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Nonprofit Radio for June 26, 2020: Improv For Culture And Creativity & Tech Policies

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My Guests:

Krystal Ramseur & Graziella Jackson: Improv For Culture And Creativity
A performer and a board member from Washington Improv Theater teach us how improvisation can make your team more creative, confident, supportive and successful. They’re Krystal Ramseur and Graziella Jackson.

 

 

 

 

 

Karen Graham & Dan Getman: Tech Policies
Karen Graham and Dan Getman want to help your staff avoid scams, malware and inappropriate data handling. Might you have employees using personal phones or computers for work? You especially need to listen. Karen is with Tech Impact and Dan is at MANNA.

 

 

 

 

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[00:00:12.24] spk_0:
welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio

[00:02:01.54] spk_1:
big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with UV itis if I saw that you missed today’s show. Improv for Culture and Creativity. A performer and a board member from Washington Improv Theater Teach us how improvisation can make your team more creative, confident, supportive and successful. They’re Crystal Ramsar and got Cielo Jackson. That’s part of our 20 and TC coverage. Also. Tech policies Karen Graham and Dan Getman want to help your staff avoid scams, malware and inappropriate data handling. Might you have employees using personal phones or computers for work? You especially need to listen. Karen is with Tech Impact, and Dan is at manna. This is also part of our 20 and TC coverage on tony steak, too. Thank you were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers. Wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot CEO here is improve. Brilliant. Yes. This is the lackluster host that you’re stuck with. Here is improv for culture and creativity. Welcome

[00:02:52.34] spk_3:
to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC 2020 non profit technology conference. You know, the conference had to be canceled, but, you know, we’re persevering. Virtually sponsored a 20 NTC by cougar math and software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial, I guess now are Crystal Ram sore. And Graciela Jackson Crystal is chief administrative officer at the National Council of Negro Women. Gretz Yella is partner and CEO at Echo and Co. Um, Also, Crystal is a teacher and performer and board member at Washington Improv Theater, which is most relevant to what we’re talking about today. And Graciela is a board member at UIT Washington and breath theater. Crystal Graciela, Welcome.

[00:02:56.54] spk_4:
Thank you. Glad to be here, but

[00:03:29.90] spk_3:
have you? I’m glad we could work this out. I’m glad you reach well and safe in our nation’s capital area. They were both in D C D c. Proper. Yeah. Yep. Your ah ntc topic is improv. Saves the non profit boosting culture and create team creativity. Um, that’s interesting, because I am on, uh, how does it do that? Oh, even though on, uh, even though I turned to my, uh, even though I’m on Eric’s airplane mode because zoom because we’re special way all the fatal started a few minutes early. That’s why

[00:03:36.28] spk_4:
it’s asking you to improvise. It’s very timely and relevant.

[00:03:46.04] spk_3:
Thank you. And I didn’t do a very good job Called out for what it was. I didn’t even, um so, Crystal, let’s start with you. What? Um why? How come, Ah, improvisation can help us out creatively. Effectively. Team building. What? What about it?

[00:03:57.70] spk_2:
Yeah, So I think one of the biggest things I love about improv is it really pushes you to stay present and stay in the moment. And because in what we’re working with right now and then creating together. So I think a lot of times in business or you’re in meetings and you’re having thoughts about ideas and people like, Well, we tried that idea last year, didn’t work, which was 10 years ago, didn’t work, or if we do that And the people are already thinking of reasons why we can’t do something but right. Improv focuses on No. We’re working with what we have right here in the present. And presently this is this is these are the parameters. Why couldn’t we try this? And the number one rule in improv is Yes. And so if we say yes, how do we then take that idea and continue to build something together? And I think when you just those principles right there make for better working community.

[00:04:58.88] spk_3:
Great yellow. There’s also a confidence building, right? You walk out on the improv stage. I’m taking the example of just two people. You know, their team exercising everything. But you walk out with just two people. One of you has an opening line, and you gotta build a sketch around it for the next 4 to 5 minutes around that fine. And the other part, neither. And the other person doesn’t know what that opening line even

[00:06:27.97] spk_4:
is. Yeah, I It’s interesting. I think there’s an incredible freedom that comes from what Crystal was saying. Presence. Because if you are able to, and I think what improv teaches you to do to just respond to what’s given to you in the moment and say, like, I don’t have to do this huge thing right now. I don’t have toe entertain this gigantic audience. All I have to do is take this thing that my partner contributed as a gift and build on it. You find yourself being able to create things with a lot more freedom with less, much less of the fear that comes from, like worrying about the benefit of your contribution or whether or not you have the perfect or the right answer. And I think one thing that I learned just in taking trainings on this and being a part of the board is you have to be as willing to abandon what you’ve contributed and contribute something new and just be constantly moving forward with creative ideas rather than getting stuck in the mindset of judging what you just created. So it’s kind of separating your creative brain from your critical brain and super important.

[00:06:29.38] spk_3:
That’s interesting that, yeah, you don’t have time to self censor. You’re you’re in front of an audience. You heard a line and you’re supposed to build on it.

[00:06:51.05] spk_4:
Yeah, and there’s something exciting about the active discovery like When you really invest in that thing that you’re building together, you’re probably going to find something that’s even more interesting and funny and entertaining and no crystal. You do this all the time and some of the exercises that you’ve lead, but it’s it’s sort of being willing to just keep going because you’re gonna build something bigger and more exciting and more powerful. If you just don’t stop yourself

[00:07:07.52] spk_3:
and crystal, you keep going. Regardless of what the audience reaction is, right, you don’t you don’t just walk off stage when lying. Number two, you know, didn’t get a huge laugh or wasn’t even supposed to get a laugh. And then you just walk off stage, Say off, you know, screw it.

[00:07:34.63] spk_2:
No. And you’re in this together with your scene partners. I think I love that like we’re out here. Wow, we made this choice to be aliens in the West. Didn’t you know what? That’s where we’re at? And we got to commit to this and we just commit harder to it right and see where it leads.

[00:08:04.28] spk_3:
Robe use that aliens and robots in a cornfield way have to build a robot family. The two of us. Yeah, just, you know, whatever. All right. So, uh, Crystal, were you gonna be doing exercises if you had had the opportunity to do the session? The usually so games or anything?

[00:08:07.00] spk_2:
Yep. Yeah. So we had a feeling good today, So we had a list of games. Really? Toe kind of show. Ah, little bit of intro into improv. Doing some? Yes. And, um What, Graciela has the list?

[00:08:21.55] spk_4:
Yeah. Yeah, I couldn’t pull it up. I think it started with it, I think,

[00:09:00.63] spk_3:
instead of instead of reading the list. Yeah. Never doing improbably, don’t just talk about what we’re gonna do, right? Sit around like a board, Actually, actually, do we actually dio not talk about? Wouldn’t it be funny if we did this? This would be fun to do that, and so we never do that. So how are we going, Teoh doing improv, the three of us that will, um, some kind of game that will bring home, of course, the lessons that we’re trying to learn in terms of culture, team building, confidence, creativity, efficiency. What are we gonna do? I’m putting you on the spot deliberately.

[00:09:35.34] spk_2:
I don’t want you want Can we plan the vacation? Yes. Like point of it was just telling us. So let’s do this. So I plan a vacation, and we’ll planet with the three of us will go. I can start and we go from me to Graciela to tony, and then we’ll just keep circling like that. So the way we’ll do it is we’re trying to plan a vacation for the three of us. The first line of the sentence when you respond to someone, has to be Yes. And and then you can pushing forward from there. Go. So, uh, wow. I’m so glad that were doing this vacation. I really think we need to go somewhere warm.

[00:09:47.04] spk_4:
Yes, and we need to go somewhere warm immediately.

[00:09:56.44] spk_3:
Yes, and we can. I mean, I’m already packed. Let’s, uh let’s go. I mean, I love the Caribbean of either. Have you been to the Caribbean?

[00:10:04.24] spk_2:
Yes. And I’ve decided I’m just gonna by all of us a new wardrobe while we’re there. So I don’t even aggressively not back. Didn’t even need to pack. Let’s go right now. And I say we have margaritas as soon as we get there.

[00:10:16.78] spk_4:
Yes. And after the margaritas will party a little bit, and then we’ll go snorkeling.

[00:10:23.59] spk_3:
Oh, yes. And, um, since I’m not bring any clothes now, I’m just gonna go snorkeling naked.

[00:10:29.64] spk_2:
Yes, and we’re gonna feel the water, and I bet will make friends with dolphins. Yes, and everybody

[00:10:37.67] spk_4:
will get excited about what we’re doing, and they’ll want to join as well.

[00:10:47.90] spk_3:
Oh, yes. And this party is just gonna get even bigger. Um, we Let’s invite more folks, not just the three of us.

[00:10:50.54] spk_2:
Yes. And let’s blast this to everyone that we’ve ever met and tell them Jump in the water with us. And let’s make this the new party. Yes. And let’s see if

[00:11:03.59] spk_4:
we can get a boat so we can take this party toe other islands.

[00:11:17.27] spk_3:
Oh, yes. And while we’re going between the islands, we could be fishing. There’s, like, weaken dive off the boat on our way to the other island. So the the boat is part of the is part of the

[00:11:20.44] spk_2:
fun. Perfect. There. We owe that. I love that activity.

[00:12:28.40] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Wegner-C.P.As, I said a couple of weeks ago. This shit is hitting a fan fast. It’s still coming down at us. That’s Ah, that’s a mixed metaphor, really, because if it’s hitting the fan that’s not coming down, it’s being blown at us, Uh, coming fast, still raining down on us. It’s coming, blowing, it’s blowing on us. It’s hitting the fan and it’s still blowing on us. That’s better. Anyway, this shit is there. However, it got to us recovered in it. Wegner has a new free webinar on July 1st to explain the latest on paycheck protection program loan forgiveness. You know you need to apply for it. You don’t get it automatically now. What wegner explains to register goto wegner-C.P.As dot com Click Resource is now back to improv for culture and creativity with Crystal Ram sore, a gutsy Ella Jackson.

[00:12:43.74] spk_2:
What we do sometimes when we do it will start the activity bus, saying you first have to plan a vacation by doing no because, yeah, you say No, but and you do it that way or you say no, because and you try to plan a vacation and it’s so hard, right? Because every time you you threw out an idea like let’s get a boat, the person’s like No, because I’m scared of a boat. And so you realize you don’t do anything. You’re likely

[00:12:57.88] spk_3:
roller. The idea is becoming someone’s muller and harder to deal with. Uh, instead of broadening. Okay. Um right. So, crystal, what we learn from what we just did in a couple minutes

[00:13:09.84] spk_2:
when we learn, uh, what happens when we all, like, let ourselves be creative and have the wildest thought that we’ve ever had? Um, you know, if you just were in a meeting and we wanna figure out how we increase this sales numbers, what have Let’s just throw out the wildest thing we’ve ever thought And let’s play with it for a little bit and let’s not shut it down right away. Let’s play around with this idea and see what we can come up with together.

[00:13:39.24] spk_3:
Okay? That’s the other anything you want you want to add?

[00:14:17.63] spk_4:
Yeah, I think that it’s really, really important because I think we’re where organizations, especially non profit teams, get stuck most often because they’re in fast paced, scarce resource environments where you know every dollar you spend on idea is really important. I think that bringing this technique in and allowing yourself some space to say, Let’s just separate the created creation of ideas from the judging of ideas and the vetting ideas and try to get to a place where we are envisioning what’s possible because it’s counter to our culture and and has to be in some ways to be to do that. And so it just allows you toe get past. You know, the 1st 3 or four ideas which are always the ones that are more familiar, safer, probably more likely to be accepted and really set those aside and push yourselves to think in new ways about challenges It doesn’t. There’s no risk in spending the time coming up with ideas. And if you can use these tools to get everybody feeling comfortable on open and curious and creative, and you know you can design the collaboration really well and bring games into it, you end up with this whole inventory of possibilities that then you can take into a more critical process and evaluate and put things like metrics and objectives around them. But chances are people will feel more included in the process. They’ll forget that time is passing cause they’ll have fun. They’ll feel like the quality of their ideas is better, and they’ll feel like they accomplished something that then they can take and turn into something better.

[00:15:19.64] spk_3:
You go and you have some rules around this, right? Like, yeah, we’re not. We’re not judging. We’re not saying that idea sucks. No, it’s it’s, you know, sort of classic brainstorming. Yeah, it’s just the free flow of ideas.

[00:15:33.17] spk_4:
Yeah, the one that that Washington and profit teacher a Washington improv theater teaches us is definitely the concept of yes and that Krystle mentioned. There’s also the concept of Let go, and that’s about just removing your bias and your preconceived notions and the things you’re bringing into the room with. You just let go of all of those notice everything because probably the things that you’re ignoring also have possibility. And we’re so used to not letting go and then Onley noticing what’s important to us. And then I think the last one is used everything. It’s sort of whatever is brought into the room. See if you can apply it to something, even if it’s toe honing. You know your idea. Been proving your idea? I don’t know. Crystal, did I represent those well enough?

[00:16:18.21] spk_2:
Absolutely no, I think, especially when you talk about using everything. That’s the other part about that exercise that I like so much. It’s forcing you to listen to what the person before you just said. Really listen to what they say, because you have to build off of it. So instead of just you’re already thinking of your idea, you can’t think of it yet. You need to wait to hear what that other person says.

[00:16:53.94] spk_4:
Yeah, there’s, Ah, there’s, I think like when you think about what? How work is changing right now. In addition to needing to be open, more collaborative, more agile, getting things out the door faster with less resistance. A lot of that has to do with also being able to take a systems view of things. And if you’re not actually using these techniques and these approach to build an understanding of the scope of what you’re dealing with, so if you’re thinking about like social change or environmental change, the idea is you have tow, envision the system, and if you spend 30 minutes sort of saying this is important No, it’s not. This is important. No, it’s not versus Let’s spend the next hour identifying everything about this system that’s important. Then you can start to, you know, group those things and come up with plans around those things that’s incredibly helpful for strategic planning

[00:17:32.74] spk_3:
or just everything. Not everything that’s important. But everything that impacts. Yeah, that’s around this system. Outside influences, our own influences, our own biases, everything that impacts our work. Yeah, Neville, categorize what we have control over what we don’t What’s what’s significant? What’s thus significant?

[00:18:52.83] spk_4:
Yeah, way had this thing. This organization we’re working with is a large labour union, and they had were working with them on rethinking their Web presence, and they have more than 30,000 pieces of content across lots of websites. And our content strategist did an exercise Gina Marie condo, the Netflix show about just like taking everything out of your closet, putting it in a pile, going through it, cleaning it until you’re everything around you brings you joy. I’ve never seen it, but she created this exercise, which was more or less improv that didn’t get to Let’s talk about all of the content that you’re gonna be losing from this Web presence. Let’s spend time sort of improvising what it’s like to move out of a house. What do you do in what order? And she went through this really detailed activity where people built the experience of what it’s like to move a house, and then they designed that whole process in system. And then they basically compared that to what it’s like to cleanse 30,000 pieces of content. And people immediately understood the process because they are familiar with this challenge of needing to move your house if you’ve been through that before. And so they forgot that what they were doing was planning change management. All they did was Plant was like We’re planning something familiar to them and then borrowing from those concepts to accomplish this big, scary thing that nobody wanted to dio. So I think that’s the power of of this work and creativity and adapting the exercises to your space

[00:19:58.82] spk_3:
Crystal. Let’s talk some about, um, the team building. Like I was saying earlier, you know, you walk out on improv stage two of you. One of these got an opening line from, ah, word that an audience member throughout, and you’re you’re each counting on each other. Yes, and and follow all the other principles of bring everything in that you’ve got. And that’s not censoring yourself, etcetera. But you’re building on each other. It’s confidence building and team building s over the individual and for the team of two, or could be a bigger team. Talk some about that. How improv helps helps that way around team team cohesion.

[00:22:03.74] spk_2:
Yea, I think it also it helps. Trust is the other part of it as well that I think that builds. Um, one of the I worked with a group where we on organization and they’re one of the issues was they had a whole issue around hierarchy. They just hired a bunch of people and let go of a bunch of people. And a lot of people didn’t feel like their work really mattered or that their voice mattered. Um, and so they weren’t sharing their ideas and meetings, and they actually brought a group of improvisers to come and do a whole workshop and the all the exercises that we did, we’re focused on know everybody has a piece in what we’re doing, and it’s vital, and we need everyone to fully, um fully do their work, and then I need to fully accept what you’re giving me, right? So, yeah, if it were walking out on that stage is a blank stages. I always tell people there’s there’s nothing there. So if I say we’re aliens in Oklahoma and you’ve gotta agree that yes, we’re aliens. What does that mean? You know, we can build Bring that into this, um, you got agree where we are, and then part of it is the two of us that are on the stage. But then anyone else on the team, right? Whoever’s gonna edit that scene, whoever is gonna ah, wipe the scenes of them were out of their everybody. That is a part of this team, whether they’re on stage right now or not, are still a part of what’s happening and have a piece to play and how we do this. And I think that’s that same thing. When you talk about an organization, right, you have people that are clearly gonna be the ones to make that final decision. But so everyone has some role that they need to play. Um, in order for everyone to feel that value to and that. And a lot of the work that we do is building that trust that I know I could go out there and say something to you. And I know you’re gonna listen to me. You’re gonna pick it up, and we’re gonna build that together and not you’re gonna shoot my idea down and say we’re not aliens in Oklahoma were just two people stuck in North Carolina. You know what else

[00:22:19.64] spk_3:
can listen to do crystal? Maybe another exercise that they can practice? Oh, are you know, so that they can sort of see the benefits of reap the benefits of the improv principles. Uh, okay. You don’t have the benefit of actually doing the exercises. What else? Ah, what about some of the game folks can play to get some benefits? I get either Christmas or either one.

[00:23:38.94] spk_4:
Well, I can as crystal you’re thinking about some. I think they’re simple. Exercise weaken dio, I think Teoh address very common feelings. One is just feeling blocked or feeling blank when someone asks you a direct question. Because if you’re at all you know, if you don’t think that way, or if you don’t want to take center stage three of a fear of public speaking. The only way to overcome that is to practice, and you can practice in really small ways. So one thing we do with most organizations we go into and and run creative workshops are very simple word exercises where you have a group of people around the circle and you just say a word and you go around the circle on the person next to you says the first word that comes to mind. And it’s about listening and learning about yourself when you’re trying to anticipate what to say because you want to perform well versus really just being in the moment and offering a word. So if I were to say crystal, if Aiken borrow you for a minute and say, um, the word blue

[00:23:42.39] spk_2:
and I’m sorry and you want me to do

[00:23:44.09] spk_4:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Does. And I’m putting you on the spot. Um, yeah, I just like to say the word first word that comes to mind I felt so yeah.

[00:23:56.64] spk_2:
Um, green,

[00:24:07.24] spk_4:
uh, read blood. Ah, Death church. Um, community.

[00:24:13.74] spk_2:
Ah, in breath. Fun. Uh, um rafts,

[00:24:55.98] spk_4:
um joy. Family well and so on and it’s It’s funny because even this exercise, the first time we do it with a group of people, let’s say more than five people. Everyone gets nervous and we’re not really doing anything. We’re just saying words that come to mind based on what somebody else said. So if you can just do that a couple times and talk about why is it you know, a little bit of self awareness? Why is it that we feel uncomfortable in the moment? What’s operating behind that is a that fear of contribution. It’s kind of the fight flight freeze impulse when you’re on the spot. So I think and there’s tons of these games available online to use as warm up activities or team building activities. I think we we may have or are gonna have some on our website, which is echo dot Co and, um, and it’s just really important to get in the habit of not just jumping into a meeting, but offering some of these activities to help get a sense of presence, a sense of what we call psychological safety, which is everybody feels like they are open to contribute at without embarrassment or without hanging criticism without judgment. Yeah, without judgment. That’s yeah.

[00:25:49.09] spk_3:
So there’s some resource. Is that eco E C h o dot co. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, that’s crystal you. It’s Ah, bookend. You opened up. Why don’t you just take us out with some final thoughts? Whatever you have, you want clothes

[00:26:26.52] spk_2:
final? That’s OK, so I do. But I do want to share one of my other favorite exercises since we were just talking about it. And I love this one because I taught improv with Children teaching probably people who have taken classes or have actually done a teaching profit, a homeless shelter as well. But my favorite exercise is panel of experts, and it’s so fun because anybody can contribute. And you immediately when we talk about building that trust, building that team, it’s you can have really as many people. But you know, at least three, maybe like 3 to 6.

[00:26:31.35] spk_3:
Let’s plan. All right, we got we’ll go a little bit longer. Like a

[00:26:31.66] spk_6:
minute and 1/2

[00:26:33.33] spk_3:
or so What?

[00:27:30.49] spk_2:
So so panel of experts, each of us, the three of us were doing like a Ted talk here where we have this audience and we pick and you can pick just a Monday ING thing anything. And then we’re gonna be the experts of that thing so we can go around in the same order that we did. And we’re just gonna be It’s as if we’re like I said, giving a Ted talk about whatever it is that we’re talking about. So because I’m just been looking at radio screen, I’m gonna say, um, we’ll talk about that bookshelf behind Graziella. So thank everyone for being here today. Um, we have built the perfect bookshelf for any office. This bookshelf, which was developed by, um, Dr Alvin Smith, um, really made it so it can fit in any area that you needed to fit. It actually adapts to the office to a closet to a bathroom. Really? Wherever you need this book shelf, it morphs into what you needed to be. Graziella, could you talk a little bit about the development of that? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:46.99] spk_4:
So you know, when we were conceiving of this perfect bookshelf, I think what we first asked was, you know, what is it that a bookshelf means to us through the journey of our life? You know, you start off as a young person, you are in your space. You’re looking at a blank wall, and that wall doesn’t mean anything to you. But if you fill it with something that can hold your treasures, your books, it facilitates the space of imagination and really opens up who you are as a person. So it really is more than a bookshelf. It’s a place for you to showcase the aspects of who you want to become through life and also your identity. So that’s kind of where we started. We want it to be exciting. We wanted people to say, That’s not a bookshelf. That’s me. And so that’s kind of what we wanted to bring to the creation of this. Tony, do you want to talk a little bit about kind of how you’ve seen people respond to this bookshelf?

