Stacy Palmer: Nonprofit Leadership With Stacy Palmer
The chief executive of the Chronicle of Philanthropy joins us with her thoughts on the challenges facing nonprofit leaders, especially females, and especially females of color. Stacy also reveals the bright spots in a recent leadership survey, and promising opportunities around co-CEOs, sabbaticals, self care, team care and humanity care.
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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 podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the effects of fuospiroketosis if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, with what’s up this week. Hey, Tony, here’s what’s going on. Nonprofit leadership with Stacy Palmer. The chief executive of the Chronicle of Philanthropy joins us with her thoughts on the challenges facing nonprofit leaders, especially females, and especially females of color. Stacey also reveals the bright spots in a recent leadership survey and promising opportunities around co-CEOs, sabbaticals, self-care, Tea, and humanity care. On Tony’s take 2. Hails from the gym. Mrs. Blood and soil revisited. Here is nonprofit leadership with Stacy Palmer. It’s a pleasure to welcome back Stacy Palmer to nonprofit Radio. Stacey is chief executive of the Chronicle of Philanthropy and led the organization’s transition to an independent nonprofit in 2023. She helped found the Chronicle in 1988 when it was started by the Chronicle of Higher Education. She was top editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy from 1996 to 2023. Stacey is the host of Nonprofits now podcast. You’ll find her on LinkedIn and The Chronicle at philanthropy.com. Welcome back, Stacey. It’s good to see you. Delighted to be with you. Tell me about your new podcast, uh, nonprofits now. What are you talking about? How, how, how is it going? Well, I’m proud to join you in the world of podcasting, um, and it’s really fun to have these great conversations with leaders of all kinds and we really wanted to hear from leaders themselves rather than turning, you know, to people who like to lecture or talk about leadership, um, but talk to exceptional leaders about what they do, what makes them stand out, um, and we drew topics that we knew were of great importance to leaders, um, things like managing. Generational conflicts in the workplace, um, dealing with your board, dealing with finances, managing your executive team, all of the things that we all do all day, um, but as we were working on the podcast, we had a lot of turbulence in the nonprofit world as there were federal policy shifts and the economy is going up and down and who knows what’s happening. So we added in coverage to really cover that area as well, which wasn’t part of the original plan, but seemed incredibly essential to do. Uh, can you name a couple of your recent guests, subjects too? Yeah, so to talk about the economy and what people should do, um, we turn to Aisha Benson at the National Nonprofit Finance Fund. Um, and Mile Green, who’s at World Relief, and that’s one of the organizations that took a big cut when USIAD was suffering in the refugee resettlement program, and he talked about, you know, sort of what he did in his scenario planning that began well, well before Inauguration Day, um, and I should talked about all of the things that she’s seen nonprofits do that are really smart, um, and one of our other recent guests was Valerie Jarrett, head of the Obama Foundation. You know, who talked about how she builds a strong executive team and really, you know, got so much experience doing that when she was in the Obama White House and talked about, you know, how to keep people motivated, how to avoid that awful feeling sometimes that you’re not part of the team that you have, you know, um, and she really talked about inclusivity, diversity, how she chooses people on the team, make sure that they have a good fit. And one thing she said was, you know, anybody who says that their weakness. Is that, oh, there have been some places that just can’t handle all the talent that this person has, she said, they’re out the door right away, get rid of them. That’s not a good fit. Um, and having a sense of humor, super important, given all the work that we all do that’s so heavy, um, that we really all need to be able to be great colleagues to one another. She wants to make sure she can have a good dinner with you, not just get the work done. Yeah, I’ve always thought that’s, you know, I would have lunch with, have a beer with, yeah, yeah. I, I think, I think that’s a valuable insight to, to hiring and So congratulations on the, on the podcast. Hope it does well. It’s uh it’s available where all podcasts podcast. OK, it’s nonprofits now. Um, so we are focused on, uh, some nonprofit leadership issues that are top of mind for you and obviously you’re interviewing nonprofit leaders in in the nonprofits now podcast, so these are all top of mind and you’ve got some very recent anecdotes, uh, you know, cases to share. Um, but before that, the, uh, the Chronicle did a survey, or a study of leadership, and some of the, the numbers are, uh, not so. Not so uplifting. I would say, you know, in terms of job dissatisfaction, people leaving leadership, leaving the sector, not just leadership, leaving the sector, feeling overwhelmed, share some of the findings from that one of the