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A New Approach to Decision Making for Nonprofits with Jim Dygert Aug 28, 2018

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A New Approach to Decision Making for Nonprofits with Jim Dygert Interview Transcript Hugh Ballou: Greetings, it’s Hugh Ballou and Russell Dennis. Russell, good day to you, sir. Russell Dennis: Happy Tuesday, the last Tuesday of August. Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. We have a brilliant financial mind here today in the form of young Jim Dygert. He is going to talk to us about money, something some of us get a little uncomfortable with, but we always have to keep in mind. Hugh: Oh, Jim Dygert. Tell us about yourself please. Jim Dygert: Good day. I began a journey after college with a little operation called the U.S. Treasury Department. I scored very high in some adaptation skills that I had, which allowed me to move into what they call a systems analyst. As a systems analyst, I am looking for not only the repeated process steps inside of an organization or an activity, but I am also looking for the aberrations that are caused when things don’t work right. With that, I was advanced to be an examiner for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is a division of the U.S. Treasury. They’re charged with establishing the solvency and liquidity of our entire national banking system. When I was doing my work there, we were doing the things that ultimately are now considered stress test. The ability for a financial institution tor any organization to behave according to its mandate, its vision, and its mission, and its purpose such that it becomes sustainable. I learned the term “sustainability” long before it was applied to the green world of sustainable businesses beyond economics. I learned it from the standpoint of what we call triple bottom line and the ability for an operation to not only create cash flow in those organizations that do create cash flow, or to serve and store the cash flow so that it might be provided to it in the world efforts and the arena of, say, nonprofits, where there may be a grant or sponsors or contributors that are allowing those funds to be available to pursue a particular goal and vision or mission. In that process of learning systems dynamics and systems analysis and procedural process steps and mapping of flow of work force behaviors, ultimately in the last 15 or 20 years, the industry that’s applied to, I wanna say consulting, but not really, the work I do is not really consulting. It does give consul, and it does give a procedural step. We actually have built a non-technology-based, non-IT-based, non-software-based procedural process steps for risk mitigation. In effect, the decision-making skills that any organization needs to go through, whomever is stewarding the direction of that organization, needs to have a tool set for discerning and determining what are the best decisions to make. Now there is a lot of prior work we all say that we stand on the shoulders of giants who came before us. There is a lot of prior work in this industry. But no one has taken the position that we have, that we create what we call a mirror and complement to the chart of activities or the chart of accounts that is associated with financial statements. I think you’ll agree, and your audience is probably familiar with, financial statements. Whether it’s a personal solopreneur that needs to have a financial statement and does have one, or an enterprise or organization, whether they are for profit or whether they are not for profit, those financial statements are often the story that is told of the history of that organization’s activities. To be able to read that story is much like reading a language. Understanding the nuances of how those outcomes came to exist is the story which we dive into. We give the real practical, actionable, practitionable events that allows the decision-maker, again, whether it’s a solopreneur or all the way through to a larger organization. We have worked with very large organizations with more than 2,000 employees. The process works because it does what we would call- it goes beyond business process management. Some people may have heard of things like Adjul or Balanced Score Card or Sig Sigma or a whole arena of disciplines that approach and help to describe the inter-working relationships that go on inside of an organization because an organization is a living, breathing entity. It goes and lives in essence beyond the work force. It creates it. Hopefully it does. Whether it’s a proprietor who built something and some day steps away, because they have sold it or it grew up, we have worked with employee stock option programs where employees have purchased the operations that were created by an original founder. We have worked on mergers and acquisitions where a company is going to be absorbed by someone else or merges, and there is a cultural clash that goes on between them. Oftentimes, cultural clashes are merely an outcome of not sufficient information and not sufficient communications. There is a whole arena of work in that environment. We encapsulate that. We encapsulate financial literacy and mastery of financial statements, and we encapsulate this entire process of organizational behavior and created a mirror and complement to the chart of accounts that mirrors and complements what we call a chart of activities. When we do that, we get a true line of sight between the behavior inside the organization and the financial outcomes it produces. From there, we can create performance and projections. Hugh: Russell, what is that spark in your interest? You work in the financial area. What kind of interest does that spark by you? Russell: One of the keys to being able to make money in nonprofits is to tie a story to it. Money tells a story. As you said, it has a language of its own, and people can tie- I like that statement: chart of activities. It’s COA. In painting a picture for people that support you, it’s important to be able to talk about how what they’re contributing is making a difference or an impact in the lives of other people. Being able to follow that activity is important. As we teach here at SynerVision, the money should be tied to the plans. All of those numbers mean something. All of it has a place, as all of your activities have a place and should have a place. Unpack that a little bit for us. People will sit there and look at a chart of accounts and think of a budget. What is a good example of an account that becomes activity? If you were to take a certain set of items off of that chart of activities and relate it to a chart of accounts, what would those things be, and what kind of story would they tell? Jim: Sure, that is exactly what the process begins to do. We actually map those, and we end up with a value creation map. The value creation map is indicative of the collection of activities. It is not just usually a single person or a single node that ends up impacting the financial direction of the organization. Either the past, or if we intend to change its future. We are actually looking at that collection of things that may drive the results we are looking for. For instance, we may have in a nonprofit as you say the source of funds coming from an outside environment. We don’t have to have operational activities to drive source of funds the way a product or service company does. But we still have an activity that might be needed to raise funds or to maintain funds or to continuously create an additional flow of funds. That behavior activity, as a group of things that are done, end up being the driving factors that will of course show up instead of income like a for-profit company, it will show up in the direct revenue sourcing. Russell: This sounds like an interesting hybrid between a spreadsheet and a value proposition map, for example. Jim: Exactly. You’re capturing the concept of what this is. The process is rather definitive. We define the exact ways in which things are done in order to solicit and create the organizational alignment because as we all know, whether it’s a for-profit or nonprofit organization, if we don’t have alignment of vision, purpose, and mission, we don’t have the right contribution of human energy in order to get the things accomplished we need to, whether it’s run a particular campaign or do a particular event or maintain the back office in some way. We go through a process that first aligns people. Secondly, through that alignment process, there is a dissection or depiction by the individual parties of what are the value creation activities inside the organization that create a thrilled and delighted customer? We can use the term analogy “customer” in any vernacular we like. Who is our customer in this? Who is our customer in that? When we go through that process, we are looking for the hand-ups and hand-offs of the things that are going on, the action steps, the behaviors and activities that then can be mapped and charted and now because of that grouping and analysis work, we can find out what impact it has. If it’s on traditional financial statements or a nonprofit’s financial statement, now we can begin to tie that together. We have actually redefined what is called a KPI. People have heard of that: key performance indicator. When the KPIs were first identified and created, they had a very significant and purposeful meaning. Over the years, KPIs have slipped a little bit. The integrity of what a KPI is has been lost and is a minutiae almost inside of so many other disciplines. Sometimes today in a manufacturing world, a KPI company might be how many widgets we produce today, this week, or this month, or this quarter. Or how many cartons did we ship off the loading dock. Those are certainly performance indicators, but they are not what we call keyperformance indicators, and they are not master measures of what kinds of things are being done inside the organization. When I say how things are being done, not just what is being done. When we apply the process steps to which we derive key performance indicators, first of all, we are looking for an operational data point, something that we can demonstrably describe in an operational statement, and how is that measured against a financial data point, and that data point may show up in the financial statements. Once we have those two, now we are looking for discernment as to whether it’s historic activities are in line with where we want to take the direction of the organization, or they may not be, and what changes do we need to make in order to impact the future growth of the organization? There are some similarities in for-profits and nonprofits. Not always. But in some for-profit businesses, they have a board of directors. The board of directors may be implementing operational directives that the chief executive officer or a hired president may need to have as a mandate to move forward to directionalize the growth of that organization. It’s coming from the board. Similarly, nonprofits may have an operating manager or an ED or a managing director that is stewarding the direction of the organization, but they may also have a board that has some mandates to what the outcomes we are looking for are. As the decision-maker and the go-to process person, the president or the managing director, they have to make decisions regularly on what is the direction that the organization is going in. Is it consistent with the mandate? And it changes. Hugh: Russell opened up a good topic. I’m sorry, I thought that was a period, it was a comma. He opened up this fascinating topic, this channel. You have delved into the data. It is almost like a three-dimensional way of looking at a static document. I find that there is remarkable similarities in entrepreneurs, whether they are working for a for-profit or for-purpose enterprise. Virtually, the board of directors has financial oversight responsibility. Financial oversight and governance are the two big ones. Russell’s area of work is high-performance nonprofits that generate money. My work overlaps with that. Our work overlaps each other. It’s how we generate the culture of high performance. Jim, what occurs to me as you are explaining this, is the similarity is the people running the organization don’t really understand the numbers and what they mean. There is a fundamental lack of understanding of the balance sheet and the P&L budget and they don’t really know what a cash flow projection could be used for. They also don't realize the metrics you are putting on the plate. You are measuring what we do, how we do it, but we also need to measure the results of what we are doing. That is the real meat. Speak in that direction a little bit. You are creating a whole new picture. We named this interview – I took the liberties in saying it’s “a new systems approach of financial decision-making for nonprofits.” What you are opening up is a whole new paradigm of how we, the governance of this organization, make effective financial decisions. Jim: Correct. Because it’s not just financial decisions. We have non-financial outcomes as well. That may be job satisfaction, enjoyment in what we do, the contribution of time and talent, besides the treasure people may be giving to a nonprofit or a for-purpose business activity. We are looking at that holistic approach from an operations- how does the grease move between the wheels? If we called the money the cash flow, the grease that moves between the wheels, how does it get there? Where does it go? How is it used? What decisions processes do we have to go through in order to implement change and/or growth and/or strategies that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to project forward without the understanding of how much grease there is, where it comes from, and where is it best used? Because this is a decision process tool to help discern the activities inside the organization that will drive the organization to where its intended destination is. A lot of budget process steps are analysis work to discern how much did we do last year, what is our deviation differences between the few years before and where we want to go? We set goals as dreams, as visions, as desires. We begin to move there. We don’t have the tools to stay on track. We don’t want that train to jump the track. We have to lay down the track in a way that is consistent with the activities of the past and consistent with our intended outcomes and set the mile posts and the signs on the track ahead to ensure that it stays on the track. If it starts to get off the track, which happens, how do we know it’s getting off the track before we derail it? Long before we have derailed it so that we can make sure we are staying on track and staying focused with our vision and purpose. You had it right, Hugh. This is like a three-dimensional view of a single-dimension financial statement. When a business operator looks at their financial statements, oftentimes, the individual who is running that organization or that entity has a little depth into it, has a second level view into it. But until that second-level view can be catalyzed and articulated to the other members of the organization, such that the other members have full unanimity and an understanding of what is happening inside the organization with the value creation activities that create a thrilled and delighted customer, all those things that begin to manifest and create the organization as an entity, that is your second level of depth. Your third level of depth is once that takes place, we need a loop back system. We need a way in which those activities are not only understood, but they are inculcated into a system in a way in which those behavior traits begin to manifest by everyone inside the organization. The deeper we take it through a work force environment, the more sustainable results that we can end up achieving. Believe me, the beauty of this is it’s not particularly hard or difficult. It’s not tech, and it’s not software. These are process activities that can ta…

