Tag Archives: trustees

Nonprofit Radio for November 13, 2023: Fundraising 401

 

Laurence PagnoniFundraising 401

That’s Laurence Pagnoni’s latest book. When this first aired, it was his new book, but Laurence’s strategies and tactics are timeless. It’s a series of masterclasses for all levels and a collection of revelations he gained over 35 years in nonprofit management and fundraising. (This originally aired May 29, 2020.)

 

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Nonprofit Radio for September 26, 2022: In Nonprofits, Do We Trust?

 

Gene Takagi: In Nonprofits, Do We Trust?

Gene Takagi

Public trust in nonprofits is eroding. Why is that, what does it mean for our work, and what can the nonprofit community do about it? Gene Takagi, our legal contributor and principal of NEO Law Group, returns with his insights.

 

 

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Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

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[00:00:52.08] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of fragility as angry. Um if you nailed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show in nonprofits, do we trust? Public Trust in nonprofits is eroding. Why is that? And what can the nonprofit community do about it? Gene Takagi are legal contributor and principal of neo Law group returns with his insights On Tony’s take two. This is not planned, giving

[00:00:57.14] spk_1:
we’re

[00:01:41.13] spk_0:
sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c. O. And by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. It’s always a pleasure to welcome back Gene Takagi, you know who he is. Of course he he we owe him the introduction that he that he deserves, but you know who he is, He’s our legal contributor, Managing attorney of neo the nonprofit and exempt organizations law group in saN Francisco he edits the wildly popular nonprofit law blog dot com, which you should follow and he’s a part time lecturer at Columbia University. The firm is at neo law group dot com and jean is at G tech. Gene

[00:01:58.66] spk_1:
thanks

[00:01:59.11] spk_0:
for being back Welcome.

[00:02:00.73] spk_1:
It’s great to be here.

[00:02:03.15] spk_0:
It’s always a genuine pleasure. Thank you.

[00:02:07.78] spk_1:
We’re

[00:02:20.77] spk_0:
talking about public trust today. Uh not only your concerns, but you’re, you’re seeing evidence of. And I’m certainly reading some things too about eroding public trust in nonprofits. What what are you seeing? What are you thinking about that?

[00:02:27.69] spk_1:
You know, my first thoughts, tony is that trust really is the foundation of, of good relationships, right. No matter whether we’re talking about person to person,

[00:02:39.09] spk_0:
person to

[00:03:18.40] spk_1:
charity, you know, person to other institutions and charities I think are especially reliant on trust because if you’re asking people and groups and organizations to give money to you, um, they’ve got to trust that you’re gonna do use that money for charitable purposes, not for personal gain, not for other things, but for the charitable purposes that they want to support. And when trust erodes in our charities, that’s really a red flag and sort of a harbinger of things, bad things that could follow. So trust is really important, I think, um, to talk about. And the study, the most recent study that came out from independent sector and Edelman Data and intelligence found that there’s low trust amongst all institutions. So maybe not completely surprising, but less than a third say the trust, government, large corporations and the news media

[00:03:35.93] spk_0:
and

[00:04:08.91] spk_1:
charities, relatively speaking are better than that in terms of the trust factor, but it’s been dropping and nonprofits as a, as a sector, The trust and nonprofits now is 56%. The rest either are neutral on it or have a distrust of nonprofits, only 56% and only 36% trust philanthropy or foundations and grantmaking organizations, so that’s really, really low. And women’s trust and non profits dropped even more than than men. Um, and I think another flag to point out is our younger generations, especially gen Z

[00:04:17.56] spk_0:
really

[00:04:18.43] spk_1:
have a distrust of nonprofits. Um, and

[00:04:22.83] spk_0:
with

[00:04:23.75] spk_1:
the wealth transfer that’s expected from baby boom generation to millennials and two gen Z, that’s got to be alarming to nonprofits. And I, I think it’s just worthy to call out right now.

[00:04:35.97] spk_0:
Do you know what that number is among gen z. Trust in nonprofits that in the independent sector include that in in their survey.

[00:04:49.81] spk_1:
Well, the statistic that I, I saw that that called out to me was 57% of gen z. Americans say giving directly to individuals makes a bigger impact than giving to nonprofits. So they would rather give to individuals on go fund me or another crowdfunding site than to give to a nonprofit. They find that more trustworthy.

[00:05:16.77] spk_0:
There’s another dimension to the, to the trust, which is government, trust in nonprofits. And you could read government as congressional or, you know, I. R. S. But you know, they they, the the U. S. Government has bestowed the charitable deduction so that the money is used for, as you said, you know, for charitable purposes as disclosed in your organizing documents. And if if I’m thinking more of Congress, you know, if congress feels that

[00:05:43.59] spk_1:
the

[00:05:43.80] spk_0:
nonprofit community can’t be trusted, you know, we could start to see some erosion of, uh, clawback of some of the, the benefits that nonprofits enjoy. Tax free status, for instance, and the charitable deduction to name a couple of

[00:06:00.50] spk_1:
wildly

[00:06:01.37] spk_0:
wildly valuable ones.

[00:06:22.64] spk_1:
Yeah, and that’s such a great point because just a few days ago, there was news about a case in Minnesota where government funding to feed poor Children, um, there was a huge scandal involving tens of millions of dollars. So, um, it really speaks to two if government stops trusting nonprofits or certain government agencies and cuts funding to agencies, how harmful that might be to charities and the beneficiaries they’re trying to serve.

[00:06:35.87] spk_0:
I think that one was even worse. I think it was like $240 million dollars

[00:06:41.59] spk_1:
worth

[00:06:42.04] spk_0:
of pandemic aid money. I saw that in, in Minnesota is supposed to be going to feed Children during the pandemic and, and pocketed. Yeah,

[00:06:52.51] spk_1:
patterns there as well. It’s, it’s,

[00:06:55.94] spk_0:
yeah,

[00:06:58.09] spk_1:
it

[00:06:58.93] spk_0:
is. It’s, it’s, um, and then of course there’s always been Charles grassley. I mean, he’s been, he’s been nipping at, uh, foundations and donor advised funds for for years

[00:08:03.64] spk_1:
now. Yeah. And in fact, the whole charitable sector, I think, um, and a significant portion of our lawmakers, um, take a consumer protection perspective of, we want to protect donors, um, and not strengthening the nonprofit sector perspective they want to create laws that will per, you know, try to prevent, um, uh, fraud or misuse of charitable funds as if this is rampant amongst the nonprofit sector, which my position is, it is not, but there are certain high profile cases that hit the new york times and the Washington post and all the other newspapers. And there’s so much media coverage that focuses on scandals because that’s what’s gonna sell right. The tweet or the short snippet that people’s attention span will, will actually stop on. Um, it’s gonna sell much more if it’s a scandal rather than a long term growth in in impact. Even, you know, the, the great news that child poverty has, has been really declining in in the country, which should be huge news gets short shrift compared to some of the big scandals that we hear about.

[00:09:08.60] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah. When I name dropped Charles Grassley, I should have said Senator, senator from Iowa, Republican, senator from Iowa Charles grassley. Um, yeah, right. It’s, it’s the scandals that, that’s, that get clicks that sell papers that get attention. I remember, I’m sure you do several years ago there was a scandal among an, an organization supposedly raising money for Navy Veterans like Navy Navy Veteran Foundation or something like that several years ago, but it was very high profile. Um, what was the other, do you remember, I don’t mean to put you on the spot. It’s okay if you don’t remember because I don’t the, uh, the veterans organization that was accused of squandering, you know, tens of millions of dollars on lavish retreats and high, high executive salaries. But, but, but it it had it had great outcomes. It was, it was funding lots of veterans organizations.

[00:09:25.25] spk_1:
I think the one you’re talking about is the Wounded Warriors.

[00:09:29.11] spk_0:
Thank you. Yes. Project.

[00:09:51.07] spk_1:
And yeah, it’s, um, it’s always difficult. Um, looking at an organization through the eyes of the media, um, about how, you know, how well or unwell they did. I don’t want to create, um, you know, uh, discuss particular scandals too much other than to say that they create problems for the whole sector. So, you know, that’s, it’s just something to be aware of. And they’re not necessarily reflective of the vast majority of nonprofits out there trying to do good work and help people.

[00:10:17.64] spk_0:
The 99.99% you know, our our that’s even higher than the nonprofit radio 95% No, uh, 99.99% of nonprofits are not scandalous. And could they, could many of them be running more efficiently. Yes, but we’re not, we’re not talking about mere efficiency. You know, we’re talking about erosion of trust because of high profile crises or scandals malfeasance.

[00:10:37.97] spk_1:
Yeah, high

[00:10:39.21] spk_0:
profile,

[00:10:39.92] spk_1:
not

[00:11:55.21] spk_0:
representative. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. They know the nonprofit community and they know pr and journalism. Both partners are former journalists peter pan a pinto, one of the two worked as senior managing editor at the Chronicle of philanthropy. And after that he was at the council on foundations. So he understands the nonprofit space very well, which means he understands your challenges, understands how important pr and being a thought leader is to to your work. And the two of them together know how to build relationships with outlets, not just with journalists, but you know, also podcasters, um, conference organizers. So they understand nonprofits, they understand communications, how to build relationships and that’s what’s gonna get you heard across all media. So let’s turn to turn to communications. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Now back to in nonprofits. Do we trust?

[00:12:00.88] spk_1:
It takes me to another tangent though, now that you talked about efficiency, tony and that’s kind of, we’ve talked about it before and you’ve talked about it with the writers of uh, article or a letter called the overhead myth. I don’t know if you recall

[00:12:16.06] spk_0:
that many years ago. Yes. The C E O. S of charity Navigator better business. Bureau wise giving alliance and guidestar.

[00:13:08.09] spk_1:
Yeah. And you know, they were saying that we shouldn’t, you know, base ratings on a charity in terms of how worthy they are to receive funds from donors simply based on overhead ratio. You know what their admin and fundraising costs are relative to their programmatic costs and those are really wise wise words, um, that that were stated in that letter. But even today we still see organizations even high profile ones that talk about their low overhead ratio. And it can engender trust um, in their organization at the expense of trust of other organizations that legitimately have higher overhead ratios because the infrastructures and you know, the things that they need to do may be completely different. So it’s not fair to, you know, compare across the board and across the maturity of an organization. So

[00:14:06.82] spk_0:
another very valuable thing to invest in is is research, research, uh, maybe maybe going beyond research, activating a new program that, you know, that may or may not succeed, but you have to invest upfront, you know that it’s annoying the folks who hold different opinions about wise investment in technology, you know, it’s Uber should be losing money for the 1st 12 years, you know, because it’s investing in the future. Um, Tesla, you know, non profit unprofitable for many years, but you know, look where they are now, but, but in the nonprofit sector, you know, we don’t we don’t allow that that research and um, spending on innovation, we consider that overhead like, you know, like, like rent, which rent happens to be important too, but you know, something, something um, rent is not a good example, but sort of, you know, frivolous or you know, self indulgent when it could very well be research and and scaling up for for a for a dynamic

[00:14:29.60] spk_1:
future or even things like a living wage.

[00:15:22.90] spk_0:
Yeah. Good. Exactly. Thank you. Yes. Um, yeah, I I don’t like the, you know, I don’t like the double standard where we we we praise it in in some industries, but we we we criticize it uh, in in non profits. And I’m thinking specifically about investment in the future and whether that’s people or programs or even technology, technology is a is a valuable investment. It saves time. It creates productivity, makes people more comfortable at work. It enables them to work out of an office now and be remote, give them that benefit, which so many people are craving now, you know, but these are these are all wise investments, not not um, detrimental overhead.

[00:16:33.02] spk_1:
Yeah, I absolutely agree. And there’s a way to do it cheap. You could invest in technology on the cheap and that might have long term adverse consequences, including to kind of the sort of the data protection and privacy issues that can result. So if you’re really thinking ahead and investing in, not only just technology, just to be sort of more effective and efficient in the short term, the protective of your beneficiaries and your staff and others your donors in the long term, um, then you need to make more of an investment in that. And that’s another thing where, you know, we lose trust if you if you sort of blow your donor lists that are supposed to be private and you know, other big companies get ahold of it and start to target your donor base for unrelated things or even if they’re related sometimes, but not your organization and it was due to a slip on your part or your technology and information technology protocols. You can run into trouble. So again, investments have a double edged sword there. Great. But they can result in a loss of trust too if you’re not managing it properly and you compromise people’s information.

[00:16:41.40] spk_0:
Um, and also, you know, you mentioned living wage but investing in people so that people stay with your organization.

[00:16:48.75] spk_1:
All

[00:16:49.07] spk_0:
right. And that that starts with a living wage that also impacts to on technology. Uh, you know, time away professional development. You know, these are, these are investments in staff that people see and appreciate and make longevity with your organization more likely than you know, than than to to jump ship every six months.

[00:17:11.75] spk_1:
And that builds trust to write, I’m much more comfortable working with you if you’ve been with the charity for 10 years, Tony than if you were hired three months ago and there’s always a different person I’m talking to as a donor.

[00:17:31.13] spk_0:
Absolutely. Yeah. All right. You have some insights into what we as a community or hopefully even individual nonprofits can can start to think about take to their C. E. O. S. Take to their boards. This is always where you Excel gene.

[00:18:33.73] spk_1:
Well in the first steps are kind of simple. Um you know, it’s be compliant yourself, make sure your own houses in order. Um so we can sort of raise all of the issues with where you can lose trust with organizations. Um but even though 99.9% of the organizations are well intentioned, I can’t say that 99.9% of the organizations are compliant. Um so working to make sure you’re compliant Working to make sure that the tone is set at the top with the strong board of directors that is actually providing direction and oversight and not just simply helping you, you know, with fundraising and otherwise just rubber stamping the decisions of the leaders. I think it really is important that the tone be set at the top of the organization through the board of directors. A

[00:18:34.26] spk_0:
tone say say more about the tone.

[00:19:11.50] spk_1:
So the tone of placing the importance of a trusting relationship with our beneficiaries with our employees with our other stakeholders. I think that’s really important and that should be reflected in policies. So it’s not good enough to say, you know, this is what we believe in. So the, you know, one of the hot topics today is a board sets a diversity equity and inclusion policy. But if that policy just sits on the shelf and that’s the end of the discussion of it. And there are no actual changes or action plans attached to that that’s gonna maybe harm the organization more than help it. So the tone at the top means a board that is doing its role in moving that organization forward and focusing um not only on doing good work and, you know, metrics for for programmatic success, but on building trust within and outside of the organization.

[00:20:07.00] spk_0:
And that that Ceo board chair uh Ceo executive committee, if the board has an executive committee relationship is key to this. I mean, they they all whether it’s two people or the Ceo and a committee, you know, need to be uh you know, committed to the same, not only the same mission, but the same uh strategy for getting there. You know, the same commitment to the things that you’re talking about, this needs to be a a unified

[00:20:08.30] spk_1:
working

[00:20:09.10] spk_0:
group at the top between the Ceo and the board leadership.

