![]() In episode 71 of Mission: Impact, Carol and her guest, Dr. Orletta Caldwell discuss:
Guest Bio: Dr. Caldwell is a passionate and qualified educator and nonprofit management specialist. Caldwell brings more than 30 years of administrative and leadership experience to the CEO of Beyond Existing Enterprises. Highlights of a stellar and diverse career include Executive Director, Camp Baber, and Assistant Professor at Grand Rapids Community College. She has served in many professional and volunteer capacities, including Tech Soup, the Community Development Advocates of Detroit (CDAD), Metro Detroit Council of Christian Churches, Urban Renewal Commission for the city of Colorado Springs, Colorado; Board Member/Secretary, Association of Gospel Rescue Missions and the Southfield Downtown Development Authority for Southfield, Michigan. She earned her Bachelor of Public Affairs from Wayne State University, Master of Science in Management from Cardinal Stritch, and Ph.D. in Public Policy & Administration specializing in Nonprofit Management from Walden University. Important Links and Resources:
Transcript: Carol Hamilton: My guest today on Mission Impact is Dr. Orletta Caldwell. Mission Impact is the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I’m Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. On this podcast we explore how to make your organization more effective and innovative. We dig into how to build organizational cultures where your work in the world is aligned with how you work together as staff, board members and volunteers. All for this is for the purpose of creating greater mission impact. Orletta and I talk about her work with African- American led community-based organizations. We explore the specific challenges these organizations face, what folks need to be aware of when they shift from being a project to being an organization, and why it is so key to understand that even as founder you do not “own” Welcome, Orletta. Welcome to Mission Impact. Thank you. So I'd like to get started with a question around what drew you to the work that you do? What, what motivates you? And what would you say is your why? Dr. Orletta Caldwell: My why? I grew up. In a black church, save a community, help people that are worse off to you. I have been truly blessed in my life and I've just always wanted to give back, and that's my why. And one of my reasons is funny. I'm not interested in being in the front so much, like, president of this or that, but it was always more to provide resources so people can do what they want. Better. So that's been my wife for a long time. Carol: I love that. I also am more of a behind the scenes person, so when I describe my work, I describe it as I help the helpers mm-hmm. I'm multiple steps away from whatever help is being done. But, helping them do their work better is where I can then see impact. Orletta: And that, and that's always been my thing. It. Putting those tools together, coming out of a process, but making other people be able to do their jobs better. So that's why. Carol: You and I both do capacity building with nonprofits, but you really focus specifically on African American led organizations. What are, what are some of the specific opportunities or, or challenges that those organizations face? Orletta: Well, traditionally in the research shows, they always say they're smaller and have less access to money. And I had one guy who was at his clinic, it was his workshop, and he said, we're not grassroots. We're mud roots. We don't even have enough money to get grass. And that's. What I've seen so many times, and it's always because they may not know what's going on, and I've always wanted to be this bridge to say it. It even led me to go for my PhD to find out what's going on in the nonprofit sector and take it back to my people, my community. And that's why I've focused on them. I'll work with anybody, but I've focused on African American nonprofits for that. Carol: What are some of the things in terms of building that bridge that you're helping folks gain connection to or access to? Orletta: A lot of it is compliance issues, filling out that paperwork knowing that that paperwork should be filled out and it's not so much. If you don't fill out the paperwork, bad things are gonna happen. Sometimes I'm like, because you don't have this proper paperwork, the good things can't happen. You don't have access to the grants and the funding that you could have. You miss out on little things. People don't check your credibility. So I'm really into helping nonprofits stay compliant and making sure you understand the rules. Filling out the charitable solicitation paper. Don't let a $275 fee stop you from getting a 501C3 that can open up opportunities for your mission. Carol: Because I can imagine folks might start something and it's really more of an informal project or initiative. And, they may not be aware of those steps. So what are some of the steps that people need to be aware of? And this certainly in the US context of to shift from just a, a passion project or to, to really becoming an organization. Orletta: Well, one thing, I live in Michigan and I'm like, just get your, they don't really understand. Once you get your articles of incorporation from the state of Michigan, for example, you're truly a nonprofit corporation, and now we can work on your tax exemption status, which you have 24 months to do, and they don't really understand that, so they're paying out of their pocket. A lot of them, again, when they file for the incorporation papers, they're incorporated. They don't realize they have 24 months where it can still be considered tax deductible donations to them because you have the intent to file for your tax exemption and so they lose 24 months. Of money they could be receiving, cuz they're like, well we're not, they don't think they're a real nonprofit until they get to 5 0 1 So it's those little, niggling things like that. And then my favorite one is the Founder's Syndrome. They think that this was my dream. I thought of it, I ran it. And when I come into a class and say, we don't run, you don't own a nonprofit. That's not how it's set up. That, that, those are interesting conversations. So it's those little things, and those little things. Having a real budget, planning for that, having a board that's gonna actually help you and not just grab your family and your friends. Those are the things, and it's the small things, but it keeps them from having the impact that they can have. Carol: I don't know that they're that small necessarily. I think there is a lot of misconception about this notion of being a corporation, but that a nonprofit can't be owned by an individual. Can you say more about that? Orletta: I always tell 'em that the nonprofit system, what I do with my, I teach a nonprofit management series course I wrote, and one of the things I, every time somebody wants to say, Or get into that groove of I'm the owner of my nonprofit, and it's like no, you are you doing this on behalf of society. The reason the nonprofit sector was set up is that you're supposed to be, you're doing it on behalf of society, and if you do it on behalf of society as a reward, we exempt you from your corporate income taxes. But that's, since you're doing it, it's a higher level of standard. We have to make sure that you're doing that and you're not what we call, getting personal gain from the quote unquote profits. And so we, I'm saying, I always try to pull my students back to, why are you doing this? Because you can be nice and not run, start a nonprofit corporation, and I always tell 'em that too. So if you're doing this, you're doing it on behalf of society as such. There's certain rules. And one thing is you don't own a nonprofit. And actually the board is the stewards on behalf of society to make sure that you're running that organization correctly. And that's how I put it to them so they can understand, foundationally what we're trying to do here. And we're not saying you gotta go. We're just saying, you can't take those funds and have a good party. Carol: It's a whole notion of being a fiduciary for the board or being a steward of those resources on behalf of, of society, of the larger society community. Which I think. Is that a thing? Gap where people not, may not realize, the intent and the purpose of the non, the tax exemption Orletta:. there's a little, so many misconceptions about the nonprofit sector. So I just, I just chuckle and smile and it's like, okay, we're gonna get through. I had one student, she cracked me up. She's one of my best students and she's getting grants and everything now, but she was just like, but this is my concept. What do you mean? Can my board let me go? Oh, yes, the board runs it. That's the way they are set up. So a lot of them, and it's a lot of that information. If they, if a person doesn't know it, they just don't be, they don't run the organization correctly. And so I really try to work with that. Carol: You talked about having a real board, not just pulling your friends and family. Can you say a little bit more about that as people are getting started? Orletta:. What typically do they do? Cuz this is what I always heard. Can I put my husband and my daughter and my cousin in and I'm like, okay, you can legally yes. However, The board is the people that are supposed to look out for your mission. They're the one. So when you out of organization may be having money issues, it's the board that's supposed to help you get that money. So I'm like, why don't you use those purposes, find somebody who has connections, find somebody who has money, find somebody who has expertise, maybe some accounting expertise or different things that you need to run? Increase the impact of your nonprofit and what a lot of people do when you get your friends, that's what you got, your friends, and then again, you feel like you're the founder cuz you're pulling the whole organization on your back instead of getting some people that can support you and grow the mission. Everything should focus on the. I, that's why I don't like nonprofit terms so much. I always prefer mission based cuz everything we should do emanates from the mission and you should have boards that's going to push and impact that mission together with you and not you got people cuz you gotta fill it out on a form. Carol:. And that whole question of like, who are you pulling in? I mean, certainly people are gonna start with their network, but thinking a little more strategically about, what skills do we need? What competency, what social capital do we need to move this mission forward? I was working with an organization once where it was essentially. One person was running the organization and the board was made up of a group of college friends. And I think it was fine for the first couple years they were excited, but over time, people became disengaged and because they had friendships, the, the, oftentimes groups are already conflict averse, but it made it even more so because they were not gonna just lose them. They were putting the not wanting to harm their relationships as friends, Over what they needed to hash out as a board. And so they really got stuck, mm-hmm. And so, it may be easy. It seems easy, but It also makes it hard to bring in new people, right? Because if you have a subset that really knows each other and they've known each other for the last 15 years or whatever to be able to come in as a new person, how long are you gonna last? If you don't feel like you're actually part of the group, so, Coming on as a board member for the organization versus I'm doing you this, doing you a favor because you've started this thing. It has a really different motivation. Orletta: It does. And again, it takes the focus, it puts the focus on the founder and the mission. Right, and I think that's the key thing when you really, I find, when you really think about what is this mission, what are we trying to do here? That focus, if you focus on that, it just changes how you make decisions. Carol: What are some ways that you found seeing people be successful about getting out beyond just their friends and family to build a board that is really gonna move the mission forward? Orletta: I even recommended people to who, who's volunteering with you. That really is. Into what you're doing. Those are potential board members. And then I said, you can even put on like indeed.com or even some of the free, I know in Detroit we have like a board. I can't, my brain is like an internet listing or something. So if you're looking for a board member, you can put it on there. And I said, it's fine to find a stranger. You may find a stranger. That's so, that's so much more into your. Thank you. So I, I say, see those people that's donating to you and they don't, you, you barely know what you're talking about yourself, but they're helping you. That's a good board member. That's somebody who's really into what you're doing and really into you too, if you wanna, if you wanna have a good relationship with them. So those are the things I say, find people who's into the mission and wanna Carol: be, and they're there for, the purpose versus just the person. Orletta: We're, I know we're a very individual driven sector, but, I think we do need to look at what's the mission. So those are the kinds of things I think about, like who are good board members. Carol: So you're in the process right now of working on a book about the history of African American organizations. Can you give us a few, I know it's not finished yet, you're probably who knows how, I'm not sure how far along you are, but any, any interesting things that you're researching right now that are coming up and bubbling up? Orletta:. This is my dissertation. I got my PhD at 20. I earned it in 2021. I was looking at Carol: congratulations, Orletta: Thank you. I was looking at what keeps, what do African American leaders do to sustain successful nonprofits. But part of my literature review when my chair said, I need you to. On the history of African American and his non-profit history. And here I am, I studied this stuff and all this, and I scoffed and I remember reading that memo and thinking what, what history? And it was just ridiculous. But that was the first thing I thought. And it was even worse because I grew up African Methodist Episcopal, that's the first African American. Over, I think there've been since 1787. So I'm like, what are you talking about?, the Free African society. So as I was looking into this and I was writing this literature review, there was an organization, I think it was the Massachusetts Negro Bureau and I wish I can remember the name, but I know they started in 1693 and that was you. Over 400 years ago, and they've been running, they were running, their mission was to help their enslaved brothers and sisters. And that's when I'm like, we've been doing this. We've been doing this. While enslaved, we've, through reconstruction, civil rights or whatever. And so I talk, I'm talking to a book editor right now. We're hashing out what we're doing and he wants to call it the Invisible History of African-American Nonprofits. And it's been like, for me, it's been like a faith journey too. It's sobering. But hearing li reading these stories and researching stories of these people, Who could have just said, forget it, you're on your own. And it always came back for the community and Randy's organizations and some of these organizations are still in existence cuz I'm looking from 1693 through civil rights. And that's where the book is gonna span from. And that whole entire time there's been pivotable figures and organizations that kept doing the work to keep the community. Carol: That’s amazing to be able to really bring that history to the fore and that, that the length of that legacy that it's always been there. Yes. It's always been there. It may not have been celebrated, but it's always been there. That's amazing. I'll look forward to it, when it gets published. But you also talked about With your, with your work, with your PhD around what makes African American leaders successful, so what were some of the things that really helped people move forward, bottom line, line, once it got beyond some of the stuff that you're talking about, of that and getting beyond the basics of really being able to succeed. Orletta: Beyond the bottom line, they persist. I mean, even with the lack of money, the smaller ones. But one thing I found out cuz I, what I wanted to make sure, academically, cuz they always, it was always like some of the research tried to say is we didn't have to have particular skills intrinsically as, black people. And I'm like, okay, I know that's not true. That's stupid. So let me, so I want to find out, what do successful nonprofit leaders across the sector do? Well, they get training, they build boards. They build a team around them. And then I looked at what these African Americans were doing. I had interviews. They did the same thing. And not only did they do the foundational things they knew they needed to do to be successful, build better boards, build a team. But because of one interview in particular, she was telling me how, she got a grant from the state and the program manager didn't think they were worthy of it cuz it was a black organization. So how much harder she worked to make sure that all the dots were crossed and everything was done correctly so that they couldn't say this organization C couldn't do it because that's what she had, had to deal with. They knock on doors hard, more, they have, because we, that's one of the things we don't have access to the boards and foundations like our counterparts. So they knock on more doors. I always tell my students you have to go to functions and you just gotta talk and talk and talk and talk, more and you have to do more. The one thing I did find there is an innate loneliness. Hmm. Because often the community that you're fighting, To serve, don't understand what you're doing, and they'll fight against you, while you're fighting for them. Plus, they're being bridges. They can't just do their job. They have to be a bridge, on behalf of a, a whole group or community, and a lot of times to get into those stores to get the money. So it's a. They have a heavier lift, but they do persist. All nine of them persist. And I interviewed nine people. The one thing I found was this was their second career. Mm, all of them. It was like, so you are interested. Can just retire and go home and say, forget this. Which is always, it's been a trade in the nonprofit field, but none of them came in as nonprofit leaders or anything like that. They just saw a need and I looked at what we call a social contract. Socially, I think it's contract theory, Bandura. And it was something innate in them from their community that they learned that I have to give them myself. And so that was a trade I saw over and over. I have to give of myself, not of my wealth. Black philanthropy is not given of our wealth, it is given what we have, but giving of my time and talent and treasure to help the community as a collective. So you, I saw a lot of that too from that. Carol: There's an organization that I'm aware of here in Maryland that I think is, it has goals to go national, but a black ed network, black executive director network for African-American nonprofit leaders, executive directors. And I think, anytime you're a leader of an organization, it can be lonely. Mm-hmm, but those particular challenges and to be able to come together and compare notes and, and help each other. Persist. When you get to the point where you're like, oh, I cannot knock on another door. I cannot do my little elevator pitch One more time. Colleagues can encourage you to step, get back up and, and move, keep going Orletta:. we get a lot of microaggressions. it's that small thing when you go like, ugh, and they go like And you just talk, you don't even say a word and it's like, okay, get back out there. And, and, and that's encouraging. So, because it, it, it's a, I and a lot of them are tired. I can, I can see it. It's like, oh my god. ? So, but they just keep doing it. I have this one woman, she runs a garden program and she's teaching sixth graders. She should be sitting in her rocking chair having a good time, and she's trying to teach sixth graders that I don't even wanna be with to show them how to plant a garden so they can sustain their lives in this neighborhood that has food. Carol: Excellent. Excellent. And, being able to bring the whole career experience to the sector, I think so, but then there is that gap, right? Of mm-hmm. Not knowing all the nuts and bolts about this particular sector, how things work, what's different about being in a for-profit business versus a nonprofit corporation, all those kinds of things. Yes. So appreciate that you're, you're addressing those items. Orletta: That was my real goal. I mean, one, the, the great, one of the greatest things I feel I've accomplished is, is this, it's just a seven week course. I teach at community college, a local community college, but now I can do it virtually too. And it just, in seven weeks, we hit on every aspect of what it's gonna take to manage a nonprofit. So it's not like you're gonna be, I'm proficient now. I've got it. They come out with a one to two page blueprint for the organization. And so I've taught the class enough now that I've had students that use that blueprint. So now I have data. We love data. Yep. I have data to show that I know what I'm talking about. And if you put a good effort into this, you can get your nonprofit running and be compliant. And, some two of them have gotten grants and are working on programs. And I Carol: I love that. It's just a one one to two page road roadmap? Keep, keep it simple. Keep it moving, right? Orletta: Yes. That, and that was my thing. And when they do their presentation at the end, I only give them 15 minutes. I'm like, if you can't tell me in 15 minutes what you wanna do, you don't know what you wanna do. And they get frustrated, but it's like, no, you only need 15 minutes to tell me what you're gonna do. That's all you need. Right. Carol: What are some other things that you found in your studies, beyond persistence? What were some other things that stood out? Orletta: Is it for me? The difference between white philanthropy and black philanthropy. I did the presentation, I was at my job at TechSoup and I, we were an, they were asking me questions and how we can get African Americans, more leadership and stuff. And I was like, okay. And for somehow we got into this conversation about, philanthropy in general, and I said, you have to understand why philanthropy, and I don't wanna be critical, but basically it was a bunch of robber barons that, raped and pillaged the land and, gathered their resources, got rich, very wealthy, had to clean their past, and now they give their wealth and then their spouses had some jobs, they had something to do. I said, versus black philanthropy, we didn't have a massive wealth, we gave her what we had, washer, women, janitors, porters, gave off what they had and we gave it to us, the collective. And the one example I always use, I used to run camp Babe. That was the ame church's camp, the way that camp was. To be purchased was one of the members. The lady put a second mortgage on her home for $16,000 back in the forties, and that's how the AME church got that camp. So obviously it wasn't, she wasn't wealthy, she mortgaged her home. And so you can see the disconnect and the difference between how, when we look at philanthropy a lot of times, Organizations is to keep, literally keep our communities alive and fed. Like the one woman, I said Detroit is getting better, but we have some food deserts and she started a community garden and she lives in the neighborhood. Actually, this neighborhood I grew up in, it's the land of time and people have forgotten, but she's determined not to forget them. And so they're not, they don't have this proclivity. Community organs. D, she makes them, she actually runs Mimeographs almost and go up and down the street and make people show up for block club meetings. And she's out there in the summer with sixth graders when she should be at home, drinking lemonade, pushing people to keep their properties up and that stuff. So that was the thing I learned. It is just this, it's a life or death situation. One of my students was taking money out of her pocket to feed her. So now I've taught her how to get a domain and she's got all her paperwork now so she can have somebody help pay for this cuz she's literally feeding the children in her neighborhood during the summers. And then on holidays she does neighborhood dinners. Hmm. So, that's the kind of, those are the differences and the things that they're doing, and they do it on very little. Like when he the guy who worked for I o b, it, when he said mud groups, it really is, I mean, they're taking so much that muster seed of faith and just pushing it. Carol: Well, thank you. Thank you for all you're doing. At the end of each episode, I ask an ice, a random icebreaker question from mm-hmm. A box of cards that I have to ask some questions about. So what would you say is an interesting tradition that your family has Orletta: tradition interest? Oh. Or unique. My daughter and I, oh, my daughter and I, every time my daughter is an alumni at Michigan State University go green. We go, when they play Northwestern in Chicago, we've, for the last five or six years, we always go to that game. No matter how cold, how hot, whatever. No matter if the Spartans are doing well or not, we always go to that game. We spent a weekend in Chicago and we went to the game and we sang the fight song on the EL train with the rest of the things, and we acted very obnoxious. So it's just something we do, and it's like every other year. It's like, well, they're playing Northwestern again. Okay And we go. Awesome. Carol: So what's, what are you excited about? What's coming up for you? What's emerging in the work that you're doing? Orletta: Well, the book is coming together and it's so funny imposter syndrome when a book editor is like, taking you seriously is talking about, I'm like, oh, so this is actually good. So I'm excited about that. Like I said, I like to be in the background, but I am being considered for ED for a role. So I'm, but it's, it impacts everything I've ever done in my life. So the mission is totally what I'm into. So lemme see if I'm well ready to go to the front again. But those are the things I'm excited about and my daughter moved back to. Oh, nice, nice, she's my only, so. Yep. Carol: I've got an only daughter too, but she's trying to train right away, so. Orletta: Good. Okay, Carol:. All right, well thank you so much. It was great having you on the podcast and I definitely once, once the book is out, we'll have to have you back and have another conversation about that history. I'm definitely interested to learn more. Okay, Orletta: great. I love to talk about it. You can say I'm, I love, it's just been, it's been life changing, so I'm, I'm looking forward to it. Carol: I appreciated Orletta’s reminder that no one owns a nonprofit organization. This is a basic concept but because both for profits and nonprofits in the US are organized as corporations it is easy to confuse the two. For nonprofit corporations, everyone involved – especially the board – is stewarding the resources for the good of the community. The mission or purpose of the organization that has a public benefit is why the organization is given certain privileges – tax exemption for example – or the ability for donations to be tax deductible. I also appreciated her tip for founders to get out beyond their friends and family as they recruit board members. Those folks might be easy to get involved with – but do they really want to be part of your organization to support the mission or to support you, the founder? Board members need to be recruited for their support of the mission and what time, talent and/or treasure they are going to bring to help you move your mission forward. I can’t wait until Orletta’s book on the history of African- American nonprofits and philanthropy comes out. I think it opens a lot of eyes to a history that has always been there but hasn’t been fully told. Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Dr. Orletta Caldwell, her full bio, the full transcript of our conversation, as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Isabelle Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as Cindy Riveria Grazer of 100 Ninjas for her production support. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a colleague or friend. We appreciate you helping us get the word out. And until next time, thank you for everything you do to contribute and make an impact. ![]() In episode 32 of Mission: Impact, some of the topics that Carol and her guest, Don Tebbe discussed include:
Guest Information: Don Tebbe is an organizational planning consultant and one of America’s most experienced advisors on nonprofit CEO transition and leadership succession. He experienced, first-hand, the challenges of sustaining an organization and navigating leadership succession as a former nonprofit executive director and five-time interim CEO. Since 1993, he’s helped hundreds of nonprofit leaders plan for and manage turnover in their chief executive positions. Don was one of the national thought leaders involved in an Annie E. Casey Foundation-sponsored project to develop better practices for nonprofit leadership succession. Many of the concepts and practices used by succession practitioners today originated with the Casey project. He is the author of Chief Executive Transitions: How to Hire & Support a Nonprofit CEO and The Nonprofit CEO Succession Roadmap: Your Guide for the Journey to Life’s Next Chapter. Important Guest Links:
Carol Hamilton: Welcome Don. Welcome to the podcast. Don Tebbe: Thanks Carol. I'm excited to be here. Have this chat with you and. Carol: Absolutely. And I always like to start out and I know you've had a very long career. So this made this, this, the answer to this question may have changed over time, but what really drew you to the work that you do? What motivates you and what would you describe as your, why? Don: I see you sent me that question in advance and I had really pondered that because I think it's been more of a feeling than an explicit calling. In fact, I did some research for one of my books on callings and I am trying to figure out why I was attracted to this, to this nonprofit sector work. But it just seemed like a great place to really do work that's meaningful. And that's one of the things I discovered in doing the research on callings is that everybody has this innate desire for a meaningful life. And I couldn't think of any, I tried business, I tried government. But I couldn't think of any place else where you could have a much more meaningful life than the nonprofit world. Carol: Yeah. I've definitely found that as well. I mean, it's meaningful in the work that you're doing, but I also find it attracts other good people. And so I enjoy it. I often really enjoy my colleagues and enjoy their thoughtfulness and their sense of calm. Don: Yeah, I think for me, the perfect place was to move in. In the consulting arena. I had been an executive director and deputy director for about 10 years before I moved into consulting in 1993. And I just really, I just fell in love with it. the opportunity to work with great people to work with them at a very meaningful moment when they're particularly, if they're. Maybe not necessarily struggling, but questioning, like when we're doing planning work. And it also gave me a lot of flexibility to really double down on, on the missions that I really care about without having the, the daily grind of, of being an executive, like developmental disabilities, like food security, like housing like, child services. Carol: Yeah. Getting to contribute to all of those different things rather than having to pick one, one major passion. Yeah. So you, as you said, you've had a long career in the sector ranging over a number of different areas and, including executive search and really pioneering, how many transition specialists approach executive search today? I think actually. You're one of the people who's been quoted multiple times on this podcast over the past year. So kudos for that. And one thing that I especially appreciated about how you address this issue is that you address it from both sides, from the point of view of the board and the organization, but then also the point of view of a long term executive director or the founder. In your book the nonprofit CEO succession roadmap. I'm your guide for the journey to life's next chapter? Why was it important for you to address the exiting executive director directly? Don: Well, it can't really came out of work that Tom Adamson I did when we were partners in a firm called transition guides. Tom and I met when he was leading a project for the Annie Casey foundation that was looking at the question of how we can have better transitions in the nonprofit world. Invited a small group of practitioners when myself included at the time I was the interim executive director of the interim ministry network. So Tom and I put together this program a two day retreat called next steps. Particularly targeting founders and long term executive directors. Cause it was, yourself, those are some of them. Can be some of the most problematic transitions out there. And, I think it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's a space where governance, executive leadership and strategy all come together in, in one moment. And so I think it's a great opportunity to really address all three of those, those prongs also the organizational capacity. So we started off with, we were focused on executive transitions in, came up with the executive transition management model, all that, and what we realized that we needed to be working with organizations. Earlier, before they hit that moment of transition. So that led us into the succession planning work. And then in early two thousands, I was looking at the, I do these deep dives every few years. And the deep dive I was doing then was around really organizational vitality. I did 140 CEO transitions in my career and managed 104 of them. And some organizations come to you in all sorts of conditions. There's the high performing organizations. There's the low performing organizations. There's the organism. They are firing their executive director. I really wanted to take a look at and see what characters, what are the characteristics of these high valleys? Tell the organization, those organizations where you walk in the front door and you can just feel it. You can feel the energy, the excitement, the commitment, the impact I am w what's what was going on in those organizations that I came away from. I did literature review and some case study research and came up with these three tiers, that base level there's organizational stability, the, the vital signs that are okay. It's not at risk, it's not in the intensive care ward. The next level up was what I would call Sustainability. And then, layering on top of that. What is vitality? And so you really have to, I think you have to address both the executive and, and work leadership on that board higher. So the executive, the board, is responsible for shepherding the mission and shepherding him. And obviously the executive is their key partner in driving that impact. So I think it's terribly important to address both. But we found though with these retreats we had about, I think we had about 600 alumni when I left transition guides. We would do it a couple times a year, small groups, about 25 to 30 executives. It may, when I did interviews with. So folks that are with our alumni, what I found was that just really, They, they, they were our point of entry into the organization and, and, the opportunity to then work, with a board. So I think also my belief is that the executive really should initiate the succession process. And rather than the board initiating it on their behalf. So I think, it's, it's, it's. It's just like in a situation with a nonprofit; their key partners need to be working with both of them. Carol: What would you say is important for exiting executive directors to realize about the transition? Don: Well, probably the thing that I heard the most and was most surprising is to a person for these interviews, they. They were shocked and surprised by how emotional the process was for them. That was something that really caught them off guard. So we really tried to make sure that they understood that in, in, in this retreat process. So I think that's, I think that's one thing that's a surprising thing, but I think in terms of the points that I would make with executives is you probably can't start too early. We were focusing on primarily trying to get to people for three to four to five years ahead of their Parker, I'm thinking of one particular instance this executive was a household name and, she was not just the, the leader of this nonprofit. She was a leader of a whole movement and she was, that's, that's a pretty hard person to replace. So we actually, I started talking with her 10 years before she left and I don't, I don't think that was the cause, That there needed to be some capacity building around the movement and not just inside her for her organization. So, and that's an extreme case, but usually I'd say three to four years, it's not too early. because particularly if it's founder or long-term executive, cause there may need to be some capacity building needs to take place in the organization. They baby, They grew into the role as the organization grew up around them. Right. And so there may be, they may be covering for somebody, they are, there may be a hole in their operation or there may be somebody that they'd been making do with in, in the organization. Also, there may be a board that's overly dependent on them and really needs to do some board building work to make sure that there's a, I would call. The board's gone through a reformation process and it's not a friend's a founder board any longer, it's a fully functioning, or that has a, it has a sense of itself independent of the founder. And so I think that you just can't start too early. And I think the third point that I would make is that a lot of times executives are confused about their role in, in the transition process and the succession process. It's to me, there's no ambiguity, you got three jobs. Job number one, lead the organization through the transition, of course, but understand that that role is going to evolve as your departure date draws closer. Number two is to prepare yourself for that next chapter of life. Like if you're going to retire, have something magnetic, that's drawing you forward rather than a job that you're leaving. And job number three is to prepare the organization for the succession and transition process. Carol: And you mentioned that often folks were caught off guard with how emotional the whole process was. What were some of the common things that folks experienced as they, as they move through? And what were some of the unhelpful behaviors that came out of that, that, that roller coaster, that emotional roller coaster. Don: Yeah. I think it'd be a lot of it distributed by the executives personality. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld was at Yale university and wrote a book a few years back about the hero's farewell and he outlined four different characters for different profiles. There were the ambassadors, people that could leave the organization gracefully, or even have a continuing role with the organization. And, everything's going to be just fine. Governance. Who went on to other, big, big jobs and left the organization behind, so forth. And Oh, I forgot the other two right off the top of my head here, but the Monarch and the steward, right? Oh, that's right there. Exactly. Yeah. Well, steward was my year's term monarch, that you're going to be carried out feet first or X showing the door kicking and screaming. But my belief is that there's a fifth category out there. Another category out there is called stewards. And that's what I see most. In, in the nonprofit world, people that can, leave gracefully and but not necessarily have a continuing role with the organization science and courage to pardon executives, to think of themselves as stewards. And they're going to hand off the organization to the next sewer. So did that answer it quickly? Carol: Yeah. Yeah. So what would you say you, you talked about the three tasks that are inherent in the job of leading an organization through the transition. What can executives do to help make the transition go more smoothly? Don: Oh, gosh encouraging the board chair to pick good leadership for the succession process. And as I said, starting the succession process earlier, and I also, I've been listening to your interview. Liz Wolf and I take a little bit different tack about the idea of, of interim executives being the standard approach for an organization. Now that was the, that is the experience in, in many religious denominations, right? Place what's called a settled pastor until there's been an interim there for at least a year, so that there is that breathing room, that separation, but the challenge, and I brought that into discussions with the KC project and what we found. By comparing notes with compass points in our own practice, for a lot of organizations that just don't work for you, you've got fundraising relationships that you need handoff, or you've got P government contract relationships that you need to hand off and, have you. Having an interim in there and doing that handoff twice, just, just, just doesn't seem to work. And so that's one reason why we took a step back and said, let's start earlier, work intensively and encourage the executives to get some coaching in the process so that they're, they're dealing with their own stuff. About how the transition is going, because the job does evolve and, or, people can feel a sense of loss when decisions are deferred to the new executive and so forth. Carol: Yeah. And one of them is that I'm not listening to the train. And so I totally lost my train of thought, wanted to follow up on, oh, I remember what it is now. One of the points that you made, which I thought was really key, was the scent, the recommendation to pick a date and stick with it, not to be going back and forth. Well, I thought that was a good idea, but really we've got one more project to do, one more project to do and kicking the can down the road. What, how, what impact have you seen that have on the rest of the organization? When, when. That executive isn't it from, and their plans and how they move forward? Don: Yeah. One person comes to mind very clearly. I was coaching him on his departure and we were having coffee. About a month after our initial meeting, he then let out to me that he was rethinking his departure date and his long time, well seasoned deputy just up and quit and said, look, I'm done with this, you're, you're never going to leave this organization. I'm going to go do something else. I think I gave some notice, but what do I mean? It really upset the applecart. And I think I'd also feel whipsawed. Cause for the staff a departure particularly of a founder or long-term executives, this may be the only boss they've ever known. Right. and particularly to their long term staff members and it's unnerving for the staff. And so you don't want your best people to be, cause people. It's an unknown and nerving time men, particularly if you couple that with, The executive or the board being guarded about information. It can be a real stew for the staff and right, for people, you're some of your best people to look elsewhere because they're questioning them. The future with the organization again, and there's always questions anyway. we'll, we like the new executive, can we trust the board to pick the right person for the job? Are they going to bring in some, somebody that's going to bring in their own team and they want a gun we're going to clean house when we don't necessarily need to clean houses as a high-performing organization, all those things. Carol: What are other mistakes that you've seen executive directors make as they're exiting? Don: There's a touchy topic there. One of the points I try to make is you need to take responsibility. You need to take responsibility for your departure and your exit plan. And then I will try to clarify that that doesn't mean you surf the board's authority and try to force in your hand pick success or are on the one hand nor does it mean dumping everything in the board's lap. And saying, Hey, it's their, it's their problem. It's their job. I'm running the organization. It's finding that, that, that place where you can really be a good steward of this entire process without, without rush riding rough shots over the board and not dumping it all in their laps, which volunteer boards are. Oftentimes really pretty clueless about what's really needed in that, in that way. Carol: Yeah, so helping them through. And that's where I think, bringing in external help because, if the person's a founder, it's unlikely that they've managed a transition or their own exit before in, in that case. And so may not know all the things that that could be helpful to, to pay attention to as they're going through that process. Don: Yeah. I think the other thing is that I am paying a lot of tension, a lot of attention to the preparation for the hand. And that can be a great comfort to you, to your leadership team, to your staff. If they're helping to prepare the way for the new executive. In fact, that really is one of your roles as a departing executive is to prepare the way for your successor. And so getting staff engaged in that, whether it's paying the CEO's office. So rewinding here a little bit is, I think it's really important that executives pay attention to the, the preparation to receive and work effect for causation work effectively with the new executive and paying attention to the handoff. So preparation for the new executive. I think there's a, I think. Engaging the board in some con getting the board to engage in conversations about what governance relationship do they want with us new executive, you spent a long time, writing this profile, imagining what this new person going to be like, getting clear about, the priorities for the first 12 to 18 months of their tenure. Well, what relationship? Should you have, within an executive, particularly if you've got a founder or long-term executive leading staff preparation, getting the staff involved in preparing briefing materials for the new executive that it becomes part of that, the handoff, getting some bios together about what the team looks like that sort of. And then expecting that there might be a little bit of overlap between you in, in your successor and that's, that can be fair. Yeah. in small organizations, it may be a couple hours, a couple of days in a large organization. Like one of our clients was an international health charity that had, has. Offices are all around the world. So the current CEO stayed on and the new CEO came in and worked out a month, I think, going on listening tours, visiting all the facilities around the world as the CEO of. And so paying attention to how that, that handoff and making sure that the, the critical relationships get handed off that there's briefing materials for the new executive, that there's an opportunity to really get it's no the organization that they're taking over and and then, then, riding off handoff and ride off. Carol: I love it. So at the end of each episode, I like to play a game where I ask one random icebreaker question. And so what's something that you believed earlier in your career that you think about differently now? Don: Oh my gosh. Well, I think a hard lesson I learned as a, as an executive director was not to expect the board to spontaneously fundraise. Yeah. Do you mind if I go back to a point about that? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Okay. Well, so one of the things back in the mid nineties I had a great opportunity working with organizations in Silicon valley based here, but worked out there almost a quarter of the time and. So I wrote a book for this and worked for the center for excellence and nonprofits in San Jose. It was started by Dean Martin. When he retired as a CEO of COO of Hewlett Packard, he was the board chair and he was on the Packard foundation board and a really great guy, a great relationship, and worked with him and bopped on Bob carton on the evolution of this organization. Seven years. So one of the things I did with them was do this report, looking at governance practices in highly effective nonprofits. It's really had a very formative relationship for me, our impact on me because I was fresh off a fairly new consultant at that time, fresh off the heels of, of Relationship with a board. And one of the things that really saw was that it really opened my eyes to that whole board executive relationship. And by the way, I loved Mary Highland's interview with you on that, on that point, Mary and I are old friends and what I came away with and it's really had a forum. Fo helped really from my approach to executive transitions and the importance of following through and having that onboarding process and having an intentional relationship building process with the board. What I saw in these organizations is what I came to call the board executive social contract, you in every work situation, we've got our literal contract. Maybe it's as simple as a job description, or maybe it is a formal written contract, but then we have, how do we live? And that's the social contract. And when I saw his organization's spine large, they were clear about four things. Number one, they were clear about the priorities that they were pursuing together as a board and an executive team. That might be what's in their strategic plan. It might be some developmental work with the organization. It might be exploring new ventures or something like that, but they were clear about their priorities that they were going to work on together. They were clear about their roles and responsibilities. And I know you've got an organizational development background, so this is going to make lots of sense. I'm sure. you're you got that separation of executive roles or board roles and responsibilities. How do you tie that together? Well, you tie that together with some sort of accountability mechanism, that thing, that relationship looks different in every organization, but. Every one of those seem to have those four characteristics to it. So that really made an impact on me. And so I brought that into the executive transition work to make sure that there's an intentional way of the board, an executive building that relationship and that there's a process, a guided process that they could actually go through. Carol: Yeah. I had the chance to work with one organization that was going through that executive transition and worked with the group before, it wasn't part of the search process, but then came back afterwards to help the board and the new executive director have that exact conversation about what's important to us in terms of how we work together. How are we gonna, what are the ways that we're going to show up? What are the behaviors that we're going to demonstrate that are going to support? Working together in a collaborative, positive way. So, I had a chance to work with them on their strategic planning. And so then I was able to remind you, and these are the things you said you were going to do when you worked together. And none of them were, that they're all good things. People would come up with in terms of being respectful and communicating and collaborating, but I think being explicit about it and then coming back to it and reminding yourself and then thinking, so how are we doing on that? Are there other places where we could adjust and, and, and tweak it to make it better, can be really helpful. Don: Yeah. And, and having been clear that that, that, that. The connecting mechanism, that evaluation mechanism, has an evolution to it, and should be multi-stage at least in the first year, because, what's the big question on the board? I often hire the right person. Right. And so you want it to, you want to have an intentional non-intrusive way of a non-intrusive way of, of. Yeah, getting that information, getting, getting that. Sure. And so, it might be the first 30 days, having a ha how's it going at conversation? Maybe the first quarter, that's a little bit more of a ha ha how are you, how are you feeling about, your. you're taking charge because there is a taking charge process that John Kabarro at Harvard documented a number of years ago. And so it's, rather than an executive, parachuting in and stepping into the role, it's oftentimes a ramping up process. And so understanding that and just being realistic about that evaluation process. So quarterly. First quarter. Half of the year and then, maybe the annual review after that, but thinking of it as an assurance mechanism and in being realistic about it, because the executives aren't there. They're coming into an organization, they may be confronting problems. There's oftentimes as, legacy issues that don't come up and don't get the cat's not out of the bag until the new executive is there. And so making sure that they're feeling well supported on that. And everybody's being realistic about this. Carol: Yeah. And you've got all those lines of communication open, which is really key. And yeah, so we did that once, but it doesn't mean that it's done, right. It's not something you just checked off the list. It's something you'd come back to and what needs to be adjusted and how are, where, where are we now? And what else, what, what do we need to think of? So what, what, what are you excited about? What's coming up next for you. What's emerging and the work that you're doing now. Don: Oh, wow. Just a bunch of things. I'm retooling a course that Susan Shaffer and I developed called going solar going big. It's of course for consultants. And so I'm doing some editing of that after it's been out there for a couple of years online. We do it in person. Yeah. Yeah, some are retooling that this sounds very nerdy, but I'm really excited about a series of books, discussions that I've been facilitating with a group of consultants, mostly alumni from our workshop. Last year we worked on productivity and the sugar we're going to work on communications and insights. And so doing that and just and really, really enjoying, my practice now is primarily focused on succession planning and organizational planning, and I'm developing a process that I call impact crafting, and I am working. I've worked with about five organizations now with that pilot, it can bring in a lot of the ideas from my executor transition work, I've looked at air free organizations, strategic plan and ask them how they, developed it and really discovered that a lot of organizations, th they, They think the board should do it. They think the staff shouldn't do it. sort of trying to bring that into sharp focus and also discovered in the transition work, a lot of organizations have broken business models and the board doesn't understand how the work really gets done, in the organization. So one of the pieces that I bring to an organization is really to clarify their impact statement beyond their vision, bring it down to a little bit more operational level, and then work with them to actually make. Yeah. Using a variation of the business model canvas to actually map how the work gets done, how they turn vision over here into impact over here. And so that's been really satisfying work and I think it brings a much more grounded feel to the. The planning process. Carol: Well, we'll probably have to have you back on, to dig into that a little bit more because you love to use all the words that I like to use. So I want to get one, I like to open the door and see what's behind it, but thank you so much for coming on. It's been great talking to you. Don: Thanks Carol. Great talking with you. Good luck on the podcast, loving the episodes thus far. Carol: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. ![]() In episode 26 of Mission: Impact, some of the topics that Carol and her guest, Sabrina Walker Hernandez discussed include: - How to get comfortable with fundraising - The breakdown of the fundraising process - Why both introverts and extroverts make good fundraisers Guest Information: Sabrina Walker Hernandez is the President & CEO of Supporting World Hope. She has over 25 years of experience in nonprofit management, fundraising, and leadership. One of Sabrina’s greatest successes is that she increased operation revenue from $750,000 to $2.5 million over an 8-year period as well as being responsible for the planning and operations of a $12 million comprehensive capital campaign in the 3rd poorest county in the United States. She has also facilitated numerous workshops with hundreds of nonprofit professionals and is a master trainer for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Sabrina is certified in Nonprofit Management by Harvard Business School. She is an active community leader and volunteer in Edinburg, Texas where she is based. Important Guest Links:
Carol Hamilton: My guest today on Mission Impact is Sabrina Walker Hernandez. Sabrina is the President & CEO of Supporting World Hope. She has over 25 years of experience in nonprofit management, fundraising, and leadership. Mission Impact is the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I’m Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. On this podcast we explore how to make your organization more effective and innovative. We dig into how to build organizational cultures where your work in the world is aligned with how you work together as staff, board members and volunteers. All of this is for the purpose of creating greater mission impact. Sabrina and I talk about some fundraising fundamentals. We talk about what makes fundraising so scary – especially the ask – and why the ask is actually only 5 percent of the process. The first part of the cycle is identifying and qualifying potential donors, and then the most important part is cultivation or building relationships. And then ultimately it comes to the ask. And then thanking the donor – the way they want to be thanked! But a lot of the work is the fun work of getting to know people and getting to know whether they would be excited about your mission. We talk about why both extroverts and introverts can make great fundraisers as well as why it is so important to remember that you are not asking for the money for yourself – it is for the mission you are working towards and the people your organization works with. Welcome Sabrina. It's great to have you on the podcast. Sabrina Walker Hernandez: Thank you for having me here. I'm excited about our conversation. Carol: So to get us started what drew you to the work you do? What, what motivates you and what would you describe as your why? Sabrina: Well, I, as I thought about that question it really amazes me that it goes back to childhood. My mom was a missionary in the church and we grew up really doing service projects in the community through the church. And now, in retrospect, I realized that it really had an impact on my life. When I was drying up, I thought I wanted to be an attorney. And so I went to college, did pre law But then I'm going to intern with a non-profit and I realized that being an attorney did not give me any joy. I did an internship with this nonprofit called advocacy resource center for housing. And I had to mediate between landlords and tenants who were being evicted. And I got to work with a lot of attorneys and the way attorneys work is there is no. Right way or wrong way. There is only the law. And I discovered that in that process, and I realized I didn't want to be an attorney, but really what spoke to my heart? What reminded me of my childhood, what reminded me of what my mom taught me was working on the non-profit side. So since that day I have been hooked on this journey. Carol: And we're certainly grateful for all the work that lawyers do, especially in policy and helping laws get revised, et cetera. But I love the, your, your point about it. Didn't bring me joy, like, okay. How do you “Marie Kondo” your career and the fact that you did it from the very beginning from your very first. Job and an internship that really was a pivotal moment for you. I'd love that. Yes. Sabrina: Save me a lot of time and a lot of money. Let me just say right. Carol: I mean, to have done it before, you're going to law school yeah. Too many people wake up 10 years later and go wait a second. What am I doing? Sabrina: Exactly. So I'm very, very appreciative of the process. Carol: Yes. Yes, definitely. So you focus on helping non-profits be more successful in their fundraising efforts and a lot of folks when they're new to the sector, whether they're staff or a staff leader or board member, and probably myself too - I'm not a fundraising person - are afraid of fundraising. They don't want to ask people for money. It feels awkward. What helps make it feel less scary for folks? Sabrina: Well, I think helping people understand that the fundraising process is more than making the ask. The ask is only about 5% of the fundraising process. And so I tell people don't let that 5%, Deter you from, from the whole thing. So 20% of fundraising is really identifying and qualifying who the donors are, do these donors, does my mission resonate with them? Are they passionate about kids - if I happen to service kids. Are they passionate about animals or the homeless or. Whatever it is your non-profit does. And then saying, okay, if they're passionate about my cause now, do they have the ability to financially support my calls? And then once you identify it, that's like 20% of the fundraising process. So now you have your list of the names of people who, having an affinity to origin of mission and have the ability to give towards your mission the next 60%. And that's the highest percentage of the pie, 60% is cultivation and cultivation is building relationships. And personally, I like that. People and I like building relationships. So building relationships means taking them out to lunch. It means picking up the phone and checking on them. It means inviting them to an event, and making sure that you connect with them at that event. It's inviting them in to volunteer for a specific program or having them come in on a tour of your nonprofit. That's the part that I really like and stuff. I really appreciate that as 60% of the fundraising process. Because if you are a social butterfly, you really like that part. Even if you're not a social butterfly, my introverts also Excel at that part because they actually listen. They can build those relationships and they remember those details. And then 5% is the ask and that's. Oh, it is. And then most of the time, especially with board members, I always say a lot of board members are not going to feel comfortable with the ask, even that 5%. So I always say board members come along with me on the visit for the ask. But what I want you to do is be there to land credibility, because you are a volunteer and. They know that you are volunteering your time. Whereas I'm a staff person. I get paid to do this job. I get paid to perform this mission. So I will make the ask, even if it still makes me nervous, even if that 5% still makes me nervous and it does 20 something years later I will do that part. And uttering that phrase. Will you consider a gift of $10,000 to our ABC nonprofit? Once you say that. You be silent. Right. And I always say the first person who speaks, loses so just be silent. And then beyond that, 15% is thanking, thanking the donor, making sure they understand the impact that their money provided, making sure they understand how that program affected individuals in your clientele roster? So that's the whole fundraising process and I think people still get a little caught up on that 5%. Like I said, I still get nervous, but one of the mantras that I would tell myself before I went into any fundraising ask, It was always, this is not for me. This is not for Sabrina. This is for the kids that I serve because I worked in a youth serving organization. This is for the kids that I serve. They deserve to have the best. They deserve to have opportunities. They deserve to have hope. And you're going in here on their behalf because they cannot. Speak for themselves. So I remove myself from the conversation because all of that nervousness and fear is really about self and you're not there for yourself. You're there for your client. And for those that, you're the reason why you are in this mission. The reason why, if you're a founder, why you started this. So that's one of the mantras that I tell myself as I go into the room. That's a great reminder. Cause it, all, yeah, all that nervousness and how will, how will it come across and what will they, is all caught up in, what will they think of me? And, and so, yeah. So removing yourself out of the equation, reminding yourself, going back to the original question of why do you do this work? Why, what motivates you? Why did you choose to work in this particular organization? All of those things to reconnect you with the mission. Carol: That is what the person's contributing to anyway, right? Yeah, they may be handing it to you. It may be in the, in the, in the before times, but they're, they're really about supporting that organization and the work it's doing. So you talked about different percentages and the first one being identifying and qualifying possible donors. For someone who's getting started in this. Maybe they've had some, most organizations will be doing something around fundraising, but maybe they haven't really been strategic about it or been really super intentional. Where would you S what, where would you say you should start in terms of thinking about who might be those folks that ultimately would end up on that list to start being qualified as donors. Sabrina: So one of the exercises that I like to do is I like to do this thing called a list generator. They have the circle of influence and the circle or the sphere of influence. And the sphere of influence is where you draw a little circle and it's you, and then you put spokes off and you identify like. People that, that one for me, doesn't give me enough details. I happen to serve on a board of directors and it is really funny because of my experience in nonprofit. And that's one of the things that I did was like, okay, so we need to we, we, we have this event coming up and we need to get some sponsors. So can you write down different people? And my mind went totally. Blank. And I thought this is how board members feel. Got it. Got it. So it's always nice to have a tool called a list generator. And this list generator is a tool that I use in his front and his back. And basically it says name two people that you are in a service club with name to people that you attend church with name two people that are in law enforcement. Name two people that are elected officials and the list goes on and on and on. And so about the time you finished with that list, you have about 25 names, right? And so then from that 25 names, you can narrow it down and say, okay, of these people who have an affinity towards this mission, who do I think our mission resonates with. So that's one of the ways that you can do it. And then another way that I like to do it once you have those names, I still read the newspaper and I still look at magazines and things like that. And a lot of times non-profits will do the, thank you, post an event and I still scour those and I still look at them and see, okay, who sponsored this event, who, who who's involved in this, because that also helps me generate names and not only generate names, it helps with the affinity part because now not only do I have their name and it might be a name that's on my list. But I also know that they have the ability to give and they, and they have given in the past. So I use those two methods and I encourage boards to use those methods because even if you only have three board members, if it's three board members and you each walk away with 25 names, that's 75 people that you have to vet and go through. And so that's a good pool of people. And if you're lucky to have a CRM system, then I say, go to your CRM system and see who your last donors were, who were your most loyal donors, who's giving the longest and start from that process. Carol: CRM being customer relations, management, and database thing. One thing that I loved about how you described that process is how you made it so concrete instead of just a blank sheet of paper, and think of the people you gave us all sorts of different categories. And even if someone didn't have two people to put in one specific category that would probably get them to think. Let's say, I don't know anyone in law enforcement, but I think who else works with law enforcement, but I know, this person who is the head of the hospital or whatever it might be in the community, it really, by being concrete, you help people spark the ideas and, and. shift out of that. Sabrina: I had a blank piece of paper and what am I supposed to do with it? And then what is funny because this, that was my first thought as a board member, I couldn't believe it. And then you also have those that think, well, I don't, you tell them to give names and you talk about fundraising or sponsorships. And one of the first thoughts is also, well, I don't know anybody that's rich, or I don't know, I don't know anyone or, but when you give them that piece of paper with some ideas on it, it starts to generate another conversation and you start to put people on there that you hadn't even thought of. So it's good to give board members and staff members only about staff members. If you have staff members you can go through that process with them as well. Carol: And you said the next, the next really, and the biggest chunk of the whole process is the cultivation process. And when people hear relationship building and they hear cultivation, they think, oh, but it's all about fundraising. They may still feel a little anxious about it. Well, is this really just transactional? And am I just trying to get something out of someone? So how do you help people really be authentic and how they're building relationships with folks? Sabrina: It's funny that you asked that question because I had someone to ask that question as well, and I told them, look, you're a nonprofit. They already know you're coming. Yeah, there is no way around it. Just accept that they know that you're a non-profit and that's not a bad thing. I said people should have one or two reactions when they see you. If you're working with a nonprofit, they should like, oh my God, here, she comes. She's going to ask me for something or, oh my God, here she comes. Let me think about what I can give her. Those are these reactions because they should have. It's not a bad thing again, because you're not asking. Meaning for yourself, they are truly identifying you with the mission of the organization in the night. Oh my God, here she comes. What is she gonna ask me for, for herself? It's like, what is she going to ask me for, for her organization? And so it really is As a nonprofit, they genuinely know that you are in the fundraising business. They know that you are developing a relationship with them in order to not as a genuine relationship, but it's also in order to support the work that you do. And I've had some very great relationships that have developed through that process. In 2018, I got diagnosed with cancer and I had been working with my organization for about 20 years and all of my donors came together. These people that I had built relationships with over time and they all pulled together and they sent me a $20,000 check and I did not ask for that. And that was for Sabrina to help with her medical bills. And that was because of their relationships that I had built with them. But when I go out and I take donors, potential donors out and get to know them, it's not necessarily always talking about the organization. It really is learning about their family, learning what they're passionate about, learning about their career. But not what college date they went to, trying to find some of those common grounds? I just enjoy learning about people. And I think that if you go to the table with that in mind, I want to learn about you as a person, then that will also come across. it's not, I want to learn about you as a person, just so you can support me. My nonprofit, most of the time, what I do is, and I guess maybe this is some tricks, not tricks, but this is, this is some things that I've done that have helped bridge that. So if I invite you out for lunch, I'm going to pay, I don't care if you're worth millions of dollars. That doesn't matter to me. I am going to pay because I extended the invitation to you. The other one is If I, if I am listening and I realize, oh, this person collects horses or this person collects shoes or whatever it is, if I'm out of town or if I see something that I think you might like, I will buy that for you and I will make sure that you get it right. So it's those little things like that. And also another thing that I do is I always go to the table to see how I can be of service first. That is a G that is a true key to it. How can I be a service to this person first? And lots of times that really smooth the process because when I'm at a mixer or I go to lunch with somebody, I'm, I'm constantly listening to what it is that they're doing and what they're passionate about. And I see how I can be a service to them. Carol: I love that point about listening and really keying into, what's important to them looking at thinking about it from their point of view, what are, what are other interests that they have that, that you can, and then to remember those right, and, and to take the time, be thoughtful enough to. As you said, if you're, if you see something or send them something related to that, so that they know that you, that you care and you took the time to, to pay attention to them as an, as a unique individual. Sabrina: Yes. Yes. Even if they don't give, you can spend a lot of time and cultivation and ultimately they might not be in alignment for them. That's okay. You do not sever the relationship. You continue with the relationship because there, your relationship is with that person, not with their ATM card. No, that's very important to remember Carol: For sure. One thing that's interesting from your background is that I think a lot of people think, well, fundraising is easy in New York or Silicon valley where there's these massive cons for DC, I'm in the DC area. Were these, just these massive concentrations of wealth. But you spearheaded a really large comprehensive capital campaign in one of the poorest counties in the U S so I'm curious how you were able to be successful in that situation. Sabrina: Well, I God, That's what I say, but no, it was, it really was having the right people on the, on the bus and having the right team behind you. So, it was really interesting with that $12 million capital campaign. I had a board of about 17. Board members. But my capital campaign was really five people. And four of them were not board members. I had one board member that was on that capital campaign committee. But the other four people were really just the good team identifying those in the community that were already very, very philanthropic. Right. So having those people and cultivating those people. It took about a couple years to cultivate those people and, and make them aware of who we were and make them aware of our services. And so we started out, inviting them in, on a tour going in and with a board member and, and making introductions and talking to them, joining some of the same social clubs that they joined, a lot of them. Two of them, half of them, were Rotarians. So joining the rotary club and getting really active there so that they could see the work ethics so they can learn who you are as well. So it took about two years to cultivate that team of people that I really wanted to have as the capital campaign committee. And so that, that was really how we, how it was done. It was thinking very strategically. And saying, okay, who do I want? As my capital campaign team, and I had to look and see who, when you think of especially in a small community, when you think of philanthropy in that community, What name keeps rising up over and over and over again. Now having said that, that everybody is after those same people, right? So now how do you set yourself apart from everybody else? And, and that was one of the strategies, cultivate them, invite them in, but also be in the same circle that they're in. Again, if they're heavily involved in rotary, you get involved in rotary. If they're heavily involved in the chamber, you'll get involved in the chamber. It's almost like social stalking. But it is so that they get to know you on a whole nother level. Carol: Right. Because they're looking for your competence. Do they have confidence in you that you can talk about a wonderful mission and it sounds great, but do they, do they trust that you'll be able to make that vision happen? I do a lot of strategic planning and of course organizations are oftentimes through a process coming up with a big vision that then they're like, oops, how are we going to, how are we going to fund this? So What, what do you say in terms of getting started in terms, just in terms of building a fundraising strategy, you talked about the different phases, but I'm wondering about what some of the first steps for coming up with a good plan are? Sabrina: So I think one of the first steps of coming up with a good plan is it's always amazing to me. How many nonprofits, especially the newer nonprofits now just winging it as far as the budget is concerned. And so I'm like, look guys, It's a guesstimation, especially in your first year, right? It is how much revenue do you anticipate bringing in and breaking that down as in. Okay, so I'm going to do a peer to peer campaign and it's going to bring in this much, I'm going to do an event and it's going to bring in this much. I'm going to budget this much for grants. Okay. Okay. And then have your expenses. The expenses are generally a little bit more concrete than that than your revenues, right? So what your expenses are, and then you're going to work your butt off to hit those revenues. And if you don't hit those revenues, then you have to adjust your expenses. Something has to go. So having an operating budget in place would be one of the first strategies that I say that you need to have. And then beyond that, I think that Nonprofits need to be innovative in their pursuit of different revenues. And when I say innovative I hate that nonprofits get on that specially vent wheel. I want them to get off that wheel so bad of jumping from one event to the next event. To the next event, because that's really not getting you anywhere, especially about a time you factor in hours, board, our staff hours, all of these things. So I always tell them to have maybe two signature events figure out what your signature events are. And the first year, of course, you're not gonna. Raise a huge amount. But as you, as you move forward, you will improve the event and you will continue around the innovation specifically, though. I think that people need to look at social enterprise. They need to be looked at, depending on what state you’re in, and of course I'm in the great state of Texas and we're a little bit more loosey goosey down. Yeah. Y'all seen our rules, they got that tight on. So we can do a lot more things than others. look at bingo revenue. Look at, like I said, a social enterprise looking at how you can do some type of business partnership as well. As far as sharing the credit. And that's when businesses can designate a part of their credit card processing fees to a nonprofit. So look and be innovative, explore some of those innovative things that you can do that will help you towards your revenue. So don't get stuck in the traditional and the mundane because that traditional, most of the time, people. We'll go to the special event and Vince can be very straining on time and on budget. Carol: Yeah. And, and off too often, I think Organizations, if they really factor in all the work that goes into producing that event they may have had a nice number on their gross revenue raised, but the net doesn't look as pretty, Sabrina: It does not look as pretty, especially by the time you factor in all those hours. Yeah. So yeah. I would do no more than two signature events, if I can get anything out there, no more than two signature events, that's it. Carol: So in the last year, obviously a lot of fundraisers have really relied on those face to face events. And of course, couldn't, couldn't do those. What kinds of innovations have you seen over the past year as people have had to pivot. Sabrina: Well, I've seen I attended a lot of virtual events. Of course I attended them just kind of, I guess I'm a stalker. I stopped a lot of virtual events. And I saw people do some really creative things. I think some type of hybrid events are here to stay. I hope they're here to stay because they're less, the cost is less to put on a virtual event and you can still even engage. If a celebrity, if that's who you want to engage, you can engage them. At a much lower cost because it is virtual and there's no flight involved. There's no hotel involved. It might be a discount, a speaking fee because it is virtual. I saw one local nonprofit that raised money for scholarships. They actually bought in a comedian from Saturday night, live home. Yes. And I thought that that was. Great. Cause it's kinda right there, you live where you get to laugh, you get to the end. And not only that, they also partnered with the local restaurant so that everybody received the delivery of some wine and like let's just say wine and a meal. So everybody was enjoying their wine and meal at home while they got to listen to this comedian. And I thought that that was good. I liked the concerts as well. So things like that. I think that hybrid is, like I said, I think that some form of hybrid is here to stay. As long as the donors will support it. I tend to appreciate not having to get up off my couch and go somewhere. That's just me though. So we'll see how it goes. But I will say at the same time, just this past week I went to two different events. Because even though I enjoy the virtual world, there is something about getting out, people are ready to get out. But I think that the pendulum has swung and it will come back to where you can do some hybrid things that people are very used to now. Carol: Yeah. Even before I'm thinking of this, it wasn't a fundraising event, but it was a conference where I was on staff with the organization and it was a big conference and they had a fair, a good budget for, for really. Premiere speakers and, one year the person that they had lined up something happened either with their travel or something with their family. They weren't able to show up. They got them on the equivalent of zoom at that time. That was several years ago, and had them up on the big screen. And honestly, because it was such a big event for most people, they were looking at the JumboTron, you, even if the person was in the front of the room, if they had been in front of the room. Sabrina: So, they probably had a better seat. Carol: They probably had a better view? And it had a different feel. Yeah. It was very interesting to see. So yeah, it gives you, it gives you access. So even if all of your local people, you want to have come and gather and be able to socialize face to face, if you think about that, you can. You could. potentially pull in someone with a little higher profile that you wouldn't be able to afford normally. Sabrina: Exactly. Yes. And they wouldn't say yes. And then on top of that, you will also put a pool in some additional donors. Like I said, I attended a lot of virtual events and none of them were necessarily in my backyard. They were on the east coast or west coast or somewhere in between. And I would not have had that opportunity to do that, had it not been virtual. So I think it's a good thing. I hope it is here to stay. Like I said, I hope it's here to stay only because of the cost factor for nonprofits and saving on the staff hours and, and all those things that go into those events I think would be a good thing for nonprofits. And I think, I had a donor that used to tell me, don't buy me that plat, that just put the money towards the mission. I hope that at some point we will. donors will say, what, y'all need to hold that in-person event. Let's do this hybrid to save some money for the mission. it might become a standard like that. So we'll just have to wait and see, the world is constantly changing. So we just go with, go with the flow. Carol: Yeah. And I mean, having produced a lot of virtual events, not necessarily fundraising events, I wouldn't want. Organizations to, to think, I think from an hours point of view, it's pretty equal in terms of the planning and all of that, that has to go into it. But the direct cost is substantially different. Cause you're so right. You may cater from a restaurant, have people deliver some food, but. you're not paying for hotel space in a ballroom and all of that. So yeah. Sabrina: Yeah, so that directs their direct cost which is a lot less, the centerpiece is the linen, the napkins, the plates, Carol: You don't have to worry about it. Sabrina: And then the cleanup afterwards, God forbid, you don't have to deal with any of that. Carol: At the end of each episode, I play a game where I ask folks one icebreaker question. I've got one for you here. Okay. If you could be famous, what would you want to be famous for? Sabrina: if I could be famous what would I want to be? If I could be famous, I would want to be famous for curing cancer because I've had that journey. And I know a lot of people who are having that journey and it's not something I wish on my worst enemy. So it would, it just seems like it seems like more and more people are having that experience. And I think that that would really truly impact the world in a positive way. Carol: It sure would, no doubt. No doubt about it. What are you excited about? What's coming up for you in your work? What's emerging? Sabrina: What's coming up for me and my work is, I am in October holding a summit and I will be launching that pretty soon, but what I really want people to, to, to leave with people is to join my Facebook group is called nonprofit professionals exchange. And I live there every Thursday. And I do like 30 minutes to an hour coaching, free coaching based on the questions that they post in the group. So again, and I share in that group, I share a lot of free content. And every day at two o'clock in my group, a free tool pops up every day. No doubt about it. There is a free tool out there. I remember being a CEO of an organization and not having time to research because you're wearing so many hats. So that's one of the reasons why I started this group. I'm going to do the research for you. Here you go, come to one central location, find that, that information. So you don't have to go down. I call it the Google rabbit hole. You don't have to go down the Google rabbit hole. Carol: We'll put a link in the show notes to that group so people can find it. And that's, and as you talked about, I mean, you talked about from the beginning what got you into this work was an ethic of service and approaching fundraising from that point of view, and then sounds like how you're approaching this work as well. So I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Well, thanks a lot. It's been great talking to you. Thank you. I appreciated how Sabrina reflected on her experience as a board member and how that experience made her a better fundraising consultant. When she was asked to ‘think of 20 people’ to reach out to – she went blank. So now instead when she is working with a board, she has very specific prompts that help spark people’s thinking. I also appreciated her point – that when you are with a nonprofit and you are getting in touch with people in the community – they know….they know you have to fundraise and if they are working on connecting with you and building a relationship that part of it will be about how you might be able to support the work of the organization. They know you are coming! So with that in mind, it is easier to put that concern aside. Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Sabrina Walker Hernandez as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Nora Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as April Koester of 100 Ninjas for her production support. If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a colleague or friend. We appreciate you helping us get the word out. Until next time! ![]() In episode 11 of Mission: Impact, some of the topics that Carol and her guest, Nyacko Perry, discussed include:
Additional Resources:
Boardsource 2017 research on the demographics of nonprofit boards. Leading with Intent. Guest Information: Nyacko Perry utilizes a systems-thinking approach to assist individuals, community groups, and organizations, in creating more inclusive cultures. Her decade long career as a transformational change agent includes national and international facilitation with non-profit, corporate, and government agencies. Nyacko is the founder of Yin Consulting, a collaborative focused on personal, organizational and systemic healing. She is the Organization Development Partner at the much-anticipated Comfort Kitchen, a restaurant, community meeting space, and a food incubator dedicated to fostering collaboration, cross-cultural understanding, and community engagement. Nyacko also serves as a member of the Advisory Board for the Action Boston Community Development, Inc. Roxbury/N. Dorchester Opportunity Center. Nyacko holds an M.S. in Organization Development, with distinction, from American University. She is also a 500-hour professional level yoga teacher, an Afro Flow Yoga® certified teacher, and weaves her mindfulness expertise into her consulting work. Links:
Interview Transcript: Carol Hamilton: Welcome Nyacko, it’s great to have you on the podcast. Nyacko Perry: Thank you, Carol. I'm excited to be here. Carol: So, give people some context, what drew you to the work that you do? What would you say is the journey or the path that got you to where you are now? Nyacko: That is quite the question. Just for background, I do mostly organizational healings. I'm interested in the wellbeing of people at work, and ultimately doing a process of healing. So addressing and having accountability around some of the past experiences, and making a path forward so that people can feel safe and be the most productive people they can be at work. What brought me to that is quite a journey. I come from a yoga background to start. I was very invested in healing in that regard. Healing for myself, and first for taking care of myself, taking care of my body and my mind, and that quickly grew into ‘how do I facilitate this for other people?’ So I've been a yoga teacher for several years, and after being a yoga teacher for several years, I left and became a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana for two years. That experience was the most eye-opening, incredible experience of my life, both exciting and awesome, but also painful and different. Through that experience, I was working with a lot of Government Agencies. I was based in a local village and there were three local schools that I was supporting with what we would consider life skills, which were mostly around the spread of HIV and making sure that the curriculum invested in that and making sure that the students understood what HIV was and how it was transmitted and so forth. Through that experience, I found that one, I fell in love with my community. I also got rather disillusioned from some of the institutions that were located there, both the nonprofits, as well as some of the government agencies I was working with. Unfortunately, their approach was ultimately, numbers, very numbers based, very centric towards, ‘you know, what are we doing and how is this making us look good?’ and it really didn't resonate with me. So I had a big internal process going on because I felt like there's so much potential to do our full work if you are in collaboration with the community, if you are really acknowledging how they want to go about their own process of doing this powerful change within their system. I became very interested in that, both during my Peace Corps service, but then afterwards, of course. so after that time of being with them, I thought, ‘okay, more so than actually doing direct service, I'm very interested in the systems that hold this direct service. So, that's where I started and looked into the American program that I believe we both did Carol. Then, going through the master's program became very interested in how to bring back this healing component and this idea around people's wellbeing at work. So all of these different parts of my identity and my experience came together through the master's program. I actually had the pleasure of thinking about a theory around organizational healing from the lens of the chakra system. The chakra system is basically energy centers that live within the body. They're known in yogic philosophy, they're also known in African practices and traditions as well. I was very interested in considering organizations to be human systems, then how do we apply all of these theories we have about the human experience in the context of work? So that's how I got into all of the things that I got into. Carol: That's awesome. Say more about your organizational theory of healing and, how do you define that, and can you dig into a little bit more about how the theory shows up when you're doing work with groups. Nyacko: Absolutely. For me, I'm a very feeling person, so the first thing that I do when I go into an organizational system is I'm like, what do I feel inside? Do I feel tension? Do I feel joy? Do I feel like apprehension? and so I very much come from an emotional place and healing. What I consider healing is being in touch [with] emotions, but healing takes many, many shapes and forms. So from my perspective, it's really about accountability. I think that's where healing can truly come through. So if an organization gets data that says ‘actually you have been unfair or you have done some things that have caused harm,’ acknowledging that, and really making that be part of the next strategy. [Saying,] we've heard you, we're going to make shifts. We're going to acknowledge what we've done that has caused harm. We're going to actually make some shifts and involve you in that change process. That's what I consider to be healing, but what I've noticed through the work is that every organization will bring about healing in their own way. For some people, healing can be messy, it can be tough. It's where the leader, for example, has to really take in all of the feedback, and sometimes that within itself is like, ‘ah, that hurts.’ or, I had no intention of doing that. I think this is something that happens all the time where the leader has a very different experience from those that are on the lower levels of the system. I didn't realize that making this pay cut and making this particular shift had an actual emotional effect on your life and your ability to come to work and to thrive. I didn't realize that. So there's a lot of acknowledging what's gone wrong, but it can honestly be a messy process I've found, but I think for me, it's really about how we create a safe container where people can be honest, and that is usually the first step in a system. A lot of times when I go in, it's very clear to me that nobody's going to really say how they feel, because there's such tension, there's such a tightness and so I open the floodgates, but then the floodgates are open and who knows what could happen. Usually it ends up pretty well. Carol: Can you say a little bit more about what you mean by creating a container? Nyacko: Yeah, even in how I practice. So if I'm leading a group, the first thing I do is a check-in. For some systems, that's very normal behavior, checking in [with] ‘how is everybody?’ and when we're checking in, we're not just checking in on ‘how was work today,’ but [also,] ‘how are you?’ and from a facilitator perspective, I want to understand if somebody is coming in with stress, with some tension, with something that's going to influence how they're showing up here. So that gives me more of a background of what's going on. So, one thing is check-ins, which for some systems is radical transforming where people are like, ‘wait, you're asking me how I am versus how productive I was today?!’ It can be a jarring shift. So I think that that's the first step for me in terms of setting a container. Starting with, of course, the check-in, but also in how I'm holding the space. I'm not intending to be an authority when I hold space, which for some people is difficult. Because they're like, just tell me what to do and also, this is what I consider to be presence, you know, you're a boss and you come in and you tell us how to do things. So I come in with a radical, different way, which is: ‘hi, I'm here. I'm interested in how you feel.’ I want to support you in this process, I'm not an authority, I hope you feel safe here. So that's how I show up and that really opens where people are like, ‘oh, whoa. I can talk to her,’ especially when it comes down to the data collection process, I tend to do very well in that area because people feel more comfortable with how I show up and how I hold space. Like I was saying, there is this other extreme where for some people they're like, ‘I don't get it. Why isn't she doing it how I'm used to seeing,’ not to mention, I also don't always look like what people consider a consultant. They're like, ‘Oh, wow, you're young and black and have all these other parts of your identity that I’m not sure about. How do I make sense of you?’ I think that's also a strength that I have. I look different, I represent something different, I show up differently intentionally, and that helps to set a container for people to feel safe. Carol: You talked about the messiness of the process. I think too often, people are lulled into the idea that if they do this seven-step process, we're gonna manage change, it's going to happen exactly the way we want it to. I often cringe when I hear the word change management, because to me it creates this illusion that it’s all manageable. Certainly you create processes to help people move through it, but it doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. There might be uncomfortable parts, but those are necessary if you're really going to dig into the real issues that organizations face. Nyacko: Absolutely, it makes me think a lot about Bridges theory. Just that in between when you're trying to mitigate the change process, you actually have to consider that there's this in-between from what you were, to what you're going to be. That middle space is going to determine whether or not you're actually successful and you need to use it, work on that, and think about how your employees are actually talking and feeling throughout this change process, especially for those that are like, ‘oh, we just let go half of our staff and we're merging with a totally different company and we have to completely change our culture.’ There are two cultures that are somehow supposed to merge together. There's going to be so much messiness, and even just acknowledging that and holding space for that in-between, is so necessary. Carol: Yeah. That theory that you mentioned, William Bridges does a lot of work on transitions. When I'm trying to explain that to people, I often say that in our American, White-dominated culture we always want to be onto the next thing. So we want to go from point A to point C and forget this in-between space where we're not quite there, not quite here, not where we were, but not quite there yet. I think everyone's feeling that right now in the midst of the pandemic or in this massive in-between space and the discomfort that that creates with folks. Nyacko: Yeah, it's quite eye-opening for all of us and even organizations, how they respond to the pandemic, and it seems like there has to be more attention to the employee experience outside of just how they are in terms of productivity, but how are they? Carol: You talk about how radical that can be, to ask folks how they're doing. I was talking to a colleague at the beginning of the pandemic and she said, ‘my boss is suddenly incredibly vulnerable, and I don't know if I like it.’ This is very not normal! Many believe - if they're not in the sector - they have this idealistic notion of the nonprofit sector that it's shielded from dysfunctional culture and dynamics because of the mission focus and because of that good intention and trying to create change or good work in the world, but in my experience, too many organizations have very admirable missions for change that they want to see. Yet the values that undergird those missions just don't show up inside the organization and how they're treating people. What have you observed within nonprofits that you've worked with? Nyacko: A lot of what I'm seeing is the people that are doing direct service are having a really challenging time - especially around their income, more often than not, they're the least paid person, but they're the people that are dealing with the direct work. Then there's a whole disconnect between the direct service people, and the people that are really high up. The other disconnect in that area is race. Race is something I see very quickly, it's like direct service. That's where all the people of color work, and then as you go up, it's just all white. I find that disturbing, what is that about? Then also in terms of who they serve, more often than not, it's people of color, people that represent a disenfranchised identity, and that's not reflected in the leadership of nonprofits. So, there's just this huge disparity and disconnect that I don't understand and I feel troubled by. Carol: Yeah and it certainly mirrors our wider society, so it's not like the sector at all is separate. It's all within those systems. So can you say more about how you see that culture of white supremacy showing up within the sector? Nyacko: Yeah, it's this idea of helping. This idea of who we think needs help, and more often than not the people who need help are people that represent disenfranchised identities. Why is it that we don't have those [identities] represented in leadership? I see a huge problem in that, but honestly, my friends that are in nonprofit, when I've worked in nonprofit, it's almost like it's normalized where the whole board is white, the whole leadership is white, [so] they don't know what's happening. They're not connected to the actual experience of the people that they're serving, but they get to make the most important, most drastic decisions. The people that are closest to the pain should be closest to the access and closest to helping to make decisions - and I'm pulling from my congresswoman, Ayanna Presley - that's the thing [that] people who are representing the identities should be a part of the solution and should be a part of making those major decisions. I rarely see that, and I think we know statistically, it's not there. I think it's like 0.05%. Carol: Yeah, I don't know the exact stats, but I definitely know I can look them up. BoardSource has done a lot of work on this and [on] measuring and calling for more diversity, and the needle not shifting since they've been measuring it for the last 15-20 years or so. Do you see places where that isn't the case though, where those dynamics have flipped? Nyacko: I mean, probably occasionally but it's also in our structures. Like our structures in general, our businesses are based on white supremacy. All the way from our educational systems, our business structures. I was listening to the 1619 project, I don't know if you've listened to that, it's an amazing piece by the New York Times that really looks into the history of slavery, and also the legacy of slavery. One major piece is that a lot of our business structures are based on how the plantations were run. They had very complex systems. They had middle management and ideas about productivity, and reports about productivity, how to best feed a slave and have them be as efficient as possible. They were extremely successful in that. So much of our wealth in America is based on that piece of our history. So when I think about structures in general, it [makes it] difficult to live in society and to work in any system. The rationale that I tell myself is that I'm here to dismantle and to support the transition and the change. I think it's very important to acknowledge where our structures come from, where our nonprofit structures come from. If these parts of our communities weren’t disenfranchised, we wouldn't have a use for nonprofits. So how is this an industrial complex? How is it that we're dependent on people being in need and perpetuating that? Carol: Then [there’s] the sector being dependent on the little bit of wealth that is put into foundations and then the little bit that they give out each year. Where did all that money originate from? Here we are in a field in terms of organization development that wants to be of service and wants to help. where do you see, you know, how do you see, doing that in a way that does heal rather than doing harm? Nyacko: Step one is acknowledgement, but that's the trickiest part. That's the part where, for example, when George Floyd was murdered, so many people, so many organizations, wrote these very blanketed responses, and there was no accountability in the statement. There was nowhere where we wanted to acknowledge what role we have played in perpetuating this system, and the steps that we want to make to dismantle it, to make some shifts within our organization. It's rare that we see that. We have seen it in some circumstances, but more often than not, there's a resistance that you've been acknowledging it. It's almost like “la-la-la-la, we're good.” When really, just name it. Name it and start there. I think that's step one, and then once that's open, involving everyone in your organization in the process. Knowing that more often than not, the leadership is not fully aware of all of that goes on in the organization, [and] is not fully connected to the people that are being served, lifting up the voices from the rest of the organization, as well as lifting up the voices of people that are being served by the organization and bringing those voices to the forefront and allowing them to help direct whatever change process you're planning to make, I think that that's the first step in healing. Carol: So you also work in the food industry as a partner with a Comfort Kitchen. What type of type of change are you trying to make in that space? Nyacko: First of all, background. Background on Comfort Kitchen - and I know they're going to read a little bit - my husband has been in the food industry for - I should say my spouse - has been in the industry for the last 15 years. He’s also an immigrant from Nepal and he had a terrible time of being someone that has an MBA who’s fully prepared to bring all of his skills to whatever business he was working for, and just being constantly demoralized and disrespected throughout the process. This is not a different story - this is the story. The industry is interested in exploiting people and chooses to target the most vulnerable individuals. So, 70% of restaurant workers are immigrants. and then a large portion of those are undocumented. So it's really vulnerable people that ended up working there. There's a lot of systems that will choose to exploit that. The whole design of the restaurant industry makes no sense. It's not actually a sustainable model, and that's why, when we saw the pandemic hit, most restaurants cannot go two weeks, let alone months, without generating any revenue. It just doesn't work. That's because the margins are small because it's almost impossible to get healthy food that comes from a sustainable source, and to pay your employees well, and actually sell your food at a fair price to your consumer. That's rare to see. So, we would like to try and see if we can build something that is a little bit more sustainable on many levels. [Obviously,] the financial element, but also in how we engage with each other and how we engage with the community. So we're going into a community that I love called Upham’s Corner. It's right up the street from where I live and have lived for many years, and it's a community that has a lot of life. It has a lot of diversity. It's actually one of the most diverse neighborhoods in America. So there's such a need to bring some love and be like, hey, we're here, we want to engage with you. Also with that comes the incredible cultures that are represented. So within my team: my partner is from Nepal, our head chef is from Ghana, his partner is from Portugal, and then we have a teammate from Ethiopia, and then second-generation Nigerian. So we're bringing a lot of different cultures to share within a neighborhood that's incredibly diverse as well. So a big focus for us is cross-cultural understanding. How do we start to see that actually all of these experiences are valuable, important, and also have similarities. One big similarity that we're finding is spices. Because of colonization and the spice trade, but you will find a lot of similar spice profiles across the world. So that feels unifying to us and really what is the forefront for us in terms of our menu and in terms of what we talk about. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to shift it off. Ultimately, because of the pandemic, huge shifts had to be made, and one major part of that is that we are developing a much smaller team, and that's so that we can be sustainable and do things differently. Carol: Well, that sounds awesome. So, in each episode, I play a little game where I just ask one random icebreaker question. So I've got one for you here. What's the best compliment you've ever received? Nyacko: Last night I had a friend over, and she said that I'm very smart and smart in a way that most people don't understand, but she gets it and she sees it. I have really struggled with my intelligence just because I have a learning difference. and so I've gotten messages throughout my life that [I’m] not as smart as other people are. Which are all stories, but when you're young, that can be very much embedded in the way that you think. I love to receive compliments around my intelligence, that feels really good. Thanks for asking. Carol: Yes, absolutely! Without a doubt, you are incredibly insightful, smart, intelligent, and delightful. Nyacko: Thank you very much! Carol: So what are you excited about? What's coming up next? What's emerging in your work? Nyacko: I mean, my consulting work is going well, especially because I think people are aware they need to tap into their emotions and address some of these past harms and make some transitions. So [I’m] definitely feeling busy in that regard, which feels really good. Also we have a project coming up called All-In Consulting. I know you've probably mentioned it in other episodes and the other times that you've had people on, but I'm very excited about that. This idea of having a collaboration of people that are committed to doing specifically DEI differently - diversity, equity and inclusion - differently. That to me feels like home. I feel like I'm at home in our network and our communities. So that is very, very exciting to me. Then Comfort Kitchen is coming, we have a ways to go, but 2021, probably around March-April is when we're thinking. So just plugging away on that as well and excited because I'm going to take my first vacation next week. Carol: Awesome. That is part of personal organizational wellbeing that people take time off, prioritize that and really unplug. I'm a big believer - maybe ‘cause I grew up in Europe, I'm used to longer vacations and I think that's a way to go. Thi American idea that you can get away with as little time off as possible, it's just not living. It doesn't work. So how can people know more about you and get in touch? Nyacko: Sure thing. You can check out my website at yinconsulting.com. That's Y-I-N consulting dot com. You can also learn about Comfort Kitchen, we’re comfortkitchenbos@gmail.com. Then if you are an Instagram person, comfortkitchenBOS is our name on Insta. So you can check us out there as well. Carol: Alright, well, thank you so much. It was great having you on. Nyacko: Of course. Thank you, it was awesome. ![]() Episode 10: This week we’re talking to Heather Yandow. We talked about: • What gets in the way of nonprofits hiring consultants successfully. • Why an RFP process is often not the best approach to having a great experience with a consultant. • The trends we are observing in this time of disruption. Scenario Planning: An article describing the process from MIT Sloan management school Heather Yandow brings more than 20 years of experience as an outreach coordinator, coalition leader, project manager, and fundraiser to Third Space Studio. She helps organizations with strategic planning, board development, change management, leadership development, and going from good to great. She has also served on the Board of Directors of Democracy NC, ncyt: NC’s Network of Young Nonprofit Professionals, and the Beehive Collective (a giving circle). She is also the founder of Nonprofit.ist, an online platform for nonprofits to find the consulting expertise they need. Links: www.nonprofit.ist/ www.linkedin.com/in/heatheryandow/ www.thirdspacestudio.com/ Sponsored by Grace Social Sector Consulting. http://www.gracesocialsector.com/ Learn about the Effective Online Facilitation, 4 week group coaching program. http://www.gracesocialsector.com/effective-online-facilitation.html Interview Transcript Carol: Welcome Heather. Welcome to the podcast. Heather: Thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Carol: So just to give people some context. Can you tell me a little bit about what drew you to this work and describe your journey? Heather: Yeah, so I started this work when I, when I kind of dig back into what really prompted it, I think about my parents always engaged in the community and that's just what I knew to do. So when I went to college I was really engaged in lots of different social activism there. I was part of the environmental group on campus. I helped to start a feminist group on campus and really loved that and thought I was going to be a math teacher. I studied mathematics and thought that was my path. And then really started thinking about what if I could do all of this fun activism stuff as a career, and got really lucky and found that the statewide environment, because C group was hiring what they called it at the time an outreach coordinator, which was basically doing a lot of the same stuff I had kind of trained myself to do while I was in school. And I did that work for a couple of years. And then they offered me to be the director of development and communications. So I got to move into that position and got a lot of great training and support and learned really how to do the fundraising. After seven years of doing fundraising, I still do it in my volunteer work, but decided I didn't want to do it full time. And that's when I transitioned into being a consultant. And so I've done that work for about 10 years now. And I do strategic planning, leadership development, meeting design and facilitation work. Carol: So funny that you said your original idea was to be a math teacher. Cause my first notion was that I was going to be a history professor and then did my senior thesis in college and discovered as I was in the archives of the library, reading these, I did a thesis on women, kind of the parenting things that were told to women in Germany, in the late 1800’s. And so reading these old magazines and discovered that I had a wicked allergy to mold. And so spending my life in archives was not going to be my future. So then I had to figure out what's next. Heather: I love that. Yeah. It's one of my favorite questions. When I meet people who were in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, what did you major in? Because most of the time, people are not doing the work that they studied to do, particularly folks like us who were in nonprofits or as consultants. Carol: I did discover anthropology in the last year and I feel like what I do now is essentially applied anthropology. All the, you know, Interviews that we do with people and the discovery and kind of seeing how groups work and seeing how culture shows up in organizations. So that's the connection that I have. Heather: Absolutely. Absolutely. Carol: So one of the things that you have started recently is an online platform to help nonprofits find consultants. And I feel like nonprofits often struggle when they think about hiring consultants. What do you think gets in the way? Heather: I think a couple of things get in the way. One is just not knowing where to find people. So I actually started nonprofits just in part, because I get a lot of requests from past clients and friends asking who do you know that does X, Y, and Z. Who do you know that has a background in mergers that also knows a lot about land trusts. Well, that's a very specific subset of people. Yeah. So if you're a nonprofit leader, you may have a few connections, but you might not have a broad enough network. So you can find the right person who can really help you. Of course cost is often a barrier for organizations. And sometimes organizations that are new to hiring consultants are a little bit surprised by what our fees are that we are a lot of times covering all of our costs and those fees. So you're paying not just what you might pay somebody for a salary, but you're also paying for our benefits and our office space. And all of those overhead costs are included. And then the third piece is that I think organizations often aren't really clear about what they need and why before they get into a first conversation with a consultant. And sometimes I’m wondering whether I find that in those first conversations if the group feels like they've already decided what the solution is going to be. Carol: They think that they know exactly what the challenge is and they think they know what they want. That also can be a challenge and, and having those first conversations gives you an opportunity to essentially kind of find the answer together, if you will. Heather: Yes. Yes. I find that too. If I am sent a request for proposal and there is an 18 month timeline already sketched out with all of the different pieces that they want to include and they've really already mapped it all out. In some ways you're voiding my expertise. I come to this as somebody who understands how to design processes, how to lead groups through difficult decision making, how to set up action plans. So I like you really to partner on that and to co-design. And part of that is really asking questions to get underneath. What, what is the real issue here? So sometimes what we find with organizations, what I find is that. They ask for what they know they can pay for. Right. So we know that right. You can hire somebody to do a one day board retreat. And when you actually, when I get into conversation with somebody about that work, what I discover is they're having significant problems around accountability. Or they've got some folks on their board who they just need to say goodbye to, or they've got some other really big culture problems and they aren't necessarily dealing with those head-on. They want to bring in an outsider, which is me to talk to them about what their roles and responsibilities are. Maybe I do a little bit of assessment and to hope that that magically solves the problem. So, I see that with strategic planning. I see that with fundraising planning, all of that, these things that people know they can search for and find people. And so I often want to ask, want people to ask and consider before they come with those kinds of requests. What's the real challenge you're trying to solve? What's the question behind this fundraising that, that clarity that you're talking about, but even if they don't have it going through the process of you know. We would be asking questions there and that helps a thinking process and helps kind of uncover what else is going on. Carol: And I think even with those simple requests, can you just come facilitate our board retreat? I think there's often a lot of misunderstanding of, you know, just kind of thinking they're hiring a person to just show up on the day and make some magic