[00:29:59.44] spk_3:
Well, I’m afraid we’re out of time. We Oh, no, I know that’s a violation. Um, yeah, we we brought this. You know, we brought this again as you were saying, Graziella to to be much more than just the physical object. And we’ve We’ve We’ve watched people interact with it. We’ve of course, we’ve surveyed them formally. We’ve actually been observing the way people use the bookshelf the way they interact with it. There’s the There’s the basket feature on the second shelf. That’s that’s pretty much open. That’s open. Anything you want it to be. You can put your junk in there. You can organize it carefully. Or you could put your knitting needles and and balls in there. We’ve seen that, too, of course. The top. We’ve seen people interacting, being more for organizational, since that’s the That’s the part that shows, even if it is in a closet like crystals, saying this could work in a closet as well as a wall. But if it isn’t a closet, you know the top shelf is what people see them first. So they we’ve seen people organized the top better. The middle has been more, um, more personal on. That’s been exciting to see how people have reacted to the different components that we engineered on a very personal, very personal creativity kind of levels.

[00:30:01.10] spk_2:
Yes, sin tony, all of your pictures of your bookshelf.

[00:30:09.40] spk_3:
Alright, Alright. So what? We were out Not no, no censorship building on what others contribute. Taking everything in What? You’re an

[00:30:16.79] spk_2:
expert in it, right? So speaking with confidence about whatever the topic is so right, if we were just in a room, a topic, we could have picked anything. And we are experts on that topic. So you’re speaking with confidence and and still building this together. Mm.

[00:30:36.84] spk_3:
Okay. Okay. Um, let’s leave it there. Do we do about that? Except do we pull everything out that we can about that exercise? Because I don’t want to do it for fun

[00:30:43.96] spk_2:
thing. The only other thing

[00:30:46.57] spk_4:
I’ll say is just opportunities to replace competition with trust Trust in celebration. I think that’s kind of the name of the game. Really helps to just celebrate what people are bringing to the table and use that to inspire better thing.

[00:31:18.14] spk_3:
And that trust to each of you said no said I didn’t. I wasn’t on the wasn’t on the hot spot for this. But you know, each of you lead with lead the next person with a question, your confidence that the person is going to take it on and is not gonna object or or fumble or, you know, but But it carried further. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. very much crystal ramps or chief administrative officer. National Council of Negro Women got CEO Jackson partner and CEO of Echoing Co. And both deeply involved with with the Washington Improv Theater. Thanks so much for being with me. Thank you.

[00:31:38.02] spk_4:
Thank you, Thank you. Thanks for Stoke tony.

[00:31:38.61] spk_3:
Thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC.

[00:33:10.18] spk_1:
We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain software, Their accounting product Denali is built for non profits from the ground up so that you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and the exemplary support that understands you. They have a free 60 day trial on the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant non. Now it’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you. Um, thanks for being with the show and staying with it through Corona virus and recession and protests against racism. Um, I’m I wanted to keep producing the show. I mean, there’s no there’s no stopping the show. The show has got to go on, but, uh, all the more I think, you know, just because things have been so tumultuous since what, roughly march 23rd or call it mid march. Um, so much confusion change, uh, you know, new routines. The show has got to continue. It has got to be some things that we just can rely on. They’re just gonna be there. And non profit radio is one of them. And so I insist that, uh, not that not that I was thinking about postponing are going on hiatus. But it’s just three assure that Ah, some things remain unchanged. Remained constant. You can count on them, and non profit radio was one of them. And thank you for being consistent, loyal listening audience. Actually, it’s uptick ta little bit. It did like in April and may, you

[00:33:30.85] spk_3:
know, more people spending a lot more time at home, right? Doing everything at home

[00:34:10.00] spk_1:
from exercise to maybe more podcasts. So, um, thank you. So I’m I’m glad and gratified that, uh, audience hasn’t declined. You haven’t gone anywhere. The show still has value for you. That’s very gratifying for me. I thank you for sticking with the show. Still listening, and I’m just glad that you’re still getting good information from it. So thank you. That is Tony’s. Take two. Now it’s time for tech policies with Karen Graham and Dan Getman.

[00:34:42.03] spk_3:
Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and D. C. That’s the 2020 non profit Technology Conference were sponsored at 20 NTC by Cougar Mountain Software. With me now are Karen Graham and Dan Getman. Karen is director of education and outreach at Tech Impact, and Dan is senior manager of donor relations for manna. Karen Dan. Welcome back, Teoh. Tony-martignetti non profit radio. Well, for you, Karen. Dan. Welcome.

[00:34:48.37] spk_6:
Uh, thank you.

[00:35:32.51] spk_3:
Glad to know that you’re each well and safe Dan in Philadelphia. Karen in Minneapolis. Good to know. I’m glad we could work this out. Your conference topic is establishing tech policies to protect your non profit can. You and I have talked about tech policies in the past and and other things that are, uh, when you were with idea where we’re on the surface boring. And you were happy to call them that, but nonetheless important to your non profit. So would you mind doing the same? Explaining the the importance to what could sound like something very dull?

[00:36:08.17] spk_6:
Sure. Well, I mean, regardless of what kind of situation we’re in, we all know that there are good people that make bad choices. And so having some policy guidelines to help people to anything twice about those choices, um, should provide some guidance for them, as is helpful but also having some clear consequences, I guess, in place or responses when people do make bad choices. That’s also important to know how you’re going to respond If somebody makes a mistake now, especially, I think nonprofits are feeling this in the right. Now, as we’re recording, we’re in the midst of the Corona virus outbreak and ah, lot of dumb profits have gone to remote work. And so they are, I think, thanking their lucky stars or they’re good judgment if they already have developed really good policies for remote work and use of personal devices and things like that. And if they haven’t done that, they’re scrambling right now to try to figure it out.

[00:36:35.50] spk_3:
What are some of those bad choices that you’re talking about?

[00:36:54.98] spk_6:
01 of the things that comes to mind immediately is ah, a kind of choice that will lead to a security vulnerability. Um, you know, just say, sharing data that is his private that contains personally identifiable information with people that really don’t need to have that information, um, downloading it onto a home computer, things like that, Like those kinds of choices can really make an organization vulnerable to that data getting into the wrong hands, Um, or to like, passwords and system access getting into the wrong hands. And I mean, I’m sure we’ve all seen the consequences of that. Um, I have some data on that. They’re the average cost of a data breach, according to a 2019 survey was almost $4 million for a data breach and on profit. They’re just as vulnerable to that, if not more so. Ah, compared to therefore profit piers.

[00:38:00.59] spk_3:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Certainly we think about organizations in the health care’s our healthcare arena. But even outside health care, there are dates of birth, their credit card numbers. Um, other personally, you might have social security number for some reason. Um, it’s all that personally identifiable information. Oh,

[00:38:00.98] spk_6:
and all of that can compromise people’s privacy. And it also can make an organization really vulnerable to ransomware attacks where the hacker threatens to release that information to the public, or, um or misuse it in some way that can really destroy the organization’s reputation. You’re and be harmful to the people that they serve. So that’s something that that actually non profit are especially vulnerable to because of the kinds of information that they handle. And also because, unfortunately, many nonprofits have not invested in security to the level that they should.

[00:38:38.42] spk_3:
Yeah, all right, Dan, let’s bring you in your in your office. We hear a little background noise. That’s okay,

[00:38:44.71] spk_7:
all right,

[00:38:45.12] spk_3:
It’s not They’re not, I presume they’re not strangers walking through Karen’s home in Minneapolis. So it must be your office. That’s OK.

[00:38:54.15] spk_7:
That would be me. Yeah,

[00:39:05.63] spk_3:
that’s OK. Way have lives. It’s alright. It’s alright. Just, uh, letting people know Karen is secure. There’s nobody walking through her. Her family room, Dan. So manna has been working on ah, comprehensive tech policy or is finished. What? What’s your what’s manage role in in this?

[00:41:25.42] spk_7:
Sure. So, um, we put together ah, bunch of different policies last fall. Um, and I hesitate to say the word finished because they’re always evolving. We need to adapt what we do in the policies that reflect what we dio. Um as things change around us. Uh, for instance, um, we a lot of the policies that we instituted last fall were directed, uh or directly affected, I should say, are like the computers that we have here for years. We all used PCs and much the standard way that anybody else would, Um, And with the advent of cloud based systems like Azure and some other things that we work with tech impact to implement here, um, we were able to get on Ah, more secure, uh, server were able Teoh update a lot of the levels of encryption that we use all things going along with what Karen was talking about in response to not wanting to be vulnerable to attacks to ransom where, um, we deal with individuals who have really serious health concerns there, the client base to whom we deliver meals on a regular basis to and so we work with all kinds of personal information. We also have certainly as a non profit donors who have credit card information and other things that get stored within our systems. And so between medical records and all the things kept their in and credit card information for our donors, You know, we have a couple different avenues that, ah, potential threat, you know, might see if inviting. And so, um, as an organization that works with insurance companies, large insurance companies, we need to be as HIPPA compliant as any medical office would be. Doctor’s office, hospital system. Um and so we’ve gone through some work with, um, hip, a consultant. We’ve worked directly with Tech Impact, who also does our day to day tech support here to really, really develop well thought out policies as well as all the software sort of implementations that went along with it. So again, I hesitate to say that we’re finished because we’re always looking at ways to improve how tightened up weaken be, but, um, in terms of where we’re at today Ah, the large bulk of that was completed last fall.

[00:42:05.21] spk_3:
There’s something interesting you the director of our senior manager party. I just demoted you. Senior manager of donor relations. Not not I t, uh, that sound like the tech policy position at manner. But here you are.

[00:43:23.56] spk_7:
So it’s interesting. Yeah. Um, I think many non profit, uh, will probably understand. We use the phrase were a lot of hats, You know, that many nonprofits are smaller staffed. You know, we don’t have, uh, the budgetary capabilities Have an in house I t department. Um, and so for years, our office admin served in that role Still doesn’t in many cases, if your if your outlook isn’t working, if your internet’s down, that’s what you go to. But, um, as we were growing these contract relationships and learning that there were different levels of security that we could, you know, reach for, um we needed somebody in house who had both a cursory understanding of the tech side of things and also enough understanding and ability to work with our nutrition team Teoh, to sort of understand the HIPPA ramifications of it all. Um, and it just so happened that that role probably would have fallen to the office admin Who does does a lot of the other day to day stuff. However, uh, he went out on medical leave, and so I was sort of tasked with this being the next in line in terms of my, uh, computer savvy, I guess

[00:43:24.72] spk_4:
we can

[00:43:24.97] spk_7:
call it her.

[00:43:26.44] spk_2:
So

[00:43:27.10] spk_7:
yeah, sort of a non profit thing that you know, you have a skill set that you’re able to help with. It may not be the thing I’m trained in or went to school for by any means, but I understand it may be better than the next person. And so that’s how that kind of works out

[00:44:17.99] spk_1:
understand Time for our last break turn to communications relationships. The world runs on them. We all know this turn to is led by former journalists so that you get help building relationships with journalists. Those relationships will help you when you need to be heard so that people know you’re a thought leader in your field when there’s a time for you to be heard and to show your expertise. Turn to specializes in working with nonprofits. The red Turn hyphen two dot ceo We’ve got but loads more time for tech policies from 20 and TC. We

[00:44:33.13] spk_3:
could also consider good tech policy to be a part of donor relations. A part of stewardship. Actually, you’re part of what you’re doing. What I don’t mean you at manner. But part of what an organization is doing is protecting donor information from the can absolutely kinds of attacks that you and Karen both talking about So you could consider it on a new element of donor relations on goods

[00:44:49.79] spk_4:
store.

[00:44:50.21] spk_7:
And and part of it came back to, you know, in the donor relations side of things I oversee, uh, our database R c r m Here, um, and so again, understanding those systems, um, knowing that we treat and I’ve always treated all information confidentially, we don’t share lists with people. We don’t sell our donors information to anyone, Certainly whenever that with any client information. But from my sort of day to day rolls perspective, you know, we treat all that data, um, the same with the same level of integrity that we would with our client data on the other side

[00:45:24.94] spk_2:
of

[00:45:25.01] spk_7:
the building. And so, um, yeah, I think that’s kind of where that come from.

[00:45:29.65] spk_1:
Um,

[00:46:16.42] spk_6:
well, I’ve been kind of listening to what Dan saying, and even what I said when we opened up here, where we’re focusing on technology policies to reduce the organization’s risk or, you know, to kind of like looking at it from the perspective of where the bad things that could happen And how do we present those, and I just want o make the point that that’s not all that policies air for right there. Also, to give people guidance on positive things, they can dio um, So at my organization, just today we were talking about social media policy, and that’s something I’m sure that Dan probably deals with two. I’m doing donor management and fundraising and communication. Um, you know, you don’t want to just wag your finger at your staff and say you can’t do this. You can’t do that. Especially when it comes to social media. You want to give them some tools and some permission to be able to do things that are positive and are gonna benefit the organization. So that’s always an important thing. To remember with policy is to find that balance between the things that are restricting people from doing things that are really gonna be harmful and the things that are empowering them to do things that are gonna be helpful.

[00:46:45.78] spk_3:
Karen, what do you see? Some sometimes or most commonly I should say, as the impetus for, uh, revising oh, are creating when they don’t exist. It all a new a new set of tech policies.

[00:47:02.07] spk_6:
Probably two things, and one, unfortunately, is something bad happens. And then somebody says, Oh, we should have had a policy about this. You can imagine how those scenarios play out. But the other thing is sometimes, um, change in staff or a staff member who has listened to a podcast or, um, they have attended a conference or somehow been exposed to thes ideas and realized Oh, shoot. My organization doesn’t have the right policies in place. We should probably pay attention to this.

[00:47:32.98] spk_3:
Okay. And, uh, since you’re the consultant, why don’t you get us into this process now? How do we begin what we need to think about who? The stakeholders? I need to be involved before we can actually start typing policy or thinking about policy.

[00:48:49.83] spk_6:
Yeah, I can. I can share a few things with you. Um, first, the, um, there are six basic types of policies that most organizations should have, and so acceptable use is one. And what that means is it’s a guide to the overall use of your networks and technology equipment. That’s acceptable use policy. Um, 2nd 1 is security, and that’s really about protecting your data and your systems from from security breaches. Um, 3rd 1 is bring your own device policy, which has considerations for employees using personal devices to do their work, whether they’re in the workplace. Or, um, right now, a lot of people are using personal devices that they have at home toe access, corporate data, so to speak, or things that are owned by the non profit. So those were the 1st 3 and then the 4th 1 is an incident response and disaster recovery policy or in a plan, that’s what you need to do if something goes wrong. Um, 5th 1 is remote work kind of other considerations for employees who are working outside the office. Um, and then the final one is about social media and digital communication guidelines for what you can and should do and what’s restricted there.

[00:49:06.82] spk_3:
Okay, All right. So those there are sort of framework for our policy, those six types and and who should be involved in the process of creating these

[00:49:36.27] spk_6:
Well, I think that’s a great question to ask Dan because he had some experience with involving the right people in the organization. But my advice would be, um, you know, there’s a saying that a lot of advocacy organizations are organizing groups used nothing about us without us. And I think that applies here. Um, as well. It’s If a policy is going to affect someone, then that person should probably have a chance to give some input in the policy. Otherwise, you’re going to run into a lot of problems with people not following the policy, just working around it. And then it’s not doing anybody any good.

[00:49:56.47] spk_3:
Yeah, because then it’s a policy that was foisted on on users rather than them being part of the collaborative team that develops it,

[00:50:04.93] spk_6:
right? So certainly an executive director of board of directors in a non profit has some responsibility for reviewing policies and making sure that the right things are in place. But that’s not enough. It also has to involve the people that are covered by the policy.

[00:50:18.46] spk_3:
Yeah, the end users. How about you, Dan View? Did you follow Karen’s advice? Were you ah, compliant client? Or were you not?

[00:51:38.86] spk_7:
I’d like to think so. Um, I I was involved from day one in terms of this stuff. Ah, And to Karen’s point. Yeah, we had everyone that almost every level in some capacity involved in this process are when we first sat down, uh, with some of Karen’s coworkers Attack impact. You know, we had in the room myself the head of our nutrition department, our CEO, uh, the head of our policy on my policy, I mean, uh, lawmaking policy, But ahead of our policy, uh, department and a ZX Well, a czar PR person, our office admin. So I mean, it was kind of deer point. We had somebody from every aspect of the organization who would be either affected by the policies being put in place or be the person who is actually implementing the policies themselves on dhe. Then we brought in, which was a tremendous helping to be, quite honestly, couldn’t have done it without them. We brought in an outside consultant whose work eyes in the field in our key, specifically in ah, tech security and has a lot of background again dealing with the folks that we work with being medical record based. Um they came from ah background with ah consultant work dealing with hip a related issues specifically, and so we have them come in and do ah full risk assessment to go side by side with the risk assessment that tech impact did. Um and we had a really nice look at, uh what what policies do we have? What policies do we need and what things are already in place? And where can we, you know, make some tweaks to get better? And so it really was very collaborative effort, both internally and in terms of the two external groups that

[00:52:18.51] spk_4:
we worked

[00:52:18.92] spk_7:
with. But we needed every voice in that room

[00:52:24.75] spk_3:
Any difficulty, Dan getting buy in from leadership t this for this project?

[00:53:03.47] spk_7:
So no, we’re fortunate, actually, that we have ah CEO who is one very progressive and and likes to be at the forefront of all aspects of, you know, our business. Eso that includes technology again. We’ve always we’ve been around 30 years, so dealing with our client records and the hip related issues. There has always been something that mattered to us. Um and so this was seen as an opportunity to improve upon efforts that were already making It was not seen internally as Hey, this is a bad thing in the world. We all got to go through this process to fix something. It was really more, um we’re doing a good job, but we can do better than what we’re doing, and we’re gonna strive to do better than what we’re doing. And so our CEO didn’t require any real pushing. She was actually the one pushing, pushing all of us.

[00:53:57.44] spk_3:
OK, OK, Karen, we don’t have time to dio in depth on all the six different policies that you that you mentioned. But since we’re in a time now, when a lot of people are using their own personal devices, why don’t we focus on that policy? The personal use of devices for work? What I you know, I defer to you. How do we like what questions should we be asking or what policies should we have in place? What’s the best way to approach that one?

[00:55:44.69] spk_6:
Sure. Um, here’s some some of the questions you could think about for that, um, one is, um usually, organizations start with who is allowed to use those devices and in the situation we find ourselves in right now, I think it’s almost everyone has allowed to use personal devices, but maybe not. I mean, maybe if you’re a non profit that is allowing people to work from home either indefinitely or just for a defined period of time. Maybe you want them to Onley be allowed to do their work on ah organization issued device. Maybe you will provide them with a laptop or a tablet or whatever it is to take home with them, and they’re only going to do it there. And then you know it’s important than to issue some guidelines that let them know your home computer is off limits for conducting your work. So that’s an example. But then it’s not just computers. What about their camera? You know, if they’re doing videoconferencing, if it doesn’t have a built in camera, can they use their own? Or do they have to get one from the organization? What about a headset? What about like all that extra stuff? And then, if they are using their own devices, what kind of support do you offer for that? If something breaks, you fix it. If they have a problem with their settings on the computer, are you responsible as an organization for helping them with that? Um, what about like antivirus software on their home computer. Are you now going to pay for the cost of that? Or are you gonna pay for the cost of their cellphone, which they’re now using to take calls? Because the office phone is being forwarded to their cell phone. So there’s a lot of a lot of different issues there. Um, 11 more thing that we find, especially with mobile devices, is like, What kind of encryption do you and require, um, and locks and authentication and, like different kinds of security measures that can be installed on a mobile device? Um, it’s not necessarily a case where more is better. You have to find the right balance between convenience and security there.

[00:56:11.33] spk_3:
What about use of other people’s use of the of that same equipment, you know, when they’re home? If is that a family laptop that the person is using for work and then night their kids do their homework on it? I

[00:57:01.27] spk_6:
mean, Well, yeah, I think that’s the reality for a lot of people right now. So, um, it’s I personally wouldn’t worry too much about ah criminal breaking into my home logging into my computer. Um, that has a weaker password at home than the computer that I used for work. Um, and you know, getting into my organizations, data or whatever. I just really don’t think the odds of that very high, but, um, but it’s more like, um, maybe through email, maybe my kids open a phishing email and they click on something. And then pretty soon, my computer’s infected on dhe. I’ve also got stuff stored on that computer that I don’t want to get into somebody else’s hands. So that’s where the vulnerability of shared devices probably is. Most important. I don’t know if you would agree with that, Dan, or if you’ve got through that with your organization

[00:57:11.55] spk_3:
damn before we before we. I do want to go to you immediately, Dan, but I want to make clear that we now know the password to Karen’s home computer is 12345

[00:59:56.18] spk_7:
Yeah, I think if the really important one and we did go through this in terms of a lot of the policies that we’re putting in place, we have ah mixed set of media for this organization, um, desktop and laptop, and for those with laptops taken, certainly take them out of the building, and so there’s no safeguards there needs to be in place. Um, but the one that we really found I don’t want to say a stumbling block, but it’s something that I think organisations should keep in mind when they’re when they’re thinking about this kind of stuff. So many of us now have smartphones, and they’re great and they can do all these different things. Um, the one thing that really got under a fair amount of people skin here was the restrictions that had to be put in place for, uh, one’s own mobile device. And specifically, what we dealt with was, uh in the case of our email client, um, outlook is great and can be controlled with a lot of the policies that we put in place with tech impact. However, uh, if you have an iPhone or an android and you do not have the outlook app if you just use the native mail app on your phone, um that is outside the scope and the control of a system like in June or Azure. And, uh so what we had issues with were people wanting Teoh, you know, use the app that they’ve been using for the last 10 years, Um, and having to switch to something that was considerably more restrictive. Um, and it’s one of those things that sort of the growing pains in this process. But ah was absolutely necessary for us to be ableto you know, rain in some of the control on the data that’s being used. Um, and to Karen’s point with, you know, kids clicking on an email, Um, you know, we have it set where, As an example, if I pull up an email on my phone, I can’t screenshot it. I can’t save whatever’s in it to my phone. I mean, we have everything as locked down beyond you can read it and reply to it, and that’s it. Um, but just just knowing that some of those those things they’re out there in terms of the restrictions in terms of the necessity to have them be protected. If I lost my phone and someone got into it, they could seemingly access information. I wouldn’t want people to see, you know, from a work standpoint. So I think those are things that we take for granted. Um, having these wonderful devices that we carry around every day, but they’re really, um they are portals to our jobs into our lives and security that needs to go with that is it can’t be understated. And that was definitely something that we hadn’t thought about quite honestly before.