things that is really clear is, you know, 96% of people love their jobs. I mean, CEOs are committed to their cause and the organization, so, you know, it’s not that they, you know, are dissatisfied with the work of trying to change the world, but they’re finding it unbearable to have these jobs in the way that they’re constructed. And so many of them are, you know, said that they would not be at their. organization they didn’t think in the next two years, and many of them were thinking about leaving the sector entirely and that brain drain is incredibly significant, especially at this moment when you know, we did the survey before all of the changes of the past few months, um, and you know, the fact that people were feeling so burned out, um, and so unable to continue and the sources come from A lot of reasons, people feeling that their boards weren’t helping them enough, um, that funders were not doing enough to support their work, that lack of multi-year general operating support really wears all CEOs down because they’re just chasing money all of the time feeling very insecure about things.draising demands 40% fundraising demands are a significant source of dissatisfaction in their job. Yeah, and just feeling like nobody’s there to help them along with that, um, and so, you know, I think board members could do so much to help the leaders of this organization. Foundations could do a lot too by changing some of the ways that they give money. I don’t know that they realize how much stress they’re putting on chief executives because I don’t think they would do it this way if they realize that some of their practices are driving great people out of the field. Now are you interviewing or uh plan to interview any uh well you mentioned Valerie Jarrett, the Obama Foundation. Are you calling to task uh foundation leaders? I mean, politely, of course, but are you, are you interviewing other foundation leaders, grant making? Yeah, in in the podcast, we didn’t do that because we wanted to focus squarely on nonprofit leadership and helping them along, but um. I take every opportunity I get to tell foundation executives that there’s a simple thing that they could do. It would be wonderful if they gave more and increased their payouts, but it would really be just as wonderful if they made sure that there was more multi-year general operating support. That’s really what it takes is giving that guarantee that, you know, the grant isn’t going to expire at the end of the year. It’s critical. Um, and, uh, particularly difficult leadership issues for women of color. Yes, yes, there was, there was a chronicle op ed piece, uh, it was January, I’m not sure when it was, but, um, you’ve, you’ve done some, you’ve done some reporting, uh, there’s been some reporting and you’ve got some, some, uh, some research as well. Women of color having a particularly difficult time in leadership. Yeah, and one of the guests we had on the podcast is Vanessa Daniel, who’s written a whole book that covers that topic. Now what she did was she interviewed 45 women of color who were successful, to say what made you successful, but what, while they had many victories and many wins. The challenges that they faced um were things that you don’t necessarily see other leaders in the sector facing. So, you know, one of the challenges often is that, you know, women of color often get picked to follow a leader who has not done a great job. And you know, so they come into a mess and they’re expected to fix it up and then it becomes something where they’re told that they’re the problem when they weren’t they inherited something that was very, very difficult. They have a board that doesn’t necessarily trust them or help them as much. Foundations once again sometimes do not want to give as generously until the person is more tested, um, and they do. Seem to have, you know, a higher standard, um, when it comes to looking at women of color, so that part can be very difficult and sometimes colleagues are not as welcoming as they ought to be, yet, women of color have done, have had some of the most amazing achievements, um, you know, certainly in social change that we’ve seen in this country. So one of Vanessa’s points is, you know, we should all be learning from them. Um, and so one of the things that she talks about is that women of color especially have 360 degree vision. They look at everything and they make sure that they’re bringing everybody along and their campaigns are never just, you know, single focus, but, you know, if they’re fighting for women, they’re fighting for people with disabilities, they’re fighting for all kinds of people all at once and they build movements much more effectively than other people do. Right, so the effectiveness is, is higher, at least equal or higher, but they’re under greater scrutiny, uh, and now, of course, with the, the, the talk from the regime about, you know, uh, disparaging anyone who’s not a, uh, a middle aged white male as a, as a DEI hire from helicopter pilot to, uh, you know, to, to, to soldier to, um, so you know, it’s even just brings either even greater scrutiny. To the, the population that’s doing better, but, uh, you know, finds, finds challenges, suffers challenges. Um, and I should correct myself too. I, you know, I, I said you have reporting. I mean, you know, I know you’re not the, I know you’re no longer the editor