Nonprofit Radio for March 25, 2024: Living Our Values & Healing Over Everything

 

Amy Sample Ward: Living Our Values

The first of our 24NTC conversations is with our technology contributor and the CEO of NTEN, Amy Sample Ward. They give us the numbers around the conference, and remind us to walk the walk on our nonprofit’s values, including centering equity.

 

 

Beth Leigh: Healing Over Everything

Wellness in your workplace. Is that a value your nonprofit holds? Then take in this conversation packed with suggestions for mental health, creativity and unity in your office. Beth Leigh from Village of Wisdom, shares hers.

 

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Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the effects of Schwan mitosis if you unnerved me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s on our menu? Hey, Tony, I hope our listeners are hungry for the nonprofit technology conference coverage. We’re kicking off our coverage with these living our values. The first of our 24 NTC conversations is with our technology contributor and the CEO of N 10 Amy Sample ward. They give us the numbers around the conference and remind us to walk the walk on our nonprofits values including centering equity and healing over everything. Wellness in your workplace is that of value your nonprofit holds. Then take this conversation packed with suggestions for mental health, creativity and unity in your office. Beth Lee from Village of Wisdom shares hers on Tony’s take two. The NTC conversations were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms, blocking support generosity, donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous virtues gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow. Giving. Virtuous.org here is living our values. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC. You know what that is. You know, it’s the 2024 nonprofit technology conference, you know that it’s hosted by N 10. You know that we’re at the Oregon Convention Center. What you don’t know. Oh, you also know that we’re sponsored here by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Now, the reveal, what you don’t know is that I’m now with the N 10 CEO, the grand high exalted mystic ruler of NTC and our technology contributor at nonprofit Radio, Amy Sample Ward. Thanks for having me. It’s fun to get to do the interviews in person a year. We get to see each other while we do it. You know, in years past, your husband Max has been affiliated like stage managing. Is he with us this year? I didn’t, he hasn’t done it. And well, I guess we had a few years where the NTC wasn’t, wasn’t in person, but he hasn’t been helping with the main stage since maybe, maybe 2019 was the last year. Yeah, but um, he and Oren are gonna be here at the reception, so I’ll make sure you get to see them and say hi. Yeah, in the arcade staff or local, wherever the NTC is. Um we have staff in eight different states and you know, everybody has friends and family everywhere, so we’ll pick a reception and have that be where staff can bring their friends or their families so that it’s so it’s so rare to get to see what we do at N 10 since most of it is online. Right? And so it’s a fun way for friends and family of staff to get to see us in our element. The reception is this afternoon. That’s right. Ok. Awesome, awesome. Alright. Um So just acquaint us with some of the basics of uh 24 NTC. How many folks are here? How many folks are with us virtually? Yeah, we’ve got about 2000 attendees. Um Almost 400 of them are joining virtually. So they’re joining into the general sessions, the hybrid sessions and the virtual only sessions. Um and we have over 100 exhibitors here in the arcade. And I think it’s really interesting folks. We I heard some attendees talking about this yesterday, how diverse this group of exhibitors are? You know, I think sometimes folks think it’s, you know, 100 different Cr MS or, or, or 100 different payment processors or, you know, there’s so many different types of technology projects or service providers, even if they don’t have a technology product, you know, that they’ve made or that they sell so many different folks that are really invested in nonprofits being successful, you know, and um walking around here you go from agencies to communications firms, you know, to technology providers. There are Cr MS, there are payment processors, but there’s also like a safari fundraising team and like platforms that, you know, help you keep your board engaged. Like there’s just so there’s a video production booth, Bubu TV, they’re helping us with our live streaming and they’re recording. Yes. So there are, there is, there is a big diversity. You’re right. You’re right. Well, and the, the N the N 10 community is a diverse population and you, you are always very good about that. Um There’s a, there’s a, there’s a racial affinity room. There’s a quiet space for folks who might be neuro diverse and maybe just need quiet time alone. There’s like, I don’t know if it’s a silent room, but it’s a devoted quiet room. You’re always very intentional about that at N 10. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. And I think folks that haven’t been um, had the opportunity to be at the conference in person, don’t necessarily know all of those other pieces. You know, we want the conference. Yes. To have this big arcade, this place where you could connect with service providers, vendors, et cetera, connect with other community members, but also educational sessions where you can learn and then third places where you can just find other people like you a feather along with, along with the quiet room and the racial birds of a feather. There’s dozens of those folks just say I’m coming from Chicago. Anybody else from Chi Town want to get together? That’s it. That’s a birds of a feather. That’s all. I think. This is one of the first years in easily like 15 years of, of the conference that I’ve been at where there hasn’t been a West Wing birds of a feather table. I don’t know if West Wing fans now have something new that they’re holding on to. But for many years, there was a stronghold, there was always a West Wing Table. Um In addition to, you know, Chicago or Canada, whatever or the other, we need some more entertainment related. I’m Binging Blair said she’s gonna do Love is Blind Table. So there you go. That’s all it takes. Yeah, I’m doing this, come join. You want to join. We’re now birds of a Feather. And ultimately, the bigger lesson here is you’re never alone in this community. There are, there are other folks who want to talk about the same things or have experienced similar challenges or issues or favorite TV shows, whatever it might be. You’re not alone when you’re in this community. Uh Portland is an enormously, uh and justifiably proud uh food, food city, very justifiably so many rounds tonight. Oh my gosh, we have to keep expanding the Google. We’re now going out to like a 30 minute drive out across the river and then, maybe, and then you gotta go into that other suburb. And, yeah, they’re, they’re going out. I know there’s, there’s one that’s, I was invited to, it’s like a 30 minute drive. Um Yeah, we’ve taken over the immediate uh convention center, downtown Portland, downtown. Uh, but, you know, at the NT CS you’re always very good about the food. I mean, today’s breakfast, there was, it was a European breakfast, there was salmon, there was Brie, there was blue cheese, there was a quinoa, a quinoa like breakfast, parfait with fruit and nuts, um cheeses. Uh There’s an oatmeal station, steel cut oatmeal station. You’re all, you’re very sure want to have folks feel taken care of because we know that the vast majority of folks who attend our conference are allowed one conference per year or maybe one conference every other year and that only includes their registration sometimes includes part of their travel. We don’t, we know we know we get it. We’re a nonprofit too. You know, we really want folks to feel like while they’re here, we are not expecting you to go try and find some expensive breakfast next to the Convention Center, right? That if you’re here, if you’re at the conference, we are feeding you, you are taken care of, you are supported. Um because that’s what we all deserve. And also humans don’t learn when they’re hungry. We don’t have fun at the birds of a feather if we’re hungry. Right. So we really want folks to feel taken care of here. I believe lunch today is Indian. Ok. Um, coffee, there seems to have been an adequate supply of coffee. Coffee is always like, I don’t know, 8000 gallons or something. There’s a $8000 per gallon. We talked about this, a couple. You’re paying like $80.90 dollars a gallon or something. It was 200 for cold brew. Damn, for a gallon. Jeez. You know, if you’re looking for a money making business, go into convention coffee. Um Not to mention convention furnishings, which you and I have talked about offline. We we’ll leave that there. Can I can I make some sort of bridge or paint some picture from this into something bigger? We actually were talking about this as staff and as an illustration, I think of how, how there are challenges even when we have these, you know, empowering messages from the keynotes of we, we can do it, right? Like we can have our values and we can build what we want. And we say that, you know, I say that, oh my gosh, I say that all the time and yet we’re not saying that because it means everything is now easy, right? We can say we want you to be fed, we want you to be taken care of. We want um accessibility is huge for us. That’s is a dedicated line item in our budget, accessibility is so important to us, but we are not the entire system, right? We’ve said we, we know that there’s a lot of reasons you might not be able to travel, you can join the conference remotely, you also have scholarships, but then we are not the internet providers. And so when the internet providers don’t deliver the internet and so the live stream goes down, it looks like we are not invested in that accessibility, right? So N 10 can say we will spend the money, we will focus on it. We will plan with the community, we will do all these things, but we are still only our part of that process or that system. And I just wanted to name that because I think it’s, it’s helpful to remember that it’s not just, oh, say the right things and like you’re good, we can say we’re invested in these things. We talk to these vendors for months and months and months. We’ve set the expectations, we even have staff in the room. But when the internet is down, it’s down, it’s, you know, we can’t magically make it come back on our own or even necessarily with the vendor sitting there saying I’m also pressing the big green button, you know, I also who want the internet to work. So I, I think it’s important to know. It still takes us saying those things, making those commitments, putting the, the values into our budgets and accepting how much can we influence in the process in that whole system? Where can we say? Well, we couldn’t change that. The internet went down in the moment. But we can say for the next conference that comes along or maybe a smaller conference or a conference that isn’t as invested in accessibility. We can meet with the convention center and the vendors here after the conference and say this can’t happen again to somebody else. And here’s how we think you can mitigate it, right? We can still pass along those knowledge and expectation kind of lessons. Even if our part is over, you know, it’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations anywhere, any time, picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors, make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit donor box.org to learn more now back to living our values. That’s an enormous commitment because you want to convey your values even for the next convention. And, and I our conference and I I heard that uh from, you know, the, the uh, the, the, the exhibitors talk. We, I heard some exhibitors scuttle but that somebody had been told by, by someone who works here that, oh, this was an issue a couple of weeks ago, you know, so they know that there’s a dead zone here and, and, you know, it’s been weeks. So, you know, maybe those prior conferences hadn’t passed it on or maybe it’s the Convention Center not living up to values even though you had meetings with them. And they still, you know, they didn’t say, well, you know, in this area, we’re gonna be, I’m sure they didn’t relay to you, there’s gonna be a dead zone and for these uh eight or 10 booths. So, you know, because if they had, you would have told them to remediate it before the 12th of April 12th of March. Um So, yeah, but, but we each still have to be committed to our own values and we are, we’re, of course, we’re all players in a much bigger system. We just have to try to bring the others along. Right. And Sabrina’s message this morning of, you know, we do all have power and it’s not to say, ok, well, we really tried, we said that we’d have hybrid and virtual sessions and the stream went down like, you know, sad Trombone. So sorry, we can say, right. But so what is still in my sphere of influence? What is still in my power to do? It’s still in my power to say, hey, we did pay for this. We did expect this. We did talk about this. It didn’t work. So let’s document it. Let’s make it as public as need to be, you know, what, what else can we do here? Because I think that’s the piece where especially a nonprofit organizations where the list of things to do, the list of community members asking for support. It just feels long that we don’t always do the second part of it. We say, OK, well, we did try there, let’s move on to the next thing and, and spending a little bit of time just to do that final. OK. But what was the, what, what’s the last piece of influence I have here in instead of saying, OK, well, we did, we did do it, it’s resolved, it it isn’t resolved. Some of these things are never resolved. Um And feeling like we can take up the space inside our teams or, you know, with vendors in this case or with community members, whatever it might be with funders, whomever take up that little bit of extra space to say, actually, II, I have a little more influence I wanna put here. You know, this is why you’re a multiple book author, you see these, you, you make these connections and you see this bigger picture and it makes perfect sense. Uh Once you explain it when I have 250 pages to explain it. No, you did it in 13 minutes. Come on. All right. Um, no living your values and, and carrying them forward and even for the benefit of others, like you said, you know, for the next conference it’s admirable. It’s, and I know, I know N 10 lives its values. I see it in the conference. II, I see it in our, I hear it in our conversations. You know, you’re always, um you’re always putting, putting mission forward equity forwards, like centering equity. You know, it’s not a, it’s not an office on the side. You and I, you and I and Tristan and Justin Spell Haug from Microsoft just had a conversation about centering equity uh in uh in tech and artificial intelligence specifically. Um You know, so no, I admire it. I mean, I, I admire you the work you do and the organization you lead and the uh the pervasiveness of the, you know, just walking the, what did you say? Is it walking the talk or is it walking the walk? Like you talk the talk, don’t you walk the talk? I, I’m getting confused about this. I always used to say walk the talk, but I think you’re supposed to walk the walk because if you choose to talk, well, no talk to talk is in is insufficient. You know that. But walking the talk, you don’t want to walk the talk, you wanna walk the walk or is it or is it just, it’s it’s walk the walk, walk the walk, you don’t walk your talk to upgrade from talking your talk. No, you walk the walk. All right. I admire that intent is always walking. Always walking the walk. Alright. Thank you, Jason for your help. Jason is running our video and live stream as well. Hopefully, you know, uh communications guide correspondent colloquialism colloquialism king. Um Well, can I make another bridge to what you just said there? Something else that I think is coming up in conversations here? Um So many, so many sessions, not that they have to put equity in the title, right? But equity is the foundation from which they’re talking about technology in their session, regardless of the topic or, or whatever. And I can’t help but feel frustrated that we’ve been having these conversations, we’ve been successful in putting resources out like the equity guide that have helped folks create or find language around this for themselves and for their organizations and yet it’s 2024 and I look out at the tech sector and I’m like, yeah, OK. Yeah. Have we, what are we doing here? You know? Um And I’m really hopeful that other folks, you know, just as Sabrina said in the keynote, like part of solidarity is just saying, I also see that, you know, you, you’re, no, no, no, you didn’t lose it. I also see this and now we can be together. I see you, you know, we’re in this together, but I hope that we can not just find this language for ourselves or our organizations, but we can better use this language together to say more loudly because our voices are more united. Yeah, we see you tech sector, we really do have clear and different expectations than what you’re delivering. Um I’m hopeful that that 2024 especially with this continued just proliferation of A I tools marketed at us that we can be stronger in our voices around that I was encouraged by our conversation, you meet Tristan and Justin be Haug from Microsoft uh technology TSG technology for good for social impact T si, right. Thank you. Um I mean, he um you know, I like to think he’s not just um being condescending and the team and gratuitous when he was basically, you know, speaking truth to power because he does run he’s the global head and global Vice president or corporate vice president of uh of technology for social impact at Microsoft. So, you know, I think that was a valuable conversation and I think he said the right things, but you’re seeing evidence of it as well. Yes. And I think, you know, there’s there a piece of this, you know, we often talk about, we’ve talked about on the show accountability, but a part of that is helping make real and helping make visible incentives to be accountable to us, helping more technology companies that are not Microsoft, that do not have an entire tech for social impact division, right? Um these smaller tech developing or service related, developing uh entities to realize it isn’t to build whatever you want and then come market it to us as a vertical later, it is to build it with us from the beginning because there is real incentive to doing that with us in this community. There are users, there are clients, there are customers, there’s, there’s money to be made and also like impact to be made by, by doing that work in this sector and not just selling it to us later. Is this the, is this the proposal for your next book? Sounds like it. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t thought about another book but I feel like I hear the frustration, you know, but we have achieved but we, we’re but not to not to where we need to be, not to where we need to be. Because I think for me and I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think you, I think, I think this whole community, it isn’t just like a this hope, this optimism that maybe one day it will get better. I know it can be fucking better now, it can be better. So let’s do it. You know, it’s not about like, oh my gosh, we’ll build to one day like today is now and by the way, don’t blush because you said, fuck, you’re not the first one. Somebody said, fuck you. And somebody said as today, grab your ass with both hands or something. I never heard that before. So well, he said, but, but I encouraged him to say yes so that I can say whatever. But I think my point is like it doesn’t have to be a kind of grindstone where we say, OK, well, you know, it’s just worth it to have, have known in our hearts, we were doing the right thing, we actually can make it better. So what have been the obstacles then? Why aren’t we much closer? I mean, we, we, we both acknowledge the community acknowledges this is a journey. It was never gonna check it off and say, oh, we, we have a completely equitable tech community. I mean, I think some of the big, why aren’t we further in 20 24? I think some of the biggest challenges, at least specifically to this community to, to nonprofit organizations, especially as they think about technology and their work is access and uh kind of segmentation or separation. I think a lot of folks in organizations don’t consistently have access to technology knowledge, technology, leadership, technology decisions. And so those decisions become inequitable, they become not very strategic honestly, they, you know, so within our organizations, we are creating access issues to, to knowledge and power. And then as organizations, we are limited in our access to the service providers and the technology providers where it’s not clear. Oh, maybe three special clients that paid the most in our giant enterprise organizations got to be on their nonprofit advisory. Right. But as a sector, as, as everyday organizations, as you know, most organizations are under a million dollars, like these kind of regular organizations don’t feel that access to inform or influence the tools that they then adopt. So that’s, that’s an access piece at both levels within organizations and then between nonprofits and the service providers or vendors that they’re working with and the smaller or they just don’t, they don’t feel they have the agency and who would they would they would they ask for? Right? Like there, there it is uh systemic issue. The vendors are often set up in a way where there is no manager to ask for, right? And so they’re not creating an access point in um to allow for that influence. And then the segmentation issue I see this perpetuated so strongly by funders and technology providers, you know, this is a tool for arts organizations. We fund arts organizations. What is art in 2024? Like I think my definition is a little more broad than to consider myself an artist, any content creator, creating audio art, right? Um And what do we gain by pretending that we are fundamentally different because you work in the arts and I work in the environment, guess what? In an equitable world? We have to have the arts and we have to have an environment, right? We all of our missions are important and necessary. So pretending that we are so different that we aren’t sharing knowledge with each other. We’re not building that power together. We’re not both saying, hey, we both use this vendor. Let’s go together and ask for access and influence, right? So this segmentation and I think often it isn’t the nonprofit saying, oh no, we’re not like you, we don’t want to collaborate. It’s funders saying we only fund this city or this region or this topic or these three portfolio goals, you know, um and and technology providers who are also saying, oh, this is just for higher ed, really like really? So it isn’t, I I want to give people space that it’s not just your own making, you know, that that, that the segmentation exists, but it isn’t serving us and we need to do more to say, yeah, I have something to learn from this human rights organization and this housing organization and this environmental organization, right? That all of those groups, we are all trying to make this world better. So let’s do that learning and, and power building together. Let’s go. If it’s not a book, it’s a keynote. At least I’ll give you that. That’s just 45 minutes or so, you know, just listen back to this recording and you’ll have, you’ll have your keynote. Alright. Lots of good wishes for the rest of NTC. Let me ask about 25 NTC. Uh It’s on the website, but I, I in April of 2025 and we will be in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland at the Convention Center at the Convention Center. Not the, not the gaylord. No, that’s, that’s something different. That’s in Maryland. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. Baltimore Convention Center, right. So we’re going east coast, we’re going west coast to east coast. Um Do we know the dates? I don’t, I did not. That’s, it’s on the website because the 25 NTC is already like, it’ll be in the notes below the stream. You know, like one of those, I’ll try, I’ll try. It’s on the website. That’s reliable. N ten.org N ten.org. All right. Good wishes for the rest of the conference. Thanks so much and thanks for being part of the conference for another year. It’s really magic and it’s such a gift to put more speakers who don’t have access to microphones on a literal microphone. So, thank you. It’s my pleasure. And this is our 10th. Wow, congrats. Yeah. Amazing. They’re Amy Sample Ward. They’re the CEO of N 10, the grand high exalted mystic ruler of uh event 24 NTC. And they are, of course our technology contributor here at nonprofit radio. Thanks so much to the pod father. Oh, thank you. You did like that. You’re giving me this wild title. I’m gonna remember Pod Pod. And thank you. For being with Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks so much for being with us. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thanks very much, Kate. Great conversations from the 2024 nonprofit technology conference. I was there all last week in Portland, Oregon. We were in our booth sharing with the sponsors Heller consulting. Let me add my thanks to Heller. Very grateful to them for second year in a row, sponsoring nonprofit radio at the NTC. So these conversations that I got 24 captured 24 interviews, conversations. I like to call them conversations. The two today living your values healing over everything. I mean, you wouldn’t think of healing and, and wellness in the workplace as belonging in a tech conference. But that’s because this is not a, you know, you know, that this is not a tech conference for techies. It’s a conference for everybody who uses technology and wellness is essential for everybody using technology. So just starting with today’s. But then we uh uh we, we, we’ve got conversations coming up on artificial intelligence. There are a couple of those matching gifts, email deliverability, uh which is a big issue. The uh the email providers are tracking your recipient’s actions and they’re penalizing your emails when folks that you email to uh put you in the junk mail or mark you as spam or don’t interact with you. So, email deliverability, very topical, timely. Um redefining generosity. That’s a very good one, avoiding tech debt, designing good surveys. Switching to a four day work week. That’s an interesting provocative 14 day work week, 32 hours, not, not four day work week, 40 hours, four day work week work week, 32 hours, no reduction in pay. Very interesting conversation. And um, the last one I just, um just hitting a couple of highlights leaving your job. So another very interesting one, lots of good conversations coming up over the next several weeks from the nonprofit technology conference uh and happy to taking off our NTC coverage this very week. That’s Tony Stick too. Ok. Well, I hope you had fun in Oregon. But also I must say I’m excited to hear all these new conversations and stories and hearing about the people that you talk to. If you met anyone new, I want to hear about that too. Oh, lots of, lots of new folks. Yeah. Lots of folks who have not been on before. That’s awesome. Plus plus uh plus some repeats. Yes. Love them too. Well, we’ve got Buku but loads more time here is healing over everything. Welcome back to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of 24 NTC, the 2024 nonprofit technology conference in Portland, Oregon. Our coverage is sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. With me. Now is Beth Lee, director of development and stewardship at Village of Wisdom. Beth. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Thanks for having me, Tony, pleasure. And you are talking about a very interesting subject. We are gonna talk about you, your expert in it and I’m just learning your session topic is healing over everything. I’m just going to say, explain, explain the session, explain your title. Healing over everything is a mantra for me that I often say and it’s healing over everything, meaning any and everything that comes up, right? Because often if we center ourselves on healing and positivity, distractions come up, right? If you want to focus on being more financially stable, that’s often when an emergency shows up and takes all your money, right? And you’re like, oh, this is not what I should be doing, but in the world of nonprofits healing over everything, it’s more about healing over what your supervisors say or what the environment is telling you which is work 90 hours a week or pour all of yourself out despite feeling yourself back up. And so this is why the topic is important. There’s a couple of levels to it. Players healing over everything. I see. I was thinking of healing coming first over being supreme over everything else that’s going on in your life. But, but so that’s got different levels. That was, that was my, my take, which is a great take. You’ve been thinking about this for years, overcoming, overcoming everything over all. Love it Um So you, you thinking of this in three different, I don’t know, three different realms, three different ways, mental health, creativity and unity. How do these work together? How do these work together? Where’s this energy? So, for me, this all comes from research that I did for a small bit of people, 100 and 75 people from 2018 to 2020. For obvious reasons. The research stopped in 2020. right? And it was finding out what happens to people once they leave the nonprofit space, how do they feel what’s going on? 100% of the people mentioned having some sort of battle with PTSD. And so 100% 100% of the 175 people. And so that was to me pretty baffling that everyone felt in some way that they had been damaged by this space and they were damaged, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, they mentioned different areas of that damage. So this is why I focus on the different creativity, healing and unity. And so in giving that research and talking about it this week, it’s really like diving into the environment of nonprofits. Why are they toxic? And why don’t we talk about it? And also in that we found in the research that and these are all ages, ages 22 to 60 eight, I was going to ask you about your sample sample, what part of the country or geographically diverse? So we were geographically diverse. I’m going to pull out just some of the stats. It’s 100 and 75 people. 