[00:21:55.36] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s absolutely critical tony I agree. There is, however, sort of another dimension to this which adds complexity and that’s kind of the feeling amongst particularly younger generations. Again, and why there’s a little bit of distrust is too much power focused on the top of an organization without sort of distributing leadership and and the right to participate in this. You know, the bigger decisions of the organization being dispersed throughout the organization and getting input from beneficiaries about um you know, how the organization should evolve or um move forward in further its purpose if we’re not really thinking about getting other voices in it, and particularly if our boards are not very diverse, um that’s gonna engender more distrust as well um with with an organization and this leadership. So while what’s happening at the top level and the relationship between the Ceo and the chair of the board is critically important, it is really important to also make sure that leadership, authority and power is being dispersed down through the organization and that the board actually can listen to directly um input from some of the staff. Um and we shouldn’t create like a wall between board and staff completely. You know, that there’s a little bit of um new thinking on that because the old old ways is like the board should not micromanage right. We should not interfere with staff decisions, which is partly true, but it doesn’t mean that we create a complete block. So the board members don’t see the staff members and the staff don’t see the board and they just don’t know each other. So, um there is a sort of a balance there that needs to be taken.

[00:22:20.82] spk_0:
Can we, can we say a little more about that in terms of examples of how this could be done? Like you’re you’re talking about staff, but also the beneficiaries of the programmatic work. Uh is this um like, I mean, certainly beneficiaries could be members of the board or or is it more an advisory committee, but then to your point, you know, you don’t want it to just be a committee that the board doesn’t listen to. The ceo doesn’t listen to. You know, how can we uh actually execute on on some of this in terms of staff and beneficiaries?

[00:24:23.71] spk_1:
So there are a lot of different ways that it might be done and there’s no one right way for, you know, for all organizations, but getting other voices involved can be done in, you know, um through committees as you suggested, but they can’t just be advisory. If you’re really gonna disperse power, you have to give them some power even if they’re not made up of only board members and some people call any committee that is not composed of only board members, they call them at advisory committees. And because of the name, they think that they can only give advice to the board, but they don’t have any management authority. But that’s not true. You can give these other committees management authority, the way you can give a Ceo or CFO management authority, the board can delegate authority down to these other committees. These non board committees as well. So that may be one way of getting power dispersed through the organization, that that committee might be made up of some employees, some beneficiaries and maybe there is a pipeline so that some of the other people that you’d like to put onto a board, but you might not know very well, you might not have enough experience in certain things that you’d like to have them develop more knowledge of the organization and the work before they possibly a strong candidate for joining the board, but that could be a vehicle or an on ramp to being a board um board member as well. And again, creating a more diverse and stronger board with diverse perspectives and understandings of what the organization does and who it impacts. So I think there are definitely ways and we’ve seen this in other models as well. Some that have worked with some organizations and same models not working with other organizations. Hill Ocracy is sort of one example of that. What

[00:24:24.13] spk_0:
is that drug in jail? What? Hill Ocracy.

[00:25:53.62] spk_1:
Hill Ocracy is a form of management where there are still remnants of hierarchy, but a lot of decision making is made in kind of circles and circles might be employed, they might be employees and others and circles have certain autonomy over their body of decision making. So you might have a circle based on HR issues. So it’s not just one person with the final say, it’s this circle or a group in the law, we would just call it another committee. But um in hypocrisy there all circles and and this was used by some high profile for profit companies and some nonprofits, some had success with it, Some didn’t. So um there are other models out there as well, not one size will fit all, but again, there’s an administrative cost to trying to implement new models, um, but new models or maybe the way that we want to go and their movement organizations all over the place that are impacting how nonprofits and for profits are to be governed and managed. And we should be listening to some of these forces that are out there because they will gradually shape what we’re doing. You can see this by some younger people not sticking with employment as long as they were the great resignation and stuff. If you feel powerless within an organization or if you don’t feel the organization is representing what you want, your employer to be doing, they may not stay and having a little bit of say in what the organization is doing, even if it’s just the starting points because you can’t jump from point a to, you know, to the ideal point in one step, it’s gonna take a long, a long time to get there. But just to seeing that progress may be assigned to somebody to to say, I’m gonna stick around here and and find out

[00:26:35.35] spk_0:
alright creating vehicles for right people’s voices to be heard. Um, and you’re right, it’s, it’s incremental, but just the, just the showing of some progress, some initiative to uh, opening up the leadership, opening

[00:26:38.15] spk_1:
up

[00:26:41.97] spk_0:
strategic decision making, could be, it could be uh, you know, valuable to, to folks right? And encourage them to, to stay versus looking for someplace that’s more inclusive. Yeah.

[00:26:53.98] spk_1:
You know, if your Ceo doesn’t trust the board or if your employees don’t trust the ceo, how are you going to expect donors and your beneficiaries to trust the organization? So it really trust has to be built throughout the organization.

[00:28:41.45] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. Are you seeing technology as the investment that it is not as an expense, but an investment in your sustainability, your staff productivity, your staff happiness, um, satisfaction, an investment in your donor relations through your crm database. Uh, it’s an investment in your organization’s work and its future. That’s what technology that’s where your technology ought to be thought of. And fourth dimension four D. For short can help you make those investments wisely so that you’re not squandering on something you don’t really need. Like maybe your backup is sufficient, but you need the multi factor authentication installed, etcetera. So you know, they can help you think through smart technology investments. That’s it four D. And you know where the listener landing pages to check them out. It’s at tony dot M A slash four D. Which by the way is just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Let’s return to in non profits. Do we trust? What else do you see Gene as as things we can we can think about besides this sort of distributed, I’m calling it distributed leadership or maybe you call it distributed leadership. Yeah.

[00:29:32.73] spk_1:
So other things. Maybe some simple tips guard private data. We talked a little bit about it before with technology. If you’ve got data that you’re promising that will be kept confidential. Make sure you’re guarding that. Be careful about automating and depersonalizing interactions with technology as well. Like we could have a sort of a voicemail for everybody and you know, hit one if you want to do this. It too. If you want to do this and completely not let any donor speak to any individual without, you know, spending an hour on the phone that may not be, uh, seen as something that would build trust. So we have to be careful of our uses of technology there as well in our communications. Um, if you’re going to say something, um, don’t talk the talk. If you’re not going to walk the walk, right? So don’t make promises that you’re not going to keep

[00:29:41.70] spk_0:
that for an example of that is A D. I. Policy,

[00:29:45.44] spk_1:
right? Exactly

[00:29:46.80] spk_0:
written and never, never executed or remains written once and never evolves.

[00:31:13.44] spk_1:
And if you have a campaign to engage in a particular, uh, you know, program and you don’t raise enough money. And so that program never runs, you better be explaining this to your donors. Um, why that happened. And the possibility that that might happen when you start fundraising for it. So don’t just say, you know, after the fact when they complain that said, well we didn’t raise enough. So we used your money for other things that’s not going to engender trust. Um remember your mission and your beneficiaries don’t exist in a vacuum, right? Um, so it’s not just about your organization. And if you your numbers go up, um whatever metrics that you use financial performance or number of beneficiaries served whatever they are, you shouldn’t look at it as a silo. You should be looking at the entire ecosystem in which you are participating. And that would be, you know, open up things like environmentalism like you might not think environmental, your organization’s not environmental organization, but if climate change continues and creates hardships that, you know, scientists are predicting, predicting you probably will have an impact on your mission and your beneficiaries. And so to sort of think, just, you know, outside of that, that silo you want to be thinking about what your impact of your decisions will be, not only on your organization and beneficiaries, but on your allied organizations, on the broader community and what will that do to trust as well. So,

[00:32:03.91] spk_0:
a lot of these ideas, a lot of what you’re saying could be, you know, germinating in an advisory committee, you know, how could we look differently at at our contribution to climate change and what climate change means to us in the future for our for our for our people and for our work, but also what could we be doing right now, You know, even if we’re not an environmental organization siloed as you’re saying, you know, we still have an environmental impact. So what what contribution to to minimize climate change or reverse climate change can we make as well as planning for the for the future? Uh you know, that that those kinds of conversations can come out of these um advisory committees that is that are comprised of staff and and beneficiaries. I mean, these are the folks that live the mission day to day.

[00:32:36.09] spk_1:
Yeah, I love that idea to tony Sometimes the board may not have um or feel that they have the bandwidth to sort of discuss these sort of broader issues. Um and they’re a little bit more focused. So having the help um the advisory committee on an issue like like climate change for a non environmental organization or an organization whose mission is not focused on the environment. I think that would be great.

[00:32:45.06] spk_0:
Yeah. And I want to reiterate your point that which I’ve never thought of, advisory committees can be granted policy making authority and and and change within the organization. So whatever that looks like, you know, you can bestow that that authority

[00:33:05.16] spk_1:
Absolutely, and you can give them a budget to even sort of to putting

[00:33:11.20] spk_0:
money behind it. But that that yeah, money talks. That’s a that’s a big step granting them a budget granting them some granting them authority to make change that’s empowering and an advisory committee. All right.

[00:34:01.14] spk_1:
I think, you know, one area of trust that we haven’t spoken yet, but maybe, um why I as a lawyer and talking about these things and you’re not getting it from another consultant, is that the laws can also impact trust and non profits have to decide whether they want to set a position on certain laws. And um, some of the things that I’m thinking about is the deductibility of charitable contributions. So, we’ve had an above the line contribution where non itemizers could deduct as well because of Covid. Um, but that was just temporary. Um, and now there’s sort of a push for, well, we should make a charitable contribution deductible to all taxpayers, and not just about the 10% of taxpayers who itemize, who tend to be, you know, have a little bit more wealth, or some, in some cases a lot more than those who don’t itemize.

[00:34:17.90] spk_0:
Is it that small? The proportion of taxpayers who itemize is around 10%,,

[00:34:22.34] spk_1:
10-13%, is what I’m hearing.

[00:34:24.86] spk_0:
Okay,

[00:35:52.18] spk_1:
So, um, again, you know, part of trust and distrust has to do with concentrations of power and wealth, right? And when the 1% or the .1% control so much policy control the leadership of pivotal organizations in all sectors, and in government, um, there’s going to be a distrusted institutions. Again, that, you know, one third of people distrust big institutions. Um, and, you know, that concentration of wealth and power is, is the reason why. Um so laws that sort of enforce that. So if we just give you no deductible, make make tax benefits to, to richer people who can deduct, who can itemize their deductions and not to others that may feel really unfair to the public. And another reason for distrust. So, will your organization’s, even though tax policy is probably almost no organization’s mission, it has an impact. Um, and so it may be something that organizations want to take a look at. And there are organizations like independent sector of the National Council on nonprofits and others who the Tax Policy center that that can explain this a little bit. But you you may want to take a look and see if you want to put a position on it. And one of the things that I also think, um engender distrust is when the media miss reports, the law in one area where the mis reported it is a lot of media say, charities can’t lobby and that’s just not true. Um, so charities can lobby on things like, you know, the the above the line deduction. Um, and and on other things as well, and there are just certain limits that apply, but they’re often generous, So learn a little bit more and we can build a stronger sector?

[00:36:21.84] spk_0:
Well, you and I have talked about the the lobbying limits on previous shows, is it is it safe to say that the law hasn’t changed over the past? I don’t know, 23 years maybe, since you and I have talked about this.

[00:36:34.17] spk_1:
Okay,

[00:37:06.11] spk_0:
So, so at Tony-Martignetti.com, you can search gene Takagi, you’ll find many episodes that he’s on and one or one or two are about the uh, the lobbying limits, I think, I think the last time may have been 2020 when the pre election. So we may well, with the, with the election in late The election in late 2020, so we may have done something like in mid-2020 or so on the lobbying, uh, exemption or Well, that’s not that’s not that’s not the right phrase. What the limits of lobbying and you make the you just said, you know, they are, they are generous in some cases. It’s not it’s not that it has to be a de minimus proportion of your budget or something.

[00:37:24.83] spk_1:
Yeah, the

[00:37:26.87] spk_0:
yeah,

[00:37:27.68] spk_1:
the losses insubstantial which scares the majority of charities away from doing any of it, but it turns out it can be fairly generous limits to engaging in lobbying.

[00:38:01.79] spk_0:
Okay. Um, and the point that you made before that, I was going to say something about that too. Well, sorry, what did you say? Right before you were talking about the uh, the permissibility of some lobbying activities. You made a point? Yes, thank you. The last thing we want is for Donating to charity to be perceived as, uh, as an elitist activity. That only the only the top now you’re saying whatever 10 or 13% of the population can, can give because they’re the only ones who get the advantage because they’re the only, they’re the ones who itemize their deductions. The last thing we want is for donating to charities to be perceived as an elitist activity.

[00:39:13.92] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. tony and with, you know, with our current tax policy, how it works. Um, then I don’t want to get too complicated with that. We are seeing a shrinking middle class. I don’t think there’s anything denying that people, most people have less discretionary income. So if we look at the fundraising statistics now, the giving statistics, we see that, um, even if giving goes up Giving from kind of the middle class and smaller donors has shrunk, um, and, and quite significantly, and it’s, it’s the people, um, that have put in huge contributions that have made up for that. So the Mackenzie Scott, you know, with, I think $13 billion dollars over the last few years, they’re making up for that. But that can change the way nonprofits run if, if it’s all about, again, elite, wealthy, powerful individuals who make the big contributions that then have the ear of the boards of these organizations that then talk about policy and they create policy or, or advocate for policies that keep that dynamic in existence. So it is problematic.

[00:40:52.59] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony Take two. My latest video on linkedin is this is not planned giving uh it’s short under two minutes. I give you an example of what is not planned giving and remind you what planned giving is, how simple planned giving is when it’s done right, when you start with simple gifts by will. But I’ve got kind of a lighthearted back way of looking at it through what planned giving isn’t in the opening. So latest video on linkedin, you’ll find me on linkedin. My name is tony-martignetti by the way that has escaped you. And uh it’s my latest video there That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for in nonprofits. Do we trust with Gene Takagi? Look at this dark potential that people look at at the United States as alright, the wealthy control government because of dark money and and the Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court uh wealthy control business because only wealthy people start and or run run businesses and grow them and only only white males have the access to capital to start businesses. And then and then the perception that um the wealthy control the nonprofit

[00:41:13.41] spk_1:
sector, you

[00:41:21.27] spk_0:
know, and the wealthy control of media, you know, this is all this is all very uh a very detrimental, very dark cynical way of looking at the at the country, but I’m not I’m not sure that where that’s far away from

[00:42:10.55] spk_1:
it. Yeah, I agree. tony And I think past generations, you know, including ours, you know, we’ve always kind of done better than our parents. Our parents were lucky enough to put us in that position. But the younger generations now economically um and maybe, you know health wise and mental health wise, they may not be doing as well as their parents overall and they’re questioning kind of the system because of that. Um and we maybe didn’t question it because our generation did better than our parents um in those terms. But now there is just legitimate questioning of do we need to change these policies and these dynamics and these power structures and um you know, organizations have a say in this and and use your voice, get get people to vote. Maybe that’ll be my my one of my big messages vote

[00:43:27.00] spk_0:
voting is fundamental to although, you know, in a lot of states that’s being eroded you becoming more difficult, although in a lot of states it’s easier to um you know, another thing that comes to mind when, you know, you’re talking about the generations below the the the boomers not doing as well as the one before them. Um The FDA just yesterday recommended mental health screening at regular uh regular doctor visits, like an annual annual health health checkup for everybody under 65 And and they had been considering this policy that this recommendation is just a recommendation to the medical community from from for years before the pandemic. This is not, this is not pandemic-related recommendation. They had been considering this for years before the pandemic that there’s a lot of stress and anxiety among the population under 65 and 65 is basically the baby boomer cut off within a couple of years.