in chief of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. You’re the executive director of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.org, uh, uh, so, um, there’s a correction there. I don’t wanna step on Andrew. We had that, we had that show you and Andrew. I know. I just, it’s just natural for me to say you have reporting. You’re, you’re not doing the reporting, but the Chronicle still reports, you know, all right, um. Thank you for not, you, you didn’t, you didn’t call it out, but I’ll do it myself. Um, so yeah, you know, what was amazing is that you, what, what you led with that the job satisfaction is still so high. all this suffering and surprising factor to me because there’s so many things and we know. People are leaving, but you know, you ask these people and they say, I love my job. 9%, yeah, I love the job I’m doing. So the passion is there, but we’re, we’re killing folks, um, with constraints, with difficult funding models, uh, and now, of course, you know, all the funding cuts, if you, if you’re anything related to foreign aid. That’s very difficult. And then we’re seeing individual nonprofits and on the microcosm level, Harvard, Columbia, uh, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio. I mean, this, this microcosm. Attacks are, I, I think lead to, you know, potentially more. Exactly. I mean, when the administration is savaging nonprofits as being these bloated, inefficient organizations, it’s not just that we’re driving people out, who’s going to want to come and work for these organizations and especially the message that it sends to young people who might be considering careers and Nonprofit leadership, um, I, you know, obviously very idealistic generation that we have coming into the field, but they’re not going to find this in an attractive place when there’s so much denigration of their work and the future of federal funding is so insecure. So I’m very worried about the long term brain drain that we may have. It’s time for Tony’s Take two. Thank you, Kate. I’ve got another of my tales from the gym. We are revisiting Mrs. Blood and soil. Now. Her name is Val. Val, we know her as Val. Uh, she’s, uh, Mrs. Blood and Soil, you, uh, may recall, because the, my very first class in the gym, which was probably 2 years ago now or something like that, I, I wanted a spot in the class, uh, but it turned out to be her spot. But I had never been in a class, and I certainly had not been in that particular class, you know, they have many classes each week. And I didn’t know, of course, that that was her sacred spot. And uh she gave me some pushback. Well, I’ll just move my stuff. You know, Mrs. Blood and Soil, I, I didn’t know this was your space, uh, you know, so I moved aside and, and Mrs. Blood and Soil, uh, then, then named Mrs. Blood and Soil for that reason, uh, got her sacred space. Well, we since learned. That her, her name is Val, and she’s actually been quite nice. Had some very nice chats with her at the community center outside the classroom, talking about some classes, other classes that she takes that I do not partake of. I only take the one class a week. Uh, and she still has, she still does have her sacred space, uh, in that class. Um, so we just had some nice chats and she remembers my name, very thoughtful. Some people don’t, you can tell, you say hello to somebody, use their name. Hey, Kate. Oh hi. OK, you forgot my name. Uh, it’s obvious. No, that’s not true. Val remembers my name, very nice chats, very nice woman. That is not quite Tony’s take two because I must remind you that we are only 3 weeks away from show number 750, the 15th anniversary. This show launched in July of 2010 for Pete’s sake. 15th anniversary of nonprofit Radio. That is Tony’s take too. Kate Oh yeah, I forgot. Oh yeah, I supposed to give you a cue. Did you forget my name? Yeah, I just forgot your name associate producer. Tales from the gym, uh, the associate producer. Um, it’s great that you’re getting along with Val now. Yeah, we’re, uh, you know, I wouldn’t say we’re buddies, but uh we’re uh we’re uh we’re affiliate. We are, um. What’s that? Oh shit, there’s a word that I’m trying to think of, uh, acquaintances. That’s the word. That’s the word, acquaintances. Well, it’s better than spot stealer, so. Yeah, Mrs. Blood Soil, yeah, I’m not gonna say I was harsh when I called her Mrs. Blood and Soil because she was, you know, she was uh She was upset that she might not get her precious spot, you know, that week because this newcomer is interposing, interloping on my, my real estate, my 3 square feet that I must have for this class every single week. I thought that was kinda. Unkind to to be kind. It was, it was at least unkind. Mhm. Well, we’ve got Bou but loads more time. Now back to nonprofit leadership with Stacy Palmer. There are bright spots and there are opportunities for improvement. Talk about co-CEO, that’s very interesting. Yes, so that’s been a trend um that’s been developing in recent years where people decide that the job is just too hard and not sustainable, so having people share it, um, and often, you know, it will play to the strengths of various people. One person might be great at finance and fundraising and the other person might, you know, have a specialty in the program or the. and those kinds of things. Um, and usually you don’t find that in the same person anyway, so you