100% of nonprofit employees that had left. They’re all former. Their time in the nonprofits range from one year to 33 years. Um Gender 128 women, 35 men, four, non binary, eight prefer not to identify their gender race. 40% identified as black indigenous or person of color. 30% Caucasian, 10% 2 or more races, 12% Asian and 8% prefer not to answer. And then ages ranged from 22 years to 68 years and I can tell you just off the bat we had probably more than 50% are from the east coast. Um And then 20% about the Midwest and the rest are coming from the west coast. Ok? I mean, I I presume you, you were you were trying to trying to achieve a representative sample of nonprofit employees, ok. Trust that you’ve done that. I mean you’re the expert, but thank you for the details. Um Alright, so mental health, mental health, you’re talking about mindfulness, but there’s so much more to it, help us. I’ll help you all through it. Yeah. So given that data and talking to everyone and then aggregating the data and talking to people about what they wanted out of this. If you could redo your journey again, what would you do? And each person, you know, in their positions were management to entry level positions were saying I wanted someone to tell me it was ok to take a break. And so when we talk about nonprofit spaces and mental health, where’s the mindfulness? Where are we saying? Ok, mental health has a place here on our day to day, 9 to 5 work. Right? And often I don’t see it even when I’m consulting or working with other nonprofits, we say it a lot. We want our employees to be healthy. But what are we doing? Where’s the walk? Exactly? Where’s the walk? And so we’re not seeing it. So, where do we put that in? For me? It’s a very simple 12 to 1 that’s a lunch break. But I also ensure that I also make it my mindfulness break. So I break it up for myself. But when I do these consultations, Tony, no one is going, oh, and maybe I can put that in my calendar. Yes, you can put lunch in your calendar. Yeah. So people are just like, oh, this is mind boggling. I’m not quite sure I could take a break. You can time for me. CEO S do it. Executive time. The president of the United States has executive time that nobody knows it’s some black box. But CEO S CEO s too trickle down closed door time or whatever they call it. It’s time that they don’t want to be interrupted. I have my time that I don’t need to be, I don’t want to be interrupted as well. So be conscious, conscious about time for yourself. There’s gotta be more to it conscious about time for yourself. And in that time, what am I doing? Right. So, is that, and I’m, is it breathing exercises? Is it journaling? Is it that you’re taking time for your spirituality? What is it that you need to do for you? So this is where we talk about emotional assessments and assessing that. What do you need to be your best self as you do this work in the nonprofit field? Right? Often in the nonprofit field, we’re seeing people at their worst because whatever our mission and vision is, it’s to help someone get out of something, I mean, very, very, very curt way of saying that, right? And if that’s the case, then you’re expelling a lot of energy you’re pouring from your cup often. So now I’m telling you take a break, maybe an hour a day in this hour, a day after assessing what you need to do to make yourself and keep yourself whole as you’re doing your work. That’s how you program your one hour, right? So for me, I’m going to program my hour to have breath work because that works for me. And that’s just taking time to, you know, do some deep breathing. But there’s also probably going to be movement yoga, walking just outside, being with nature or that’s going to be journaling. And that journaling is normally for me where I pull in my spirituality. So it might be writing prayers or it might be reading the Bible, anything like that, whatever feels good to you and your spirit and whatever you’re practicing. But that comes after you have assessed what you need in your environment. I’m going to presume that we’re going to discourage, you know, I want to be on Facebook for half of my one hour. This is not social media, it’s not social media, catch up time, it’s not social media, catch up time or text, catch up time, right? You know, and this is barring the normal checking in with your family type of stuff, obviously, right? But yeah, this is the time for you. Ok? I I’ve said for years that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others and we’re all taking care of. Well, if we’re not, if we’re not explicitly others, you know, humans or animals, we’re taking care of the environment, we’re taking care of forests, we’re taking care of uh churches, whatever it is, you know, we’re expanding. You said it, I’m just I’m reinforcing and I believed it for years, whatever it is, whatever you’re engaged in, it takes energy, it, it takes some of you, it takes some of your heart and you have to take care of yourself before you can do this other work. For other agencies, people, entities, whatever, however you define your work. Because so that, that’s what caught me about this, you know, because people are not, you know, we’re not, we’re just not taking care of ourselves and we’re seeing it in rates of, I think depression, obesity, high blood pressure, suicide, right. These, these bad behaviors that we’re only increasing inflicting on ourselves are showing up in very bad ways. I mean, fatal ways sometimes. Absolutely just take care of yourself. And that’s why we’re talking about how, how to do it be purposeful, purposeful. I’m your cheerleader. I’m here for this, Tony. I’m here cheering you on. I appreciate this. This is work that I want to cheer on. Alright. Suppose, I suppose we have uh some leadership objections like, well, you know, yeah, you do get an hour but uh or you don’t even get a full hour or well, but we still need you to be on email during, during your lunch break. Uh You know, this, this your time is, it’s, it’s not working for me or us. How do we, how do we push back? We get some allies. I mean, how do we, how do we make the case for our own healing time? I’m glad you asked during the work in the workday hours. Yeah. So my biggest supporter has been hr right? And I know that sometimes hr isn’t always the best supporter because they’re there for the company. They work they work for the company. And I say that in the sense of using research to work for them and what I’ll do is say, well, I’m more productive when I have this hour, I’m less productive when you don’t give me the hour and then I actually back it up. You know, like when I don’t have this one hour, you can see that my work starts to dwindle, you can see the excitement in the work that I’m doing or the ability for me to do this work or now I’m frazzled and I’m not even bringing my best self to the office any longer. That has always worked for me with working with other supervisors who may not say I don’t want you to take this hour. I need you to still be on call. I also have learned to push back just personally. Are you adverse to me being my best self? Is that what you’re saying you’re opposed to that? Are you opposed to this? You don’t want my best self at work, work and often that stumps them and you’re like, take the hour, just take the hour. Ok. Those are very good. Anything else? Those are the two that have worked really well for me. And even though I’ve helped other people, those have worked really well. So those are two. I lean on now. You do consulting on an individual basis as well as the organizational level. Anything else you want to say about mental health before we move to creativity. So one thing I’ll say here on mental health too is leaning on allies, as you mentioned earlier and outside resources. I have a great therapist and I just, that’s my personal therapy. Yeah, I love my therapist and she’s a huge cheerleader and proponent of writing up breaks for me. If I need them at work to say, you know, Beth, if you need a week or you need a couple of days, let’s make sure we actually write that out and I’m just going to write you out. Your therapist writes to your employer to give you a break, a mental break, like a surgeon would say she needs two weeks for, you know, whatever surgery, mental health, mental health, she needs this. How do you fight with that? That’s medical back understanding. She’s got to go and there is no justification of, well, she’s out and she could still check email, she’s out and she can still do text message. No, she’s out and it’s a mental break and it’s medically recorded and given to hr and there’s no more questions about it. And I think we need to lean on our therapy resources more often for things like that because we don’t, I think we also, as we were talking about all these bad behaviors, we have an understanding and if someone were shot that they’re bleeding, they need immediate assistance. And we talk about those bad behaviors or negative behaviors, I should say of, you know, bad eating habits or mental health decline. That’s often because we don’t understand how emergent it is for us to get help. Someone says I’m exhausted at work. Those words, I’m exhausted are often not, I’m just tired. It’s, it’s everything, it’s work, it’s home life, everything is compounding. And they’re telling you I really need a break. So when they need that break, let’s give it to them. And if we can’t give it to them, let’s lean on outside resources to make sure you get it. So, tapping into your therapy network will help you with that as well. I think that’s brilliant. I mean, any, any hr department or CEO is gonna take a doctor’s note, an MD note. So this is the therapist note. This is mental health instead of physical health practitioner that brilliant. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity, virtuous beliefs that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys. The response to the needs of each individual virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact, virtuous.org now back to healing over everything you want to move to creativity. Yeah, we can go to creativity. Let’s do it. Yeah. Creative spaces, creating creative spaces in the workplace that used to come up like 1020 years ago about, oh, we have a creative workspace. And what that meant was that your office looked like Google’s office and that you all had couches somewhere pong table. Exactly. Were you productive? No, you weren’t really that productive. You just had moments to play, which there is research that suggests that play is necessary for your brain to have a break, right? So I’m not doubting that. But what I am saying is let’s be intentional about creative spaces. And for me, when I’m working with individuals, I love to take pauses whenever we’re meeting or we begin meeting to do something creative together. And that may be, we’re going to just literally have a paint session, paint parties or, you know, we’re all building something together here. There’s a painting kiosks painting here. There is, there’s painting here and I love to see that type of stuff because what that shows you is that there’s an understanding for health, our abilities to tap into our creativity are so important. It’s important to just our daily lives. It helps us move forward, it helps us think of things that we’ve never thought of before. And again, we’re more productive when I’m tapping into my creativity, I’m thinking I go back to that problem and now I see it in a different lens because I’ve spent so much time on it. So, you know, introducing that in the workspace is really brilliant as well. And I think that the way we do that, at least that’s worked for me. The way that has worked for me is, you know, back to the arts, really bringing in the arts. I’ve worked at a place where we had an art table and it was really the old school kindergarten table which is paint and paper you squeeze and it’s just like a good jump in, just go for it, just go for it. And even if you were stressed out, just go for it and have a good time on those tables. And that was an environment that felt really good. It was an environment that when we had conflict, we took it to the table, like I’m still upset with you, but I’m going to go to this table for a little bit and then we’re going to come back and have a conversation. Those conversations were a lot more pleasant than if we just sat there and tried to bicker with one another and get to some kind of plausible solution that really didn’t work in the end because someone felt like they weren’t heard. And So introducing creativity truly in that way, there are rooms and spaces here that have little fidget spinners and things on them, right? Small creativity. But it’s for the introvert that wants to be alone, but still have an opportunity to color things like that. And then they can come back to the space when they need to. And so introducing that creativity in the workspace and your work flow in your scope of work even with at Village of Wisdom, one of the things that one of my colleagues is always saying, you always champion rest. They’ll give us these huge scopes of work which are amazing scopes of research and understanding. And then I’m like, well, where’s the rest built in? Did you build in the rest? Did you do that? Did you build in the creativity? No. OK. Well, let’s go back and do that, you know, and I think that’s just an amazing thing to do. But I love the environment of Village of Wisdom because they accept it because it’s one of those, you know, I can say let’s rest and we rest, we collectively rest. And I think that’s the thing is that you need an environment and space that will offer you the opportunity to rest. There’s something about the tactile, we’re talking about creativity, finger painting. I’m thinking of Legos clay, clay. I used to love clay. Uh I, there’s something about the, yeah, the tactile, you know, now all we touch is our phones and hopefully our families in loving ways. But aside from that, I mean, in the creativity side there’s, there’s nothing we don’t unless we’re, unless we’re devoted to the arts, you know, or it’s a big part of our life. Maybe as a hobby, maybe not a profession. But aside from that and that’s not, that’s not very many folks. We don’t have the touch. Right. And it’s so important, Tony coming out of the pandemic when you were shut off from touch, stay 6 ft away. I couldn’t touch a person for a while. We thought we couldn’t touch our groceries. We were wiping our groceries down for a while until we realized we’ve learned through science that it’s not on your grocery. The device is not on your groceries. But, uh, doorknobs, we installed the, uh, those things on the bottom of the door, open your shoes. You couldn’t even touch a doorknob. So we lost, yeah, the pandemic was enormous for isolation and loss of tech time. The sensation. So what else, what other kind of creative space you talking about? Painting? You talked about the clay, which is great, silly putty. And even I found that making those things together, you can make clay, you can make silly putty. You know, I have the benefit of living in North Carolina. So we actually sit on clay in Durham. I live in Emerald Isle on the beach and then I have a place in Pinehurst too. Even closer to down there in Pamlico. Yeah, you’re right there. You do in Durham. Durham is close to Pinehurst is, it’s right there next time I’m in Pinehurst. That’s not the one I don’t live there. But you go visit that one. Yeah. No, Durham is a very nice town. Great college town. Great food. That’s another good food town. Durham culture, universities. That’s a great place to live. I didn’t know that. So creative spaces in the workplace, what else can we do? What works for you? I say get involved in your community that way. What’s creative happening around you? Right? There’s some great exhibitions. There are great little opportunities to go visit different shows. I know that seems like a strange thing to do. Me and my group are going to go visit a show. We are and we’re going to talk about it afterwards. How did that make you feel? It’s really bringing field trips back into the workspace. You know, that’s one way to do that. The other way is, you know, like you mentioned Lego, Lego is great because it has so many different things. Now I introduce my best friend to it. I do it. I build cars. That’s my secret. I build cars. She got into the plants, they now have plants and so her home has all these little plants all around it, plant, decorate it that way. And so bringing that in where each person can maybe bring in a little tiny box. These are small boxes and build something together and talk about it. But you learn about each other video games. Another thing, right? Card games, old school uno we did that and that brought out some things but fun is another one. Yeah. And I mean, it’s just a matter of bringing play and creativity. And I say creativity because in the workspace, anything that’s counter to just sitting at a computer oftentimes is creative. At this point, journal prompts writing time, you know, working with your colleagues. OK. Well, together, we’re going to set aside an hour and that’s our meeting time. But in this meeting time we’re going to write, you know, I’ve seen that multiple times that’s been introduced into village of Wisdom as well, not by me, by another colleague. And so I think it’s great. You have something you haven’t mentioned that. I think it would be counterproductive. But I want your opinion. Uh We, we’re all gonna play for an hour together between 11 and 12. We’re gonna do it all together, we’re gonna do the same thing is that, is there value in that or is that counterproductive? There’s value in that like it’s mandated, we’re all going, we’re all going to do something. So if we’re all going to, there’s value in that the word mandate often is what takes the value off of it, right? Because I’m a big proponent of choosing, you know, just for that person during the day, you might not have the energy for it. If we’re talking about healing, it’s acknowledging your cup that day. So that day you might not really want to do it, but do it for those who want to, for those who don’t, you can take your personal hours and use it as you like those who want to. We’re going to, I don’t know, go to an escape room or Durham has something I love called a rage room. A room filled with things you can break and lots of different weapons. So there’s a baseball bat, sledge hammers and then there’s a whole bunch of glass plates and cups and you can just throw them against the wall. They suit you up and put on all the protective gear. So you don’t get injured and you just have an hour in there to smash things. They turn the music up and you just have a good time throwing beer bottles, all that Rage room. They also have a paint room where you can throw paint on each other in the same room. So it’s getting messy. It’s reactivating the piece of your brain that people tell you you’re too old to activate. Are you, are you too young to know Tinker toys? You know, Tinker toy. That was another Lincoln Logs were good too. I can remember the package that the Lincoln Logs came in. There was like a round thing. Lincoln Log. Blocks. Yeah. Those are the big ones that the toddlers have. They’re LEGO, but they’re real big. Ok. Again, there’s our sense of touch. It’s all on a smooth screen now. It’s important. And, yeah, I mean, even for your own health of feeling different things, right. You know, sometimes you can correlate touch to an emotion. Something smooth, reminds you of Xy and Z something crunchy. Feels like this and just reigniting those emotions helps you with just getting through your day. Should we move to unity? Creativity. We’ve given that adequate. I think. So, hopefully for whoever’s listening, you know, they can go, I can do this, you know, healing spaces, unity. You talk about fertile soil for all people. That’s what’s engaged here. Yeah. What’s engaged here? That becomes the um the evaluation of the space. That’s the part that people don’t often like and it’s the evaluation of self. And so in these spaces, we’re asking you to evaluate yourself and say, OK, do I have emotionally what I need to go through this? And so some of those questions are, you know, where am I today? Is my home life? OK. Is my work life? OK? Is my spiritual life. OK? And if everything is in balance is my physical life, OK? Can I move forward and expelling some more energy? Right? Only you know the answer to that. But then I flip this back onto the organization and the environment and say now do this for the environment. Does the environment have enough soil, fertile soil? That if this person says I’m not OK as an employee that you can hold them and if the answer is no, then what resources do you have for that person? And you say none, now we need to go find those resources because I don’t believe that everyone’s job should do everything for them. But I do believe that they should have the opportunity to provide resources. And that’s why there’s unity in that. Because I think in order to do that, you are looking at people as humans and you’re seeing their humanity, you’re not looking at them and saying, well, I don’t want to do this because I don’t like you or I don’t want to go down this path of helping you because you may be mad a little weird too. You know, it’s esoteric getting a little personal. I don’t really want to know you should deal with that on your own day. Exactly. But what I’m saying is that especially in the nonprofit space when we’ve had, like I said, the small sample size who told you 100% of them felt that they were damaged. Then we need to probably look at where we can actually provide you some fertile soil. What kinds of resources? What should we do even internally without external resources internally? So that’s where the other two, right? We talked about giving you that hour, things like that, but it is check ins and what I mean by check in, it’s meeting with your team to say, how are you feeling in the culture? And then based on that conversation, you need to have a plan for this person. Um And, you know, in my session, I’ll be talking about different ways that people can have these plans because they’re pretty extensive. We have a lot of time here but the planning is, is looking at this person and saying, all right, you don’t like the following things, recurring meetings. You know, you don’t feel like you’re heard, you don’t feel as though your work is being showcased in a way that other people’s work is being showcased. You don’t feel like you’re getting the credit, whatever it is that’s wearing on you, like diving deep into this, like why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling and then we’re gonna create a plan. What is this plan? And it’s not the same as a work plan. It’s more of what’s your feel good plan. So you can actually feel good in this space. And in that, if we need to increase some flexibility in your hours, you’re starting at 10 o’clock instead of nine o’clock and ending at six instead of five, you know, is it that you’re doing a four day week? Because some people are more productive with four days than five. Is it that these meetings, you only need to show up to every other week instead of every week, you know, what is the plan for you? Um And that’s why I was saying it creates unity because each person feels seen and held and as long as each person feels seen and held, then everyone is OK. What I’ve found is that if one person is getting more attention than the other, it’s not going to work. This is applied inequitably disparately, then this is just going to be breed resentment. Exactly. Some of the folks will be very content and feel better and heard and the rest will be pissed off. Ok? So it’s got to be done equitably. And then all the thing too for me has been Tony talking to management to have them learn different management styles. And what I mean by that is we’ve gone through a pandemic and people have changed. We all change coming out of the pandemic. My work style going into the 2020 is not the same. Now, the way I communicate is not the same, how I interact with people is not the same. And so understanding that we need to be able to say, ok, what do we need to come back? I don’t want to say come back to self to just nurture this new person that’s come out. Um You know, I talked to the executive director at V once before and we laughed about it because I said, listen, your executive director. Yeah, right now and I said, hey, you built a team in the dark because the organization grew in 2020 from 4 to 15 people in the pandemic year. And I was like, over the pandemic over the course of two years. And I said so in doing that, I was like, people don’t know each other. We know each other on screens, we don’t know each other and we don’t even know ourselves. And so now we’re doing amazing work. I call it root work in the sense of bringing in people to talk to us about the environment and the workspace because it’s not negative, but just learning to learn each other, learn each other’s work styles and things like that. And so that intention behind it has been great and I’m always excited from him and the rest of the leadership team of just diving in, it wasn’t a, oh, we’re going to just let this thing just be infertile. We’re going to actually dive in. So they brought in people strategic planners to actually focus on doing strategic planning in a holistic way. They brought in, you know, a therapist who’s doing, you know, culture planning in a holistic way and it’s done in a way that everyone has a voice and it allows us to move as a team saying, OK, this works for me, but this might not work for you. But how can we work together and show up in our whole selves? Yeah. So why don’t you bring this all three together again? The mental health and creativity and unity, uh, you know, leave us. Uh, well, I think we’re already inspired but, you know, just, just pull it all back together. Pull it all together. Yeah. Club, the benediction and the sermon. Right. For me, if I were to put a bow on it, it’s the understanding that every last one of us working in the nonprofit space is fostering humanity in some form, shape or fashion, right? And we need to take the time to love on ourselves in a way that not only replenishes ourselves but honors our own humanity so we can give our best selves in the workspace. And we do that by honoring our mental health. We do that by honoring our creativity and we do that by knowing that in a unified approach, we will always be our best selves. I bet you’re very good at the stewardship, part of, of Director of Development and stewardship because you, you hear people, actually, I think I would recommend you for promotion to like Chief Humanity Officer Cho Cho. I I I’ll speak to your uh now you’re a better advocate than I will be. She’s Beth Lee, Director of Development. My pleasure, Director of Development and stewardship at Village of Wisdom. Thank you again, Beth. Thank you Tony and thank you for being with Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Next week, the generational divide, Tony, am I fired? Maybe so, as I said last week, if the generational divide didn’t come this week, there was gonna be a shake up. Uh but I’m taking responsibility uh for this. There, there could be other issues. So that’s why, you know, that’s why it’s a maybe uh around you. The generational divide. I have it, I have it, it’s recorded. It’s in the can, the digital can, but I wanted to really wanted to kick off our 24 NTC coverage this week the week after NTC. So the generational divide will come. Uh I, we’re not gonna keep promising it well, the next time you hear it, uh it’ll be for sure the next week. Uh And in terms of Kate, we’ll see about week to week. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Let me say a quick thank you very much to Donor Box. They are ending their sponsorship with this show. It’s been a terrific year. I’ve just been uh grateful to have you as sponsors. So we thank you very much Donor Box and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer for now, Kate Martignetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez, Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty. You’re with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for March 18, 2024: Artificial Intelligence For Nonprofits, Redux