happen. And of course, in order for that day to be a productive one, you know, you have to spend some time with the group talking to people, doing some upfront discovery so that you are designing a retreat that meets their needs, not just a generic retreat that's not helpful and not a good use of people's time. Heather: Yeah. I have a great relation with an organization I've worked with over a number of years, four or five years ago. I did a board fundraising training. It was really well received. Folks had a great time. We did a little bit of role play about how to do a major donor ask, right everything. When I left that day, I thought that was a great retreat. Well, they called back three years later and asked me to come do another training for their board around fundraising. And as we got into the questions I realized but they were still having the same issue as they were before I did the training. And so, because I had a good relationship, I finally had to say, I don't think the problem is that your board doesn't know how to do that. I don't think they want to do this. And that's a different kind of challenge and a training doesn't always solve that challenge. It's like a board retreat doesn't always solve a challenge or a strategic plan isn't going to suddenly make your founding executive director share power. It can help. Certainly they can be designed in ways that help, but sometimes it's really scratching and getting into the what's the real issue here? What's going on. Carol: Although I do think some of those processes help open the door and give us a safe kind of a safe place to start. So I was working with a group recently that, that did have that founder challenge and, and we were working on a strategic plan and ended up with one and I think, you know, going to give them a good one framework to move some things forward. But the biggest thing that I think it did was create a space where an outsider could compile all the information, talk to everyone back what they said to, to me around these are the things that aren't working. These are the things that are getting in our way and help them have a tough time conversation about what are the roles? What roles do we need to have on staff? What roles do we need to have with the board? Not to say that it's actually, as you said necessarily going to solve that problem, but I think it at least opened the door to where, before that all those conversations were probably happening, you know, pre COVID in the parking lot after a meeting or, you know, when somebody bumps into each other, you know, downtown or whatnot. So it at least gets, yeah, it gets it started up what needs to be probably a much more drawn out intentional process that it's not, you're going to do a strategic plan and it's going to have solved all of these other challenges. Carol: Absolutely. So with that instance where you did the training and you know, and, and that's often what folks will often ask for that, thinking that well, if we just get people to learn how to do the thing, they'll be willing to do it. And especially around fundraising that, I mean, I'm not a fundraising expert, but I certainly see that that can be very intimidating to folks. So when it was actually about not wanting to do it, what were some of the things that you did with the group to help address that challenge? Heather: Well, then you've got to dig a little bit more into what's behind that. Not wanting to do it. And so some of that can be sussed out through some interviews. Some of that is, is some group discussion. One of the best discussion tools for that is actually something Kim Klein is a great fundraising guru, I saw her do, which is a comparison of how we feel when we give money and all of the positive emotions. Right? So when you're able to make a donation to a cause you really care about how does that make you feel? Lists all these great emotions. And then when you ask someone ready to make a donation to a cause that they really care about, how does that make you feel? And oftentimes those are some that have really negative emotions. We have some, we have some shame, we have some anxiety we might have. It's around that. And so then comparing those two and really talking about why those are different and, and where that difference comes from. And, and there's a lot of anthropology, there's a lot of cultural feelings about money and who has it and who can talk about it and how they talk about it. And so really getting folks to, to grapple with that and think about how their own formation around money happened. I think the last piece is making the why really clear. So sure. Board members understand why it's critical for them to do this work. Sometimes I see where organizations are kind of a victim of their own success. So if you've got a super competent executive director and a great development director, and the board says, you know, next year, we're going to raise $5,000 and there's some support around that. And the board just doesn't do it. They only raised $3000, nothing happens and there's no accountability and the organization doesn't shut down. Well, then the board really has not much impetus to do that really uncomfortable thing and actually raise the $5,000. So sometimes there's just getting really clear about this, and there's a number of ways to, to build a little bit more heat into the system, to get folks to move into that place that they think is going to be uncomfortable. And a lot of times folks understand once they get there, it's not. Carol: So with the consulting, hiring practice, what would you say are some mistakes that you think organizations make when they, when they're first doing this? Or you know, even if they've done it before, what gets them, what mistakes do you think are the key ones? Heather: So one of the key ones we've already talked about is really kind of prescribing the answer before you really understand the question. So you already figured out the process, but you don't really know the true why behind it. The stake that I see is not having all of the people in your organization bought in to both your definition or construction of what you want to address. And that there's a need for outside help. So if you think there's a problem with accountability on your board and folks really getting things done, your board chair needs to agree that that is true. And most of your board, hopefully, but at least your board chair and your board chair needs to, we need outside help. Because the last thing that I, as a consultant, want to do is walk into a board meeting where I am not wanted and they don't think they need me. That is not setting anyone up for success. So making sure that all the players involved in that could be staff, board, community members, that we all have a clear and shared understanding of the challenge and the need for help. And then the third thing I would say is that not allocating enough staff resources. And I guess organizational resources in terms of time and attention. So sometimes there's a belief that if we hire a consultant, they're gonna magically go off into their office and create the most beautiful plan that ever was created and come back and present it to us and we're going to approve it and everything's going to be different. And in reality, all the projects I do require significant involvement by members of the worker. Patient, whether that is one-on-one yeah. Time with an executive director, time at a board meeting, background information from staff. There's always a need to get their attention and their time and to really have them be part of the process. So if an organization is at the same time, as we're doing a project, going through a capital campaign, hiring a bunch of people. If they work on elections and it's an election year or a census year, they just don't have the bandwidth. And so really thinking about how to stage those projects so that they can give it their full attention. Carol: Right. Cause the project and the plan and it all needs to be the organizations and I, I go to the point of actually saying no, I'm not going to write your plan for you because if I do that, it's my plan. You know, even if you've been involved in all the conversations and in the meetings and it actually reflects all of your input. Just that act of actually doing the draft yourself makes it yours and you have more commitment to it. And, and clearly involving people. Throughout the process ideally builds that buy in, but yeah, it really is about it being the organization's plan and you're helping them walk through a solid process to get some good outcomes, but it's gotta be, yeah, it's not about, can you go cook us up a strategic plan and come back. That's right. Deliver it. Heather: Do you have any that you'd add to that list? Carol: I have one and then it went, it's gone. It's flown out of my brain. Heather: It'll come back. Carol: It'll come back. Yeah, I think the whole RFP process can also be really problematic because I understand the need to kind of get a couple of different people responding, but even there you, you can still have had conversations with multiple consultants, ask them to put together a proposal based on the conversations without having to go through the strict process of an RFP which I usually think ends up with a different, with a better outcome. Heather: Absolutely. I am anti RFP all the way. I think there's real value in an organization. Getting clarity on, as we already talked about what they need, how much money they might have when they want to do the work. But the process, particularly the very structured. So we put it out on X date. You have until a week later to send us your questions, we will compile them and answer them. We will not be getting, having any conversations in advance of you submitting this proposal. Then we might do an interview or we might just pick you based on the proposal that tends to, to not produce the best results, what you get. There are the people who write the best proposals. It's like applying to college or applying to a job, but only ever looking at the resume. And it doesn't actually tell you what you want to know. And so much of the work that we do as consultants is really about. Does our ethos match our culture, does our vibe match, you know, so you talk about, and I believe this too, that it's the, it is the organization's work to do, and we are there to create the container for them to do it well. Well, that's a real ethos. And if you, as an organization's leader, don't have that too, then that's something we need to assess out early on in the process. So having those conversations and I agree, you know, you can have conversations with five people. It's probably gonna take you less time than developing an RFP, reviewing all the proposals, doing interviews, just pick five people and have conversations and see what happens. Carol: Yeah. And how would you say, how would you advise Executive directors or board chairs as they're kind of going into this process of the kinds of things that they would want to ask consultants or the kinds of things that they need to be looking for as they, you know, not just the proposal, but getting into those conversations and, and maybe even if they do the more formal interview process, what are the kinds of things that you would say are important to pay attention to? Heather: So I think if you, if you've worked with a consultant before, I think back to what worked well for you in that relationship and what you might have wanted to see differently. So if you're really looking for a consultant, who's a fantastic project manager and keeps you on task. Are you looking for a consultant that's really good at conflict management and having hard conversations, thinking about those things that are almost in between the lines of the official work that you really value in a partner. Another piece of that is kind of organizational values and what are your consultant's values and are there pieces that overlap there so that you're really on the same page about why you want to do the work together. And then the last piece, I think sometimes I get asked for examples of work product. Which is really challenging for me to provide. So what I often say to people is the work that I do, to transform organizations, so talk to people about what they do experience with me, and what's different about their organization after their engagement, that's the work product. So I think asking around the questions around who have you worked with. Where, where you'd be doing similar work. Who can I talk to really getting and checking those references? Vibe values and references basically. Carol: Yeah. So it's essentially kind of thinking through and listening for a fit when you're having those conversations. So are the questions that the person's asking you, helping you are you further along at the end of the conversation in thinking about the challenge that you're you're describing than you were when you began, and that would be well, that's the kind of shift that you want to, you're there to try to create. Heather: Yeah. Yeah. You absolutely want somebody who is helping you think through. I also think in a lot of ways you want somebody who is going to show up as a partner. Who has, who brings expertise, but who really wants to be there with you walking alongside you. So this is obviously reflective of my own work as a consultant, but I build out free engagement to fit the organization. I have things that work well that I bring into lots of engagements, but I don't have. Here's the strategic planning package and I'm just going to put it on top of everything I do. So I want to ask questions to know more about you as an organization and what works well. I want you to know that I'm going to be experimenting as we go and learning about you and shifting up. The way that we're going to do the work in order to really meet your goals. And, hopefully you're okay with that. If you're, if you're an organization that's super regimented, we're not going to work well together. And I can tell, cause if you send me a 15 page RFP, we're probably not going to work well together. I'm probably not going to apply to that. Carol: Yeah. So once you go through that hiring process and you've decided on something, what would you say are some things that are important as an organization starts to work with a consultant that can help make that be a more productive process for both parties. Heather: Yeah. A couple of things. One is it's always helpful for me as a consultant to get some of the basic background information. So obviously I've looked at your website, I've read your RFP, or we've had a conversation, but grant proposals or reports are useful budgets. Honestly, tell me a lot about the organization and where you spend your money and what your activities are. Annual reports, just those things that can get me kind of up to speed on the work so that I can ask better questions. The second piece is I think having a good launch meeting. Often that is with a small team, particularly if we're doing longterm strategic planning work, or even planning a training for staff, who's the two or three folks who are gonna come together and help shepherd this work at that meeting. I often review the scope that I put together in their proposal. And we adjusted as a team here was my idea. And now we're actually in it. Let's figure out what we need to shift. Also sometimes in that very beginning phase, just having one on one conversations. So as an a organization figuring out who are the few people that we want the consultant to talk to, again, to get a better three 60 view of the challenge to really, and the players to make sure that they are leading off with a really strong background. Anything you would add? Carol: Yeah. So that's good cause sometimes I think people want to put every important stakeholder on that strategic planning committee. And I think that's a nice way to do both and to make sure that you're getting the input from all those important stakeholders. And, and there may be other ways that you're doing that as well. But then also having a small enough working group that it's easy to. Set up meetings and there's momentum and things keep moving. So it's kind of nice both. And yeah, I think just sometimes people jump into the work they're so intent on you know, What the challenges are or whatnot, but I think just taking a minute and oftentimes this will come from the consultant just talking about how you work together, what works for you? Do you have any pet peeves? What's your style? How do you like to communicate? You know, is it email? Is it a phone call? So that those things can fit together and just being explicit about those things, which I think so often people skip over can really help kickstart a good, a good process in the end, because this is a relationship, particularly with whoever the organizational lead is. And he was a consultant. So I'm thinking about how to, how to make sure that relationship gets off onto a strong footing. Carol: So right now we're in a you know, things are so uncertain. A lot of planning processes have basically come to a halt or people have canceled. Maybe they had a retreat coming up. What's your sense of whether people can or can't or should how, how they might approach planning when, when there's so many unknowns at the moment? Heather: Yeah, it's a question that I hear executive directors really wrestling with right now. In fact, I was just on a call with a group, a peer support group this morning, and an executive director shared that their strategic planning consultant had said to them in March or April. They were trying to finish their plan. That, that had been in progress for six months and feeling really guilty because they hadn't. And the consultant said right now you've got a circus. You can no longer focus on building the plane. You are dealing with really rough weather. And when you get to a place where you feel like you can fly the plane more easily, you can start building it again. And so they have actually at this point, given the kind of work they do been able to stabilize and they have are coming back now to that strategic planning. I think for a lot of organizations, what would have been a longer term strategic plan is looking much more short term. It's looking so the end of 2020, maybe to the end of 2021, depending on where they are in the world. So shortening timelines, not doing future planning when you're still in the midst of crisis. And then I also am seeing organizations use scenario planning a lot more, a tool that's been in our toolbox for a long time, but this is a time when it really matters. It really is, you know if you work in the school system, you have a scenario for, if kids go back, if kids go back for two weeks, if kids go back for a whole semester, and if you run an afterschool program for kids in schools, You've got a button you've had to have all of those different scenarios and having those planned out so that when it switches, you've got a plan that you can pull off the shelf. We've already had some of those discussions. Carol: Can you just say a little bit more about what scenario planning is for folks who might not be familiar with it? Heather: Yeah, I think. Various standard definition would be thinking about creating kind of a matrix of scenarios. So you would think about what are a couple of different unknowns in your community that have a high chance of impacting your organization. So I did this work a few weeks ago and the two variables we picked one was about how people were going to feel about the economy. Were they gonna feel like it was going down and hilly, going to feel like it was stabilized or maybe even going okay. The other axis we picked the other trendline we weren't sure of was, are we going to be kind of open or closed broadly? Right. So are things going to be really open and we're going to be kind of back to normal or are we going to be quarantined or in our houses working from home. So in a very traditional scenario planning, you would actually put those on one, on an X axis and one on a Y axis. And now you've got four to five scenarios. What happens if the world is open and everybody feels really good about the economy? Well, bars and restaurants are totally full. Everybody's excited. Right? What happens if people are feeling really terrible about the economy and we're still all at home? That is our Netflix bucket, right? Like people at home with Netflix and cooking, being at home. So figuring out those areas, whatever those are for your organization and then planning for each of the four, I'm really thinking about what might be true for us in each of those four scenarios. So that's a very traditional example in the school example I gave, there were the school system in North Carolina where I said we have an, a, a, B and a C, and we're going to pick one of these three. So they've done that work already creating those scenarios for you. Carol: So, what are some other trends that you're seeing right now, since you work with a lot of consultants across the sector and they're working with lots of clients. So I'm curious to hear from you kind of, what are some of the current trends that you're seeing in the sector? Heather: So one of the trends I'm seeing is organizations, particularly 10 staff and under. Really saying, I'm not sure we need an office. We need the conference table. We need a conference room every once in a while. We needed a place to start our stuff, our swag, our records, but we don't need it. I need an office space, particularly in places where folks are traveling significantly to get to a centralized office. And they've discovered that they can really do a lot of that work online. The second trend I'm seeing is that as kind of stress levels have risen, I have certainly seen particularly executive directors dealing with more burnouts and more burnout in their staff and just all of the challenges that come from having an overwhelm. They’re anxious. That's maybe dealing with kids at home. So there's a lot of shifts in how people are thinking about paid time off leave alternative options for staffing organizations, but there's just this kind of increasing humanity that is coming out of this crisis. And then the third thing that's kind of related to that is I'm just hearing more and more chatter about how the kind of traditional nonprofit structure isn't working for people. And some of that is the board's not showing up well right now either micromanaging or being absentee, some of it is that we're throwing out lots of, of, of old norms that aren't working for us. And so some of those nonprofit norms are going to get thrown out, but I'm seeing a kind of increasing conversation about that piece as well. Carol: Yeah, I'm thinking about that, but not really sure. Carol: Cause it also feels like it's so embedded in, in all the systems the many, many systems that aren't working right now and, and the nonprofit sector has a lot of those assumptions built into. So yes. So at the end of every episode, I play a little game just to kind of shift things up a little bit. So I'm going to ask you a somewhat random icebreaker question. And I had picked out three out of the box before, before we got on. So based on your scenario where if I, hopefully we won't be stuck in the, the economy is tanking and we're all forever and ever, but with that, what's your most recent, a guilty pleasure in terms of maybe binge watching a show or, or something. Heather: Oh, well, My favorite. I don't know if this is a guilty pleasure, but in May I bought myself a blow up pool from my backyard and my absolute favorite thing to do. And I might do it this afternoon. If it doesn't rain, I will get in the baby pool with my Kindle and a glass of wine at the end of the day. And that just makes me so happy. And I read a book that has no redeeming value. That just is pure floss and it's fantastic. Carol: I don't think you need to be guilty about that. That sounds like a lot of fun. What are you excited about? What's coming up next for you kind of what's emerging in the work that you're doing. Heather: Well, one of the things I'm really excited about in the nonprofits world is that we just launched a learning series for consultants around how to better incorporate race equity into our work. And so I was sitting on a zoom with 50 consultants who are all trying to figure out how do we do this work better? How can we be in the work with people helping to raise these issues, helping to have careful conversations. So I'm really excited about that series and about the shifts that are coming for myself and my own consulting work and for hopefully lots of other people in those conversations. Carol: That's great. And how can people find you? How can they can get info? Heather: Yeah. So if you are interested in the consulting work I do, my company is called Third Space Studio, all spelled the thirdspacestudio.com. And if you're looking for a consultant or accountant or coach or other expert, you can find me at https://www.nonprofit.ist. Carol: And we'll put all that in the show notes. So people will be able to get the links. Well, thank you so much, Heather. It has been great talking to you. Heather: Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun. ![]() This week we’re talking to Becca Bartholomew. We talked about: • Ensuring all voices are included in planning processes • Why it is important for leaders to not only have intelligence but also have emotional intelligence and somatic intelligence • What the buffering sign on your computer has to tell us about today’s work environment Referred to in the episode: Barry Oshrey’s Tops, Middles and Bottoms The Ladder of Inference Your Body is Your Brain by Amanda Blake A facilitator and coach with expertise in organization development (OD), Becca has extensive experience working with groups and individuals to foster communication and effective collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Becca helps her clients implement strategies that increase their emotional intelligence and efficacy. She is known for her clear communication, innate ability to foster trust, and firm, yet gentle approach to helping others recognize their blind spots and engage specific tools to articulate and reach their goals. She gracefully supports her clients toward self-reflection, new learning and increased awareness of their impact on others. She works with leaders of all types and has a special passion for those newer to leadership as well as those who hold societal privilege and want to address their roles in upholding and then dismantling systems of oppression. Interview Transcript: Carol Hamilton: Welcome Becca to the podcast. Great to have you on. Becca Bartholmew: Thanks for having me. Carol: Just to kind of give people some context and get us started. Could you just describe kind of what drew you to the work that you do and, and how describe your journey to where you are now? Becca: Sure. I'll give you the abbreviated version. I really feel like what I'm doing now has brought together a whole bunch of threads of my life into one place. It's a really inspiring, invigorating place to be. I am the third generation in my family to be doing organizational development work. That's what exposed me to that human systems piece of what I do. I also spent a long time working in public health and sustainable agriculture, mostly in the nonprofit and academic sector, which has given me a continued learning journey around social justice and issues that I was working on at a systems perspective there. I've always, my whole life, had a really strong interest in dance and movement and yoga and that sort of thing. And so now I feel like in the work that I do, which is mostly around supporting human systems, to be better at whatever it is they're trying to do. Especially around the communication within that system and the functionality within that system, I take a whole person and whole system perspective on that. Not just working with the mind, but working with other aspects of the whole being. It was sort of all these different interests of mine coming together into one place. I would just add to that is it was being in human systems. And then again, seeing things that I had sort of heard growing up that happen often in human systems, like we're humans, we have human tendencies and just seeing those things has inspired me to make the jump from public health, into really working with the systems rather than within the systems. Carol: Can you give me an example of what one of those things were that you were like, “I remember them talking about that and now I'm seeing it.” Becca: So, there's a lot of talk about people working either on or in their business or their organization. Sometimes we're so much in it that we forget to work on it. We talk about process and we talk about content and sometimes people are so engrossed in the content that they forget to pay attention to the process and process can be relationships. It can be the processes for how information flows for the timeline, for projects, whatever it might be, the structures and processes, both interpersonal and organizational, that support what's going on. I remember working in an organization and there was this person who came in and she went through this whole workshop with us about how to create work plans, start with activities and things that we wanted to do, and make these big plans. And then my boss said, “make a draft plan for our organization.” I remember this so specifically because I went away with my family that week, but it was really important that it be done. So, I agreed to do it while I was away. I worked on it a lot while my family was down swimming in the lake and then I came back and I gave it to my boss and never heard anything. Oh, it was just crickets. It was just an example to me of even when we're trying, we don't always follow through; those things sit on the shelf or in the email inbox and just never really get enacted within the organization. Carol: From what you've learned looking back on that, what might you have said to the leader, how you might have done it, approached it differently considering your perspective now. Becca: Great question. What I'm working on now in my life, and I think it relates to this, is getting really clear on my own boundaries and also exploring other people's expectations as much as possible. I think I would have