know, somebody needs coaching usually in one part of that job. Um, and so some people have just decide to split it up. I interviewed people who at one organization that had 4 CEOs working together, um, which I found rather astonishing of how they make that work, um, but their organization had so many different kinds of programs. that they felt like they needed that and that they had enough strengths that way, and that kept them from burning out um and allowed them to balance work and family and all kinds of things. So that made them much happier. So this idea is becoming more popular. I see it also intergenerationally where sometimes um a CEO toward the end of his or her career, you know, brings in somebody who’s in their 30s or 40s and you know, grooms them. And then eventually the plan is that, you know, either they’ll decide to stay as co-CEOs and have a, you know, that relationship or it might be that it’s time for just to have the one CEO model, but that idea of using it as hands on mentorship is also really popular and I think a very smart idea. Yeah, that sounds brilliant for succession planning. CEOs for for for a period of years. I mean, there’s just no, there’s just no better. The job training. Yeah, but I did have one person who, you know, is doing that, who said before he got to the point of finding his co-CEO was turned down by several people on his staff who looked at his job and said, I would never want to do what you’re doing. So, you know, that’s the other problem that we have is that people who are in our see what the CEO is going through and I don’t want to have any part of it. Well, the CEO that’s for an organization that’s willing, I guess for a board that’s willing to take on that, but in terms of work, so it seems like a sensible way to make the more the CEO job more palatable, more appealing. Uh, you know, if we’re saying, as you said, you know, fundraising might be one person’s, 11 co-CEO’s strength, but not the others. So, you know, so fundraising is a significant source of dissatisfaction for a lot of CEOs, well, we can, we can make that easier by by having someone, uh, co-CEO co-lead who has that strength and then someone else maybe has more administrative strength or as you said, program or. You know, wherever community support, community liaison, whatever, whatever is essential for the, for this, the nonprofit to thrive, um, and then it also serves a diversity, uh, concern, you know, we can, we can have we can open up our CEO role to, I don’t, I don’t know about 4, I think 4 says that they make it work, but that’s yeah, they do that’s an outlier, about 2, maybe 3, but certainly 2, all these purposes get served, so that, that, that was very interesting, um. There’s also sabbaticals. These are becoming increasingly common. I know, I, I have a friend who’s a professor, and he came from the private sector every 5 years. He gets a 6 or 8 month sabbatical. It’s, he loves it. It’s remarkable. He travels, he comes back refreshed to the university. Talk about that, that, that trend in uh in our community. Yeah, so the idea of the sabbatical for nonprofits has been there for, you know, probably a couple of decades, but they don’t get as much support from foundations um or other donors as they could, so not every organization can afford to do that. um, but you know, certainly the people who have gone on these sabbaticals, um, their whole approach to leadership is often trans. For because they got a break to do something, you know, sometimes people travel, rest, do those kinds of things. Other people, you know, develop an idea for a new organization or think of new approaches to how they’re doing what they do. It gives them room to experiment, to think about things that they’re doing and the plus for the organization is that, you know, you can test out some people who are potential leaders. It’s another form of succession. Planning in some cases because often you have, you know, the person you think is a potential leader, you know, taking that while the CEO might be on a break, um, and so you can test that out or you can try an interim or some other approach to leadership, but you know it works both for refreshing and renewing the person on the sabbatical, but it has real advantages for the organization itself too. Again, yeah, the succession planning. Um, are you, are you finding nonprofits are investing in succession planning and, and not just for the CEO, but, you know, and there could be a chief development officers. Yeah, are we, are we spending enough time planning this and especially now with all of the crises that nonprofits have, I mean, one of the things um on the, among the podcast guests I interviewed, um, Baron Seger at World Food Program. Talk to me about how he’s really grooming his leadership team. He wants to get out to see donors much, much more. He feels like that’s absolutely essential for a leader to do in this moment because there’s so much competition for funding, um, but you know, he had to build his team first to be able to take over those kinds of things, and that is a form of succession planning of saying I’m going to be out of the office and away for a while, um, you take this over and you know, making sure that, you know, he’s Giving them guidance, but letting them make a lot of the key decisions, learn how to work together and we all need to find ways to do that, even if it’s