 

Justin Spelhaug, Amy Sample Ward, & Tristan Penn: Artificial Intelligence For Nonprofits, Redux

A second savvy panel takes on the impact, leadership demands, promises, responsibilities, and future of AI across the nonprofit community. We convened a panel in June last year. But this is an enormous shift in nonprofit workplaces that deserves another look. This panel is Justin Spelhaug, from Technology for Social Impact at Microsoft, and Amy Sample Ward and Tristan Penn from NTEN.

 

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And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be forced to endure the pain of chronic inflammatory demyelinating, poly reticular neuropathy. If you attacked me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, that one is so good. It deserves two weeks and plus I spent a week practicing it. So it lives on for one more week. Here’s our associate producer to introduce this week’s show. Hey, Tony, I’m on it. It’s Artificial Intelligence for nonprofits. Redux, a second savvy panel takes on the impact, leadership demands, promises responsibilities and future of A I across the nonprofit community. We convened a panel in June last year, but this is an enormous shift in nonprofit workplaces that deserves another look. This panel is Justin Spell Haug from technology for social impact at Microsoft and Amy Sample Ward and Tristan Penn from N 10 on Tony’s take two. Thank you. We’re sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your support of generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow. Giving. Virtuous.org. Here is Artificial Intelligence for nonprofits redux. We’re talking this week about artificial intelligence. Again, it’s an important topic. Uh We did this with a panel in June last year today, a different distinguished panel shares their thoughts on this transformative technology. It’s timely, It’s got a lot of promise and a lot of risks. It’s moving fast. Those are the reasons why nonprofit radio is devoting multiple episodes to it. What are the promises and the responsibilities? What’s the role of nonprofit leadership about government? What are the equity concerns? The biases? What about access to this intelligence? What are the preconditions for successful integration at your nonprofit? What’s the future of artificial intelligence? Who to share their thinking? Are Justin Spell Hog recently promoted Justin Spell Haug. He is corporate vice president and global head of technology for Social Impact at Microsoft. You’ll find Justin on linkedin. Justin. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Congratulations on your promotion from vice president to corporate vice president at the uh enormous company Microsoft. It’s great to be here with the pod father. It’s a new name. So I’m proud to, proud to be here and look forward to the conversation. All right. Well, I’m glad it’s the first time you’ve heard the pod father. It’s, there’s on, there can be only one really there, there ought to be only one. So I’m glad it’s the first time. Um And I see, you know, global head. I’m sorry, you’re a little bit limited. You’re not working in the stratosphere, the ionosphere, the troposphere, you’re strictly limited to the globe. I’m sorry, we all have our constraints. We are working on Mars and the moon uh soon, but we gotta get a broader population of nonprofits there. All right. So we, we’re limited to the globe. I’m sorry for you, Amy Stample Ward. We know them. They are nonprofit radio’s technology contributor and the CEO of N 10. They’re at Amy Sample ward.org and at Amy RS Ward, Amy, it’s great to see you. Welcome back. Of course. Thanks. I know there have been a number of different conversations about A I that you’ve had on nonprofit radio. Um I’ve listened to them, I haven’t been in all of them. They’ve been great and, you know, we talked a little bit about a IJ and I, you know, when we started off with some of what’s gonna be big topics in the sector for 2024. So excited to be in a conversation kind of dedicated to that. I’m glad you are and Tristan Penn, welcoming back Tristan, he is equity and accountability director at N 10 as a Black and NAVAJO professional. He’s served on previous organizations, equity teams and been a facilitator for de I rooted in racial equity. Tristan is on linkedin, Tristan. Welcome back. Awesome. So happy to be here. Um Thank you for having me, excited to have this conversation with um Amy, who I work very closely with and um it’s really good to see you too and um also excited to have this conversation with Justin to see um you know what we can unearth. Yes, we’re, we’re representing the big tech perspective. Um Amy, since you are our tech contributor, uh we’re gonna start off, you know, just big picture. What are your, what are your thinking? What is your thinking? What are your concerns? Big picture stuff. Yeah. Well, I’m glad that we’ve scheduled five hours for this interview. I will be taking the first four. Thank you so much. I have many thoughts. Uh many concerns, many, uh you know, I think there’s so there’s just a lot to get into, I think some top level, you know, bites to put at the beginning here are, there’s a lot of hype and as with anything that falls into the hype machine, I think nonprofits do not need to fall, you know, victim to like, oh my gosh, I read this one article so I have to do the thing, right? Um There’s, there’s time A I is not done, the world is now now, not already over and everything’s predetermined, right? So, um you, you’ve seen the article that was like a I will end humanity? Ok. Ok. Here we are let’s calm down and talk about things. So I, I know I’ve talked to nonprofits whose boards are, like, I read that article and A I is good. You know, it’s ending all of us like we can take our time. That’s one piece. Uh, I also think it’s important for organizations to think about where they are already working, what communities they already work with, what data they already have. Like this isn’t start a new project when we’re talking about A I. Um And so I think we’ll get into that more in our, in our conversations here. Um And of course, that A I isn’t new. Well, I mean, artificial intelligence is a phrase is the, is the broadest umbrella term we could use for these types of technologies. And so to, to have these sentences that say like A I is new and it’s here and it’s going so fast. Like what is that? That’s like encompassing so many different components of technology. Uh And so what do, what do we really mean when we’re talking about A I? Are you talking about a model that you set up inside of your organization? You know, to help identify program participants that need extra support? That could, that can be A A I. But that’s very different than saying, oh yeah, we’re just using chat GP T to help, you know, start some of our drafts. OK. Those are so they are wildly different things. And so to talk about them in the same breath as it’s all a I it sets folks up to already have kind of a disconnected conversation even from the start. All right. Thank you and hold our feet to the fire. Uh Especially me because the three of you think about this all the time and I don’t. So, you know, if I, if I lose that context that you just revealed, shared with us, please, uh call me out. All right, Justin big picture, please. What do you go on Amy? You know, the hype cycle of it’s gonna save us, it’s gonna destroy us. And now just kind of how do we make use of it? We’ve been going through this, this process as a, as a community. I, I think one of the things when I zoom out, I, I just see um some tectonic shifts that are impacting the sector from some big demographic shifts in European countries in the United States where we force is getting older, that’s putting tons of pressure on aged care and front line community workers, some big shifts in uh continents like Africa where education, skilling and jobs are all critical and the nonprofits facing off on these issues aren’t getting any additional funding. GDP is stabilized in many countries, but we’ve hit a new set point for inflation that’s impacting pocketbooks. It’s impacting people’s ability to raise money. And so really, you know, the question that we have to ask is how do we use A I in, in missions to help organizations raise more money, help them deliver more effective program, help them rise to these challenges that are continuing to create pressure in the sector. And how do we do all of that in a way that’s responsible in a way that’s safe in a way that’s inclusive. And that’s actually a pretty complex topic that I hope we spend some time on. Indeed. And thank you for the uh global perspective. Tristan, big picture of thoughts, please. I have lots of thoughts similar to, to Amy. And I, I think where I start off with is kind of like in a very, uh, I worked for 20 years and I still am working in, in nonprofit and I see how, um over those years nonprofits and, you know, small organizations have seen something that’s bright and glittery and then like, so amazed by it and been like, yes, we want it, we’re going to take it in and we have no process for building it into our, our operations. We have no forethought for it. We have no contingency to, um, to live by when we’re folding this in this ideal state. We, we’ve already jumped like multiple steps to um us envisioning how we’re going to operate with this bright shiny tool that we have. And that’s never been the case in my years, um, that I’ve, I’ve been a nonprofit and it’s, if anything, it’s always been uh folded in, in a way that doesn’t have a lot of forethought too. So I think the things that come to mind for me that make me curious and also a little bit, um, reticence um about just the blanket, the umbrella term A I is um folding it in where it makes sense and not where you want to add a little, you know, uh icing on your cake where it does where it needs none. And so, um that’s where II I intersect with it. There’s another piece of it um where I, I am a little um critical of it and concerned about it. Um because I think that this can, you know, we, to Amy’s point, we think about A I and a lot of people go in different directions. I think the, the baseline for a lot of people is they go to like a I generated pictures or chat GP T um to do those things and it’s much more than that, but I do think about a time anecdotally where um I was at a conference and I was um passing by a booth and there was like a very lovely, you know, picture of an older um couple and I was like, oh, that reminds me of my grandparents. It was an older black couple and I was like, oh, that’s so cute. It reminds me a lot of my grandparents. It’s like very, you know, and then I I went in closer and this is a, a booth that’s, you know, managed by a bunch of white folks. And, um, and then they were like, oh, did you know that this is an A I generated picture? And that didn’t feel good to me as a black person that didn’t feel good. It felt incredibly like I had been misled in a really scary way. Um I feel like I have a really good detector of like what’s real, what’s not my BS detector is like always up and on and that scared me because I was duped hard and that scares me in a way um less about nonprofits, but just the overall overall globalization and usage of it and implementation that it could go in to hand to the hands of people and create false narratives about marginalized groups um just based on what they, what product they wanna sell. And that is scary. Um And that, that’s something that I think um has just stuck with me for um for a while. Thank you for raising the the risks and, and potential, you know, misuse abuse. We, we need to go to artificial intelligence to create a uh a picture of an elderly black couple that was, it was necessary to do. And also thank you for the valuable parallel, you know, you, you make me think of uh social media adoption when Facebook was new, you know, we, we assigned it to an intern and we put it like the cherry on top where we didn’t need a cherry, but the intern had used it in college. So, you know, she may as well do it for us full time. Uh It very valuable, interesting parallel. Um Amy start us off with just a common I definition, you know, um artificial intelligence, generative, I mean, a generative artificial intelligence. That’s, that’s what we’re largely going to be talking about. Uh if not exclusively. I, I think so, what is, what is, there’s a lot of that? I think we’re, we’ll start with taking one at one at a time, right? Sure. No, I was just gonna say, I think um we already are exposed when we’re thinking about technology in our nonprofit organizations to lots of different terms, lots of different companies putting things out there with the uh not necessarily cloaked, you know, it’s not, it’s not a hidden desire to reinforce that they’re specialists, they know what they’re doing. And like us lowly nonprofits don’t know, we couldn’t understand those fancy terms, right? And so I always, I mean, I teach a course and I always remind folks like you absolutely can know what these words mean, you know. Um And I appreciate that there are so many places even actually, like I, I, I’m never somebody that promotes um these things. So folks know this, but like Microsoft has actually offered, you know, community learning spaces to say these are what these words mean. Um So artificial intelligence is like I said, the biggest umbrella term for all different types, generative A I uh machine learning, all of these components that people might talk about as if they are one different thing. They’re all like within that same A I umbrella. And I just want to say two words because they’ll probably come up in our conversation. I know you want to go one word at a time. But the words I hear from folks the most where they’re not, they feel like they should know what this word means and they don’t and they feel like silly that they don’t understand our algorithm and model those words are used all the time in talking about generative A I, which means the tool is, is set up to generate something back for you. Tristan used an image, uh you know, visual image uh example, but that could be text, that could be video, that could be audio, you know, it’s, it’s asking the the tool to generate something for you. Um But an algorithm we’ve heard this word like, you know, oh Facebook’s algorithm is like choosing what I see, right? The algorithm means the set of rules. So in Facebook’s newsfeed, that set of rules says if something already has a bunch of likes prioritize it, right? If it has uh you know, two friends that you’re connected to already commenting, prioritize, so it’s whatever that set of rules is that says this is how to generate a older black couple image, what whatever those rules were, that’s what algorithm means. And model essentially means like you can think of the same, the the word is used in the same way as uh when you say model about cars like it is the whole set put together, right? It’s got the data, it has the algorithm, the rules that say how, how to do it, it has the input, whatever you’re gonna ask it to do that kind of when people say what’s the model? They’re really saying. OK. What, what’s the package uh of how this tool is working? Thank you for all that. It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with Donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations. Anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit Donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to artificial intelligence for nonprofits. Redux, Justin, I see you taking lots of notes. What’s uh what’s going on? What’s going on in your head? What what? No, I think um what just as Amy highlighted. One of the things that’s important to highlight is um we, we’ve been using A I for a really, really long time and there are really important use cases that have nothing to do with, with generative A I, things like machine learning, right? That allows us to do things like predict donation, things like machine language that allows us to translate from one language to another. Things like machine vision that allows us to identify and classify objects. All of those are important um tools as we look to solve different problems. Um In in the sector, generative A I is as Amy was highlighting is a new class of artificial intelligence that allows that’s capable of creating effectively novel content because it’s reasoning across, you know, all of the information in the internet and using as a news highlighting algorithms to identify patterns that allows it to um you know, produce answers in a really uh in, in many times intelligent ways. However, uh as Tristan was highlighting, you know, ensuring that um these models are inclusive, are representative, are safe, are understood, are all things that were continuing to work uh to put frameworks around and tools around uh so that they uh produce positive impact, not negative impact. And Justin how can we ensure that that actually happens? You know, there, there’s a lot of talk about biases, you know, uh the the the large language models are trained on predominantly white uh uh language sources. So you’re gonna, there’s so there’s bias uh the, the so that, you know, there are equity issues. But uh what uh what is the big tech doing to actually uh keep these, keep equity centered in and, and keep lack of biases centered as these models are adopted using the algorithms that, that Amy just defined for us. Yeah, it’s a really multifaceted answer. I’ll only hit two points and we can go much deeper if we want, we release. Uh just in fact, in the last week, this the Microsoft A I access principles trying to get at this very problem which has 11 core components. I’ll speak to two to give you a flavor of the kinds of things that we need to do as we think about the A I economy globally to ensure it’s fair, representative uh and safe. The one of the principles is making sure that A I models and development tools are broadly available to software developers everywhere in the world, everywhere in the world and every culture in the world training on the language and on the history uh and on the societies all around the world uh to create much, much more representation. As you probably know, many of the models have been developed in North America and therefore reflect some of those cultural biases. So, federating these tools that is critical uh in the in the A I economy. Secondly, you know, um companies and organizations that produce A I need to have rules uh for how they um check and balance the A I to ensure that it’s responsible, it’s fair, it’s safe, it respects privacy, it respects uh security, it’s inclusive, it’s transparent and we call those rules that Microsoft are responsible A I framework and it’s not just a set of principles, it’s actually an engineering standard. And when applying that engineering standard, we were looking at uh fairness in speech to text. So taking speech and transforming it into text and we found it was a couple of years ago, we produced this article that our, our speech to text algorithms were not as accurate Black and African American communities in the United States as they were for Caucasian communities. Um And that was largely a function of the training data that was used. And so we had to take a step back using our framework that caught this issue to say, how do we work with the communities more effectively? How do we bring socio linguists in to help us understand how to capture all of the rich diverse city of language to make sure that our speech to text capability is representative of every citizen that we’re, we’re rolling this out to. And that’s an exam and we did that and, and today it performs much better and there’s more work to do. But it’s those kinds of frameworks and guard rails that are really important in helping uh people design this stuff in a way that benefits everyone. Tristan. What’s your reaction? You, you’re thinking about equity all the time. Um What’s my reaction? What isn’t my reaction? And I would say, um I, I love that and I love what Justin was saying about um how, you know, making it a Federated model as opposed to it. I mean, yeah, everything, I only say everything but a good amount of things are being generated created curated in North America and baked into those models and algorithms are like biases that skewed towards white men. And um and that’s not OK. I think that excludes me in particular, but also like, you know, I, I think um having um a plan for that as opposed to being reactionary to being like, well, gosh, we didn’t know what was going on and being um uh a little more, less reactionary and more um forward thinking in that way. Yeah, proactive um is, is always a good place to start. I think a few other things that do come to mind too in terms of um making sure that communities of color marginalized communities are um not um constantly shouldering even outside of A I but constantly shouldering um the mess ups of like the brand new tool that came out on the market and that seems to always be the case and there’s always like a headline months later where it’s like, so and so we found out, this tool wasn’t geared towards her facial recognition wasn’t geared towards like, you know, black folks. Um, and it was like, historically wrong. And so I, I think about those things, but I also think about um, it through a nonprofit lens because we’re on a nonprofit call. Um, and I, um, I bring up the, another anecdotal story of um having, uh, being on a call and having an A I note taker bot um hop into the zoom call too. I think we’ve within like the last half year we’ve been on calls where it’s like, oh, I don’t know about some actual person or a thing or like, you know, it, it’s very ambiguously named sometimes where it’s like Otter, one of them is Otter, right? And this Otter is all of a sudden it’s in our meeting. This Otter is, yeah. And I think, you know, there is a lot of benefit, there’s a lot of benefit in having um you know, uh note taking tools and um also captioning tools that are, are, are for folks in terms of accessibility. There are folks that have completely different learning styles. There are folks that take in information at different levels and different wavelengths of things. And I say that all to say that like, you know, I would like to see a world where um it was scarier um with, to keep with the Otter Box or not Otter Box. Sorry, that’s not Otter Box is not a sponsor of this. Um But the Otter A I um uh gene Note taking tool was that after I got an email randomly from the, the note taker to all the people also to all the people that were in that call with a um a narrative recap of everything that we, we talked over. It wasn’t a transcript, it was a narrative recap, which is fine enough. OK. Um There were, there was a screenshot of just a random person that was on the call that was also there. And also um what’s most scary for me, I think or just very concerning um is um at the bottom, it was like here’s the productivity score of the call, 84% here’s the engagement of the call, 72%. And it’s like where it, where is at least, at the very least, where’s the asterisk at the bottom that says this is how we calculated this whatever. And I, I immediately go, I’m not a pessimist, but in that moment, I was like, this is going to be used by people in higher positions, people in power to wield over folks, middle management and direct service to say, hey man, you didn’t have a um 84% or higher engagement score on our last zoom call, you are now on a personal improvement plan and that is a scary place to be. And so I think less about like these tools are what they are. But I think about the people and the systems and the toxic systems at times that sometimes wield these brand new shiny tools in a way that doesn’t feel good and also is working against their mission and against their employees. Its time for Tonys take two. Thank you, Kate and thank you for supporting nonprofit radio. Uh I like to say thanks every once in a while because I don’t want you to think that we’re taking you for granted. I’m grateful, grateful for your listening. And if you get the insider alerts each week, I’m grateful that you get those letting us into your inbox. Um This week, I’m in Portland, Oregon recording a whole bunch of good savvy smart interviewers for upcoming episodes. Hopefully, that helps like show our gratitude because we’re out here collecting good interviews for you to listen to if you can’t make the nonprofit technology conference yourself. So thank you. I’m grateful that you listen, grateful that you’re with us week after week. That’s Tonys take two Kate. Thank you guys so much for listening to us every week. We appreciate you. Well, we’ve got Buku but loads more time. Let’s return to artificial intelligence for nonprofits redux with Justin Spell Haug Amy Sample Ward and Tristan Penn Ki. I love that you brought that up. Um Don’t love that it happened that you brought it up as an example here for folks because I think it’s uh a easy entryway into a conversation on one of the points Tony mentioned at the start of the call, like, what are some of these preconditions? Um And you were like, oh people are like, oh bright shiny, right? That’s what we do. Oh bright shiny, like I’m going to use this tool that like took the notes in here and a place where we’ve seen for many people, many years in in ten’s research is that nonprofits struggle. This isn’t to say that for profit companies don’t also struggle with this, but nonprofit organizations struggle with consent, they struggle with privacy and security. And so here’s a well meaning well intentioned, right? I’m going to use this tool except it’s emailing you, you didn’t consent to that. It emailed all the participants in the call. There was no opt in, right? Let alone a very clear opt out like why did I even get this? Um That’s not even to say opting into sentiment analysis of whatever is a community zoom call, right? Um And so when we peel that back and say, OK, well, we just wouldn’t use that note taking, right? Sure. But when we’re thinking about preconditions for this effective work as an organization do, what are your data policies in general? The number of organizations that we work with that still don’t have a data policy because they think, well, isn’t there like some law about data? So like we, why would we have our own policy? OK, there is some law related to data, right? Different types of data have different laws, but that’s not the same as an organization saying, what data do we collect? Why do we collect it? How long do we retain it? What if somebody wants us to remove it? How do we do that in our systems? Right. So this level of uh fidelity to your own data, to your own community members, to the policies that you’ve set up to manage those relationships. Um And trust for so many organizations are already not in place or, or like I said, there’s just not a fidelity to them that that makes them trusted. So then to say, oh yeah, we’re ready to, we’re ready to add this note taking app to our community calls or our client calls. It just that that’s the place where I have the most fear is actually not the tools having bias. I know they have bias and that is a place of concern and, and a place we can, can address it. But my mo the most fear I have is people still operating within that without any of the structures or policies or, or training to deal with both maybe bias and a tool they use and their own bias or their own issues, right? And it it accelerates the harm that that can be created in that. I mean, I want to use some of that to, to go to Justin and uh that’s something very closely related. Uh the, the uh the nonprofit leadership role, the responsibility of, of nonprofit leaders. I think it gets to a lot of what Amy was just talking about. But what, what do you, what do you see as the, the responsibility of nonprofit leadership in, in formulating these policies? But also in just, you know, making sure that the preconditions are there so that we, we can be successful in integrating artificial intelligence, whether we’re bringing an exterior, an outside tool or, or or building our own. Even that, that may be a, that may be a big lift for a lot of listeners. But, but generally the, the, the nonprofit leadership’s role. Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of the nonprofit leadership play today and I think we have to meet uh leaders where, where they’re at and, and I think the very first step and Amy mentioned this in the very beginning of the call is raising the the capacity of their knowledge and of their staff’s knowledge of how these tools work and uh what are the edges of the tools and how to apply them effectively in the flow of work. And um there is training available as, as an example, we have a four hour course on linkedin. You don’t need to do it all at once, but it’s actually pretty good. It’s for, it’s not for developers, it’s not for techies, it’s for front line program, staff, fundraising staff finance staff, the, the, the ed uh to really learn about how to think about these tools with that knowledge. Then you can take the next step, which is starting to engage, I think, simple ways to apply these tools to get on the uh on the ground experience of what they’re good at and what they’re not good at. Um you know, using things like uh from Microsoft. So I’ll mention, you know, BB or, or, or Microsoft Copilot to look at writing donor appeal letters or whatever the process may be, they can just start learning about these fundamental language models and what they’re good at. Um I think it’s important as an organization thinks about getting deeper into A I and really thinking about how do they apply it to their processes, whether that be fundraising, whether that be engagement with beneficiaries that they think really deeply about data uh and data classification and that, that, that gets a little sophisticated, but just ensuring that we’ve, we’ve got a strategy to use A I for the data that we want to use A I for and that we segment data that we do not want A I to reason on away. So start with, start with getting the basic skill skills built out. Um A lot of uh organizations I met I meet with are just at the very beginning stage of that, use the simplest tools to accommodate uh the job to get some experience and then start to think longer range around data, data, classification and more advanced scenarios that can be applied. Tony. Can I just, what’s that four hour course on uh Tristan? Let me just let me drill down on a free resource. I love free resources for our listeners. Tristan answers. It’s a linkedin course uh nonprofit uh A I fundamentals. But let me get that for you here. Ok, Tristan, go ahead. Yeah. Um Can I um I really like how Justin um initial uh said, you know, there’s a lot of nonprofit leaders plates already too in terms of responsibility. And I want to gently push um and answer your invite to, to call you in Tony um in, in the premise of the question which, which was what’s, what is the responsibility of, of nonprofit leaders now? And I would say yes, there, obviously, there’s a responsibility as Justin has illustrated that like we need to be better in terms of strategy um in terms of tech, in terms of A I um in general on how we fold these, these crucial tools in. But I would also say that there’s an equal and almost um larger responsibility on those who fund nonprofits. Um I think a lot of times in the nonprofits that I’ve worked with, interacted with and worked within um their operational and financial model has been very ham handedly built in a very um doctor Susan way, which doesn’t really make sense at times and it’s because a year after year, there are different grants, different fundings that require different things um at different times based on whatever the the hot new term is. Uh 1015 years ago, it was mentoring. So a lot of times everything was geared towards mentors. And I say that because this implies that um a lot of these nonprofits are already built on a structure that is very shaky. And so there’s a lot of other things that need to be done. But I do think um a big responsibility sits with folks who fund um nonprofits foundations. Um and also local governments, federal, the federal government in making sure that when they are pushing a grant or um putting out an RFP for a grant that says you need to fold in tech and you need to fold in A I in this way to get kids to learn or get kids in seats um in the classroom that you’re doing. So in a way that creates um longevity and solid um solid nonprofit organi operational work. Um And just doesn’t like slap an ipad in front of a kid. Um And I think that’s really, I used to work with boys and girls club. So that’s where I always default. Um But III I think that um I’ve based on my experience, it’s always been um a really weird way um of, of having um o going into a financial model um of an organization year after year because it’s like, oh, well, that we started doing that because last year’s grant asked for it and now we just do it into perpetuity. And so again, you have that little weird Dr Seuss style way of thinking. And I think um funders and um grant, um grant folks can do a lot by being very clear and very um forward thinking and how they are offering up these monies. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world. And in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers, responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys. The response to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact virtuous.org. Now back to artificial intelligence for nonprofits redux, you know, that’s not only the mindset like this, this, it, it feels like they’re being strategic by saying, oh, yeah. Well, we were able to come, we were able to pitch that in a way that we got the fund, but then that’s changing their strategies all the time. It also back to the point before is meaning the data you have to work with inside your organization is OK. Well, two years, we structured it this way for two years, we structured it this way. Do we even have like a unique idea to connect these people and say, oh, they were in both of those programs, like our own data sets are messy and influenced by funders saying, oh, now we need you to collect these demographic markers, you know, and it’s, it’s we we as organizations are often pressured by those funders to do it the way they want because it’s easier for them. Um and tells the story, they want to tell, but that’s really, really messing up the data sets and the program kind of uh processes or, or business processes that we have in place. And I I just wanted to connect that to broader things that intens worked on and advocated for for many years from the equity guide specific to funders. And that is that funding technology projects takes time and it takes a lot more money than like $30,000 for whatever the licenses are for something, right? Like it’s not uncommon that an organization building a model, an internal use model. This isn’t some big flashy commercial thing. This is just for them to, you know, like I said before, identify program participants that maybe, you know, could use intervention it’s not uncommon that would take two dozen tries to get the right model in place right? To really make sure the algorithm is, is fine tuned that the outputs are appropriate. Well, you can’t go through two dozen models in, in three months, right? And then have something there. A nonprofit would need a couple of years. And our, our funders, there’s already plenty of funders saying like, oh, now we have this A I grant, you know, opportunity or is that grant gonna be comprehensive of the work to get their data in a good place to get their program, staff ready and trained to Justin’s Point. Every staff person really trained adequately on, on not just what are these tools but what’s a good prompt? What’s a good use case for this, right? All of those pieces so that they can adequately and materially contribute to, then what is this project we want to do? What is the best fit for us and how do we, how do we build it and, and just to add on and we’ll wrap up to Amy’s Point and Tristan’s Point A I hasn’t changed the fundamental physics of what makes a good technology project. I mean, it’s people, it’s process, it’s tools, it’s capacity building, it’s a long term strategy, all that is the same. Um And if your listeners are wondering, where do I even get started in understanding the language of this stuff? Uh Because you asked the question. It’s called Career Essentials in Generative A I it’s on linkedin, it’s free. Uh And I take it it’s, it’s pretty good. So I think it’s worth worthwhile for your listeners. Thank you, Justin. How about uh in 10 Amy, what resources for folks? I mean, hopefully they’re already going to the nonprofit technology conference where there are gonna be a lot of, uh there are a lot of sessions on artificial intelligence. I know because I’m gonna be interviewing a bunch of those folks. So this is, this is probably the second of, I don’t know, six or seven A I episodes uh in, in, in different uh around different subjects. But N 10, N as N 10 as a resource for learning A, we have lots of them. There’s um you know, work uh not workbook but like a guide. There’s of course, the equity guide, there’s some materials on the website. We have an A I course and other courses that talk about A I, there’s community groups where you can ask questions and of course the conference. But uh thanks to Microsoft and Octa gave us some um supporting funding and 10 along with Institute for the future and project evident are at the tail end of a community design process where we’ve worked with over 40 organizations um in this process to create an A I framework for organizations, whether you’re a nonprofit or not, who are trying to make decisions around A I and our framing for this is the framework for an equitable world. So it isn’t just that you are a 501 C three registered in the US, right? Or that you’re a grassroots organization in whatever country like if you want to live in that equitable world, then this is the framework that we can all share and work in together. Um We’re going to do a little preview at the end TC and have whoever comes to the session is gonna get to road test it with us and then we’ll publish it publicly after the NTC. Um So lots more and obviously, I’ll, I’ll share that with you when it comes out. But um what’s really, I think important from this is that it is a framework that uh is built on the idea that all of us are part of these decisions that all of us have responsibility in these decisions. Um And that all of us are accountable to building, right? This isn’t um you know, the quote unquote, responsible tech or this isn’t like this isn’t just for those projects where you’re, where you’re gonna do something good over here. This is whatever we’re doing, it’s gotta be good. It’s gotta be building us into an equitable world because what else are we doing here? Right. If it’s not for that. Um And so I’m excited for folks to get to use it. It’ll be published for free everywhere anybody use it. Please go, you know. Um, so lots more on that too. Amy. You are perfectly consistent with the framed quote that you have behind you. All of us are in this life together. You’re living your, you’re living your framed art. Uh, uh, I admire it. Uh, Justin, we have, we’ve got maybe 10 minutes left. What, what would you like to talk about? We haven’t, we haven’t touched on yet or go further on something we have. Well, no, maybe, maybe I’ll just um build a little bit on what Amy was the question you asked, what are, what are the resources available? So I think that’s pretty useful to the, to the organization. So, so one is, one is the training that I mentioned too is uh we just recently ran a nonprofit Leaders Summit where we, where we had 5600 people together. Uh uh about 4500 online, about 1000 in a room talking about how do we grapple with A I? How do, what are the use cases that make this make sense? How do we think about data security and privacy? And we’re going to continue to invest in in that? We’re going to be rolling that out more globally as well with uh events in Australia and others. But that convening and that dial and just getting the community and dialogue I think is so important. I I learned a ton from that. We’re also going to continue to push on affordability and making sure that uh we’ve got affordable access to our technology so that every organization can use things like Microsoft Copilot uh for, for free um providing, you know that they, they’ve got access to our nonprofit offers and then finally, innovation. And I, I’m, I’m interested looking at scenarios that span the sector where if we invest, once we can create a multiplier effect. And one of the areas that we’re, we’re partnering on is with Save The Children Oxfam and many other organizations on the humanitarian data exchange, which is a large data set used to help organizations coordinate humanitarian and disaster relief domestically and internationally in a more effective manner. Uh So our mission don’t overlap uh but that data set hasn’t been super useful to date, applying things like language models training on that and creating a tool set that is cross sector for many organizations, you’ll see us um continuing to invest in that way. And I look forward to ideas from our intent partners here on the phone as well as you know, the community at large on on where we can make bets that will really help the sector together. Uh move, move forward Tristan. What would you like to touch on or, or go deeper in? We’ve got uh we got the, it’s 78 minutes or so. Um You know, I, I think I just wanna underscore what, what Amy was talking about and that we’ve, we’ve all been working on. Um, which is the, uh, I’m a little tired of you underscoring Amy, Amy and you, we force each other. You know, I agree with you should have seen us, we work together. It’s getting a little dull. It’s a little dull. Now. You should have seen us when we were in office. Our desks were 20 ft away from each other and there was a constant, there was a worn line in between our desks and nobody wants to be in between in that 20 ft in that 20 ft space. Um I will say um being a part of the community group, what Amy was saying about working with 40 other organizations um to figure out what um a healthy and um robust and equitable processes for any organization to um interact with and um field A I is crucial and I’m, I’m so glad that we are able to be a part of it and we’re, we’re going to be um debut it at NTC. It’s something that I’ve learned a lot from just based on someone who again, like I said before, I came from youth development. My degree is in child psych. Um So, but I’ve learned a lot over the years um working with N 10, working at N 10. Um But I think um one thing that’s, that’s been uh really, really beneficial is learning from all those folks in the group and um a couple of things that did come up in when we were creating that framework, which uh was um that organizations are making all kinds of decisions every day today. Um And I, I will say that it kind of highlights that I, we are talking about A I and how it like will look sound and feel and how it looks. This is all kind of uh we’re not meaning it to be, but it’s all within a vacuum. Um And we can’t think like that. We can’t think of all of us who have now, we are four years out from 2020 our lives were forever changed and every nonprofit will have their own sad story to tell about how the um the pandemic impacted them. And I say that to say is that like none, no one was prepared for that. And so if we um keep on talking about or um playing around with this idea of A I is like, it’s going to solve problems or it’s going to sit in this world um in this vacuum, we’re not doing ourselves justice and we’re being very forgetful about the past that we just went through. And so if we’re able to instead consider how A I will interact with the dynamic world that we all live within, um That’s going to better behoove us um both individually, but also organizationally when we’re planning strategically. Um If that’s year after year for you, if that’s every five years, I don’t know what that is. Um So having that strong tech um baseline for folks. And then I think also the other thing is people in all roles are considering A I and aren’t sure how it applies to them. Um I think uh staff, we’ve read stories um that A I will replace workers but have no idea what to do with, you know, where, where that fear sits with them too. Um It should just add to their work and not replace them. And I think a lot of we’re seeing uh you know, I’m, I um am on tiktok and so, you know, that’s a whole other like bag of algorithms and like, you know, things that we can dissect and pull apart. But I do, there are a lot of stories of, you know, there are folks getting laid off left and right. And um I, I would have to, you know, that begs the question why generally, but also like, what is the role of A I in all of this too? Um I think it’s really interesting when layoffs happen at a time when A I is accelerating um in a lot of our worlds, whether it’s in tech and whether it’s in other sectors across the world. And I think that there is a lot to be done by organizations who don’t fall prey to like the siren song of like A I and are going into a clear minded and not saying, oh, well, we can cut out this department and put it in, put, um, you know, this learning module in or this, you know, I think that’s, that’s really where, um, you’re going to see a lot of organizations and commu, um, organizations and companies thrive as opposed to just, um, laying folks off a lot there. No, we’re, yeah, we’re, we’re taking it in. Yeah. No. And, and the reality is that I admire the, the consistency between you and Amy. Uh, and, and, and, and, and generally, I mean, I made fun of you, but what it shows is you’re all thinking the same way. You know, you’ve all got the, uh, the same concern for the nonprofit Human first, human first. You know, like we’re all humans and we’re all prioritizing um us as humans and if we start prioritizing other things and it’s not going to, um, go well, well, but at end to end, you’re, you’re walking the walking the talk. So, and consistently Amy, you want to check us out with, uh, all of us are in this life together. Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing I, I want folks to leave with is that, that future is not predetermined. We, we are not sitting down and saying, well, ok, like I’ll wait for my assigned robot to come tell me what to do, right? It, it is still up for all of us to write that every day. And the people who most need to have their sentence at the start of the article or whatever, you know, at the start of the book are the folks who are being told in a lot of different systemic media type ways that they do not get to have their sentence in the article, you know. And so I, I hope that nonprofits know this is both an opportunity to shape and influence as A I tools are being developed to shape and influence the tools that we build within our sector for ourselves with our communities. But it’s also a responsibility for nonprofits who are the ones often closest to and most trusted by those systemically marginalized communities who are experiencing the most real time harm to be the supporter that brings them into that work. They are not necessarily going to get tapped by uh a company to learn this or do whatever. Even though I hear Justin saying these, these, you know, opportunities are, are free and accessible. You as a nonprofit can say, we think we might build something. Can you be in our design committee? Can you work with us? We’ll make sure that we all learn together, right? As an organization, they’re already in relationship with they, they’ve, you know, maybe benefited from programs or services. You have the responsibility and incredible opportunity to be the conduit for so many communities to enter this, this quote unquote A I world. And that’s a really important I think gift uh you know that we have as a sector to, to be the ones helping make sure so much, so much more of the world is part of developing these tools and designing them to be accountable to us as people, their Amy Sample ward. Our technology contributor here at nonprofit radio and the CEO of N 10. Also Tristan Penn Equity and Accountability director at N 10 and Justin Spell Haug, new corporate vice president and Global head at uh Technology for Social Impact at Microsoft. My thanks to each of you. Thank you very much. Real pleasure. Thanks so much, Tony. Thanks Justin. I’ll see you in 20 ft. Thanks so much, Tony. Next week, the generational divide now, this is interesting uh because uh we’ve been promising this for a couple of weeks now and it hasn’t materialized. It’s very relieving to have someone, an associate producer who I can blame for this show having been promised the generational divide, having been promised for weeks on end and not coming through even though it doesn’t matter that the associate producer, Kate has nothing to do with booking the guests that the host takes care of that himself. That that’s irrelevant. I blame the associate producer and this, this show, the generational divide had better come through next week or there’s gonna be a shake up. I’m the one who just reads the script to either. Oh, yeah. Minimize the uh OK. Your title is not script reader it’s associate producer. Well, if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you look, I was slow on my cue. There I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your support, generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. And by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow. Giving, virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that information, Scotty. You’re with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for March 11, 2024: Election Year Activities