[00:43:59.55] spk_1:
And then, you know, as you noted, this was even before Covid that they’ve been advocating for this and now with Covid and the mental health issues that are sort of go along with not just the disease, but the isolation that many are experiencing and long Covid, which is sort of an underappreciated under recognized problem and disabilities maybe creating more disability, disabled americans than anything. Um, since you know, the World War two, I think would be the last one. It’s just, it’s mind blowing

[00:44:01.44] spk_0:
and I and I and all this does contribute to a decline in trust in all institutions and nonprofit. The nonprofit community is a major institution in the country. So you know, that’s, that’s how this is all related

[00:44:15.09] spk_1:
to what you

[00:44:21.48] spk_0:
and I are talking about. I want to make that connection explicit that anxiety among the population creates anxiety for nonprofits and, and and distrust and disbelief in nonprofit work. Whether that’s justified or not perception is reality.

[00:44:36.71] spk_1:
Yeah, I agree. tony

[00:44:40.74] spk_0:
All right. I don’t know. So we had, we had said one of the things we’re gonna talk about is what happens, what happens if this continues? I mean, I already painted a pretty dark cynical scenario. Um, is there anything more you want to say around? You know, what, what the implications are if the community doesn’t start to help itself?

[00:46:25.73] spk_1:
Well, maybe on a more micro looking basis, it just means for a charity, they’re gonna experience diminished fundraising. Not everybody gets Mackenzie scott, Jeff Bezos money. Right. Most of them are relying upon a pool of donors, um, many of which are aging, um, and may age out of their donor pool. Um, and shrinking again, middle class, shrinking, discretionary income for many people, meaning West donations. Um, we might see more direct giving to individuals as people are saying, well, I don’t trust charities overall. I’d rather just give to my friends who say, you know, somebody is in need as crowdfunding fight sites just continue to, to grow in importance and also in in power as well. Um, and that’s just gonna be to the detriment of, you know, beneficiaries of our charity. So again, in the micro level, we make less money, people trust us less. Our employee retention is less. Um, our donor pool is shrinking and we can help less people even as the need for our services increases. So that’s kind of the dark side look of it. Um, we can try to be the nonprofit that stands out and you know, is the trustworthy non profit from, from a public perception standpoint. Um, that’s good. But again, don’t see yourself in a silo lift yourself up with all the boats in the water and, and really try to strengthen the nonprofit sector where you can, and, and advocating on some of the laws that make things more fair, I think is a good start there

[00:46:41.97] spk_0:
advocating maybe there’s a way of partnering

[00:46:45.00] spk_1:
with other

[00:46:55.64] spk_0:
organizations, not, not in all in all things. I don’t mean a legal formal partnership, but you know, if, if there’s, if there’s a way of working together for an event or, or some kind of advocacy,

[00:47:03.61] spk_1:
you

[00:47:11.44] spk_0:
know, we’ve had shows on the values of that and how to do that. Um, so that everybody, you know it, so that it’s, it’s not seen as a, as a zero sum within your, within your community that if if if someone else, some other organizations benefiting, then you’re losing. You know, that’s not the way to look at,

[00:47:25.67] spk_1:
at,

[00:47:26.47] spk_0:
at the world and and that not nonprofit support. We we all could be or a couple of couple of organizations together could be rising together.

[00:47:37.64] spk_1:
Yeah, I’ll add that the independent sector survey, the Edelman Data Intelligence survey that we mentioned at the start of the show also has some tips on building up trust within the sector. So it’s not all of dark outlook. It’s just encouraging people that the importance of this is very, very high. Um, so let’s go out and actually make things happen? So that, that dark outlook doesn’t happen

[00:48:05.70] spk_0:
within independent sector. Gene, what’s the, what’s the name of the you’re saying? Edelman data?

[00:48:11.03] spk_1:
Yeah, I think they contracted out with Edelman E D E L M A. And Data and intelligence and their third annual reports. This is an annual report is available on the independent sector website.

[00:48:26.66] spk_0:
Okay, thank you. Edelman E D E L M A N,

[00:48:30.68] spk_1:
correct.

[00:48:49.24] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Uh, you mentioned the five oh one C four’s a little bit, but there have been a couple in the news very recently, most recently the uh, Patagonia companies, uh, sort of evolution into a uh, a new nonprofit, a new a new five oh one C four. non profit the hold fast collective.

[00:51:57.05] spk_1:
Yeah. So the founder of Patagonia and his family member, they were the principal owners of Patagonia and they decided to give up ownership of the company, but you know, they gave it not to a charity, but to a 501 C four organization. Um, it’s called the social welfare organization and for listeners who aren’t maybe familiar with it, you probably are familiar with many five oh one C four organizations themselves, like the N. R. A. Planned parenthood, the A. C. L. U. Sierra Club. So these are advocacy organizations that have kind of charitable like purposes. Um, but our can engage in unlimited lobbying and can engage in election nearing or political campaign intervention? Supporting political candidates and political parties, as long as that’s not their primary activity or purpose. So this is sort of the source or one of the big sources of where dark money comes in tony that you mentioned with the Citizens United Decision before donor that wants to support a candidate but stay hidden from public view about their support of the Can rather than giving directly to the candidate, could give to a 501 C four organization and the C Four organization can get their money’s into the candidate. And the donor that is disclosed is the C Four organization, not the donor to the C Four organization. So that’s how you can create dark money. And with the Patagonia case, it’s very clear who the donor was. So we don’t expect that to be the dark money that we’re as leery of, but it’s still, you know, a huge gift which, you know, for somebody who believes in in in the environmental movement I think is a great gift. But news media miss reporting it or some news media are mis reporting it as kind of something that doesn’t get a tax benefit because a donor doesn’t get an income tax deduction for giving to a five oh one C Four organization the way they do if they give to a charity. Um but there are other tax exemptions that apply like a gift tax exemption or in a state tax exemption. So this gift is overall saving. Um uh mr Schwinn nerd um the owner and his family probably somewhere in the realm of $800 million in taxes. Um So it is not completely a no tax benefit transaction. Again this is not to disparage them for taking advantage of a system that allows for these gifts Um to go with with some tax benefits, but it’s not just the income tax deduction that matters in in donations there for for very wealthy people like billionaires. Um the gift and estate tax exemptions which can be 40%, right? So it can be very very high higher than income tax they matter. Um and so that’s something to be aware of that. Um this is a very wealthy person who gave up much of the ownership share, I guess all of his ownership shares to this 501 C4 organization, except really importantly 2% of the gift. Overall gift was given to a trust that’s not a nonprofit.

[00:52:14.55] spk_0:
Yeah those voting, those are the 2% of the voting that are the voting shares,

[00:52:58.58] spk_1:
right? So because they’re in control of that trust with with some close advisers um they have not given control out of Patagonia, right? They still can control Patagonia. Um And again they’re taking advantage of existing law what what it allows but it allows billionaires to not give up control of their company, get an $800 million tax benefit for giving or you know $3 billion Uh to a 501 C4 organization that could spend nearly half of it on endorsing political candidates. Um So it’s kind of an interesting tax system that that allows for that.

[00:53:18.19] spk_0:
And if if you consider that, you know supportive of uh of a liberal progressive cause because the whole fast collective the the new C4 is is devoted to uh the ill effects of climate change, you know, reversing climate change, impacting climate change. Uh So if you consider that of a left cause, then there’s an example on the right side with uh mr barr seed and the marble Freedom Trust. Another five oh one C four.

[00:53:44.39] spk_1:
Yeah. And that sea forces led by Leonard Leo who maybe the person most responsible for the changing of our Supreme Court and therefore the decisions on things like abortion might be largely attributed to mr Leo,

[00:53:56.21] spk_0:
fundraiser and activist and very well connected guy in conservative circles.

[00:56:20.34] spk_1:
Yeah. And used to be Executive vice president of the Federalist Society whose mission was to change the composition of the Supreme Court. So um I I don’t think that’s controversial and that’s just what their goal was. And they were very effective at achieving that goal. But this $1.6 billion kind of same thing. There there are some tax benefits that go along with it. There’s no income tax deduction. Um and mr uh c passed away. I think this was given after his death. But another big contribution to an organization led by somebody who has immense influence and now a huge war chest that can be used for political activities. Again, the primary activity cannot be political campaign intervention. Um, but some people believe, or many people believe that means 49% of the funds can be used for political campaign intervention. And that’s kind of the source of dark money. Although again in this case we do know where the donor came from. Um, so it’s not dark in that way in terms of hidden donors, but it’s still donations that didn’t go directly to the political candidate. It went through five oh one C four first, get the tax benefits for that, which his heirs, I guess would appreciate. Um, uh, and the impact of that again, is that? Well, in both cases, very wealthy people are able to keep control with people who they trust or their family members of their money to be used for political purposes. They can’t use it for themselves to, you know, to buy huge houses and boats, but they can use it for things that were very important to them. But that means for people like us and most of your listeners, tony is like, what influence do we have compared to that individual who gave billions of dollars to influence political elections. Um, and you know, what, you know, can we change our Supreme Court sort of composition the way that they’re able to do, probably not by ourselves. So it again is, is the reason why people go, hey, these are nonprofits that they’re using to do this. I don’t trust non profits, this is what they’re used for. And charities kind of get lumped in because the ordinary, you know, people, the lay person doesn’t know the difference between a five oh one C three and five A one C four organization.

[00:56:36.19] spk_0:
Yeah, and that’s right. And it’s it’s if it’s mentioned in a in in press coverage, you know, it’s mentioned in passing that it it’s it’s an organization that’s distinguished from from uh charities. But you know, it’s like, it’s like a sentence or two. You know, it’s it’s never it’s never a focal point. So your point is correct that people just lump them all together

[00:57:00.57] spk_1:
and flows through nonprofits and that’s why we shouldn’t trust nonprofit.

[00:57:04.97] spk_0:
So the wealthy control government and they control politics and they control business and media and and nonprofits.

[00:57:18.46] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s that’s what we, We’re finding more and more is the case, but we’re trying to change policies and change minds about this so that we can see that the impact of the 99.9% out there is actually even bigger than the impact that we mentioned about a few individuals. Um, it just has to be organized. Um, and non profits are way to do that.

[00:58:21.68] spk_0:
Well, that’s a, that’s a pretty good way to close. Probably we should have closed with what our community can do. But you know, you’re suffering the lackluster host. So uh you can rewind to that section and then uh fast forward and you can end with that if you want to. Um, but but jean, you know, always thank you, you know, sort of reality, but also wisdom and inspiration. And and not only um ethereal pedagogical inspiration, but you know, ideas that we can we can we can act on. So thank you. Thank you.

[00:58:24.63] spk_1:
Thank you Tony. And your closing statement is actually always the greatest ending. So, I’m looking forward to hearing it.

[00:59:39.16] spk_0:
Okay, All right, thank you jean. Next week. Let’s see what develops and why do I even say uh, next week if I don’t know what’s coming up next week, but we’re here we are. We’re talking about trust and part of that is transparency. So I’m being transparent that I don’t know what next week’s show is gonna be, I know what the 1 to 2 weeks from now is gonna be. We’re gonna have beth cancer and Allison fine talking about their new book, but I can’t promise that for next week because well, that would be a lie and that’s going to reach the trust because they’re not on next week. Next week. Uh, it’s up in the air, but trust me, it’ll be just that’s conclusory. Just trust me now, I hope you trust non profit radio I’ll find something good if you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com responses by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by fourth dimension technologies I. T. Infra in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four

[00:59:48.37] spk_1:
D. Just

[01:00:03.54] spk_0:
Like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. A creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff to 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 B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Here it is, Jean, go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for August 15, 2022: Board Members Are People Too

 

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[00:01:23.53] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast and oh I’m glad you’re with me, I’d be forced to endure the pain of pseudo calista toma if I had to hear that you missed this week’s show board members are people to one size fits all rules may not make sense for your board, especially if you’re embracing diversity and equity in board membership. Our guest judy Levine is a longtime board coach, trainer and consultant and she leads cause effective Antonis take two endowment excitement. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. And by fourth dimension technologies i Tion for in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D just like three D but they go one dimension deeper here is board members are people too.

[00:01:29.04] spk_1:
It’s a pleasure

[00:02:05.22] spk_0:
to welcome to non profit radio judy Levin She has been executive director of cause effective since 2006 and she has over 30 years experience as a nonprofit management advisor At cause effective since 1993. And as an independent consultant. She has trained and consulted with well over 1000 nonprofits on issues in fund diversification, donor engagement and board and organizational development. Cause effective is at cause effective and at cause effective dot org judy Welcome to nonprofit

[00:02:06.47] spk_1:
radio

[00:02:09.02] spk_0:
pleasure to have you, I’ve had your colleagues through the years Greg Cohen and Susan comfort who I know Susan is completely retired now and Greg is mostly retired now, but now we’re uh they’ve been sort of stepping stones to the top now. We have the executive director.

[00:02:27.11] spk_1:
Okay,

[00:02:28.12] spk_0:
Alright.

[00:02:30.21] spk_1:
I’m

[00:02:37.36] spk_0:
good. Okay. Um my my apologies. Susan comfort is someone else. Susan, Gabriel is who used to be

[00:02:43.00] spk_1:
at

[00:02:43.99] spk_0:
at cost

[00:02:45.01] spk_1:
effective

[00:03:06.63] spk_0:
Gabriel and and Greg Cohen. So um you’re concerned about equity on boards. Uh, but at the same time, you know, we’re trying to maintain standards but we want we want a diverse board standards don’t always apply to all the all the different cultures. We’re inviting in, help me set this up.