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It’s A Whole New Day! Leadership Challenges Faced by Today’s Church Leaders Aug 26, 2018

Show notes

Jim Chandler began coaching and consulting in 2016 after nearly 30 years of experience as a pastor and church planter in the Virginia Conference of The United Methodist Church. He also served on the staff as a campus pastor and leader of the stewardship system at The Journey Church in New York City — a dynamic multi-site church known for its effective church ministry and small groups systems.

Jim brings a positive and encouraging approach, believing that God is at work in churches of all shapes and sizes, and knowing from experience that small changes can make a big difference.

Jim did his undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina, double-majoring in Economics and Political Science. Following graduation, he operated small businesses and his work eventually led him to Northern Virginia. It was there, in 1987, that he finally answered a call he had felt and resisted for years: to enter pastoral ministry. Jim received his MDiv degree from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.

Jim currently serves as the Coordinator for New Church Development for the Alexandria District of The United Methodist Church in Northern Virginia (DC Metro area) and as a consultant for church vitality for the Charlottesville District of The United Methodist Church.

Jim and his wife, Lynda, celebrated 30 years of marriage in June of 2016. They have two grown daughters, Whitney and Hannah, and a lovable rescued dog, Tabasco. Jim enjoys reading, sports, and traveling with his wife on their Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

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Connecting Branding with Marketing for Market Domination with Daniel Ruke Aug 22, 2018

