Tag Archives: #nptech

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

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My Guests:

Nejeed Kassam: Easy AI
Artificial Intelligence is an opportunity for your career, not a threat to your job. Nejeed Kassam explains how to leverage your skills in a new landscape and describes some of the intelligent tools available for you to work with. He’s CEO of Keela. (Part of our 20NTC coverage)

 

Tim Sarrantonio: 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 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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