Stacy Palmer & Andrew Simon: The Chronicle of Philanthropy Leaders
Stacy Palmer is CEO of the now nonprofit newspaper, and the editor-in-chief is Andrew Simon. We talk about the transition from privately held to 501(c)(3); their plans for growth; the mission, values and priorities guiding them; new content that’s coming; improving mass media’s coverage of our community; the presidential election; potential threats to the sector; and a good deal more.
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And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be stricken with pika if you made me swallow the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with the highlights. Hey, Tony, here’s what’s up the chronicle of philanthropy leaders. Stacy Palmer is CEO of the now nonprofit newspaper and the editor in chief is Andrew Simon. We talk about the transition from privately held to 501 C three. Their plans for growth, the mission values and priorities, guiding them new content that’s coming, improving mass media’s coverage of our community, potential threats to the sector and a good deal. More on Tony’s take two with a lackluster host. You get a late holiday wish were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms, blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Here is the chronicle of philanthropy leaders. It’s a pleasure to welcome this week’s guests, Stacy Palmer is CEO of the chronicle of philanthropy. Andrew Simon. Is editor in chief of the chronicle of philanthropy. You’ll find them both on linkedin Stacy Andrew. Welcome to Nonprofit Radio. Thanks for inviting us. Thank you for having us, Tony. Absolute absolute pleasure. Um Stacy, I’d like to start with you. It’s been about 2.5 years. It was June of 2022. We last talked. Uh You had, you were making the transition or had made the transition from privately held company to nonprofit status. I, you were awaiting the IRS approval of the nonprofit status. That was June of 2022. Uh I know you’ve gotten that bring us up to date on the Chronicle of philanthropy as a nonprofit. Yeah. So we’ve been operating for 18 months as a nonprofit and every day we learn something new about what it takes to build an organization. And so I feel much closer to all of our readers and all of the challenges that they face, which I knew would happen as we sort of made this transition. But, you know, we’ve gotten through our first audit, we’re doing our 990 we’re doing all of those kinds of things and we’re really trying to figure out how do we re invent ourselves so that the Chronicle of philanthropy will be something that serves our audiences really well for decades to come. Uh What have you uh especially learned as a, as a CEO of a nonprofit. Go, go a little dive a little deeper into what it’s been, how much closer you feel to the audience now. Yeah. You know, I mean, I’m now actively doing fundraising. I’m working with a board, you know, all of the things that people would tell me, this is a challenge I face. This is something that’s wonderful. This is something that’s difficult. Now, I feel it viscerally every single day. Um, the biggest for us has been technology and how to make sure that we have systems that really help us, you know, show the audience, you know, all the things that they want. We have legacy systems. I think every nonprofit is facing those kinds of problems. Um And we need to make sure that we move as quickly as we can into new ways of serving our audiences. And that part, it’s just taken longer than I would have expected it to just because it’s complicated and it’s expensive. And so you need to figure out ways to do. But, you know, I think the really fun part for us is we often are asking ourselves, how do we think about serving the audience? What do they need without having to worry as much about, you know, what our for profit owners were thinking about and they were very generous and very wonderful, but they definitely needed to make sure we were making a profit. Now, we think about how do we plow that into more services to better serve non profits? That’s extremely freeing and that’s the part of the nonprofit world that I love. So it sounds like uh described as your program work you finding takes longer than you expected. Uh It’s costly, there’s fundraising against it. OK. Uh And you’ve described this as AAA period of transformation and growth. And uh how does, how does uh having hired uh Andrew as editor in chief fit with that? It absolutely enables it. Um Because he brings skills and perspectives that our newsroom didn’t have before. Um So why don’t we let him talk a little bit about his background so that you can all know what he brings to the chronicle of philanthropy? Ok. Let’s do it that way. I was going to actually ask you why did you hire Andrew Simon? But I’ll let him do it in the next Andrew Simon. Why do you believe you were hired? What, what, what, what have you brought? Well, you know, um in some of the early conversations with Stacy, we both talked about how the Chronicle can really serve audience by helping leaders see around the corner, right? Understanding the trends, understanding what’s happening now, philanthropy in the nonprofit world, but making sense of it and really helping to guide readers a little bit with our journalism and our reporting about um what to expect next. And in previous roles, I’ve been fascinated with this idea of how can we help readers and leaders see the future? I at a previous job. I was at a