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Daniel Ruke: We go so far back, and we know each other so well. You actually know my real name because you said my real name. Daniel’s my real name. Ruke is my last name. As a guy who loves branding, there is a lot of Daniels out there, but there is no Rukes. I attach my identity to my last name. If you’re confused, that’s why because he knows me more than most people. I’m an artist privately trained since the third grade. I had a gift. I had really cool parents who supported that gift, and they said this kid has somethin’. They put money out there and invested in me to hone those skills. I graduated as an illustrator from the top illustration school in the United States at that time, Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. I jumped right out and created my own business. My passion really is I love to wow people. I love creating imagery that evokes emotions, that gains reactions in a storytelling setting. That is what I do today. I do that for my full-service agency, Blink. I actually teach and show up people, I love my fun brand. It’s World Dominating Brand. I think it’s very important that we can design our own world. We have the power to do that and define what that world is and dominate it in a great, positive way. That is a little bit about me. I have been married 22 years. I have four beautiful children. I love to play. I am very- I feel I’m very successful because I play. I get to do my dreams for a living, and I love helping others, especially those who want to have huge impact in the nonprofit world. There is a mission behind everybody, there is a story behind everybody’s efforts, there is a heart and desire that is burning in their bones. That fire they want to get out there in the world. Showing up here today to give some of the tools that we use from a marketing and advertising perspective and from a world dominating perspective, I'm excited to share that with you to empower you and your audience to be awesome and effective in an amazing way. Russell: Daniel, it’s great to see you. Really it is about a dream. When people step into a space where they want to make a positive difference in the lives of other people, the sky’s the limit. We are facing some huge problems out in society today. It takes big fakers, big dreamers. A lot of times in the grind of serving people, which so many nonprofits do every day, they often lose sight of that dream. That’s a terrible thing to have happen. One of the problems that I’ve seen is I see people doing phenomenal work out there but nobody knows about it. What do you think would be at the root of that? Ruke: There’s a mentality of scarcity. There’s a mentality of not worthiness. There’s a mentality of insignificance. When I’m dealing with a leader who’s having that trouble, the trouble is really in their head. It’s what they feel internally. I like to bring them back to the passion of why they are doing what they are doing. They started this mission for a reason. They wanted to change something for a reason. They saw a problem and a solution. It wasn’t just from a business opportunity. It’s more from the heart space, where they want to be effective to solve a problem. When you start doing that, a lot of self-doubt comes into play. What you are trying to cure and solve is so big, how can you do it? That leads to that mentality. Then of course trying to get people to rally behind you, to support you in doing that. While a lot of people will support your endeavor, I like that, that’s a good idea, and we encourage you, you have to jump through that like and love perspective and create them as brand partners or donors or supporters, whatever your nonprofit is made up of. That is a hard part. I’ll tell you some of it is because you are doing this out of the goodness of your heart, it’s sometimes hard to ask for the money. There is a guilt. You don’t want to be needy. You don’t want to beg. What I do, I hope that answer is why mentally some people are there. What I love to do is I focus on their brand, their branding or brand culture, especially internally. Behind the scenes, they see the mountain here. That’s all they see. They think that you see that mountain with them. You don’t. That’s the mountain they created that they are trying to solve. You are looking at them and watching them take their steps up. When I say you, that’s the outside world. Articulating those steps is very vital in building that connection. When I say “succeeding and growing up in front of your audience,” we don’t always see the great things we’re doing. We only see what’s ahead of us. We’re only problem-solving. We’re empathizing with our cause. Sometimes we get mythically caught up in the cause and become so empathetic that we are sympathetic and we have the similar mentality that infects us, which is not necessarily good. You always have to be that knight in shining armor. While you feel like your steps might be insignificant, they’re not. When you really look at what you’re trying to reach, that jump, that leap, that bridge to get where you want to go is always big. You don’t always know how. That is where that insignificance comes into play and adequacy comes into play. What I love to do, and I honestly think this is a good way to do this, is start a journal. Create a journal. Write down what your hopes and desires are for your cause, the recipients of your cause. Then write down some of the case study points of wins. Write down what you’re trying to achieve and what happened. Out of that, you will identify little stories of success. What’s going to help you is if you write that and review it every week, month, or quarter, you will realize that you made a big difference in Sally’s life. But we were so close we didn’t see it. That journal will help you do that. Wow, we helped this family get to the next level! Those are big wins sometimes, but you really don’t see the small steps. What you start doing is look and reflect on those steps. Look at those wins. It takes a lot of little wins. We are always waiting for the big win. Once we get here, then we will show up with our marketing now, then we will show up on social media, then we will start doing announcements, then we will start doing a newsletter when we have these big bragging rights and we put that goal so high. It’s here above the camera. You’re not going to reach it, and no one is going to hear it. You have to talk about the little steps and tell the little stories along the way. Of course, in today’s world, with social media and everything that we have, there is no reason why you can’t do it. There is nothing stopping you from doing it except yourself. I can preach, baby. Welcome to the church of Ruke. Russell: The mindset is where it’s at. Ruke: It is. Russell: As far s the organization goes and what we teach at SynerVision is to start from the beginning and build that system. It starts with that dream. You have that dream. You reverse-engineer everything essentially. It’s finding out, bringing the right people on the box, as Jim Collins says in From Good to Great. You don’t have to do everything. The leader gets into the trap where he/she feels like they have to do everything. Here’s the thing that complicates getting the message out there because you want to attract board members, you want to attract volunteers, you want to have donors, you want people that actually use your services. There are so many different people that you have to talk to. The challenge I see folks having is getting the right people on the bus. There is a different message for each type of person. Trying to reach these people is something that a lot of these leaders could use some assistance with. It is about people. It is about stories. People give to people. This is very important. In order for that nonprofit to be effective, they need to reach all of those multiple audiences with the message that resonates with each audience. You have been successful. You have done lots of different types of enterprises. You can look at different types of nonprofits. I happen to be on the board of trustees for the church that I attend. While you have certain activities that are church-related, my church does work with homeless programs, with food banks, and a few other agencies in the area. When it comes to messaging and reaching out to these multiple audiences, how would you do it in a scenario with an organization such as a church that works with multiple nonprofits? Ruke: You’re getting me to preach here. Let me get up on my pedestal. The challenge with the church specifically is it’s the balance. You’re not really a church. You’re not really a business. Church is sometimes too much of a church, or it’s sometimes too much of a business, and they’re neither. It’s difficult to walk the fine line. When you talk about rallying people behind you, we have to be able to say no. A lot of times we stumble is because we are taking all the Yeses in. You have to be able to say no. The opposite side of that is we put so much criteria in front of them to vet them that we actually squash the fire in their bones. That is where a lot of nonprofits actually fail. As you bring people on, you’re building that brand culture. You need to understand what that brand culture stands for and it’s not you. You started it. It’s your vision. But it’s not your organization, right? It’s the donors’. It’s the receivers’ organization. Once you build a brand culture, understand how you are there to serve and to contribute. Now you are always talking about that. It’s never about you and me. You are able to say, “Here’s our brand. Here’s what I stand for. How do you fit into it?” Now all you have to judge is the commitment. Here’s the hard part. When they want to do something on their own, oh, you get all scared. It’s your baby. It’s not your organization. You started it. You’re the visionary. But it’s the brand that matters. What you actually get to have a conversation with that person that has all the fire in their bones they want to do stuff. You want to judge if they are committed. That is a proper way to vet them. How much time? What can you do? How much money? What kind of effort? Great. To make sure they will be there. They will finish what they start. Generally, it’s us as leaders of those organizations that get in the way that don’t allow them to finish. What your conversation is, how does that fit within the brand. That can be missions. That can be what your goals are. How does that fit within the brand? As long as it’s doing that, you can give them the freedom to go out there, trust their brand is being represented properly. Getting clear on that is important. Russell: It is about the brand. The first step to building a high-performance nonprofit is to have a solid foundation. This is where that branding piece comes in because we look at the core values that drive what the leadership team thinks. Who are the people you serve? Who needs you? It’s not about you. The greater mission is where that focus is. You have to determine what are we about? Who do we serve? What is the problem we solve? Why do we do it in a way that nobody else can? That is what it becomes about. That becomes the engine. When you mentioned leaders, I see that leaders have a tough time. You know the ones that have the biggest struggle are the ones that start it, especially after it starts to take off. There is a really good book called The Founder’s Dilemma [by Noam Wasserman] This is something that happens not just in business. To a lot of people, branding is a business term. That’s not necessarily what branding is. Branding isn’t peculiar to business. It’s really who you are and what you’re about. Why do so many people miss the boat on branding? Why do you think that is so misunderstood? Ruke: That’s right out there with the word “marketing.” The definition of branding is the activity of marketing. It’s confusing because you have a brand. Most people think that’s a logo. That’s a piece of it. We are building a brand. That’s kind of a company. That’s a piece of it. In my opinion, it really isn’t. The brand is again the exercise of marketing. How you show up. It’s an experience. When you nail down what your internal branding is, what your brand culture is, it’s a set of missions, experiences that you’re trying to achieve, that you stand for. The external branding is the activity of marketing. Once you understand that, I am going to answer your question, that conversation shifts always toward that. You as the founder can release a lot of that control because it’s now about the brand, not about me and my ideas. People who have the most trouble are the smartest people, are the most caring people because they care so much. You have to understand, identify what that brand is, what that stands for, what that experience is doing. Then you can focus on that, and it takes you out of the equation quite frankly. But people get confused on branding because it’s an ethereal thing. It’s an emotion. A lot of that emotion is memories and promises of what that experience is. Since it’s ethereal, it’s hard to pinpoint. There are steps to identifying branding: just like what you said, what do we stand for? What are our goals? What is the logo? What are our colors? How is that spread to the world? How is that communicated to the world? How do we look at it internally? In brand words, what do we stand for? I have an exercise that helps you discover what your brand words are. It takes all this big concept to three little words. I will tell you mine right now: creative, empowering, and entertaining. Every company that I own, every company that I start has to fit into those three things. If not, it will be out of sequence with me. I hope you see I’m creative. Empowering, I am giving you a lesson right now. Entertaining, I hope I’m making you laugh. So everything I do fits in that. It takes our brand and the essence of that brand and simplifies it. Sometimes that is the best help they can get. What are those three words? You can always go how does that communication fit within creative, empowering, and entertaining? It can fit maybe two, but not one. Your CFO. Don’t want creative. You don’t need every bit of it. If you really do your communications, you can always look at it and say, “That’s a great idea. How does it fit into those words?” If it doesn’t speak to all three, it’s not a good fit. Get rid of it. Or if it’s a communication, and you’re going to show up on Facebook, can we show up in a creative, empowering, and entertaining way? You guys are great at that. If you can, it’s great, that’s a great initiative. If you remember those three words and hone those three words in and own them, you can always point to that and challenge and judge everything you’re doing from what you wear, what you say, what medium you use, what kind of newsletters you put out there, what Facebook Lives you put out there. It really helps you stay on track. And people can take the ethereal thing and judge themselves to see what they are doing. We rely so heavily upon them. Russell: That’s great. It’s all about who we are. Boiling it down, in the book, why should I choose you, they boil it down to seven words that drive why you do your business. Doesn’t necessarily show up on the slogan. The idea you’re talking about is just the same. The definition of why you do what you do, and it directs everything you do. Some people are really good. They get this part down. Oh, great. Now we know what it’s about. Now, who are some of the people we want to reach? How do we find out who we want to reach? Well, I gotta recruit some more board members. I gotta find some volunteers. How do I find out where they are, and how do I get to them? Then what do I say when I get there? Ruke: Yeah. That comes down to choosing the right people. I like to look at board members, and the reason why you bring board members is they are giving money or they are a p…

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How Community Building and Assessment Marketing Help You Build Relationships (Archive) Aug 02, 2018