[01:00:07.86] spk_4:
This all happened.

[01:00:16.07] spk_3:
Making compromises for company. Absolutely ization security. Karen, we’re gonna wrap up. Does this tech impact have any resource Is, um, better related to detect policies that that folks can access on the website?

[01:01:06.21] spk_6:
Of course, we dio with a lot. So I’m at Tech Impact out, or GE, we have a number of resource is about policies and security, which we’ve been touching on here, too, including free consultations for people who just have a question that they want to ask of a professional. You can request that on our website. Um so about that tech impact that or ge and then on ideal wear dot or ge, which is also a site that is heart of our organization. That’s a resource site. And so we have a policy workbook on there that will help you, like, step by step, develop each of the different policies that I mentioned earlier and also a number of other knowledge. Resource is, we’ve got a course right now to that. We just finished a live version of it and the recordings available at Ideal where DOT or GE, if people want to really take a deep dive into this

[01:01:20.01] spk_1:
outstanding thank you. And, uh, as former CEO of Idea where I know you’re well acquainted with the with the offerings there. That’s

[01:01:38.21] spk_3:
Karen Graham, director of education and outreach, a Tech Impact, and Dan Getman, senior manager of donor relations at Manna. Thanks to each of you for sharing thanks so much and, uh, and stay safe. And thanks to you for being with non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC

[01:02:21.65] spk_1:
next week. More from 20 NTC. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Our

[01:03:00.45] spk_0:
creative producers Claire Meyer Huh Sam Liebowitz managed stream shows Social media is by serving Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy on this Music is by Scots with me next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great

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Rubin Singh: Don’t Get Played By The Product Demo
We’ve all watched in awe as the cursor flies across the screens of a demonstration. Nine months later we’re scratching our heads. “They made it look so easy back then.” Get insider tips from Rubin Singh, who’s led hundreds of sales demos. He’s CEO of OneTenth Consulting. (Part of our 20NTC coverage)

 

 

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This 20NTC panel feels your frustration over Facebook not sharing donor data. But they also admonish that you can’t ignore the value of Facebook fundraising. They bust myths, help you overcome the challenges, reveal how to thank and engage your fundraisers and steer you clear of pitfalls. They’re Nick Burne from GivePanel and consultants Julia Campbell and Maureen Wallbeoff.

 

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Transcript for 492_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20200605.mp3

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[00:00:11.54] spk_0:
Okay. Hello. Welcome to tony-martignetti non

[00:02:30.78] spk_1:
profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. I’ll have something to say about George Floyd and racial equity in Tony’s Take Two. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of Ballon O prostatitis if you pissed me off with the idea that you missed today’s show. Don’t get played by the product demo. We’ve all watched in awe as the cursor flies across the screens of a demonstration. Nine months later, we’re scratching our heads. They made it look so easy back then. Get insider tips from Ruben Sing, who’s led hundreds of sales demos. He’s CEO of 1/10 Consulting. This is part of our 20 and TC coverage and Facebook fundraising data. This 20 and D C panel feels your frustration over Facebook not sharing donor data, but they also admonish that you can’t ignore the value of Facebook fundraising. They bust myths, help you overcome the challenges, reveal had a thank and engage your fundraisers and steer clear of pitfalls. There. Nick Byrne from Give Panel and consultants Julia Campbell and Maureen will be off tony Stick to be The change were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As. Guiding you beyond the numbers. Regular cps dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Here is don’t get played by the product Demo. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC. That’s the 2020 non profit Technology Conference sponsored A 20 D. C by a Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. My guest now is Ruben Singh. He is CEO of 1/10 Consulting Ruben. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio. Thanks

[00:02:38.40] spk_2:
so much, tony. Glad to be here.

[00:02:48.54] spk_1:
Pleasure on pleasure. I’m glad that we could work this out virtually. And I know that you are well and safe outside Baltimore in Maryland goods, your topic is don’t get played by the product. Demo, Exclamation mark! If you’re shouting this from a mountaintop, don’t get played by the product. Demo. You’re an insider you’ve done How many? Hundreds of product demos?

[00:03:02.44] spk_2:
Yeah, definitely in in the hundred’s. But the thing is, I’ve been on all sides of it. I have, ah, delivered demos. I have been on the the the customer side or the prospects of receiving demos, and I’ve also coordinated them on behalf of my customers. So I felt like I had a lot of good experience and perhaps some insider tips and tricks toe offer.

[00:03:22.57] spk_1:
Okay, there is There is some deception in these in these demonstrations.

[00:03:40.46] spk_2:
Well, you know, I wouldn’t quite say deception. It’s a spectrum, Really, Uh, some things I have some practices I’ve seen over the years have ranged from you, maybe a little questionable to mislead it, and then some of it has been deceptive. But, you know, honestly, tony Yeah, it’s a little tongue in cheek. I I don’t want to imply, especially the non profit sector, that these that these sales reps are being dishonest in any way. I think most of them have great intentions. But what I really think that there’s a handful of tips and tricks and practices that folks can use to really make sure they’re getting the most out of their demos.

[00:05:07.37] spk_1:
Okay, My my recollection of these as a consult. So I do plan giving consulting. And I’ve gotten some demonstrations for profit from products as a as a as an observer for on the client behalf. Um, and then together we make a decision, but my memory of them is that the cursor is flying around the screen. It started non stop. And then at the very end of a 30 minute demonstration, Do you have any questions? Well, I probably had questions from screen number two about 90 seconds into the thing, but I’m flummoxed now. I’m overwhelmed by the by the movement by by the screens flying around. I can’t remember my question. I I think I had one, but I’m not positive of that. I need to I need a I need a drink. I need to calm down, because the thing just went so damn fast, you know? Um, all right, so that’s that’s probably on the negative end of the spectrum again. Not suggesting deception, but it just goes so fast, you know? Shoot. All right, So where should we start? I mean, you have tips for preparing before the demonstration starts. Yeah,

[00:05:12.64] spk_2:
Well, what you just described is a very common situation. And I would say where the biggest gap is I’ve seen where customers have come back to me and said, You know what? Everything looks so seamless and looks so, uh, you know, so nice and shiny and so quick and easy in the demo. But that’s not the product we ended up with. The biggest reason for that is, in my opinion at least, is how you come into that demo. How prepared you are. If you simply just walk in, let the sales rep do their thing and just, you know, as you and just wait to be wowed and impressed. You’re very likely going to end up disappointed so that one of the first points that I really bring up in, uh, my talk was to present some use cases to really think to yourself, what are the four or five things that we must have on Day one when our new system is live, as well as one of those four or five things that are working terrible right now in our current system, those are the areas we want to focus on, Let’s draft up our use cases. Let’s get very specific examples, not yes or no questions and provide that to the sales rep account executive ahead of time. That way, you’re not really focusing on the fluff. You’re not focusing on the bells and whistles. You can watch that stuff on YouTube. You’re really focusing on those areas that are going to be critical for you to be successful.

[00:06:24.34] spk_1:
Okay, Anything else we should be thinking about as a team before we before we view this extravaganza?

[00:06:30.66] spk_2:
Yeah, definitely the prep that you do up front. You know, I kind of alluded to this that you doing your homework? A lot of these products that you see out there, especially in a non profit technology side. There’s demos available. There’s demos available on their websites. You know, maybe you need to download a white paper. There’s demos available on YouTube. Eso, you know, watch those demos do your homework. Don’t just wait to the demo. You know the facilitated demo before you see it for the first time. That way, you can really understand what the potential pain points are again. Also, there’s many different organizations out there that do independent studies on the various donor management C r M systems eso. So that might be a place as well as other other applications. So do your homework. Understand where the weaknesses are already a prom. That way you can focus on their those areas in the demo. So the team or the pattern I really focus on here is move away from the demo just being a presentation and really try to make it a working session with your sales rep. Eso you’re really working through this scenarios and not just sitting back and watching can presentation.

[00:07:29.58] spk_1:
Okay, Yeah, you’re focusing them on on where your pain points are, what your must haves are and not just getting a generic description of, you know, a lot of times, you know, if you if you end up meeting this, then we have this component and and we have this feature to you might not end up needing it, but I just want to acquaint you with it. You know, that that’s really irrelevant.

[00:07:52.71] spk_2:
That’s right. And so those were some things that you could ahead of time, you know, even during the demonstration itself, there’s certain things that you want to look out for, You know, again, the yes, no questions. Do you have all into your management? Do you have events management? Do you have playing? Giving the answer is always gonna be yes to a Yes. No question. We had a If you can always repurpose, you know, certain functionality to make it fit A particular scenario. So I try to encourage your my profit, remind my customers that’s gonna move away from that and really give a specific example. Hey, you know, I do a lot of events and I sit at the desk during our gala and I need to register people when they come in the door and also have the ability with the check and check out process to enter a new attendee. Show me how I can do that and that that could be one of the use cases that you present ahead of time. So again it gives it gives very specific things. Another thing that I suggest is is be careful about those words of integration and compatibility. Um, because everyone is integrated, you know, especially I deal a lot with Salesforce and everyone claims to be integrated with Salesforce but that integration it could mean anything. It could be a plug and play out that takes 10 minutes. Or it could be, Ah, it could be a separate third party solution that you need with 1/3 party consultant to integrate it. So all that falls within the category of integration. So you want to be very clear when someone says, Oh, yeah, we’re compatible with such and such or were integrated with such and such. What exactly does that mean? And how does it look?

[00:09:57.04] spk_1:
Okay, that’s interesting. Yeah, I don’t think most people know that. They just they say, Oh, it’s integrated. Okay, that’s awesome. It’s time for a break. Wegner-C.P.As Things are moving fast. The Senate passed a bill on paycheck protection program loans that extends the covered period from eight weeks to 24 weeks. You need a place to keep up with everything that we’re being hit with. Financially wegner-C.P.As dot com Quick resource is and blawg now back to don’t get played by the product demo. I should have given you a chance to shout out what? What’s the work at 1/10 Consulting.

[00:10:27.99] spk_2:
Oh, well, we, uh we do everything from strategy we work exclusively with nonprofits. We do strategy, work. We do implementation of C R M. Systems all the way through change management and user adoption. So we take a slightly different approach in the sense that we, uh it’s not really just the technology that we focus on. We really try to make sure that the people, the process, the strategy, the data, everything is aligned. Because if one of those pieces were missing, you’re not you’re not gonna be happy. So as a consulting practice, we try to make sure all those are aligned to help help move missions

[00:10:35.81] spk_1:
forward. What’s the significance of the name 1/10 Consulting. What is that? Does that mean?

[00:10:55.56] spk_2:
Yeah. You know, in the six faith, there’s a, ah principle or a concept of thus fund we call it, which is giving 10% of your your income, your time to the community into the greater good. Um, and in my early years of starting this practice, I worked with a lot of faith based communities. Um, and as I was implementing donor management systems for churches and synagogues and masa, I started noticing that this concept of 10% or 1/10 of your income. Er, and giving back was was such a central component of every one of these faiths and every one of these faith traditions. Eso to me, it was it was nice. It was this unifying principle. And and so that’s kind of where 1/10 comes from that the 1/10 really represents this this treasure. And, you know, I’m hoping 1/10 consulting helps helps that 10% really realize its full

[00:11:36.74] spk_1:
potential. So before you recognize this commonality, what were you, Reuben sing Consulting? What were you before you were 1/10

[00:11:43.75] spk_2:
before 1/10 I have worked for, um I worked at a non profit sector, but also in CR ems for over 20 years. So prior to 1/10 I was with an organization called Round Corner. In their non profit technology sector. I was vice president of digital transformation, and, um, and they actually have been acquired by Salesforce. But that was the time I realized that I don’t want to be tied into one particular product and really want to be able to look at things more holistically that way. Started.

[00:12:14.94] spk_1:
Um, let’s go back to ah to advice you um, you know, part of what you ah talk about is tough questions to ask way at that stage, or is there more you want to say leading up to it? But you you, uh you take it where where we need to go,

[00:13:44.97] spk_2:
right? Right. Yeah, I think you know, as far as the tough questions that we covered, some of them the integration, the interoperability. Okay, I think another thing we talked about with terms, not just the yes, no questions. Also, when it comes to things like, Do you handle soft credits? Do you handle plan giving? Do you handle solicitors again? The questions the answers will always be Yes. And although, you know, matching gifts, workplace gifts, these these air something that all non profits due in some way, shape or form. But you want to make sure that your impression and your understanding of it is the same as the sales reps because I’ve noticed a lot of gaps in that area as well. Another couple tougher questions that I always like to get into is asking this question of what exactly is has been upgraded in this demo. So I’ve just seen it Time and time again, tony. Where, uh, you know, again, you’ve seen this great demo. And then when you come back and say, Well, these air, like, archaic looking Web forms can’t show these to my donors, and then they come back and say, Oh, yeah, you just need to upgrade to the next forms package or, oh, if you’re going to send more than three emails, you have to say you have to upgrade to the next email package. So the demo has been filled with all these add ons and upgrades, but you’re kind of getting something different, you know?

[00:13:47.33] spk_1:
And so you bought that you bought the base model, but you test drove the, uh, the SLX expanded, uh, 16 cylinder version.

[00:14:01.74] spk_2:
Exactly. And I often, for example, a few years back I was, uh, family. We were purchasing home, and we wanted a new home, and we were looking all these model houses, and I know some people really like to see these beautifully furnished homes with great interior decorating. And I was just like, Can I just see an empty house? You know, I want to know what I’m getting. I get thrown off, I get distracted by all this. You know, Do you have some sort of, you know, house that’s being built, That that’s the same model that I could look at. And so I kind of looked at demos the same way. Do as little as possible, you know, and And don’t customise too much. Don’t add on anything. I want to see how close my use cases worked with your out of the box product that way. Ah, comparing apples down.

[00:14:39.06] spk_1:
Okay, Okay. So you can actually ask them to demo a specific version that you’d be most likely to be buying without whatever add ons, plug ins, upgrades, et cetera.

[00:14:51.31] spk_2:
Yeah, and it really should be easier for the sales rep to to prepare for that on and really have them. You’re focusing less on customizing and focus more on the use cases that you provided them. Okay. And I will tell you, you know, this not all sales reps or account executives will be receptive to this. And some of them might say, Oh, this is too much work. Or where they might look at your use cases and say we’re clearly not a fit, which is not a bad thing either. At least you know upfront. Yeah. The sales reps that I think are really good. And some of the ones I’ve worked with they would love something like this. They would love the client toe, give them a list of use cases. Give him some very specifics That way, they’re not guessing either. Ah, and the session is going to be a lot more fruitful when both sides

[00:15:34.44] spk_1:
are prepared. OK, OK, Reuben Weaken, spend some more time together. If you have more suggestions,

[00:16:04.52] spk_2:
you know, I’d say that there’s there’s probably one other suggestion that I would, uh I alluded to this at the very beginning on I think it kind of sums up. The whole point is when I talked Teoh sales reps and want to prepare them for a demo, I even tell them up front. You know, we’re not really interested in the demo. We’d like to have a working session and just even using that term, it changes the paradigm, and it really changes the relationship. They’re between yourself and the vendor. Eso even just something as simple as recommending that we’re calling it something different. The sales right will come in a little bit more prepared to work with you and really try to work through those use cases. Eso the more you can move away from the canned, you know, bells and whistles, presentation and Maurin toe a meaningful conversation on your use cases, the more happier you’re going to be with the end product,

[00:16:38.54] spk_1:
okay? And I guess if you get any if you get any pushback or objection from the from the sales rep about converting this from a demo to a work session, that’s a red flag about whether whether you want to purchase their ah, against purchasing their their product and continuing with the conversation with them.

[00:16:47.75] spk_2:
Absolutely. I mean, you know, we’re talking about on profits here, and, you know, obviously funds are always limited, and you want to make sure that you’re making smart decisions on where that money goes. So, like I said, a nonprofit sector, that’s the sales reps I’ve worked with their usually very much in line with this thinking. Um, so so but yeah, if there was any objection, that’s definitely red flag. In my opinion,

[00:17:10.04] spk_1:
you have ah, you have a resource at the on the 1/10 consulting site

[00:17:17.24] spk_2:
Yeah, yeah, you know, and we’re really bummed about that. The conference, the NTC conference being canceled. So what we did is we went ahead and I recorded the session that I had planned to deliver at the NTC conference, Um and ah ah. And have uploaded that recording to our website www 0.1 temp that consulting. Um, it’s there in the blog’s section. And you know, I would also suggest that that blawg section does have a lot of other resource is, you know, if you’re interested in grant management and what products are out there or if you’re trying to figure out what might be the CIA RAM solution for you, we have several articles free webinars on other insights that folks are welcome to take a look at

[00:17:56.84] spk_1:
Okay. And the full the full conference. Ah, this presentation is there. That’s correct. Okay, is 1/10 dot consulting. That’s correct. Oh, I didn’t know. I didn’t know dot Consulting is a, uh Is it available for those called extension?

[00:18:17.13] spk_2:
Yeah, it’s available. Signed, signed up for a couple years ago and definitely opens things up. T create the name that you want, so yeah, www 0.1 temps that consulting, and we’ll take you right

[00:18:29.14] spk_1:
there. Okay, It’s in the block block section. That’s right. All right. Ruben saying he’s CEO. 1/10 Consulting, Um, in Maryland, outside Baltimore. Rubin. Thank you very much. Thanks very much for sharing.

[00:18:35.14] spk_2:
Thank you, Tony. I appreciate your time.

[00:21:12.05] spk_1:
My pleasure. Thanks. And thank you for being with non profit radio coverage of 20 and TC. We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain software, Their accounting product Denali is built for non profits from the ground up. So you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and the exemplary support that understands how you work. They have a free 60 day trial on the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Now time for tony Stick to George Floyd. It’s a recorded murder. I am skeptically optimistic that the United States will deal this time with its institutional racism. If we’re gonna have a chance that that we each need to be the change we want to see, there’s no waiting for political leadership. They’ll get dragged along after we the people, start the conversation at our level. That needs to happen and I would like to help. Next week, non profit radio will have a special episode devoted to how to start the racism and white privilege conversation in your office. It’s a long journey. It begins with a single step. We each need to be the change we want to see. Start with me next week. That is tony Steak, too. Now, time for Facebook fundraising data. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC 2020. Non profit technology conference with me now, our Nick Byrne, Julia Campbell and Maureen will be off. Nick is founder and CEO at Give Panel. Julia Campbell is author, speaker and teacher at J. Campbell Social Marketing And Maureen will be off is digital strategist and technology coach with practical wisdom for non profit accidental techies. Welcome, everybody. Nick. Julie. Morning. Welcome. Welcome, city pleasure. I’m glad we’re able to work this out. I know you’re each well and safe on. I’m glad to hear that. Everybody’s okay. Um, we’re talking about Facebook. Fundraising your 2020 topic, uh, for NTC is best kept secrets the getting and using Facebook fundraiser data. Julia, you’ve been talking about Facebook fundraising for so long we had you on?

[00:21:16.09] spk_3:
Yeah, last two years ago

[00:21:18.57] spk_1:
Was the the last year or two years ago. Um, you’re gonna have toe. You have to find a new gig.

[00:21:23.62] spk_3:
I know. Well keeps changing

[00:21:26.41] spk_1:
this this one trick things.

[00:21:27.84] spk_3:
And now I found neck. You’re like my Facebook fundraising soulmate, so

[00:21:32.14] spk_1:
that’s right. So I’m going to start with you, Since I know for a fact you’ve been doing this thinking about Facebook fundraising a long time. Um, what the problem is, Facebook doesn’t share. Right? We lamented the last year or two years ago, you and I.

[00:22:42.13] spk_3:
Yes. So I Yeah, it was in New Orleans, Um, 18 ntc with and I did the first session on Facebook fundraising tools, and it was when they had just come out and I had mental health, America and the Polaris Project with me because they were kind of just slaying it with Facebook funders and raising thousands of dollars. Like Nick likes to talk about that magic money that comes down when you turn on the tools. But the number one this was two years, the number one quandary and problem, an issue that nonprofits had and still have is this issue that you don’t get the information of the contact information for everyone that makes a donation, even if it’s not to you? Necessarily. It’s to someone else’s birthday fundraiser. So our entire philosophy and the three of us are all on the same page, and we talked about it. We have talked about this a lot is that you’re missing the point. If you focus on the data that Facebook gives you, there are ways to get the data and the content information for your fund raisers. The people that are raising money for you that are stepping up and saying I want to donate my birthday. This is a cause that I really care about right now. Everyone come together, raise money. Those are the people you need to focus on. And I think Nick made an amazing amazing point earlier this morning when we were talking. I love that point where you don’t want to clog up your Sierra Room in your database with the data of all these donors who don’t even want to hear from you anyway because they haven’t elected to hear from you. They didn’t really box

[00:23:27.81] spk_1:
their connection here, person they’re connected. The person who is running the fundraiser?

[00:23:32.51] spk_3:
Yes, exactly. Exactly. So get around this. We need to get over this hump. And Nick can also talk a lot more about that. And Maureen can

[00:23:40.82] spk_1:
too. All right, So you don’t want to focus on what we don’t have.

[00:23:44.34] spk_3:
Yes, there is a

[00:23:44.95] spk_1:
possibility that they might be, uh, uh, interested in engaging with you and your cause.

[00:23:51.81] spk_3:
Maybe,

[00:23:52.45] spk_1:
But you don’t want you don’t focus on that possibility. Want focus on what we do have is that

[00:24:31.94] spk_3:
Well, yeah, there’s kind of two ways to look at it. One is Do you want un discretionary? Do you want to, um, totally on un discretionary funds? Do you want free funds that you could do with whatever you want to do with coming in? No one telling you what to do? What? They’re not earmarked. Do you want that kind of money? Do you want exposure to a brand new audience? Or do you want to focus on the fact that I gave $5 to Maureen’s birthday fundraiser But I only gave because of Maureen? I’m not really interested in animal rescue yourself. Hung up on getting my email, but we got to stop with that.

[00:24:33.41] spk_1:
OK? All right. Well, Nick, Julie obviously teed you off. So why don’t you give us your overview?