business consulting company. We’re uh doing stories on climate solutions. I, previous to that, I worked at gris.org, a nonprofit news site devoted to climate, climate solutions, climate justice and in both of those roles, it was similar, it was sort of making sense of the news now. And how does that help guide leaders in their decision making going forward? So I think Stacy and I were kind of uh excited about the prospect of doing more of that. The chronicle has certainly done that for years. But the idea of doing more of that and coming into this role is what really excited me. Well, what are some of the trends that you’re looking at? Uh We just, I mean, we just had a presidential election. I mean, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a wide open question. Uh But take, take it where you go and take it where you like. And, uh you know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll drill down some, I see the post election world on a, on a few levels. There’s certainly helping leaders navigate the changes to tax policy and regulation. There are certainly the missions of many nonprofits um that could be under threat. So there’s that level, I, I also think there’s a, a hovering over all this is just uncertainty, really an unpredicted, potentially unpredictable time for leaders, whether you’re on the grant making side, whether you’re a nonprofit leader, whether you’re a fundraiser. And I’m wondering how we can help our leaders and readers navigate this uncertainty, right? So I feel like there’s uncertainty hovering over all of this, right? So you can raise questions about, well, will this mission be affected? What are the ramification of these tax policies regulation changes? Which is very important? But then how do you navigate the uncertainty going forward? The the chronicle has an interesting role I do. Is it fair to say that it, it’s an advocate for the nonprofit sector community or, or is it, is that, is that inappropriate? And it, it needs to remain neutral about it? It’s, it’s primary readership. Yeah, it’s a great question. And, you know, obviously we believe nonprofits are incredibly important to society or else we wouldn’t be in this business of covering and serving them and helping them do better. But we also raise questions when they’re not doing the kinds of things that society depends on them to do. So, you know, I, somebody once described us as the good friend who tells you when your slip is showing and it’s an awkward expression. But it’s sort of the right way to say, you know, I think, you know, it’s important to say that we care deeply about this sector. We think it’s horribly undercovered. We think that that’s one of the reasons it’s not as effective as it should be. We think people are terribly fragmented and it’s our role to connect people. Um You did an interesting blog post or talking about the fact that everyone needs to come together as a sector in this time when there are really big challenges. And, you know, we see already some of the things going on on Capitol Hill where there’s legislation, you know, that a lot of nonprofits are allied against those kinds of things where people need to come together and defend the rights of nonprofits to free speech and advocacy and those kinds of things. It’s really important for them to see themselves in, you know, the pages of our article so that they all know what’s happening. Some will agree, some will disagree, but at least they should be connected to each other to fact based information. So that’s what we’re trying to do. And I think another thing that we’re thinking a lot about um is how do we fix some of the systems that are broken about the nonprofit world. Um I will say that, you know, there’s been frustration forever about lack of operating support, lack of multi year grants. So we saw some of in the pandemic, we saw some changes there, but it seems like there’s a slide back on the very things nonprofits need. So in those kinds of ways, choosing that we’re going to talk about those things, you might consider that advocacy. But we think it’s just important for us to put a spotlight on things that otherwise wouldn’t get the attention. Like, like your slip is showing. Ok. Um, what about the, the mass media coverage? Um, I, I don’t know who’s better to answer this, but you have, you, have, you had at least maybe still do a fellowship program, training other journalists outside the community that, you know, we don’t exist only when there’s, uh, uh, uh, a $500 million fraud foisted on the people by a Veterans Affairs agency. You know, where do we stand on helping mass media better coverage better cover the sector? That’s a really important part of our mission. So every year we take on four newsrooms that we work with intensively over the year, we partner with people in our newsroom who can help them do an excellent job of learning how to cover the field. And we’re really trying to help them focus on, you know, who are the nonprofits and foundations that are serving their communities, what are they doing, what’s happening, what would happen if they disappeared? Um And to really better understand that. So, you know, to be sure some of the fellows we’ve done have found some fraud and abuse in their communities and they’ve reported on that, but we encourage them to look more deeply about what’s going on. Um And to show that, you know, one out of every 11 Americans works for a nonprofit that means that people who are reading their