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At Super Brand Publishing, we are experts at helping you become the world authority you always knew you could be. You know it. We know it. And this is how the rest of the world catches up. Confidence, passion, and a strong vision of her potential have all contributed to Juliet Clark's incredible success as a woman entrepreneur. Juliet Clark founded Winsome Media Group in November 2009. Within 90 days of opening her coaching and publishing company, she had filled her coaching schedule and established herself as an expert helping people build their digital footprint to sell more books, products, and services. Juliet's ability to help other fast track their success has made her extraordinarily successful. She assists her clients in all facets of publishing, and book and business marketing. Juliet is passionate about helping authors achieve their dreams. In addition to personal coaching, Juliet is also known as a motivational speaker and teacher through her Author Success Academy and the Entrepreneur Success Academy. She also is the host of a podcast called Ask Juliet, which answers author's questions and features successful authors and speakers who have effectively build platforms. Specialities: Professional speaker, motivational speaker, business webinars, author business bootcamps Interview Transcript Hugh Ballou: Greetings to this edition of The Nonprofit Exchange. Each week, we review techniques, strategies, skills, and culture development. We review all those things that are missing in the organizations that we lead. We bring in people who are successful in business, and they share their business strategies, their business skills, their framework for what they do. They have a specific area of expertise. Russell and I co-host this each week, and we encourage leaders in charities, all kinds, to install sound business principles into the organizations that they lead. Russell, welcome. Russell Dennis: Happy Tuesday. Welcome again, everybody. It’s good to be here. Thank you, Juliet, for joining this. It’s a beautiful sunny day in Denver, Colorado, and we are finally north of 30 degrees. Hugh: I am in Virginia, the south central part of Virginia, and it is in the mid-60s. It is top down weather from the convertible. Our guest today, as you already let out of the bag, is Juliet Clark. Juliet, where are you coming in from? Juliet Clark: I am coming in from Draper, Utah, where we actually broke 30 today as well. It’s sunny. The snow is thawing. But more snow tomorrow from what I hear. Hugh: Your company is Super Brand Publishing. There is also this Winsome Media group. I will let you talk about your background. Basically, what is the background that has given you the expertise to talk about what you are going to talk about today? The title of what we are talking about is How Community Building and Assessment Marketing Helped You Build Relationships. At the bottom of leadership, at the bottom of communication, at the bottom of attracting funding would be relationship. Juliet, welcome, and tell us a little bit about yourself. Juliet: Well, thank you for having me on, Russell and Hugh. I actually started out in the traditional publishing world and went on to advertising. I worked on the Nissan account, and then I moved on to Mattel to work on some of their products. Around 2008, I decided to write my first book, and I thought it would be a no-brainer getting it published. Self-publishing was brand new, and I went out and took my fiction novel, which—by the way I will tell you guys a little secret—I was going through a divorce. I wrote a mystery novel, and I killed my ex-husband. I was very anxious to get that published because it was either that or wear felony orange for the rest of my life. I am blonde, so not my color. To move on from there, I published my first book. I found a lot of inadequacies in the self-publishing world, things that I thought were super unethical. I created my own publishing company, so that is where my expertise began. By my third book, I had built my own platform and sold over 25,000 copies of that one. I was out of family members to kill, so that sold a lot more than my previous novels. I moved on from there. After that happened, my friends came and wanted me to help build their platforms. The company just morphed throughout the years. We were noticing entrepreneurs were writing books. When they brought them to us, we got a sense right away that this was not going to be the breakthrough product that their writing coaches had told them it would be. It was probably going to be another in a long line of failed products because they didn’t have a platform. That is where we are today. We have Winsome Media Group, where we focus primarily on building platforms for companies, coaches, authors, speakers, small businesses. Super Brand Publishing, where if you are really serious about that book needs to be a bestseller, we go back and we build ROI on those failed products and services that you have in the past and position that book as the icing on the cake instead of the main event. We are a fix-it crew that goes back and fixes all that other stuff that wasn’t done correctly and starts bringing ROI into your business. If I had to sum it up, I would say we are a marketing company disguised as a publishing company for the most part. Hugh: That’s key. To wrap around the relevance for the charities, it’s that we don’t know how to build this engagement model that you are talking about that is so important, building relationships. Before I go further, would you describe what you mean by “platform?” Juliet: A platform is where you build your audience, your fan base. In the fiction world, it was a little bit harder because you had characters you had to build that around. In the nonfiction world, it is building those people who are engaged in your business. I think there is a big gap out there between the digital world and the old networking ways that we used to work. There are people who are my age, probably 45 and older—not that I’m 45, but I will just pretend I’m down there— that they are really experts at being able to build relationships one on one. That is what we grew up with. But they don’t know how to bring in that digital space that they need. We teach them how to build relationships online because you can’t sell online unless you have relationships built. People don’t know you, like you, and trust you. Then we have this other group out there who are the younger generation, who are really invested in that digital platform, but they are not really great at building one on one relationships the way our generation is. We bring all of that together. We combine that personal and that digital to actually build relationships with people before you sell to them online. Hugh: That is amazing. I have 250,0000 in various platforms, following on mostly Twitter. I am driving a large fast-growing platform on LinkedIn. But Facebook is my least favorite. That is your most favorite. All in all, social media is in fact social. I am amazed at how many people don’t treat it. Hey, I’m George, buy my stuff. It’s really disappointing to get those things all the time. I would say 95% of what I get is a very awkward approach. It’s like me inviting a girl out and saying, “Let’s kiss first.” Juliet: Exactly. Hugh: Wait a minute. Why should I kiss you? There is this building a trusted relationship before people even want to consider anything that you’ve got. Let’s talk about the two pillars that were in the title. One is building a community. Talk about the context of what that means and why that’s important. The other piece is the assessment piece. Can you talk about those? Describe them, and talk about why they’re important. Juliet: Absolutely. Community building has recently become even more important than it was in the past. It used to be that you opened your business or your book page on Facebook. Because social media, and this is very important, social media is not yours, it belongs to the person who owns the platform. For Facebook, I may have several pages or communities, but they don’t belong to me. They belong to Mark Zuckerberg. At the end of the day, that’s his monetization platform. Now all of a sudden, business pages have become obsolete because he wants to monetize. That’s capitalism. So he has lowered visibility on those pages down to about 4-7% of the content that you produce people actually see. Inside of a community, which is a group on Facebook, people see 100% of what’s in there. 100% of what you post to 100% of the people who are in that community. Where the assessment marketing comes in is that once you have a community, and this is the old thinking of it, is that you build this community, you draw people in with Facebook ads, you put people in to that group, and then you find out what they want afterwards. The way that we do it is completely different because we use the assessment marketing to make sure we have our ideal client, our target market in that group. That’s how we use the assessment. Finding out where their skill levels are at, what kind of content do they need that will be valuable to them and create value to them. What skill level are they at? We use microcommitments within those. Are we speaking to beginners? Are we speaking to seasoned experts who would like to bump up where they are at in the world? We use that assessment marketing to create the engagement within the group. What questions do we ask them? How do we keep this going? What kind of content do they need to begin building trust with me? That is where we like to use those two together to make sure that we have not just a big group of people in there because that is all about ego, but the right people in there that we actually can serve. Hugh: Be careful of that ego thing. You have three males on the line here. Juliet: I don’t get a flavor that you’re really egocentric men. Hugh: Okay, thank you. Let’s frame this in a couple subsections. We are talking to charities who don’t commonly publish a book. Let’s rethink that. They really don’t tell their story, so there is another track that maybe they haven’t thought of and they can even get a sponsor to put their name on it and pay for the whole thing. There is that track. There is also the track of building the platform so that we have people in community, which is people together with a common philosophy, a common passion, things like that so that community is where people relate to and talk to each other. The most important thing I believe in online community isn’t content; it’s relationship. Would you agree or disagree? Juliet: I think that’s the most important thing, but content plays a big part of that. In order to be able to show people your expertise, you need to be able to communicate value to them. That is where the content really comes in. I like to liken it to when you have a book. There is that concept that most writers don’t get, which is show, not tell. A community does the same thing through content. You are showing people that you are really an expert at what you do. You re showing them value instead of them saying, “Me over here, I’m a great guru. Buy from me.” You are laying out the trust factor there. People are getting to know you. You are giving them actionable tips so that they see that you really know what you’re doing and you are creating that value for them. When they are ready, the assessment marketing can drive them easily into a strategy session or more nurturing. It’s a nurturing sequence. I like to liken it to dating, sort of like you did. If I go out on a date with you and you say on the first date, “Juliet, would you marry me?” It is icky. Not that I feel icky with you, but you get it. I’m like looking around to see where the bathroom is and where that is positioned to the back door so I can call a cab and sneak out of there because it was too much, too soon, and it feels really icky. That is what all of this is about. I’m showing you that I have value and nurturing you. Hugh: Let’s bring this back. These are really sound business principles for marketing. This is an area that charities are blind to: marketing and creating relationships and people who buy are donors. People who buy are sponsors. People who buy are grant makers. People who buy are board members who donate but they give their time. People who buy are volunteers. We take it for granted that people just want to show up because we have a passion. Being able to communicate a message, build a relationship, and show people why it’s important, I think it’s a missing skillset. What do you think about that repositioning of what you said? Juliet: I think it absolutely is as well. A lot of people don’t do it because it’s time-consuming. It takes a lot to communicate, to sit down and write something up, or do a video. I think it’s definitely something that’s missing. The more that you can communicate with that crowd, the donor crowd, when you can show them a video, when you can speak to what the needs are, the better you are able to bring those people in because just you and me having a conversation, you may be passionate about it, but I will forget about that passion ten minutes later. Hugh: The passion needs to be internalized with whomever you are talking to. Juliet: It needs to be presented in a way they will remember. For some people, that is visual. For some people, that is reading about it, but yes, something they can go back and digest later as well. You mentioned a book. I actually did a really great book Blue Laguna for a nonprofit called Blue Laguna. They sell that book, and it’s something that you take home and put on your coffee table. People joined. We sold the book out because people were so enthralled by yes, I need to have that passion for cleaning up the ocean. Look at these beautiful animals. Things like that where people have a real takeaway and get a real sense of how far you are willing to go with your passion. Hugh: I just know so many charities that have such good stories and they never tell them, except in little circles. This idea of why don’t we do a book, and I’m sure you have ways to help people take the ideas and put them on paper. I am going to call on my colleague in the pink shirt. He says he has the perfect head; I think I have hair. We have to debate that. I think it takes a real man to wear pink, don’t you, Juliet? Juliet: I love it when men wear pink. Hugh: We are of course recording this for the podcast so people can’t see us. They can only imagine what Russell looks like wearing pink. Russell, you in a number of these sessions have made a really good point about when we are approaching board members or donors or sponsors to find out what they are interested in. What kind of thread do you see in that coming from what Juliet is talking about and building the community, building a platform, and engaging people in a meaningful conversation? Russell: It’s just like any verbal language. Everybody has their language. You pointed out those five personas that are actually customers of ours. In the material I have put together for people, I have a customer profile that has turned up in both of my courses. You have to have a separate one for each group that you are talking to. We have technology that we are beholden to. You need the technology, but the old relationship building process and skills are still relevant and important. You have to take time to nurture these relationships on one hand, and on the other hand, you have to be where all the people you want to reach are. That puts you in the space where you have to do a little bit of everything. And that is what building the community is about. I talked with Rick Feeney, another publisher, at one point about having a nonprofit write a book because it is something for them to tell their story with. But Juliet has actually worked with some nonprofits. When you approach a nonprofit or you…

