they make a difference in their work in making the word world a better place? Whether that is using their skills to do pro bono work, or whether that’s e-giving back through donations and getting others involved in like minded causes to me, this is really exciting because it’s increased the potential for all of us. Teo make an impact in the world because we’re thinking about social change in a in a really different way. But it’s also really exciting for non-profits because there’s an opportunity for non-profits teo capitalize on that and i think too many non-profits out there are operating in this old fashioned model where they’re seeking donations may be they have, you know, an annual event or an annual dinner where they bring people together for a long program and over dinner and then that’s it, they collect their money, and then they get back to them the next year when it’s time for the dinner again, but people don’t want that donors don’t want that they want to be engaged, and they want teo feel like they’re making an impact. And so the onus is on the non-profits to really think about how to help donors get involved and ultimately that will lead teo, i think more funding for organizations as well, you encourage non-profits to think about earned income, recognizing that it may not fit in every situation that there might be non-profits where it’s not appropriate. But let xero about the potential for earned income and howto explore it. Well, i am keenly aware, as someone who i was trained as a human rights lawyer, that not all causes air suited for earned income human rights work is a perfect example of someone cannot afford the bus fare to get to the courthouse in the first place. They can’t afford to pay a lawyer for their rights. Many organizations are going to rely on philanthropic capital to fill that gap, and that is important and that’s okay, but what i found in my research is that when possible, the organizations that are able to bring in earned income are going to be ableto have this kind of level of sustainability that helps them get through the hard times. Ah lot of organizations talked about the recession in two thousand eight went so many grantmaking organizations pulled funding that they had already promised these this was money that organizations were relying on, but their endowments had gone down. And tanked with the down jones, and so they weren’t able to provide that really important funding and the organizations that had earned income sources, like a fee for service model or, ah, model where they were selling products, those air, the organizations that had the fuel to get them through that time when they didn’t know where their next philanthropic check was coming from. So it’s something that i think all non-profits need teo, at least consider as they develop their funding model, are their sources of earn income that can help grow the organization and and be willing to experiment with those. Absolutely you also encourage a multiyear fund-raising plan so it’s a little about what you’re going to that i think so many organizations think about fund-raising like filling a bathtub with a teaspoon it’s painful, you’re putting the water in teaspoon by tea spoon, and then at the end of the year, when you start a new budget cycle, you drain the bathtub and you start over again. That is a really painful way to approach fund-raising and what the best organizations do is they think about fund-raising on a multiyear strategy’s, so they make sure that their grants, when possible, are multi year grant so that there looking at funding three to five years out and not just here in a year, and then they help educate their donors on the importance of that, so not just not just foundations, but also individual donors who can contribute on a year to year level. And when you set that culture into motion, it helps you think much bigger about the prospects for fund-raising a supposed tio from a place of scarcity, that mentality of scarcity it’s hinders a lot of not just organizations, but people, you know, they just they feel like the think aren’t going to get what they need kayman it really does, and i hate to use that example because i think it’s really easy, you know, as a researcher to say, just think bigger non-profits i can think is because they wanted that doesn’t mean that the funding is going to come in the door, but i do notice there was one funder that i interviewed who said you can tell the difference between the organization when you ask them the question, what would you do if you had ten million dollars? And the ones that are able to answer that question right off the bat, those were the ones that are going to go big because they’re the ones that are thinking in that way and that have a plan and are and believe that they can get there. And so i think it’s really, it is really about mentality in many ways. Yeah. Wait. Okay. So we need to overcome that. We need to have the courage to think at the ten million dollars level. Absolutely. And owners need to be thinking bigger too. I mean, go both way and that’s your responsibility to help your donor’s think that way, grayce imagine what we could do if we had ten million dollars. Imagine how many lives we could touch. Inspire those donors to be a part of the solution? That is really what it’s all about collaboration. You mentioned it earlier when you were giving us the eloquent overview. Um, let’s, let’s. Talk about the collaboration delegation. Strong leaders are not afraid to past tasks onto others. It’s really critical and organizations cannot succeed without a really strong team. The story that i love that really illustrates this is of kiva dot or gray mentioned earlier that crowdfunding platform to support small businesses in the developing world using donorsearch unnie from premiere from criminal united states, but also now all around the world, and this organization started right around the same time that i co founded spark, and so i got to see this firsthand competition, yes, and they well, well, they were anywhere competition, but you could benchmark against i guess you were well, yeah, and and it was really amazing story because jessica jackley and matt flannery, the founders, were on oprah winfrey. They were featured and bill clinton’s e-giving book and were featured on the oprah show that income