[00:24:39.94] spk_5:
Yeah, I mean, I think, like like Facebook. Call it social fund raising. And I think that’s the key, right? It’s social. It’s it’s enabling people who love your cause who want, like, support your mission to go out and raise money from their family and friends. And if if organizations and nonprofits just treat it like direct mail or something, right, it’s not social, and so you have to you have to go with it. And so there’s this myth that, you know you can’t get the data. Yeah, Facebook don’t share the data. That is true. But actually, we’ve pion eight near two ways that you can get a lot of fundraiser data. You’re not going to get the data of every single donor that gives to every every single fundraiser on Or do you want to clog your sierra em up with that information, right? Because they’re not gonna convert on email or direct mail like less than 2% of them opt in. When Facebook asked them to hear from you. And that’s a good sign that they gave to your t their friend or their family or their loved one. Not Teoh your cause. So go with the flow. Don’t fight Facebook. Use it for a CE, much as we can possibly use it for. It’s a fantastic fundraising

[00:25:50.14] spk_1:
tour. Okay, Nick, what’s out in your background? You have You have a projector on your ceiling projecting that onto the wall.

[00:25:56.43] spk_5:
So that’s Michael. Jordan told me to read the quote. It’s a bit it needs to be bigger, right? But Michael Jordan quite. It’s a Michael Jordan quote. So is Michael Jordan

[00:26:05.70] spk_1:
Reed. It go ahead.

[00:26:20.05] spk_5:
It says, Uh, I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games 26 times. I’ve been trusted to take the winning shot and missed. I failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.

[00:26:25.02] spk_3:
I love that

[00:26:26.76] spk_1:
additional. Okay. Is that that’s not a projection from your ceiling onto the wall, is it?

[00:26:31.26] spk_5:
That is one of those decals things.

[00:26:34.15] spk_1:
Okay? You’re very, very high tech. If you’ve got one

[00:26:38.12] spk_5:
E say it’s like a hologram,

[00:26:41.29] spk_1:
right? Exactly like It’s a

[00:26:42.77] spk_5:
commercial reality. It’s argument is not really there.

[00:26:50.94] spk_1:
It’s one of those lights that shines in front of a restaurant on the sidewalk. Where is it coming from?

[00:26:52.25] spk_5:
A car, guys, it’s,

[00:26:53.94] spk_1:
uh uh OK, Marine. You want toe? Er, why don’t you add to the overview and get helping us get started?

[00:28:30.69] spk_4:
Sure. I think that, you know, part of what Julia and Nick are alluding to has been around for a long time when you think about peer to peer fundraising generally. So I’ve helped a lot of people over the years with either live physical events, that’s a five K or a bike or walk or D i y peer to peer fundraising events and organizations, generally speaking, do not do anything with the donors who give to those team captains or those participants. The data does go into their C. R M because somebody’s made an online gift and is part of that text stuff. The date is getting sucked over, but they’re not trying to convert those people. But for some reason, people feel very frustrated about the inability to get the $5 donor into their database and is Nick and Julie have both said. You’re paying attention to the glass half empty. You need to shift your mind, pay attention to the information you can get and cultivate those relationships. Um, we and fundraising think a lot about the lifetime value of a donor, right? It’s just like it’s ingrained. And whether you were formally trained in the stuff or not is all around us about who’s valuable, Who do I spend time on and who I don’t. And Facebook turns that like a 45 degree angle. And it can be awful hard to get your leadership on board with ignoring donors just really what we’re telling people to dio. Those aren’t the folks that you should be paying attention to When it comes to Facebook fundraising, it’s the fund raisers themselves, not the people who were actually giving. And that could take some conversation at your board level or your your executive or sea level Um, inside your award that it is. It is not the way it’s always been, and you have to be cool with that and give

[00:29:00.80] spk_1:
it a try.

[00:29:01.75] spk_5:
Can I just jump in, jump in and just come off the back of the no Yeah, yeah. On anarchism. So polite, right?

[00:29:21.14] spk_1:
No. Yes. You’re not sure what I was? What I was going to say, Maureen, before I was interrupted was e. I could see how clearly. Yes. Take a drink, Nick, please. I can see why your company’s practical wisdom.

[00:29:23.34] spk_4:
Yeah, like

[00:29:30.74] spk_1:
your wisdom for non profit accidental techies. All right. And I saw you checkered with Donald Techie. Okay, so So we’ve gotta persuade our vice president, CEO and board, Maybe. I mean, the board may not be involved in what we do. Ah, fundraising campaign on Facebook or not. But at

[00:29:43.83] spk_4:
least these leaders, you

[00:30:05.28] spk_1:
persuade some people in the chain that we should be focusing on the five people a year who hosted us hosted a fundraiser for us on Facebook. Or it might be more than five, But but not not the 500 who gave at the rate of 100 each to to those to those five fundraisers. Ones who created the campaign’s not the wardens who donated to the campaigns.

[00:30:32.38] spk_4:
Okay, wait a few rooms about Facebook. You know, sometimes people have negative feelings about Facebook and that can you know, dr their business practices and where they’re choosing to invest their time. And what we’re what we’re here to say is Evaluate, evaluate, test it. Is it gonna work for your organization or not? And

[00:30:32.57] spk_1:
it

[00:30:32.68] spk_4:
probably is. So, you know, get ready. Get ready for that

[00:31:05.04] spk_1:
time for our last break. Turn to communications. They’re former journalists. So you get help getting your message through it is possible to be heard through the headlines. They know exactly what to do to build relationships with the journalists that matter to you. They are themselves former journalists. Those great relationships will lead to great coverage. They’re a turn hyphen to not CEO. We’ve got but loads more time for Facebook fundraising data. Nick you not because you interrupted, but Julia said earlier that you had some tools that we can applying here. You want to acquaint us with something?

[00:32:40.83] spk_5:
Yes. So my background as a digital fundraiser, we got into this early when client we saw the problems of the clients were having with data on. We started doing everything like, manually with spreadsheets and reaching out to fund raisers one of their time on Facebook, that kind of thing. And we just decided Look, this is crazy. We’ve got to build a tool to help that fast forward 18 months later, and we’ve got over 100 nonprofits in seven countries using give panel on What we do is we basically help organizations take the power back from Facebook? That’s kind of what we do. Like Facebook are getting a lot out of this, and that’s great. They’ve given us free tools. It’s free to use no platform cost, no technology costs, nor even any credit card fees, Right? So Facebook have given us something great. We know that they benefit, but our job is to leverage that tool as much as we can get a gun and leverage it for their advertising model on to keep them employees happy and like it’s a great thing that they’ve given the world. But it’s upto organizations toe to take the power back. And so we do that by helping how organizations Steward Steward their fundraisers get the data from their fundraisers on do you know, see graphs and dashboards and all that kind of thing. So it’s kind of the missing tool that Facebook haven’t given Facebook’s base books. No interested, necessarily in kind of building the best tool for charities, their customers, the end user on. So they’ll always be a gap where people like me will want to service the non profit. Right? OK, that’s what we

[00:32:43.61] spk_1:
do. Okay. Thank you. Julia party. Your description says how to identify who launches Facebook fundraisers. Is that Is that something that’s difficult to dio Julia?

[00:32:54.64] spk_3:
Yes. So Facebook is not going Teoh tell you when someone launches fundraiser and they’re not going to tell you who has necessarily launched a fundraiser. So you do have If you’re small organization and you’re not using a tech tool like give panel to help you, then you are going to have to figure that out. You’re gonna have to constantly be looking at your fundraisers and constantly trying to figure out and identify where the campaigns are. But that is absolutely crucial even for a small organization to dio to thank people especially, and give them the tools to sort of have already in your maybe on your website toe have a little bit of a tool kit. Maybe it’s a one page document with tips for fundraisers to really elevate their campaigns because we know nobody was born a fundraiser. No one’s born knowing how to fundraise. And if someone’s trying to raise $200 for their birthday, it’s a win win. If they can succeed because they’re gonna feel great and it’s going to be an amazing legacy for them and they’re gonna be really excited, and then you’re gonna build that relationship with them because you helped them. So, yeah,

[00:34:06.96] spk_1:
so how do we identify if we don’t have a tool? How right? Go to Facebook O. R. And find who’s doing this for us.

[00:34:14.09] spk_3:
I’ll turn that over to net cause there’s a couple ways.

[00:34:25.07] spk_5:
Okay? Yes. So Facebook. When you signed up to Facebook giving tools, you get a tab on your fate on your non profit Facebook page that says fundraisers. So you can see fund raisers that have raised more than $50 in that list. The problem is that you over about 70 60 to 70% of your fund raisers don’t reach $50. There’s a lot. There’s a lot of big fundraisers, but there’s also a lot, a lot of small fundraisers.

[00:34:41.89] spk_1:
All right, so you’re not going to capture the smallest ones. You won’t be able to say thank you to them. Maureen, what do we do? Once we have identified the people who have have launched these fundraisers for US

[00:35:35.06] spk_4:
micro appreciation, I’ll use next term. You have to find small ways to recognize and appreciate the effort that these fundraisers air making, no matter how much or how little they’re raising for you. Facebook is the great equalizer in that everybody sort of knows what everybody is doing, and your fundraisers expect it. They expect you to be paying attention. They expect you to thank them and acknowledge them all within the tool, you know? Yeah, you certainly want to try to get enough information and their permission to move them over onto your email list so that they can learn more about your organization. They can be more empowered to fundraise more for your get otherwise involved, but, you know, sending a message. Knicks got a great program where people send a tiny little gift like a like a pin, a piece of swag that in your non profit they have sitting around It’s pennies. Teoh access it a diner to to mail it out, and then that person has a tangible thing that is reinforcing that relationship. They knew that I did it. They took a minute to say thank you. They actually gave me a thank you gift. And so every time an opportunity comes up in my personal life for me to start a fundraiser, I’m gonna go back to that organization and show my loyalty.

[00:36:20.11] spk_1:
And what can we do to encourage these fundraisers, whether it’s birthday or or whatever, How can we? How can we be promoting that idea to To our constituents?

[00:36:34.41] spk_4:
You do have to promote it. Radio promoting Julia, which I

[00:37:28.28] spk_3:
guess you have to be proactive rather than reactive. So sure, setting up the tools and registering for Facebook payments. Make sure you’re you know I’s are dotted and your T’s are crossed and your registered and you have all the tools set up. But it’s just like with the Donate button on websites 5 10 years ago. If you just put it on your website and don’t tell anybody, then you can’t just expect the donations to rolling as much as they could. You really have to be proactive. So advertising it, telling people this is an exciting new way. It’s effective. It’s safe Facebook doesn’t take any fees, kind of dispelling the myths and misconceptions out there around Facebook fundraising showing people examples of other fundraisers that have occurred, giving them the tools like, um, giving them photos, giving them videos, giving them text, explaining to them here the top five things to do when you start a Facebook fundraiser. Here’s what to do when you hit your halfway point but actively encouraging people. I’ve seen it in a welcome email sequence. Actually. Ah, lot of nonprofits. When you sign up for the email issue, make a donation. I’ve seen them encourage you in their little sequence. Say, to make a bigger impact. Would you be interested in setting up a Facebook funders or force? Put something on your website? Put something in your email signature. Do a Facebook live. You know, you really have to look at it as all hands on deck promoting this.

[00:38:06.00] spk_1:
What do we know about the characteristics of people who are most likely to do this? Are they necessarily the under 30?

[00:38:13.12] spk_3:
I don’t know, Nick. You might know that we

[00:38:15.41] spk_5:
we don’t have any demographic information. What we do have is that its acquisition, actually, this isn’t for something for your existing supporters donors as much as it is people who are getting noted, verified a week before on Facebook, a week before their birthday. Hey, do you want to set up a birthday fundraiser? And then they’re searching for breast cancer? They’re searching for arthritis. They’re searching for dunk cap, you know, whatever they want, their passion about what they want to give to. So 90% of our client data From what the studies we’ve done our new to the organization. They’re not people that were already on the database. So this is acquisition and its huge. We have clients that have 30,000 fundraisers a month. I mean, when you get it right, it’s by big.

[00:39:05.70] spk_1:
I’m surprised to hear I’m surprised to hear its acquisition. I didn’t expect that at all. We’re committed donors who thought of you on their birthday. You’re saying they’re thinking that their birthday is coming up and they’re looking for a cause?

[00:39:39.52] spk_5:
Yeah, that’s like So my my wife lost unfortunate, lost her mom to breast cancer two years ago. She wasn’t she just fighting breast cancer and shows the 1st 1 that came up on what we’re seeing is as more nonprofits get on Facebook, the slice of the pie is getting thinner and thinner, so you need to get in early is growing, but so is the adoption. And so organizations that go on it two years ago did very well. It’s not the birthday. Fundraising is slowing down is the fact that actually more organizations are jumping on because they’re seeing how successful it is.

[00:39:46.57] spk_1:
Okay, we’re gonna start to wrap up, Julia. I’m gonna give you ah, a shot and then never go to Maureen for the final. What do you want to leave people with? Maybe how to get started. Whatever final thoughts.

[00:39:59.52] spk_3:
Well, if you’ve not started yet, go to social good dot FB dot com and see if you’re eligible to register. It’s not open in every single country yet. And some tools air open in some countries and some are not. But the very the second thing I would dio is understand that this can Onley augment and enhance what you’re doing. What we’re saying is not to completely replace everything that’s working. I’m not saying Onley to face with fundraising and throw out your direct mail, which is what people are hearing. I think sometimes when I talk, I’m not saying that. I’m saying this is gonna enhance. And like Nick just said, it’s a way to acquire new people that are passionate. That could be even more passionate about your cause. Because everyone’s already on Facebook all day already. You know, there’s millions. Billions of people on Facebook is the leverage, the tools and do the best you can with what you have.

[00:40:55.84] spk_1:
Okay, Marine, would you wrap us up, please?

[00:41:31.71] spk_4:
Sure. Um I would say, Don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good, you know we can. We’re very terrible about snow. Sometimes in non profit culture. We take a really long time to think about things. A really long time to change gears. This is a time for action. Even if the world wasn’t dealing with the pandemic, it is a time for action for nonprofits. Try something having experimental frame. Get buying from your leadership, but try it. Try it. You really have nothing to lose. How’s that?

[00:41:38.24] spk_1:
Would an impassioned plea Yes, that Z from from Kit God, that’s Marine will be off digital strategist and technology coach with practical wisdom for non profit accidental techies. Also, Julia Campbell, The

[00:41:47.02] spk_3:
Penis of your voice over Any time you talk

[00:41:49.93] spk_1:
work what it is. The company right?

[00:41:52.11] spk_4:
It absolutely is

[00:42:10.80] spk_1:
way. Non profit. Accidental techies. Julia Campbell, author, speaker, trainer, author, speaker, teacher and trainer. Well, teachers Train right, Jay Campbell, social marketing and Nick Byrne with Any at the end. Founder and CEO Give Panel Marine and Julia and Nick. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

[00:42:15.43] spk_3:
Thanks, tony. Thank you.

[00:43:41.52] spk_1:
Stay Well, I’m glad we were able to work this out and thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of the virtual 20 NTC workshops sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software. The Knowledge Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. Thanks so much for being with us next week. The special episode on the racism conversation and more from 20 NTC on the regularly scheduled show. If you missed any part of today’s show, I’d be sent. You find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com. But Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and my turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Ah, creative producer is clear. Meyer off Sam Liebowitz Managed stream shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our rep guy. This music is by Scots You with me next week for not profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for May 22, 2020: Easy AI & Impact Storytelling

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How can technology help you share your impact with the right people at the right time? How do you distill your big story down to a small, comprehensible, individual story? Tim Sarrantonio is with Neon One. (Also part of our 20NTC coverage)

 

 

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[00:02:26.44] spk_0:
on Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% on your aptly named host. This marks a month of a dizzy production with audacity and zoom. I’m rather proud of myself. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into Abdur mission if you made me numb with the idea that you missed today’s show. Easy A. I Artificial intelligence is an opportunity for your career, not a threat to your job. Najeeb Qassem explains how to leverage your skills in a new landscape and describe some of the intelligent tools available for you to work with. He’s CEO of Kayla. This is part of our 20 NTC coverage and impact storytelling. How can technology help you share your impact with the right people at the right time? How do you distill your big story down to a small, comprehensible individual story? Tim San Antonio is with neon one that’s also part of our 20 and TC coverage on tony Steak, too. Draw another breath were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen. Two dot ceo. Here is Easy a I Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC. That’s a 2020 non profit technology conference. The conference was canceled, but we’re pursuing it virtually. Yes, they are sponsored at NTC by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial? My guest now of our second interview of 20 NTC is Najeeb Qassem. He is CEO at tequila. Uh, Majeed. Welcome.

[00:02:30.64] spk_1:
Thank you. It’s a real pleasure to be here, tony. Pleasure

[00:02:33.14] spk_0:
to have you as well, and I

[00:02:54.21] spk_1:
want to correct you. But one thing and TC may have canceled, but the spirit of the conference has not been. There are events popping up all across the continent. Webinars recordings. It’s been I was texting with Amy last night, and I think despite the heartbreak that it’s been, there’s so much community and grassroots support of the folks looking to build capacity and continue their learning, and it’s been heartbreaking, but yet inspiring at the same time.

[00:03:02.91] spk_0:
Yeah, well, you jumped into the void, right? Didn’t Didn’t you start put up a page or pages with, uh, virtual webinars that people were gonna be that we’re planning?

[00:03:27.71] spk_1:
Yes, sir. Actually, key allies hosting Ah, three day conference called Plugged in. Um, nope. You’re all needed. And Ah, and ah, it’s 99 sessions on different sort of some of the many of the topics. A lot of the speakers from from the intense conference I they’re gonna be speaking on everything from using tech in your social media toe A I and fundraising we’ve got I think five of aunt intends 12 board members are actually speaking. So we’ve had an incredible amount of support from amazing women and men across the U. S. And in Canada to bring people together.

[00:03:53.54] spk_0:
Now, when you’re doing this because I’m not sure when this interview you and I are doing right now is gonna air it, maybe after what you’re planning. So

[00:04:01.61] spk_1:
it starts today of all things.

[00:04:03.19] spk_0:
Okay, You’re definitely It’s not gonna not a

[00:04:06.01] spk_1:
big, but it’ll all be recorded as well as if you go to kill a dot com website. I’m sure you’ll be able to find it.

[00:04:11.25] spk_0:
OK. K E l a dot com. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. Cool. Why is there a tennis racket hanging on your wall? Significance there. So

[00:04:40.04] spk_1:
it’s funny. It’s wow. Firstly, I had I have a love affair with tennis. I always tell my wife you’re my wife, but tennis is might miss stress. I’ve been playing since the age of three, which is also the time that I’ve been involved in the nonprofit sector. So by two earliest memories are volunteering and hitting a tennis ball. You

[00:04:40.24] spk_0:
were volunteering at age three.

[00:05:16.84] spk_1:
My mom and dad fled East Africa in the late sixties, early seventies and, uh, they had a rough go growing up and they’re 10. My dad got his first job at 11 to support a bunch of people. My mom had to get scholarships, but they were so supported by civil society and the nonprofit sector. I was born in Canada with, you know, what is the perfect life and so very early my parents taught me and reminded me how important it was to be involved in civil society to build nonprofits, to partake in my community. And so, you know, how do you tell a three year old that you’re not gonna donate to the cause? He’s He’s asking money he’s asking money for And so my mom and that it has refused, right? But I think more. They taught me about how important our sector is and how valuable it is. And so for 30 something years now, I’ve been playing in and around the nonprofit sector, and it’s it’s been a passion of.

[00:05:39.03] spk_0:
I should have had Children just so I could bring them along on solicitations. Its strike do.

[00:05:43.19] spk_1:
It’s true. I

[00:05:55.91] spk_0:
do plan giving, consulting plan, giving fundraising? Yes. If I had a three year old in my lap, I’m now. Could they have been impossible? It’s impossible. It’s better than a therapy dog. I don’t have Children. So I joke about, uh, well, my wife. I love Children. I love chilling. I love all Children, Children of all persuasions and and genders I love all Children know nothing about. Okay,

[00:06:09.51] spk_1:
well, you know, I think we’re building all of this for the next generation to write, to make every generation a little bit better and help this generation a lot. A lot, A lot as well. So I forgot to ask you how you holding up in all this craziness

[00:06:31.15] spk_0:
when I was gonna ask you Thank you for preempting. Yes, I’m finding in North Carolina, um, safe and well, and I have the ocean across the street, so I can not.

[00:06:36.54] spk_1:
The worst thing

[00:06:37.54] spk_0:
I can walk on the beach is alone on bits. Find where you and how are you?

[00:06:55.34] spk_1:
I’m in Vancouver, BC, and I’ve got the ocean about five minutes away, so I’m blast. My wife is nine months pregnant, so she’s due next week. Um, and so it’s a funny time to be bringing a baby into the world. But they say the 1st 100 days is brutal anyway, so I’m gonna be home, which is a blessing in disguise.

[00:07:03.12] spk_0:
Congratulations. We’re recording on March 24th. Are you expecting by the end of this month,

[00:07:09.49] spk_1:
Probably early April. I mean, who knows? Now it’s anything that’s two weeks, but it will be exciting. It’ll be

[00:07:51.51] spk_0:
right. Let’s talk about artificial intelligence. Your webinar topic, uh, was well sorry. Your workshop topic was on the topic we’re discussing remains easy. Artificial intelligence, simple tools toe tools to elevate your non profit impact. Let’s just start with a basic understanding. What? What what kinds of things were talking about with respect? Artificial intelligence? That’s a wide I was a phrase that could captures everything from manufacturing to big data. What are we talking about?

[00:08:23.11] spk_1:
So I think we’re more on that big data spectrum or just the data in general spectrum. So, you know, I’m actually giving the talk at Oculus plugged in in about two hours, so I should hopefully be able to answer this question. Well, you know, we’re talking mainly about machine learning driven, artificial intelligence that’s really part of software. And that’s what I wanted to talk about. How there’s tons of ways that organization, small and big anywhere in the world, can adopt tools some out of the box, some custom built that helped them gain insights, understand, get predictions for their organization on programming, on fundraising, on bullets, your management, whatever it might be on how that’s not some scary, um, mystical kind of thing. It’s a very tangible riel thing that isn’t all that difficult for us to adopt. Even if you’re a tech light, I like myself.