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Conversations with Barry Auchettl Jul 29, 2018

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Barry Auchettl (ock-er-tell) is a world leader in communications from the Gold Coast, Australia. Barry is the creator of Conversations: an inspirational game, which transforms ordinary talk into meaningful connections. Having a Masters of Education, he is also trained facilitator of The Virtues Project and The Blue Wren project for the prevention of domestic violence. He is currently working towards being a Non-Violent Communication facilitator. Barry is an author, international keynote speaker and runs a six month Life Vision Mentoring program, that specializes in clearing sabotages and creating authentic communication. He is also the founder of Eye Power vision improvement services. Interview Transcript Hugh Ballou: Greetings, it’s Hugh Ballou and Russell Dennis again for The Nonprofit Exchange. As usual, we have a very intriguing guest on this episode. Barry Auchettl from just south of Brisbane, Australia. It’s called the Gold Coast, Barry. Barry Auchettl: It’s called the Gold Coast here. Hugh: Oh yeah. Russell is in Denver, and we are having a good time. We are having to accommodate the time because our normal time for Barry would be in the middle of the night. He likes us, but he doesn’t like us that well. We are accommodating. Barry, I put a little dangler out there about Barry Auchettl. We are talking about Conversations today. We will leave that hanging for a minute. Tell people who Barry is. Barry: Hi, Hugh. Hi, Russell. Great to meet you guys again. My background is quite varied. I have a varied background. I started off as an accountant for Pricewaterhouse. I worked through the lines of there for a few years and recognized that accounting really wasn’t my thing. It gave me a great background into business and how businesses work. I decided then I was going to go teaching. I had a calling to teach. Ended up teaching for about 15 years. My areas of expertise were accounting, computers, and religious education, of all things. I have a theology degree as well. I have a business degree, a theology degree, and a Masters in Education. It keeps me busy. About 1997, it actually happened, I left teaching in ’97 to start up my own business called Eye Power, which has now been operating for 21 years. Eye Power is about improving people’s physical eyesight, but it also looks at people’s vision of life and how the two are connected. That’s really what I have been working with in a whole variety of fashions since ’97. Hugh: Now Conversations is the topic of this interview. Conversations is technically a game, but it’s a game with a purpose. What was the inspiration for developing it? It’s pretty intricate and complex. It’s easy to play, but you can tell there is a lot of psychology, philosophy, thought underneath the principles here. What was your inspiration for creating this tool? Barry: It’s really a communication tool for connecting people. That’s what it is, and transforming relationships. The origin of this game is fascinating. As much as I have a teaching background and I was helping groups, by that stage, I was helping and supporting adults. I was recognizing that people weren’t communicating properly. But I had no intention. This was way back in 2001. All I did was I went to bed one night really frustrated because my work wasn’t taking off like I wanted it to. When you are a start-up business sand things are really slow, I was frustrated one night. I went, “What is going on here?” I went to sleep that night, and I literally had a dream about the Conversations game that night. I had all these things I had to get done. In the next three days, I put together the Conversations game. I don’t know how, but all the other things got done as well. I don’t remember doing anything else. I just remember working on doing the very basics of the Conversations game. Within two weeks, Neale Donald Walsch, whose Conversations with Godand founders of Humanity’s Team, a nonprofit organization, played the game and really endorsed it. He said this is fantastic. You have to get this out there. Hugh: You need to bring it to America. We’re not talking to each other. Barry: Look, I have been really lucky. I have had the fortune of going around the world. By and large, people are the same. One thing I have found around the world is when we take out our politics and religions, underneath all of that, we are wanting to connect to each other and be kind and look after our families and have a good life. It’s almost a basic process. What I found that the game does, and I have played it with people, I have had ten countries play at once on Zoom, it was a fascinating experience to see that we are all- This experience we are all one. We are all having the same issues, concepts, desires, wishes. Hugh: It’s fascinating, isn’t it. Give us a couple of examples of here is what was going on, people were not connecting. They did the game. On the other end, what happened? Barry: One of the very early ones that came to mind is the first birthday of Conversations, and I decided to have an open house and invite people around. I had one person walk in. She was from a fundamental, strict religious background. She was making sure that there was nothing spooky going on because it would affect her religious beliefs. I said have a seat, have a cuppa, you’ll be all right. I eased her into it. The next person who walked in, I said, “Welcome to the game. Would you like a cup of tea before we start?” She literally looked up to the sky and said, “Yes, my angels told me I could have a cup of tea.” Hugh: Oh wow. Barry: Wow, this is going to be an interesting game. It was almost two extremes in terms of beliefs that you could get, you know. This is way back. This was back in the mid-2000s, the one-year release when I printed the game in 2005, so it was 2006. I was thinking, Oh my goodness, what is going to happen here? How are these people going to get on? What happened is a miracle, I believe is a miracle. I have played this game around a thousand times. The miracle was not only did they have an argument, because I could see their different viewpoints, but somehow the game drew out of them what was similar, so much so that not only did they not have an argument, but they also exchanged phone numbers and became friends. That showed to me the potential then of what could happen with the game. Hugh: Oh my word. I guess people need to come to the game with an open mind and a willingness to talk. Barry: That’s right, and just be open. The game is designed in a way that people talk as deep as they are comfortable with. The idea is slightly bend people’s comfort zones, not push them out of their comfort zone. Let’s extend ourselves and see how it goes. A good example is I received two emails once. One was from a grandfather, and one was from his granddaughter. They both sent me a letter to thank me because they had their first ever real conversation with each other. They talked to each other with their family, and the traditional roles, especially as a grandparent, and I guess they talked to each other as two human beings having a conversation. Hugh: Barry, that’s the big gap in all of our systems. We are talking to leaders that are running religious institutions, membership organizations, cause-based charities, community foundations. We are talking to people who have a very tight network of people gathered around a particular philosophy. That doesn’t mean they talk to each other. The church in America, the mainline denominations, there is a little bit of revitalization energy going on, but we have lost a lot of members. Part of it is this whole thing is we come and we sit, we don’t interact, and we go home. We don’t talk to each other in meaningful ways. Can we play a little bit of this game with you and Russell? Barry: The game normally goes between one and two hours, but we can do a ten-minute demo, which will give you guys and everyone listening a feel of what this is about. Russell hasn’t played