content listening um to them, if it’s, you know, on broadcast networks, you know, those are the kinds of folks that, you know, really want to understand how nonprofits work with the threat, sorry to them, what the opportunities are. Um And we should cover it just like we cover business or any other sector. So we try to argue that we would love to expand this program. So one of the things we hope as a nonprofit that we can do is draw ever more attention in this time when local journalism is suffering a great way to attract audiences is to cover nonprofits. That’s what readers and listeners and viewers all want to know about is who’s solving problems in their communities. And it’s the nonprofits Andrew then are these fellows working with you uh uh on the editorial side? Right. Well, they’re editor of fellows. So they, they certainly work in their respective newsrooms throughout the country. But what we do is our editors and writers will work with them, mentor them, review their stories, help them bring larger concepts to life. And then we also, as a matter of fact, I think we have one of these sessions today. I’m not mistaken as we record to where we’ll, we’ll have um we’ll share our expertise in a kind of learning session where we’ll, you know, share tips on investigative reporting or collecting data sets. Um and hopefully help guide the fellows in those types of ways I see. All right. So they, they remain in their, in their respective newsrooms Yeah. Ok. Ok. Um Yeah, data, I mean, there’s a, there’s a trove of data about the nonprofit sector that I, I think doesn’t get the attention that uh that, that folks, that journalists need to know uh about what’s out there, what the government collects, what, what some of the agencies collect. Yeah. So one of the fellows is actually working on a project to try to figure out where the most charitable cities are, which is a vexing thing to do. We’ve done those kinds of projects too, but the data is not ideal for being able to ask those questions. But we’re really trying to figure out what makes certain stand out. Why is there more philanthropy in them? And then on the flip side, why are there the philanthropy deserts? Um and what can be done about that? So, you know, that’s one of the ways that we’re training them to use data. And of course, we do the very basics like making sure everybody can, you know, glean information from the nine nineties, you know, make sure they really understand how to read them those very basic things. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money but also supports you in retaining your donors, a partner that helps you raise funds, both online and on location. So you can grow your impact faster. That’s donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers, just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability, your organization needs, helping you help others visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to the chronicle of philanthropy leaders, Andrew. I’d like to pull on the thread a little more about uh the uh the presidential election project 2025. I mean, there are, there are some nonprofits that are specifically named in the document like uh the like uh national Public Radio, uh public Broadcasting system PBS, you know, named, called out to be defunded. Um That Planned Parenthood should have its, um, it’s, it’s Medicaid funding withdrawn as long as they’re providing abortion care. Uh What, you know, what’s the, what’s the role of the Chronicle in, in making this clear? I don’t know, uh you know, playing the role of the good friend, but, you know, seeing that the, the, some of the, some of the, some of the good friends are uh, are under like explicit threat. Where, where is the Chronicle fit there? Sure. Well, it, it goes a little bit back to this theme of uncertainty and it’s not to say that some of these threats shouldn’t be taken seriously, aren’t real. But again, hard to know if and when some of these changes would happen, I think our role is to try to identify the ways in which nonprofits can stay financially healthy and stable. Again, through, through tough times, you know, it’s why we have multiple reporters dedicated to fundraising. It’s why we have uh multiple writers talking about leadership and, and navigating, you know, hard decisions um in volatile times like this, you know, not to say that is, um this is not perfectly analogous, but certainly there was uh COVID-19, you know, not that, that many years ago. And this was before I got to the Chronicle, but this was the newsroom coming together with our nonprofit intelligence team, which I know that’s a wonky title. But you know, that’s our uh unit that’s really devoted to um you know, helping uh leaders in, in a professional development capacity. So, you know, the team just got together and tried to again, help figure out, ok, under these um unprecedented, really challenging times, what should fundraisers consider, how do leaders navigate and lead their organization? What does the remote place uh workplace look like? So there will be certainly new challenges in this era. And again, it’s not to say that the next era is exactly like the Coronavirus era and yet these could be challenging volatile times. And I think there are certain themes that we can cover that should be able to apply to most nonprofits. Not all, one of my big reflections of this role so far is the variation in size and scope and mission of nonprofits is so vast that we, we