 

Gene Takagi: Election Year Activities

Gene Takagi

In this presidential election year, everything related to politics is prohibited, right? Not so fast. It’s not that simple. There are actions you can take, including lobbying on ballot measures. As long as you follow the rules. There’s no one better to explain those rules than Gene Takagi, our legal contributor. He’s the managing attorney of NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group.

 

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And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be forced to endure the pain of chronic inflammatory demyelinating, poly ridicule, neuropathy. If you attacked me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s coming? Hey, Tony, it’s election year activities in this presidential election year. Everything related to politics is prohibited, right? Not so fast. It’s not that simple. There are actions you can take including lobbying on ballot measures. As long as you follow the rules, there’s no one better to explain those rules than Gene Taghi. Our legal contributor. He’s the managing attorney of Neo, the nonprofit and exempt organizations Law Group on Tony’s take two 24 NTC is next week were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your support, generosity, donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org here is election year activities. It’s always a pleasure to welcome back our legal contributor, Gene Takagi. He’s the managing attorney of Neo, the nonprofit and exempt organization’s law Group in San Francisco. He edits that wildly popular nonprofit law blog.com that you should be following. And he is a part time lecturer at Columbia University. The firm is at Neola group.com and he’s at GT A. It’s good to see you, Gene. Welcome back. It’s great to be back, Tony. It’s great to see you as well. Thank you. It’s always a pleasure. I don’t mind saying it twice. I’ll say it a third time. It’s always a pleasure. And this one particularly because it’s our uh what this be our quadrennial every fourth year. Uh And you’ve been on the show for many, many years, we’ve done this several times in our presidential election cycle. It’s time to talk about uh what’s permissible and what’s not permissible around political activity. So let’s start with the upside that. I think a lot of folks may not be aware of even though we’ve, we’ve said it before, but it’s been four years to be fair. It’s been four years since we’ve talked about this um that uh nonprofits can do lobbying and uh and a decent amount of it too. Yeah, it’s, it’s so under recognized. I’m glad you’re bringing it up. There’s a study that came out um recently, but it was about the 2017 and 2018 years, about how many charities out of the more than million charities that registered with the IRS and report to the IRS, how many actually report doing lobbying and it’s fewer than 10,000. So that’s less than 1% have reported lobbying uh, as any part of their activities. And I think part of it stems from, you know, 501 c three kind of says in, in more legalese kind of uh verbiage. Hey, you can engage in substantial lobbying. Yeah. You know, that terrifies, you know, a lot of charities go, oh my God, we can engage in substantial lobbying. What does that mean? What, what, what does substantial mean? And so we better not do any of it and it keeps everybody away from it completely. It just, and then they just default to nonprofits can’t do lobbying. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, lawyers are, are not, you know, are, are, are a little bit complicit in this as well because, you know, when they’re not sure about this thing and if you don’t practice exclusively in the areas that, like, I practice it, why would, you know that, well, you know, substantial can mean a lot of different things depending upon the test you elect to, to fall under. So you’d probably say, well, you know, just to be on the safe side, better not lobbying, but that’s actually terrible advice for public charities. So let, let’s, uh, let’s debunk this insidious myth. Yeah. And, and let’s raise up, there is great reasons for charities to lobby, especially right now. I mean, we’re at a pivotal time when a lot of rights are up at issue and charities may have like very strong views about those rights, whether it be women’s rights or whether it be first amendment rights or whether it be environmental rights. I mean, there’s just a lot up in the air right now where charities and, you know, charity beneficiaries and charity supporters really have a strong point of view and they’re afraid to share it through the charity. So let’s add in LGBT Q and trans rights. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we can create a whole, a whole list of other rights as well. Charities, you know, span span the spectrum of, of all sorts of things. And so, um yeah, you know, when you have something to say, being chilled and in fear of saying it because you don’t know whether the law allows you to or not is, is terrible. So glad you’ve provided kind of the, the, the place where we can talk about it and say, hey, ok, what can charities do? And so the, the first thing to know about is there’s sort of two tests and the default test is if you have done nothing except, you know, kind of reported with the IRS regularly, your nine nineties as you’re supposed to do, you haven’t made any sort of election to, to, to do lobbying or measure lobbying in a different way. It’s called the substantial part test. So what does substantial mean? And the best guidance we have on that is like a case from the fifties. So understandable why people are concerned about it. But hey, there’s been a lot, just in the past few months, there’s been a lot of talk about going all the way back to Marbury versus Madison in the 17. No, it was 17, late 17 hundreds. It’s very old. I, yeah, I didn’t look it up. But, so, you know, that like when, when the Supreme court reporter was, was cranch, cranch, remember that? All right. Now, I’m getting a little in the weeds of law school stuff but the, the before hundreds of years ago there was a, a reporter that used to do the Supreme Court opinions and the name of that reporting volume was branch. So it just sounds like, uh, you know, it just sounds like something from Pioneer Days branch anyway. So the 19 fifties, you know, it’s pretty recent consider compared to Marbury versus Madison and Ranch. It is. But then, you know, just what’s happened over the last five years has been like event. So, um, but I think we can kind of rely on it for, you know, a rule of thumb. Like if you spend more than 5% of your total budget on lobbying, you’re probably safe any more than that you might be crossing the line. This is under the substantial part test, total budget, you said total total budget or total expenditure. So let’s say you, you spend $100,000 and if you spend 5000 of that, $100,000 on lobbying, you’re probably safe. Um The better way to look at that is probably not just a percentage of your expenditures. So it’s percentage of the resources that are going into it. So if, if you know, 5% of your total resources expended, not just money, but volunteer time and everything else. Um If it’s more than 5% you might have some issues with the substantial part test. The IRS isn’t really enforcing on this very hard. I, I would say they’re actually very poorly enforcing this. They’re openly non compliant, especially churches out there that are saying go ahead, sue us or take us to court. We want to go, we want to take this to the Supreme Court anyway and see if there is a constitutional basis for, you know, this political campaign intervention, prohibition often referred to as the Johnson amendment. Um But you know, it is what the law says right now. So more than 5% maybe you have an issue there, be careful. Ok. And again, it’s 5% of total resources expended. I would say that’s your total resources, not your, not your, not just your budget. I, I would say that is the better way to look at the case in the fifties, total expenditures only. Um So now the other way to, to do, to measure lobbying and whether it’s substantial or not is the way that we recommend the vast majority of charities to choose. Um And it’s something called the 501 H election. And I know we’ve talked about this before as well. So by electing the 501 H expenditure test, um it means that lobbying isn’t measured on all the facts and circumstances. So it’s not like a complete resource test of like how much of your total resources which involves a lot of thinking, right, volunteer time and like your office space. And like, so the expenditures test says, well, it’s too hard to do all of that. So if you elect this and it’s a very, very simple form, it’s about half a page long. Um and it’s basically name and check the box and address. So it’s super simple. If you elect it, then you have strict sort of requirements of what is substantial and what is not substantial. And so it’s very clear and it’s just based on expenditures. And in this test, you’re allowed to expend up to 20% of your 1st $500,000 in expenditures um on lobbying and it’s not considered substantial. So not 5%. Now, we’re talking about 20% of your 1st $500,000 and this is on your exempt purpose expenditures or your mission related expenditure. So it doesn’t include things like investments and stuff. So, on your mission related expenditures, you’re allowed to spend 20% of your 1st 500,000 15% of your next 500,000 10% of your next 5% of the remaining up to a total cap of $1 million in lobbying, which you’ll hit at about the 17 to $18 million range of mission related expenditures. You’re gonna, you’re gonna hit the limit, um, based on those formulas at about uh 1 million, the $1 million cap at about 17 to $18 million of mission related expenditures that is not substantial. So that’s a pretty generous amount of lobbying that’s allowed. This is right. Right. This is a, this is a good bit. Now, we, we didn’t say the name of the form. It’s the, it’s IRS form 5768 and 55 768. And it is, uh, it’s, you left out one little item. You have to put the end of the tax year that you want the election to choose to be for. But it’s so simple. It is like, it’s, it’s like a third or a half. It’s, I think two thirds of the page is the instructions and one third is the election. It’s just, it’s, it’s a name, address, end of the tax year and your signature. And it’s, and what’s great about it too is you can elect on December 31st for it to apply retroactively for that whole year. So you can make your decision last moment and say, hey, we want to fall under this expenditure test. We don’t like to think about all the facts and circumstances. We’re a charity that has less than a 17 or $18 million annual budget. Most of the listeners here probably fall into that category. Um So the 501 H election just makes things simpler and it allows you to lobby safely within the tax law limits that you’re allowed to without jeopardizing your 501 C three status. And now you can go ahead and fight including lobbying, which doesn’t mean paying a lobbyist, right? It means stating your position on your website on a particular bill saying, hey, this law should change or we need this new law or we need a budget increase that requires our city council to prove this like budget, that’s legislation as well. So if you have a position on it, it’s lobbying, charities should not be afraid to lobby like you can lobby and the limits are fairly generous, especially if you take that 501 H expenditure test. The form is available online 5768 as you said, super simple. And if you don’t like it, let’s say you grew to, to become a $50 million charity next year and you don’t like that $1 million cap anymore. You can elect out of it. Just the same, it’s elected in. So it’s super simple. Same form, yes, same form to elect out if you, if you bust the uh bust that, that limit uh or that, you know, that rough, rough uh expenditure number. Um The other thing you mentioned casually, I want to emphasize, this includes local lobbying, local local issues. This is not only our biggest national issues like first amendment and, and uh reproductive rights. This could be a local council thing like a, like a budget or uh or um now, now uh lobbying can be now, uh I’m spilling over now. Can that be there’s not candidate advocacy, right? Like not, not getting into supporting candidates or denouncing candidates. This is all about issues. This is issue lobbying. So we’re gonna get the candidates, we’re gonna come to candidate, mostly prohibitions, but some things as long as they’re anyway, I don’t want to spoil the, I don’t want to take away your, your info, but we’re gonna get the candidates very shortly. But this is, this could be very local issues like you said, like a budget or a zoning, a zoning thing. Yeah. Anything that’s gonna appear by a legislative body that appears, you know, in the law, you can comment on existing law, you can ask for a change on that. You can propose a new law or back a new law that’s coming out. You don’t have to hire a lobbyist. It might just be a communication, uh, that you put on your website that’s lobbying. It’s probably really low cost if you’re gonna like, tweet it, uh, or email, email campaign, print mail campaign if you want to go to that extent. Yeah, this is all, this is all well, within your, uh, what’s allowed, well, within your purview and just take the 501 H, now, do we have to know what 501 H says, does that matter? Do, do we have to go into what 501 H says, or just, just fill out the form? Yeah. So you just know that you’re electing to measure your lobbying under the 501 H expenditure test. That’s basically what it says. So you’re electing to measure lobbying, not on all the facts and circumstances test that the IRS and then the court would have to apply if you ever, you like argued about it. Uh just strict numbers and you know what the numbers are, you fill them out. So you’ll know exactly what happens and even better if you don’t make the election and you, you use the substantial part test, the 5% rule of thumb uh test. If you are ever examined by the IRS and you cross that threshold, they can revoke your 501 C three status for crossing that threshold in one year under the 501 H election that doesn’t happen. There may be a penalty tax applied to you in, in any given year, but you actually have to, to, to exceed that cap over four years. Um, and that’s significant. Ok. Ok. Well, you did say the IRS is not in actively enforcing this. Um, not that they’re never going to, but they’re not being very proactive about it. But still you get, you get a four year window under the 501 H test versus just a one year window in the facts and circumstances which is limited to only 5% too. There is an added wrinkle though to the 501 H test. Oh, here it comes now. All right. Read the foot. You gotta always read the footnotes. All right. Now what? It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations anywhere. Anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data, entry or errors, make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box life kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to election year activities. Gene and I just had uh technical difficulties which means uh since he lives in a big city and I live in a suburban beach town. Uh, my wi fi just cut out. So our sound is not gonna be as good as it was because now we’re recording on my phone. But as, you know, nonprofit radio perseveres through these minor technological let downs we, the, these things, these things don’t trouble nonprofit radio at all. So we’re still gonna, we’re gonna continue. Gene was, uh, Gene. I’m just gonna let you pick up, go ahead. Terrific. And we know charities have resilience as well. Um So under the 501 and under the 501 H expenditure test that we’re recommending to most charities. Um uh there are a couple of wrinkles. So one of the wrinkles is, is that there’s two types of lobbying, direct lobbying where you’re contacting uh uh a legislative body directly and asking for a change in the law or introduction of a new law. Um and grassroots lobbying when you’re telling your public to contact a legislator or legislative body to change the law. And so in grassroots lobbying, there’s going to be some sort of call to action. It’s going to be the charity expressing a particular view on a specific piece of legislation with a call to action to the public without that call to action. It’s not even lobbying. So you can do all of that. You want, you can actually express a view on a particular piece of legislation and not give any sort of message to the, to the public about who to contact or, you know, provide the information, the contact information of the legislature, um which is sort of implied called the action. You can include none of that, but just say, hey, this is the way our charity feels about this piece of legislation period, that’s not even lobbying uh for purposes of the expenditure test. So another good thing to note of, of advocating your point of view. But if you do decide on the 501 H expenditure test note that the grass roots lobbying limit is 25% of your total amount of lobbying. So if we said 20% is your cap on your 1st $500,000 on exempt purpose or mission related expenditures. So 100,000 of that $500,000 is safe, well, then $50,000 would be the amount that you could do of grassroots lobbying of that $200,000 limit that you have. So 25% cap on the grassroots lobbying expenditure. And as I said before, under the substantial part test, if you don’t make this election, if you exceed the amount in one year, you can lose your 501 C three exemption. Although that’s very, very unlikely based on sort of very poor irs enforcement on this issue right now. But under the 501 H expenditure test your measurement, you, you can get hit with a penalty tax of 25% of the excessive amount of lobbying if you lobby excessively. Um, but you will not get your tax exempt status, your 501 C three status revoked unless you exceeded the lobbying limit for a four year period. And you have to have exceeded it by more than 50%. So there’s a huge benefit to this 501 H expenditure test election. 5768 is the form number. We really urge most public charities to, to, to file that election. Absolutely. Yeah, I can, I can see the, the big advantages versus the cloudy, much less generous uh facts and circumstances. OK. Do the 501 H like gene just uh urged you beneath, you even do the 501 H All right. Um So what, where should, so where do you wanna go from from now? The uh the, the, the lobbying uh from, from lobbying? Where should we go? So let’s talk about what’s sort of maybe at the outset say, well, what you can’t do which you alluded to in the beginning. Tony is um you can’t endorse or support a candidate for a public office so you can’t engage in electioneering or public campaign uh political intervention. So none of that is permissible. But what is neither lobbying nor this um political campaign intervention is stuff like making available nonpartisan analysis study or research or examining broad social economic and similar problems if you do it in a nonpartisan manner, but really focusing on the issues. Um You know, if you don’t refer to specific legislation and you want to state your views on whether it be climate change or women’s rights or LGBT Q plus rights or anything, you don’t mention legislation, it’s not lobbying. And if there’s no call to action, it’s not grassroots lobbying. So there’s a lot of things that you can do. And maybe the last exception that I’ll mention and there are many others. But the last one I’ll say is if you’re communicating to a non legislative body, like an executive branch of the president, the mayor, the governor, that is generally not lobbying when it’s, you know, regarding implementation of regulations or policies because those are not done by a legislative body. Those are done by an administrative agency and lobbying has to do with legislation or if you’re sending this information to your constituents. Yeah. Uh a lot of times that may not be lobbying as well when it’s to, to your membership. It’s when you, when we talk about constituents and it gets a little bit iffy about whether that might be grassroots lobbying under the 50 mh expenditure test or just lobbying period. The, the substantial part test, the default test. Oh, so the, so the distinction is whether you have a call to action or, or whether you’re just sending something neutral, like you said, you know, just a report about a subject is that the difference? There is a call to action. Yeah, that’s probably the primary difference. There’s a little bit of differences between when we talk about sending communications to members versus to the general public. But in either case, yeah, if you don’t include a call to action, you’re probably safe and not engaged in lobbying. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you very much, Kate 24 NTC. It’s the 2024 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10 and it is next week. I’m very grateful to Heller consulting for sponsoring us at 24 NTC. We’re gonna be sharing a double wide booth with Heller. I’ll be there capturing lots of interviews, but already more than 20 already scheduled. All these smart tech folks but not technical tech folks, right? We all we know this is the conference and certainly the interviews that I capture for us. Not, not over the top tech, not even, not even, not even top tech, just user, user friendly tech. That’s what we talk about. So uh we’ll have all these interviews playing over the coming months from the conference. Uh If you’re gonna be there, I hope you will come see us on the exhibit floor, which they’re calling the archive. No, not the archive. It’s the arcade, not the archive. The archive is in the past. So the arcade forward looking. Uh there’s gonna be, I know there’s ping pong. There’s ski ball. I know I specifically asked about ski ball. You gotta love skee ball. I used to play ski ball with my grandfather, Kate’s great grandfather, uh in Asbury Park, New Jersey, which he used to call Raspberry Park. Lots of stories about Raspberry Park. Anyway, there’s gonna be ski ball, uh in the arcade, um, and others, other games as well. We are gonna be in booths 607 and 609, nonprofit Radio and Heller consulting side by side. All the smart folks at Heller, you know, with their outstanding, um sales force, blackboard Microsoft consulting, they find you the right tech solution because they’re broad in lots of different platforms and then they do the implementation for you. Uh That’s Heller consulting again. Thankful to them for sponsoring us at the conference. Please come by, see us if you’re gonna, if you’re there in Portland, I neglected to say this is all happening next week in Portland, Oregon. Very nice city. I’m gonna spend a couple of extra nights because great, great food scene there with their food trucks. That’s 24 NTC and that is Tony’s take two. Hey, my dad loves ski ball. Every time we go to an arcade it’s always ski ball and like he’ll use my tickets because him and I go off together, he’ll use my tickets to just play ski ball. That’s it. Well, I, I have the origin story for that. I, I assure you, it goes back to our grandfather, grandpa Martinetti, taking us to ski ball back when the balls were made of wood. Yes. And a play was a dime. You put your little dime in dime for, like, I think it was a dime for nine balls. Oh, I wish it was still that. It’s like a dollar now. Oh, my God. Wooden balls. I guess they were not, uh, hypoallergenic like the plastic balls are anyway. But wood balls, I’m sure of it. It was nine plays for a dollar. No, nine plays for a dime. You pull that metal handle back and those wooden balls will come crashing down in a row and then you, then you do your play, try to get, try to get the ball in the center for the maximum points. So that’s why, that’s the story. Why your dad loves ski ball. Well, let’s carry on. What do you say we’ve got vu but loads more time. So let’s return to election year activities with gene decoy. It, it, it’s, it’s a question of doing it also aside from the call to action, doing it in a nonpartisan way, like you said, you know, objective research on an issue, right? Yeah. So, I mean, we can always do this in a partisan way that can now mean that it’s may not be lobbying, but it could be political campaign intervention that 501 CS are not allowed to engage in. So if we like, say, focused on a wedge issue like abortion, let’s say, and we didn’t talk about it, you know, for, for most of the, the, the period of time in question until just before an election. And then we started to talk heavily about that and tell people to, to really, you know, vote with their conscience lies without saying a particular candidate but mentioning abortion rights. Uh uh you know, if, if that was kind of the wedge issue between, you know, candidates and that’s the only time that we brought it up that might be seen as prohibited, you know, political campaign intervention or electioneering. Ok. So now we’re going broader, you know, what’s, what’s your typical communications about this issue? And like you said, if this is your first time and we’re in an election season, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s gonna, that’s gonna weigh against you versus something that you discussed routinely with your constituents. Yeah. And that’s gonna sort of apply to a number of different activities that might ordinarily be done, you know, regularly by an organization. But if it’s not done regularly and it’s only timed with an election, and it’s really the intent was to influence that election by picking a particular wedge issue or highlighting a particular issue just before the election that can get organizations into trouble. Although, again, the IRS enforcement on the whole electioneering issue has been pretty weak. Ok. All valuable. All right. Um You can even host a debate. Right. Yeah, there are definitely charities, 501 c three public charities that are not allowed to engage in electioneering that host candidate debates. Now, they’ve got to organize that in a neutral nonpartisan manner, including inviting all of the viable candidates. Now, not everybody might accept that invitation. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t hold the debate. But, um, yes, if you do it in a neutral nonpartisan manner, it can be done. And I think, you know, many of us are probably familiar with like the league of women voters. Um and, and others that, that uh organize some of the presidential debate. So it, it is something to, to be aware of that. It, it is a possible thing to do on a local level as well. Ok. Yeah. Right. This all applies locally too. So, I mean, we’re in a presidential year but uh think think broader than just 2024. Ok. OK. Um What, what about uh the, there’s the, there’s an issue around if you criticize the actions of an incumbent that’s running like Joe Biden. Yeah. So, you know, it’s always a little bit tricky when we talk about an incumbent when they’re also running for office. Right. So again, the timing may matter. Um but if we’re criticizing the incumbent based on their actions taken in that capacity, so if we criticize Joe Biden uh on actions he’s taken as president, that’s different from criticizing his stance in areas um which he’s campaigning on or which the other party may be campaigning on in terms of opposing his candidacy. So, yes, you can continue to criticize an incumbent’s action. If you’ve been doing that all along, that really helps if you only time it before the election and it looks like the reason for doing it was to influence that election, then maybe that could cross the line. So you have to think about it in those terms. It becomes a little bit weird too when you have the other candidate who was formerly the president of the United States as well. Right. So are we criticizing him for his actions taken when he was president or has that been so long ago? That that’s not really anything we’re doing other than to influence the coming election. So it gets a little bit dicey when, when, when, when we um look at that um in, in c through a certain lens, but you know, let’s talk not about the Biden Trump um candidacies, but let’s just talk about some local mayor uh or, or, or go, I, I’m sure all of us can criticize the actions of our executive branch officials from time to time um of, of our elected officials in the state. So um yes, um you can continue to criticize them probably again, you, you know, if that criticism was really just part of what is connected with your charity and not just for, for, for, you know, purposes of influencing their candidacy in a, in a later election. And let’s go to the next step. What about somebody who’s the candidate? But you’re hosting them for non candidate nonelection, uh type issues, a conversation, a debate, a panel, let’s say panel is probably more likely. Uh but it doesn’t have to do with their election. They happen to be a candidate. Yeah. So, you know, let’s say it, it was a um I, I’ll just pull out an example. I’m not sure that if I can come up with an actual name here, but let’s say it’s a rocket scientist, right, who happens to be running for office. Um But the charity wants to invite them because they’re a science museum and he has sort of a background in a particular initiative that the science museum has taken. And he is, you know, a very highly recognized person in the public. So that would be a great draw and he can talk intelligently about subject matter at hand, might be every right of that charity, that museum to invite that candidate, not as a candidate, but in, in his rocket scientists capacity to speak to the public and if he’s not talking about the election, um And you’ve got to sort of sometimes when you invite them, you have to talk to them about it because they may not know the 501 C three charity rules and this prohibition against electioneering. So you’ve got to make sure that they don’t speak about their candidacy or the election. Uh And the charity might even want to put a disclaimer up there, you know, when inviting him or, or when introducing him to the, to the uh audience that, hey, we’ve invited this person. Um We are not stating any position on the upcoming election, but we’ve invited him because he’s this, you know, famed rocket scientist and we’d love for him to speak with you about the science on our initiative. So that, that is ok. Ok. Ok. Uh We should probably move to what’s, what’s uh not, not allowed in. Uh Because we, we talked about what, what you can, what you can do as long as you do this on a nonpartisan basis. What, what are some things that are not allowed around the political campaign intervention? Yeah. So here’s um and I’ll speak of it in two ways. So what, what’s allowed and then what makes it wrong? So a voter registration drive or get out the vote drive. Those are really common for charities to do and they a RK unless you’re doing it in a partisan manner, right? So you’re only going out to do the voter registration drive if the voters are, you know, siding with your preferred candidate and if that’s the way you conduct the voter registration drive, then it is partisan political campaign intervention and could cost you your 501 C three status. So that would be prohibited. Same thing with like a candidate questionnaire or voter guide if you designed it or distributed it in a manner that was partisan. So you’re getting the answers that you want and using it as election materials, then that would be prohibited. Political campaign intervention if you had kind of um uh a candidate and you said, you know, we’re going to score you on all of the issues that matter to us. Then that could also be political campaign intervention when you’re just score carding a candidate just timed with the election. Now, that’s different from scorecard, an incumbent, um if it’s not timed with an election, but when you’re scorecard candidates um timed with an election really difficult if you ask a candidate to take a pledge. So you say, hey, pledge to support our environmental platform, even though you’re not saying we’ll support you. If you do that, even without that, that might be enough to say, hey, that’s still electioneering if, even if you, even if you offer that pledge to all the candidates, yeah, even if you offer it to all the candidates because if, if some pledge to back your platform and some pledges will not pledge that, then that’s seen as a message that you’re given to, to people who are looking at that uh that communication that you, you highlight after about who has backed your platform and who hasn’t. It’s kind of seeing as tacitly um uh influencing that election either by, you know, promoting or opposing a particular candidate. I see. Ok. Ok. What else? Uh, what else should we be aware of? So, avoid a big one is for me anyway, is the selective use of space or resources? So, in one sense, you know, a lot of charities will go, well, we don’t allow any of our political candidates or any political candidates to use like our space. So, you know, um, we’re not going to, you know, worry about that. But what if you invited somebody to speak to your, you know, to, to your audience about kind of the issues? And I said it would be ok if they, if they’re not doing it in their other, you know, capacity as a, as an expert in some other area. But what if they were doing it kind of as a candidate? Um, and you allowed them to, you know, to speak on the issues but you didn’t invite others to, to speak on it. That would be problem. And maybe even more of a common problem is one of the assets of a charity are its emails, right? So, if you have, uh, you know, Gene at charity.org, that’s the charity’s email address. You know, it’s my professional email, but it wouldn’t be my email in terms of, I wouldn’t own it if I, you know, if I wasn’t, you know, together with the charity anymore, if individuals who are certainly allowed to engage in, in, you know, supporting endorsing or opposing candidates for political office in their individual capacities. But if they’re using staff email to do it, um that becomes a problem if they’re using staff time or staff events, uh which they use as a platform to engage in their individual sort of first amendment rights to engage in political activity. That’s a problem because they’re using organizational resources, they can do it on their own time. Um And you might see sometimes in newspapers, people will put the name of the organization they’re with, they might even say like their position president of charity X endorsing this candidate. You’ll see there’s going to be an asterisk there that says that the titles and affiliations of the individuals are provided for identification purposes only. So it’s not an endorsement by the organization. So that’s really important to, to make sure that individual staff members or board members are not using organizational resources, including emails uh to engage in political activities that are, that are otherwise prohibited to the charity. How would you judge this one? Let me give you a hypothetical uh uh an employee drives uh a nonprofit vehicle to a rally or a anything where they’re gonna be expressing their political opinion, but use a rally so they drive it, they park it and then they walk a few blocks to the rally. What do you think about that? Can’t do it? I mean, it would be, it would be, again, the IRS rarely enforces this anyway. Um, but it is the law but it would be, it would, you know, it would probably not come to the, the, the charity’s, um, attention. But if it did, they would have to hold the employee accountable for that. So it’s not, you got to terminate somebody but you probably should have a policy that says something like you cannot use organizational resources, including our vehicles, including your email address to support or oppose any candidates for public office. You’ve got to use your own resources in your own time for that. Ok. It’s a resource. I agree. All right. If an email is a resource, then certainly a vehicle would be all right. I just wanted to just, I thought, I thought maybe she parked it a few blocks away. Uh Oh, I thought maybe it might make a difference. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity, virtuous beliefs that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers responsive. Fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only response of nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact virtuous.org. Now back to election year activities, you got some other things that we need to, we need to avoid around the political campaign intervention. Yes, I, you know, I would say another common thing is websites and social media, right? So social media on an organizational sort of account got to be careful, no electioneering on those accounts. So whether it be Twitter or X whatever you want to call it, Facebook, um tiktok, whatever, if it’s the organizational sort of account. Um And you’re promoting the charity uh on it, it’s not your individual account. Um You have to make sure that your individual sort of political endorsements or oppositions are not on that account, are not used on that social media account. On the charity website. There’s kind of this one link rule, meaning that if the charity links to another website, the charity is actually responsible for the content on that other website, not in terms of whether it contains an electioneering message or not. 00, that’s, that’s harsh. So you have to pay attention. So the general idea behind the rule is that, you know, I think any regulator would see past the the the rule of, of saying, hey, we don’t endorse political candidates but link here and this will take you to, you know, one of the political party platforms, right? And not the other. Um So, and they wouldn’t want you to say, oh, you know, that’s just a link that’s not on our page. We just included the link which has no, you know, electioneering message on it. Well, the one link rule would say no, you’re responsible for the content on that other page, but you’re right, it could be harsh because sometimes that link is to a 501 C four organization. Um And that 501 C four organization is allowed to engage in some political campaign activity so long as it’s not their primary activity. But if it goes to the page of the 501 C four that has the political campaign sort of intervention message on it, then the charity could be held responsible for it. And again, that would be a violation of the political campaign intervention rule. All right, now you’re responsible, um You’re responsible for other people’s content when you link to it in this, in this, in this arena, I I would be careful. I would say that there’s probably less likelihood of any enforcement if it’s something that is uh not intended to be an evergreen thing. So if it’s like is like a tweet and that link changes over time, I don’t think anybody is going to go back and say two years ago, you linked to this and now this link contains this electioneering message. I don’t think that’s the way it would be force, but if it’s on your, your sort of active website, uh and the link at the time that you created, you know, that website and, and published it, uh had electioneering messages on it, then I would be a little bit concerned that that would be a violation of the rules. You mentioned, uh you’re explaining about uh employees, you know, and not allowed to use any of the organizational resources. Um What about employees um wearing a hat or a button during, I don’t know, during staff time during an event, staff time, meaning working hours, you know, and they’re in their office doing that, not working, not working hours and they’re, they’re at home but working hours and they’re in their office or it’s an event. Uh and, you know, they’ve got their, they’ve got their election year on. Yes, I think that’s a really sensitive area, right? Because we each have our First Amendment rights and we’re ab absolutely wanna say individually as individuals in our individual capacity, we have every right to endorse or oppose a candidate for public office, every right to do so. Um But I said we shouldn’t use organizational resources to do so. So what happens if you show up? Um And you’re wearing a vote blue or vote red or Mega or whatever hat or t-shirt on and you go to go to work. Um Well, I think to the extent that you are representing the organization at work, especially if you have uh any interface with the public, that would be a reason for a charity employer to say no, that’s in violation of the rules. This isn’t, you know, a violation of your first amendment rights. We’re just saying as an organizational representative to the public or to the public that we’re serving, you cannot send that political message out because that looks like it’s a political message being sent by our charity. So I think that is where you would enforce it and say you can’t do it. Now if they’re at home um on a zoom meeting with other employees, I have a good one. That’s a good one. Yeah, I haven’t seen any guidance on this. I would still feel slightly uncomfortable about it, but I wouldn’t want to have to go to court to fight about that either and I’m not sure that anybody would really care. Um But yeah, what another employee said, no, that, you know, II I didn’t want to see that and that has, you know, traumatized me. Um We’re not, you know, we’re not thinking about election related materials and, you know, does that, you know, give them the same authority to say, you know, everybody of this, you know, particular viewpoint should die on their T shirt. Like that’s a first amendment right to wear, like you could walk out to an amusement park to wear it, I suppose, but Disneyland would probably throw you out and maybe a charity employer would have the right to say no, you can’t wear that on the zoom meeting either. Ok. Ok. Anything else we, we haven’t covered or you wanna cover in more detail, the quadrennial chance? Sure. So, um you know, maybe talking about what is educational like we’re allowed to educate the public if we wanted to educate the public on climate change. Is that ok? Um Yeah, you mentioned, for instance, you mentioned voter guides. Yeah, so you know, we, we could have a voter guide or maybe we’re just having educational materials, just articles um on our website or on our blog. And we, we have promotional activities about that. We hold conferences about it. We do you know seminars or trainings about it. Um Can we do all those things? Um And of course, I think we know the answer is yes, there are a lot of organizations that are, are holding conferences and seminars on climate change. Um But when is it wrong to do that? Um And it’s interesting, I, I think with climate change and the overwhelming scientific opinion that climate change and human uh cause of climate change is, is a real thing. Um that, that’s not an issue, but it once was I once got um asked by the IRS agent who reviewed uh uh an application uh for 501 C three status about an organization sort of uh educational material about climate change. And they said, well, is this a full and fair exposition of all of the facts? Are you considering both sides? Um because that’s what educational means under 501 C three. And I, I didn’t think that was appropriate of that particular IRS agent even back then, but maybe 50 years ago, maybe that would have been a legitimate question when the scientific community wasn’t as aware of those things. And maybe it could be seen as more of a wedge issue between candidates and a reason to promote one candidate over the other based on, you know, opinion rather than supported facts. Um, and so educational activities, um, of course, charities should be, you know, supporting their mission with educational communications out there. If, if it’s going to help them advance their mission, that’s what they should do. And if they aim it at candidates, if they’re aiming it at all candidates, I think that that’s a fair thing to do as well. Now, if you’re aiming certain educational communications only at the candidates that the charity leaders prefer in, in one way or the other, now you may be engaged in sort of, again, this partisan viewpoint. You’re, you’re um providing resources to one candidate and not to others, even though you might think that, well, they’re not going to read it, they’re not going to agree with it anyway, the fact that you’re not giving them the chance to, to use those resources even if to attack them, um, might be seen as preferential and partisan and therefore a violation of 501. C three. Ok. Yep. There again. You, you’re, you’re being biased, you said, you know, partisan, you’re not, you’re not doing it, um, you’re not doing it objectively. You’re not doing it across the board. You’re, you’re being selective. Yeah. I think, you know, 11 other thing I wanted to, to sort of, um, let the audience know about it is that there are other laws besides the 501 c three, sort of tax exemption laws that can apply to lobbying or political activities. Um, and so it may be a matter of taking a look at some of your state or local law resources on lobbying or political activities as well as knowing the tax laws. And there’s one great source right now, um, that was just recently made available in all 50 states and DC. It’s called State Law Resources, nonprofit lobbying. And it’s from the Alliance for Justice Boulder advocacy. So, um, uh, the Alliance for Justice has a 501 C three. They also have a 501 C four organization which we didn’t really talk about too much other than to say that they are allowed to engage in some political campaign intervention activities as long as it’s not their primary activity. Well, there are organizations that have both the 501 C three and a 501 C four organization. They are at arm’s length, but they are affiliated. Alliance for Justice is one of those organizations, but their C three has provided us some great resources, educational resources, nonpartisan that talk about state law, resources on nonprofits, lobbying and go over not only the tax laws that we talked about, but some of the political and election laws that, that apply as well on the state level. Um And again, local laws may also apply. So you just want to check out those resources if you’re going to engage in significant lobbying or political activities. J say the name of that resource again, the title of it. So it’s from the Alliance for Justice and it’s called State Law resources colon, nonprofit lobbying. State law resources, nonprofit lobbying. And there’s a different guide for each state and for, for, for the district of Columbia, you know, we love free resources. Excellent. OK. You feel like we’ve given this sufficient coverage until 2028. Yeah. Uh Other than to say, go out and advocate for your mission. Um And make sure your boards are supporting that advocacy as well. You can do a lot more than you think Gene Takagi there. You have it. You’ll find him at nonprofit law blog, which is nonprofit law blog.com and you’ll find uh him. You’ll find Gene at G Tac Gtak Jean. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Thanks, Tony. It’s always great to be on next week. The generational divide. We thought that would be this week, but things don’t always work out as planned if you missed any part of this weeks show. I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com. You notice how I have Kate say we thought this would be next week. So kind of kind of makes it sound like it’s her fault. Notice I, I didn’t give the explanation, it’s not her fault but uh notice how I set her up that way. We’re sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your support, generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving, virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Marinetti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for March 4, 2024: Publish Your Book, Thought Leader