[00:04:46.22] spk_1:
Well there’s always a fear of the difference, the different and uh there’s also a fear of um acting inappropriately around the different and those two fears um sometimes stop a board from real honest, um an accurate reflection on what’s at the table and what’s the most appropriate way to support the organization’s mission. Um And especially, you know, ever since the racial reckoning of 2020 and the understanding on nonprofits parts that they needed to reckon with their own D. E. I. B. Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Um my sense is that that that happened that that reckoning has happened on a staff level at a different different pace than it’s happened on the board level and some of that has to do with fundraising and people’s fear that if they rock the boat, they will not have the fundraising return that they have now. Um, And I’m here to say two things. One is that there is plenty of, uh, salaried capacity in this country for people of color, although not as much, not as much wealth accumulation, certainly generational wealth accumulation. And that’s a very real factor. Um, so to think that you need to diversify your board that you need to reach into the client base, which may be true, but is not the only way to diversify your board from the, uh, the group. It has always been

[00:05:05.08] spk_0:
okay. That’s, that’s number

[00:05:39.72] spk_1:
one. The other is that, Yes, you may have to rethink the one size fits all package and that’s been a mantra in our boards is that everybody has to hold the same standard and we know that everybody is the stain standard and we don’t want double standards or triple standards. Um, I’m here to really help people rethink the idea of universal standards versus standards. That makes sense for where that person is coming from and what they can, what they can actually bring to the table if they do their best.

[00:06:17.02] spk_0:
Okay, let’s take the first of those because there’s, there’s an, there’s an assumption there that people of color are not gonna be able to meet our fundraising expectation. So we’re gonna have to, we’re gonna have to reduce our board giving to invite folks of color in. But that, that, that’s just unfair and unfair and racist you’re not, if you’re not finding these folks, then you’re not looking hard enough for people who do have the means, uh, to, to meet your, to meet your, your board expectation, your, your board fundraising expectations

[00:07:26.98] spk_1:
and, or you’re not looking, um, with the right messengers and, or you’re not understanding why your cause is going to be of deep personal interest just to a person of color. Um, all of those factors have to be there. Um, you can’t, you don’t ask anybody on the board, You don’t ask somebody on the board of an animal shelter. If they have no connection to animals, they don’t care about animals, you gotta look. Uh, so in the same way you have to understand, let’s put it this way. There are, there are legacy charities, um, the Urban League, um, you know, very, that, that there are huge fundraising machines that are people of color lead. Um, there’s a sense of the ownership that this is ours. Yeah, may not be in your board as currently constituted. That needs to be opened up.

[00:07:32.26] spk_0:
Yeah, that’s a, that’s a holding onto that’s holding onto power and structures and not allowing someone who looks different comes from a different background into our, our playground

[00:08:34.14] spk_1:
well, and it’s more than not allowing. It’s actually, um, it’s more than just a not doing, it’s something that you have to actually do do, um, is to understand, um, how who makes decisions. Is there an in group and out group? Is there a biding one’s time uh ethos um which doesn’t work well when you invite people of color on and then they have to buy their time and they’re the only ones that are biding their time. And yes, it might be historical that everybody else bathe their time years back, but people gonna lose, lose, you know, they lose patience. So it means that you have to do much more rapid um leadership development, onboarding and power sharing. Then your board may be used to.

[00:08:43.52] spk_0:
All right. I don’t want to derail what what what we were intending to talk about, but I just

[00:08:46.12] spk_1:
I think it’s,

[00:08:47.72] spk_0:
I mean, I think it’s important to point out the implicit bias that goes along with this, assuming that you’re gonna have to lower your standards basically. Just assuming you got to lower your standards if you have people of color in. I

[00:09:00.60] spk_1:
think it’s all of

[00:09:02.51] spk_0:
gross and erroneous.

[00:09:06.87] spk_1:
And board members, all board members need to be owners, not

[00:09:12.44] spk_0:
guests. Right. And yes, and not treated like guests. Alright. Alright. So one of the things you said is that um one size fits all

[00:09:21.36] spk_1:
is

[00:09:36.76] spk_0:
not, is not gonna be the right model necessarily. So what what’s what’s an alternative? So if we’ve got a, we’ve got a $15,000 annual give get bored requirement uh and and two thirds of it has to be from your personal, your your personal assets. So $10,000 from you and if you want to either give or get the other 5000, you have an option there, but you have to give at least $10,000 a

[00:11:27.90] spk_1:
year. One of the things that I talked about that took me, you know, frankly, you know, a while to understand is the role of generational wealth transfer in people’s capacity to have disposable income. So that um, you know, uh, often times white people come from there. They’re not coming from money money, but they’re coming from a position of um comfort. Um, and so they’re not necessarily carrying family members. They’re not, they’re not pulling their family out of poverty along with them. Oftentimes, certainly black people who are in a may make the same salary, but they are carrying people in their family. And so you can’t say, oh, this person makes X salary and that person makes X salary, therefore they have the same capacity. You only find this out by talking to and listening to someone and I universal give assumes universal capacity. And yes, we said, okay, this gives the floor and everybody should go over the floor. We all know that people rise to the floor. So the question is, is there a way to help this person get and to change that relationship and or is there what are we, what are what we are after on the board? Someone who is using their connections for the, to the extent for the organization’s behalf And what comes in is relative to those connections and that capacity,

[00:12:58.91] spk_0:
it’s time for a break. Turn to communications media relationships, you know, how important relationships are in all aspects of your work and, and personal side to the past couple weeks, I’ve been talking about fundraising, but relationships are everywhere that applies to the media as well. You want to get heard in the media, you want to be that thought leader that you know yet you are that that you know, that other folks ought to know you as it’s gonna happen through media relationships so that when you are calling the journalists are so much more responsive to picking up the phone that supplies to journalists, podcasters, bloggers, conference leaders, wherever you need to be known. Right turn to can help you build those relationships so that you get heard in the media outlets. When you need to be, they’ll help you with the relationships they know what to do. Turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Now, back to board members are people too. Alright. So we need to, we need to get to know our board members. Uh, and you know, I understand your point. You know, some folks may very well be supporting helping other family members, not necessarily out of poverty, but I mean could be, but not necessarily out of poverty, but they’re they’re they’re helping other family members that aren’t doing as well as they

[00:13:16.31] spk_1:
are. And

[00:13:39.08] spk_0:
a lot of that can a lot of that can very well come from the lack of inter generational wealth through the generations at that. Uh, folks of color got screwed out of, essentially. Um Alright, so, alright, and I still want to go back to the fact that, you know that I don’t want to operate under the assumption that you have to lower standards just to invite folks of color fundraising fundraising standards. I don’t want to I don’t want to operate on the assumption that you have to lower standards.

[00:14:00.20] spk_1:
I’m

[00:14:00.94] spk_0:
trying to defeat that assumption.

[00:14:02.80] spk_1:
Okay,

[00:14:26.69] spk_0:
Okay. Um All right. So what about the uh, what about the pushback? Well, before we get to the pushback that you might hear from your white board members about we’ve been doing this for so long and it’s been fine for us. So why can’t it be okay for them before we get to that? What might what might some of this look like? What what kinds of what kinds of uh activities can can folks do if they if they can’t make the not able to meet the requirements. Are you, are you suggesting rewriting? Do we rewrite the

[00:14:37.01] spk_1:
the

[00:14:37.21] spk_0:
expectations for all board members

[00:14:39.05] spk_1:
or suggesting using that as a starting point? Not an ending

[00:14:42.32] spk_0:
point.

[00:15:08.52] spk_1:
That’s a starting point with each board member, um, about their, how it relates to them, to their assets, to their relationships to their circumstances. Um, and where, which areas they can go above and beyond in and which areas they need to pull back from and everybody’s gonna have a different answer to that, those equations. The fact is that they are, you know, I’ve been on board with very mixed income levels and the people who had the higher incomes understood that in order to have a board with mixed demographics, they had to do more weight bullying in the fun

[00:15:23.13] spk_0:
gathering,

[00:15:29.39] spk_1:
that, that was part of the value system was that it was not, if they wanted everybody equal, they would have everybody just like them. If the value system was to have different voices at the table, then the value system had to be that some people did more direct fundraising and direct giving and some people did more outreach and some people did more political converse, you know, conversations, etcetera.

[00:15:48.53] spk_0:
Okay,

[00:15:50.64] spk_1:
I

[00:15:50.79] spk_0:
want to make sure we want to be having these conversations with uh, these individual conversations with potential board members right before we’re in the recruitment process, before we invite someone to be on a board or before we accept someone to be on the board, we want to be investigating these things

[00:16:10.94] spk_1:
so

[00:16:12.03] spk_0:
that they know what to expect, so that they know what the expectations are and we know what we can

[00:16:47.56] spk_1:
expect. I, I, you know, having done a lot of board recruitment with nonprofits through the years, I would say two things, I think you have a before as your recruiting, you say, here’s the kinds of things that board members are expected to do. Um, and um, you know, how do these rest with you? Um, and you’ll find out some of them are scary. Some of them are, you know, oh, I couldn’t do that. Some of them are like, oh, this, I could definitely do that. I don’t know that. I would pin someone down to an exact um, prescription. You’re trying to get their temperature,

[00:16:49.39] spk_0:
but you

[00:17:17.83] spk_1:
know, it’s a courtship process. And so people go above and beyond what they thought they could do when they’re really excited by the mission and they’re given the tools they didn’t know they needed. So uh, in the courtship process, I would put this menu out and say, you know, how does this look to you, How could you see yourself in this? Um, but I wouldn’t take that as the last word because board service should be, people should be going into places that are not comfortable for them.

[00:17:21.63] spk_0:
And

[00:17:43.27] spk_1:
that’s partly the role of the board chair is to, is to live that by example is not just to be good at what they do, but to live by example. I tried this and this was, you know, I thought I was gonna throw up, but actually I didn’t throw up. I did really well at it. And then I tried that and I did throw up. So I, you know, somebody else will do that one from now on. Um, and so I want to be honest with people, but I don’t want to pin them down to something that are not being ready ready to be pinned to.

[00:17:51.29] spk_0:
But you make a good point about board bird service being a challenge. You do want, you do want folks, you’re you’re you’re leveraging the fact that they love your mission, your work, your values. They stand beside you with that in those ways. Um, You want them to to be challenged. You want board service to be meaningful? Yes.

[00:18:19.09] spk_1:
And you you want them to learn something from it because that’s part of what they get out of. It is not just a happy club, but that they’re gaining a different kind of sense of themselves of what they’re capable of,

[00:18:24.49] spk_0:
interesting, different sense of themselves, what they’re capable of. Yes, challenge. That’s the challenge. That’s the challenge. Go beyond comfort zone. Try this and see whether you throw up or

[00:18:35.40] spk_1:
not. Right? Kind of. But I mean, you need to try it with a lot of support and with the tools,

[00:18:42.18] spk_0:
yeah,

[00:18:42.95] spk_1:
throw somebody into the lion’s den.

[00:18:46.17] spk_0:
All right. What about the uh the pushback from white board members that, you know, we’ve we’ve been. This has always worked well for us. We’ve always had this very rigid uh uniform, giving everybody’s given the same through these years? What why why do we have to now? What’s the advantage? Why, why should we change now?

[00:19:09.91] spk_1:
Okay, so I need to be polite here. Um, you

[00:19:13.62] spk_0:
can be firm, you can be firm and realistic, you have to be

[00:19:16.04] spk_1:
polite counseling of white folks and I think it’s part of our job as white folks to help other white folks to a different place.

[00:19:22.57] spk_0:
Alright, so don’t be, don’t be soft on nonprofit radio listeners. I’ll admonish you don’t do

[00:20:31.72] spk_1:
That. Um, it’s 2022. We know stuff now is white folks that we didn’t, that we were able to be blind to for hundreds of years. Yes, and we don’t anymore. So there’s a moral obligation to act differently. Our non profit is is here for the public good. And it it we believe that to do that, we need to reflect the full spectrum of voices that is that public and or should be concerned with our mission. That means that we need to have a table that is really welcoming to all those voices that they’re not just here, but they’re actually, we’re gonna share the ownership of this mission. And that does mean that we need to pull apart the stuff that we’re comfortable with and that’s unspoken because it’s gonna be a mystery to somebody who doesn’t come from our background and it was already part of this

[00:20:40.51] spk_0:
and what’s the advantage to the organization, Let’s make it explicit, uh, to doing this?

[00:21:26.65] spk_1:
We are living our values in our governance and if we’re not that’s pretty um compromised. Um so one is congruence without organizational values and what we’re here to try and carry out. Um the second is sort of more robust conversation and decision making because there are different points of view at the table because it’s not people with it’s not an entire crew with the same assumptions and frankly you’ll have more interesting conversations. That will be a more interesting club to be part of. That’s not why to do it. But it’s a side product.

[00:22:41.83] spk_0:
It’s time for a break, fourth dimension technologies. They’ve got the free offer going. It’s exclusively for non profit radio listeners. It’s complimentary. That’s why it’s free 24 7 monitoring of your I. T. Assets And they will do this for three months. They’ll look over your servers, your network and your cloud performance, they’ll monitor your backup performance all 24/7. If there are any issues they will let you know right away. Plus at the end you get a comprehensive report And they’re also going to include a few surprise offers as well. They’re gonna take good care of you. It’s all complimentary, it’s for three months. It’s for the 1st 10 listeners. It’s on the listener landing page Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper grab the offer, let’s return to board members are people too. All right so that sort of answers uh dumbing down.

[00:22:44.15] spk_1:
You

[00:22:50.48] spk_0:
know, we’re not we’re not we’re broadening broadening and there are advantages. What would you say to folks that are the advantages to them personally learning, learning, learning about, learning from folks with different backgrounds.

[00:23:47.71] spk_1:
There is an incredible gift to be had to be able to listen. I’ll say this personally as a white person working in a diverse environment. Um, it is humbling and awe inspiring to be in a place where you can really hear from people who didn’t, who are just like you and have them change your mind and open your mind. That’s what you gain by being in a diverse environment. And not only will you make better decisions for your nonprofit, but you will learn more and be a kinder person who in and of itself understands the way you interact with the rest of the world in a different way

[00:24:35.83] spk_0:
folks. If you want to see a diverse team, then uh, pause the podcast and go to cause effective dot org. Go to their team, this team or staff page and look at the look at the pictures of the staff at cause effective dot org and then of course, come right back and press play again. Don’t don’t don’t don’t start browsing, you know, don’t go to amazon dot com to just look at cause effective dot org and you’ll see, uh, an enormously diverse team there? Um, All right. So, you know, that

[00:24:37.08] spk_1:
that’s

[00:24:38.22] spk_0:
anything more you want to say about why this is worth it for the organization or for the people.

[00:25:32.29] spk_1:
Um, we live in a diverse world. I mean, you know, no matter where you are, um, we, we live in a world in a country certainly and in a world with lots of different kinds of people from lots of different kinds of backgrounds and doing a lot of different things to the table and that are really interesting to interact with. Um what better way to interact with them than in the support of a cause you love. So there’s, you know, you’re all putting your, you know, shoulder to the wheel together. Um, it it gives you your life spice to be doing this in a way that’s not homogeneous and your organization itself will be stronger.

[00:25:47.52] spk_0:
Yeah. In the ways you just, you talked about a few minutes ago. Yeah. You have some ideas about how to do this. Uh, it’s sort of efficiently shave, shave some some time off.