that didn’t come for you as co founder of spark no, as much as you like, we saw what happened for them, they raised eleven million dollars overnight after being on the oprah show. They they literally crashed their servers and and we’re no longer able to accept funds, and so overnight they had to think about leadership in a very distributed way because they needed all hands on deck in order tio distribute all of those sons that they had received, and so now is an organization. They have one hundred employees and five hundred volunteers around the world. There, keep a fellows go into the field, tio tio follow-up on the grants and tio ensure that there going where they say they’re going. And teo, tell those stories and catalog those stories, they rely on all those volunteers and all those staff to be on the front lines. And so they have strategies to make sure that those people, their staff, feel empowered. Teo, support the mission of the organization. So an example is they allow their staff to develop their own impact metrics so the staff can feel connected to how their work in particular, is contributing to the mission of the order are excellent. Okay? It’s, not it’s, not top down, right? We’re we’re talking about the antithesis of top down leadership. Absolutely. I mean, even their feedback model, they have horizontal feedback mechanisms so that they’re not e-giving and receiving feedback in a top down way, and that really helps set into motion this culture of horizontal value for all employees. All right, kathleen, we take our our third break. I want to remind listeners the book is social startup success if you’re listening live. You could be cooking right through now to barnes and noble or amazon. Be buying it while i take this break. Tell us. Credit card and payment processing. This is a way for you to become a partner with tell us by referring to them businesses that would be willing tohave tell us on the ceo is why it look at the fees that the businesses are paying for their credit card and other types of payment processing. But, you know, credit card being the most common. Think of the businesses that you talk about, the ones that perhaps your your board members run or are part of businesses in your community that are supporting you now in different ways, whether it’s through some kind of sponsorship or they are purchasing tables at an event, or making outright gift to you. However there supporting you, might they be willing to change their credit card processor toe also benefit you. And the benefit that you will get is fifty percent of the revenue that comes from each of these businesses to tell us will be yours. Not fifty percent of the profit. Fifty percent of the revenue that comes from tello’s that comes to tell us from these businesses will be yours. And if tell us, can’t save the businesses any money, then you will get to what you want. You will get two hundred and fifty dollars. That is. Tell us his promise. You can see the whole bargain at tony dot m a slash tony tello’s. Kathleen, the the other part of collaborative leadership besides strong strong senior leadership is a strong active board. What do you like to see there? Well, a lot of organizations. Start out with it what i call in the book of friends and family reward where they know they have to legally have a board of directors, and so they go out and they recruit anyone who’s close to them tio help them with their organization, and this leads to a lot of problems because friends and family are not always the most suited to help you grow an organization on they don’t always necessarily have the skills, and oftentimes friends and family tell you what you want to hear, those really pushing you to be your back, not going to challenge you tell me they’re not going to challenge you. They’re not going to challenge yes, exactly, and so and so and so, really what? I saw it, the organization that scaled had a robust organise, a robust organizational board that was suited for the skills that they needed and the talents that they needed to grow the organization. And even if it meant having to go through that a brutal process as moving from the friends and family board tio more robust kind of governance board my husband always we have three children, and my husband always likes to say i can’t fire my mother in law, you know it’s a lot easier sometimes to hire a baby sitter. Well, that should be your job. You should be finding your own mother is so much easier for you to do. No one wants to have to fire their mother, so don’t put your mother on your board. That’s the lesson on dh really getting it right the first time is the best recipe for success, but there are strategies that i talk about in the book for how to move past the friends and family board to govern in sport. That’s really going to help challenge you and get you through the strategic planning process to help you build a theory of change so that you can show your a solution to the problem and illogical and impactful way board relationships. Very tough for lots of organizations. The relationship between the ceo and the board sometimes it’s a micro managing board, even those even the relationship between staff and the board can sometimes be difficult. Um, intra board relationships there’s a lot, there’s a lot of potential for problems there there’s a lot of potential for problems and there’s a lot of potential for solution. Well, one leaves you doesn’t have to be that heart. One of the key things that i talk about in the book for developing a really strong board is putting the policies in place. Sue you’re very clear about what the expectations are of your board. I think a lot of these challenges come in when it’s just not clear, whose role is what and what boardmember zehr supposed to do. So let me give you an example. Organisations that responded to may survey said that only fifteen percent of their boards are involved in fund-raising when asked what they would like their boards to do, more of sixty six percent of the executive director said they would like their boards to be doing more friendraising so that’s a huge disconnect and i would i would ask those organizations will what have you done to communicate with your board that you would like them to be doing more fund-raising what have you done, teo, establish what their fund-raising