do, we are thoughtful and need to continue to be thoughtful about not offering one size all fit solutions that we do need to gear our coverage um around just, you know, as best we can on that huge variation of nonprofits. But nonetheless, we are looking for trends and things that again, we think should be of interest to at least the majority of the readership. Do we have? Uh I’m saying we, I’m a, I’m a, I’m a member of the Chronicle philanthropy. Uh Is there a Washington DC reporter? Are we able to cover what’s, you know, what’s happening around, you know, discussions around the, the, the sector in, in Washington, you know, we started off being based here. Um And so for many, many years when we were under the Chronicle of higher Education, all the reporters worked from the Washington DC area. Um we had a couple that, you know, were able to be in other places, but for the most part, we were all here. So we start with a really strong base of covering Washington. I will say though that there was a point where I had a lot of the reporters focused on Capitol Hill and the White House, the IRS doing all those kinds of things. Um And so there would be different people assigned to all of those things, but as the federal government sort of pulled back on doing very much that was interesting um for nonprofits writ large, some of, and I would assign the best reporters to those tweets and they would come up to me and say there’s not enough to cover. Can I please have something else to cover in addition to covering what’s going on in terms of policy? So, we’re, you know, in one of those pendulum shifts now where we’re going back to the people who had the expertise in covering it. But, and I think now we’re really, you know, given some of the things that, um, you know, the Trump administration that JD Vance has said about, you know, where nonprofits are going to be, you know, in the sights of possible legislation. We’re in a heavy period and I’m thrilled that we have expertise that people cultivated long ago. Um, but it really does come sort of in and out and I think where we also need to pay a lot of attention to is, you know, state and local politics is going to become even more important and that’s an area where, because we’re small, we haven’t spent as much time. So I think that’s one of the areas where we’re going to need to grow. Iiii I see the need. Um, and, yeah, I hadn’t even thought of right state and local. I mean, the, um, so much, you know, is being pushed down to the States. Uh, and, and, and a lot of issues, um, I’m concerned, you know, I’m, I’m, I just personally and professionally, I’m, I’m concerned about our sector and, and, and pieces of it. That have missions that are, uh, in the sights of, you know, and I think it goes beyond 20 25. Yeah, it goes beyond that, you know, so, regardless of what your politics are and what you care about the missions, the fact that we’re talking about pretty serious federal budget cuts of any kind. I mean, nonprofits get more of their revenue from government than they do from anything else. And so, you know, I think that if any of those things go through the sector could be in a pretty difficult period. So that’s especially the way we’re watching it is, you know, um not even just, you know, obviously there are particular missions that are in the target, but really anybody that gets funding from government entities could be at risk financially. So that’s why when Andrew was talking about helping navigate uncertainty, make sure people know how to lead and fundraise. It’s in incredibly important. Um We were founded soon after the Reagan administration was leaving office and that was a time when there was a burst in professional fundraisers being developed because there were all kinds of budget cuts and organizations needed to double down on their private fundraising. So I, and that will never make up for how much the government provides, but it’s going to be crucial in these next few years, I think. Uh So what am I missing Stacy? I mean, uh when I see the giving usa report each year, it’s like, uh individual giving is 75 or 76% of, of overall giving to nonprofits. But you’re saying government, that’s just private giving. If you look at the budgets of nonprofits, you look at like the Urban Institute kind of study. So colleges, hospitals, social service agencies, that overall budget shows that most of the finances um are through some kind of a government subsidy and people don’t think about it that way. We think of nonprofits and we think of the private giving side and that, that’s usually important and some groups, you know, that’s 90% of their income, but for others it’s a much smaller portion. Ok, thank you. All right. All right. Um All right. Maybe a little lighter, uh, a little lighter topic. Uh What about, uh, what, what, what are we gonna be seeing priority wise in terms of, uh, other content? We webinars podcasts? I don’t know, Andrew. Is that on the editorial side or, or is that not? I don’t know, or? Yeah, I, I can certainly speak to multimedia and, you know, Stacey might be able to talk a little bit more about, um, you know, webinars and, and, and in that unit, um, we’re, we’re excited about meeting readers where they are. You know, I think Stacey already alluded to the fact that, you know, yes, there are some challenges as we transition to being an independent nonprofit organization, but with that comes opportunity. So it’s interesting, we had a discussion yesterday