[00:25:53.59] spk_1:
Well, one of the things that, you

[00:25:55.75] spk_0:
know, we

[00:26:58.51] spk_1:
all know that executive directors well run boards, executive directors are behind them at kind of every step of the way. Um, but in boards that really take off, there’s board to board conversation that the executive director kind of monitors, but it’s not board of every conversation. And so, and when that happens, it’s because there are, there’s not just a board cheerleader, but there are many leaders. So there are leaders of governance where there might be a leader of on boarding or there might be a leader of uh you know, there’s different ways to chunk it up so that there’s leadership which leadership leads to ownership. Um and so part of your job as the board liaison, whether is to understand what that web of relationships could is and could be and then to do in essence what we call, you know, HR staff development, but with board members, so you’re asking them to take on certain things and then your job is being a coach, not being a doer.

[00:27:04.42] spk_0:
We’re talking about the ceo executive director now.

[00:27:09.62] spk_1:
Yes, yeah and and development director also

[00:27:12.35] spk_0:
Development and and working closely with the board chair. I mean, it’s gonna help enormously to have a culturally sensitive board

[00:28:29.33] spk_1:
chair. Um I send board members, especially white board members to trainings and not just what is D. I. But to reel immersive, you know, one or two day trainings about the how this culture rests has rested on um racial injustice. Um I say if you’re gonna be part of this organization, you need to have this basic understanding. Um and we need you to do this two day training and here’s, you know, how to pay for it. Um because there’s a basic understanding of that that really shifts in those kinds of very immersive trainings. I’m not talking about a two hour what HR does at a large corporation. Um And you know, we just said these are our values and you have to really get it if you’re gonna be part of this team, I would certainly do that with board leadership, that this is a journey and this is part of the and we want the board to be part of this journey, and we need the board leadership to start it out. And if the board chair won’t do that, you do a succession plan, it’s not like you kick them out right away, but ultimately, your board’s not gonna progress until you have somebody at the head of it for whom this is the air they breathe.

[00:28:42.34] spk_0:
Mm.

[00:29:10.30] spk_1:
Now, you can have a chair and a president, you can have an honorary chair and an honor. You know, there are all kinds of ways to move people to the side that don’t, you know, kick them off this planet. But ultimately, you need to have someone who does, who breathes this stuff and who you don’t have to explain why this matters. And then it’s deeper than going to a training to understand what that implicit bias exists,

[00:29:19.69] spk_0:
Right? one of those two hour trainings, okay, say a little more about joyful board service, what we, what we can aspire to.

[00:29:41.65] spk_1:
I, you know, I get this so often were board members, the board that we’re working on, their their niggling, They’re going after, you know, do I have, you know, is it 2000 or 3000? What do I have to do? That’s the question as to what as, you know, it’s like I’d like to get away with as little as I can. Um and and it’s an imposition on me

[00:29:49.85] spk_0:
as

[00:30:47.66] spk_1:
opposed to I will do everything. I can, I may not be successful at everything, but I’m gonna give it a shot because this mission matters so much, and if I can help it, God willing, I’m going to and there’s when people are at the table with that attitude, there can be a joy at both delivering yourself and seeing other people deliver and celebrating that. Um and you can build that in, you can build in celebrations. You can build in, you know, balloons for somebody when they hit a certain mark. Um you have to build in, not just um the actual dollars, but you can build in, they made thank you calls and they never talked to anybody before. You know, there’s all kinds of ways to build in a sense that I can do be part of the fundraising process, which then builds more courage for the next step. But it doesn’t happen unless you think about it,

[00:30:53.61] spk_0:
celebrating small successes. That’s that’s a terrific idea.

[00:30:59.73] spk_1:
Yeah. And you want to build in this this sense for every board member so that they are looking for ways to celebrate each other.

[00:31:06.28] spk_0:
Mhm.

[00:31:10.79] spk_1:
So it doesn’t just come from you the the ceo it doesn’t just come from the board chair, but that they’re trying to help each other up that ladder.

[00:33:20.95] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. I’ll be on a panel called endowment excitement, fundraising and management. I’m fundraising. Uh, two smart women are the management and that’s, that’s the key about about panels. You want to be the sole person on your topic that way you’re at no risk. You can’t ever be called out for something stupid that you say because, uh, other people, the other panelists don’t know. Right? So, I mean, I don’t know endowment management. I mean, I know a little bit about spending rates and uh, three year moving average, you know, etcetera. Prudent investor rule. But, but I know very little compared to them about endowment management. And they probably know even little less about planned giving than I know about endowment management. So, everybody stays in their lane. You don’t have to worry that if you’re ever invited to be on a panel, be the sole expert in your area. All right. So, um, uh, that was a bit of a digression. But so the panel is endowment excitement, fundraising and management. It’s on august 25th at noon Eastern time, graciously hosted by N X unite. So I’m grateful to them. Thank you to register, you go to n X unite dot com. It’s like november X ray unite dot com and click on webinars and panels, there’s your registration. That is tony stick to, we’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for board members are people too with judy Levine you like to see board members socializing outside? I mean I, I can presume your answer, but I want you to say socializing outside outside the form of the board meetings.

[00:33:48.16] spk_1:
I do, but I also am realistic. Um, I don’t think it’s necessary for them to be personal friends. In fact, I’ve been on board with people who are personal friends and it’s tough because then they kind of talk about things outside and they’re like becomes factions and you certainly don’t want relatives on the same board that I’ll tell you right now. Um, not just married, but brother and sister were playing the, you know, the childhoods, you

[00:33:55.48] spk_0:
know, I can see in your face and it sounds like you’ve been there.

[00:33:58.97] spk_1:
Yes. Um,

[00:34:00.97] spk_0:
I

[00:34:01.69] spk_1:
don’t know. I think that people have to like each other.

[00:34:04.74] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:34:05.77] spk_1:
And I think you need to have some social places, you know, it’s been hard, don’t,

[00:34:09.85] spk_0:
they need to get to know each other outside the

[00:34:15.36] spk_1:
board. Um, but that’s different than, um, but

[00:34:16.70] spk_0:
outside their board service. I mean, maybe not, maybe not necessarily

[00:34:23.34] spk_1:
to me that’s part of their board service. Um, that part of the board service is understand, you know, it’s team building

[00:34:28.51] spk_0:
and the organization can facilitate that. Right? I mean can we have, can we host drinks or dinner after a meeting.

[00:35:52.47] spk_1:
Yeah. Um, it’s, that’s one of the things that’s been much harder in zoom. Um, my board, you know, cost effective itself as a nonprofit and they had a board dinner once a year, but they sat at my house and one year I had the flu and they had at my house anyway. I just went to bed and they stayed up till like midnight and cleaned up after themselves and left, um, that we this, so we have a game night now once, once a year on zoom because it’s once a year, everybody comes and they do all kinds of like 32 truths and a lie and all kinds of stuff, but it’s not quite the same. Um, we did have an outdoor picnic this summer and about half the board came. Um, it’s hard, you know, that’s the hard thing is now getting people out of their shell because we’re all used to now doing everything by zoom or going to work and coming home and you know, scurrying home. What zoom has that? I haven’t quite figured out is that time before meetings. That time in the middle of meetings. You know, those are the times of the after meetings, Those kinds of times when people would talk to each other about their kids, building that in. Um, what we’ve done, some of it is in the, you have to do it in the middle of the meeting because people run out at the end of the meeting and they won’t come early, no matter. They say two board members will come

[00:36:00.09] spk_0:
early.

[00:36:36.70] spk_1:
But if you break into smaller groups in the middle of the meeting, even if it’s only diets or triads and give them something to discuss. Um, you know, one of my provocative questions is how does your birth order affect um, the way you take on leadership, which gets into all kinds of personal background, it assumes strength and it gets people talking to each other. So having a section like that in the middle of each board meeting can help people to start to bond and then obviously changing, you know, changing the groups

[00:36:40.26] spk_0:
up,

[00:36:49.81] spk_1:
making that group a hint. Make those small groupings deliberate. Don’t just leave it to the zoom universe to deliver. You

[00:37:15.11] spk_0:
can either make them random or you can assign people to be with other with other people. And the assigning is is much better. Yeah, I’ve done that in some of my trainings. Um, alright, what else, what else you want to touch on around this, this equity and equity and boards and, and inviting folks in and joyful board

[00:39:14.65] spk_1:
service self interest, which I think it has to do with understanding the, the meaning of your cause to people who are not directly affected by it. So, you know, when we’re teaching fundraising will say, um, okay, you don’t fundraise just for the people who have direct interest to your cause because that’s your clients and if you could raise your money from them, that would be earned income and you wouldn’t be a nonprofit, but you can’t raise money from people who have no connection to your cause because it doesn’t make sense to them. Why are they gonna lie on it? And that’s the same thing with board members. You can’t ask board members to fundraise if you don’t feel connection to cause and or to audiences that don’t feel connection, but you have to find the enlightened self interest, which is myself as a member of the city, this neighborhood, this grouping that I care about Children having a head start. That’s why you’ll often find like a mom’s group in Westchester suburb of new york that’s fairly wealthy. Most of it um, will take on fundraising for a program in the inner city because they understand the meaning of this work for Children, even though it’s not their Children. And the reason I’m bringing this up is because that’s where the ownership comes in the sense that it’s on to, it’s up to me to make a difference for this. And that this matters to me, even though it’s not my personal experience. And I think that’s group conversations conversation in the courtship process and then it’s group conversations at the board level to keep that fresh. And it has to be deliberate because it’s the board service devolved into finance monitoring.

[00:39:20.93] spk_0:
Oh yeah, if it’s right. If it’s allowed to

[00:39:24.91] spk_1:
discussions about why the mission matters

[00:39:28.50] spk_0:
whom

[00:40:02.43] spk_1:
does the mission matter beyond just the direct recipients are very inspiring and they give your board members personal uh you know, nurturing and the tools to go out to their context with different kinds of language. And you will often find, you know, I’m looking for areas in which different people can be experts, not just the people who have a lot of board experience or who are, you know, longtime experienced fundraisers, but that people with different points of view can have the position of being an expert.

[00:40:10.97] spk_0:
Mhm.

[00:40:12.96] spk_1:
And this is where you will find points of view that your classic cabal has not thought of

[00:40:26.45] spk_0:
conversations. Yes, I love how you pause and and think through and then make your next point. I’ve just been talking to you for 40 minutes, whatever. 35 minutes I’ve learned. All right, give her a couple of, give her a couple beats because she’s got she may very well have more to say. I love your the way you reflect. IIi don’t have that gift. I tend to be more more impulsive and I spew everything out in one shot.

[00:40:53.64] spk_1:
Well, that’s why you’re on the radio and I’m

[00:40:55.08] spk_0:
not

[00:42:16.41] spk_1:
normally um you know, I wanna having served on the board, not that many because I take it really seriously. Yeah. Um And then being a an executive director myself and um being a consultant support gives me humility about about the possibility of board service. Um And I feel like uh people who are only on staff have expectations uh and anger when board members don’t meet their expectations, whereas I’m trying to say it’s human nature to triage the kind of people who will agree to be on the board are often fully committed, I don’t wanna say overcommitted because you commit to what you commit to and it makes sense for them to do what they have to do and not more, because there’s always something else calling on their time, let alone, you know, the idea that they might want to play golf or read a book if you do that. If you understand it, that that’s rational, human behavior, then you don’t get as angry at people, you manage them,

[00:42:17.96] spk_0:
that everyone’s gonna triage that they’re gonna they’re gonna assess their

[00:42:21.34] spk_1:
priorities and

[00:42:22.84] spk_0:
they’re gonna they’re gonna act accordingly

[00:42:33.84] spk_1:
and it’s up to you to have a dialogue about that. It’s not that you you know, there’s something wrong with letting people slide or something, but it’s um it’s understanding and helping them understand how to fit in with all the different priorities of their life,

[00:42:40.74] spk_0:
right? And where does this mission fit in? And you’re among your priorities?

[00:43:11.76] spk_1:
You know, it’s why i um when when I when groups do uh board member um contracts or whatever they call them. Um I suggest that there actually be calendars in there so that you, somebody can say to you, I can’t do that in june because my twins are graduating high school, in which case we’re saying, you know what, we’re gonna take you off of that and we’re gonna take you off of May so that you can have a very because they’re not gonna do it anyway.

[00:43:14.85] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:43:15.70] spk_1:
And then they just

[00:43:18.05] spk_0:
or

[00:43:22.19] spk_1:
they don’t respond to emails, so having respect for all the different polls rationally on board members time and life and energy and then helping them understand how to fit this in in a way that makes sense.

[00:43:51.30] spk_0:
Alright, let’s give you, I want to give you a chance to talk about cause effective because it is a non profit. It’s a it’s a consultancy for nonprofits, their advisors, consultants. What what uh what’s the breath of the work and how how do you work with with your client nonprofits?

[00:43:57.71] spk_1:
Well, you know, I’d say we are 40 this year, we are about to celebrate our 40th anniversary.

[00:44:02.85] spk_0:
Congratulations. For decades.

[00:47:33.85] spk_1:
Um And I’d say that the common theme throughout has been changing how organizations are resourced, um changing the balance of money and therefore power in the sector. Um and it’s both increasing it and increasing it so that it’s not just that the most well resourced nonprofits get more resources, but that it’s non profits that are located in disenfranchised communities and the people who work there and um uh and volunteer there are able to raise the money, they need to further those causes. Um and to govern themselves because to me, governance is integral. E apart, it’s more than just raising money, but if you don’t have a governance structure that works, you’re not gonna have a fundraising structure that works on the voluntary level. Um, and that’s where you get to organizations where the staff fund raises. But the board doesn’t have volunteers don’t. Um, so we have, we work, we do a lot of cohort work where we’re looking at development Directors of Color and help, um, working with them over a six month period of time, um, in a particular program that we have to help them really address, um, the barriers to their being successful and not only to talk about it, but to actually address it. Um, we, so we do a lot of individual coping with, with, with executive directors, who may be having come up through fundraising and, but, you know, you need to do it if they did. It is not part of the fundraising structure. The organization is only gonna get so far, um, and board members, a lot of board consulting, especially now with boards that, no, they need to diversify and don’t really like, they know they need the composition, but they don’t, they don’t necessarily know that they need to act differently to have different people in different seats. Um, we do everything from, you know, eight hour retreats on zoom, maybe six hours, uh, two year long coaching engagements to what we call deep transformation, which is a lot of times people come to us and say, well, my board won’t fundraise and we get in there, we start talking to board members and we find out there’s all kinds of reasons, it’s not just that they don’t know how to ask for money, but it’s that there’s not financial transparency, there’s not a real partnership between staff and board. Um, there’s not a peer to peer accountability on the board. Um, there’s a inner group of three board members who do everything and everybody else slides. Um, you know, there’s all kinds of reasons that we will help, we will actually go in and help address. We say that that’s a symptom, my board won’t fundraise and there are, you know, many, many causes of that and we will, we, one of the things we’re known for is that we will go and address the cause. We’re not just gonna do the tactics. Um, we also do a lot of fundraising consulting for groups that have had a lot of government support or a lot of foundation support and know they need to diversify and they don’t necessarily have, you know, a Lincoln center board, um, but it is very possible that people around the country or the world will care about what they do and we’ll back it up and want to make it happen if they, you know, for one thing they say is that our fundraising, the one thing that’s, that’s some limited time. There’s only 24 hours and maybe one second or maybe now two seconds in the day. And so you need to make choices that are smart with how you spend your fundraising time. Money is not the limiting factor, but time is and so will help groups really understand what are the likely avenues and how to structure the resources they have to reach those

[00:47:43.87] spk_0:
Days get longer. What’s one or 2 seconds

[00:47:51.27] spk_1:
actually they did make a ruling and there’s like they added a second or something. Oh,

[00:47:51.54] spk_0:
I didn’t hear about that. I’ve been squandering my two seconds a day. How long have we had this? How long have we had these longer

[00:47:57.57] spk_1:
days. Six

[00:47:59.88] spk_0:
months.