[00:09:21.08] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Wegner-C.P.As. We received RP PP funding. Now what? That’s their latest recorded webinar. What about loan forgiveness? How do you get the max forgiven? Remember, it’s merely forgiveness, not absolution. You go toe wegner-C.P.As dot com, Click Resource is and recorded events. Now back to Easy A I with Najeeb Qassem. Okay, it’s not not easy to adopt and, uh, nineties to adopt and to adapt to also bringing into your daily routine.

[00:10:00.54] spk_1:
So, you know, I think it once you make the commitment to make the change, it becomes it’s It’s one of those things. I’m not sure how you lived without especially, you know, And I think so. It is making a change, but not a revolution. It’s about, you know, our thesis and the pieces of the conversation that I was gonna have an NTC was It doesn’t have to up and how you work. It’s not gonna fire people. It’s not going to fundamentally change organization. It’s just gonna make it a little bit easier and a little bit quicker to do some of your work. And so I think part of my responsibility at at in that in that conversation in the webinar I’ll be giving was to say, Don’t freak out of a the A I It doesn’t have to be super expensive. It doesn’t even have to be complicated. But it’s something you’ve got to go out there and be committed to learning about so that you can build capacity at your non.

[00:10:19.80] spk_0:
Okay, Well, instead of your saying it there, you’re gonna say it here before you say it again in two hours. So? So you didn’t put the jacket on for non profit radio? The jacket is on for plugged in, right?

[00:10:29.18] spk_1:
You know, I put the jacket on no matter what. Definitely for you, tony.

[00:10:37.22] spk_0:
Look, now look at me. I’m in a T shirt. Come on. Monday. But I’m on the beach. I’m but I’m

[00:10:37.94] spk_1:
a recovering corporate lawyer. This is like,

[00:10:40.83] spk_0:
all right. And you recovered a lot more recently that I did. I recovered General Liability melt medical malpractice defense attorney. But that was many years ago. 1990 1994. So you have. When you get further into your recovery, you’ll address you’ll just like this.

[00:10:55.84] spk_1:
It I’ll just sort of go from that high a lot of time. That’s all

[00:11:09.74] spk_0:
right. It’s incremental. It’s in command. Trust me. Yes, 10 years from now, you’ll stop shaving your wear T shirts every day. Im you 10 years Dennard.

[00:12:31.24] spk_1:
Yeah, Yeah. All right. So I think I think the first thing I want to talk about is a little bit about demystifying. What is a I and a at least a I that I’m talking about? Yeah, that I’m talking about is not the robot on TV that takes over humanity. It’s not a piece of technology that can think for itself that can make decisions for itself that can operate. And sometimes I think the perception is artificial intelligence is like I said, this big scary thing The thing I’m talking about is the thing that tells you what song to listen to on Spotify or what products to recommend for you on Amazon. Simply put, it’s it’s taking huge amounts of data and teaching it about ah, developer and engineer. Ah, data scientists will teach it something. It’s like writing an algorithm, right? It’s It’s the same thing we used to have. But instead of just writing the algorithm, if this then that right, it’s it also teaches them how to learn better. Because we know that the more data we have when operated in the right, you know, by the right people. When built properly, they can actually make decision making and better and better. So the a I that we’re talking about the eye that’s built in the Killah and built into tons of other tools sales tools, Amazon, whatever it might be, is simply saying to This is this piece of software that says When David gets in, I’m gonna get smarter and smarter, or it’s gonna get smart and smarter to make that decision or that recommendation or whatever it’s coded to do. It’s a very simple, not simple to build that simple task.

[00:12:52.60] spk_0:
Okay, let’s dive in. So can we start with, say, a fundraising application? Absolutely. Well, what? What do you have to offer there? What?

[00:12:57.17] spk_1:
So So And I don’t want to talk about kilo here because

[00:12:59.76] spk_0:
I know. And I don’t mean not

[00:13:00.96] spk_1:
No, no, no. Of course. But, you know,

[00:13:02.83] spk_0:
agnostic. What? What could we do with our r c R M database?

[00:13:48.78] spk_1:
Absolutely. So So let’s pick something like when a donor is gonna give. Okay? Like you know your your plan. Gift giver. You know, you probably know, you know, the organization to work with probably have years or even decades worth of data, right? They have it. It might be in a spreadsheet. It might be in a CIA ram. It might be, you know, like me on Post it notes. But it’s there. And so that data is, is the It’s the key to making these decisions. So if you know that Tony’s get probably gonna give on giving Tuesday and on December 30th because he’s got tax money, he wants to write off over time. Right now, that’s you. Now you add tens or hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of donation records for you and for all the other people. What the’s tools could do is start to see patterns and the smart, the A I The machine learning of it is it sees the patterns, and as it gets more data, it the recognition of the pattern gets smarter. Does that Does that make sense?

[00:14:12.87] spk_0:
Yeah. All right,

[00:14:45.04] spk_1:
so So now I know if I run this through the you know, in my crn if I’ve got this tool later, don or whatever it is that tony is gonna give in these these times and the on the predictions over time over the years over the multiple donors you have are going to get better and better and smarter and smarter and ultimately, more accurate. Now you cannot replace the intuition of a fundraiser. The personal relationships A I tools and the fundraising space are not trying to do that. What they’re trying to do is give you tony a tool to help your work better.

[00:15:09.48] spk_0:
Okay. All right. So we need we need a decent amount of data. You know, obviously, the larger the sample, the smart area smarter it is, and the more you could pull out of it, Right? Sorry. All right. So, um okay, so we could predict, um, let’s say bringing into my arena because I’m shellfish. I’m the host planned giving. So I mean, I know from doing this since 1997 that the likelihood that someone is going to be make make a planned gift is based on their They’re giving two factors there giving history, consistency, loyalty, like these are people who now, of course, there are exceptions. But

[00:15:35.24] spk_1:
of course, of course. And so that’s what I can’t can’t override, right? You’re 14 right? I mean, sure, they can do it. Agree. But the exceptions or what? Why we need you. This is why you’re not out of a job. At least not yet, right? You know, But but But you’re right. Those two factors, or

[00:16:20.50] spk_0:
west, the loyalty of giving. So these are people who have maybe given 25 gifts in 20 years, 18 years or something. 30 givings, 25 years, lots of loyalty, regardless of the gift size and roughly age 55 to 60 over. Yes, some people make planned gifts when they’re 30 something. But again, we’re generalizing. How is ah? So how is artificial intelligence going to help me with that experience based conclusion?

[00:16:21.51] spk_1:
So you know what? It might do it And I’m just spitballing here, but you might have a tool that’s built that says that’s able to recognize those factors. And then at a tag or a badge to this ex donor, right? My mom who says, you know, she has the preconditions based on the data we have based on all of your donors, Not just you, all of your donors. These air the patterns. We see these are the preconditions that the developers have sort of said, You know, this is likely. Like you said, history and age and a few other things, and they may run these models is what’s really and then they can say this person is a high likelihood of medium likelihood of low likely. For example, it can spit out a prediction just like Spotify says, If you like Pink Floyd, it might suggest the Zeppelins right. That’s that. It’s this. It’s literally the same logic. It’s It’s a predictions. Okay? An algorithm.

[00:17:28.02] spk_0:
I just thought of a way it might actually work alongside. What I just described is, let’s say you’re you know, it’s a statewide organization. It would find the people you tell me if it could probably find the locations. Maybe the county’s sure have a You have a density of planned giving donors or play giving prospects based on who the donors are. But you never realised. You don’t realize there’s a there’s a There’s a greater likelihood for Johnson County to be a plan gift donor than for Smith County,

[00:18:50.74] spk_1:
for sure, and I think wanted great things. You know we talk about artificial intelligence as this siloed thing, but it’s actually not. It’s part of any a data or an intelligence strategy in a software or as an organization. It’s not one you know. Software can see stuff that we can’t not just because of the A I because it’s like there’s so much data. There’s only so many records that you conflict there or remember or into it like there’s there’s a whole other ah, bigger right. The reason it can do calculations, fasters. It’s not that it’s smarter than me. It’s just it’s got more processing power than Ideo, and it’s probably smarter than me. But you know, what I’m saying is, and so I think you, you know, you can add the benefit of these things and a good developer, well, actually work with the sector in this case and understand the different preconditions so they might look at location they might look at, You know, the primary things might be age and frequency, but there might be a whole host of other things that determine maybe the stock market, maybe not even example right now. But, you know, maybe the location, maybe the weather who knows. But these factors are then tested on a sample in the development process. What they do is they take the data set in. They carve out a sample, right, like a little bit of it, and they run their models to see if the machine will predict the same things. That the sort of the pure algorithm like, if then kind of stuff.

[00:19:33.87] spk_0:
Can we expect if we’re going to the artificial intelligence marketplace to find tools that are already exists? And then we cast we like it’s on a plug in for salesforce or razor’s Edge or something, while majors that you may not allow plugs, but Salesforce would resident probably would not, Um, is something like that is, This is not all custom development, right?

[00:19:39.80] spk_1:
No. And that’s really important to note. There are tons of amazing innovators and thinkers and technologists and dedicated, passionate people in the nonprofit sector who are building the stock times. A few on I get to work with a bunch of every day. So here’s where I will say Kayla is a C. R m. We focus on small to medium sized nonprofits, sort of sub 10 year and it’s built right into the tech. So it’s a C R M. But it’s got all this stuff already layered in. There are other tools, like gravity and I wave and other tools a couple of other organizations that lets you plug it into your your sales force or your or your whatever C. R m. And so and they’ve gone out and they’ve analyzed just like we have, you know, and built the factors and work with the sectors and built the technology. So you literally plug in your day that it’s just fresco

[00:20:29.04] spk_0:
that was very gracious of you to shout out gravity and I wave

[00:20:32.45] spk_1:
No, no, it’s, you know, we’re building something and innovating for the sector together, and I want to make sure that we’re doing what’s best for the sector. And it’s not often I believe it’s kilobit. Often it’s not.

[00:20:44.34] spk_0:
What else besides fundraising could give it? Give us another

[00:21:05.94] spk_1:
that I want to use a really, really out of a non one that’s got nothing to Akila or I wave or sale sports or anything. I want to talk about suicide prevention. Okay, so there’s an organization in the U. S. That’s that. That worked with data scientists to analyze 65 million text messages across which is heartbreaking by the way to think about the 65 million text messages have been sent in around that, I think it’s called the Crisis text line. The crisis.

[00:21:14.58] spk_0:
10 of them. Yeah, they were there, founded by the founder of Do Something.

[00:21:19.70] spk_1:
Maybe maybe? Yeah.

[00:21:48.41] spk_0:
Forget. Oh, my. I’m embarrassed. I forget her name. You know, the I know are your finger is the current CEO of Do Something but Crisis text line. Yeah, they’re they’re data intensive. Yeah, kids. Sorry, young people Azaz do something became and is now well known in data science and Lewis for people like, you know, like, 16 to 25 or something like that. Or maybe 11 2 25 like that. Yeah, yeah, I know. Crisis took Nancy. Nancy. I forget Nancy. Loveland e. I think Nancy Bubbling. We’re talking about the crisis text line.

[00:23:37.24] spk_1:
So crisis text line analysed 65 million text messages on what they were it. So one thing that I learned is that them every minute counts. When you’re talking about suicide, right, the more the quicker you get to the young woman of the young man who struggling that sent the text, the more likely you’re able to help them in time, right? And so what they did is they, You know, the example that I was taught was there’s to exempt to text messages. One. That’s, I don’t know if I could go on. I just want to drive my, um, car off a cliff And the other one is my friend committed suicide. I don’t know how I’m going to get by now. The urgency of those two things is very clear, right? And so, using machine learning, they were able to rank high priority and low priority cases on the high priority cases where they were able. I think there’s something like 50%. They were able to to read out the lower priority ones and get to the high priority ones really quickly. And so something like 90% 90 plus percent of the texts that are high priority as determined by this machine learning algorithm, and that within five minutes they could get to them. They took 65 million text messages, analyze them, built the model that got smarter, that was able to use. Think it’s called natural language processing To say this is high priority. This is lower priority. And because of that, they’re able to save lives. And that’s a really cool example of how our sectors using I Does that make sense?

[00:23:42.96] spk_0:
Yeah, of course. Yeah, uh, again, big data. Um,

[00:24:05.64] spk_1:
yeah, that one was custom built. A lot of other ones don’t have to be right. That one was cost. Okay. Yeah. Um, one of my engineers actually worked on a data science project in his master’s degree where it was using. And I don’t exactly know much about this one using artificial intelligence and machine learning to help people with prosthetics and getting the nerve movements right, because it was tons of data that they were able to crunch. To say, this is supposed to do this. That’s posted batter. You know, he’s 10 times smarter than I am. But the’s air application, some of them are custom like those and others air out of the box like some of the fundraising ones or chat bots. A really big example. Non.

[00:24:26.71] spk_0:
Oh, they are so check box for an example of

[00:24:42.64] spk_1:
what you do is you teach they can be. I don’t know if everybody you know you can Great chatbots. And some of them you can just, you know, kind of sign up for and you give up 50 questions or 50 answers. Right? Then people chat in, and as people talk to the bought, it gets smarter and smarter and more able to recognize which crushing it is an answer appropriately, or that it doesn’t know and categorize them and even suggest what questions you should be answering. That’s an example of artificial intelligence. Okay, okay. And not crazy. Not scary. Not take over the world end humanity. Kind of a I just simple. Yeah, you’ve

[00:25:14.44] spk_0:
reassured us. Oh, yeah. Okay. Those of those who were words worried in the beginning, um, you want your wonder bullets in your description says, uh, talk about how to leverage your skill set new landscape using working side by side with We’re working with artificial intelligence. That’s not fluid. Like it’s another employee working with it yourself. Well,

[00:25:30.52] spk_1:
you know, So I had property.

[00:25:32.58] spk_0:
Well, just know what skill sets are are advantageous.

[00:26:19.38] spk_1:
You know, I’m in the decades I’ve spent in and around the sector. One thing that I’ve learned is the ingenuity and the commitment of our sector is maybe the biggest and most important resource. And I think the commitment and ingenuity to learn and to continue to grow and drop these tools into our work processes is the most important skill, you know. And sometimes myself included, we’re a little bit rigid, and how we think we’re like this is how we’ve done it for 20 years. Why would I change it? But technology is is whether we like it or not a great disrupter. And this tech is not a fat. It’s not going anywhere. So we need Teoh. It’s not. It’s not difficult to learn, but it it does involve us taking a leap of faith or or getting at least out of our discomfort zones or rather, our comfort zones into our discomfort zones and saying this could be part of my work. The second thing is thinking structurally thinking about this as an opportunity rather than a threat, right? And I think that, you know, I’m disappointed to a degree in how our sector has reacted because this tech has been around its not like its 14 months old,

[00:26:54.98] spk_0:
Ondas you said earlier. You know, we’re already taking advantage of it through Amazon products, Absolutely. On Spotify Suggestions are easily see. This is an opportunity, not a threat. Um, but also

[00:26:55.61] spk_1:
like the big one, the big guys air using it hard. Just Rocchi’s universities use it for their endowments. They use this, the little guys, the medium organizations. Now that there’s out of the box solutions and other opportunities, you know, that’s great. Like, let’s let’s embrace them. And let’s have the courage to embrace

[00:27:29.74] spk_0:
them. All right, we’re gonna leave it there, and that’s that’s a perfect way because our audience is small and mid sized nonprofits, 13,000 weekly listeners so wonderful They’re there, right in your sweet spot as well. Thank you very much. All right. Tony Judaism CEO of tequila Kiva dot com Thank you again.

[00:27:31.14] spk_1:
Thanks. Don’t appreciate it.

[00:30:08.47] spk_0:
And thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 and T. C. We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain software. Their accounting product Denali is built for non profits from the ground up so that you get an application that supports the way you work that has the features you need and the exemplary support that understands you. They have a free 60 day trial on the listener landing page at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Now time for Tony’s Take Jew Draw another breath. No, the ice age is not coming. You just need to take care of yourself. It’s essential. Things are still screwed up badly, and it takes a toll on you. It may feel like it’s more of a routine. Now it is. In fact, it is more of a routine now. But things are still screwed up, and it’s still impinges on the way the way we work and it and it impacts our minds badly. So please put yourself first at some time each day. Maybe it’s total relaxation. Maybe it’s a vigorous workout. I have been saying pure relaxation, which I do, but maybe that’s not it for you on, By the way, I do work out to I’m not a sloth. I’m not even sure what a sloth is. But I’m not a slug, No, but a slug. I’m not sure what a slug is is, um, you know, I don’t crawl around. Um uh, you know what is? Well, I’m not one of those, um Yeah. No, I’m not. That Whatever it is that takes your mind off, work off disease off everything that’s going on around you around, all of us. What is that? Puts you at peace. Find it? You know what it is, you know, think about it. Just got to make time to do it. You know what it is that puts you in peace? Do it. Take care of yourself. Do it each day. You deserve it. You need it. Please. That is Tony’s. Take two. Now it’s time for impact storytelling. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC. The 2020 non profit Technology Conference. The conference had to be canceled in Baltimore, but we are persevering by Zoom virtually. We’re sponsored at 20 NTC by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution made for non profits? Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial. My guest kicking off Day two of our coverage is Tim San Antonio. He’s director of strategic partnerships at Neon One. Tim, welcome to the show.

[00:30:18.63] spk_2:
Hey, thanks for having me. Thanks.

[00:30:20.35] spk_0:
Thank you. I’m glad we could work this out virtually. And you’re well and safe in the Schenectady area upstate New York. I’m glad.

[00:30:27.75] spk_2:
Yes, yes. And I’m happy that you’re also doing well. Uh, you know, I am finding it. It’s a trying time for everybody, but I’m also inspired by the creativity that I’m seeing as well.

[00:30:56.45] spk_0:
There’s a lot, especially around NTC and and the community commitment to do these virtually whether it’s non profit radio are. Yesterday there was, ah, conference that Ah company called Kilo put together our NTC subset Virtual conference. Kilo did that plugged, and I think they called it. There’s been a lot of community support. We’re resilient. It’s a resilient. It’s a resilient, committed community.

[00:31:27.44] spk_2:
Well, and actually, that’s one of the things that that we kind of kicked into. High gear. Neon one is one of the sponsors of the fundraising effectiveness project. Okay, And so that’s Ah, that’s from it was an outgrowth of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Anderman Institute, in terms of data analysis, and we actually looked back in terms of like what happened in the last crisis, 7 4000 and eight. And we actually found this is a data set that draws from from neon serum, blue meringue donor perfect some other data providers. So it’s very accurate, especially for, you know, small the midsized organizations.

[00:31:38.32] spk_0:
That’s our audience here

[00:32:27.04] spk_2:
and so, so great. This is this is gonna be relevant because that’s gonna impact us for months, right? Even though we’re talking right now in the midst of the storm, this is not going to go away anytime soon. And what happened in 7 4000 and eight, with the study of about 2400 organizations, is that even when an economic downturn really started to kick in the gear, you know, GDP was dropping and things of that nature donation revenue relatively stayed flat. It didn’t go down that much. Um, and actually small to mid size donations kicked up in the beginning, actually. So? So there is historical precedence. It’s not apples to apples situation, especially with with kind of the social distancing elements here. But, um, if we go back, historically, there is data that shows that we’re resilient. It’s not just kind of like hope is, you know, hope is not a strategy, right? So So you

[00:32:34.58] spk_0:
have. And how about after the, uh what do you have data for what happened after the great recession was over 9 4010

[00:33:03.44] spk_2:
Yeah, things have consistently year over year, especially when you start to look at giving institute data alongside of it, which we help supply for think individual giving. But if you look at foundation data, even corporate social responsibility, things go up. Things have historically been going up. The issues are that donor retention is going down. That’s that’s the problem that the larger pie is going up. There’s more money being put into the sector, but individual donor retention has hysterically been kind of taking downward year over year. And that’s that’s the concern that especially a lot of people have with what’s what’s happening right now.

[00:33:23.83] spk_0:
I know there is a lot of donor attrition. I’ve had lots of guests talk. About 70 75% of first year donors don’t make a gift. Second year,

[00:33:34.04] spk_2:
it’s actually it’s actually a corner pheap. Most recent fundraising effectiveness project data. It’s probably in the eighties at this point when we look at what happened in 2019 and then the fourth quarter report is just about to get announced, so

[00:33:53.24] spk_0:
it’s getting worse than getting a guest. Like I said, 70 75. Yeah, all right.

[00:33:54.84] spk_2:
And ultimately, I mean that touch. Well, let’s let’s try to shift into the positive tone

[00:34:12.06] spk_0:
to the part of what I was gonna shifted into impact storytelling. Which exactly what We’re here to talk about what you were going to talk about MTC. And we’re talking about today standing, standing out in the crowd with impact storytelling. All right, so what do we need to do? Better about

[00:34:53.82] spk_2:
what we need to do to do it? Yeah. So ultimately, there’s kind of a lot of different industry theorists and consultants and other thought leaders, you know, talk about an impact feedback loop in the very simple, simple idea there is. When somebody makes a donation, they’re expecting the here report back on the impact of what was done with that. And then there’s data, you know, from people like Adrian, Sergeant and stuff like that that show that the quicker that you tell an effective story to someone on what was done with the money, then they’re more likely to donate again. And so especially way with donor retention going down for first time donors, storytelling is key to engaging those folks and keeping them coming back,

[00:34:59.33] spk_0:
Would you say as tell a story as soon as possible? Do you mean within 24 hours you have the donation? Here’s where here’s where your money went.

[00:35:07.47] spk_2:
Absolutely absolutely because and now, realistically, because of just how our industry works. And these are things that me on one wants to addresses, is speeding up, getting money into into organizations hands quicker But realistically, like unless it’s like a credit card donation, someone probably isn’t expecting that they’re check where their donor advised fund dispersement or something like that is going to like immediately from day one, like start, start feeding kids or

[00:35:37.67] spk_0:
being in the hands of right right being in the hands of beneficiaries, right?