had more of an upfront conversation with my boss: “What does this look like?”; “How do you want it to be”; “what's really important about this” and then, “what will be done with this once I finish it?” and can we put the meetings on our calendar now for the time we're going to talk about this and this and this. I was younger then, and less experienced. I didn't really have the same initiative to make sure that this happens because, after all, it's my time and the organization's time, and I don't want to waste either. Carol: Yeah. I also remember being on a board one time where I had raised the issue of the organization doing strategic planning and the Executive Director said, “well, why don't you go write a strategic plan?” And I was kind of like, wait a second, that's not how it works. I could go do that but it wouldn't be at all useful because it wouldn't be informed by everyone in the group. How they're thinking about it. And, really sometimes the plan itself is a useful product, but the process is also such an important part of having all those conversations, thinking about what is our direction and what are our goals of having all those conversations. In a lot of ways, to me, it is even more important than what ends up on the page. Although that also is important, people want to see that it's actually used so that they don't feel like it was just a lot of hot air and a waste of time. Becca: Yeah, it makes me also think about why I know a lot about design thinking and it makes me think about even within that process, not only is it important for buy-in and engagement, but there are things, especially that we don't always know about depending on where we are in the organization. Unless we're pulling from all angles, back to the organization through that process, we might miss something and in design thinking, there's that concept of bringing in sort of the smart but naive other person who doesn't have all the information about whatever's being talked about and really having that person there to ask questions and get clarification and guidance. Pulling from that, I was just doing a leadership training the other day, and we were talking about Barry Oshrey's concept of Tops, Middles, and Bottoms within an organization, and how Tops feel really lonely and isolated and burdened because they have to make all the decisions about everything, and Middles in an organization feel kind of pulled between the Tops and Bottom. So, they're managing people below them, but then they're responding to the people above them. And then often the people at the bottom, I don't necessarily love the terms Top, Middle, Bottoms, but it's your hand and gives you kind of a visceral, real example of feeling of what this is, and the Bottoms, often feel like they have no idea what's going on, that they're at the whim of the manager of the Middle or the Top, and just kind of there without knowing. Really bringing all three of those levels into a strategic planning process or any planning process is really important. Well, also being clear - who are the Tops that have the decision-making power; I've seen in some nonprofits who are really trying to have a flat structure where everybody's important. Yes, that's true, but there needs to be clear leadership so you can have a clear process for gathering information, then it needs to be clear how the decision is going to be made: Who's going to be making the decision and the timeline for that upfront. Carol: I totally agree. I think sometimes, with the notion that boards should drive the strategy for an organization, there's this tendency to, and kind of also a sense of, let's make it more manageable, so we'll have less people involved and then you miss all of those perspectives, but then as you said, so important for folks who are leading the process to also say, “We're gathering input from all these different groups, the board and senior staff, or whatever group it is, is ultimately tasked with finalizing the plan, approving the plan. They are the ultimate decision makers. So getting clear and being clear about that decision making process is really key, too, as you can have lots of involvement, but if you don't that piece, you can actually demoralize people because they thought that they had equal say in this and then something that they were very passionate about doesn't emerge in the final plan and they wonder, “well, what was that for? “What was the point about, we're taking input from lots of people, but not everything's got to get in there for one, it's not going to be Christmas tree ornaments for everybody but also who's actually making the final decision. Becca: Yeah, absolutely. Carol: And, one of the areas that you focus on is somatics and leadership. Can you define what somatics is first? And then we'll talk a little bit about how that shows up in leadership. Becca: Somatics comes from the word Soma, which is body. It's about the body within leadership. I really love ,there's a great book called Your Body is Your Brain by Amanda Blake. She talks about three concepts. I have it here because I always mix them up. So, Xterra exception, proprioception and interception. Xterra, if you think about X, like external, that's our, our five senses. So, seeing and touching and hearing and smelling and tasting all of that is our Xterra reception. We're gathering information in three different ways and responding to information in three different ways. Then there's our appropriate section, which is our awareness of where we are in space. You might also tie that to sort of leadership presence, how are you using your body in space? Are you standing firm? Are your shoulders standing broad and relaxed? Exactly, are you clear in your stance? And then interception is the part where I think it gets the most exciting and juicy, but it's all important. That's sort of the internal, physiological, gut feeling or my heart. Some people think it's kind of woo, woo but it's not because there's a real physiology going on and your body often knows things before your brain knows them. Literally your Vagus nerve. Connects right from your gut to your brain, bypasses the cognitive part of your brain and goes right to the instinctual part of your brain and often you're taking in information and making a decision about it at a sub cognitive level, it's sort of your flight fight, flight freeze, animalistic instinct level before your cognition is even aware of it. The more we can become aware of our internal feeling sense, the more powerful we can be as leaders because we're using both levels of our intelligence, our emotional intelligence, as well as what I call our somatic intelligence, our bodies data gathering and processing. Carol: As you know, science learns more and more about this, the whole notion that we're mind, body and spirit, that there are three separate things. It's really all one. Right. The body, your brain is part of your body, so it seems kind of obvious, but at the same time we experience it ourselves as a different thing. So, it's really interesting. So much of our culture has a kind of demonized feeling - like set your feelings at the door. We're professional beings with this professional meaning, and what's this leader mean? All of those things, I think sometimes what people think about, disconnects a lot of those pieces. Becca: Absolutely. If you think about it, think about when you're in a really energetic mood or in a really tired or depressed or sad. Just a run-down mood and how much work you can get done or not get done, or have responsive in a way that takes care of relationships in a positive way you are, or you aren't depending on how your internal state is. And we're not taught in this culture to pay attention to those things. I mean, I have a six-and-a-half-year-old and I try to remember to engage with my kid about, “Oh, are you feeling this?” “I see that you're angry” or, “I see that you're frustrated” and kind of name emotions so that he can start to work with those things and at the same time, it's just not talked about. There's a line, not necessarily an advocate for bringing everything in the door and to the table at work. While I want the whole person to be there, but not necessarily all of the person. It's like the integrated wholeness of the person is able to show up and that person is able to manage what needs to be in the room and what doesn't need to be in the room. I used to joke that the definition for me of maturity is knowing when to be immature and when not. So, it's not being mature all the time. It's knowing when to bring it in when not to. And I think it's the same thing about emotional intelligence, somatic intelligence, any of this, we need our emotions and we need our gut instinct. Yet we haven't been taught to cultivate and manage them. Carol: Yeah. And then that brings it up to mind kind of what you were talking about before in terms of setting boundaries and having appropriate boundaries. When our culture was kind of first exploring all this in the sixties and seventies, it was this let it all hang out, whatever, and learning over time that actually doesn't work at all, and it can be very detrimental to relationships. Being able to not only recognize, but manage emotions and manage your response as an adult, is a lot of what that's about. Becca: Yeah. I think this bridges sort of into the diversity, equity, inclusion conversation because when I think about the whole person it's mind, body, spirit, emotions, and identity. So those five aspects: we need our mind, we need our body, we need our emotions, our spirit, or our values. However you want to define that for yourself. And then our identity is really important. All of the social identity aspects of who we are, whether that's race or gender or gender identity or sexual orientation or religion. There's a whole plethora of them. That's another piece we need to be able to bring our whole identity to work and we need leaders who are creating systems and environments where the diversity of those identities is able to thrive and be included and engaged with and valued. Often there's a leave that part of your identity at the door and I do think that bringing whole identity to work is important, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're talking all about various aspects of it if it's not relevant to the work at hand. Carol: I wonder whether people in a dominant position or a leadership position and in a white dominant culture or whether people even realize that they're asking. They're assuming that people will leave those identities at the door and show up in a way that fits what's perceived in the dominant culture as kind of the right way to be at work. Becca: Absolutely. And I think there are shifts happening in some spaces. Obviously we have a greater awareness around this as a country with the Black Lives Matter movement and other aspects but I think there's a long way to go. To me, this is what ties into the somatic intelligence work. I really think that leaders need to get good at noticing what's coming up for them when they start to engage in these spaces because a lot of times it can be scary. You don't want to get into legal trouble and you don't want to offend someone. So often people end up not even stepping into this space and not even having the conversation. It's really about doing as people who have what we call dominant identities, which is this white Christian male who’s heterosexual. There are a range of dominant identities in our American culture. Those of us with them need to do some work to realize that we have them and what it means. It's not necessarily a problem that we have them. It is what it is. We need to realize that it is what it is, and then begin to work with it and ask ourselves, what are our values? What do I want to be seeing? What do I want my organization to be like? And, how can I play a role in creating that? Carol: What kind of steps do you think if people, if leaders want to start stepping into this work, that they can start taking? Becca: The first step might just be mapping your own identities. Identity maps - put yourself in the middle, draw a circle, and a bunch of lines coming off of that. Think about all of those aspects that make you who you are. Whether it's where you are in your sibling order. If you have siblings, the economic situation that you have, grew up in, and are in now; your education level, your race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, a range of all those. Once you write that map of who you are, then look through them and try to label, which are done, I'm in it and which aren't. Then take some time with each of those and think, okay, what makes this dominant? How is the world set up such that things are easier for me because I have this identity? What are the systems allowing for me? Because I just happened to have this identity and then get in conversation with other people who have similar identities to you who are also trying to work on this. One of the things that's really important, and I imagine folks have heard a lot about, is not putting the emotional labor on to people who have what we call the marginalized or subordinated identities. It's not their job to educate us. There's a lot of information out there already, some really great books and we could even include a list of some of those, especially around race, as part of this. To be doing your own learning and engaging with others who are similar identity to you, doing their learning as well. Carol: And that I think is important to have those spaces of, similar identities so that people can have all the emotions they're having without putting emotional labor on other people. This whole notion of white fragility, people are going to have their emotions. They're either going to get triggered, and shaming them and bullying them to stop doing that is not helpful; at the same time, a person of color, a person with another marginalized identity, or intersection of those doesn't need to hear that same conversation over and over and over again. How can we create spaces so that white people can start their baby steps in this, and have the full experience of it all, and work through it? Becca: Absolutely, Carol. I totally agree with what you say. I think you're hitting on a key point. I believe it's necessary to feel the emotions that are associated with this. I know a lot of white women who I've interacted with, especially have felt guilt or shame or sadness as they become more and more aware of what the white dominant culture and their role in that has created in this country. I've heard experiences from colleagues of color of mine who have had white men end up really angry in their sessions when they hear about things. These are generalizations I've mentioned, it's sad and women can get angry, but I believe we need to feel those emotions and become aware of them and let them move through us because as we talked about a little while ago, feelings are literally physiological. There are biological things happening in your body when you feel something and if you just try to suppress it, it doesn't really actually go away. Where are the spaces where that can be released, where it can be acknowledged, process looked at, digested and then do that in a safe space with support and then step into the other spaces of leadership of mixed identity interaction. I want to say clean, where none of us are super clean when it comes to it, but it's about having to Carol: Sort of through a little bit of a muck, at least. Becca: Exactly - cleaned up your boots or like simmered down your sauce. I think that's really important that too often the message, especially to white people is, “Oh, don't bring your white fragility.” I see that and it's not to say, don't have your emotions. It's be aware of where, where you are displaying them and the kind of help you are seeking for them. I say, do have those emotions. Become very aware of them and don't get stuck in them. Brene Brown also talks a lot about the difference between guilt and shame. Some of them are part of this learning, some of the learning I've been doing is through WWARA about White Women's Anti-Racism Alliance and they take Brene Brown's work and talk about the difference between guilt, and shame and guilt. Well, shame says something is wrong with me. I am bad. And then guilt says I did something bad. If we say, “Oh, I did something bad,” then we have agency. “Oh, I did something bad. I can do something different.” If we stay in our shame as whatever dominant identity we might be working with in that shame, if we stay there, we're never going to be able to step into action and make the world a better place. On the other hand, there's also often people who want to jump to action right away, “Oh, this is a problem. Let me fix it.” A lot of advocates of color, who I've been interacting with have said, “Please, don't jump to action right away. Please slow down, please do your learning. Please do your emotional work. Please get clear about why you want to do this work. Let's not do this work because it's all the rage right now. What's in it for you? Why is it important for you to make some shifts around racism in this country or around bias toward people with different sexual identities, whatever sexual orientation, whatever it might be?” Carol: Yeah. That action orientation brings me back to one of the pieces that you work with as well, wanting leaders to bring more mindfulness to what they do. I'm wondering if you can define mindfulness in this context and why you think it is so important. Becca: Yeah. I think when it comes to leadership, mindfulness is a key tool for engaging our emotional intelligence. Actually, one of my favorite quotes that I came across recently is by Daniel Goldman. He’s a journalist who did a lot of work around emotional intelligence and has published a lot of books about it. He says the best thing a leader can offer is a well-managed nervous system. I have worked with various client systems where the leader can get triggered really quick and easily and make a lot of assumptions about things. We talk in this work about the ladder of inference. How quickly we can sort of climb up this ladder of assumptions and then, “well this person said this for this reason, and this means that, and that means that.” And then all of a sudden, we're at the top of this ladder without even thinking. Carol: Yeah, without even being conscious of jumping up the ladder, “I'm looking at you now,” and “Oh, she gave me kind of a funny look. She must think I'm a terrible interviewer.” I mean, and that's all going on in my head. I may not even be conscious …. Becca: That I had something in my eye. Carol: Right, right. 've made meaning of it. Just like that. Because we're meaning making machines. Becca: Exactly. Mindfulness allows us literally to start to see our mind so we notice, ‘Oh look at that thought,’ ‘Oh look, I just had a thought about that’ and we become more aware of the chatter in our minds. To use the word agency, we have more agency in how we're using our voice and our body and our mind because we become more aware of the automatic parts of it. It can also allow just practice. Mindfulness can bring more pause and space into interactions. I think those are more and more necessary. These days everything is so fast. If we just take a breath before we respond, we might actually be able to be in a place of actually responding rather than reacting and the response to me is, where there's the choice and the agency, the reaction is where it's just automatically coming. Maybe even from that interception, that automatic physiological reaction, which sometimes serves us and sometimes does it. What we need is to become more and more aware of it. That’s what I'd say about that. Go ahead. I was just going to tie it into the virtual world. I think it's, again, even more important in a virtual space to both engage mindfulness and engage the whole person. We can become, as we are in zoom, I gesture here with this rectangle that we forget that we have the rest of our body and we forget that, it might be, or even in a normal interaction, we might, if I were talking to you in a cafe, I might turn and look out the window while I'm talking to you and think, and that might shift how my brain is working, but because we're so used to the norms in our culture and are just looking at that rectangle and look at each other on the screen that we're literally not being mindful in the same ways that we might have otherwise. Carol: So how do you say since people are just, you know, the reality of us working this way of working online, working remotely is probably going to be going on for quite a while. What are some things that people can do to bring in more of themselves to online meetings? Becca: I’m smiling because one of the things that's come I've been working on lately and telling clients and colleagues is to think about that spinning thing on your screen that says buffering. We hate it when that happens, but how are you creating buffers in your day? It's not just the onscreen, but the, between meetings or between being at the meeting and being with whoever or whatever is in your household. How are you creating spaces? Cause literally we used to walk down a hallway to a meeting or get up and switch offices or pick up the phone, something shifted and took our eyes from the screen. And one of the things is just to give yourself those buffer zones. Another is to literally take some time, whether it's a chime on your calendar or in your watch or note to take three breaths at various points in the middle of the day and then you can engage a full mind, body, spirit aspect with those three breaths. On the first breath, what am I feeling; on the second breath what am I thinking; and on the third breath, what's important to me? That can really bring you back. What's important in this moment, to me? What brings you back to what you’re being present with, whatever it is that you really want to be present with rather than reactionary? What you just happened to be being present with? I also have a whole set of questions that I go through when either designing a virtual meeting or working with others on it about how can we bring in. All of those parts of a person. What are the kinds of questions you can ask your colleagues, “What do you feel about this?” “What's your gut reaction?” What's your heart telling you? What’s your instinct on this? And then you can say, what's your mind thinking on this? What new ideas have you noticed? What are you thinking about now? How does this connect to the other things? You start to engage the brain in that, that's the body brain piece, and then there's just rain. We just need to get creative. Like how does this tie to your values? Our values as a company that start to get to the spirit and values aspect of things, and then there can be questions, like look around the virtual room. Who's not in the room. When it comes to virtual meetings, there's a lot of inclusion. So not necessarily identity, but inclusion when it comes to are you remembering to try to engage the people who don't have their cameras on in the virtual meeting? Is there a norm that people have to have their cameras on, but maybe they can't. Maybe their bandwidth is low. Maybe their house is a mess. Maybe somebody else's in the room with them. So, what are the aspects of inclusion that we need to think about to make this a virtual space, a psychologically safe space? Carol: Yeah. Thinking about the buffering, I was, working with some folks who were talking about, facilitating in a virtual setting and just saying that it just takes a little bit longer for people to kind of absorb, and instruction. If you're wanting them to go do a next thing, let's say, put them in breakout rooms, to have them work on a separate document that you've sent a link to, and to create those pauses in the meeting as well, and almost imagining that buffer, things spinning, and their technique was to, when you've asked a question, assume that it's going to take everyone a little bit longer to answer because they're kind of waiting to see if anyone else is going to say something and actually take a drink of water while you wait to force yourself to wait a little bit. Becca: I like that. Somebody once told me that children's brains, as they're learning, take longer to process. So, wait 17 seconds after you ask your child a question, which feels so long. I don't do that long online, but I do sometimes count to seven or 10, just to see and I think that's very true. I've had a lot of experiences lately where I've given an instruction, we've gone to the next thing and then the person, or in the group, two or three people in the group of seven, have no idea what to do. It's had me realize, and again, if you think about it, we're not giving our nervous system any time to decompress or get in a place of being able to really absorb information again, when we're constantly looking at the screen. I sometimes also give instructions to folks, you know, get up, stand up for a minute or stretch, or literally please look away from your screen while you think about this. So sometimes you have to be more overt and in the instruction, then slowdown, as you said, and repeat yourself, and then also provide the information in multiple formats. I'll often put instructions in chat as well as verbally say them and that sort of thing. So absolutely, many things to pay attention to. Carol: Probably all things that would be good to bring back when we're in person, working with groups that take that pause and make sure that everyone's understood the instructions of what's next or where you are on the agenda in a meeting or anything. One thing I like to do on each episode is I play a little game. I have a box of random icebreaker questions. I've got one for you here, “How did you meet your best friend?” Becca: Oh, how did I meet my best friend? Well, there's a childhood one, but here's my adult best friend. It's a kind of a fun story. She was the babysitter the summer after I went to college for my younger siblings. I had been in college; my parents were divorced and I went to see my father. I heard about this babysitter who was great with my younger siblings at my mother's house. I remember thinking, who is this person taking over the older sibling role? I came home, eventually met her, and within half an hour, she was my best friend. We've been really good friends ever since then. I think it's been about 20 years. Carol: That's awesome. So, what are you excited about now? What's up next for you? What's emerging in your work? Becca: There are a few different things that I'm excited about. One, as you know we've talked in other times about this, is about peer coaching, peer learning, and people being able to really connect and learn from and with each other in small groups. I'm really excited about engaging with that in a virtual space. I feel like the peer coaching really involves the whole person. It's not just sort of sitting back in a lecture on a webinar or listening to somebody, but it really engages people and it engages people around. What's important to them in the moment and it allows them to be helpful and of service to other people. I think that's so important for us as humans, for mental health to just feel a value. I'm going to be setting up some opportunities for people within similar industries, but not in the same organization to come together in peer learning groups and connect with each other. I'm really excited about that possibility and really what's possible with that globally right now, because we don't have to get together in person for it and we can't get together in person for it. So, who can come together? I'm working with some of the groups that I do consulting with. They focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. and some of them have been around one of them for 30 years, another for 50 years. And they really know their stuff and their stuff has been in the room like physically together. I'm really excited about helping them think about how to take it all virtually and keep it really effective and yeah, engaging. And then finally, I'm contemplating, and I might want to rope Carol into this, listeners. So maybe by the time you listen to this, she will have said yes. I want to develop a virtual workshop about engaging the whole person. Go more in depth into some of those example questions and examples scenarios that we touched on around engaging those five aspects of the of a person. Mind, body, spirit, emotions, and identity. Carol: So, it sounds like a lot of fun. Becca: Yes. Excited about all those. Carol: How can people find out more about you and be in touch? Becca: They could email me or I'm also on LinkedIn. My email is: Becca.b.Consulting@gmail.com Carol: We'll put the links in the show notes as well. Becca: Okay. That makes it easier. I'm also on LinkedIn as Becca Bartholomew. I'd love to hear people's reactions. What did you agree with, disagree with, what questions do you have? Let's keep the conversation going. Carol: That will be awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much. And thank you for being on the podcast. Becca: Thanks for the opportunity. Take care. Links: Becca on LinkedIn Becca on Twitter ![]() Episode 05: This week we’re talking to Beth Sperber Richie. We talked about: • What is burn out is and why burn out is so prevalent in the nonprofit sector • What the research shows about rest and productivity for organizations. • What vicarious trauma is and how it impacts staff and an organization’s culture. Beth Sperber Richie, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and consultant in private practice in the Washington, D.C. area. Dr. Richie works with non-profit leaders on how to sustain their staff and their mission given the grind of social change work. She gives workshops and presentations on managing stress and burnout, vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue, improving cross-cultural communication and counseling skills and setting boundaries for front-line employees. Her workshops focus on practical skills and engaged involvement of all participants. www.linkedin.com/company/fermata-consult Sponsored by Grace Social Sector Consulting Learn about the Effective Online Facilitation, 4 week group coaching program. Interview transcriptCarol Hamilton: Hi Beth, welcome to the podcast, it’s great to have you on.