[00:48:00.43] spk_1:
Yeah. I don’t know how many seconds that is. I can’t do the math that fast. No,

[00:48:20.41] spk_0:
But six months is 100 80 days. Times two seconds, 360 seconds. It’s a good six minutes I’ve, I’ve squandered. Alright. I’m gonna try to get it back right now by cutting you off. No. All right. Thank you for explaining. And thanks for a frank conversation. We don’t, you know, for our for nonprofit radio white listeners. We’re not, we’re not, we’re not going easy. You have to have you have to have honest conversations. So thank you.

[00:48:58.91] spk_1:
Yeah, I, I think this has been some of the, you know, I’ve been in this field for 30 years and this has been some of the most rewarding and deep work. Um it’s not surface, it really addresses, you know, I had to go back to everything I assumed from my childhood on and understand that there’s there are different realities and that um it’s not that I can go back and change it but I can change my behavior going forward so that I further a different kind of future.

[00:49:31.46] spk_0:
Mm She’s judy Levin, she’s the executive director of Cause effective. You should have already been at their website because you would have seen their diverse team when we uh when I suggested take a pause and then you came back but if you haven’t been there or if you don’t remember where it is, it’s at cause effective dot org. And they’re also at cause effective and judy Levin, thank you very much. Thanks for sharing.

[00:49:33.80] spk_1:
Thank you. It’s great to have this kind of conversation

[00:50:47.97] spk_0:
next week Back to our 22 NTC coverage, accounting for nonprofit leaders. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at Tony-Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o and by fourth dimension technologies i tion for in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits but they also got the special offer going on the free offer grab it. It’s all at the listener landing page, tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant but they go on to mention deeper. Our creative producer is Clam Meyerhoff shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty, You’re with me next week for nonprofit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for November 8, 2021: Strategic Plan. Done. Now Pay For It.

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Sherry Quam Taylor: Strategic Plan. Done. Now Pay For It.

It’s a common challenge. The strategic plan is ambitious, but there’s not enough revenue to fund all the future excitement. Sherry Quam Taylor returns to get to the root problems that are holding your nonprofit back from full revenue potential. She’s CEO of Quam Taylor, LLC.

 

 

 

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[00:00:02.84] spk_2:
Hello

[00:01:43.74] spk_1:
and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of tinnitus if I had to hear that you missed this week’s show. Strategic plan done now pay for it. It’s a common challenge. The strategic plan is ambitious, but there’s not enough revenue to fund all the future excitement. Sherry, Kwame Taylor returns to get to the root problems that are holding your nonprofit back from full revenue potential. She’s Ceo of KWAme Taylor LLC. I’m Tony’s take to holiday time off. We’re sponsored by turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o What a pleasure to welcome Sherri Kwame Taylor back to nonprofit radio She’s Ceo of KWAme Taylor LLC. She works with nonprofit ceos and boards are struggling to secure the unrestricted revenue needed to fulfill the dreams in their strategic plans. Sure. He helps them reimagine their entire approach to revenue generation and reveals how they can break free from the limitations of traditional fundraising. Our consulting practice is at KWAme taylor dot com Sherry. Welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:01:46.14] spk_0:
tony How are you? I’m well, good. Thanks for having Yeah, Thanks for having me. I was excited to see this pop up on my calendar today.

[00:01:54.80] spk_1:
You weren’t planning for

[00:01:56.77] spk_0:
it for a week. I mean, yeah. As I worked all weekend long for my, for my content. Yes.

[00:02:01.75] spk_1:
You’ve been struggling at it, not struggling but you’ve been working on for weeks. Right?

[00:02:05.64] spk_0:
Yes, I’m so nervous.

[00:02:21.44] spk_1:
All right. So, so I outlined the problem in the introduction. But before we get to those root problems shouldn’t funding be a part of the strategic plan? So that the plan and its financing are considered together and not separately, ideally.

[00:03:27.14] spk_0:
You’re speaking my language already tony Yeah, it really should. But the problem is so many organizations come to me with a strategic plan that has all these amazing ideas, amazing next steps, you know, growing their programs and mission. But the strategic initiative kind of says we need more money or more major gifts or we should do more of these things. And so it actually, I find that it’s addressing more of the symptoms of an organization’s, who’s funding has maybe plateaus or maybe they just kind of raised the same amount of money every year. But oftentimes the funding problem and more times than not, it’s actually fixed at the root. And so yes, it should be included in there. And yes, it always is. But so often, uh, you know, I have a client now who, who’s brought me their strategic plan, it’s like we had this big growth, uh, initiative and like we just aren’t hitting it. And so the how do we do that is usually missing in the strategic plan.

[00:03:59.54] spk_1:
Okay, so all right. So if it’s addressed, it’s addressed little superficially. We’re not, we’re not we’re not getting to the root cause it’s kind of glossed over, we’ll increase our fundraising. Well, maybe maybe they identify a couple of initiatives, but you’re saying right, they’re not getting to the root problem. And so they’ve got this wonderful plan and a lot of excitement around it for the next 3-5 years but they’re not hitting their revenue targets, that they need to realize the true excitement of the, of the, of the outcomes.

[00:05:43.14] spk_0:
Absolutely. And so it’s a lot of, you know, more and more corporate sponsorships, more grants, more events, more appeals. Some of those are good things like don’t hear me say they aren’t, but we have to remember also, typically the board or leadership whose having a great amount of input in the strategic plan. They’re usually expert to something else. You know, they aren’t strategic fundraisers. Um, so, so they’re doing their absolute best. So sometimes we have to get the voice of outsiders. I know you would agree with me to come in and say, actually that’s not how that problem gets fixed. And so I so it’s a this is really, you know, the strategic plan, which is what we’re talking about today is is one part of it. And the kind of the cousin comment I would say coming to me and it’s really ties to this is um, you know, we have this budget, we want to grow the budget, but we’re always in the red were never raising enough. And so there’s this disconnect that, you know, frankly, I study and watched so closely in my practice and I’ve just really been able to see quickly, you know, what is the sticking point? Why is your funding platt Toad? Why is it another year in the red? And so we’re going to talk about these, these symptoms versus root cause because, uh, you know, my strongest clients these last few years have been the ones who said We’re kind of not going back to doing what we were doing pre 2020. We’re actually going to push ahead and, and, and do things differently. Run our businesses differently, solve the problem at the root so that we actually can have greater impact, which, gosh, I’m so thankful they’re doing that because there’s never been a time we’ve needed them more.

[00:06:20.94] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s always right. It’s always, it’s always the truth. I mean, it’s always the case. You know, always the case, especially with the pandemic, but beyond the pandemic, nonprofits take on causes and missions and goals that, that individuals can’t do that. Government isn’t suited for that. The corporate sector isn’t going to take on. In fact, a lot of times the corporate sector is antithetical to the, to the goals. Um, but non profits, you know, our, our, that sector is ideally suited for work of all different types and, and raising money to do it, but they’re not raising sufficient money. Um, so essentially, you know, you’re saying, you know, you can’t keep doing the same things and expect different outcomes.

[00:06:37.16] spk_0:
Yeah, I guess that’s

[00:06:40.04] spk_1:
it. I can get real problems.

[00:08:22.14] spk_0:
Yeah, I think that’s a great way to phrase that it’s, you know, in some of these symptoms of, of perhaps we’ve been kind of trying to do the same thing or, or trying to do more unless, right. Um, you know, a lot of these symptoms are our cash flows too tight because maybe our strategy is, yeah, we need more money, but it’s too restricted. Or maybe then if we’re not bringing in enough restrictive cash, were unable to grow the reserve, were unable to grand grow our endowment. Um, you know, the other thing we’re gonna talk a little bit about today is that never being able to justify overhead spend, Right? Like if I hear that, it’s like, I know fundraising situation that we need to fix so I want here, here’s what I’ll tell you. I asked on a weapon or I think it was last mid last week, I started with a question and frankly it probably sounded like a bit of a silly question on the webinar and what I asked was, do you need more money, does your nonprofit need more money now? I knew the answer to that, right? But typically it’s like, yeah, we need more money. That’s what our strategic plan says, but rarely does an organization just need more money. They need flexible money. They need unrestricted money to accomplish the things the initiatives that growth in their strategic plan. You’ve got to have money for overhead. And I find that that’s why a lot of times we can never fund the strategic plan is stated because we aren’t fundraising for unrestricted cash from a single source says you’re makers, meaning I can pick up the phone and talk to chris he crested sherry from, you know, and and those gifts are not from people who truly understand the need and actually want to give to every year. And that’s a very specific types of type of fundraising. We’ll unpack that today. But, but so often I’m finding that we’re not doing the fundraising things that are actually attracting those donors.

[00:09:02.04] spk_1:
All right. So let’s get to some of these root root problems. What, what, what, what can we talk about? What you just mentioned? We’re not attracting the right donors. You know, you’re concerned about attracting the right people. Talking to them about the right things about the true needs for overhead for endowment for growth. I should ask you where do you want to start with these root causes?

[00:10:15.84] spk_0:
Let’s start here. I’m going to address that once. Third, because here’s the thing. We always start with the fundraising issues, right? But that’s that’s actually like step three or four over here. So the biggest thing I want to talk about one of the most fun things, I guess I should say that I love talking about is this concept and frankly tony I wish I coined the phrase, but I didn’t, but it’s irrational frugality. I love that phrase, you know, I suffer from it rational frugality. And, and what I mean by that is, um, we have to start being comfortable if we’re gonna solve frankly some of the world’s and nations and states and communities most pressing issues we have to really ask ourselves, are we making $1,000 decisions and expecting giant results? Or are we making $10,000 decisions? $100,000 decisions? And so it costs money to raise money. We need to be spending more on overhead so that we can put more gasoline in the engine to raise more money for programs. And so often I see the handcuffs on organizations when we’re trying to make these big growth initiatives, but we haven’t taken the time to actually look at what does the spend need to be for us to actually reach those initiatives.

[00:10:29.84] spk_1:
Well, let’s let’s let’s let’s dispel the myth that overhead is bad because you’re talking about overhead, like investing in people you want to do more. Absolutely want to do more fundraising. You might very well need more fundraisers. Absolutely. That’s salary and benefits and other forms of compensation. So let’s get rid of this concern that overhead is bad,

[00:12:16.74] spk_0:
right? And so I hear you, you know, I kind of sometimes make these statements like, I’m not talking about scarcity anymore. We’re beyond that, you know, are sectors beyond that. But I gotta tell you it’s, it’s kind of playing out. I think in a different version or a greater version and this is what, you know, all size organizations. Uh, I think we’re seeing part of that in this great resignation. I know we could have a whole whole discussion today about that. But um, the, if you saw my actually, if you saw my screen right now on my computer, you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s an ORC chart looking five years out and it’s saying what is the spend we have to make, you know, parole to actually be raising the money. That’s in your strategic plan. What is the true math? And so it’s so often you’re so right comes in the, in the package of I’m expecting my one development director to be all, all of revenue, all of marketing, all of communications. Oh, and because you also do, you know, social media and so so often, I mean, I’m gonna be really frank here. So often the reason our strategic plans are not being funded or not, we’re not able to fund them is because that person is wearing, you know, the hats of four staff people. And so I know it feels like an investment. I know that spend feels scary, but when you run the numbers and then you have the right person on the bus. You make so much more money if you have to be comfortable with spending and investing in your organization to actually make those leaps and bounds that you want to.

[00:12:25.24] spk_1:
Alright, right person on the bus. You’re talking about the ceo are you talking about donors?

[00:13:44.04] spk_0:
Uh, in that context, I was talking about staff members, I was talking about, um, you know, oftentimes what we find and this is also why I love, you know, the sector that we work in. Maybe it’s a program person who, you know, was really great with the foundations when they were coming in. So now they found themselves over on the fundraising side and they’re awesome. It foundation grant request proposals, reporting maybe they’re good at planning an event, you know, good at telling the story of those that are impacted. But oftentimes they don’t have matric gift experience. They don’t know how to sit across the table with an investment level donor and lead them to an ASC secure their best gift. And so it’s the spend on the staff tony But I’d also say this great resignation, you know, buzz, we’re all talking about is also that, um, it’s the skills to equip the staff to do the things that actually attract the overhead monies that attract the flexible funding that attract unrestricted gifts that allow you to put gas in the engine. So there’s a disconnect on the skill set so often of who’s on the bus and, the types of fundraising an organization needs to be doing.

[00:15:29.04] spk_1:
All right. So, you know, we need to be honest with ourselves. Our boards are donors about what, what are true need is fund this ambitious strategic plan. And we’re deceiving ourselves if we’re thinking that the person that’s doing the, the marketing communications can now take on fundraising when we have, when we have an increased revenue plan because of the strategic plan. It’s just not, it’s not fair to the person. It’s not fair to the organization. It’s not fair to the cause that you’re, that you’re working toward your just not being honest with any of those things or any of those, any of those entities, people or, or the, or the cause itself, it’s time for a break. Turned to communications content creation. Do you need something written for you? Have you been thinking about a project that is gonna take hours? You just haven’t gotten to it. But it’s going to be valuable when it gets done. Turn to can help you. Like, I’m thinking white papers, research, case studies, They can write that stuff for you. They can learn about what it is you want to say, get to understand your work, your mission, even your values and incorporate that into the piece or the series that they do for you. So if you’ve got this big backburner project has been on your to do list and it involves writing turn to, can help you turn to communications because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o

[00:16:01.54] spk_0:
the second underlying root cause which you’ve so so nicely led me right into um, frankly would be this budget element, right? Like, uh, like you said, we have to be honest with ourselves of what the true need is and and not, well, let’s, let’s just budget and squeak by neck If we make more money, it’s gonna be great. But we actually need to have a plan of how would you fully finance your organization?