it, and I can see he is intrigued already, aren’t you, Russell? Hugh: He is intrigued. Russ, you’re ready? You wanting to do this? Russell Dennis: I’m ready to rock and roll. Barry: Okay. The game itself as an outline, the game itself has three cycles. It has an Aspect cycle, which is an aspect of life. That might be career or health or something like that. Then we look at a Life cycle, which they call the Drama card. That was the easy part for me to do. Then we have the Inspiration cycle, which is to step out of that. That’s really what the game is all about: that whole inspiration of how to move forward. The purpose of the game- Just before we play here, I want to take up your point about communication. I believe real authentic communication is a two-way process. One is we need to be able to speak and feel safe speaking. Authentically speak, and know that we won’t be criticized. Part of this game is when someone speaks, no one comments on them. They get to speak without anyone saying that was a good answer or a bad answer or “Why don’t you do this?” or try to fix someone. There is no fixing allowed in this game. In actual fact, we only use “I” statements. That’s part of the game. We only use “I” statements. There is no “You need to do this.” It’s for me, I might choose to meditate more, or something. That’s the first part. The second part of the game, and it’s really important, and I used to call it active listening, about really listening to each other. I have shifted that in the last six months because I have done some work with nonviolent communication and empathic communication. I really believe now it’s about empathic listening. It’s not just listening to the words; it’s listening to what is behind the words. When we can really do that and tune in and get a feel for what the person is about and have some empathy for the person and have some empathy for yourself, you can then relate what is being said to yourself. That part, the game creates that. The final part that I can’t create but the game somehow magically does is to create an openness and a connection with all those who play. Because somehow by having people have a physical card in their game gives them position to open up. It just seems to do that. When we do that, we recognize we are similar. That is a real introduction. I am going to start the game with us. Hugh: Drumroll please. Barry: Okay. So we are going to get through each cycle and keep it really short. Our answers are down to a minute to allow a ten-minute idea we suggested. The first part of the cycle is we choose an aspect. Hugh, because you have played before, I am going to choose an aspect for you. These are so-called random. I don’t believe in random. The aspect I have for you is “Fame and Glory.” Hugh: Fame and glory. Barry: I will give you one of the doc points. And the doc point here is “See yourself as equal to others.” Hugh: Okay. Barry: I want you to comment on what fame and glory means for you, in context of nonprofit organizations. Hugh: In seeing myself as equal to others. Was that the other part? Barry: Yes. That was the point that came up for you, yes. Hugh: Part of how I perceive that is that I like the statement “Nobody is perfect, but parts of me are excellent.” There is parts of me that are really good. I focus on those. I just take it in stride. Other people value it and say, “Ooh, that’s really good.” It’s part of who I am. It’s my way of giving to other people. Fame and glory for me is just focusing on what I do really well and maximizing that gift, that space that I give to others. Barry: Okay, thank you. Everyone playing can relate to that. I am nodding, and I can see Russell nodding as well. I’m sure this will also relate to all the people listening. It’s interesting how this game, it’s for one person but can expand to everyone. That’s the amazing part. Russell, I have a card for you. Your card is “Rest and Relaxation.” And the doc point, there are four doc points with each of these cards to help people with their answer. I am going to give you one of them. The one I want you to comment on is “Allow the soul time to recuperate.” Russell: Rest and relaxation. I am a firm believer that for me, it’s important to raise my level of consciousness, whatever I am facing. That is what fuels me and gives me energy to go out and try to make a difference in the world. In order to give, I believe we live in a reciprocal universe. I have to recharge my batteries from time to time so that I am able to serve at a high level and give to other people. For me, what’s restful and relaxing is my meditation practice that I do daily. It’s a chance for me to shut down, notice what’s going on within me, and look at my day. Just not attach myself to anything, whether it’s good or bad. But just to notice where I’m at. And harvest a supreme gratitude so that I can continue to serve and recharge. Part of that rest and relaxation is turning the squirrel cage off and sensing that connection to the universe. Barry: That’s wonderful. Thanks, Russell. Thanks for coming out and sharing that with us. First game. You jumped into it. That’s awesome. I am amazed at how close the answers can be as we get these. I am going to choose mine to round the first cycle off. The card I have is “Humor.” That’s a good one here. I am going to read the very first point, “It’s only a game.” I think it’s a really good one for me. Sometimes I can take myself so seriously. Playing this Conversations game, it’s a very serious game. We are going to go deep, and we better not smile because it’s serious. I think it’s really important for me always to remember to bring humor. When I educate people, when I do my training, I do a six-month mentoring training around the world, I have to use humor as part of that because otherwise I get bored. I think it’s a great way. When people laugh, we learn. I have a big belief that we can go deep and laugh at the same time. It’s not a choice. Really interesting three cards. We have “Fame and Glory, “ “Rest and Relaxation,” and “Humor” coming up for the three of us. Really interesting combinations. That’s the first cycle. People go around. If we have time at the end, which we won’t do today, we can look at where the connections are between each of those aspects. It’s quite interesting in itself Hugh: How many people can do this at one time? Barry: The game has sixteen aspects. I normally run small groups between two and 32 people because 32, you pair people up and do things like that. I have actually played with 300 people at a conference, where they had me play with the entire audience. It is possible to play the game with large groups. You just do it differently. It’s part of the facilitation process I’ve done with this, and with an educational background, I have been able to create a variety of ways of playing the game. It was used in a 300-seat auditorium in New Zealand, and that got me to be the entertainment at halftime to connect people. Hugh: Sweet. Barry: Let’s continue. We will go into our Life cycle. We usually call this the Drama cycle. Each would get a turn by the way if it’s a small group. If it’s a large group, we obviously couldn’t. We are going to choose one card as an example. Russell, you are choosing the card for us. All you need to do is I will read the card out, then you say what does it mean for you, and what does it mean in terms of your aspect? I will get you to invite only one of us to speak. One of the things you will learn in this game is you don’t always have to speak about everything all the time. For some people, that’s a good learning process. Oh, I don’t have to say something. I will let you choose whether Hugh talks about fame and glory with this card or if I talk about humor from that viewpoint. But what I want you to do is say what this card means to you and what it means in terms of rest and relaxation. That’s what you need to do at this point. You don’t have to agree with the card; you can disag…

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Purposeful Decision Making and Effective Problem Solving with Jess Dewell Jul 15, 2018