[00:37:01.52] spk_2:
Just that’s not realistic. So there’s a little bit of, ah of a you know, gap in terms of what donors we’re gonna understand. But they do know that that there’s a rolling trailing basis of impact that should be happening. People should be doing work every single day that you can talk about right and so so the quicker that you can say, Look, this is what the money that you’ve you’ve put toward is going to do, then the better it’s going to be in terms of your retention rates that there’s there’s just concrete analysis and and and precedents for that type of thing. And so when you’re talking about impact storytelling, the thing that you don’t want to do is four people with statistics, right we could talk about, you know, for instance, just even in this conversation, we can talk about all the different things that people are experiencing right now when it comes to Cove in 19 and and things of that nature. But what we’re doing at me on one, for instance, were actually just about to launch a campaign called N Pose. Rise is focus in on concrete tactical examples of what people are doing to get through this. So examples. Let’s think about the arts world, right? You’re really getting hit because a lot of people’s attention are going toward, you know, health and human service is and food distribution and obviously things that are important. But it’s been fascinating to see organizations in the arts and culture world pivot very quickly the virtual, which they’re not very comfortable with in many ways, right like, If you’re if you’re doing a play or a performance to immediately, then go well. I don’t have the crowd in front of May. What Dough? I dio

[00:37:20.24] spk_0:
the only person an actor without an audience.

[00:37:35.71] spk_2:
Exactly. And so So to be able to see examples of that where it’s where it’s like one person, Um, one of my favorite organizations locally here is a small art studio that helps kids and it’s called Create Community Studios. And what their executive director start doing is making videos for kids on how to do art. Right? And that’s the thing where, where she’s not sitting there saying like We’ve had such an impact And here’s that, you know, x amount of number that our revenue has dropped right, like That’s not like those things are important to help supplement. But from an impact standpoint, it’s her face saying this is a way that we’re gonna help you if you want to turn around and support. This is how you can do it. But here’s me giving. This is This is the time that we, as organizations, need to give value as opposed to just kind of like provide value and there’s a difference between, like giving with no expectation of return and then like providing an expecting return. And

[00:38:48.72] spk_0:
there will be there will be a time for the for the ladder. Yes, on bit’s not in the next week or month, but the time will come when, um especially if you’re keeping in touch with your your supporters, your your donors in ways that you’re describing giving ways if you’re keeping in touch, just explaining. And here we are again storytelling, explaining what’s happening without your hand out. Then when that time is right, your donors gonna think 3/4 expect that there’s there’s been a need and, you know, and how can we? How can we be of help?

[00:40:10.37] spk_2:
And there’s there’s concrete in terms of even the psychology of storytelling. Um, uh, it’s interesting in terms of like, there’s been studies done, and we were gonna talk about this in terms of NTC. But But there’s been actual studies done where there’s a difference between, um, basically are you can somebody individually connect with the story that you’re telling because if you tell a story that has too much like it’s to big right, it’s very difficult for us to even think about Cove in 19. On the macro level, right? We hear, like, 200 you know, near 300,000 cases globally. Stuff like that, people kind of tune out. Like, psychologically, there’s there’s been studies that have shown that, like, once you get to, like, really high, big numbers don’t connect this much. And actually, data shows that if you can take the big macro story and then bring it down to here is one individual person or small group of people that have been impacted by this that is when donations actually go up. And so when we were gonna be doing the ah presentation, I was going to focus in on the Syrian crisis because, you hear, you know, refugees. And so you know. And we were gonna actually even show imagery that shows like Think about when you think about the Syrian crisis, what stands out right? And what stands out the images that people remember or not like people in refugee camps. It’s the little boy who lost his life and was washed up right? It’s a little girl who the photographer said, Can you please smile for May and There’s just tears in her eyes, but she is smiling, right? Those are the things that that send chills down people’s spines because it’s just like you and I were having a direct conversation. You know, imagine when you get all the different zoom things, it’s a little bit harder for you to focus in on one like multiple faces in even a meeting or things like that. Where is when you’re having a conversation? You’re building a relationship with someone, and that’s what you’re trying to do virtually as well as when you’re when you’re telling your story. When they’re not actually in the room with you, you know they might be reading a direct mail piece or things of that nature. You want to tell your story where there’s an individual residents because that’s when donations

[00:41:09.27] spk_1:
actually go up.

[00:41:18.81] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, that’s consistent with what other guests have said. The macro level is just difficult to combat to comprehend. Okay, okay.

[00:41:28.99] spk_2:
And that’s ultimately there’s different strategies that you can do that because you also don’t want to be, especially now seeming opportunistic, right? But

[00:41:29.85] spk_0:
yeah, right. But

[00:41:30.87] spk_1:
it could be

[00:41:41.36] spk_0:
done with sincerity and genuineness and still showing a story revealing an impact without it being you know where your heart on the on your sleeve and with a handout.

[00:41:46.30] spk_2:
Now now is the time for

[00:41:47.89] spk_0:
the line there There was a line you don’t want across it, because then it looks like you’re being opportunistic. And exploiting the Corona virus for the benefit of your non profit

[00:41:57.28] spk_2:
authenticity is what’s going to to help most right now, being vulnerable, being being understanding, you know, like

[00:42:06.60] spk_0:
vulnerable is a good. That’s a good adjective. Yeah,

[00:42:09.31] spk_2:
it is. It is. I mean, and and for me, you know, it’s it’s difficult even on a personal level, because, like right now in the back of my head, I want to focus on you. But then I’m hearing my Children crying, right, And that’s the reality is that if we understand that that’s happening everywhere.

[00:42:25.10] spk_0:
Let’s assure listeners, your wife is home to

[00:42:32.97] spk_2:
my wife is home thing. This is not a Lord of the flies situation. My wife is. I

[00:42:34.16] spk_0:
want people to know. Yes,

[00:43:18.94] spk_2:
yes, so and were trading things off. And she’s an engineer and she has a lot of she’s actually deemed essential by New York state in terms of the work that they’re doing because its data centers that she’s supporting. But at the same time, we want to make sure that our Children are getting, you know, a good continuing an education as much as we can provide them attention. So we’re even picking themes, you know, weekly. So this week’s Dimas is store. It’s fairy tales. So it’s like storytelling, right? So I’m actually even trying to go back to them and and take the concepts that we’re talking about here and and apply that to their own life, right, because they don’t understand what’s happened in their little so. But how can you tell it? In a way, it’s actually purple. It’s going through. This experience is pushing me to be a better storyteller.

[00:44:22.45] spk_0:
Time for our last break turn to communications. They’re former journalists so that you get help getting your message through. It is possible to be heard through the Corona virus cacophony. Plus, you want to prepare to build media relationships when the din subsides. Didn’t I love that others with over dinner? It’s just just quick, then in in and at dinner, and it’s just a great word you use the word din. So when they didn’t subsides, you want to be ready to build those media relationships. They know exactly what to do. Let’s turn to. But we may. My, uh, didn’t die. Aggression may have forgotten We’re talking about turned to communications there at turn hyphen two dot ceo. Near the end of this segment, Tim talks about an April 16th virtual conference on giving events. Dream Big Virtual conference Forgiving Day hosts Tow. Watch the recorded conference. Email him Tim at neon one dot com. We’ve got but loads more time for impact storytelling.

[00:45:05.66] spk_2:
But everybody’s going through this right. It’s this weird young in collective consciousness that we’re all experiencing and and it’s global. And and And what’s fascinating is that we didn’t have this back in 1918 when you know they influenza situation hit right. Same elements happening there, but we didn’t have all the technology toe help us connect. I don’t know if tony have you seen the mean where it’s like before cove it and it shows everybody just staring at their phone. And then it’s those after Koven is like everybody’s outside. That’s pretty good. It’s pretty good social distance, though 16th

[00:45:18.99] spk_0:
in the meantime. What what advice do you have for, Ah, communicating with your institutional funders now and over the next Over the coming months, Way just talked about individual keeping in touch with individual donors. What if you’ve got a grants relationship pre existing? They’ve been funding you. How do you keep in touch with those folks? Is anything different? I mean, I would say institutional funders are made of people. Yeah, but you may have different advice for keeping in touch with whether it’s corporate supporters or private foundation.

[00:46:50.58] spk_2:
So and kind of the approach that neon one takes is that that we lean on people with subject matter, expertise and technical expertise because we don’t do everything right. And so what I’ve learned from Flux, which was gonna present with us for the NTC panel, is they focus on Ford Foundation like that’s their client base. So it’s all like private foundations and other institutional partners. And what they’re finding is that, um, one funders air stepping up. There’s a running list of emergency relief funds that we’re seeing because neon one actually does a lot of giving days, for instance, right. And so giving events by community foundations, private foundations or establishing relief funds Giving events are actually having dedicated relief funds and pages for these types of things. And so this is a time to basically don’t shirk away from being honest if you’re in pain. Um, if your organization is experiencing, um, you know, there’s a lot of things when it comes to rent. There’s a lot of things when it comes to paying employees insurance. Um, check what general operational support that you can like ask about general operational support for your institution,

[00:46:56.54] spk_0:
maybe even converting an existing grand from something project of programmatic to general operating.

[00:47:44.38] spk_2:
Yeah, don’t don’t. I was I got my start as a grant writer, tony, and that was like the first job that I had in the non profit space. And, uh, and this is not the time to focus on non restricted giving That has nothing to do with the immediate needs that your organization needs to distribute. You know, um and so being honest about that and also being prepared to to have difficult conversations around your budget is going to be key to talking to any of these. I will say on the corporate social responsibility side. It’s gonna I think I personally think it’s going to take a bit for that to recover. Now. I did check with our partners over a double the donation, and I said, Have you heard anything about corporations dropping their matching gift programs during this time? No, they have not. So we don’t need to panic. I’m actually seeing more matching gift elements come up, so I definitely lean into those. But you’re probably not gonna be getting a lot of ah, gala sponsorships at this point. Realistically,

[00:48:08.82] spk_0:
double the donation. Is that that Adam Adam What? What’s his last name? He was I’ve had him on the show.

[00:48:11.89] spk_2:
Why here? I think.

[00:48:12.95] spk_0:
Why, wegner? Wine, wine? Yeah,

[00:48:20.86] spk_2:
like that. He’s going todo while he’s actually one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. So he’ll be like, Oh, no, this is a supposed to me. You know, Santonio? No, that’s That’s how you say, Uh, yeah, Adam’s. Adam’s great. The team over there is is really great. And actually, Cougar Mountain is neon one part or two. So I’m pretty excited that they’re they’re sponsoring this.

[00:48:34.91] spk_0:
Oh, excellent. Yes. There are sponsors 20 NTC. We’re gonna have a booth together. Uh, we’re gonna We’re gonna be in double Booth 10 by 20 together.

[00:48:54.47] spk_2:
Yeah. So let let’s go. Actually, let me Let me ask you this. What do you think? The Post Cove it conference world is going to be like, Well, there are for ourselves,

[00:49:45.37] spk_0:
Coated. What? I mean, what do you mean, like next year? Yeah, I think there’s gonna be. I think there’s gonna be double the investment in 21 D. C or near double that. There was in 20 and D. C. Yeah. Um, and I some of that is that’s not just my thinking. Some of that is actually quantifiable because I have talked to any sample ward yesterday. You know, then 10 0 yeah. She is a regular contributor on the show she’s on each month. She’s great looking about technology, but on dhe, she’s been on with the show for years, so I know her very well. She said there were. She didn’t know why, but some of the major exhibitors and sponsors had had near double there. Their their support from 2019 to 2020. They were seeing big, some record numbers in sponsorships and support. Um,

[00:49:46.26] spk_2:
between We were gonna have a double booth, and actually

[00:49:48.42] spk_0:
you were going to Okay, that’s that. That was among a lot of the big sponsors, so it made cancellation that much more difficult.

[00:49:56.37] spk_2:
I know. It’s like what, like, 60% of their revenue was anti

[00:49:59.93] spk_0:
62 to be exact. Yeah, to pretend the revenue is that conference.

[00:50:03.82] spk_2:
Well, they definitely they do have a support fund. I’ve donated to it. For instance, in terms of the even, though my stuff would be covered by neon one. I I personally, uh, made a donation. So folks want to support NTC. I would say this is a good time to

[00:50:30.59] spk_0:
radio. Yes, I’ve done the same thing. I made a pledge by April 30th. Yeah, yeah, and 10 dot org’s, but in terms of Well, that s so I just know NTC. I think 21 in D. C is gonna be a blowout. I think I think it’s a mistake. If you don’t exhibit in 21 d c e. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pushed 3000 people where their usual is 24 2500. What

[00:50:44.86] spk_2:
I do see happening is supplement, Terry. Virtual events being spun up. So, virtual conferences. We It’s interesting. We actually

[00:50:52.02] spk_0:
amorphous gave that. I am I narrowed down to one. I only know in D C. You’re able to look global. Uh, all right, well, that’s why that’s why we’re picking your brain, you

[00:50:57.17] spk_2:
know? And that’s part of my job is to pay attention,

[00:51:03.84] spk_0:
wegner. Thank you. All right. Despite its strategic sponsorships, I’m a little leak in fundraising Consultant in podcaster.

[00:51:06.93] spk_2:
But I love it. I love the podcast, tony, Thank you into every year.

[00:51:19.82] spk_0:
Yes, Podcasts have a place, especially now. But, you know, I’ve been at this for 10 years. July is gonna be our 500 show, so you should jump on the sponsorship bandwagon and

[00:51:19.97] spk_2:
I’ll talk to marketing. I’ll talk to talk to our marketing.

[00:51:26.30] spk_0:
Okay. Um yeah. Cougar Mountain is already on. Um okay, so that go back to what you were saying? What you expect to see we’re

[00:53:39.84] spk_2:
going to see more. So a MP, for instance, they they’ve created So NTC has done community submission. So, you know, for instance, Dion, one is doing ah, Siris of Webinars and things of that nature specific. Teoh Cove in 19. Um, you know, virtual events, virtual galas, that type of situation. We have some interesting things around, live streaming with our partners That tilt if I, for instance, you know, silent auctions with click bid, Um, on then all of this needing to go back to a database of records so you can cultivate that relationship. But it’s also interesting to see what a f P has done, which is that they association fundraising professionals. Basically, that was going to back to back Ah, this week. So, you know, my wife was gonna hate the the fact that, um, you know, I was gonna be gone for a week, But be careful what you wish for, I guess in terms of my wife, um So if he’s done a full virtual conference and I think we’re going to see more and more of those supplementary things because even if you can get thousands of people in one space, which we will, that will happen again once once, you know it’s going to take months, but it’s gonna happen. I do still think from an equity standpoint that virtual conferences are, uh, are going to start popping up mawr as Look, you can’t make the physical thing, then come to our virtual conference. And I think we’re going to see more and more of that not only from an equity standpoint, inaccessibility standpoint, but just because it’s good business as well. Um, I mean, we’re spitting up our first virtual conference, and we actually planned it months before any of this happened. But, um uh, you know, it’s in April, April 16th and it’s gonna be on giving events, you know, 1st 1st virtual conference ever on forgiving event hosts. You know, if you want to run a giving day for your college, for your community, um, you know, we said, Hey, let’s start now, do it. But we had to shift the tone. You know, we had to shift some of the sessions, obviously. Ah, but what What’s actually encouraging is the data that we’re seeing is that we’re seeing massive spikes in people starting to pre pre donate or donate forgiving events. So the idea of giving vent think like giving Tuesday, right? Everybody goes to one site they donate to the community. We’re actually seeing a lot of this stuff go up very encouraging numbers when it comes to online donations popping up

[00:53:53.58] spk_0:
before before the actual day.

[00:53:55.61] spk_2:
Yes, yeah, so we’ve we’ve opened up the days Ah Teoh do early registration and stuff like that because And actually, what’s interesting is that Arizona gives, for instance, which is, I think, April 11th this year they had about 720 organizations log on and register for the platform there, almost 1000 at this point. So more and more non profits are saying you know what we want. We want to invest in and work with our community, and that’s it’s a rising tides situation. So giving events, if there’s one in your community join it doesn’t matter if it’s neon one or whatever, just do it because it’s gonna get a lot more attention this year

[00:54:33.60] spk_0:
and we gotta wrap up so I could stay on schedule. Let’s give a shout out to your what do you have coming up in April and where, where people go to find out about on April what 16th?

[00:54:41.44] spk_2:
Yes, April 16th and we have a ton of resource is that we’re rolling out over the course of the next few weeks, including Ah, you know, just go tony on one dot com and we’re gonna have a dedicated page just for all of some rapid response resource is to get funds into nonprofits hands quicker. That is what we need right now because then they can tell their story better. So that’s what we’re gonna be doing.

[00:55:08.39] spk_0:
I want to compliment you on being coordinated between your T shirt and that portrait on your say that is that portrait on the wall in red and black

[00:55:11.22] spk_2:
that is shaken Avara

[00:57:15.85] spk_0:
of our Congratulations on your coordination. Thank you. He’s Tim San Antonio director, Strategic partnerships at Neon one. Thank you very much, Tim. Thank you. And thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 20 NTC, as we mentioned. Sponsored at 20 NTC by Cougar Math and Software Denali Fund. Is there complete accounting solution? Thank you for that Thumbs up. All right. Made for non profits made for non profits. It’s great. Tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for 40 free 60 day trial. Thanks so much reading with us next week. Lawrence Paige No Ni returns with his new book, Fundraising 401 I wonder if he’s inspired by Fahrenheit 911 and I still wish you would pronounce his name Panyu. Tony, I have not forgotten that if you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com. I’m gonna challenge him with that Panyu tony. Maybe I don’t have done that before, but he can count on it again were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers. Wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for you non for non profits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Ah, creative producer is clear, Meyerhoff. I did the post production Sam Liebowitz managed extremely shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our Web guy and this music is by Scots. They’re with me next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great talking alternative radio 24 hours a day.

Nonprofit Radio for August 9, 2019: Getting Buy-In & Your Tech Committee

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Liz Polay-Wettengel & Karim Lessard: Getting Buy-In
TDissent tactics. Rebellion. Resistance movement strategies. You’ve got to take risks if you want to move out of the past with fresh ideas that are supported within your org. Our 19NTC panel has examples of successful and failed risk taking. They’re Liz Polay-Wettengel with Interfaith Family and Karim Lessard from 7 Simple Machines.





Peter Schiano & Ilene Weismehl: Your Tech Committee
Peter Schiano and Ilene Weismehl say you need a committee to keep you alert to areas where you can better leverage technology. Your committee’s agenda includes budget, security, projects underway, and training. Peter is at Tech Impact and Ilene is with Community Catalyst. (Also from 19NTC)