[00:16:02.67] spk_1:
Right. What does full financing look

[00:16:04.27] spk_0:
like? What it actually

[00:16:27.64] spk_1:
doesn’t look like? You know, a five or 8% increase in fundraising from, from the previous year that you could reasonably expect that one person to get. You know, it probably looks like something much much larger than that, which that one person just isn’t capable of doing so take off the shackles. Stop being, stop deceiving yourself and all those other entities that I named and the cause itself and and right. All

[00:16:32.03] spk_0:
right. Look, I love that you’re up on on my soapbox with you Tony to the funding. Well, because

[00:16:37.81] spk_1:
it’s deception. You know, you’re you’re you’re lying to yourself and and everybody else was important around you and to the cause that you’re that you’re working time self

[00:18:53.14] spk_0:
can I say something about this budgeting thing. I can’t because I love talking budgeting, which always surprises people when it’s like wait, I thought she was the fundraising person Like I am, but we gotta, that’s over here until you’re honest with yourself and you’ve actually created a true need space budget Not this week by right where you can sit down with someone and say, can I share with you? What are $3.6 million dollars need? Looks like this year. Honestly, even though maybe the board approved is a 3.4, but you know, you need a little bit more in reserve and you know, cash flow is tight. And you know, you know, you, you have some growth initiatives coming down the pipeline until you can honestly sit and say and explain to them. I’m talking top of the pyramid, right? The top, top level donors until you can explain to them what the true need is then and only then can your team, your fundraising team actually put a plan in place to hit that 3.6 in my, in my example. So so often people come to me, I mean I’d say more than not with their budgets. I always ask for the profit loss statement and it will say, well, yeah, we have a $5 million need In the income on that same budget will say 4.2. I don’t, I don’t know how we’re going to do it. Right. So you we have to have the plan to fully finance to fully balance The expense and the revenue. And I find that we spend 90% of our time and I’m going to talk on board a little bit here too. We’re spending 90% of our time approving the expenses and nit picking all the stamps and that we couldn’t ever do that. You know, our percentages scary, scary, scary. We’re not spending enough time on literally understanding what we need to be doing month by month. That actually reaches that number and then all of us leadership staff board aligning every hour. We do spend fundraising on those activities that gets you off the spin cycle that gets you onto the things that you need to start doing. So you can start securing more unrestricted cash and invest as flexibly as you need to into your strategic plan.

[00:19:06.44] spk_1:
Investment level. Yeah.

[00:19:08.32] spk_0:
Investment level.

[00:19:19.54] spk_1:
Let’s talk about another root issue, which is you, you, you just started to scratch at it not having investment level conversations with donors. Yeah, let’s let’s let’s let’s let’s just shout out what is one of those conversations look like? Who are we talking to?

[00:22:59.44] spk_0:
Sure, sure. So, you know, this is all about, I suppose the easiest way to say this is, this is about donor segmentation, right? And, and we’re busy. You know, we just said, we’re wearing, you know, 62 hats when we shouldn’t be. But so often I find that we are still approaching donors as a one size fits all. You know, the, my, my methodology, you’ve heard me say this many times tony when you had me on a number of different opportunities to to chat with you, I want everybody giving their best gift to the organization and I want them giving that gift every year. And so if $25 is that person’s best gift, that is remarkable and amazing and I want to serve them as such. But if someone’s giving you $25 and you see their name, you know, on an annual report or you’ve done some sleuth Google searching, it’s like, Oh my gosh, they’re giving $25,000 down the road. Well, we have some work to do. And so, so much of my work is helping teams understand what that investment level conversation looks like. And so I find so many people avoiding it because they’re so worried are we going to do it wrong? Um, you know, I don’t want to be that pushy salesperson, right? I don’t want to be begging or B B that used car salesman. But here’s the thing, you have to be able to sit down and share your plans, your strategic plan. You have to be able to share how you’re going to achieve those initiatives. And most of all you have to be able to articulate the financial need the organization has and way too often the development staff, maybe they don’t have access to it. Or perhaps they don’t understand it. They are not privy to All the numbers, we just walked through. And so I want my fundraisers if somebody has the ability to write 25 500K. I want them sitting down. Of course we’re telling stories. Of course we’re doing all the traditional, you know, helping them understand the crisis, all those things. But the one thing that major donors are dying to hear is about that, what I asked earlier, do you need the money? So I want you sitting down saying, can I share with you our our $3.6 million dollars need this year. Can you share with you? How we’re growing? But I share with you how we’re funded. Uh you know, I can share with you what your gift has done in the last few years and to sit at that table and know the answers to the financial questions that we really, really, really hope that they don’t ask in that meeting. What am I asking? Because those questions are actually indicators of what’s going to keep them from giving their best gift to your mission. And so when I see investment level conversation, I want one on one. You know, that looks like a lot like zoom still these days. Right? I want exclusive information. I want stakeholder language because why? These are people who have also probably business owners and entrepreneurs in the community. These are people who have also had to sit down and ask for investments. They had to sit down and answer the tough questions. So sit down and have that businessperson to businessperson conversation with them so that they really understand what a gift to your mission can do. And so often we default to, well let’s just send them the appeal. Let’s have the event. And I gotta tell you they’re not giving their best gift in those reaction, all types of ways.

[00:23:02.64] spk_1:
Let’s talk a little about a little bit of a tangent or something you just

[00:23:05.68] spk_0:
mentioned. Love a tangent.

[00:23:15.74] spk_1:
Uh, peer to peer soliciting. So maybe this doesn’t, this may not. This is a tangent from the root issues. We’ll get back to the root issues, but you want fundraisers to be talking to the, to their donors as peers say, say, say more about what we shouldn’t be doing and what we

[00:25:14.94] spk_0:
should. Yeah. This, this concept was taught to me by, by my coach and she, she had heard it from a Deborah Tannin who’s a researcher. And so it’s really this concept of um, knowing that the best version of yourself showing up in that donor meeting, it’s just you, you know what I mean by that is not some version of you who thinks they need to show up slick and I’m the fundraising sherry, not that person. It’s just, it’s just you. So when I say peer to peer mindset, I’m doing this on, on equal playing grounds here. Um, it’s really staying in that like, you know, tony Like when we have a conversation like, hey Tony, how’s it going? How’s your weekend really staying in that zone? Um, of course you’re being professional about it, but not turning into the, like I’ve got to get through all my stuff and I’ve got to get them to understand why they should give us the money. And you know, kind of, it almost turns into that, that pushy feeling, right? And that comes out of our mouth. The flip side of that is that, oh gosh, I don’t want to, I don’t know. I think it’s been too soon. I don’t want to appear like I’m begging. And so then our tone turns to, well, I don’t know if you could do it or I don’t know if you would do it. But I wondered if none of those tones that you heard give that donor confidence, you know exactly what you’re gonna do with that gift. And you can’t wait to come back and tell them how their gift has impacted lives and you are offering an amazing opportunity to them today. And so when we stay in this more neutral zone, uh, and I try to do with my own business too, right? Um, that’s when we build the best relationships and that’s when we have trusted relationships and we actually deeply know our donors, We haven’t forced it. That’s when you’re going to secure the best gifts for your organization’s because there’s a deep, deep relationship that’s been built. But too often tony we get in the way of that in our mindset and our, you know, all these, all these crazy things that come to play and in sales and fundraising often get get in the way. So there’s tons of mindset work.

[00:26:05.04] spk_1:
Alright, good. Thank you for that. I wanted I want to focus to understand what you’re thinking is there because there is there’s too much humility and uh huh um, confidence. So all right, let’s go. All right. So let’s go back to our, our root issues. So like we talked about, you know, being honest in investment level, growth planning, being invested. Being honest about what that looks like having these investment level conversations with your, your major donors. What’s another root issue to our failure to be able to fund our strategic

[00:27:03.84] spk_0:
plan, Good time. Right onto that. So then it’s that financing plan and I’ve alluded to this. But what I really mean by that is is everybody on the team aligning their hours with dollars. Right? And so I don’t, I don’t want to miss that because that is a huge part of what I do, helping organizations see what they need to stop doing So they can start doing more strategic fundraising. So in that, what do I mean by that? Well, um, in my, in my world, uh, I want your top 30 donors yielding between 50 and 75% of your overall revenue. And I want those gifts to be unrestricted, that’s where we’re pointing the compass compass. And so our time and our budget must be aligned with that on there, on the expense side, on the revenue side. Okay. And so therefore when,

[00:27:12.74] spk_1:
but I love even when you define what our goal is. Okay, so top 30 donors Funding 50-70% of annual revenue on an unrestricted basis,

[00:27:18.10] spk_0:
50-75%. And I,

[00:27:20.35] spk_1:
Oh yeah, you’re good, you’re good 70%. So now we’ve got something to focus on. So now you’re gonna help us align our time with that goal,

[00:27:52.94] spk_0:
right? And that number feels really scary for some people. You know, it’s like, wait, we don’t we don’t have those people, we don’t have major donors. But it’s equally, it’s equally a math equation as opposed to a random mindset I should say because then we say, well we need to be then spending our time on attracting those donors tony A lot of people come to me and say, how do I find major donors? How do I find people who would, who would give us larger

[00:27:59.73] spk_1:
gifts?

[00:30:26.14] spk_0:
I’m of the school of Are you doing the things that attract them? Are you having strategic level conversations with others who are among those donors? And saying this is what I’m looking for. We’re looking for people who are interested in this who have a passion for this and really are wanting to invest to changing X, Y and Z. Are you attracting donors? This shift from like finding to attract as it has been a game changer for a lot of my clients who, um, you know, there’s a lot of times that donors don’t understand you need the money. This is crazy because you’re like, well, we’re nonprofit. Who doesn’t understand we don’t need the money. But so often how we’re talking keeps donors from understanding we need the money. Right? And it might be, um, you know, it might be, oh gosh, I saw you. Uh, you know, wow, I’m on the Today Show or I saw that you got this giant, uh, you know, gift, I saw the press release or, or, um, it looks like you’re killing it over there, right? Because because maybe they’re seeing the results of maybe a government contract or, um, you know, all sorts of different things, but that’s why we have to be sitting and presenting the true need, um, and kind of making up that difference. But what I bring up the pyramid in the top 30 concept because so often when we, when we say, okay, Well this is our year strategic plans in place. We’re ready to grow. We default to a lot of the activities there in the bottom part of that pyramid, that bottom 25 percent. And again, I’ve been accused of saying like, you don’t like events and appeals and grant proposals. That’s not the truth. I love those things. But I don’t want them taking 100% of your team’s time? And I also don’t want them taking the board’s time. If your board member, if anyone is hearing this and has written a thing down, this is your thing to write down your, if your board member can give you one hour a month outside of the meetings on something, fashion it better be activities that are attracting the donors and the top part of the pyramid versus the bottom part. Right? Because we’ve got one hour of their time that’s extremely valuable information or it’s an asset to the organization. So we have to make sure we’re doing the things, um, that are leading our investment level donors to a deep understanding of our need. Then we got to ask him for the money. Sit and ask him for the money.

[00:31:13.84] spk_1:
I like this distinction finding versus attracting donors because finding sounds like you’re gonna walk up, you’re gonna stumble on them. Like I might find a beautiful shell on the, on the beach. I’ll find one. Uh, but, but what, what are you doing to attract these folks so that you don’t just stumble on them a couple of year, but you’re, you’re bringing them to the, to the organization. What more a little more about what the board can be doing in finding versus attracting or having these investment level conversations. Maybe some of the board members are the folks you’re having the conversations with aside from, aside from The board members who might be among your top 30 donors? What more can the board be doing to help with finding versus attracting and having these conversations with the right folks

[00:34:08.04] spk_0:
tony I kind of dialed up this conversation of, of roots and symptoms when I was preparing for a board training actually because who better on the team can have an influence on the organization’s comfort level with investing with spending with, with budgeting, uh, with fiduciary responsibility, who better than the board. Right? And so we have to, we have to make sure that they understand what the path is to the money and what the spend is to the money. And so so often I say, you know, I’ll ask the client or if we start working together, I’ll say, what’s the board’s involvement in budgeting as well. They, you kind of get it and approve it. And you know, I, I do reports every month, but that really means they’re looking at the expense and they actually don’t know how they will fully finance the organization, you know, hit a balanced budget or plus plus your reserve. You know, I always want to be cushioned with the reserve. They don’t know how we would fully finance organization and be, do not know what the team should be doing. And if they don’t know if the team should be doing, They don’t know what they should be doing. And so I want the board to deeply deeply understand that you just don’t need more money, but you need flexible money and then what are the things the board members should be doing that actually attracts those donors. And so often, I mean, you know, as you can imagine every, every board training I head into, it’s like don’t make me ask for money. So don’t make me, don’t make me sit and ask for money. I gotta tell you, I rarely have board members asked for money rarely for me. Board members. It’s introducing its networking. It’s educating, it’s connecting. It’s being open to saying, hey, I have been serving on the board of this amazing organization. They’re doing these, you know, before school literacy programs in our community. Are you ever interested in hearing about that? I mean, I’ve been astounded what that looks like. The bds. A rockstar. Could, could we set up a 15 minute coffee one of these mornings? You see, I stayed peer to peer right there. Do you see how it was? It’s not a script. Um, I would rather have all my board members doing that and then letting the equipped team lead that donor and serve that donor create a great donor experience for them. You know, of course the board member is going to be popping in maybe in thanking or popping in when, um, you know, there’s an opportunity to, to really cultivate, but, but we have to make sure that the board members are not spending all of our time on transactional fundraising events, appeals send me the name. Can you post this on facebook? I don’t want my board touching facebook like they can if they want, but I want them doing strategic activities that align their hours with dollars.

[00:37:07.93] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two holiday time off. Colin Powell died on October 18 and I saw on twitter someone I follow Glenn Kirshner, I was telling a story about what Colin Powell said to his employees at the state department when he was newly inaugurated because Glenn Kirshner used to repeat this to his team. So the story is that general Powell said If I come to your office at 6:30 PM and you are not at your desk I will consider you to be a wise person. Indeed. So thank you Glenn Kirshner, what’s Colin Powell saying he’s talking about work life balance. He doesn’t want folks in the office late all the more so holidays are coming up, take time, take time. I’m sure you’re gonna be with with folks right? But take time for yourself. Also take that holiday time to be with others and for yourself. Please don’t, don’t feel like I got to work that friday after. Thanksgiving how much is not going to get done if I don’t, if I don’t work that day, nobody’s gonna know two weeks later, it’s not going to matter. So please take take adequate time off. We’ve been under a lot of stress challenges For the past 18, 20 months, take time, please take time and, and nonprofit radio I’m going to do my part. No podcasts. You know, I don’t do shows between christmas and New Year’s. So plenty of time for holiday time off. Don’t even listen to podcasts. If they’re related to work at least you won’t have to listen to nonprofit radio I’m doing that much. I feel like I’m walking the walk however you do it. Please do it. Take sufficient time off around these holidays. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for strategic plan done now pay for it. When you say this, this alignment, does that mean? So if if we want 50-75% of our revenue to come from those top 30 donors, does that mean we should be spending 50 to 75% of the ceo Time on cultivating and soliciting these top 30 donors. Is that, is that the alignment you’re talking

[00:38:22.42] spk_0:
about? Somebody has to Tony. And I find that because the grant application, the event, the holiday appeal, those all have deadlines. We got to get the newsletter at the first month. Those all have deadlines. So I find that those way more than not take precedence over. You know, I really should be making, you know, doing some moves, management management on my top 30, top 50, top 100 donors. So if you’re not staffed accordingly, that time always gets pushed down. Right? Well, I’ll get to that tomorrow. I’ll get to it. And so it’s, it’s a discipline. I, you know, I always say if I, if I sold t shirts that say fundraising is discipline, it’s who is waking up in the morning and saying, what, what donors am I touching today? How am I serving them? Not in a slimy way. How are we getting? How we, how we educating them? How are we connecting them to the heart of our mission? How am I answering their questions for your men and major level donors? That is not accomplished through newsletter blasts through appeals through an annual report. They get in the mail through events.