among the leadership team. And it’s sort of like we, we know we want to use different multimedia tools and channels to reach our audience. But we also want to become more sophisticated on understanding of, you know, what are the tools that will reach them most effectively? Right. You know, is there a hunger for podcast? Is there a hunger for short social videos? Right. So there’s a sort of a measure of work of saying, yeah, we, we want to meet readers where they are, but how do we do that? And one of the most effective ways we can reach readers in that way. So it is exciting though. We, we do have hopefully, I can say this publicly. We do have a podcast underway which Stacey might be able to talk a little bit more about uh which we’re extremely thrilled about. We have begun experimenting a bit more video, particularly on social media. We have a terrific um social media manager who is really willing to experiment and guide us in those ways. We, we want to do some small things or things that seem small as uh for example, have our writers just, you know, go on camera and talk for 60 seconds about uh the great reporting that they do. It’s something that other publications do. So I think it’s sort of starting kind of seemingly modestly in these ways and experimenting again, seeing what resonates with our audience and then hopefully leaning in more uh to what we learned is effective. I had the honor of uh hosting fundraising fundamentals for the Chronicle for about five years. Uh when back when uh Peter Pena Pinto was your web editor, Stacy. And uh that, that was always fun. A little short form, uh short form podcasting 10 minutes every two weeks or maybe once a month. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. You would have thought that last week, I would have said, uh Happy Thanksgiving. That’s a pretty natural thing to say during the week of Thanksgiving. But uh I didn’t, I didn’t say it because I didn’t think of it because we record the week before when you have a lackluster host. This is what you end up with a late Happy Thanksgiving holiday. Wish you deserve better. I, you do. You do iii I wish the host was better. We’re stuck with lackluster. I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving took some time for yourself. Time to relax, rejuvenate. So there’s a whole fourth quarter coming up. Well, we’re in the midst of the fourth quarter, the, the tail end of the fourth quarter coming up. I hope you took some time for yourself, your family, your friends, Happy Thanksgiving late. That is Tony’s take two Kate. We hope you enjoy your turkey. Well, we’ve got bookoo, but loads more time. Here’s the rest of the chronicle of philanthropy leaders with Stacy Palmer and Andrew Simon. What about, um you know, professional development opportunities through the, through the chronicle? What, what, what do you see there? Yeah, that’s a really important part of what we do and we see our role as in very much helping nonprofits do their jobs better. A lot of our webinars focus on fundraising, but we’re branching out into doing more things on leadership. The podcast that Andrew mentioned is going to be focused on leadership and gonna talk to terrific leaders about the ways that they overcome the challenges that they face. Um And I’m eager to have listeners of this podcast, um share any ideas and thoughts about both topics and guests and those kinds of things as we feature them. Um So I would say the next big area that we’ll get into, you know, has to do more with leadership. We’re really concerned about the fact that, you know, we did a survey that found that a lot nonprofit leaders love their jobs, but they’re really frustrated in them. And, you know, many of them are planning to leave their roles um in the next two or three years and about a third of them are thinking about leaving the sector altogether. That’s a brain drain we can’t afford right now. We need to groom more leaders. Um I’ve talked to people who say that they offer, you know, co leadership opportunities sometimes to younger colleagues and the younger colleagues. Look at them and I would never want that job. Why would you think that anybody would want that job? It’s not a good job. Um You know, that’s really damaging to the sector when great talent doesn’t even think that leadership um of a nonprofit is the kind of role they want to take. So we see ourselves as helping to deal with that problem. So I think you’ll see a lot more from us on that topic, Andrew, you reported on that the leadership transition. I think it was just earlier this month. Can you uh can you pull on that a little more? Talk about the, the next generation and, and the exodus of uh the uh the, the existing. Sure, absolutely. Yeah, we had a, a writer, Alex Daniels um do a recent cover story on the uh transition at many foundations in leadership and it, it’s, it there, we’re, we’re in a moment of change. It’s, it’s pretty indisputable, right? Whether it’s uh J PB, the Ford Foundation, Hewlett um um foundations of that size. And then, you know, other foundations too that may not be um kind of quite as uh reputable as those, but still um really important foundations in the space. And, yeah, what Alex realized in his reporting is that this next generation of leaders, um they’re often um people coming directly from the nonprofit world, right? They’re not necessarily coming from academia or the corporate sector. So they’ve uh lived the daily lives of what it’s like to lead a