Beth Richie: Thanks, great to be here. Carol: Could you tell us a little bit about what drew you to this work and how you got to where you are? Beth: I got involved doing clinical work with trauma survivors. I'm a psychologist, so the clinical work came logically out of the stuff I was studying when I was back in graduate school. I began working with trauma survivors clinically in the nineties, and as much as I'm passionate about that work, I've enjoyed that work and feel that it's been very meaningful to me over the years, I began to realize that I'm talking to one person at a time and I'm helping one person at a time. I started to look for the ways in which I could multiply the impact that I could have, and consulting with organizations just seemed like a logical next step. It really started when a friend of mine started an organization that helped landmine survivors all around the world, he was asking all the right questions about how to get landmine survivors back into the workforce. How do we take somebody who’s a farmer and who's lost their limbs in the landmine accident, and get that person back into the paid workforce. How do they support their family, but wasn't really asking the questions about what the impact of the trauma is on the person. I started asking him those questions and that led me to work as a consultant with his organization. Then, because it was a new organization to talk to him a lot about what organizational policies and procedures and what practices can you put in place for your staff that's going to be dealing with this really traumatic material on a daily basis. That was what got my foot in the door. I saw that ‘here's a way to have an impact on many more people at once.’ That's what really hooked me to the idea of doing consulting in this area. I know that when you and I first spoke, we talked a little bit about the whole idea that you have about how important it is to make a healthy organism, relational cultures that it's not just enough to work with an organization, the goal is to help them make the organizational culture healthy. That's such a dovetail for me with this work that it's an opportunity to help organizations where people are helping folks who have experienced trauma, how they keep their staff healthy and how do they keep the organization healthy as they move through working in this arena, whatever that arena might be. Carol: Actually, part of the goal of this podcast is to help progressive nonprofit leaders do that work that they want to do to build a better world, but without really becoming a martyr to the cause. Much of your work centers around that, and one of the things that you help organizations with is managing stress and burnout. I feel that that is such a large part of the nonprofit sector that people almost see it as a given. Beth: Yes. Carol: To the point where, if they're not experiencing it, they think they're not truly dedicated to the cause. Beth: Yeah, like they're not working hard enough if they're not in pain. Carol: I'm curious, how do you define burnout? Cause I think it's a term that's thrown around a lot, but burnout is another level and I'm not sure that everyone really defines it the same way. Beth: Well, I think you're right. Everybody does not define it the same way. When I'm working with organizations, I get people to take a look and do a little bit of an assessment of their own level of burnout. For me, burnout is not just that there is stress in your work because lots of work has stress. Burnout to me is like the moral distress or the moral level of fatigue, where you just find it difficult to get the motivation to do even a simple list of tasks. The other piece of this for organizations that work with trauma survivors is the vicarious trauma of hearing those stories has an impact on the listener, to the point where they can actually get post-traumatic stress symptoms, similar to the ones that the survivors themselves get, where their worldview is actually shifted. I think that that's particularly a hallmark of vicarious trauma, but I think it's true, in burnout that it's almost a worldview switch where, what used to be something that motivated you and got you excited, that you had the drive and the burn to make this change in the world that gets to the point where you're tired and hopeless, [to the point] that there's actually been a shift in the way you view the world. To me, that is the difference between burnout and just general stress. I think general stress is easier to recover from than burnout. I have a couple of nonprofit leaders that I'm working with at the moment who both like the idea of burnout rehab. That's what we've been calling it. Carol: What are your steps for burnout rehab? Beth: It depends on the individual human being, right? Each burnout rehab is its own special thing. [What] I say to everybody I work with is you need to find the thing that works for you and then apply it liberally. The metaphor I use is that of a stress fracture. Despite not being athletic myself, I produced three children who are athletes. One of my children played right through a stress fracture, he continued to play. My daughters are the same way, one of them had her knee ripped open in a soccer incident and she wasn't even aware that she was bleeding. They had to take her off the field because apparently it's not legal to bleed while you're playing soccer, you have to be taken off the field. She didn’t feel that it was necessary, but those to me, those metaphors of the stress fracture or you're playing hard that you don't even realize you have a ripped open knee, is exactly what happens with our nonprofit leaders that they're working hard and strong. [They’re so far] beyond stressed that they're at the point where they don't even realize that they're bleeding or that they have a stress fracture. In the same way that with a stress fracture or with an open wound, you would have to come off the field. That's step one for burnout rehab. [The problem,] as far as I'm concerned, is how to get off the field when you don't want to get off the field completely. The athletes don't want to get off the field completely, they don't want to go off the field at all and neither do the nonprofit leaders. We have to get them off the field, and one way or another figure out ways to put boundaries around their work, either in terms of time like, “you are allowed to work X or Y amount of hours a day and that's it, or you are no longer allowed to work Saturdays and Sundays, or I know nonprofit leaders that I've worked with who are working on vacation, I remind them that that's not actually vacation. Some of it is putting boundaries around the work, recognizing that you have a stress fracture and therefore you shouldn’t go back out on the field and play the sport again. The other is to figure out what's sustainable for them in the long haul, how can they individually find that burnout rehab that works, the metaphor I like is the idea that we all think about filling our cup, is your cup half full, is it half empty. The whole notion of a full cup to me is that that full cup can then spill over onto other people, a lot of nonprofit leaders feel that if they're not feeling burnt out, then they're not really working hard or they're not really doing it right. I remind them that their own cup is actually a way to help other people, because it allows them to keep going in the long haul. Carol: I think [it also] models that for any staff that are working for them, because I've talked to many executive directors who say: ‘well, I tell my staff not to work on the weekends,’ and I say ‘okay, are you working on the weekends? Are you answering email? Are you sending them an email on vacation?’ Well, if you're doing that, no matter what you say - my mother loved to say, ‘do as I say, not as I do,’ but clearly that doesn't work. We watch how people behave and that's really the expectation. People see that and they feel they have to work towards it. Beth: They have to match what the leadership of the organization is doing. I’ve said more times than I can count that whole thing about emailing on vacation. You can have a company policy that says you absolutely must take X or Y amount of vacation, [and] I know a number of organizations that respond to this [with] mandatory vacation. [They say,] you must take a break ‘cause we want you to be here for the long haul, but then they write emails on vacation. If you're writing emails on vacation, then your staff gets the message [that] they should never take a break. We've got excellent research out there that talks about what taking a break does for people and how much more productive people are, even after a short break. It doesn't matter what field they're in, this research has been done across many different fields, I think one - I'm not going to come up with a citation right off the top of my head - but I think of one group that looked at basketball players, their free-throw percentage went up when they took breaks from working out. We know it's true with folks in the arts. We know it's true with folks in business. We know people have looked at this in terms of the research, on taking a break on from many different perspectives. People who take vacations get higher ratings from their supervisors in terms of being more effective employees, and it's correlated very strongly with the number of days of vacation they actually take. We know that the research tells us that this is how we rehab for burnout and how we come back. As I say, it's an individualized program in terms of how you actually get the person to make the cognitive switch to: this is actually good for me, I really need to do this. I have sports injuries and I feel like I've probably experienced burnout at some point in my career, [and] I do feel like with both, you don't come back to where you were before the injury. I think it ebbs and flows over the span of a career, what you might've been able to do in your twenties, or maybe when you were in a startup phase with an organization, it needs to shift. Yet the times people don't shift because they started out a certain way, working a certain way either for an established organization or as a founder let's say or whatever, and then that just becomes the culture. So being much more mindful of how you’re setting those boundaries and then what are those different things that fill your cup? Carol: I feel like I've seen much about that research that you're talking about and yet somehow in our culture, there's still so much bravado about this macho, ‘we've got to always be working, got to always be busy. I'm busier than you.’ stuff that I'm trying to step out of. I don't need that, but how the hell is it for most people, they think, ‘well, it's not possible for me to do it differently.’ Beth: Yeah, and some would see [it as] a failure of their imagination that they can't imagine that taking breaks would have a positive impact on that, that they could do it in a different way than they did it in their twenties now that they have different responsibilities at home, it’s ironic. I think that Corona and the Coronavirus has caused a lot of people to really rethink and to look for new ways to figure this out. Just plugging through is not going to work if you’ve got an eight year-old at home who needs your attention and needs your help getting the education that they need. Folks are, are looking around and saying, ‘oh wait, I have to figure out a new way.’ I think that this is an opportunity, that's the silver lining, there's an opportunity here to get a little bit creative about how people approach their work and look at it in a different way. When you described the whole notion of burnout rehab being this combination of sets and boundaries, and then the TLC and how you fill your own cup. What I always say to people is ‘sometimes how you fill your cup is the work,’ and I like to say self-care is not always a bath bomb. Like this is not about going to the spa. There are a lot of people for whom the work itself is fulfilling that it does fill their cup. I say amen to that, then you're probably not burnt out, but for other folks in your organization that might not be true. The other piece of this is that, when you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to fill your cup. Part of the reason the work fills your cup is when you are connected to the mission. What ends up happening is we get into getting ready for the board meeting, the actual getting ready for the board meeting becomes this huge stress. That is a disconnect for me. What is our mission or what is our goal? Even though the board is important and that helps move the organization forward, it is connected to the mission [and] when we get too wrapped up in the, ‘I've got this meeting and then that meeting,’ or ‘I need to make these fundraising calls,’ or ‘I need to get ready for the board meeting,’ whatever the day-to-day logistics of the organization are that those logistics disconnect from the mission and the part of what refills our cup in the work is mission-driven work or mission-focused perspective. That's something that people can get this too disconnected from, and that can contribute to burnout. When someone says, ‘no, I just care so much about this one work. That's what drives me. That's what fills my cup.’ to that person, my response is ‘okay, when was the last time you were really connected to the mission of the organization, as opposed to just what it takes to run an organization.’ For people who are not yet willing to say, ‘oh, I just need to fill my time cup.’ That means going out in nature, for those people, I would say, ‘ when was the last time you actually were connected to why you came into this work in the first place?’ Carol: They could do both. They could take a walking meeting. I've been doing a lot of those since Coronavirus. I am pro-walking-meeting. Beth: There are ways to combine moving your body, being outside, and something done, it's a win, win, win. Carol: You work with organizations where the staff are really experiencing what goes beyond day-to-day stress of vicarious trauma and compassion, fatigue. Can you first, both define those things and then tell me who's typically affected and how that shows up in organizations? Beth: Absolutely. The difference to me between vicarious trauma, let's say in burnout, is that piece that I said before of a shift in worldview of seeing the world as a little bit less safe, or that if you had gone into this believing that there are good people in the world and there's good things in the world, being exposed to a steady diet of trauma can eat away at that pretty quickly. The other way I think of it is in terms of how you get burnout or how you become burned out and how you get vicarious trauma, you could get vicarious trauma after a particularly difficult one-time experience, whereas burnout is more like the steady drip of water eroding rock. You wake up one day and look around and say, ‘oh, I'm burnt out,’ but it's been based on this slow, steady drip of the difficulty of the work that you're doing. The other piece between burnout and vicarious trauma, to me [is that] vicarious trauma is actually probably about being exposed to traumatic material, whereas burnout can happen in all sorts of organizations. You might be an organization that is working on social change and you might feel burnt out by the slow pace or by the backward steps that you feel like is happening in a particular environment, but that's different from actually being exposed to traumatic material. Who tends to get vicarious trauma? I would say most times it's first-responders. It's in this environment, healthcare workers, but it's also people who hear the stories. I've worked now with two and am working with two different gun violence prevention organizations. You might go into that because you're politically motivated and you feel like you want to change the political strategies and you're an advocate, but you’re telling the stories of people whose lives have been shattered because of a murder that they experienced or because they were part of a mass shooting or because of other traumatic material that, that they're going to have to process. Anyone in the organization who is having contact with survivors and in most gun violence prevention organizations, the survivors are at the forefront of the advocacy work. You're going to be hearing those stories and anyone from the person who's sitting at the front desk to the CEO, to the ED, whoever it is, one in the organization could potentially be exposed to the traumatic material. That's different than just the burnout - one of my children works in the climate change field and she might argue that there's some pretty traumatic scenarios out there. It's an example of it's a long haul. It's a lot of work and you could get burnt out by the enormity of the problem and the small steps that you are making to make change in that arena, but you're not actually being exposed - for the most part - to actual trauma or to the traumatic experiences of others. That's a big deal, and certainly people who get vicarious trauma can be burnt out, but it's not always true that people who are burnt out all have vicarious trauma if they've not been exposed directly to that material. Carol: My daughter worked doing direct service with a number of different groups, working with students in lower resource schools, helping them with college access and there was always something going on with one of the students, maybe not directly with them, but then with their friends, family, and just hearing those stories all the time. One thing that was interesting that you said before was that people can experience PTSD symptoms. I feel like in the media, and what people have heard about PTSD, it's okay. As if veterans are the only people [who] experience PTSD and that's not true. I'm curious if you could just share some of the signs that people might, if they're experiencing that and not really knowing what's going on, what might be some things of how it shows up for them? Beth: Particularly for people who [have] vicarious trauma that I always described the post traumatic stress disorder symptoms as being a pendulum swing between numbing out and over feeling or, or feeling to a larger degree. We call it hyper-arousal in our field. That you go from 0 to 60 in terms of emotional response. Some of the other classic symptoms are people having nightmares or having flashbacks to the event that can even be true. If you just heard about the event and didn't witness it or didn't experience it yourself. I can say personally, one of the ways that I realized I had vicarious trauma in the early days of becoming a therapist to work primarily with trauma survivors was that I would have nightmares about the things that had happened to my clients happening to myself or to members of my family. It can show up in all sorts of different ways, but I think those are the two hallmarks if you're feeling a lack of feeling, a numbed response to something that in the past probably would have generated some response for you or in the opposite direction. I feel like everything people think of PTSD being somebody hears a car backfire and they think it's a gunshot and they jump through the roof, but that can be true for anybody. They can have a hyper-emotional response to a story here, to a smell. to a sound that is not like a gunshot, there are lots of different ways that people can experience that. That could be true for your daughter as well. She’s heard those stories enough that she becomes hypervigilant about scenarios that she might be in that are similar to what she's heard from her clientele. Carol: How does this impact the organization at large? I mean, certainly it impacts the people who are providing direct service working on the front lines, but I'm guessing that there are ways that it shows out throughout the organization and impacts culture as well. Beth: Yeah, it's a great question and absolutely the most obvious [is] when you have high turnover in an organization, because people, , as you said, people think of the progressive nonprofit world as - I've had people say to me, ‘we assume that people will be gone in about 2-2 ½ years.’ That that's the timeframe and that they see that as an acceptable outcome. They’ll just get some new 20-something graduates from college Carol: And give them vicarious trauma. Beth: Exactly. I think that there’s the sense of it [being] inevitable and my feeling is [that] it's not inevitable. It doesn't have to be inevitable and you lose things as an organization; that turnover is really expensive. It's expensive in terms of time, cause now members of your staff have to spend time - even if you have an HR department - other members of your staff or content folks are all going to have to interview people and figure out who they want to bring on. You have that time issue. Time, obviously, costs money and people are not doing the other things that you need to be doing. When you're doing that work, you have to train new people over and over again, you lose the historical memory that goes with the folks and you lose the relationships that those folks have built, whether it's with a board member or with a fundraising source, a funder, or with other members of the staff you lose when they burn out and leave, or when they get vicarious trauma and leave, you lose all of these intangibles in addition to the time and money that you've spent on the hiring process. Turnover is more than just another hiring process, which is exciting. Carol: It also impacts all the people who are left behind because I'm thinking over my 20-plus years at nonprofits to think I'd have to go back and calculate, but what was the percentage when I was actually doing a part of someone else's job because we all had to. So-and-so left and we had to divy it up. People don’t feel like there's the bandwidth or the resources to hire a temp, or that feels harder than just doing it yourself or those kinds of things, there's all sorts of ripple effects. Beth: Those ripple effects then potentially contribute to the burnout of the rest of your staff, because they’re doing more work. Carol: It’s a vicious cycle Beth It can be, my feeling is [that] it doesn't have to be right. Carol: What are some of the things that organizations can do to take steps to have it not be an inevitability? Beth: There are actually some decent organizational assessments out there, mostly talking to the members of your staff to figure out - one of the things I think that's helpful about bringing a consultant like me in is that I can do that in a way that folks potentially can feel like their responses are actually anonymous. They can be - hopefully - a little bit more candid and honest about what their experience is like. Sometimes people don't even realize that that’s what they're doing. [They’ll say] ‘I'm sending an email on Sunday night because I'm living at home with my family during Corona. I know that tomorrow morning, when you all need this information, I'm going to be homeschooling my kid.’ Okay, great. How about you try making that explicit, I'm sorry, I've sent this email more times than I can count. I'm sorry. I'm sending you an email on Sunday night. I don't expect a response and the reason I'm sending it on Sunday night is because I know you need this tomorrow. I know that I have the following things tomorrow that are not work related. I have to take my kid to the doctor in the morning, therefore, whatever it is to just send the message. a piece of it is assessing the culture. To see whether this is a, we should be responsive all the time. This is a 24/7 experience, always be available. See if that message is being sent out there, but the other piece is to actually ask staff what would support them. Just as you asked me before, well, what does burnout rehab look like? my response unhelpfully was, it depends on the person. The same thing is true. What's going to work for this staff? I don't know, but I'm going to ask the staff what they think, ‘Oh, well, we're going to put in a wellness program.’ That's always my favorite. We're going to put her in a wellness program, we're going to convert this empty office into a wellness spot, we're going to put water sounds and an exercise ball and some yoga mats and let people do what they want with it. My feeling is don't waste your money. Even though that's not a lot of money, don't waste your money. Spend some time talking to your staff about what actually feels like a wellness moment for them. Maybe what feels like a wellness moment for them is everybody actually getting together and talking about the work, right? Maybe it's about sharing wins. I have one organization that I work with that in the last couple of weeks has decided to give all of their employees eight hours of flex time to use during the work-week. At any time you want to discuss it with your manager, but here's some flex time because they're recognizing the impact of coronavirus and what it means to have your whole family at home. You might not have computer access or wifi access at X or Y time during the day, or you may need to be caring for an elderly relative or for a child or for each other or whatever it is. That was something that came from the staff. As something that would be useful to them, if they just felt like they were not stuck inside those core hours then they could help their kid during the day and work at night. Maybe they can't get an eight hour work day, [but] having those eight hours of flex flexibility gives them an opportunity that they otherwise wouldn't have had, but to me it's really about assessing from that particular staff what feels to them like it would sustain them in the long haul. Carol: A lot of this comes down to setting appropriate boundaries and, as you said, filling your cup. What are some of your favorite ways to fill your cup? Beth: Being in nature is huge. On mother's day, my husband, who, he and I have been married for almost 30 years and he knows me. He knows the goal is to get to some body of water. There are no large bodies of water near where I live but we can walk to a creek and that'll do, we get outside near water. That for me is the big one. Then the other one is music, either making music with friends or listening to new music that I just got exposed to for the first time. Those are really big for me in terms of filling my cup. How about you? Carol: Well it's funny, water for sure. I once went on a vacation where we only were by water one day and I realized, no, this is not a vacation for me. I need to be by water, the entire vacation, whether it's a beach or at a lake, or kayaking or some body of water, anywhere I [need to] have water. I spend my summer at the pool. I'm a little nervous about this summer. I think kayaking] will be the thing that keeps me going throughout the summer months. Also doing something that uses a different part of your brain. You talked about music, I used to play music as a younger person and maybe one day I will again, but these days I've been playing around with drawing. I'm no great artist, I actually do not call myself that purposefully so that I can continue to just dabble in that. Then for me, sports, anything active. Getting the body moving, all those things that don't have to do with being at a computer. Beth: Getting away from the computer is huge, especially right now. What I say to people is that sometimes it even helps to be doing something that is a volunteer thing. My family packs boxes at a local food pantry and it's physical work. I like that, it's different. It's not sitting at a computer, but also, I'm not in charge. That fills my cup. Being able to do something that's good and helpful for somebody else, but I didn't have to organize it. I can just show up, pack my boxes, be with my family and leave. Fantastic. It doesn't have to be a bath bomb. Sometimes it is actually about providing service, but providing service in a way that feels different for you or is not the same thing over and over again, because our brains crave novelty, and we need to use our bodies in different ways and we need to use our minds in different ways and anything we do that steps away from our day-to-day can be very useful. Carol: I actually have often reminded boards and people working in recruiting volunteers that they shouldn't assess that, say they need someone to work on marketing and communications that they should go after someone who does that professionally well, in fact, they may want to do something totally different and they may want to facilitate your small groups or do workshops or do some other thing, and someone else who is interested in that and may want to try out those skills as a volunteer. Oftentimes volunteering gives you an opportunity to try something different, or like you said, just show up and be told what to do, not be in charge. You have something concrete that has happened by the end, this had a clear impact on someone. One of the things I like to do is play a little game at the end here. I have a couple of icebreaker questions. Let me pick one. If you could never work again, how would you spend your time? Beth: Oh, if I could never work again... I hate to be one of those people that sounds like the people we're talking about who are burnt out, but honestly, I really do love this work that I'm doing with organizations. I would do this for free, that's a terrible marketing strategy, but it's true. I do need to pay the bills, I can't do it for free, but I think that would be one thing I would do, one of the things I know about myself is that I like variety. That would be one thing I would do, somehow finding a way we mentioned to be near a body of water would be something I would do. I would play my guitar and sing as often as I possibly could, find some other people to hang out with who had nothing else they had to do and just spend hours singing. My life could be one long campfire with a guitar. I would love that. Carol: What are you excited about? What's coming up next for you? What's emerging in the work that you're doing? Beth: I actually had an opportunity recently to do a webinar for some social service agencies in DC. The mayor of DC, mayor Bowser has put some focus and some money into looking at the district's response to trauma. I've been able to do one webinar in a series, and I'm going to get another one in the can coming up in the not-too-distant future and I'm really excited because those are the folks who I most want to be in touch with. Those are the frontline workers who are the government folks in DC who are handing out food stamps and who are trying to find people housing and who are trying to find people jobs. I think both burnout and potentially vicarious trauma is high in that group of folks. I'm really excited to have an impact on those folks who are providing such important services in DC. Carol: How can people find you more about you or get in touch? Beth: People can find Fermata Consulting on LinkedIn, F, E, R, M, A, T, A, or email me at fermataconsult@gmail.com. I would say LinkedIn is probably your best bet. Carol: We'll put those links in the show. Beth: That would be terrific. I'm always happy to hear from folks who I don't know, who have questions about the work I do. Feel free to reach out and shoot me an email and I'm happy to be back in touch. Carol: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you being on. Beth: Sure, I'm looking forward to hearing all of your podcasts, not just this one. Carol: Awesome. ![]() Episode 04: This week we’re talking to Rebecca Murphy. We talked about:
Rebecca has been a consultant for over 20 years. She considers herself an “interpreter,” as she has worked in multiple sectors including government, nonprofit, business, and philanthropy. She is adept at explaining/translating one to another. She is a generalist with a broad knowledge base – including workforce development, affordable housing, parks and place making. She has expertise in capacity building, organizational and program development, strategic planning, with particular expertise in public-private partnerships, community engagement, and strategic collaborations. Hers is a mission-focused practice. She is passionate about mission fidelity, and avoiding mission creep. Links: https://rcmstrategicconsulting.com/ https://twitter.com/RCMStratConsult Sponsored by Grace Social Sector Consulting. Learn about the Effective Online Facilitation, 4 week group coaching program. Interview transcriptCarol Hamilton: Today I want to welcome Rebecca Murphy to the podcast. Rebecca Murphy has been a consultant for over 20 years. She considers herself an interpreter as she has worked in multiple sectors including government, nonprofit business and philanthropy. She is adept at explaining and translating one sector to another. She's a generalist with a broad knowledge base, including workforce development, affordable housing, parks and placemaking. She has expertise in capacity building, organizational and program development, strategic planning, with a particular emphasis in public private partnerships, community engagement. and strategic collaboration. Hers is a mission focused practice. She is passionate about mission fidelity and avoiding mission creep. She is an optimistic activist with a passionate lived commitment to diversity. Join me in welcoming Rebecca Murphy!