not under the guise of succession planning but of dealing with this moment, we need to be able to give people a chance for new skills and invest in them. But I would say nonprofits have never been great at spending time on this topic just because it seems far away and with the worries of the current moment, I don’t think that that’s improving. Yeah. All right. Well, we need to focus as, as much as we’re saying, you know, sometimes I feel bad about making, uh, having shows and guests to talk about. You know, nonprofit leadership because I know how burdened they are and I feel like we’re, I’m just adding to their task right now add succession planning, which is not a, not gonna be a 5 minute or even 5 week process, you know, but to the extent we can, you know, think about your succession planning for all your, for all your key positions. And there’s also value in the, the folks who, who are, um, would be included in those plans, you know, they. See, they see opportunity. They want to see career growth and we don’t want to see people fleeing our organizations because they don’t think there is any possibility, you know, so that career pathing and really thinking about those kinds of things, and I think we all know that, you know, sort of I’m a boomer, younger generations are demanding it. We cannot take for granted the idea that they see a growth path at our organizations. We really have to demonstrate it to them. Yeah, that’s the, you know, it’s, you’ve been here for years, decades. OK, Boomer, it’s time to go. Um, I think that guest that you had, uh, Byron, I think you said his name, Food Program. I think he’s spot on about fundraising. I, I’ve always thought like 30 to 40% of a CEO’s time. I should be devoted to fundraising. I’ve worked with clients where the the chief development officer has chunks of the CEO’s calendar, you know, a week at a time and, and schedules either travel or people coming in, you know, whatever, but given big blocks of the CEO’s time to. To, to devote to, to meeting the important funders, individual and institutional, and maybe community, you know, government, whatever. I’ve always thought it to be minimum 30, 30% of a CEO’s time is devoted there, so I, I think he’s spot on. Um, as much as fundraising is a challenge for leaders, what did you say? 40% find it, uh, uh, a significant source of dissatisfaction. Uh, again, all right, CEOs, maybe your co-CEO can take that can take that time off you. But also what you know, I heard from some of the people I interviewed was, you know, board members can make such a big difference. I don’t know that they realize how much just their willingness to introduce all of us to people who have funding. We can carry the rest of it, but sometimes we can’t get in the door, um, and often our board members can’t. And can be really helpful. We need to ask them, but it would be wonderful too if board members would say, you know, here are some of the people that I know and I’m giving you access to my network. So, you know, that would relieve the CEO of some of the burden of the fundraising because because, you know, sometimes you can just spend a long time just trying to get an appointment with somebody. Yeah, yeah, and a board member can cut through that. Um, yeah, that’s a, that’s a whole other topic, you know, board. Having a savvy fundraising board or or even just half savvy, you know, and but you know, the, the, the stereotype is that I’m gonna have to ask people for money, ask my friends for money, and I don’t want to do that. But there’s so many things that board members can do that are not direct solicitation. It is not a direct ask. Just you just help me get there. yeah, help me get help us get to the stage of solicitation, but make the introduction. Bring your networks, maybe host something in your home, you know, a bunch of couples, you know, but we’ll do the lift, but we need the introduction. We need the entree. So, you know, there, there’s, yeah, we, I think that’s something else, and here we are adding to the CEO’s to do list, you know, but in terms of bringing the board along in fundraising. Recognizing that it’s not strictly asking for money. I mean, if, if there are board members who are willing to do solicitations, that’s fantastic because they’re, they’re chief investors in the, at least in time and hopefully in dollars in the, in the organization that’s outstanding, but there’s a lot you can do the boards can do beyond direct asks so engage, you know, engage them. Um, So what are you hearing from your guests about how they uh recharge aside from sabbaticals, you know, what are folks to maintain a balance and a healthy lifestyle? You know, it’s a great question and we decided that at the end of the podcast we that would be our standing question. Um, which would be to always ask them how they recharge and a lot of standard things that you would expect, you know, people, you know, definitely want to make sure they have regular exercise connection with family, um, and making sure that, you know, they do balance things that they don’t work themselves to death. They’re very, everyone. who we talked to was very conscious of it. Valerie Jarrett’s answer was, of course, some of those things she said she watched television shows she wouldn’t tell me about um because they were too stupid to be able to reveal, um, but she was willing to say that. But you know, she