goals are in the board policy. What have you done to support their fund-raising efforts? Have you provided events that they can bring their contacts? Tio, have you given them the stories that they need to tell at a cocktail party so that they know how to make an elevator pitch if you want your board to be involved in friendraising you need to lay the foundation to make that happen. So i think a lot of board frustrations but executive directors have with their boards can easily be alleviated by just laying the foundation with clear policies and clear expectations like the model of collaboration that you were talking about, you know, bottom up you encourage that also in in storytelling, and i know i’m not sure if you had a well, i was gonna say my favorite part was the storytelling part, but if you had to pick, that was my favorite. I’m not saying that’s the most important if is it possible for you to say which of these? And we’re going to talk about storytelling very moment, very shortly, which of the five areas is like, most important, are you willing to rank them like that? Or you think they’re all equally it’s like asking maeda choose my my favorite child? They are all important, but i will say that that that that kind of they do, i write about them in the order that i write about them, because i think that they do. They do lay the foundation for success in that order, so you can’t tell a good story until you have the deed of and the qualitative stories to show for that, and so that impact measurement and that testing process is really key to get there. So you did. You did think through the sequence of ah, that you’re goingto present these in the book, yeah, it’s, that sequence is very important, okay? Non-profit metoo tested me more haphazard, but you, you thought through that when you’re writing a book is different. So you you, actually, you thought through this, okay, i’m gratified to hear that, okay? So let’s, talk about the story telling you. You like again, bottom up. Absolutely, it has. Teo involved everyone around you there’s an organization i interviewed called ideo dot or ge, and they used design thinking, teo help non-profits develop innovative solutions in their work, and they have this thing that they they implement on and their staff meetings called storytelling roulette, where they spin the wheel like a wheel of fortune, they they spin it and then randomly it will land on a story and they’ll pick a staff person in advance who on the spot has to tell that story as if they were pitching it to a donor or a potential partner? I’m not because, eh, every staff member hasn’t necessarily been involved in all of those projects and doesn’t necessarily have that institutional memory. That is the way to build institutional memory. It’s also a way to build skills. Storytelling is not something that just happened. Storytelling happens with a lot of practice and, uh and and a lot of opportunities to practice one of my dear friends, nadine burke harris has ted talk with three million views, and she runs an organization called the center for youth wellness focuses on toxic stress when i interviewed her and asked her about that ted talk, she said. She practiced it for six months, this ten minute talk, and she said, by the end of those six months, her has been could’ve given the ted talk for her because she had practice it so many times in front of him. So i think it’s important, that we remember to make this space for that practice, not only for ourselves as leaders of organizations, but also for all of our teams and our boards and even beneficiaries talk about in the book. Yes, i wanted to go to the beneficiaries. I was, so you’re so you’re so comprehensive. I was hoping you were gonna leave beneficiaries, then i would sound smart, so i know. But what about beneficiaries? But, yeah, way, just have about a minute and a half left before we wrap up. So talk about encouraging beneficiaries to tell. Well, i think when you’re working with beneficiaries to tell stories, i think there’s ah lot of things that organizations need to do to be very conscious of what it means to put a beneficiary in that position and to set them up for success. So it’s not always appropriate, and i think what organizations have two d’oh ah lot of thinking to make sure, for example, that the beneficiary is well past and being part of the program, that they are in a better place to be able to tell that story. But there really is no more powerful story for unorganised ation to tell them someone who has successfully made their way through the program and has created a better life because of that outcome. And so we talked earlier about output versus outcomes that is an outcome when you can show that someone’s life has changed and hearing that from a from a beneficiaries own mouth is really going to be your most powerful sales person for the organization. Those air so compelling the mean those khun b riel tear jerkers literally it’s and they don’t have to be high production value, but they could be very very compelling. Very, very moving. Absolutely. All right. We have to leave it there. I want to thank you very much. Catherine kelly. Janice. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Tony it’s been my absolute pleasure. The book. Get the book for pete’s sake. We just did a romp through it. You need the book. Social startup success have the best non-profits launch scale up and make a difference next week, zombie loyalists that’s our annual replay of peter shankman talking about extreme customer service. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant regular ciba is guiding you beyond the numbers. Wagner cps dot com appaloosa accounting software designed for non-profits non-profit wizard dot com and tell us credit card payment processing your passive revenue stream tony dahna may slash tony tell us our creative producers claire meyerhoff. Sam leave lorts is the line producer shows social media is by susan chavez and this very cool music is by scott stein you’re with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. No. Kayman oppcoll what’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark insights orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh. No two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. 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