Well welcome, Rebecca. I'm glad to have you on the mission impact podcast. I want to start out by just having you share with listeners your path? How did you get drawn to this work? How did you end up where you are now? Rebecca Murphy: Well, Carol, thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it. How I got drawn to this work is really very simple. It's something that I always seen myself doing from my early 20s I think I always saw myself as having some business that allowed me to help groups and organizations whose missions I believed in, do the work they did better, do the work they did differently and achieve the objectives that they were setting out to achieve. Carol: Coming into this a little bit later than you, I'm impressed that you had that vision for yourself so early on. What was the background to that? Rebecca: Well, I think it's a couple of things. I think the first is I have always been somebody who appreciated and was engaged in community development work. I came at it through a political lens primarily because that's what my parents did. My mother did community development work and they were both very involved socially and civically. so there were always groups and organizations in our kitchen, and we were very engaged. so I knew a lot about the universe of nonprofits and the universe of mission-driven work from a really young age. Both of my parents are entrepreneurs, so I never really saw a full time job for a company as my path. so that's really that's really how I came at it. I also feel like I was a little bit ahead of my time. I really wanted to be able to work from home so that I could raise my kids. Even when I was young, I knew that that was what I wanted. Carol: Yeah that's awesome, just the image of growing up around that. My dad worked for the government for the Foreign Service. so he went to work, it was a very traditional job and it was very mysterious to me as a child. All I really understood about it was that there was a big desk involved, and a big building, and some legal pads and government pens, but beyond that, I really didn't understand it. so it's really cool that you were able to absorb that from an early age. Well, one of the things that you focus on is partnerships, including public-private partnerships, and I certainly believe that partnerships are so key to many nonprofits and how they do their work and at least my belief is that more should consider them with so many small organizations all going at the same issue. What would you say are the key things that nonprofits really need to think about when they're getting started with partnerships? Rebecca: I think that's a great question, and it's one that I get asked a lot in my practice. I think that the most important thing that a nonprofit needs to do when they're thinking about a partnership is: what is their why? Why are you engaging in a partnership? Second to that, but equally as important: what do you bring to the partnership? It can't be about only what it is that you think you'll get out of it? It has to be about what you bring to that, what are your assets? What are your strengths? I think partnering from a place where you don't know that is a recipe for disaster. Carol: Can you give an example of some disaster stories? Rebecca: Yeah, I think I’ve had a couple of clients who thought that partnering was a good idea because it was going to get them out of a bad situation, and I think that's so common. I think that too often organizations are scrambling when they're really struggling, and then they think, “Oh well, we'll partner or we'll merge," and it seems like there's rarely a good time to try to step into those kinds of relationships. Partnering for weakness or desperation is a terrible time because you don't have clarity, and when you partner with an organization, you have to have clarity. You have to have clarity of mission, you have to have clarity of your goals, and you have to have clarity about the risk. I think that's the other thing a lot of nonprofits don't think about is what could go bad. They think about, “oh, this is gonna be great. it'll help us build our capacity. It'll help us raise money, it'll help us," whatever it is that they think it's going to do. They don't ever think about what's going to happen if it goes sideways, and whether there are different types of going sideways. There's recoverable going sideways, and then there's sort of the epic, this is the kick back sideways. I think that that's an equally important thing to be thinking about when you're thinking about a partnership is, what are we going to do if it goes south? How do we extricate ourselves? What are we going to do [if it goes sideways]? Carol: So I usually like to focus on the more of a strengths-based approach and when things go well, so describe a partnership that you've seen when they really did things right, they did the due diligence and it really benefited both organizations in a way that you were even surprised by maybe. Rebecca: Okay.… The stories I can tell best really relate to collaboration, which are - I think - partnerships with more than two players. and I think that they've worked, the ones that I have seen or been a part of that have worked really well. Were those where there was a common goal, whether it was a common problem that needed solving or a common issue that needed to be addressed. and everybody who was there brought different strengths to the table. They were partnering not from weakness, but in a manner that compensated for each other's sort of skill gaps, because I don't think that anybody in that particular industry killer scenario was weak. I think they just have different skill gaps. and I think that's almost the best way to think about a partner. Is this partner somebody who's going to fill my skills gaps? and can I do the same for that? Carol: so what are those complementary pieces where you, you don't all have to bring the same strengths to the table. Rebecca: I mean, it could be something from something as simple as “these people understand organizational development. I don't understand organizational development, but I want to work with somebody who does.” Two organizations that are focusing on one issue, one organization has real strength in advocacy and organizing it, while one organization has real strength in writing and policy work, those are two sets of skills that it's really rare to find in one organization. some organizations are good at service providing and other organizations are better at management. I think that a lot of times organizations can partner to build capacity or to test something you could market through a partnership. I particularly found this true in the community development space. There are lots of nonprofits that want to get into community development, whether that is they want to build themselves a facility, whether they're in the housing business, there could be a church or some other big nonprofit that doesn't provide a service that they want to provide in the community development realm. Partnering with somebody who has that skill can be very successful because for everybody Think because the organization that needs the partner that wants to develop the housing or the community center or whatever, they have clarity of mission, they have built in constituency, they can fill the rooms, they can, run the programs, and they partner with somebody who understands how to actually get a building built, or how to get houses built, or, how do you raise money for that? How do you think about that? How do you budget? How do you plan? Those kinds of things. I think that those are very successful partnerships generally, I think partnerships and community development work, especially where there's potential for a cut to reach economies of scale, for example, especially this gets really to what you talked about from the very beginning, if there's a space where there are lots of actors - in Baltimore, this was true in the out-of-school space, there was a period in I think the 90s, late 90s, early 2000s, where everybody it seemed, was an out-of-school time after-school program business, and some people were operating out of their homes or they were operating out of a church basement. some people had more robust programs or they had bigger space, so they had outdoor space, but the marketplace was so crowded at that point, and the small guys were really in danger of not being able to survive, not because they weren't doing really good work, but because they didn't have the capacity or the need for a nonprofit organization, but they didn't know about Fiscal Sponsorship. They didn't have all this sort of back-office stuff, but they were providing an extraordinarily high-quality service, so I facilitated a collaboration amongst six small providers in a neighborhood in Baltimore City that all had different types of service. There was an arts group, there was a tutoring group, there was a sports group, I think there might have been two of each one. I said to them, “okay, you don't all need a lawyer. You don't all need an accountant, but you've got to have a structure.," so they pulled together a collaboration and they identified a single fiscal sponsor, and somebody who was able to manage all the admin for all six of them. In the course of a year, they were each able to raise enough money to operate both independently, but also, for the first time, to do collaborative programming. Carol: That's awesome. Yeah, it seems to me that it's too easy for many organizations to really get caught up in their own work and not really take the time to think about who else might be in their ecosystem., and as you're saying, even in their neighborhood, their community of who they might be working with for greater impact in that back office stuff. I mean, I'm not sure what the statistic is, and I should probably look it up, but it's like 70 to 80% of nonprofits with less than $750,000 budgets. If every single one of them is replicating that back office, It's a huge amount of resources that could be put to program could be put to program if they were to partner up with some other organizations and share those resources. We're recording this in the midst of the quarantining for the Coronavirus, so I'm guessing that that this is going to have some impacts on people where they start looking at those things and start doing what solo entrepreneurs have been doing for years, hiring virtual assistants and virtual back office, virtual accounting, all of those things; and I think there's a difference between a partnership, just a one to one and then that that multi-party partnership and then even to the next level, and you’ve talked about how why you're getting together is so important, and I've seen in larger collaborations where it may seem obvious why everyone's together, and yet without having a deliberate conversation about how are we defining what our goal is really specific Basically, everyone can have their own definition of what that goal is. Rebecca: I think that's right. I think too, that you can end up in the space of too many cooks in the kitchen, not enough sous chefs; whatever the metaphor is. It's really about leadership, and about who's going to be in charge - for lack of a better term. It's like if you had a room full of first children, do you know I mean? Carol: I'm a middle child. I don't want to be in that room. Rebecca: Yeah, I think it's that phenomenon. It's everybody thinking that they are in charge and not knowing - not only who's going to do what, but who's accountable for what, who's responsible for what, because those are the tough conversations that you need to have, and that's the stuff that if you don't do it, it can really kill you, not just the partnership, but it has implications for your individual organizations. If nobody talks about who's going to sign on the dotted line, who's going to be the fiduciary, whose insurance are you going to carry? Do you need to get insurance as a group? All of those things are hugely important, and I think when you're engaged in a partnership around an issue, it's easier to put those things aside or if you are engaged in a partnership that is time limited around a legislative issue or a crisis or some one-off challenge. It's very easy to let that stuff go, and then when you finish, and you’ve got to clean it all up, and you have a big old stew of stuff you can't figure out, it's a giant problem. I think the other thing about that, and about partnerships in general is you're talking about relationships. You're talking about people that - presumably - you like and respect and trust. If you don't, you're not doing enough, you're doing a disservice to the relationships if you don't take the time to think about that stuff and really figure it out. Carol: I mean, in some instances, you can't have that assumption that everyone likes and respects each other and it may be that a funder is saying all of you guys are in this space, and I want you all to work together. When you've seen those kinds of situations, Rebecca: The arranged marriage. Carol: there's a whole bunch of steps that you have to take to start building that trust and you probably have to step way back before you can get to action to just ask “why are we all here? What do we think we can get out of this? How are we going to work together?” Rebecca: You may be competitors, I mean, that's the other thing. I had a client last year who had been repeatedly asked by a prospective funder to partner with what they viewed as a complimentary organization. My clients saw that group as having a very different strategy, a very different objective; they were competitors so they did not want to partner with that group. The mistake they made, however, was not explaining that to the funder. They didn't explain to the funder that, while they respected the work, that group did their mission, and they had a very similar, I guess, 20,000 foot mission and how they got there in my clients view was incompatible. Their strategies were incompatible, and as a result, they really affected their relationship with the funder because they didn't communicate; and then when we were finally able to get that relationship back on track, the funder was like, “well, you should have just said something. I was looking at it from a very narrow perspective, you're doing this, they're doing this, you should all do it together. If you had said to me, ‘meh’ or ‘we could only partner in this one little area.’ rather than just not doing it.” Carol: That's a really good point about the 20,000 foot mission versus the theory of change. How are you seeing the strategies you use, and how that's getting you to an end goal; and you say that you're really passionate about mission fidelity and avoiding mission creep, and I think this is just a huge challenge in the nonprofit sector for lots of lots of reasons. What do you see that really drives mission creep, in your experience? Rebecca: Economics. Carol: Can you say more about that? Rebecca: The number one thing in my experience that causes mission creep, is fundraising success. I think very often organizations use the availability of funds as a “we'll try this," you know what I mean? It's not very well thought through if you have - actually, let me be more specific: it's less about economics broadly, than it is about covering your operating expense, which I think is one of the single biggest challenges and one of the things I think that the philanthropic community should be doing more of is covering the appropriate percentage, covering operating expenses at the appropriate level, because often what I have seen happen is an organization - let’s say they're a S.T.E.M. organization, they provide S.T.E.M. services, they teach kids S.T.E.M. in the after school space. They raise X number of their $50,000 budget, or $100,000 budget, of which $20,000 is general operating or 30,000 was general operating. They are applying for program grants. There is not an organization that I have seen - and I worked for a philanthropy and our general operating number, I think was 11%, and we were very high at the time. General operating isn't sexy. It's not new, it's not the bright shiny thing, so it can be very hard to raise money for. So this particular organization saw a grant opportunity to provide counseling or to provide family counseling or something, something that was utterly unrelated to but could have been tangentially and their way in was we will counsel the families of the kids we serve, because they were like “we need the money." It was a disaster because it was so far outside of their mission. Carol: and probably [out of] their core competence Rebecca: Exactly. I think often - and that's a very extreme example - often it's, “we'll do the same thing in a different issue” or “we’ll do the same thing with a slightly different program area," but the result is the same. I see a lot of medium-sized nonprofits, or nonprofits that want to go from small to midsize. If there is a trend in philanthropy, if there's a new bright, shiny thing that funders are funding, then the temptation is very great to try the new, bright, shiny thing as a means to keep your doors open rather than doing what you do really, really well and working harder to find the funders that support that. That's a hard thing to do, I think that avoiding mission creep is a function of capacity. Carol: If you've seen - and I am not a fundraising consultant, so this is just from observations - so especially with newer organizations, you're talking about moving from small to midsize, maybe there's a lack of understanding of what really [is] the impact that grants can have on an organization from the board's perspective. It just seems like “oh, wow, it's free money.” I mean, it's not free money because you got to do work for it - but the sense of never thinking about what that grant might actually cost the organization. Rebecca: Exactly. Carol: Is the piece that people miss. Rebecca: I think that's right. I think there's a lot of well-intentioned grant making that isn't necessarily well thought through, and I also think that there's a temptation I think that works counter to that in a mission creep space is empire building. Carol: Can you say a little bit more about that? Rebecca: There are often three or four big dogs [in a city] that started out doing whatever they did, [and] because their organization is really good at whatever it is that they started out doing, they're the ones that get offered the new bright, shiny thing, and because they have the capacity to do it, and even if [they don’t,] they have the capacity to hurry up and figure out how to do it, and somebody asked them to do it. Somebody with money said, “why don't you try this?” I mean, there's an organization in Baltimore, [and] they do great work, but they are the object lesson for empire building. They did one thing exceptionally well, [and] because they did that one thing exceptionally well and ED was out and about, a lot of people knew him. He's a smart guy, he was easy to like, the program was a very feel-good program. Then somebody asked him to go into the housing renovation business or some absurd ancillary thing, and because somebody asked him to do it, he did exactly what you said: he hurried up and figured it out, because he had the bandwidth within his staff and he had the resources to train. He figured out how to do that, Carol: Or hire some experts doing that. Rebecca: Exactly. So even though he went and did it and did a serviceable job at it. He put out of business the two organizations across town that were doing that work successfully, but that were really, really tiny so nobody knew they were there. So the unintended consequences of the intended consequences of not really understanding capacity building and choosing expansion for the known over [just] training somebody who is smaller and maybe less well known. so this organization just to wrap it up in a bow ended up being the go-to organization, they ended up with fiscal sponsorships and blah, blah, blah in 15 different issue areas, and they had a very high opinion of themselves, and they had one of those heavy duty blockbuster boards with all the bold faces and everybody. They were *the* group, and it got to a point where the people who ran it took themselves way too seriously. Carol: It’s flattering to be asked to do all those things. Rebecca: It is, and if you're able to figure out how to do them even marginally well, you also have the ability to cover your own failures, you can paper over the fact that you're not as good at it as you were at your core service, but you're passively good at it, and people love you. So they're going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I was putting together a program - I was working inside government and I was putting together a program and we needed to get a big application, and we were looking for nonprofits to work with who would be the lead for this particular grant. These guys were not the right ones, but they really thought they were, and they couldn't figure out why they hadn't been asked to dance. We went with somebody else because it was an opportunity to elevate that group, they were very, very good and ready to do the next step and it was really interesting having to explain to this very successful organization that they were not the ones [and] I think that happens too. I think that, in every single city there are three or four big dogs, then there's two or three medium dogs, and then there are 35 small dogs who can't get out of the dog run because they can't raise any money. Carol: Yeah. Well I want to shift gears a little bit and play a game. Rebecca: Okay! Carol: I’ve been a facilitator of many, many meetings and designing lots of retreats and planning sessions etc. I have many things like boxes of icebreakers because other people are better - that's one of those skill gaps -- other people are better at thinking of fun questions than I am, so I'm just going to use theirs…. So the question is: if you could live in a sitcom, which one would it be and why? Rebecca: [I have] a couple of answers to that. I don't know which way to go. Is this “if my life were a sitcom” or can I pick a sitcom? Am I picking a sitcom to inhabit? Carol: You're living in it. You're being dropped in, you are now a character in the sitcom. Rebecca: Okay, all right. Carol: It doesn't have to be for the rest of your life. Rebecca: Ok… off the top of my head, [my] answer is Friends because it's impossible to believe that they could all be in New York and not have a black friend. Carol: Well, there you go. Rebecca: That was [something] I never understood. Carol: Well it's funny, when I pulled this card out of the box this morning, I actually thought of Friends also, but then I started thinking “um... well, let's see, I'd be the nerdy friend that certainly wouldn't be hanging out with those folks if I were in college.” Rebecca: I'd be the black snarky friend, but guess what, that's my thing. Carol: All right, excellent [I think] mostly because I was a single mom in my 20s and so I didn't get to have that time of hanging out with your friends and that being your family, so I would take a vacation there with those folks as well. So what are you excited about what's coming up for you that's emerging in terms of your practice and the work you're doing? Rebecca: I'm really excited about partnerships and collaborations right now, and I was excited about it before all of this craziness, but I am weirdly more excited about it now because I think that what is happening in our country, and in our world is both exposing some real fissures that need to be fundamentally addressed, and - secondarily - I think every crisis is an opportunity, right? I think that the nonprofit sector has a real opportunity to examine their work, to be very creative in terms of service-providing because we are in a period where lots of people need lots of things. I think that both big and small, established and less established organizations of different competencies have real opportunities to come together and increase capacity and develop broader programming and change and think about the ways in which they serve their constituents, and I think that there is a lot of opportunity for people like me who understand and can help you figure that out, so that. The other way I'm thinking about it is, you know, one of the ways I describe myself in my practice is that I'm an interpreter because I have experience, not just across sectors but across subject matters. I am able to be the fulcrum, be the center of the wheel, and help the spokes communicate to each other for a moment. What that has given me is a certain agility and nimbleness to be able to explain and interpret and facilitate collaborations because I understand how each sector works with the other from their particular vantage point. I always joke that I can translate, I can speak philanthropy to government, I can speak nonprofit to philanthropy. I can be in all of those spaces and create meaningful collaboration and I think that's going to be a very useful skill going forward. Carol: Yeah, I think people are having to - there are some who jumped on the bandwagon in terms of working from a distance and obviously, not everything can be done from a distance. A lot of places are having to rethink how they do their work and maybe suddenly, things that people doubted, I know [that] in the work that my daughter does, they do virtual advising of college students for financial aid, and suddenly virtual advising is the one thing that they can do right now. So you talked about things emerging for you, so how can people get in touch with you? Rebecca: People can get in touch with me via my website, which is rcmstrategicconsulting.com . I can be reached via email at RCMstrategicconsulting@gmail.com. I have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. My Twitter account is RCMStratConsult. Carol: All right, you can get in touch with Rebecca there and thank you so much for coming on. This was a really interesting conversation. Rebecca: Thank you very much for having me Carol. It was a lot of fun. |
HostI am Carol Hamilton, nonprofit consultant and podcast host. My passion is helping organizations cultivate healthy, inclusive cultures that live their values, fostering learning, creativity and results. Find me at Grace Social Sector Consulting and download free resources. Archives
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