also said how she recharges and this feels to me so symbolic of people who go into nonprofit work especially. That, you know, some of those basic kindnesses that you do, you know, you’re walking down the street and somebody needs a little bit of help, you’re in the supermarket and you know, you help somebody do something. All of those things, you know, where we just reach out to other people, not formally in any kind of way, but we connect with other people and just how good it makes you feel to build that into, you know, taking time out and not, you know, looking at our phone and obsessing about what the next thing on our to do list is, but reaching out in Some way to help other people who do not have access to what we have, um, is, is genuinely the kind of thing that, you know, I think for a lot of people in this field is replenishment as well. Um and then we had one guest who said um that he is a swimmer and he was planning to take his board on a swim in the Bosphorus because he’s Australian and he was like just willing to go out there. And do the rough swims and I thought, OK, I’m not, I am a swimmer too, but I swim in regular pools, so that’s my way of recharging. Is that a high powered river in Australia, the Bosphorus? I think it’s actually someplace else. I’ll need to look it up but it was the site, but it is not an easy place to go swimming, it’s not a pool. OK, well, the high adventure, um, you know, get some adrenaline flowing, zip lining or something, you know, similar. Everything that people said to was like, they do try to take all their vacation and make sure that they demonstrate to staff that they’re doing that and also again, you know, the opportunity that this gives to other people to take on leadership jobs and also to just show that, you know, you are not irreplaceable, you know, somebody else can take over these pieces. It’s not just for the restoration, but it’s again like the sabbatical where it gives other people opportunities to do things. And it also does set a culture, you know, that I, I, the CEO takes, takes her time off. Uh, the CEO is not in the office till 8 o’clock, you know, it’s not always the last person to leave, so that I don’t feel that I have to be seen or I can’t be seen departing, you know, by the, by the leadership or something like that, um. I also love the uh the idea of just random acts of kindness, you know, like reaching something in a supermarket, you know, I don’t know, whatever, whatever it is on a plane, you know, board, uh, just, just civility, know, just common civility day to day, um, it is, it’s, it’s, it’s uplifting and it’s also just sharing, uh. Uh, sharing a love of people, you know, you’re just sharing your humanity. That’s what it’s better, I think. Um, anything else, any other like recharging? I love that you’re asking that as a standard question at the end of every show. That’s, I have to say what I’ve loved is that people are really ready with their answers, you know, some people do journaling um to make sure that they’re really capturing and the founder of an organization um that works with first generation college students says she really especially likes to ground herself. She herself was a first generation college student and she, you know, she talks, you know, in the journal regularly about like why she’s doing this work and why it’s important to her for her family and thinking about all of the things that matter to her, and it just grounds her in thinking about what she’s going to do all day. That’s an excellent example of just doing what rejuvenates you, whether it’s journaling or swimming, walking, reading, you know, whatever it is. Shooting, whatever it is that is, is up to you, uh, shooting targets. I was thinking of target shooting, yeah, um. Uh, yeah, you know, we have to, we have to, we do have to take care of ourselves. We do have to indulge ourselves appropriately and it’s not just like, you know, wedge, wedge it in when you can. It’s being intentional. I think that applies to everyone, not just, not just leaders, but you know, being, we have to be intentional about taking care of ourselves. We’ve had, uh, I’ve had Miko Marquette Whitlock on a few times, he talks about your meds, your um. Uh, mindset, uh, exercise, diet, and sleep, you know, minding your meds and not just making it something that you think of occasionally or you squeeze in, but being intentional about these things. Yeah, and one of the things that Vanessa Daniel talked about and she was writing especially about, you know, the challenges that black women face because they feel that they are held to such a high standard that they can’t ever stop. um, and you know, she had a health problem. Other people have had health issues because they were working themselves really almost, you know, to the bone and and having challenges is that as colleagues or board members or other people, we have to step in when we see that people are working so hard and say, can I take this off your plate? What can I do for you? Um, and so we all have a responsibility to one another to help. each other do it because if it’s the stress that, oh my goodness, this thing won’t get done that’s incredibly urgent and I’ll be letting down a funder or letting down a board member or doing something like that, we have to be able to help one another out. And so, you know, all of us who are listening to this podcast