nonprofit and work in a nonprofit. Uh They’re often women, they’re often people of color, women of color, um which also represents a shift, um just in the demographic, but also in the ideas. Um and the innovation that they could bring to, to some of these entities. So it really feels like a big moment of change and it, it speaks to something I’m really interested in as I’ve gotten into this role is as we alluded to earlier about kind of seeing to the the future, I think even outside of foundation leadership, you know, what is the future of the sector, who, who’s going to be calling the shots, what, what are the biggest challenges they are facing, right? Where, what are their, what are their work back, work backgrounds look like? As Stacey just mentioned, um how does the sector prevent burnout? Right? How does the sector support these leaders? And again, now going into an era of potentially more unpredictability, um How does this next generation kind of thrive? Um And, and not, you know, meet um some seeming insurmountable challenges. I think the burnout is real and some of the other things that Stacy mentioned. So, um I, I would say it’s personally exciting that that shift is really exciting, but there are real challenges that um these young leaders will have to confront. It’s an interesting tension, you know, with the election is based on, you know, make us great again. We’re going backwards to some, some time that’s undefined and, you know, I don’t know how many decades or generations back, but yet we’re talking about a new generation of leadership, uh you know, looking, looking forward. Uh II, I see some, II, I see a tension there. I don’t know, maybe that’s just a, a general, you know, uh rather concern of the community. But I don’t know. I, I see tension between moving backwards and looking forward. I think there are some nonprofit leaders who having been through the first time Trump was elected and all the, you know, having survived the pandemic, um they were already pretty worn out. And so this idea of going through it again, that’s why I’m really worried about the number of departures that we’re seeing. Um So, you know, one of the things that we found in our survey too is that, you know, the problems of polarization is what’s really hitting nonprofits hard. You know, it used to be that when you ask people what their problems were, it was about, you know, making their budgets, raising enough money, worrying about their staffs and those are still big problems, but now they’re really trying to figure out how to deal with a divided country, sometimes divided workplaces. Um So that’s just added another challenge to a nonprofit leader’s job. What else should we talk about that? I, that I, uh I haven’t asked you about what, what, what does, what do you want to share about, uh the, the chronicle going forward the transition, please? I, I can’t, I can’t anticipate everything. No. You know, I want to go back to a question you asked earlier because I, it, I think it was a two part question. I think you were asking sort of, what do you see coming down the road, both related to the election results and, and maybe not so much. So, I feel like I answered the first part, but not the second part. Um There are trends and shifts in the sector that are really interesting um that we uh we, we’ve been covering already, but we’ll continue to cover. So, and some may be related to the administration but not so much, you know, for example, uh technology and A I and what are nonprofits learning about the technologies? Right? There’s a lot of hope. There’s a lot of promise. There’s a lot of excitement, there’s a lot of really interesting applications uh you know, from fundraising to uh organizational efficiency in operations. Um But then there, there’s fear which is just a um there’s risks. Uh So how do nonprofits navigate A I and other technologies too? For example, cybersecurity, right? So, uh that, that is a thread and a and a story we’ll be covering. Um There’s certainly the, the future of race-based grant making and de I efforts at nonprofits. This one does feel like it could be, you know, tied to again this next e whether or not it’s a threat to the administration or not, but certainly in this, in this new world that we’re in. Um what does that, what does that look like? Right. If, if you’re a nonprofit and you’re say, working specifically uh in a sector where you’re helping uh to uh support um marginalized groups, uh people of color, what does that look like? What if you’re an entity who’s interested in supporting your own de I efforts? And yet it feels like maybe the funding um is starting to dry up from grant makers in that area because of the de I backlash, you know, that, that is a real issue and storyline that um again, I think, you know, multiple nonprofits will be confronting. I also think it’s, and I’m learning more about this as I learn more about the sector, but the effect of Melinda French Gates and Mackenzie Scott, right? This their uh their unrestricted giving. Um I think with Mackenzie Scott a little bit more mystery in terms of um the process there with Melinda French Gates uh really leading into uh gender equity, women leadership. It, it’s all really fascinating to have these two high stakes players who have really burst onto the scene. Uh We know our readers are really interested in their moves. We have the, we have the receipts to show it and it’s for good reason, you know, they’re they’re really two power