 

Stephanie Chandler: Publish Your Book, Thought Leader

Thought leadership can be valuable to you, your nonprofit, or both. Publishing a nonfiction book is one way to become a thought leader or expand your credentials. From outlining and writing to publishing and marketing, Stephanie Chandler shares her personal experiences and professional wisdom. She’s CEO of the Nonfiction Authors Association and the Nonfiction Writers Conference.

 

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And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite Hebdomadal podcast. We’ve got co listeners of the week, Cheryl mccormick and Zach Gamber at Athens Area Humane Society in Athens, Georgia. Cheryl is the CEO and one of our longest standing listeners. She’s been with us for many years and she was in my first planned giving Accelerator class and by the way, she is crushing, planned giving with $7 million in commitments since the class. So I visited her two weeks ago at their incredible facility in Athens. Uh and I met Zach and we talked about his work there and he has sworn to start listening. So, one of our longest running listeners brought in our newest listener. I love that. Congratulations, Cheryl and Zach at Athens Area Humane Society for bringing nonprofit radios listeners of the week. And Zach welcome. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be hit with amelogenesis imperfecta if I had to chew on the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s up this week. Hey, Tony and congratulations to Cheryl and Zach. Welcome. We have published your book, thought leader. Thought leadership can be valuable to you. Your nonprofit or both. Publishing. A nonfiction book is one way to become a thought leader or expand your credentials from outlining and writing to publishing and marketing. Stephanie Chandler shares her personal experiences and professional wisdom. She is CEO of the nonfiction Authors Association and the nonfiction Writers Conference on Tonys. Take two, please review who are sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. And by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org here is, publish your book, Thought Leader. It’s a pleasure to welcome Stephanie Chandler to nonprofit radio. She’s the author of several books, including the nonfiction book marketing and launch plan and the nonfiction book publishing plan. She’s CEO of the nonfiction Authors Association, a vibrant community for writers and the nonfiction writers conference. A live event conducted entirely online since 2010. She knows a little bit about writing nonfiction. I’d say you’ll find Stephanie on linkedin, Stephanie Chandler. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Hey, Tony, great to be with you today. I’m glad you can be. This is a topic we have never covered and I think it’s, I think it’s interesting and it’s timely thought, leadership, thought leadership and, and book publishing to support your thought leadership. Uh, and you’re the perfect person. Obviously you’ve got no, the, the nonfiction appears like four or five times in your, in the little bio that I read. So, uh, you’re, you’re well entrenched in nonfiction, uh, writing and publishing. Tell us about thought leadership. Why, why is it valuable to be a thought leader? You know, I think, especially from the perspective of business, right? You want to be known for what your expertise is in and in the nonprofit space. I mean, it’s great to be known for your expertise related to your nonprofit. So there’s a ton of value in that. I always say, I don’t feel like thought leadership is a title we should claim, but it’s a title that we earn through various forms of content, marketing. And that includes writing books, speaking, sharing content on a blog, a podcast. Like you have things like that. I like the idea of letting other folks decide that you are a thought leader versus you claiming yourself. I, I feel the same way about expert, expert. I, I never used to say I, I do planned giving fundraising and I never say I’m an expert in plan giving fundraising. I let other people decide that I’ll say, you know, I know a little about planned giving. I’ve been doing it for 27 years. You know, I know a thing or two like, you know, a thing or two about nonfiction, publishing and writing. But, you know, I don’t like to, I like folks to draw those conclusions on their own. I mean, I’ll give you the facts and then you decide, you decide whether I’m a thought leader or expert or if someone is or, you know, whatever II I admire that part. Um Alright, so writing a book, uh you mentioned a few things that can be valuable thought leadership. Um It sounds terrifying. Uh It sounds like something that I think a lot of people feel is beyond them. Like they don’t have 30 or 40,000 words to write a book, they struggle with a 250 word, you know, article that they have to do for a newsletter or an annual report. How could I possibly do many tens of thousands of words for a book? I’m terrified. Uh help us overcome those misconceptions. Yeah, I love this because it doesn’t have to be as hard as it sounds. And so what I usually recommend to writers is we call it the old storyboard method, right? So when I write a new book, I sit down with a stack of three by five cards and I write every topic I wanna cover in this book on an individual card and I usually end up with, you know, 30 or 40 maybe even 50 cards. And then I will literally lay them out on the floor in front of me. And I will start to put them in order and this becomes your chapter outline. And you can see, oh, this topic’s heavy. Maybe I need to divide it into two chapters. This topic is light. I need to add more stories here. Right? So when I’m talking about brainstorming the topics you want to talk about that includes case studies and telling real world stories because that’s a part of writing a really interesting book. So we lay it out, transfer that to an outline and then I challenge writers. You know, 1000 words is about three typed pages. And if you sat down and wrote three pages a day, 1000 words for 50 or 60 days, you would have a beefy manuscript. If you did it for 30 days, you’d have a nice light book. So 1000 words a day, I feel like even with my hectic schedule is doable. And also if you’re already blogging or producing any kind of content, you can pull that in. And I also recommend the flip side. So you have your outline and you’re starting to write content for your book. Start putting that up on your blog and building readership around the content. All right, this sounds too easy now. Um OK, we’re gonna break this down. What about uh what about just researching the topic? Like, should you be concerned whether other people have already covered your topic? And you know, maybe you don’t have anything new to contribute. Yes, I hear this a lot. So, you know, we call it competitive analysis, right? Go look at the similar books in your space, assess them and figure out how is your book going to be different or better than what’s already there? Because you do want to be able to have your book stand out. I recommend in the nonfiction space in particular that authors niche down as much as possible. You know, there are thousands of leadership books out there. Is there a leadership for nonprofits? Is there a leadership for tech companies? Right? So the narrower that you can, you can focus, it will help your book stand out and you want to see what other books are in that space. If you’re going to pitch a publisher, they expect you to do a competitive analysis. They want to see five or six or 10 similar titles to know how well they’ve done and how your book is different. Ok. Uh And yeah, in the nonprofit space, you know, you could, you could pick um marketing communications and then it could be, you know, within that, that’s even still broad, you know, developing your marketing plan or, you know, I mean, a multi community, it’s maybe it’s deal and maybe it’s focused on digital fundraising, communications versus digital uh leadership communications or internal, internal communications, you know, for your, for your employee teams. Um you know, in fundraising, there, there’s probably a dozen different topics whether it’s events or annual or recurring giving or plan giving, major gifts, there’s relationships, you know, relationship building in those, right? You wanna drew down to a niche? Um And then how can you be confident that, that even, you know, you, you know, you said you, you, you want to put your, you didn’t say spin on it but you’re, you know, you wanna make your influence known within, within your niche. But, I mean, you have to uh is, it is as deep as reading all the books that are closely aligned to yours to, to your space so that, you know, what already has been said? No, not necessarily because I think that we’re all attracted to different types of books, different types of authors. And in fact, I don’t want to read my competitors book before I sit down to write because I don’t want it to influence anything I say. So I’m more likely to look at the table of contents, um read some of the reviews to see what people liked about the book or what was, what they said was missing from the book. And so I really feel it’s just, it’s the same in business, right? I always feel like there’s plenty of business to go around. I don’t have competitors, right? I have peers and I try to work together and same thing in publishing. I mean, they’re like I said, there’s 1,000,000 ends of leadership books and just because others exist, doesn’t mean that you don’t have your own unique perspective to put on your own book that’s maybe similar to what’s already there. But you want to carve out something that makes it different or special. You had suggested, uh, 1000 words a day. Can I take twice as long and just write 500 words a day? I can? Ok. So, whatever is doable for us. Absolutely. And even if you, you know, it’s hard for all of us who are busy to carve out day time in a day. But you know, if you could carve out two hours twice a week and aim to get it done in three months, you know, give yourself time. But I will say I feel like writing gets easier, the more you do it, it’s like that muscle that you exercise. And another thing Tony to, to feel confident in your content is editing. You know, I’m not an editor myself. I value editing tremendously. And there’s different types of editing, there’s developmental editing where an editor comes in and kind of perform surgery on a manuscript. There’s copy editing where they’re looking line by line and they might say, you know, this is confusing. You need to explain better here or you talked about this in a previous chapter and then there’s um proofreading, right? So I always put my books through you. Typically two rounds of copy editing at a minimum and two rounds of proofreading because it’s also a human function and different sets of eyeballs can help. But for somebody who’s maybe never written before, developmental editing can help you feel really confident that you’re producing, you know, a book to be proud of this kind of leads to something else. I want to ask about getting help for the, for the writing. Um I mean, so you have to be disciplined yourself. I mean, I’ve heard writers say that, you know, they like to write very early or they have a special time, they like to write. So I’ve heard writers say they like to write very early. There’s no interruptions. It’s, it’s something they can wake up and do and they want to, they want to get it done, kind of know that they’ve accomplished their, whatever their hours of writing or, you know, whatever it is. Um So there’s a personal discipline you’re saying, you know, 500 day or day, 500 words a day or a couple of times a week or, you know, but you, you do have to be diligent about it. It’s gonna take some personal discipline. It does. And some people address that with working with a book coach. There’s lots of people out there who help writers have that accountability and kind of talk them through the writing process. And so there’s book coaches out there. This is the reason why people join writers groups to connect with other writers. You know, there’s these um, be quiet and write events where people go sit in a cafe and just sit down and write. Some people are doing this on Zoom now. So if you need accountability, there’s lots of ways to get it. Oh, that’s interesting. People are going on Zoom or going to a cafe and not talking to each other and they just say hello and then they sit down and this is their first time to write. Ok. All right, we’re gonna go on Zoom but I’m not gonna talk to you. But you have to keep your, I imagine you have to keep your camera on for full accountability. You need to see that you’re, you’re not, you know, you’re, you’re not feeding the Children or doing anything else. I mean, I would think you gotta keep the camera on. You do. And I, I personally, I think I’d find it weird and a little distracting but some people really love it. Yeah, I don’t think I would but, but I could say, you know, if, if, if you need that, you use what, OK, use what it takes for you to be disciplined and accountable. Ok. But then, then the help of others. So you’ve mentioned different types of uh, editors, uh, a book coach. Um, so we may need, you know, we’re gonna have to spend some money as well as time. Um All right. So different, like, I guess a book coach would be the first is that somebody, that somebody helps you, helps keep you accountable or what, what, what would you expect from a book coach? Instead of, instead of me guessing, maybe you should just tell us, I’m sure I just keep guessing. Let me get Susan. You tell me which one is, right? Which one is right? We’ll do a game show. Yeah. So book coaches often help with the outline and, you know, setting goals for what you’re going to get written this week. A lot of nonfiction isn’t written from beginning to end, you might hop around, right. So if you’ve got an outline and es especially with non fiction, I mean, you can tackle it like you’re writing many articles. I find that um an easier way to attack it, but it’s also great for reading, right? As a reader, you don’t want to read a, a giant tome these especially these days, you know, we can thank Seth Godin for creating this trend of shorter smaller books and we are in a short attention span society. So writing things succinctly in short order can really help your reader and also help you as a writer. So you’re not having to, I think we all suffer from the overthinking, right? So, and if you go and you take AAA creative writing class, they would tell you just get it out on paper. That’s an Anne LaMotte Bird by Bird. Don’t edit as you go, don’t stop to look up a fact, right? So a trick for me when I’m writing is I’ll make a note in my manuscript if I put an XXX, meaning I need to come back to this and look up a stat or find a case study or just something I want to reference later so that I can keep my writing flow going. Um So book coaches can help you with tips like that and, you know, you might meet weekly to say, did you get your 1000 words written this week or your 1500 words? And it’s a great relationship for people and they might be reading it and also doing some level of editing. So every coach is different. Ok. Ok. By the way, I love your index card approach. You start with index card, it reminds me of high school writing thesis. We just write a thesis papers and then you had to have your, your opening paragraphs would lead to your thesis and then you had to explain, justify your thesis. But each card would become a paragraph, I think. And then you move the cards around and then that was your, you know, like a four page thesis you had to write. Reminds me of the, so I like, I like the idea of laying it all out in front of you on the, on the floor. It’s a really popular method in Hollywood too. They storyboard movies. And so it’s used for lots of things I do. It when I create a presentation, right? So anything that has got to have a lot of content and I really want to think it through carefully. It helps me get my thoughts organized. How about these other folks? WW uh You mentioned proof proof editors, copy editors. Uh what other, what, what other support might we but we need, yeah, for the writing part, I think editing, editing tends to be, by the way, one of the biggest expenses in publishing because it is a human function and you’re going to pay the most for a developmental editor. That’s somebody who’s really going in and kind of reworking your manuscript for you. Oh OK. Yeah. So it’s kind of a back and forth, but they’re kind of performing surgery on it and going giving it back to you ideally in better order than how they received it. And then the copy editing is more of a line by line review. So at a minimum, I think every book, every manuscript needs copy editing. At least one round. Like I said, I typically like to do uh one or two with my book, my own books and then at least two rounds of proofreading. It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in-person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations. Anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets, no team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try donor box like kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024 visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to publish your book, Thought Leader. Now one of your own books was uh was very deeply personal to you. Tell us, tell us that story. Yeah. So in the nonprofit space, I’ve been involved with the Sacramento area, nonprofit called Friends For Survival had been on the board. This nonprofit was started, I believe about 30 years ago for families who’ve lost a loved one to suicide. So I lost my husband in 2013 and I started attending meetings there and then I joined the board and I thought, you know, I wish that someone had handed me a guide on how to deal with this. And so they said, why don’t you write the guide? And I did that. And so it’s um it’s called When Someone You Love Dies by Suicide. It’s a short, it’s really a short guide, small book that they had bound in a like a three by six size. And the idea was to get it in the hands of first responders to give to families when they’re delivering that news, right? I was given nothing, no guidance. Just that, of course, Chaplin showed up whatever. But um, so, and, and since then, and we give them away for free, but it’s driven donations, right. So you put these out, make it available to order copies on the website and we’ve shipped thousands of copies all over the US and I believe two or three other countries as well. So it feels really good to take a, a big uh personal lesson and be able to help other people in some small way. And it becomes kind of a fundraiser without being a blatant fundraiser for the organization. And you were in that situation where you were informed of your husband’s suicide by a stranger by a police officer. Yeah. And it’s awful and they, they don’t know what to say other than, you know, we regret to inform you, we’re sorry to say that kind of thing. And then, and then you go, well, now, what, what do I do? Right? I was in my early forties at the time and um, so, and I had a son, so it just talks and suicide in particular has a lot of complexity in the grief process as far as guilt. A lot of families feel guilt. Um So it addresses some of those challenges and also points people to resources because I didn’t know where to go. But one of my first thoughts was I can’t do this alone. I need to find some sort of support with other people who’ve been through this So that was kind of the mission of the mini book we created. Thank you for sharing that personal story. Uh And it aligns perfectly with your, with your work. You know, that was your, that was an outlet for you. Maybe it was a little cathartic too. Always, it’s always cathartic to tell your story. And, um you know, maybe you’ve got listeners that want to write a memoir or something like that, it can be a really healing process because you’re also, you know, coming from a place of wanting to help others. And so for me, that feels better than anything. That’s what our listeners do. They’re, they’re all helping others or causes that are the moving, moving to them. Um, and Tony can I just piggyback on that because that’s also a perspective when writing a book, right? This is why I fell in love with nonfiction because nonfiction helps people, right? If you’re going through a divorce and you read somebody’s divorce memoir, you feel a little less alone or you’ve just been diagnosed with an illness and, and you read somebody’s book about how to deal with that illness or you’re, you’re starting a nonprofit and you have no idea what to do. Books are what help us, you know, achieve goals, heal all kinds of things. So it’s exactly what I love about nonfiction and from the perspective of a nonprofit telling stories of the members, you know, things that lessons learned, there’s just so many ways to turn that into something that helps people. Should we know before we start writing, how we’re gonna publish this book, whether it’s gonna be, we’re gonna try for traditional publisher or a hybrid or self publishing strictly or there are publishing coaches. Should we know this in advance? How, how we hope to get, get this book distributed? I mean, it’s nice to know or to at least have some plans. Um I will say, I think traditional publishing has gotten less appealing over the years, I’m traditionally published as and chose to leave traditional publishing because of the lack of control over my own work. And it’s kind of this myth that traditional publishers are going to do all the marketing. They want authors that are going to do the marketing, that have a platform that have um an audience essentially. So having a podcast is a great platform. Having um a large email list is a great platform, having a large social media following. Those are things publishers look for. But here’s the reality. Tony publishers pay authors an average of $1 per book sold. So even if you’re given an advance and advances have gotten much smaller, I I mean, 5 to $10,000 is pretty typical for a first time author, you will not see another dime until you earn that advance back $1 at a time. So it’s a, it’s almost like AAA low that you have to earn back from those book sales. And what really bothered me about traditional publishing was that um they, I had my book titles changed. I had covers design that I didn’t like and they didn’t care that I didn’t like them. Uh One publisher called me right before we went to press and said, we want you to cut a chapter. We don’t care which one we just want to save on costs. Now, I had delivered within my word count. I, I mean, and I thought I am never letting this happen again. So, and also by the way, bookstores, brick and mortar is not where we’re buying our books anymore. There’s some estimates that Amazon is selling 70% of all books. We don’t know for sure because Amazon doesn’t really tell us in detail. But the fact is I love a bookstore. I used to own one, but it’s not where I get my books anymore. Right. So, and it used to be traditional publishing. The big goal was to get on a bookstore shelf. But if you have a niche topic, like something for the nonprofit community, people aren’t going to bookstores looking for that. They’re looking for that online. So self publishing gives you more control. You do spend some money upfront, but you will earn much more on the back end of your book sales. I’m talking, you know, 510 $15 a copy depending on, on how you’re selling your books and you, you maintain all that control. It’s not easy. It’s a, you know, there are a lot of steps in producing a high quality book. Um And that’s why a lot of people go to hybrid publishing, which is basically a publisher that does all the heavy lifting. But you’re paying for that service for them to produce a high quality book for you. And a lot of busy people like us, that’s what we want to do. We want to hire that out. I don’t want to go and find my own book designers and editors and distribution and all that stuff. So there’s lots of choices today. Do you need to know for sure when you sit down to write your manuscript? No, but it’s good to, to be aware of what your options are. The um travails of traditional publishing is something I’m just scratching the surface of because there’s a large well known publisher that’s considering a proposal that I’ve uh edited for them and now so submitted a second time. Um And I’ve talked to a lot of authors of this uh same publisher who have said uh essentially right down the line. What, what you said, there’s the old uh idea that they help with the marketing. They do very little. Uh They, they may, they may help you on the Amazon page. Like some, they, they may be a little more sophisticated on the your Amazon book page perhaps than you would be on your own something having to do with video or something. But it, it’s, it’s not, uh, let, let’s take it as true that Amazon sells 70% of all books. Let’s just, let’s just assume it’s true. Uh You’re in the industry, I’m sure it’s closed, but let’s just assume it is. But even then, you know, they’re not, it’s not like they’re being dogged about, uh, Amazon lifting your book. It’s just, there was this one thing in on your Amazon book page that it seemed like a, a traditional publisher was able to help you with more than you would be able to on your own. I thought it had to do with video on the page or something, something like that. But overall, the the marketing help is is minimal. They, they are looking for the author to come with a platform. In fact, that’s there was a section in my proposals, the author’s platform, the A me the, the author’s platform, here’s what I have. Um And I’ll even say in the first round when I submitted the initial proposal, all the questions that came back were related to how many books I could sell. There wasn’t a single, I’m not exaggerating. There wasn’t a single comment or question about the substance of the book plan to giving or, or my my experience uh and why I’m the right person to write it. Not a single question about either of those two topics. It was all about how much can you sell? What’s your consulting? Like I teach an online course. How many people are in that online course? Is that, uh, uh, how much speaking do you, do you know it, it was all of all the feedback was about sales. Ok. And now you’re saying they changed, they changed your title, you got titles. You didn’t, like they told you to cut a chapter even though you came within your word count. I mean, you did what your contract calls for. And then they, they just, they, they changed the contract term. They have all the control. That’s the challenge. They, they um they, they can and you know, I hear horror stories all the time. So let’s say you do get a deal, by the way, I have a book with the publisher you’re talking to. So let’s say you do get a deal. It’s typically going to take them a year to get the book out. And there’s, I’ve heard stories about publishers signing an agreement and then they decide, oh, we’re going to sit on that where we’ve got other titles we’re going to release. I worked with one author. Her book was released. Um It went two years before they got around to releasing it. So you just lose all this control. And I don’t know about you, Tony. I am type a, that’s why I run my own business and do it on my own because I don’t want other people telling me how to do things. And I just found it incredibly frustrating, um especially when I’m already doing all the work, right? I’m building my own audience. I’m, I’m engaging with my audience. So it was really empowering to take that the control back. It’s time for Tony’s take to thank you, Kate. I beseech you once again. This is gonna, so this is the first beseech, of course, it’s gonna be a second beseech uh later on naturally, but I’m beseeching you. Uh second row, 2nd, 2nd time in a row to rate and review. I would be grateful if you would rate and review the show, whatever platform you listen on Apple uh Amazon now, Amazon music, we’re on Amazon music now, by the way, um you know, Spotify, et cetera, wherever you listen, wherever fine podcasts are heard. I would be grateful for your five star review and a rating. If you can’t do the rating part, the narrative, I’d be grateful for the five star review. We could do some recent reviews though too. So, uh I do beseech you. I’d be grateful. Please rate and review and that is Tony’s take two, that nifty little rhyme again, Kate, please rate us and review us and you know, give us like five stars. Thank you. Absolutely. We’ve got Buku but loads more time. So let’s return to publish your book, Thought Leader with Stephanie Chandler. The other options are strictly self publishing and, and the hybrid. Those are the three, those are the three ways of getting a book published. Correct. Those are the three primary ways, um, is, is the, is the hybrid, essentially a publishing coach. Aren’t there publishing coaches who will do some of the lifting for you also? Correct. Yeah, they’re definitely book coaches. Um, book Doulas. They, you know, they have different do. Oh, that’s a good one. Book Doulas do. Yeah, because it really is a like giving birth. But, um, yeah, so you can have somebody coach you through the self publishing process. But a hybrid publisher typically comes with some sort of name recognition, right? And they’re, they’re going to do all that heavy lifting, but you still own the rights to your content. So you’re basically paying them a fee up front for them to handle the whole process for you and then you’re approving the cover design, you’re approving the interior layout, you’re, you’re reviewing the edits and, and they’re helping you get the book out into the world. What else? Uh, what else? Haven’t we talked about that? Uh, well, le let’s talk, let’s talk. I, I got, I got one before the launch, the launch. You’re supposed to, you’re supposed to be preparing your book launch. I don’t know, six months in advance or a year in advance or something, conferences, uh, podcast opportunities. I don’t know, op EDS, you know, tell us about the preparation and the launch the public, which is the publishing date. Right. Correct. Yeah, this is so important and it’s one of the biggest mistakes I see authors make is that they wait until the book is about to come out and then they go, uh, oh, what do I do? Right. So you do want to start building your marketing plan in advance. And, you know, as podcasts are one of my favorite strategies for authors go get on podcasts and a lot of podcasts are booked months ahead. So if you want it to coincide with your book launch, you need to start pitching three or four months in advance. And the same thing with industry book reviews, you want to get the um advanced review copies out. Um Today we have Amazon ads, which I think is fantastic opportunity for non fiction in particular. They are pay per click based ads. So when you’re shopping on Amazon for a book, there’s always or any product really, there’s always sponsored products below the book you’re or the product you’re looking at, those are done through paper click ads and those clicks could be as little as 20 cents. They could be $2 or more depending on how much competition is in that space. This is why it’s, I think a lot easier for non fiction, especially if you have a niche because you’re coming up with keywords that your target readers are looking for and maybe you’re paying 30 40 50 cents a click, but you only pay one, the ad is clicked. And if you’ve done a good job with your book, it’s going to convert into a sale. Right. So, as long as your clicks are converting into sales, you’re coming out ahead. So I’m a huge proponent of Amazon ads and Amazon is incentivized to make those ads work because they’re making money on both ends. Right. They’re, they’re making money on the ad spend. And then they’re also getting a piece of every sale that you make. So I’ve seen these ads perform really well. In fact, I worked with a memoir writer. He’s just about to cross the 50,000 book threshold. He sold 50,000 copies of a memoir, which is really hard to do if you’re not a celebrity and you’re not on a reality show. And he has zero platform, Tony. He’s a real estate investor and he said I’m going all in on Amazon ads and sure enough, it’s worked incredibly well for him. Ok. He’s got that niche. Yes. Yeah. His niche, by the way was a memoir about betting on a horse to win the Kentucky Derby. A long shot and, and the, the Philly ends up winning and he has to go collect his seven figure prize and he didn’t realize he had bet with the Mexican drug cartel. This was back in the eighties. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a fun read. It reads like a novel and it appeals to different audiences and that’s something to think about too horse lovers, people who gamble, right. He’s got different sectors of audiences that are interested in that book. All right. And one of your whole books is about, uh is the nonfiction book marketing and launch plan. So, all right, clearly, clearly. And uh you mentioned podcasts booking several months, 34 months in advance conferences, if you wanna bring books to a conference and maybe they give some away for free and maybe you have a table where you’re signing and you’re hopefully selling books there. I mean, that, that could be easily nine months and 89 months in advance. Yeah. And I’ll say speakers sell books and publishers love to hear that an author speaks and reaches thousands of people every year. Speakers sell books. But also, and let’s say if we flip it back to the self publishing conversation and you, you tie that in with nonprofits, you can get sponsors to, to give books away to a conference attendees, right? So I have a friend who teaches tech companies how to grow their businesses and he gets software companies to sponsor his books. He’ll put their logo on the cover, let them do an introduction page. He charges them several grand to set it up and then they’ll buy copies to give out at their, you know, trade events or conferences. So it can actually become a revenue stream. But your traditional publisher won’t have the capability to do that. So if you want to turn the book into a sellable asset that makes money, that’s one way to go about it. Now, I, I assume all these ideas are in your uh, non, non fiction, book, marketing and launch plan book, right? The Amazon ads, the sponsorships. Ok. Ok. So I wrote the book as a companion to the six week course that I teach and people kept ordering copies for their clients. I had book coaches in my courses and things like that. So it’s really a very step by step process of figuring out who’s your target audience, by the way, we didn’t talk about that. But that’s so important when you’re writing a book, who are you writing for? What do they want to leave your book having gained? What, what are their struggles and challenges that you can address in your book? And that also becomes part of your marketing messaging, right? If you read this book, here’s what you’ll do. If you read my book, marketing book, you’re going to be equipped to set up your own book launch and marketing plan. So you want to have that in mind when you’re producing your book and when you’re setting up your marketing plans and one really important um tactic that I recommend Tony is your community of influence. Who do you know that can help support your book in some way, who can bring you in as a speaker who do you know that has a podcast that can interview you? Who do you know that could um get their company to buy 500 copies of your book or do a sponsored printing of the book? So I do this exercise myself every time I, I release a book, I literally spend an afternoon making a spreadsheet. Who do I know? What is my ask? And your ask might be as simple as who’s going to write a review on Amazon, right? Or who do I want to give early access to my manuscript so that they’re ready to promote it when it comes out too. Um But I have found this exercise of who do you know your community of influence is oftentimes your, your community is bigger than you realize, right. So my book has only been out since January and I have this wonderful several dozen peers in my, in this industry that were out there putting it on their blog, interviewing me for their podcast, putting it out on social media, recommending it to their readers. One trade association called me and said, we’re going to build a mastermind group around this book. So they’re all buying copies, right? So reach out to your peers. That’s a huge, huge part of the process that very few marketers talk about. Who do you know? And what is your ask? It’s, it’s actually parallel to uh fundraising in nonprofits who are our, who are our donors who are our potential donors? Who are our volunteers and what are we gonna ask of them? Right. Um Anything more about the target audience? Um I think that you really just want to feel like what problems are you solving for them? II, I say to authors, what questions do you find yourself answering over and over again? That’s a clue that they want to know that. Um If you’re not sure, survey the audience, what do they care about? What are they struggling with? What solutions can you bring to them? If your nonprofit does consulting, you know, what are the common issues that you’re addressing in your consulting or in the courses that you teach? Because these are good indicators of what your target audience is looking for. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools you need to create more responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact, virtuous.org. Now back to publish your book, Thought Leader. Definitely, I see in your, your office background, you’ve, you’ve got a bunch of nostalgia. Uh you got three typewriters. You have an old microphone, uh old tabletop microphone looks like it goes back to the 19 fifties or something. Are you a nostalgic person or just a collector of old, old, old stuff related to communications or what, uh, related to communications? Especially? Right. I’ve always wanted to write and quite frankly, Tony, I set out to write fiction after I left my soul sucking Silicon Valley job 20 years ago. And I opened a bookstore in Sacramento and thought I would write novels in the back office and I was a terrible fiction writer and I thought, oh, no. Now what, because I’d always wanted to write and it was just a, a lucky turn to realize, oh, I can write nonfiction and leverage teaching, which is also I had set out to be an English teacher and did this kind of, you know, U turn and ended up in the Silicon Valley. But, um, yeah, so I love all things, word related and speaking related, all of those topics. It’s, it’s a great way for us to help make the world a better place. II, I was in a sort of a collectibles store, uh, over the weekend and I saw old, they, they had an old Remington typewriter. So brother is the one that I knew because I, I got for, I think for my high school graduation, I got a brother typewriter. Um, that was 1980. Yeah, 1980. Um, but Remington goes even further back. Those are the beautiful ones with the, with the ribbon, the, the metal spools with ribbon on them. And it’s when you used to put a little piece of correcting tape in the backspace for people under uh I guess for people under 50 or so you, you, you type, make a mistake, you had to hit the backspace key. Then you had a little piece of uh erasing paper, eraser paper which, which would put white powder. It was, it was coated with white powder on one side. So you put the powder side towards your page, you would retype your mistake and then it would, it would put powder in that. It would fill in the, the, the black ink space on your white paper with the white powder and then your mistake is corrected and then you would type the correct letter and you continue on until you made your next mistake. Do you remember? Do you remember that? I absolutely do that tape correction paper like that, right? You put that thing in my son thinks I’m crazy. Right? He’s 17 and he’s like, what do you do? Typewriters? I mean, what do you? Well, yeah, I am. Yeah, I didn’t, yeah, I didn’t know, you were thousands of years old, right? All right. Um What else? What else do you want to talk about around this, uh thought leadership, book publishing topic? You know, so books are a great tool for um reaching people, right? So you can leverage a book to get speaking engagements. I mean, if you’re talking to the speaking industry, they will tell you every speaker needs a book, it helps build that credibility. So, and I would say in nonprofits, you know, friends who survival, who I’ve volunteered with for a number of years now has a variety of books. They’ve acquired books from writers in the, the suicide space as a way to help the members. So I think that there’s other ways to think of books as a tool for reaching more people for um impressing donors for, you know, maybe you give out a book to every new member and you get a corporation to sponsor that investment. So it can actually be a powerful fundraising tool and also establish that thought leadership. And I, I’m working with another nonprofit. It’s um but it’s more of an association and the ceo of this gigantic association wants to establish that leadership in that space. A book is one of the best ways to do that. So that it’s really important to think about the power of how you will use that book. I mean, very few writers make money on books, but you can make money on all the things you can build around that book, your author with the 50,000 copy memoir that he’s, he’s an outlier he’s doing, he’s doing very well with his book, but it’s not, yeah, don’t expect to make a lot of money uh with your book. But your point is all the, all the ancillary things you might build your own Mastermind se series. Perhaps it might lead to online courses, uh might lead to a follow up book. Uh and, and all the things you mentioned, speaking gigs, et cetera and it can raise awareness for an organization, you know, and there’s different formats of books, right? It could be a workbook, it could be something that uh a journaling journal prompts book. There’s just so many ways to produce content that’s valuable to your target audience if you know what they care about. Well, and one of the purposes of the book could be education like your, like your mini book on how to deal with the suicide of a, of a loved one. It doesn’t have to be something that is your own personal thought, leadership venture. Uh Certain, that’s certainly right, but it doesn’t have to be that it could be your organization producing a book, writing a book for education on your, on, on your work for the community. That’s right. And fill a hole, right? What’s not there? So when you do that, competitive analysis oftentimes there’s holes in niche niches you know, I set out to work solely with nonfiction authors and I couldn’t believe I couldn’t, nobody else was, had an organization for this. Nobody had an online conference back in 2010. Nobody was doing this stuff. And I was speaking at writers conferences and I was like, why is the name would be talking to those of us who write nonfiction. It’s very fiction centric in the writers world and children’s books and maybe a little bit of memoir. But nobody’s talking to those of us who write business books. Um, you know, and science and history and, and prescriptive how to type books. So I saw a need and I filled it and for those of your listeners, what need needs to be filled, whether it’s with a book or other type of content, of course, uh, you know, speaking topic, all those things are ways to engage your audience, your community, your members and deliver value that helps keep them loyal for a very long time. That’s cool. All right. Uh, I feel like that’s a good place to end. How do you feel? I love it. This is really fun. Oh, I’m glad. My pleasure, Stephanie Chandler, uh, a couple of her books, the nonfiction book marketing and launch plan and the nonfiction book publishing plan. She’s CEO of the Nonfiction Authors Association and also the nonfiction Writers Conference. You’ll find Stephanie on linkedin, Stephanie, what’s the website for the Nonfiction Authors Association? It’s just nonfiction authors. Association.com and same thing for the conference, which is coming up in May. Oh, they’re both aptly named. Ok. Ok. Um, and you’re in Folsom? You’re in Folsom, California, right? You’ve mentioned Sacramento a couple of times. You’re Sacramento area in Folsom. That’s right. Just 10 minutes, 10 minutes out of Sacramento. North Cal, sunny weather. It’s, we’re very spoiled here. Does everybody ask you about Folsom Prison? Yes, I do. I, I have Johnny Cash’s album. Uh Folsom live from Folsom prison. As do I and we have, you do too. Oh, I absolutely do. And we have walking trails named after him. And ironically we’re the safest city in all of the Sacramento metro area, even though we have this giant prison tucked way out in the hills and, and the prison is all due. It’s for 18, 1880 I think I saw or 86. It opened eight, late 18 hundreds. It’s really old. It’s very historic and it’s very active. I mean, that’s, it’s a large facility and, but for the most part we forget it’s even there. All right. Well, Long Live Folsom Prison. Well, uh maybe not prison. Long lived Johnny Cash, immortalizing Folsom prison. So that, that’s a great album, Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison. Stephanie Chandler. Thank you very much. Real pleasure. Thank you, Tony. My pleasure as well. Next week, the generational divide. If you missed any part of this weeks show I beseech you second time today. Find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supports, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyer Hall. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez Clar Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for February 26, 2024: Your Partnerships With FGWs