should be thinking about like, do I see signs of burnout or health issues or something among one of my peers, my boss, whoever, help them out. And you know it’s not only the, the, the that person’s health, but they may be health, they may be um caregivers or someone else, it could be a parent, it could be a sibling. Uh spouse, of course, you know, are we, are we seeing that? I mean, that’s, that’s a huge thing. I, you know, on my own staff, um, just unfortunately, we’ve seen a number of my staff members have had ailing parents in the past few months and all of them have needed extra time to be able to spend time helping with them. um, and you know, it’s not just the time off, but it’s the stress that they’re feeling about their parents. That are not in good shape. So, you know, it’s very visible. We’re all welcoming and talking about the children um of our employees and you know, celebrating the 5 year olds graduating from kindergarten, um, and that’s wonderful too, but we also have to think about those other sides. Yeah, and, and, you know, it’s, it’s not so apparent, you know, if, if it’s the, if it’s the employee themselves that has suffered an injury or an illness, you know, it may manifest itself. But, but just someone saying Uh, you know, my, my, my dad had a stroke and he lives close and I’m the, you know, I’m the, I’m the closest child. That’s, that’s, that’s all you might hear, but that’s enormous. It’s not gonna, you know, it’s not gonna bear on the, it’s not gonna be obvious, physically obvious, but, but that in itself, that sentence means, you know, we need to, we need to talk about time off, adjusting responsibilities, because otherwise the person is just gonna hold it in. Yes, yes, most likely. All right, all right. I guess we’re talking about humanity, you know, I mean, be humane to yourself, humane to others, uh, whether they work for you or they’re strangers, uh, in a supermarket or an airplane, you know, where humanity, all right, um. You see some bright spots in uh foundation leadership uh being more welcoming to women. Much more so. Yeah. Yeah, no, there’s been a very dramatic change um at a number of foundations um and you know, these are some of the trends that we see because of demographics, a lot of um foundation leaders were of an age to retire, so we’ve seen a lot of change happening um at foundations and you know, Many, many of the biggest foundations and you know, family foundations, other sizes, they have turned to younger leaders, often leaders of color um and people who have been in the nonprofit world. It used to be, you know, maybe you are a college president and you became, you know, the head of a foundation or, you know, you were some high powered business executive, but now these are people. Who have run nonprofits who know what it takes and you know if there’s anything that gives me hope that some of these foundation practices that wear um nonprofits out that it is going to change, it’s the fact that more people who hold these jobs of giving away money have also really spent a lot of time in the position of seeking money and that’s always helpful. Those folks understand what it takes, um, and they think differently about things. What, what else would you like to talk about nonprofit leadership wise? I, I’m an obnoxious, you know, I drove the conversation what we talked about or what would you like to flesh out more? Yeah, you know, I think obviously one of the things that I keep asking people is, you know, can we use the same playbooks that we used in COVID, um, maybe those of us who are here during the Great Recession, you know, how are those lessons. Still the most meaningful ones and so at least can we, you know, when we face all these challenges, can we turn to history and say what is it that works? Um, and I would say most people say yes, but this is a different moment, especially because so many nonprofits face legal issues and challenges to The work that they’re doing. And so, you know, now in addition to worrying about, you know, funding challenges or you know, in COVID, trying to think about how you moved everything online and you know, had remote workplaces, um, now, you know, you really just need to have your lawyer on speed dial and you need to be looking carefully at what you’re saying and doing. But at the same time, not buying into things that aren’t true. Unfortunately, I find some people in the nonprofit world think every time somebody declares, you know, oh, I’m going to yank the tax exempt status of Harvard, for example, well, it’s really hard to do that. Yes, it’s worrisome, um, and it’s not a good standard, but it would take an incredible effort because of all the laws that are in place. The president is not allowed to tell the IRS. To go yank tax status of somebody and yet these rumors keep coming about. um, so understanding sort of how the law works and that there is so much more flexibility and certainly one of the things that has, you know, I, I’ve watched in awe is Diane Yentl at the National Council of Nonprofits and how she’s been using the law on behalf of nonprofits, you know. Ready to sue the Trump administration as soon as federal funds for nonprofits were cut off. And you know, that is unusual for a nonprofit to be that courageous and willing to just take that on and continuing to do that. So, you know, those are absolutely, you know, the glimmers