players in the space right now. So there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s something interesting emerging there both with respect to their approach to giving and how they give and then also following the issue areas and in the missions in terms of where their dollars go. Yeah, I think what’s so exciting about watching them is, you know, for years and years and years we’ve had covers that say, you know, philanthropy is not paying enough attention to women donors, where are the women donors? Are they going to start giving it a big way? Um And so many women have been influenced by what they’re seeing from Mackenzie and Melinda and Melinda Gate. It has also made deliberate attempts to make sure that other women are giving. Um and, you know, doing matching grants and other kinds of things. So I think we’re going to see a really big new era in which women play a much more important role in big philanthropy. So that should shift things um in a really fascinating way for us to watch. That’s interesting, Stacey. So women uh non billionaire women are feeling empowered by the Mackenzie Scott and uh and French Gates work. Absolutely. Um you know, and you know, one of the things that Linda French Gates did was offer some matching grants to women who are affluent. Um and you know, encourage them that if they channeled more of their giving to women’s causes, she would match it. Well, that kind of thing unlocks a lot of interest because all of a sudden women would say, wait a minute, there’s somebody else who thinks that these causes really matter. I think we all know the role model effect is incredibly important in philanthropy. Um So, you know, seeing that people are doing things, seeing how they can change the world through their gifts um is incredibly important. So we shouldn’t look at it just as you know, the billions of dollars that Mackenzie and Melinda have even though they’re huge, but it’s their impact on. There are women that, you know, is incredibly important. And we also know from the research that women influence um more than men, you know, what the Children in the family do and usually men listen to what the women in the family are saying about the causes that they want to give to and those kinds of things. So, you know, I think this movement is going to have a lot of ripple effects. Andrew. Uh Well, first, thank you for answering the second half of my question which I I obliterated and forgot about. So um that’s, I’m, I’m a podcaster and not a journalist. Uh What say, say a little more with you about uh artificial intelligence. We, we’ve had several shows on this. We’ve had folks from uh N 10 like Amy Sample Ward and, but also authors like Afua Bruce. Um You know what, say a little more about what, what, what you’re, what you’re looking at, what, what, what you’re thinking about around, uh, around A I and nonprofits. Sure. Uh, the first thing I would say is, uh, for those who are listening, please do follow the work of Sarah Hian Rashida Childress. They, they are two of our reporters who’ve been, um, covering a, I pretty closely, at least in recent months and I’m sure we’ve had reporters, um, before I got here on that beat as well. Um It’s, you know, it’s been interesting again, in certain cases, some of the technology companies have been directly trying to, you know, I think with seemingly with the right intentions, help, you know, support and underwrite um A I experimentation with nonprofits, right? So that does feed again some hope and optimism that A I can help uh certain nonprofits operate more efficiently, uh innovate. So there’s excitement there. But as I alluded to before there, there are the risks that come with A I, there’s that it, it’s not a perfect technology yet. So I think that’s an interesting tension too, right? That uh where we have technology companies and those who are creating the technology, you know, really uh encouraging it, the use of it for nonprofits and the implications there. And then on the fundraising side, there was a recent story about an A I fundraiser, you know, to the point where there is an avatar that uh a potential donor sees and is interacting with and helps them guide, helps guide them through the note to the donation process. And there’s just something that’s interesting and wacky and even a little scary about that. Right. And yet is this where we’re going with fundraising? Is this where nonprofits are gonna go? Will this be the future? I think it’s a question at this point but a fascinating one as a, as a over the top, uh, relationship uh fundraiser II I it’s, it’s hard. It’s a question. I know you’re, you’re not answering, you’re asking, you’re asking a question, but even the question hurts me. Uh uh And I work, I work in Planned Giving so I work with uh folks in their mostly seventies, eighties and nineties, you know, and uh the thought of them being guided by, uh I don’t know, fundraising avatar is, uh I mean, these are folks writing checks, you know, and not, not even, not even credit, they don’t trust online even, you know, just a simple, putting my credit card in an, in a, in an online form. Um All right. Anything else that uh you wanna leave us with either of you? I would say a word about the commons and that body of work that it’s a, it’s a project that started uh back in April and a lot of credit to Stacy Palmer, senior editor Drew Lindsay and others on the team for getting it off the ground and the intention of the commons. It was really