 

Esther Choy: Your Partnerships With FGWs

First Generation Wealth creators have different values and mindsets than those who inherited their wealth. And FGWs far outnumber the inheritors. Esther Choy’s research helps you understand these folks and how to build valuable relationships with them. She’s president of Leadership Story Lab. (This originally aired May 17, 2021.)

 

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And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be thrown into lateral epicondylitis if you gave me the elbow and told me that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with the highlights. Hey, Tony, this week, it’s your partnerships with F GWS first generation wealth creators have different values and mindsets than those who inherited their wealth. And FGWS far outnumber the inheritors. Ester Choi’s research helps you understand these folks and how to build valuable relationships with them. She’s president of leadership story Lab. This originally aired May 17th 2021 on Tony’s. Take two. Please review we’re sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporter generosity. Donor box. Fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow. Giving. Virtuous.org. Welcome again, virtuous. So grateful for your sponsorship. Here is your partnerships with FGWS. It’s a pleasure to welcome to nonprofit radio, Esther Choi. She is president and chief story facilitator at leadership story lab, teaching storytelling to institutional and individual clients who are searching for more meaningful ways to connect with their audiences. She’s a contributor for Forbes Leadership Strategy Group and you may have seen her quoted in leading media outlets like the New York Times and entrepreneur.com. Her practice is at leader story lab and leadership story lab.com E Choi. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a real pleasure. Welcome. Um You, you have uh you have some new research out that we need to, we need to talk about transforming partnerships with major donors. What are uh let’s, let’s just jump right in and why don’t you explain what FGW folks are and uh tell us a little about your, the research that you did with these FGW folks. FGW folks. Well, I recently published this research report um and lucky enough to have a really, really good exposure such as the one you mentioned in the New York Times. And there are a lot of surprises about the folks that we generally in the broader society, just, just overly sort of broad and call them the rich people or the wealthy folks or the high net worth individual or the ultra high net worth individuals as if they all belonged in this monolithic group that they all think a belief in the same way. And So I got curious about them after I’ve taught uh in this major Gift strategy program at Kellogg for a while wondering why are these people so hard to get? What uh because so many nonprofits are doing amazing and moving and important and urgent work that no one else is doing. So why is it so hard to reach them? So I dug further in and did a lot of homework and I interviewed 20 very um they were ultra high or folks and I just ask some questions about how did they get to their wealth? What is it like? Um Are there any downsides to wealth, having wealth and so on and so forth and focusing on philanthropy? Um So this report, I can talk about any one number of ways. So you tell me, what do you, what do you want to most learn about these first generation wealth creators? Well, let’s uh let’s start with how big a proportion they are of the, of the wealthy. Wow. I am glad you start. That’s the starting point. Um That’s one of the biggest surprises that I’ve learned because they are at least 68% of the, the, the this massive group that we call wealthy ultra high net worth. They are at least 68% of them earn their wealth instead of inherited. Now, that’s a big, big difference between inherited wealth versus earned wealth. And that means they’ve traveled a entire social economic class that they did not grow up with. And so some of them, um, very few of them really make the majority of their wealth in their thirties or even forties. Most of them are in their fifties and sixties. So we’re talking about full on grown adults with Children and maybe even grandchildren by the time they become, um, this wealthy. So it’s a very interesting transformation of your life, your community, your social circles, the things that you worry about or not worry about all happen around starting from the point of fifties and sixties, right? So, so there are at least two thirds, maybe even a little more than two thirds of all the, all the wealthy folks. The way we would describe, as you’re saying, high net worth, ultra high net worth. These are, these are two thirds of those folks, at least you said 68 68%. I picked the most conservative number, but I’ve read elsewhere to and put that to um somewhere 80 80%. OK? And everybody you interviewed is first generation wealth. That’s, that’s where your research was correct on those folks. OK. So let’s get to know them a little bit. Um Your research has uh AAA nice chart. Um I like, I like pictures. The first thing I look for in books and pictures. Uh Simple, simple mind. You, you’re burdened with the host with a simple mind. Um But you do have these, these pillars of wealth generation that. So let’s describe these folks. Not, not, not all three, I mean, people are just gonna have to get the research, you know, I don’t, I’m not gonna quiz you. I’m not quizzing you on block number four in line three on the No, we’re not doing that. I don’t want to go like word by word because people got to get the research which, which is at Leadership story lab.com, right? That’s the way that you can download. Yeah, there’s an executive summary and you can download the full report as well, right? So Leadership story lab.com for the full thing for the full, for the full study. Um But let’s get to know these folks a little bit, these, these first generation wealth creators. Um you, you start by saying they’re, they’re understated. They’re, they’re maybe even humble. Are they, are they, are they to the point of being humble and modest, humble and modest? And they have a hard time, they have a hard time with the, with the word wealthy, they understand the size of their assets. Um They understand what they are capable of affording, which is basically anything but they have a hard time with the label wealthy. And um they oftentimes think of and regard and never really left their middle class roots and that’s majority of them come from very middle class. You know, they don’t want to be flashy nor do they enjoy flashy things that attract attention So, um, you know, make no mistake. They are a part of things that are very, um, you know, shiny and, and sophisticated and, and, and high quality, but it’s not who they are inside. So that’s one thing to keep in mind is that they are very understated themselves and they often appreciate other people as well as other things that are understated. You, you make the point a couple of times of saying that they don’t, they don’t identify themselves as wealthy even though they know that they fit into that category, correct? Ok. Um So you sat down and you, you met these folks, you, well, maybe not face to face but you, you spoke with these people or couples or how did, how did that all work? Yeah. So I did all the interviews uh with in partnership with the research firm and it’s all done virtually because it was done in 2020. Um There was one noted exception um where I was invited to her home. Uh and uh I met all her kids and her husband and, you know, it’s just like the whole family in the background and it’s kind of funny to talk about her family while her family was around, but for the most part, it was done through Zoom. Uh one through calls and, and um there are four people, so two couples, um I interview them at the same time together and the lengths just got doubled. Um you know, it’s usually 50 50 minutes to an hour and with a couple, um we talked for over an hour and a half. How do you, I’m interested in some of the details. How do you reach out to these folks? How do you, how do you get their attention? It’s really hard. So, the first thing we mentioned in one of the four pillars is they’re understated, right? They don’t identify with the word wealthy. They certainly don’t make big advertisement to the world that they are wealthy. And so to find them and to get them to agree, to speak on record, although it’s anonymous um and to get them to open up and talk about money and wealth, it’s really hard. So I have to rely on a couple of key relationships. Um One is through one of my alma mater, um Texas A and M University and my friend and colleague, uh the CEO of Texas A and M Foundation helped me recruit a few, quite a few of these interviewees. Um my business partner who also happens to be a um uh trustee at the University of Cincinnati Cincinnati Foundations and um through a couple of my own uh resources as well as my research firms. So 20 for qualitative studies is, you know, sufficient. It’s definitely not a lot, 20 people doesn’t sound like a lot but 20 of these type of people and get them to talk about very sensitive topic. Um, was, it took quite a bit just to get them to agree to talk to me. Well, thank you. Um, absolutely. Um, and what was the median income for these 20 folks families? So, um, at this point I don’t think their income is very meaningful any anymore. So, we’re, I, I’m, um, by median, I would refer to their, um, uh, their, their net worth. So the net worth the median range is 50 to 80 million. Um, although, um, the low, I would put it in the low teens, the highs, I would put them in 100 and 50. So just give you, give, you, give our listeners a sense as well of what we’re talking about. Like by, well, you know, millions is like a lot of zeros, you know, at some point it’s just like my mind can’t keep them all in one place. Um, according to the fed in 2020 the top 1% of the US, um, folks have 11 million. So these are all, um, uh, you know, sort of the top one percenter and, um, for the 1% even mid teens to 50 or so was the, was roughly the median net worth. Exactly. Exactly. But then if you think about the 1% of 300 million people in the US, that’s 3 million, 3 million people. And that is about the size. If you put them all in one city, all in one location, they’re just below New York City, just below New York, uh just below Los Angeles, but just above the city of Chicago. So 3 million people, that’s a lot of people. Ok. And, and you estimate conservatively that of those 3 million 68%. Uh our first generation, they earn their wealth versus inherited. It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations. Anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Plus your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your cause. Try Donor Box Live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024. Visit donor box.org to learn more. Now, back to your partnerships with FGWS. Let’s go back to get to know these folks a little bit. Um um They’re entrepreneurial. No surprise but tell us what, what does that mean for the way they think about themselves and the way they might think about uh their philanthropy. Yeah. So in the most literal sense, they are were entrepreneurs. That’s how they created most of them, created their wealth and with a few um less than 20% of them uh had a very lucrative corporate careers and entrepreneurial also means that is the mindset. It’s the lenses in which they apply all things through. Um, so it could be the way that they would like their Children or grandchildren to approach. Um, you know, if I wanted to study abroad even, um, and, you know, I need additional funding. Well, how much you think about it as what untapped opportunities might there be out there for you in this country that you want to study? But it is not currently fully leveraged. Um But entrepreneurial could also means to, as they think about nonprofit, as they really think about how they want to leave their social impact and how they want to fully make sure that their philanthropic dollar is put to good use that also applied and um compatible with their middle class values. So, uh it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s up and downside, right? Um Sometimes something just can’t be measured. Sometimes nonprofits are run by people who are philanthropically minded and socially minded and they don’t necessarily have the same sort of business acumen as, as well as um fear competitiveness um that these donors tend to have and embody. And so the, the downside of having that entrepreneurial mindset is that sometimes it creates um clashes and if you know, at the very least disagreements on is this really the best use of the, the, the, the precious dollars that your organizations have? Um Sometimes there’s no straight black and white answer. Yes and no. Um So um, that’s what I mean by entrepreneurial and, and, and what else, what, what comes next in those four pillars? So, the third is free and I truly, it seems like a very simple, no nonsense. And, and, and we’re like, oh, we live in a free society. Uh, but I think the truth of the matter is that a lot of people aren’t not free, they’re not free to pursue whatever they want. They are under certain professional career obligations or financial pressures and they are a lot of options. Yeah, exactly. And that’s why a lot of career counselors asked mid to even late career folks, you know, what would you do if money is not an issue? Right. Uh, I’ve heard that question asked a lot in care counseling because a lot of people are under that, uh, pressure. But these FGWS they are not and for them it’s oftentimes for the first time is, wow, now it’s not a theoretical questions anymore. I really don’t have to worry about money. Ok. So now what, what do we do? And so, um, a lot of them pursue experiences. A lot of them want the same thing for the Children and grandchildren. Um, they, uh, pursued 3rd, 4th, 5th careers that they’ve always are interested, intrigued by, know that they are not very good at and know that they probably may not, may or may not be able to make a ton of money with. Um, but they do it anyway. So it’s that sense of freedom. Um that I think a lot of people, as long as they have to still worry about saving for retirement saving, for making sure you can pay your mortgage and things like that. It’s, it’s really hard to wrap your mind about. And then these folks are just sort of fully embracing, they want their Children to understand that having a, a wealth of options doesn’t just come, it comes from hard work and, and devotion, which is what they devoted their decades to. So they, they, they want their Children to understand that that doesn’t just happen for everyone. Yeah. I’m glad you bring up Children, um, across all 20 of them, even though the ages ranges from late forties to a few eighties. Um, they all worry about their kids even though their kids have all grown up or they have worried about their kids or have regrets about the way that they raised the ways that they passed on their assets, uh, to their kids. And the, the funny thing is that they did not tell me. Oh, I have so. And so, um, I really can confide in or I know these, uh, uh, professional resources, uh, that I can go to and, um, all of them are just kind of like, I hope I’m doing the right thing. In fact, I know I haven’t done the right thing but then talking to peers surprisingly was not an option across any of them. And so although they’re free, but this taboo topic of money and wealth have prevented them from really searching for the right answers at the time when decisions had to be made. So Children, it’s a constant universal worries, especially for people with wealth. Um We’ve seen from studies after studies that for example, substance abuse tend to affect um Children from families with means disproportionately higher than those who are not from uh family with means. I wonder if there’s some tension for them because they’re not comfortable talking to those who inherited their wealth or, or even just other wealthy people because they don’t, they don’t identify that way, but then they’re not comfortable talking to those folks that they knew when they were struggling in their careers. And before their, their great success, their great financial success would qualify that because success can take lots of d have lots of different levels to it. But before their great financial success, because they, they, they like, they don’t wanna, they don’t want to appear uh overbearing to their non wealthy friends who they know from high school and college and, you know, maybe professional school or, you know, whatever. Uh So they’re, they like caught in the middle, like, they don’t have valuable personal relationships to, to leverage and count on in, in, in times like when they’re questioning what, what to do with Children and, you know, sort of existential questions like that. Yeah. So this is another downside of being entrepreneurial. Um Another way to call someone very entrepreneurial is what you know, he’s, he has a can do spirit, she has a can do spirit. So if you can do, you can do it yourself. You don’t need to count on other people, people to help you, you can pull yourself up by the bootstrap. So uh that’s one and two is again the, the subject of wealth, it tends to be taboo. Um In fact, the Brooking Institute economist Isabel saw Hill made this really apt observation and she said that people rather talked about sex than money and money than class. So first generation wealth creators have travel across classes. And so that makes it really hard for them to say, you know, I don’t know what’s the right way if we do if we travel, is it wrong for us to buy business class or first class? And what are your middle class friends going to say? Oh, poor Tony, poor Esther, you’re struggling with questions like should you trust travel in business versus first class? And it’s not something that a lot of people, first of all empathize with and second of all have the right context to give sound counsels. And what about professional coaches and counselors and whatnot? I didn’t actually cover in a report. I chose to exclude it and just in the in favor of focusing on nonprofit and fundraising. But their experience with uh wealth management advisors are very mixed because it’s an industry that has a lot of conflict of interest. There are some really, really good let us in on something that uh that didn’t make the report. This is great, not proper radio. You gotta let us in on the, on the, on the back story. What uh say a little more about these, the trouble they’ve had the mixed results, mixed results. I’m sure some have been, some results were fine and some relationships are fine but say you a little more about uh what didn’t make the final report there. Um I cut a whole section off just because I think it, it might be detrimental to getting people to read it when it’s beyond a certain length. So this whole section that I cut off was on um how they view advisors, um counselors and, and things like that. And indeed, you know, uh two words to describe the entire section is that it’s very mixed. Um some um have great experience, some on the other end of the extreme is, um they thought the people they interacted with is just uh the advice weren’t very good or too obvious or that again, they can do it themselves. Why do I need to pay you so much money to tell me something I know already. And um, and by the way, that is somewhat parallel to their experience with uh fundraisers. So I don’t want to just put the hammer on um wild advisors and, and, and um tax advisors and whatnot. Um Because this idea that, oh, we know you’re wealthy, we know what you can do with your money, either for the benefit of yourself as well as for me or my organizations that really changed the dynamic of the conversations as well as the services, how services rendered and this to their relative to their expectations. Um So that’s why it’s not very helpful. I think just to come off and um list a bunch of things that they’re not happy with without being able to say what would be helpful. So I just removed the whole section and also in favor of keeping it at readable length. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. I’d be grateful if you would rate and review the show on whatever podcast app you’re using. Uh, we’re a little, a little low on reviews, recent, recent reviews, uh and ratings. So I hope you would give it a five stars. Uh Certainly nothing below four, I would think, but five is best five is best. And if you could do a little review, I know it takes a little time, you know, it takes a few minutes. I understand that I’d be grateful if you could rate and review the show wherever fine podcasts are heard, wherever you’re listening, please do. Thank you very much. And that’s Tony’s take two. Don’t forget to rate and review. Now, look at the little jingle, Tony’s take two rate and review Kate. That was a very beautiful jingle. But yeah, don’t be afraid to rate and review and let us know what you’re thinking of the show. Not only, don’t be afraid, please go ahead and do it. Absolutely. Take the next step, go do it, do it. We’ve got book who but loads more time. So let’s return to your partnerships with FGWS, with Esther Choi. All right. Finally, these folks are lone Rangers. What does that mean? Um We touch upon it a little bit where we, um, you know, they are part of this new class of wealth. They’re like immigrants in some way, by the way, I really wanted to recommend a few books. Um Not just mine. Um, that really helped me round out my understanding. So this whole idea of, um, think of first generation wealth creators as immigrants. Um They have migrated from a different class altogether and enter into this world where the beliefs, um the values and oftentimes even language um are foreign to them. And although it’s great, this is paradise, um, they often find that there are uh tricky conditions, some even would say, um because their native born Children and grandchildren, um, don’t understand the privileged privileges that they were born and then they’ve gotten accustomed to. Um, and the, the cliche or the adage or however you want to want to call it, shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves, rice paddies to rice paddies, wealth does not last past three generations and they know that. And so when you think about this special land of paradise again, um by the way, this is a uh I learned it through the book called um uh Strangers In Paradise by James Grutman. Um their native born Children and grandchildren, statistically speaking will be deported back to harsher land where the first generation have migrated from. And um and here’s the kick Tony, I just, I just found it fascinating and this is why I can talk about this, you know, forever and ever mismanagement of their wealth, taxes and inflations and bad investments. All of those are more of and just the natural delusions from, you know, the couple to Children to grandchildren, right? All of those reasons are reasons for wealth not being able to last past three generations, but you will probably, I’ve never found any one cases or example or family where the story basically is. Well, grandpa and grandma gave it all the way to charity and left nothing to us. That’s why we’re poor again. You know, that just doesn’t happen. And so what my II I think what I really want to focus on, I think the opportunities for nonprofit is that what might there be an um different way to think about the conversations that you have with these donors where you help them solve a problem or maybe many problems and then you also help yourself um solve a problem. By the way, I’m getting like, way, way, way. This is a problem when we have no script. I’m getting like way away from the Lone Ranger questions. I bring you back. But that’s all right. But I think I’m getting to the whole thing. No, radio. No, no, you’re not. What you’re saying is still valuable. Don’t, don’t second guess yourself. What I, what I’m getting at is that it’s lonely to be first. It can be lonely to be first generation immigrant. Except that most immigrants have somehow found other immigrants. And they talk, they share notes, they commiserate, they help each other out. But um first generation wealth creators are particular type of immigrants where for all the reasons that we’ve talked about, they don’t actively look for help nor was real quality help. Um Readily available. Interesting, really fascinating analogy analogizing to, to immigrants. Um Did you, did you put any of them together? Uh uh uh since you met 20 of them and got to know them. So these folks that are uh feeling, lone, feeling, lone, I don’t know, lonely. I’m, I’m just using a word. I’m not saying they’re lonely in their lives. Maybe they are, but they’re lone rangers. Did you, did you uh put any of these folks together and say, look, you know, I met, I met so and so like 22 or three weeks ago and she was saying the same thing that you’re saying, you know, why don’t the two of you talk or would you be interested? You know, did you put any folks together to help them, uh, commiserate, at least help, maybe at best, help each other. I, I, I think I would, I would if I were asked but with these 20 because of the promise of confidentiality, um I don’t share their names or contacts with anyone. But um I have done uh webinars since then where I was asked. So how do you find these people? And then if, if they ask me, then I will help? OK. OK. Well, I’m like a connector. So I was thinking, you know, if I could get her permission, would you like to talk to her? Because the two of you are saying things that are really identical and maybe together you could help each other as well as having very similar questions. And this is where I was getting at the opportunity part. Um because they have asked questions like how much and when should I pass my asset to my kids and grandkids? It’s dealt with by um with wealth advisors on a very case, by case basis. And I think that should be, that’s the way it should be done. But what’s really sorely missing is, well, how do other families handle this right to your questions of? Well, there are other people like me, what do they do because they’re in my boat. Um So as well as questions like, how do I get in sync with my spouse? Um And then they also have questions on like, how do you truly vet um a non, a non for profit, you know, and how do you help? Not my, you know, the nonprofits that you support, uh become more efficient and they are aware that not coming off as because I’m a donor, I give money and um you should do what I tell you to do um Things like that, you know, that productive relationship with nonprofits. So there are endless questions like this that they can talk about, not just commiserate, although commiserating is, is great too. All right. I don’t know. I think you could be a connector, a major connector. Um And I notice uh I’ll leave that there. That’s, but, you know, the title of your research is transforming partnerships with major donors. So, so let’s, let’s let’s transition to some of those opportunities you talked about problem solving that could be mutually beneficial. How, how do, how would a fundraiser ceo uh uh approach someone with that with, with that kind of opportunity? Yeah. Yeah. So I want to break it down to um three steps. Um I want 123, a three step process. OK. Yeah. Well, yeah. OK. You can call it a three step process, but I didn’t invent it. You made it up. I think the first thing is you have to really think about the questions you asked them. And uh oftentimes how curious, how respectful for how informed you are, are all sussed out by the kind of questions you asked? Are your questions mostly really at the end of the day self serving? Um Or are you only focusing on a very narrow aspects of the donors? Um or are you really broadly interested in problem solving? Now, here’s another thing that entrepreneurs like to do, they like to solve problems. And oftentimes they take the same mindset towards nonprofit, am I really giving to an organization that are going to solve real major problems in the system uh system for way? Um So that’s the first thing is the questions that you ask and then two is reading once you really find out about uh uh you know, what you could learn from the donors is that really being able to pair what your nonprofits have to offer and that structure in a way as well as well as frame it in a way that um fits the mindset of. Um Well, oftentimes the folks are very busy, they know they need to do something but they’re very busy. So, um how is it, uh how do you make it easy for them, in other words? And then um the last thing I would say is um it would um how do you acknowledge them? Right. Um It sounds really obvious, right? You know, their stewardship program, there are people were involved in, uh, thanking donors. But what I’ve found is that people, uh, people thought there’s not enough. Thank you, or there’s too much. Thank you. And they’re not thank through the right medium. And so, uh, we’re not talking about, you know, $10.20 dollars where there are maybe hundreds and thousands of them and you can’t manage them one by one and customized it. But with major donors, it’s absolutely worth it to make sure that it’s customized to their preference and needs. So questions the way that you frame as well as the acknowledgment part. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world and in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Responsive fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of each individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with each donor at scale. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow, impact virtuous.org. Now, back to your partnerships with FGWS and the, the acknowledgment of the stewardship is interesting um you say somewhere that uh the the they these folks have a hard time understanding uh the name on a building, you know, why that, why people find that appealing, why some donors find that appealing? So, so a brick and mortar in fundraising, you know, was a brick and mortar recognition would not necessarily be appealing to them, but, but finding out what is appealing comes from, you know, maybe this, this three steps is sort of iterative, right? And if you’re starting to get near uh near something promising, you wanna, you wanna be finding out too about what they would like in terms of acknowledgment. Yeah. Yeah. How would you like to be recognized? What’s important to you? So, I have a friend of mine who advised nonprofits with operations like this and um she helped one of them, she said, you know, what, why don’t you just, why don’t you just ask? So he did, he created a survey through Survey Monkey and, you know, they, they have more than a handful so they can’t just call them up and ask them individually. So he created AAA survey and he got over 70% response rate, which is really, really good, right? If you work for, for survey and um so the the survey basically center around 33 things. Um How would you like to be thanked? How often would you like to be thanked? And through which medium do you most prefer to be thanked. And it’s not only do they have really good feedback, but it’s such a positive gesture from the nonprofit to the donors saying, hey, we actually admit we don’t know, but we care and we should, we know what we don’t know and we care. And now we really would like to learn more from our donors. And that truly is a practical helpful informative donor centric step to take. And by the way, her name is Lisa Greer. She also has a incredibly helpful book called Philanthropy Um Revolutions. So it’s a mix of um it’s a mix of memoir. It’s a mix of uh research because she told her story, but she also has interviewed over 100 principal gift level donors and um and uh and the last mix of how tos so super helpful. How does Lisa spell her last name? GRE er Lisa Greer? What else? What else can you tell us Esther uh that uh in terms of approaching these folks? Um Ho how might you get? Uh I have a question for, I have a little more specific question. How about you get their attention? Oh, yeah, I know um getting the first meeting, it’s like 50 or 60 or I don’t know, 70% of the work just being able to get in the call. Um I, I think everything matters in the smallest amount of space, which is if you have no other ways to reach them. What do. Most people do emails and so make sure that your subject line is the most attention grabbing as well as intriguing possible. Um way to, to get people’s attention, by the way I have um I don’t know if I can memorize uh the, the, the four persona um off the top of my head. Oh, actually I do. I have it right in front of me. Um, my uh colleague, Scott Mord. Um, he is the longest serving CEO of YPO Global young president’s organizations. So these are a lot of the highly concentrated um first generation wealth um around the world, 30,000 of them around the world. Um He actually put the, their philanthropic tendencies in four ways. Um The idealist is the first one. Those are the ones that who want to make a true impact, uh long lasting impact, solve societal problem. Another one is called the legacy leader. Those are the one who really loves to leave, make sure their name last generations and generations that they are getting credit for the big impact that they made. The third one is called the model citizens. And those are the ones that look around and understand what is the highest and highest of highest level of service and they want to be there. And the philanthropic effort reflects that. And then the fourth one is called the Busy Big Week. That’s the ones who are busy, extremely busy and yet they know they should do something but they don’t know what and how and so back to your questions of how do you get their attention? I think you should first by starting with having a point of view of, of these four possibilities, which one is this person most likely going to be? And then once you have a persona in mind, then is a lot easier for you to craft a message with a subject line that is most intriguing and attention grabbing for you. I, I get, despite what my clients and friends and colleagues know about me, I still get these extremely bland and generic um email messages that are, you know, if you just replace the logo of the nonprofits that would fit anybody at all. And so, uh that would be the first thing I think about is have a persona in mind, even if you’re wrong, it’s ok, even if you’re wrong, at least you have a point of view about that person. But the upside is that even if you’re not 100% right? Just having the personal, that persona is going to help you speak to that person as if you know a lot about them already. Are you really only gonna get to them through an introduction or like if somebody has to give you their email or, I mean, there’s not a directory of first generation wealth creators. Is there now, I know yours was yours was anonymous but is there I don’t know. Is there a directory or something? And that’s a really interesting question is what I major in a really, really interesting question. I love the way you think about things Tony. Um, not only is, isn’t there one? Um, they really know how to, how to hide their wealth. You know, they believe in stealth wealth, not only because of the way they live their lives, but they know how to put things in all things and trust. And so everything comes through a different name and um data can help um the right kind of data and data enriching as well as data matching. Um It, I I don’t know a ton about it, but I know enough because there’s another company that I co-founded that like that’s all we do because in the old ways, how do you get names of donors? Right? You ask, you’re bored, that’s how you start a small organization starts. But um but then now, I mean, now we have social media and you can have a campaign and see who gives to that. And then you, then you do some research on those folks to see who, who might be uh have the capacity to do more and then you expand your relationship even with the others who may not have capacity but a willingness. But see, I I think there’s a lot in your current database that is not being fully utilized. That may be for some folks. Yeah, and, uh, well, because we’re talking about stealth wealth. I mean, yeah, that’s, that’s certainly possible. I mean, these, these folks live modest, live, modest means. I mean, uh, uh, at least outward. Um, I mean, what, 20 years ago there was the book The Millionaire next door. I mean, that’s essentially what we’re talking about. This is, there are more zeros now and there are more of them and we’re, we’re in a more financially mobile society now than we were 20 years ago. But the, the, the concept is the same that there are these hidden families of wealth that, uh, that are may very well be in your database. You know, then it was the, the millionaire next door. Now the millionaire in your, it’s the ultra high net worth in your database. Yeah. Yeah. And, and when you, you know, go back to the questions, the way that you ask questions of when you have an opportunity to talk to a donor directly, as well as the way that you ask questions about your databases that can really help you look for hidden millionaires billionaires right in front of you, right in front of your eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised that there are already, uh, but you aren’t, you, you’re not even aware that you’re pretty close when Lisa and I, um because of our share passion about this topic and she’s really doing it full time. I’m doing this. This is because this is my baby. Uh you know, the first time she wanted to make a principal gift um to um her local hospital. Um she budgeted for $2 million for um her hospital and it took the hospital seven months to pay attention to her and $2 million isn’t a small amount for that hospital. It is definitely a major amount, latent unconscious sexism. I’ve, I’ve heard this from women. I do plan to giving fundraising, but I’ve heard this many times from women just ignored when they, they made explicit overtures, not just subtle hints but explicit overtures. You know, I want to do this. I wanna remember the organization in my estate plan and, you know, ignored, repeatedly ignored. So, unfortunately, what you’re describing your friend Lisa’s uh I, I don’t think it’s so uncommon. I think it’s, I think there’s some, I think there’s just unconscious latent sexual uh um not sexuality. Uh sexism in uh yeah, in uh in, in, in, in fundraising. It’s, and money is left on the table as a result. I mean, aside from the morality of the uh of the, of that, that misunderstanding. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it’s, I haven’t seen quantitative research on just how frequently that happened, but that’s leases from her research from her personal experience from your experience. So I think there are actually plenty of money within reach of nonprofits that they probably have missed, but they didn’t know they have, we’re gonna leave it there. It’s perfect. Now you have opportunities and uh I know that our conversation has uh stimulated thinking about how to find these folks and how to transform your partnership with them. Esther Choi the, the research is transforming partnerships with major donors. I’ll give you the full title. Aligning the key values of first generation wealth creators and fundraisers in the age of winner takes all you get the research at leadership story lab.com. That’s where Esther’s company is. Leadership story lab and also at Leader Story lab, Ether Troy. I want to thank you very much. Thank you. This is such an invading conversation. Thank you for the opportunity and thanks for saying you were glad that I asked a question. You were one of the generous, generous guests. I’m glad you asked that. Oh, I got, I got chills. Thank you, Esther. Next week, publish your book, Thought Leader and you can blame me here. I thought that was gonna be this week’s show. I blundered just had it wrong. You, you, you’d think more attention would go into these things, but uh made a mistake. Definitely, it will be next week’s show uh short of uh natural disaster or illness or death. Uh It’ll be next week’s show if you missed any part of this week’s show, I do beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms, blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Love that alliteration. Love it. Pass flexible, friendly fundraising forms. All right. Sorry, I just had to get that in and by virtuous, virtuous gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow giving. Virtuous.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show Social Media is by Susan Chavez and Park Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.