[00:38:26.02] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s the one on 1.

[00:38:27.22] spk_0:
It’s the one on one. Yeah. And we’re avoiding that.

[00:39:06.62] spk_1:
I see that. I see that short shrift so often in planned giving because all those things you mentioned have they either have deadlines. If, if it’s, if it’s anything related to grants, uh, not only in terms of applying, but then reporting back when grants are successfully received and then, but, but everything else has a shorter, a shorter time span. You know, we gotta get the annual gifts in the fourth quarter. All right. So that we got, we got to get these, the major giving has to be, we gotta get these major gift conversations done. Everything is a is a quicker, a quicker, more, more imminent, more urgent need or deadline than planned giving you always get short

[00:39:14.59] spk_0:
shrift here. That to

[00:39:46.32] spk_1:
analogous to what you’re saying about having these donors, the strategic donor conversations. It’s easy to put them off because they’re not deadline oriented. Oh, I got, I got, you know, if you, if you want to be, if you wanna be a little cynical about it, I’ve got the excuse of this grant, this, this grant report to do by thursday. Well, alright, today’s monday. There’s my next four days putting that report together and then next, next Tuesday I’ve got, uh, an event. So we got to do the last minute planning for that Tuesday event, you know, and it’s that constant, you call it the spin cycle. I’m using your own,

[00:39:48.82] spk_0:
you can use it, take it

[00:40:05.91] spk_1:
around that constant spin cycle. It was like, uh, deadline oriented activities and you’re not doing the strategic longer term. But that’s where you want 53 quarters of percent after three quarters of a percent of, uh, half to three quarters of your revenue to come from.

[00:42:31.20] spk_0:
Yeah. And that, that totally, and that’s the stuff that takes time. It takes way longer than I wanted to. I’m the first to admit that. But when we’re looking out and going, why don’t I ever have the money? Well, we did it, we did another three year strategic plan. We’ll see if we have the money for this one too, that you have to make that fundamental shift in your model and your, in your mindset and your approach to revenue generation. Um this, I will tell you when I was on your radio show, Gosh, time is so weird right now. I couldn’t even tell you when it was last time. Um, but uh, you know, he wasn’t a client at the time, but when my, my, you know, one of my favorite clients, Jonathan heard me on your show and contacted me and, and I remember him saying, you know, I really am concerned our donors are not giving their best gifts. Like I said that on your show and what it really came down to was, you know, he had a great team who was great at what we talked about. Like these transactional approach is that they were, you know, most of their giving was coming from events from appeals from corporate sponsorships, from event from grant proposals, but their individual giving was really stagnant and you know, we all know that’s where the unrestricted investment level gifts are going to come from. And so could he have, you know, ramped up the events and appeals I suppose he could have, but he didn’t, he fixed the underlying root cause he’s fixed the financing, he’s aligned his whole team to the money. They are their high performing revenue generators And they’ve grown by seven figures here in the last 18 months because they shifted, you know, I talked about that single source decision maker. They shifted individuals from the, we’re having an event to actually segmenting and figuring out who do we need to sit with? Who doesn’t understand how we’re funded, Who doesn’t understand our need family foundations. Um, corporate sponsors, Oh my gosh. Uh, you know, his corporate sponsors who used to come and be $50,000 gala sponsors. He shifted those into $100,000, unrestricted gifts because he started having investment level conversations with them. He took the transaction out of it. He had the financing plan. He could, he could very clearly articulate the organization’s plan to spend money to make more money. So he’s become, yeah,

[00:42:39.20] spk_1:
we’ll see what he’s become and then,

[00:42:52.80] spk_0:
yeah, he’s become a master at these investment level conversations and you know what donors say, wow, nobody else ever talks like this to me. Thank you. I never, I never understand this.

[00:43:59.80] spk_1:
You give a terrific example of converting something transactional, a $50,000 corporate sponsorship to, uh, to a gala or something into a gift twice that that becomes unrestricted. We don’t have to put it toward the audiovisual budget at the gala. Now it’s unrestricted and it’s, and it’s double because he’s having different kinds of, he’s not having a transactional conversation with the ceo of that company anymore. Having an investment level conversation. How do we overcome the fear of having these honest conversations. It’s a lot easier to say our annual gala is coming up? You did $50,000 last year because you know, even I’ll even make it a little more ambitious. Could you do $65,000 this year? That’s a lot easier conversation to have than here’s what our plan is. Here’s what our need is over the next three years. How do you see yourself fitting in or maybe even more strategic? You know, I see you fitting in here. How do you overcome the fear of having these more, more down to earth, more honest investment level conversations that the transactional that everybody is very comfortable with?

[00:46:02.18] spk_0:
I hear you, I think it’s kind of a simple answer though. You gotta know your numbers because we’re going to think you’re going to be fearful of that conversation if you don’t know what you’re selling. Okay, right? Like you’ve got to know, you know, this is why my hands are in spreadsheets all day long and looking at what that looks like. You got to be able to sit down and tell a donor what their investment is going to do over the next few years. You’ve got to move into knowing your numbers in a greater way what that impact makes. And again, I’m not saying don’t share stories and the crisis and the problem in your model. I’m not saying don’t show that, but too often I’m seeing people avoid that and yes, I agree with you, Tony. It’s a lot easier even if I was a board member, it’s like, oh, when’s the event coming back? Because like that’s way easier for me to fill a table. I’m gonna be a little friend care. You’re letting your board off the hook. Their job is a balanced budget and helping you co pilot that to a balanced budget. And so we have to just be starting at the top of the pyramid. Starting in the mindset of, it looks different to attract those donors. And so we must be giving different presentations I guess. I’ll say we must be having different conversations. And so whatever they value, it’s very different from your $25 a month. You know, with that donor values. So you need to be serving what they value. And so that means you need to be able to fundraiser ceo board member, Sit down with them and answer the tough questions. Answing Why your program%ages, 90%. And so why you’ve invested, you know, 20% and fundraising in the last three years. Why did you do it? And so why your revenue maybe went down for a year, answer the tough questions. Be honest, be transparent. They will value you and that they will be attracted to that because I’m telling you nobody else does it.

[00:46:28.68] spk_1:
You mentioned a couple of times the benefit of having a a strategic fund or an endowment. Um, let’s let’s just shut out. I mean I, you know, I, you know how I feel about it because I do plan to giving fundraising. But let’s let’s flush out the value of that long term sort of investment fund that lets you take some risks from time to time.

[00:46:51.48] spk_0:
Yeah. So I think we’re probably talking about two things, but I think we can we can weave them together. You know, when I say reserve off the cuff, I really mean, um, you know, unrestricted cash in the bank that you have full access to,

[00:46:55.68] spk_1:
you know, operating

[00:47:18.38] spk_0:
Reserve, totally. And so I can’t, you know, I have multiple $10 million dollar organizations come to me who struggled doing payroll because there’s not enough unrestricted cash and reserve. And so I want to make sure that we are, we know it, that needs to be too. And and if you have that much, if you have, you know, a year’s worth of money in the bank, sit and tell the donor why you do own it, don’t be afraid. You know, that sort of thing, you know,

[00:47:22.42] spk_1:
be ashamed

[00:47:23.29] spk_0:
of. That’s something right.

[00:47:25.09] spk_1:
Because when the next pandemic comes, or the next economic crisis comes, or the next bad year in fundraising comes or the next whatever comes. You know, we’re prepared. And and mr mr or MS donor, you probably do the exact same thing for your business

[00:47:38.98] spk_0:
totally. You

[00:47:39.18] spk_1:
don’t have trouble making payroll for your business each week. Do

[00:47:41.80] spk_0:
you have to have just have that conversation

[00:47:44.57] spk_1:
problem here either.

[00:49:48.57] spk_0:
Yeah, totally. So, so that’s that’s part of that. Half the businessperson to businessperson conversation, you know, and if you’re afraid, if you go into that meeting and you’re afraid they’re going to bring that up, well then you bring it up, put that elephant out on the table because because I’m always listening for what, what questions are in their mind is going to keep them from giving their best gift, you know. Now on the, on the plan giving sight tony you know, you’re my go to expert on this. But you know, I reach out when I have questions and everything. Um, but what a wonderful opportunity for you to present or to offer your longtime donors your, you know, talk to your donors to be able to be making a lifelong legacy in the community, in the state, in the, you know, what, wherever people are serving. And so you’ve taught me this, you’ve taught me that when people have given gifts by will or when they have committed to that, um, that their affinity to the organization is strengthened when they see themselves as a greater stakeholder and partner with you and actually their annual fund giving increases. And so what a wonderful opportunity to show somebody that their impact can have even greater results on the mission through your organization than a plan giving scenario. And so I totally agree with you. I told you recently, you know, I’ve never had more people ask me about planned giving, which is really interesting. That’s not my expertise. That’s yours. But I think people are thinking you no longer term. But I’m also seeing the desire to be in deeper relationship with our donors. And it’s not an uncomfortable conversation when we do know our donors so intimately. And we’re in that period of a relationship where it’s very easy to bring up that topic. And so I just see all the annual fund, You’re, you’re kind of your general ops reserve and your plan giving all of those working together in such strength. Um, but you’ve got to lead the donor to the understanding on all three of those

[00:49:57.57] spk_1:
and having those investment level conversations with, Right? Uh, including with your plan giving potential donors. Right? So I didn’t mean for you to repeat back stuff that you and I have talked about.

[00:50:09.59] spk_0:
You know, I love it. But

[00:50:16.36] spk_1:
what I want you to, uh, I want to make explicit that planned giving is a part of the types of investment level conversations you want folks to have

[00:50:44.66] spk_0:
absolutely their daughters. Absolutely. I would just say like if you’re wondering like, should I be sharing that with donors? I mean, I’m not saying open up the back back into the kitchen and sort of the grease pants, but usually the answer is yes, right? Like everything is on your 9 90. Like at a minimum, you should be able to articulate the route Elements of that in a donor facing away, not, not, not by just emailing the 990, but you know, at, at a minimum, that should be those. That should be the conversations that we’re having.

[00:51:24.96] spk_1:
Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. You wanna, I hope you will share a story, share a story of uh, I guess a client story that, you know, maybe Jonathan’s or someone else’s. But you know, they, you saw the symptoms, they weren’t addressing root problems. They had a strategic plan with terrific excitement and ambition. They didn’t have the money to fund it. And then with, with some coaching, they were able to realize what, what they, what they really needed.

[00:51:47.06] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. So I have a client who um have been working with them actually for for quite a few years and they’re on a great revenue trajectory. Um, but you know, it was kind of one of those things where they did continue to struggle to always get ahead. Um, you know, and the other kind of whammy, Uh, what would that be called double we I mean, I should say um, was that they had actually lost a large funder. Um they had lost somebody who was contributing almost 20% of their budget. And I actually actually was no fault of their own. It was kind of a weird silly deal. And it was actually an international funder.

[00:52:26.15] spk_1:
Just just let me let me make a parenthetical. That’s another reason to have that strategic or that reserve fund because donors may depart, large donors may, you may do something to upset them, they may die. They may find other interests. They, you know, so that’s yet another reason that can happen institutionally. It can also happen to individual donors. Another have that reserve fund. We talked about a few minutes

[00:55:46.44] spk_0:
ago, reserve Fund and you know, back to my little pyramid. I’ve been talking about, you know, in that top 30 you know, I don’t want those top 10 donors to be more than, you know, 25 40% of your revenue. So in their case, yikes right. That that was so, you know, yes, you can imagine for a couple of years that that stung and, and and it really came, you know, and so they came to me and we’re really struggling to make that up right in small gifts or in mid level gifts, major gifts. Uh, and I remember the lead fundraiser saying to me, um, you know, this is not like I didn’t go to school for this. I kind of, I know enough to be dangerous, but I, I kind of don’t know what, I don’t know. And so he really did feel, which a lot of people come to me feeling that we have great relationships. We have an amazing mission. Um we know our mission is worthy of being supported, but like, I think I’m leaving money on the table because I simply don’t know how to lead that donor to their best gift. And so like we’ve talked about today, you know, instead of saying, well, you know, let’s let’s make our golf outing this or let’s make our, let’s add the appeals, let’s, you know, do all the things that are important, but they’re not going to get, you know, for example, this organization on that stronger trajectory. And um, and really to the point where they are doing what they had outlined in their strategic plan. So long story short, that’s what we did. We put a realistic budget in place that they can articulate the true financial need. And it wasn’t, well, we’d love to, you know, make that money back because we still want to serve those Children in this case. Um, you know, it was like, here’s our plan to do it. Here’s how you fit into this plan. Um, and then we put their, their financing plan in place. What do they need to stop doing? What do they need to start to me? How would we truly balance back to that, that number we were hitting and how would we grow beyond that. Um, and then how do we actually start leading donors who maybe we’re giving, you know, a monthly gift or a one off gift or a, you know, very generously at a golf outing, but we knew those weren’t their best gifts. How do we start leading them through these conversations. And so the specific client I’m speaking to tray. He’s an amazing relational guy. He’s a great relationship builder. And so, but donors literally responded so immediately of, oh my gosh, we, we didn’t know you needed this. We had no idea this was the need of the organization. Um, and sure does he have solicitation tools now and you know, some prompts that really lead him through that conversation. Yeah, that’s part of it. Um, but he’s got multi six figure gifts as a result, organization is out of the red back in the black because now he doesn’t have to guess anymore. He actually knows the exact steps to fund the organization annually and then to lead those donors to give their best gift annually. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a dual combo. Um, but I see people make the shift all the time, But it starts with investing in change and being open to it.

[00:55:56.44] spk_1:
That’s awesome. Sherry. We’re gonna leave it right there investing in change. Having these investment level conversations planning be ambitious. You know, don’t be, uh, I don’t want to wrap up. I want you to wrap up, but don’t be humble because

[00:56:02.20] spk_0:
I like, I like the ambitious that, that’s my, my motto. Let’s let’s do this.

[00:56:49.03] spk_1:
That’s where we’ll leave it right there. Thank you very much want Taylor Ceo of KWAme. Taylor LLC at Kwame Taylor dot com again, Sherry. Thanks so much for sharing. To appreciate it. My pleasure Next week. Bitcoin and the future of fundraising with the co authors of that book and Connolly and Jason shim if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff

[00:57:06.33] spk_2:
shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty. You’re with me next week for nonprofit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95

[00:57:22.43] spk_1:
1%. Go out and be great. Mm hmm. Yeah.