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Staying in business can be difficult at times. Critical skills that are required to build a business exist and grow year after year. All business owners, at one time or another, find themselves struggling to keep clients (retention), to keep up with what customers want from the company (experience), and to add people (increase products). Over the last 20 years, Jess Dewell has worked on many of these problems with companies and clients. When there is a chasm to cross, she points it out and cultivates the team to figure out how to build a way across. Professional and thoughtful, she brings to the table. Transcript of the Interview Hugh Ballou: Greetings. Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. We are into the fourth year of this now, Russ. Russ, I know we’re on an audio podcast, but I don’t see your smiling face. All I see is a picture. One of your better pictures. Russell Dennis: Well, I’ll fix that. I should be live. Hugh: There you are. I’m traveling today. I’m at a hotel in Orlando. We have a live audience here. We are going to be watching with bated breath, and we will come in with a few questions. We do have a little background noise, so I’m going to mute myself. It’s probably a popular notion with some people, so we will mute our end so it will be quieter. Russ has got some really good questions for what I think is going to be an amazing interview today with- Jess, you know me, so I am just getting acquainted with you. I am going to pay attention. Jess Dewell: It’s great how that happened. You meet somebody, and they tell you all about you and how you think, yet you have never met them before because of the personality and the ways that we get to communicate. I totally understand being in that place. Hugh: Love it. Tell us about yourself and how come you do what you do. Then Russell will take it on and ask you some really interesting questions. Jess: That sounds great. I am Jess Dewell. I founded Red Direction 14 years ago. It started out as something slightly different than what it became. It became building frameworks for resilience. What came up on the radio show that I host, which was live streamed right before we are live streaming here, we were talking about bounciness. The more struggle we face, the more that we fall down, the more risks we are willing to take, we get bouncier. I love the concept of that and how that fits into businesses. Businesses can get that concept of bounciness. Pick ourselves up together, and go forward together. The last seven years have really been dialed into what we do for organizations that are growing and changing. They are in these critical points of development, and their leadership got them so far, their skills got them so far, and now it’s time to infuse them with more. Turn them upside down. Look at them in different ways to maximize the work flow, learning, and experience that already exists to go forward with grace and determination and whatever words you use to describe your companies. That is what we do over here at Red Direction. Russell: It’s all about establishing the great culture. There are a lot of things that go into culture. For our audience, what does culture mean to you in the sense that applies to organizations? Jess: You could look it up on the Internet and get the definition that Google or whatever your search engine is will tell you. I define culture as how we work together, and the strength with which we are able to work together and its effectiveness. Russell: Yeah. What are some elements of culture that make organizations successful? Jess: What makes an organization successful? I am getting cues that your volume, Russ, is not as high as our audience would like. Since I got that message, I am going to pass it on to you right here. Will you repeat the question? Russell: What are some of the elements that go into culture that make an organization successful? Jess: Are you ready for this? Are you really ready for this, Russ? Russell: Bring it on. Jess: People, people, people. There might be a few more p’s, and we will just replace them with people and people and people. It’s the culture. It’s what do we look at, how do we react, and preferably, how do we respond, and of course, how are the other people that we are surrounding ourselves with doing those things? And an awareness of the fact that we play off of each other. Russell: Because you work with a lot of organizations of all types, what do you find are the biggest disconnects in organizations that have problems culturally? Jess: Are you ready? Russell: I am ready. Jess: People, people, people, people, people. So really, it’s we think we are doing one thing, and we are being perceived as something different. There is a break in our communication. We think somebody is doing something, but we never actually asked the clarifying question. Even some people go, “I have a dumb question.” You know what? The dumb question that goes unasked just leads to bigger misunderstandings, so might as well ask that and get rid of the qualifier at the same time. “I have a question. Did I understand this right?” We are thinking of culture, and we are thinking of how to work together as a team. We all have different reasons for being in the roles that we are at. A wise man once told me, “The people who work here choose with their own two feet every single day to come to work for us.” I thought that was really a fabulous thing, and understanding that everybody has a different reason for being here, to work together. Yes, we have all agreed to this goal; however, if we haven’t created some sort of an awareness of how all of us fit into that end goal, we end up getting bumps and scratches and slowdowns and stalls and U-turns also. Russell: Let’s look at the term “rules.” My good friend Dr. Hal Dibner talked with me the last time I saw him, we were actually talking about rules and how to move people to action. There are a lot of internal rules that each of us has that shapes the way we approach things and the way that we live. I think these rules can become internalized in the culture with an organization. What are some rules that you have seen that have become part of the culture of organizations that have hindered their progress? Jess: I call those “elephants in the room.” The big elephants in the room. One of the things that Red Directions’ programs are really good at is finding the elephants in the room, pointing them out, setting up a little station, and inviting them to break them. Just being aware of what elephants are in the room. Another phrase might be “unwritten agreements.” We have done it this way. It’s worked all right, so this is the way that we do it. Whether that’s the case, or we are avoiding something, the elephants in the room, either way, when left unexplored, it can cause so many big problems. I have been a part of a company that has imploded because of that. I have also seen companies really unfortunately breed distrust and really feel fear around, “Am I actually safe in my role?” because of the unwritten agreements and insecurities and unknowns they cause. All that gets in the way of decision-making, which really when we are in business, is the ultimate goal: make decisions, nonprofit or otherwise, move toward an objective, make decisions, move toward an objective. Hit those goals and those signposts along the way. Russell: I think that the way people view their work really impacts the culture. When organizations get stuck, in my experience, a lot of people don’t really like to be told what’s wrong. At what point do you find that organizations have hit a place where they are willing to have those conversations? How much does it generally take in your experience for somebody to reach that point? Jess: It really varies. I have witnessed some other outlying symptoms if you will. If we were to look at symptoms that you are on your way down that rollercoaster, and you’re not sure if there is an up at the other side, is that everybody is tired. Everybody is behind. They are unable to keep up with the things that they have going on, with the commitments that they have made, and it becomes a drag. Those are the types of things that allow us to miss other cues. We are turned off from actually using our external perception, and it’s only stuck inside here. It can manifest other ways, too, besides the “I’m stuck,” “I’m overwhelmed,” or “I can’t meet my deadlines.” People leave. I’m burned out. People leave. “This is not what I thought it was going to be.” People leave, and then they are talking about their experience. They don’t talk about their experience until they leave. Nobody inside knew because there was a gap between each of the people, and there was “seemingly” to have a connection, but it was actually missing or had been broken. Russell: A lot of our work focuses around leaders and how leaders interact and work with people and a common problem is leaders that overfunction. Jess: Yes. Russell: They take on a lot of things rather than train people. They find that it’s “quicker” just to do it myself than explain how to do it. Sometimes there is a fear of letting go of some control, not trusting people to do it. But if you bring people on to your team, you hire people because of the skills, knowledge, and abilities that will serve you, they have talent, and letting people actually do what it is that they do is a little difficult for leaders. That can get grounded in the culture. That creates burnout because you have a few high performers who are not being built to be better leaders, and they are just trying to do things instead of spreading them out, delegating, and building. The leadership skills of other people. We see that in nonprofits. Are you seeing that with- Jess: In every organization. Every organization is susceptible to that. It’s interesting because yes, we hire for skills, knowledge, and ability. Most of the time, in most processes for bringing people on, what is left out, or what doesn’t have enough focus in that interview and onboarding process is what we mean when we say whatever we value. If service to a specific group, serving an underrepresented group in some way, if somebody comes on and they have the skills, the knowledge, and the ability, but they are only using this as a stepping stone, and they are exactly what you want for the job, part of the conversation becomes, “We know this is just a stepping stone on your path. Are you able to buy in? What do you like? What are we disconnected on what you’re doing while you’re here? Do you understand with where you’re going how this actually helps you get there?” You know what? A lot of people don’t want to face the fact that they are hiring someone who is going to leave. However, if we bring it up in the conversation, and we are talking about this, and it’s part of what we believe in, we know- We know we’re not going to do what we’re doing forever. We know we haven’t done what we’re doing forever. We have all had different experiences in the past. So why not just put that on the table? Then it’s never a surprise. Then it’s your performance reviews, your check-ins we’re having along the way, the conversations we are having before, after, and during meetings can still revolve around what are we doing in this organization? What is our mission? What is each of our parts in that while we are here? That type of collaboration is what is going to make somebody want to stay, but also it will prepare them to get them to where they want to go. As leaders, as employers, anybody with staff, it is our job to embrace and to love and get that person where they want to go because maybe this is the place, maybe it’s not, but we can do really well for them, for us, for our community, for our donors, for the people that we serve because of that small thing: having that type of conversation up front. Hugh: Hey, Russell. We are having trouble hearing you. Russell: It’s all about growth. That better? It’s all about growth. If you have a conversation about values, it’s important for both individuals and the organization to understand what it is that people want to get out of a relationship that you have. This is how you attract people, whether they are working for you, volunteering for you, coming to work as a staff member, coming to serve on your board. It’s having congruent values that will drive the day. The idea of growth is something that is fundamental to everything. To get better at what you do, you increase that level of support that you get. Culturally, with nonprofits, one of the things aside from the fact that you have some leaders that may overfunction, maybe they haven’t thought through all of their processes or systems or how they can actually get better at creating an experience because they are more effective and efficient at delivering their programs. Talk a little bit about your experience around that and some of the things that you would help people work around that. Jess: I wouldn’t say work around, I would say work with and strengthen. The reason is that we all have a strength. When we can put a stake in the ground and say, “This is what I stand for,” wherever I work, whoever I work with, I know what I stand for in general. That allows me to have a guidepost when I show up in an organization and when I am working with other people. If other people are floundering around and are not sure, we put on that lens. What is important to me? What is my purpose here? What is my purpose in this situation? Maybe not my life purpose, but in this situation. How can I bridge that gap to move things forward? Those are the types of skills that we develop, programs that we create. The biggest reason for that is experience. Until we do it, we don’t know if we are good at it. Until we do it, we don’t know how to apply our personal strengths to the work that we’re doing. When we find our strength and can focus everything through that, it becomes easier as managers, as directors, to find the strengths in others and be curious and be willing to try a few things here to be curious with others to find their strengths as well. Maybe it’s a strength. A lot of people know that they can stay behind an idea. In a nonprofit, I come to work for a nonprofit, I volunteer at a nonprofit, I give money to a nonprofit because I care about the idea they are working on. When it comes to actually doing the infrastructure, taking the action to make all that possible- You mentioned your values, how do we bring all of our skills together to get something done? But also you talked about processes and systems. Processes and systems are great on paper. As soon as you add people to them, you add what they are thinking in that moment, what their past was, what their dreams are, and what is on their mind right now in that situation. It may not be those things that are most important to working on an organization to develop it. Processes and systems are really impacted by all of the things that we care about, all of the things that we face. I am all about efficient systems, efficient processes. However, when we stop, when we weave what we care about, how we do our work together here at this organization, allows us to then be able to have a deeper conversation, a quicker conversation, which improves efficiency in a whole different way than just pushing the levers of a process. Hugh: How about a question from Florida? Danna Olivo: Yeah, Jess. Jess: Bring it. Danna: Bring it on. It’s funny that we’re talking about this today because- My name is Danna Olivo, and I am a business strategist. I work with early-stage micro-companies and medium companies. I work on those processes, the systems, and things like that. But one of the things that was really fascinating to me was you were talking about communication styles and hiring and things like that, talking about skills and values. One of the things that a lot of companies don’t take into consideration when hiring are the behavioral…