of hope that I see, but that whole kind of legal dimension is something that I think is really quite different. Uh, did you see Diane Yentl’s testimony before the congressional Committee on Government efficiency, uh, yeah. Talking about courageous. I mean, she was lambasted and and personal attacks that she suffered and you know, she absolutely has been a target for that. The other thing that I think that ran across the interviews, you know, I’ve done on this is just this feeling that nonprofit leaders don’t need to go it alone and shouldn’t try to go it alone. This is a moment to really reach out to other leaders who may have advice, who you may want to collaborate with, who you might want to advocate with, um, and that, you know, it really is essential for us all to find ways to work together because it’s easy when you know your organization is in trouble, struggling to just talk to your staff, your board and not necessarily get out and talk to others, but it’s We’re stronger when we work together, we get great ideas um and this sector needs in some ways to be more collaborative um in times of crisis because that’s not usually, you know, the strength that nonprofits have only because it’s so hard to get everything done, but really reaching out to others is crucial. Are there of CEOs. Or maybe other C-suite, you know, that, uh, like, you know, just er er I think a lot of people’s pony’s got a dog in this race that I’m suffering with groups like that? Yeah, you know, but I think that some people are basically sort of founding them themselves and you know. Networks of, you know, 3 to 6 CEOs that they have met, you know, and they meet regularly to talk about, you know, the issues that are on their minds, um, and you know, often it’s geographic, um, you know, because we can at least go have coffee or breakfast together, um, but then sometimes by cause, you know, you certainly can do this kind of thing on Zoom, but being intentional about it and then You know, I found, well, a lot of people like to do that with their nonprofit peers. Others also suggest, you know, just, you know, we learned so much from people who run other kinds of organizations, so whether they’re in business or government or whatever, um, you know, to be able to get lessons from lots of different people. Yeah, peers, peers especially, you know, the the other leaders understand. And you’re the problem you’re facing is very likely, not never, is likely never. It is likely unique. Exactly we all maybe feel it that way that moment of oh my goodness, this is incredible, and you know then you talk to somebody else and they’re like, yeah, I dealt with that 10 years ago. He’s what to do. Um, what would you like to leave us with? Um, I think, you know, I’m so glad that you asked me to talk about these issues. We need to be more open about the challenges that nonprofit leaders face and we need to find ways to support them, and I think all of us need to talk about it. I talked about foundations, you know, changing their ways, but big donors can also make a difference. We all know that individuals, you know, are responsible for most of the giving in this country, um. Helping them understand that the nonprofits that they count on, especially in these moments where we may lose government support for any programs, we’re gonna need nonprofits more than ever, um, and we need to be able to support the leaders who are running these organizations, make sure they have professional development, um, make sure that they have training opportunities, make sure that they do have opportunities for sabbaticals and those kinds of things. Um, so finding a way to get the message. out that this is a profession and it’s one that needs to be supported, not something where people are just volunteering their time. It’s not like, you know, just and volunteers are incredibly important, but that’s not what these are professional jobs, enormous responsibility and if they don’t do what we’re all counting on them to do, our communities will be so much poorer and so trying to help the donor world. at large understand that importance of leadership feels really critical to me. So anybody who has ideas about how we can spread that message, and I am eager to do that because I do talk to donors who often are very, very eager to support, you know, the arts or social services or health or those kinds of things, and they’re rarely are they thinking about the people who make those things happen, and we need them to do that more. You’re the, uh, you’re the apt host for uh for nonprofits now because you’re, you’re talking all about nonprofit leadership with nonprofit leaders. uh, Stacy Palmer, chief executive of the Chronicle of Philanthropy and host of the podcast Nonprofits now. Thank you, Stacy. It’s good to see you. Thank you, delight to talk to you. Pleasure. Next week, our 25 NTC coverage continues with we’ve been hacked and smart data storage. Yeah, you said that last week. Uh, no, but it, I got this uh Stacy Palmer interview. She’s a, she’s a big deal uh in nonprofit circles in our community, so I wanted to, wanted to get this one in. So, but next week, Uh, for sure. What you just said, we’ve been hacked, uh, and smarts data storage. I, I, Boy Scout promise. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you to find it at Tony Martignetti.com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.