for the chronicle to take a close look at polarization. Philanthropy’s role in it both in uh the solutions that are available. But also has philanthropy been detrimental has been causing and ceding polarization in in any way. So really asking some hard questions around again, Philanthropy’s role in in polarization but also talking about ideas and solutions and what’s happening that is helping to bridge divides. And in this current moment, we’re hoping that it really provides value to our, to our readers, right? That it, I mean, say so you feel free to chime in here back when you launched the commons. I I imagine there was thinking about, well, what does an ex administration like, what does A Y administration look like? And then also the calculus are being we might have been facing polarization regardless of, of the election outcome. And certainly here we are and I’m sure our readers are, are reading about this notion of a resistance. And uh there are really, there are real questions around, you know, will funders support um a resistance. I say that in quotation marks, I mean, some are using that word, some are maybe not using that word will some be a little more hesitant to fund a resistance. I think there’s some emotional drain right now from, from some members of the resistance. So there are just some fascinating questions about democracy efforts, polarization efforts. Will they continue to receive support and yet the the vibe for lack of a better word is that it’s still tense right now. I don’t know that polarization is going away anytime soon. So I I just would encourage readers to not just follow the comments but contribute ideas, you know, write us notes, tell us what you think. We received a, a really interesting letter in our, one of our first post election reaction pieces, which wasn’t so specifically about the comments, but I think it captures the spirit of the comments where our election, one of our election reaction pieces had the terminology was progressive. Nonprofits are, you know, really terrified because of the results and conservative ones are celebrating. And there was this powerful short letter from a nonprofit leader saying, I don’t know, I, I don’t call myself progressive and I don’t call myself um conservative either, right? That there, there are, there are organizations working somewhere in between and what, what does the election mean for us? You know, we, we, we’re, we’re sort of feeling a little nervy too and yet I wouldn’t call our mission progressive per se. So it’s just, it’s a long way of saying that I think polarization it, it’s here. Um It’s vexing for I think both grant makers and nonprofits and we’re here to hopefully help uh leaders, you know, guide them through it. What’s the structure of the commons? I, is that something folks can participate in or I’m not familiar with it. So it’s a special section on our website um that you can see on the navigation bar that collects all of the opinion articles, deeply reported pieces. We do something called linkedin Commons in conversation. You know, right after the election, I talked to Joel Goldman, the head of Democracy Fund who’s working on these issues. Um Right after Thanksgiving, I’ll be talking to Judy Rudoff about the series that she’s been doing America at a crossroads. So, you know, we have all kinds of things happening in the commons focused on this issue of, you know, how can nonprofits play a role in healing divides of all kinds, not just politics, geography, race, gender, age, all of the things that are dividing this country. And when we started the comments, we knew that, you know, it was a little bit dangerous to launch it in April only because we were afraid that it would suggest that it was just a project for the election. We knew this country is so divided that this is going to be a very long term effort. Um And nonprofits and foundations need to work on. So we’re committed to doing that. We very much welcome ideas from the audience. Um There’s a linkedin newsletter that people can sign up for in addition to a special edition once a week that comes out in our philanthropy today newsletter. Um All of that is available free to people to be able to sign up for um and circulate. But that’s, I think an expression of how we see ourselves as a nonprofit now that we’re more actively engaged in tackling some of the big problems that are facing the field and saying here are the tools and solutions to deal with them. So, you know, what we’re looking at too is, you know, what is the next comments? What is the other topics that will go into um with a deep dive? Um So we welcome suggestions on that too. And if our listeners want to make suggestions, where do they do that? Um Best thing is to write to Andrew or to me, um I’ll give my email address first. I’m Stacy dot Palmer at philanthropy.com, Andrew dot Simon at philanthropy.com. And then we also have a, a general letter to the editor type inbox. It’s editor mail at philanthropy.com. So any of those places are great. Ok. We have direct lines to the uh to the CEO and the editor in chief. All right, I want to thank you both. Thanks very much. Thank you so much for your interest. We appreciate it and for all the work you do for the sector. Oh, it’s, it’s, it’s a pleasure. Uh uh a labor of love. Next week, the art and science of fundraising with James Meisner. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that Apple mission Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.