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Transcript for 452_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20190809.mp3 Processed on: 2019-08-09T19:45:33.607Z S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results Path to JSON: 2019…08…452_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20190809.mp3.573287994.json Path to text: transcripts/2019/08/452_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20190809.txt Hello and welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown into oppcoll mope Legia if I saw that you missed today’s show. Getting buy-in descent tactics, Rebellion, resistance movement strategies You’ve got to take risks if you want to move out of the past with fresh ideas that are supported within your organ. Our 1990 seep panel has examples of successful and failed risk taking their Liz pull a wetting gal with Interfaith family and Kareem Lassard from Seven Simple Machines and your Tech Committee. Peter Schiano and Eileen West y Smell. Say you need a technology committee to keep you alert to areas where you can better leverage tech. Your committee’s agenda includes budget security projects underway and training. Peter is that Tech impact and Eileen is at community catalyst that is also from 19 NTC Tony stick to Living Trusts Responsive by Wagner C. P A. Is guiding you beyond the numbers regular cps dot com I saw your eyes roll when I said Living trust. Do not do that. I didn’t know I roll on the preview to the Tonys. Take to you. Hang in there until Tony Stick do, and you’ll see that there was no need for that. I roll that I just saw Who else was sponsored by by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for non-profits tony dot m a slash Cougar Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for non-profits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to DOT CEO. Let’s go to getting buy-in from 19 NTC. Welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of 19 NTC. You know what that is? It’s a 2019 non-profit technology conference. You know that we’re at the convention Center in Portland, Oregon, and you know that all of our 19 NTC interviews are brought to you by our partners at Act Blue Free fund-raising tools to help non-profits make an impact. You know all that. What you don’t know is that I am now with these Pele wetting gell and Kareem. Lassard is vice president, digital strategy and content at Interfaith Family, and Kareem is the CEO at seven simple machines. Welcome, Liz Karim. Welcome to the show Thank you. Thank you very much. Pleasure. Pleasure to have you. Your topic is you want a revolution. I want a revelation getting the buy-in you want. I love buy-in topics. Yeah, I’ve had a couple. Last year, there were two women. Um, I thought I’d write their names down, but, uh, way tagged them the buy-in bitches. That goes really well with what we’re talking about. Two. Okay, I hope it does more than you think. You know my Really Okay. Okay. Excellent. Uh, yeah, they were They were very into it, and it just it developed during the show. They didn’t come in being the buying bitches, but they left being the buy-in. Um, all right, so Oh, here they are. I didn’t write it down so I can call my own notes my own podcast that I wanted to because I want to shout them out. Carrie Lewis and Larry Koch. Last year’s NTC They were the buy-in bitches because they had the exact same topic. Um, you you you have something called descent tactics and resistant movement strategies. All right, we’re gonna get into those. Why? Let’s let’s start with the basics. But I’m teasing. I love resistance, movement strategies. This sounds like anarchy. I love it. Anarchy goods put back. Yeah. Okay, So since was said that I’m gonna for the benefit of the listeners who don’t have the multi color for color video. Lizzie’s hair will you describe the color of your hair? The colors of your hair? It’s what are they? Blue and purple and a little bit of pink. And it’s it varies. And sometimes it changes month to month because it’s very interesting. I’ve got a lot of compliments on your eye. Shadow matches one of the colors in the air. Yeah, Booth was matching blue in there. All right, So, uh, why do we have to have a top wise boys buy-in so damn important? Karim, let’s start down the end with you. Why is this so put your CEO. Yeah. Why? You got way? Why you all of you so much trouble. Why can’t we get your attention, right? Why can’t you? Why can’t we get you to believe what we know? To be fact, you know, that’s a really great question. Buy-in is absolute critically important because it doesn’t matter if you have a great idea. If you don’t have the sort of allies behind you. You’re not gonna go anywhere with. It’s going. It’s going nowhere. Um, so that’s we spent a lot of time in our in our presentation talking about what are the different tools that you need to bring in to make sure that you’ve got not just buying that, that you’ve got the ability to articulate your vision, your idea. Get that buy-in but also so that you yourself believe in your vision as well, right? Because getting you to believe and the way you pitch it not not not humbly Percent. We’re gonna get okay, I can’t. So far, I’ve done roughly 30 interviews. I’m doing 37 this whole conference. We’re done roughly 30 so far, and I would say it’s every second or third interview. You gotta have buy-in from leadership. Absolute. Got to get the buy-in because and I mean, that applies to any program. Whether it’s checker, it’s fund-raising, our program, its operations. If if the C suite doesn’t buy-in, you’re going, you’re hardly going anywhere, or you’re going nowhere and and buy-in and this is not just the C suite. It’s also your co workers. Your constituents It’s everybody you need to have the buy-in in orderto have that buy-in really have to believe in the idea that you’re you have to believe in it. All right? So I don’t know. Does that lead us to dissent? Tactics? Sure. Can we go there? What is this about his descent tactic? There’s, Ah, there’s a lot to be learned from from punk rock, right? There’s a There’s a lot to be learned about believing in what you’re talking about, believing in a little bit of anarchy. You’re a musician or am I Am a handy. I played both bass and drums. Where what’s the band? Come, I don’t have a band. I actually just play around. I play with Ladies Rock Camp in Boston and, uh, really support some of the stuff that they dio. It’s really fun. I play for myself, and it’s just a really good outlet. So you could have called this lessons from punk rock. I could have called this lessons from punk rock, but if Karim would you? I don’t know if you would buy into that, you know, the best way would you appear of bought into that? I would have loved to buy into that. I’m actually a former banker, so I love the fact we’ve got the punk rocker in the banker in one place. Okay, Okay. Former bank former. All right, All right. So acquaint me with us, please. With the descent tactics. So there’s there’s lots of different kinds of dissent tactics, and, you know, some of them you can use some of you can’t. You certainly don’t want to use any violent, distant tactics. Okay, but there’s a lot of buy-in that you can get theirs theirs direct descent tactics where you Okay, give me some examples. So some examples are you stand up to your CEO and say, No, I’m not gonna do that. And just very directly, just descent. There’s a lot to be said for that. For having your voice and being convicted enough in what you believe in. That’s not being humble. That’s not being humble at all. No, And you can’t really be humbled. This is a situation where you have a disability and modesty. It doesn’t no place it has no place here. And some of the stuff that we talked about also in this session is about really believing in yourself and having a voice and having chutzpah like that’s what we talked about, really is really just like having the Do you like the booth balls? Todo You weren’t gonna be offended. You you were. You were 8/10 of the way there. I turned a career before. This is the way they’re have the balls. I turned to Karim earlier, before we started, It was like, I can’t curse. I have. You can’t stop myself from cursing this time last year. Well, we did say buy-in bitches, but But that’s not one of the FCC. Seven words. But this time last year, non-profit video had I am enough of affiliate stations. So we’re bound by the FCC. So we couldn’t go too much further beyond bitches. But this year now, the bilich program has ended way had, like, 12 15 stations and that really got to never scale. So we don’t have so we’re not bound by that. So you can Okay, thank you. Can’t swear. So another way that you can apply to send tactics to what you want to do is repetitive, repetitive descent actives repeating over and over. What? This idea is what the change you want to make is being repetitive and being thoughtful about what you’re repeating. Because the more you repeated, the more people will buy-in, the more they will want to listen to why you want to make this change. Why this is important to the organization, to your department, to your idea on dhe. Then there’s also solution based descent tactics where you have an answer and you have a proven answer. And one of the things that we talk about is putting those tools together. Have those solutions in front of you so that you can say this is what we should do. This is why we should do it. Here’s a solution we should expect. It’s time for a break. Wagner, CPS. They’ve got another free webinar. This one is on August 21st. Fair Labor Standards Act nuts, bolts and updates. You want to calculate the regular rate of pay and overtime for employees correctly or for yourself? You want to understand paid versus unpaid time. And of course, there’s a lot more in the webinar. You goto Wagner cps dot com, Click Resource is and upcoming events. If you can’t make it live, you need the archive, go to weather cps dot com Click resource is and reported events simple. See the symmetry there? All right, now back to getting buy-in. This is provocative stuff. I love this one that’s helpful. Isn’t coming to have someone come with a solution and not just not strictly a problem. Yeah, we talked about that. You know, if you are if you have ah, a dissenting opinion and and you don’t have a plan, then you are a contrarian or a malcontent, right? You need to have a plan. And so will we spend our time talking about in the session is is that you’re gonna have to have a plan to be able to execute on your vision And by the way, having a vision that is separate than your organization, That is a form of dissent. And you just have to accept that you have to accept that you’re dissenting having say that again if you have a vision that is different than that of your organization, Yeah, you’re dissenting and so own that. Be punk. Rock that way on that. And then let’s start using the tools to get your plan put together, OK? Eso if we’re if we’re gonna use these descent tactics on again, I’m saying this as much for myself as maybe maybe not the others. Maybe, but that this is not only when you’re going to the C suite. This does apply for your peers, your colleagues, those working for you, with you and as well as above. Okay, yeah. I mean, part of part explicit again. Part of dissenting and backing it up is having a story. It’s also about having allies. You need to have allies you need to, like, build your There is strength in numbers. You need to build your band of a bunch of people. Want people believe this is true. That’s more persuasive than one person believes, right? So, starting a revolution, right? That’s what we’re talking about here, starting a revolution. I want a revelation, Right. You have to have your band of brothers, right? Your band of sisters. You know, your brothers and sisters who are who are at your side with their swords as well, believing in what you’re talking about. Their sports says words lorts lorts There’s a w in their report of the country sports s words towards. There’s a feeling there? No, but every word I’m a native New Yorker world York I’ma Nugent, New Jersey. I’m Swartz lorts. You know you’re not backing off that doubling down on sports? All right, I’m descending. Okay. Dissenting from mirriam Webster. Hey, Doesn’t get any rock solid than that. I mean, bedrock America of truth telling. I will fight that with with my story and my guts. Tell me you have some examples of rebellion. Let’s let’s digress a little bit. Karim, Tell me. Tell me one of your the example stories you’ve got. One of the stories is actually and we’re talking about punk rock. We spend a lot of time working with intra preneurs. People have great ideas like within their organization. And this 11 woman that we’ve been working with in particular, had been just battling in her industry for years for, like, 10 years to try to get a shift in how in a workflow very, very basic shift in workflow so that they could actually spend less time doing sort of administrative tasks and more time providing care for patients. And she really didn’t have all she was doing was complaining about it for a really long time. And finally, once we were able to start talking to her about it and building a plan, we were able to put together a a solution that saved a huge amount of time from this workflow in her organization. We think it’s going to shift the industry for, um, and now all that frustration. All that aggravation that she’d been experiencing for the last decade is now sort of coming coming to fruition because she’s she’s got a plan and she’s executing on it. What’s the work at seven simple machines? What do we do? Lots of data aggregation across disparate systems. So it could be It could be. You’ve got different payroll systems. You’ve gotta see Aram. You’ve got applicant tracking systems. All of those things need to be brought together into a single platform so that you can make sure that you’re turning data into actionable information. Okay. And how was it that you were working with this woman in health care? You know, we didn’t start in healthcare. We started. This is a woman that that I knew by by friendship, and I couldn’t listen to her complain anymore. You said a decade, A lot of pain. It was a lot of complaining, but then we started talking about it professionally, and we started putting it together, and it felt like a real thing. And lo and behold, it is a real thing, and it’s it’s taking root within that within the industry. And so if you’re complaining about something for that long, something has to change, right? So you have to have the idea. Put the idea together. You could be the one. If you’re complaining about your systems, if you’re complaining about you know the way that your organization is doing something, put a plan together to change that, it can be you. It doesn’t have to be somebody else. You can be the change. Absolutely. It starts with you because if it’s not you, who else is gonna do it? There is nobody I learned in the old Boy Scout rule. I learned there’s nobody named somebody else. That’s right. Somebody else not gonna pick up trash on the trail. That’s right. And so why? Why wait for somebody else to do it when you could do-it-yourself? Yeah, and you’ll do it best. Absolutely. Okay. It doesn’t require amplification. I agree. Absolutely white white. I’m not gonna amplify it. Um, okay. Resistance, movement strategies. What? I like you did. You did dissent. Tactics? What a resistance movement strategies, Corinne Well resistant. I mean, those air detent tactics, right? It’s the same thing. But anything you repackage, it’s, well, it’s it’s descent. But then it’s being methodical about it because you can’t If you think about people that have been revolutionary, no one’s doing it themselves, right? It’s a matter of like taking descent, being orderly about how you assemble what your your vision and then sharing with your allies and then acting on it. I mean, you know, Joan of Arc wasn’t by herself, right? Harvey Milk wasn’t by himself. You know, they all went through this process of finding their allies, starting with the scent, but then having a story that they could share, right, And that’s the thing. We work really well together. Listen, I do because I have some of these tools, but Liz is is an amazing storyteller, and you can’t. It’s not just a simple custard of writing something down in a grid. You have to be able to share the narrative if you’re gonna engage people in a in a very purposeful way. And the story is usually emotional. It’s a motion based. There’s if you’re complaining about anything within your organization, you have an emotion about that. So there’s a story to tell on this woman woman you were describing, Karim. Yes, she stayed there 10 years. Somebody else might have left. Yeah, she was doing it for 17 years complaining about everything. No, she was in the industry for 17 complaining for 10. But it was actually, though is very funny. It was really almost an act of love that she stuck it out. I mean, she cared about what she was doing to the point that she she almost couldn’t let it go. And while that story is about something in health care that really applies to non-profits because most of us are here because we believe in our missions and we love what we’re doing. We love what our organization’s air about. So sticking it out of love and telling that story about why something needs to change. That’s impactful. You’re gonna empower people who hear this. I know you are. You could be the buy-in bitches. Dude, that’s a one way s Meyer is part of the buy-in bitches. You got to be two way already. Got the original metoo buy-in, which is a hey is better than two buy-in bitches be to metoo. Um, okay, so let’s talk strategy. Okay, You’ve got Let’s say you’ve got Ah, but you got to start getting your peers together, so we gotta get some numbers. How did how did you get this and get myself started? Well, you start by creating the story, so you create the story that you need to tell, and you just sort of socialize it. You know, a conference like this is a great place of socializing idea because you’re around people who think similarly to you, and you can socialize an idea. You know, I was thinking about this. What do you think about that? That socialization can either manifest in different ways. You can booster story and help you move forward, or it can give you a different way of thinking, so it helps enhance what you’re doing. So so that’s a really good way to crowdsource. Yeah, crowdster kruckel crowdsourcing. I was gonna add to that. You know, one of the things, especially this is a technology conference and we use We talked about using the agile development methodology and being agile capital A being Angela, you can start with something very simple. You can start with just a hey, what do you think about this? You start with something simple, but then, if you’re willing to liberate, if you’re willing, Thio, try again and go back, take some learnings. Um, and can continue. Iterating. What starts out as a conversation between two people here at at NTC can turn into a ah, whole new platform by a revolution. A revolution? That’s right. Okay, that’s what we’re here for, right? So let’s say now you’ve got your peer support. They’ve come on somewhere unwilling. What do you do with their? Well, what do you what do you do with the recalcitrance? Leave them behind Kareem. Everybody who works for the council, it’s well, it’s funny, so that that’s part of it is one understanding your stakeholders are going through an identifying cause. He didn’t have to identify who champions are potential champions are you have to be able to know who you’re sort of collaborators are. But then you also need to know who the challengers are too, because you don’t call them enemies, Enemies, enemies too strong. Because you know what? You don’t want them to be. Your enemy sounds so permanent challenge. So by identifying the challengers there, they probably have some good reasons for challenging. And you need to understand those. You need to understand what’s in it for them. You know why? Why? They’re standing up to fight, because you are gonna have to overcome objections. Absolutely every single time. So you’re learning as you’re going. Yeah, and you need to be open to listen. You need to know cannot be open toe listeningto challengers because the challengers could really make your idea stronger. They absolutely will. They will. They’ll make your argument stronger, at least, you know, And they might make you right. You right there might strengthen the idea too. So internally for me, I turned to my CEO to challenge me when I have an idea. When I have a crazy, wacky idea of what I want to do, I turn to her because I know that she’s gonna challenge me. But it helps me think through that idea even further and makes my idea even stronger. You have you have some examples of? We’re gonna continue our process. I’m not leaving there, but I’m digressing a little bit. We’ll come back. That’s my responsibility. Get us back. Success, successes and failures in risk taking. You tell your dad cerini told the last neo-sage e-giving carrying Karim has a good failure story. I’ve got several just taking it. So actually, my father was a very politically active guy back in the back in the sixties. Um, and he first of all, he did decided take over the student union building at Cornell with some friends of his with the Black Panthers. That was That was not a well thought out plan because he could no longer attend that school. Right? That was a that was That was a short sighted aggregation of your allies. Is there? Is there a Is there a title to this movement? This this particular action like, is there a Wikipedia page for this action? There is. This is the What’s it going? Is it the Black Panther student union Take over at Cornell. Cornell? Okay. Yeah, it was It was about There were there were guns. Okay. Not well thought out. Not not well thought out. Okay. But then, actually, so interestingly enough, he did have, like, later on, he became a doctor and he actually started setting up methadone clinics in the Seattle area. And the whole point was to be able to provide a service that he thought was really important to a marginalized community. So this was important to him on, and it was more well thought out. Except it was also still Filoni ous right? So he felt like he felt like he was doing the right thing and he had the right allies to get behind it, but it was still against the law. And so this is one of those things where you have a great idea. But even if it’s a great idea and it might seem objectively like it’s a great idea, you really have to doom. Or you have to have a plan to goes from beginning to end front, back because otherwise, you know it’s only a matter of time before you end up in federal prison. What’s your Your dad is still living. He’s deceased. I was gonna ask what’s his next action gonna pay but carries on you carrying on? Look at you talking about. He would be thrilled that you’re talking about dissent and and revolution. But that’s the idea to do it inside the system. And if he had a thought out plan, he would have thought Just tried to change those laws first before go ahead and going ahead and opening this clinic. So if you have that plan of what goes where, then your idea can really come to fruition in a really impactful way. Okay, Okay. All right. Let’s go back to our process. We’ve got our strategy, will go back to our strategy. We’ve got our allies now. Now we need to persuade leadership. Is that the next stage? Yeah. The case, Yes. How do we open the door? Let’s say the leadership, Maybe they’ve heard some rumblings, but they didn’t take notice for whatever reason. So how do we open the door? Formally, you walk in that door and you start to speak. Because if you don’t believe in your idea at this point, if you don’t believe in what you’re talking about, if you don’t have your plan in your strategy than what are you doing with it? Can’t just like, take it and put it in your pocket. You have to open your mouth. You have to make a meeting. You have to have a conversation. You have to have the balls to walk into sea seaweed office and say I have an idea. I have a plan behind it. I have the reasons why it should be done. And you should listen to me. You need to be able to have that. That ability to walk in that door. What ultimate confidence? Yeah, and one of things we talked about this session is using. You know, I talked about coming from banking, using corporate tools t ve eloped the metrics that you need to be able to make your case right. So being able to make your case from a from a potential upside, But we also in a very downside risk avoidance, right? Those those are other things that you have to be able to communicate. Like the cost of doing nothing, right? That’s a thing. We’ve all we’ve all fought against. The way the opportunity cost. Absolutely not of that acting. That’s right. But you have to believe in that. You really have to If you’re going to go through all this trouble to go through what we’re talking about about this strategy. To get there. To prove your idea to yourself, you need to be ableto voice that you can’t just put it in your pocket. If you believe in this idea enough, you’re gonna walk into that C suite, you’re gonna walk into the board meeting and you’re gonna have a conversation about this and you’re gonna have the idea and the plan to back it up. You do believe in it. By now, you’ve been cultivating the idea among your peers, right? So have the ball, right and yeah, not not be. Ah. Well, we already said not be humble, not be modest, but exude the confidence. You know, in the passion. Don’t be afraid to show you that’s what I’m trying to be afraid to show the passion for your idea. That’s right. Okay, I’m in. I’m in the CEO’s sweet. Now it’s, you know, a formal setting. I have to be professional. And you know what? Whatever that means and and modest and no, no, you could have passion. I mean, it’s persuasive. Let them feel the emotion right. And in my own experience, having that passion means Maur to the sea. It’s just people in the C suite or on the board because they see how invested you are and how much you believe in that and having the allies behind you that also believe in that is powerful. How do you, uh, how do you convey the numbers that are about that air with you? Just say, you know, eight of us they’ll come in if you want. Is that good enough for you because you go in and Mass? Not in the first meeting. You don’t neo-sage storm the c suite storming the jail. That’s the ale. Um, okay, but no. But But you do talk about the numbers I’ve talked. I’ve talked to Liz and Annie and Joe and Pam, and they all agree, And you could ask them and it’s it’s prototyping and it’s surveys and it’s hot. It’s really aggregating that information. You have to be able Thio tell a credible story that you’ve got some supporting proof they’ve got to be able behind. You might not have him show show up there, but if you can relate the stories if you can aggregate the people that are that are in some meaningful way that that really helps a lot. And I do want to add that sometimes it’s not even just going to the C suite. It could be that you’re at in admin or managerial level, and you have an idea of your department. It could just being going to your boss. It’s not it’s not. It doesn’t have to be as big is walking into a board meeting or C suite. It could just be using these tactics and to put forth an idea that’s just for your department. Okay, for sure, you know, So I like to think they I like to think big, too. But I also want to bring it by institutional change. I want to bring it back there. It could start with Justice Department change. You know, it could start with a changing A system for volunteermatch management. It could be very simple. It doesn’t have to be a big idea. It could just be that you need Thio. Could be. You know, I want to be able to store my lunch for a week in the community refrigerator, and I have a way that we have a law. We have a policy that knows no personal storage overnight, right? Okay. It can be simple. It doesn’t have to be this elaborate change. A large organization. It can be simple. Like I want to store my lunch for for a week. Here’s my idea. And here’s the plan on how we could make that happen. And in the spirit of being agile, the power and that is with starting something with something smaller, something modest is that you get that success. You get that win, you go. Oh, wait a minute. I was able to do that. You got the wind at your back, right? Right. I may change. Why stop here? There are other things that I feel passionate about. Besides, my curdled yogurt changes and always have to be big way love. Big changes. But change can start really small, too. He’s going on a sword for his old yogurt, especially the Greek on my final lactose free one toe. Let’s get the green valleys going belly. Okay. We have, like, another minute and 1/2 or so. So, um, we started with you, Liz, didn’t we? Yeah. So, Corinne, why don’t you give us a wrap up you have to be too sure. You know, take a minute or so wrap us up yet the thing So that the title of the of the session is you want a revolution? I want a revelation. And the thing that lives articulates just really well, at the end of the presentation is that the revelation is that your voice matters and being able to see that evidence of your idea with dissent from the common opinion to see that idea coming to life is a revelation when you’re acting on it. And so, like, we’re just saying you establish a foothold by doing it. Maybe in small ways. But then, as you apply this process and you repeat it, you iterated, you can make bigger and bigger changes. And that’s the thing that we want people to carry. Okay. Okay, So are we. Agreed? You want to be the buy-in bitches? Be too sure. Okay. Yeah, totally comfortable with that. I’m comfortable with that. Okay. Okay. I’m gonna I’ll I’m gonna check with you before we march promoted that way as I did as I did with I want to shout out again, Carrie Lewis and Lower Koch. I asked them. Do you mind if I call the segment buy-in bitches? And they both emailed me back and one was in a new employer. And she said, Yeah, let me check. It was so I’m totally fine. We’ll check again just to make sure. All right, So, uh attn least preliminarily buy-in bitches v two They are Liz, pull a wetting gell, vice president of digital strategy and content and interviewed family and Kareem Lassard, CEO at seven Simple machines. Thank you so much, Karim. Thanks. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you for being with Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of 19 NTC. All of our 19 ntcdinosaur views are brought to you by our partners at Act Blue Free fund-raising tools To help non-profits make an impact. We need to take a break. Cougar Mountain software maintaining separate accounts for each fund-raising. Daily expenses reporting to the board. These air all a challenge. That is why Cougar Mountain created Denali Fund to get you past these challenge ages. It’s your complete accounting solution. Specifically designed for 501 C three non-profits. They have a free 60 day trial at the listener landing page. Tony dot M a slash Cougar Mountain. Now time for Tony’s Take Two living trusts. Now, as I admonished, no need for the eye roll here. Um, you know, I always say that place to start your plan giving is with bequests, and that remains true. No changing, no going back on that. But if you decide to go a little further, these trusts, these very simple trusts can be a good next step in planned e-giving. We call them living trust. Sometimes they’re called revocable trusts. These things are set up by people who wanna avoid having a will, right, so they put everything into their trust. If it’s done right, a lot of times it’s not. But let’s assume it is because because they’re working with you so they know what they’re doing. So they put everything in their trust when they die. What happens? Well, just like a will. The trust says where everything goes, including where you know the residue, the residual whatever’s left after after gif ts to spouse and children, grandchildren, whatever’s left. That can be your charity. You can be the remainder beneficiary of these trusts and, uh, just like a will, because we say remainder beneficiary doesn’t mean we’re talking about pennies. There could be a lot of money left in the residual estate, all right, and that can be divided up and your charity can get a piece. I just had a client. Got $300,000 as, ah, residual beneficiary of these of a living trust, right? There’s a lot more on living trusts on my video at tony martignetti dot com. If you’re gonna roll your eyes, then don’t go to the video. I don’t want to see that, but these can be a valuable, valuable plan gift. You know it’s your life. The video is that tony martignetti dot com That’s all I’ll say. And that is Tony’s Take two. Now it’s time for your tech committee. Welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of 19 NTC. That’s the 2019 non-profit Technology Conference. We’re coming to you from the convention center in Portland, Oregon. All of our 19 ntcdinosaur views are brought to you by our partners at ActBlue Free fund-raising. Tools to help non-profits make an impact with me now are Peter Schiano and Eileen Y Smell. Peter is project manager and consultant at Tech Impact and Eileen y smell is the knowledge and database manager at community Catalyst. Catalyst, That catalyst kind of cannibalistic catalyst. The catalyst. They’re not cannibals. Um, these When it goes well, Peter, Peter and Eileen welcome a pleasure to have you, um, our tech committee. Let’s start with you. I mean, what what? Why do we need a tech committee? There’s multiple reasons. Part of it is to ensure that staff are engaged in the process, to be sure that it’s not just held in the tech world, that you’ve crossed programmatic and cross functional staff who are involved in decision making and exploration on and who can also serve as ambassadors to the rest of the staff. Okay, okay. Bringing tech to the broader community. However, we define whether that’s just internal or external. I should have said that your workshop topic is moving your plan forward Tech committees that work, Peter. Anything you want to add? Thio do our headline, and you’re thinking about why a tech meeting or what it does when I talk about it often use the roots metaphor. And so the tech committee draws needs and pain points and requirements up from the roots, including requirements for new applications you might be using. And then it nurtures the Tech that’s available back down all the way into the organization. So they’re the purpose. The Tech committee is to keep that conversation evergreen about tech within the organization across in all the way down to every stakeholder. So it’s not just the purview of the vision leads or of the department leads or of the I T team, but they’ve got a conversation. If you got an idea, you know where take it, take to the tech Committee. Okay, Who belongs on our tech committee? That’s a good question. Let Eileen talk about how they chose who they’ve got their start there. Okay, so we looked both cross organizational. Both cross programmatic and cross, some functional. So we have senior managers in there, some people from our executive team, admin staff, and then feel team members, people who are actually doing work on the ground since they all bring a perspective of help us ask the right questions for the work that needs to be done. OK? And how many people is that we have seven people on our team? Okay, meets Does a tech committee meet regularly, or only when their tech issues. So are there. Always. DEC issues making. That’s all of the above and our team and Peter and I’ve talked about this is less pure tech and more governance. So we meet, um monthly. We have a right standing monthly meeting, and it’s high level strategy. So there were asking them questions like, What are the questions that are keeping you up at night? What air the problems you need to solve and then exploring ways that the tools can meet those needs. So for them, it’s it’s a little It’s not a how to use. It’s really exploring what the needs of the organization that needs our eyes. The committee led by or facilitated by by you. Okay, Is that is that a good practice? You think you have a tech person leading it? Well, in my case, I’m I’m kind of I’m an accidental techie, so I kind of bridge both worlds and that I’m the database manager, but I’ve worked in development. I’ve worked in other areas, so I think I think it e I don’t think it has to be someone in my role, but it is working well Yeah, Peter, I would think that that’s probably better Practice. Like to have a I mean, people are gonna be invited a ll the diverse groups that Arlene is describing gonna be invited to a tech committee. Now that I think about it, they probably expected to be led by someone who works in tech. Yes. So in our experience that the important thing is it needs to definitely be lead from within the organization. And it should be. It’s ideal. If somebody is a tech organization tech background that leads it, that’s not critical. I think what is important is that they have access to somebody that can advise them and participate that has that tech backgrounds. Look, if you have a nightie leader, that person can convene it and you’re all set. If you don’t have a nightie leader could be any program or executive leader. Anybody that wants to lead the organization lead the tech committee, but they need to be able to season those ideas with somebody that has tech depth and experience that can come from their board that can come from a volunteer donor. There are We offer a vote for virtual CEO service tech impact to be able to offer that kind of advice. But you should have somebody there that season it with. Think about the security implications. Think about what you’re trying to do has been done elsewhere. You don’t to reinvent the wheel dunk. Oh, customers. Plenty of great free software. Inexpensive, suffered will solve your problem. But that shouldn’t have to be the person. It leads it necessarily. Okay, how about the frequency of meeting you have Month only seems to make stands you want you wanna have, Ah, drumbeat. Where you’re constantly thinking about what’s important, what should be prioritized. How are the project that we put in flight? And the tech committee itself doesn’t execute every project. Their their job is the surface needs pick direction and then call for action. But they don’t have to be the one doing all the lifting. Right? Right, Well, because they’re not all technical mazarene was describing. In fact, most or not, you’re the only person on the committee I mean, yes, but there are people there, super users on the committee. So there are some people who are very savvy and understand the technology, so they’re not officially but they’re in the Luke. Okay, okay. Yeah, sure. The committee is not That is not a project management committee. This is surfacing. As you said, Peter surfacing needs you. Both said bring needs. Bring needs to the leadership. Is it sort of? Is the committee sort of maybe both. A buffer and a liaison between C suite and users. Is there any of that when you bring the needs? If you’re surfacing, needs thes needs to be have to be funded. That funding is gonna come from the C suite. So is that Is that one of the committee’s rolls to make make the case for the for the needs that the committee is identified, they might make the case. But also, you have to say that not everything that gets elevated in this group is going to become the next-gen did or a priority, even a priority. So, you know, if it becomes something where we say this is the way it is and they would help make the case, it wouldn’t necessarily be funding. It might be just making the case of how we can roll this out. It might be, you know, in the case of if you’re using a C. R M and might be just using it in a new way where you wouldn’t need funding, but you would need other staff engaged. Yeah, I think the Tech Committee they discussed the tech budget. They should be a voice in the tech budgeting process. They’re trying to set priorities for tech for the organization. So absolutely, that has has to have close contact with executive leadership. To be able to get that funding and then also buy-in for other resource is like time and priority and behavior change. It’s the hardest part. If change isn’t lead from the top, it won’t usually stick. And so it needs to beat your needed from the bottom. But then, once the commitment is there, you’ve got a lead by example from the top. And if you don’t have alignment with the executive team, then you’re not gonna be successful. Probably Eileen, how does your committee prioritize different needs that do get surfaced? So we, um, it has to do with really? Because they’re our capacity limitations. I mean, that’s some of it is like, what are the things that if we don’t do them, the work’s gonna stop I mean, that’s sort of where it’s at. In our case, we actually identify two priorities that went to we created really project management, working groups that then did implement, then did take it further. So it’s a kind of things that just get in the way of moving the work forward. That’s that’s how it is. And if it’s a nice toe, have, then that gets moved further down. Okay, so you have to arbitrate where everybody who brings a need feels that their priority, they should be priority number one. Right? Because you, Peter, you said that the organization has a place to bring its tech needs, right? So, uh, program fund-raising, other operations of finance legal. If you’re that big an organization and they’re all bringing needs, they’ve all got needs. And then to them, these are all. Each one is number one. Yeah, I’m one of the things that committee as the arbiter of these competing right. And one thing that’s that’s a helpful part of that process is they put together a backlog and that backlog. It’s re prioritized over time, and I’m a fan of encouraging those teams to publish their backlog and give people a sense of what things you’re thinking about. That helps that helps people get used to the fact that change is coming. So it helps with resistance to change. And it helps people think about. Boy, if we’re going to do a new donor management system, maybe in six or 12 months I’m gonna talk to my friends about what they’re used. Do they like it or not? Where if you tell me it’s starting tomorrow and I was much time to get engaged, and I could be thinking about how is that gonna affect my job? And I can be a better participant in that requirement gathering if I’ve had some time to soak on it. So it’s not always the world’s worst thing that things don’t get worked on right away. Sometimes you get a better outcome if they had a little bit of soak time, even if they don’t ever get him. At least I know they were heard. I meet on the list and I agree the other stuff is hopefully important. They’re working on instead, and you get a sense of transparency, which is nice. That’ll help assuage and also and has other benefits too. But terms of you know what I was asking about. People feel better. At least they heard their priority got on the list. It’s not where they want it to be on the list, but it made it session. I’m going to after this is how assessments can help build adoption. And that’s that’s that’s I think they’re gonna talk about what we’re just talking about. People are involved in the requirements gathering. They’re more likely to buy-in on its when it’s time to actually go implement and go live. Okay, I think a part of your session was Have you done in your session already? It’s tomorrow. It’s tomorrow. Okay. We’ll be approaches to craft rushing requirements and s. So how how do you encourage ideas to come? That is, that. Is that What is that? What approaches to crowd sourcing requirements that I’ll speak for that one? I guess so, Yeah, that’s the committee. Whichever parts of the committee are going to be touched by the software, it’s only finance. You wouldn’t go gather a lot of things from program if not to be involved. But for every area that it touches, say serum, it’s gonna touch everything. You ask those people to go back to their areas and then do a threshing session with their teams. And, you know, I actually will do a facilitation around multi voting where people get to put sticky notes for ideas and then go give them five votes. And if you’re passionate about something, you can put all five votes on one thing or distribute them as you see fit and the priorities rise up really quickly. But everybody feels like they were involved in this process again. That roots metaphor coming in from all sections, the organization leading into one central set of requirements. And no, they’re not in the final meeting, where those are all arbitrated, but they like their voice was in there. And you get the benefit of the best ideas. People will see it from another area. Go. I never would’ve thought of that. Brilliant. And you’ll get it in the system. I lean. You do something similar to that? No, but it’s a great idea. Okay, you will. I’m going to stop that immediately. OK, time for our last break. Turn to communications, PR and content for your non-profit. They help you tell your compelling stories and get media attention on those stories, all the while helping you build support for your work metoo media relations, content marketing, communications on marketing strategy and branding strategy. You’ll find them at turn hyphen to DOT CEO. We’ve got butt loads more time for your tech committee. We still have a good amount of time together. What maximizing the benefits and reach of tech you already have. Let’s spend time on that. Who wants to start with maximizing what you’ve already got? So a lot of organizations have a number of applications they’re not taking a good advantage of. And so seemingly trivial task of getting an inventory of what you’ve got and then publicizing it and publishing it someplace where people can get to it over time increases the chances that the stuff you have like should get used. And sometimes it exercise will also show you were using three different survey tools for no particular reason other than that happened in separate silos. We don’t have good cross training opportunities, but we all know a different tool, and you might make the choices to get standardized on it and letting people know which already have part of that is also nurturing the super uses that you were talking about and giving them a platform to share their expertise with their colleagues, whether through office hours or through lunch, and learn things like that so that they can raised the level of expertise of their colleagues and get people can all get deeper used to the system. A lot of the work I would do with with tech committees Virtual CEO role is making sure they’re getting the most of what they already own. It’s not just about doing new stuff. You’re spending more money. So you see a lot of you see a lot of this among the tech impact clients, not maximizing what they absolutely potential. And there are even the people who feel like they know it reasonably well. No, I know the system could do so much more. I’m too busy to get to it. But, wow, I don’t I don’t I don’t know what I don’t know or I know I wish these things were easier by it all the time. We get to it, and by getting those things to a tech committee, you can then thrash them and prioritize me. When it comes up on the list, you can figure out how to get the answer to get more juice out of the stuff you already own. I mean, have you seen that? Uh, I’m sorry. At a community catalyst where you’ve been ableto harvest greater potential, I don’t know whether to look over the mic or above below. No, it’s not because you’re too short. Well, all right. You guess you could do that, Peter. Okay. It just might. Okay, good. Yeah. Has that been your experience between the catalyst? This fire is leveraging. What’s there? Yeah. And it often has to be a reminder, because people get excited about the dew and un tried, say, like, you know, let’s can we do this? And it’s like what we do have, You know, we have something here and some people aren’t even using, like, we think we’re not even using to its full capacity. So it might be having new training’s people asked. In one module we have in our CR M, someone asked for improvements and that they’re unclear. And I said, Well, here’s the instruction sheet we created over time, they said, Oh, yeah, that helps And so sometimes it’s. People think there’s something new because they just need a refresher. They need to remind them. And it might be that changes are very minor compared to what they think you know. That’s just improving use. Okay, We still have Ah, good amount of time together. What else are you gonna talk about tomorrow? We’ll talk about surveying your gang so you can You can You can get things that might come in just kind of one off people. Oh, you’re in the community and give you this idea, but to explicitly, maybe twice a year reach out and asked for input. What hurts? What? Some cool things you’re doing. You think people would want to know about that hasn’t been shared yet. And this is surveying everybody serving your full organization in heaven. Having that survey results come into the committee’s here. What hurts What? People have things they want to do that weighs in-kind reports. We can’t get to whatever it is and so kind of. We’ll also talk about what we’re thoughts for. What’s the regular monthly agenda for that group? And what our agenda items that should be each handled once per month so twice. You’ll think about budget, at least wants to put it in and wants to review it. Okay, what else? We’ll also need to think about security. Security should be thought about everything you’re doing, but just kind of taking explicit look at security at least once a year. I don’t think it through else is on the agenda kind of the every. Every month you’re thinking about what were the projects that Aaron Flight? Just not that we’re managing, but we kind of wanna have oversight and especially ones that were recently introduced. How his adoption going. What are the roadblocks on? Why it’s not getting used so we could maybe make a tweak or some more training. What are any pain points people have come up with? What are any ideas that have come up and then for the priority list? Is there anything we’re ready to start? The bump next-gen for action? That’s kind of the every month agenda. But then you have to have time to deal with these periodic things, like, Okay, how are we doing against budget and what do we want to start doing to get next year’s budget together? Thinking about security thinking about policies and procedures. Way we’re doing more work from home. What does that mean? Way have tohave more capabilities for people to go to. Access Resource is remotely or tohave things control over their mobile devices. So if they quit, we can wipe our information thinking about job descriptions. Which job should be talking about a responsibility to have to be able to analyze data, to see trends and to see connections. What, You know what? Our job descriptions in terms of what tech skills people should be having that we seek a new hires kind of going through not just literally new applications that you might get thinking about. How do the people intersect technology and what some of the ways organizations can kind of build strength. Over time, I lean a community catalyst. What? What, uh, what do your agendas look like? Do you? You have You have something you do on a monthly basis or bunch of things to do a monthly it varies, and I’m actually gonna be restructuring. It’s soon, but I usually have some part where there’s a problem to solve where we need Thio. Uh, address that question and some of it I use for actually exploration because learning is another part that we’re going to talk about, that this group has to be constantly learning. It’s not just about the specific tasks, but that helping them understand the role of technology in our worth and how it links and what culture changes and how to help other people engage and just to look at it, a higher level, which isn’t where people naturally go. So there’s usually something on the agenda or have had some quiet activities. I’m saying I’m asking them a question asking them to actually take time with pencil and paper and start giving some real thought so that we can have some conversations. So it’s I don’t want to. It’s philosophical cause it does apply, but to some of our agenda is practical and some of it is really to help them get to a place of understanding technology’s role in our work. What are some of the things you do with the paper and pencil you have people deliberating about? So one was when we first moved to our C. R. M and people said, you know, we have a way of national organizations where partner organizations migrate them in. And they told me, do it right away. So I did. And then people was like, Well, what are we gonna do with it? And so I asked people to take time and think we have national partners. Why? So I had them say, like in a bubble, like a little cartoon bubble, like in three words like Tell me like three or four reasons that we engage with these partners or they engage with us. What is our relationship with them? And instead of thinking like, What fields can we put in in order to track it? That’s putting the cart before the horse. Yes, that’s but to really start thinking about like, Why do we need this relationships? How do we communicate with them? What do they want from us? And to go just deeper? And so I had them do that just quiet time and kind of manipulate a little bit. And then we came together and disgusted. And then you translate that into into fields into fields, and I really well, you know what we need to preserve about what do we need to preserve about these organizations, right? it is. And so when you know, I don’t answer it this way. When people say, you know, can you add a field for that isn’t what they should be asking me. They should be asking. They should be telling me why they needed and that’s what we’re getting for. So yes, so once we get to what they need, then I can implement, and then they contest it and they can see if it works. But to try to move, people wave like create a field for two. I need to know this for this reason, because the the what they want may already be recoverable through some food querying the existing data. It could be it could be or could not. But if if we don’t know the question, we can’t answer it. Yeah, what’s the purpose? It almost starts to overlap with data governance. Depending on how large you are, you might have a different team that’s doing that. But understanding hate data has to move between these two systems, so we better always call it kindergarten. And not Kay is really two different systems that when you go to line those data points up there, the same. And does the field already exist? Those kind of things. That level of detail maybe isn’t appropriate for latto Tech committees that they may. They may be a sub group that they push that off, too. But it does certainly overlap that the concepts of governance on the training front. We would encourage a tech committee to think big picture about that. Are there good onboarding experiences with people? And people often stop thinking about training after the word onboarding and that mrs most of the boat. Because most people’s onboarding experiences, it’s a fire hose. It wasn’t the teachable moment. I don’t need to use it yet. I’m not gonna remember it. So making sure that the onboarding experience is giving people things they could refer to later when they actually need it and then thinking about once they’re actually using the system and they want to use a deeper how are you supporting him in that? How can they go? Often people don’t do a lot of reporting at first, but then once they’re using it, if it’s useful, reporting should be the main win. That’s where you’re actually doing something with the data and often they don’t get that training in the beginning. And how did they get access to those kind of deeper features? How are they trained on how the systems change? Especially using cloud software might change every two weeks. And who’s responsible the organization for mastering the ongoing learning and echoing it back in your context, not the committee does this, but the committee’s thinking about who should do it and that they’re making sure that conversation and that planning is happening. So people are staying current on the tools they’ve got and on and on surfacing. Who’s doing experiments within the company? Somebody tried a new project management tool. It’s free and they love it and having a way to know that and to share it, to see if it resonates with anybody else and maybe get broader value within the organization. That’s that’s to me. A big part of what they do is letting people know across organization what’s who’s got, what knowledge and how they can spread that around. Let’s talk some about the policies, policies that the committee is. Is he preparing or reviewing Eileen What, what kinds of what kind of policies Your is your committee looking at, and this is actually something that I’m going to bring to them. They haven’t started on this, but one of them is. We’re, uh, in your two and 1/2 of our CR M were noticing that people aren’t updating records they’re supposed to be doing or not doing it the correct way. And so I need to bring to them that we need to figure out a new way, organizationally, to do this. Now, they’re not gonna be doing the data monitoring, but we have to figure out who’s gonna be entering the records. Who are the appropriate staff people. And how will we change this culture of engaging certain people to be updating things and nuts? And maybe I’m trying to think of how to phrase it. It’s a problem to solve. So right now, too many people have, uh, have the privilege of changing data. So I don’t know, something as simple as one person puts it in his avenue. Another person puts it in his A v e period. It’s gonna be a simple Is that a problem? That’s the walk in the park one. It’s more like people who don’t enter or entering. I guess that’s it. Like people who aren’t entering it or aren’t being careful enough, you know, abila like spelling misspelling the last name that’s you know, which I’ve seen. And so you know, that’s that’s a really serious one. Or like I said, you’re not entering it or not linking it appropriately to the right organization. And so it’s it’s lost, not entering conversation Well, that everyone is supposed to do. But yeah, as far as putting in the records. And so we It’s common, I think. What’s theorems that you have when you started? You let everyone do it and sort of see how it goes. And so we have to backtrack a little and say we need a little more quality control and so that’s real governance. So there’s a tension between having enough people to get the work done on having it done at a high enough level of quality where, you know, we’re not rife with ever. Yes, There you go. Okay. Well, yeah, but all I do is identify the problem. You gotta come up with a solution. Yes. Straddle that fence and I’m gonna engage the governance team toe Help troubleshoot this Of how we can identify. The staff were not gonna hyre admin staffs of somebody. We’re not gonna hyre new admin stuff. So it’s gonna be somebody who has another job that’s gonna have to do this, and they’re gonna need their health. Okay. Policies also go to things like security practices. What password, Man Policy. What’s the policy on what devices allowed to connect to our network? What we love to do and not do with thumb drives? Soto have to know that I need to have just the security policy and to get some advice on what should be in it and making sure you have it. And then is part of it when you talk about security. Reminded me of your colleague Jordan McCarthy. Oh, yeah. It was on the show in January. Yeah, talking about keeping your data, your data and your sight secure in 2019. That was, you know, Jordan from taking back. Okay, Yeah. He leads our security practice. Okay? And he can tell you about security in ways that multi authentication sign on anyway. So policies can also go to things that go beyond security. What’s one year? Lots work from home. From what locations. Are you allowed to work? And what happens when the remote employee lead? Well, first of all, who owns the tech at the hardware that they’re given and what happens to it when they leave? And what your policies around, how you recover machines were leaving a white remote machines? Were they supposed to store it in their home? Is it okay if it’s just on their desk or does have to be under lock? It could even be some like a clean desk policy so people can’t walk by and see confidential information if you’re not. Presidents actually tech policy, but overlaps because that’s the concept of locking a scream when you’re not in front of it and having a password. That old story that Steve Jobs used to fire somebody if they grab their apple phone and didn’t have a screen lock on it cause he didn’t want people seeing information about their products under development. Um, all right, so I think there’s a lot for your committee to be busy with. Sure one meeting a month is enough. You want to get you know what it is? I thought of twice a week I was able to entice them to do it more. Right. Okay, okay. Things that we talk about is the committee is also part therapist. People bring baggage when it comes to technology. They’ve had bad experiences with prior rollouts, either at this organization or elsewhere. They’ve heard rumors of somebody using this system you’re proposing to use that didn’t go well elsewhere. And so you have to kind of coach you’re alluding to. This is a change, management things. A big part of it is them giving people in their in their teams that they’re working with a chance to express their fears on, sir in doubt and kind of work them through that in advance. So why the time the zsystems actually getting rolled out? They’ve kind of heard the concerns, ideally, done something concrete to address them at a minimum, make him felt hurry, but ideally shown them how That’s Yes, that was true before, but here’s how they fixed it. That’s kind of the best way to allay fears. To say it was true. And it’s fixed, but not always that easy. Eileen, you’re running a committee, so I’m gonna give you the last word on moving your plan. forward to committees that work. What would you like to wrap up? What would you like to leave? Would you like to leave people with? I think it’s really essential to have the committee’s. I know that seems like a very considering we’re doing this thing. It’s pretty obvious, but I think it’s it’s a learning process, for B is a facilitator, and it’s it’s just critical to move things forward, to keep people learning, to keep people engaged in a real way not just, um, a symbolic engagement, which is like, You know, it’s very easy to say we’re gonna keep staff engaged, but this is, like, authentic, that they’re in the room helping to make decisions, helping to problem solve and see what’s behind the scenes. All right, we’ll leave it. There they are. Peter Schiano, project manager and consultant at Tech Impact and Eileen Y Smell knowledge and database manager for community Catalyst. Peter, Thank you very much. Thank you. Real pleasure. Thank you for being with Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of 19 NTC. All of our 19 NTC interviews are brought to you by our partners at ActBlue Free fund-raising tools to help non-profits make impact. Thank you. Next week I’m gonna fire a listener at the top of the show. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony. Martignetti dot com were sponsored by Wagner. CPS. Guiding YOU beyond the numbers wagner cps dot com By Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for non-profits tony dot m a slash Cougar Mountain for free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for your non-profit Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot c e o. Our creative producer was Claire Meyerhoff. 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