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Using An Effective Integrated Marketing Communication Mix In Nonprofit Organizations Jul 08, 2018

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Using An Effective Integrated Marketing Communication Mix In Nonprofit Organizations Clark Greer is the founder of Clark Greer Communications, LLC, a consulting firm that focuses on assisting nonprofit organizations with marketing communications and public relations. He holds a Master’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Southern California, and a doctorate in Communication Studies from Bowling Green State University. Clark’s full-time job for the past 20 years has been as a communication professor specializing in public relations, strategic communication, TV news, and communication research. In addition, he and research colleagues have published nearly 20 studies in academic journals, and have presented more than two dozen papers at research conferences. Interview Transcript Hugh Ballou: Greetings, everyone. Welcome to this edition of The Nonprofit Exchange. Today, we’re talking about that topic we call marketing. Marketing is, the older I get, the more complex it gets, but the more important it gets. It’s an area that we do not regard with enough importance, those of us that run nonprofit organizations. Russell, how are you doing today? Russell Dennis: Beautiful day out here in Denver, Colorado. Partly cloudy. There is lots of activity taking place out here. We have folks that have been talking to me who are running nonprofits and are struggling to get the word out on what they’re doing. It’s hard to get support if nobody knows what you’re doing. I’m glad that Clark is here to share with us some ways to increase that visibility. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it, Clark? Clark Greer: Yeah, that’s right. That sounds nice. We’re out here in Virginia. I wish I was in a little bit of a cooler spot right now. Hugh: We were out on the parkway night before last, and it was in the mid-50s. It was luscious. Clark, we like to impose upon our guests to define who they are. Tell a little bit about yourself. You have this organization that you run to do marketing specifically targeted to nonprofits. You and I, however, met in one of those nonprofits where you serve on the board. You and I met there, and we started conversations which led to this interview. Talk about yourself and what has led you to this place to do this very specific thing that you do for nonprofits. Clark: This is like the digest size of this instead of a full version. I actually started out in radio when I was in high school. It clicked with me to do communication and spend several years on radio, doing radio news. Ended up ultimately picking up a graduate degree in broadcast journalism from a big university on the west coast. Ended up working in corporate communications, advertising, public relations, marketing communication, organizational communication, different types of organizations, both for-profit and nonprofit. About 20 years ago, I started teaching higher education. That is my full-time gig is teaching in a university. I have always liked to do things for organizations. When my wife and I moved to this area, I said, “Should I work at the orchestra, symphony orchestra that does anything marketing or organizational comm.” We went to a couple of concerts, made some connections, and that’s where I am today. Hugh: Love it. It took me only a couple of conversations to determine that you had a very unique perspective on marketing. What is the name of your organization? Clark: Something that is not real creative, but it’s Clark Greer Communications. It was easy to come up with it. Then I could put my name out there, and it’s easy to remember that. For me, as I get older, remembering the name of the company is a lot easier. Hugh: You’re a professor. You teach communications. Clark: I do. I have taught for about 20 years in three different institutions in the country. I taught interactive media when the web was just getting going back in the ‘90s. I have taught public relations and strategic communication, and television news. A little bit of everything. Hugh: We are going to explore this in the interview at some point. I had a pivot in my understanding of how you construct campaigns to let people know about the organization. We are specifically focused on the Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra at the moment. When I moved here, people said, “Oh, we have an orchestra?” There was a big gap in awareness, even though the orchestra has paid for ads and they have a Facebook page and all of the things we customarily do. There is a large portion of the community that didn’t know about it. You were interviewing me about strategy. I had just recently done the first planning session for the board of the symphony. You interviewed me, and you said, “I want to give value to others in our newsletter and publicity.” Speak to that element a minute. We will unpack that throughout the interview because that is a unique perspective. Clark: I think the temptation is in market communication or PR or whatever we are doing is to make connections with our constituents and followers. In the case of the symphony or other performance organizations, it will be people attending or donating. Organizations have different types of needs. One temptation is we are going to advertise it, and we are going to say, “Here we are, come to whatever, or donate.” If it’s a nonprofit that does construction in a community for building, it’s “Come and see us.” I think what’s really important is to help the organization be relevant to the people they are trying to reach. That is what we are trying to do in different ways. A lot of it is promotion because we are trying to have everybody in this area know who the Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra is. That is a big chore because it isn’t just the community, but there is surrounding communities. A lot of things we have to deal with. We are trying to give value back to people, so instead of just saying, “Come to our concerts,” it’s “How can we serve you as a community and an organization? What are the things you need that we can help you get better at?” Hugh: That is such a different perspective. Here is a mistake I see commonly in social media. “Buy my stuff. Get my program. Let me coach you.” They are pushing their stuff rather than saying how I can provide value, how I can give you value. What is it you need? Having a conversation. One of the points that Russell commonly brings up is when we are interviewing people as donors or board members, find out what their passion is, find out what they want to do. When you said, “I want to create articles like this about strategy,” we teach people why it’s important. I would say that 90% of nonprofits I talk to have no strategic plan. What is your number, Russell? Russell: It may be higher than that, as frightening as that seems, because about 82% of these organizations eventually go under. It’s a system. It’s who do you know, what are you bringing to people. It’s about the cause we are working toward. That is the place where people get disconnected. Where are people at? You have to meet the people who you want to support you where they are so your messages have to be placed in the right places as well. If you’re not conversing with people where they are, or talking to them about what matters, you become part of the greater chorus of noise that is out there. Hugh: There are some obstacles here. There are so many messages people get every day. Clark, we now have a strategy that we are working on, and we will be doing the first level of clarity at the board meeting in a couple weeks. That gives you a foundational document to then work from to do some messaging. Strategy is important for your work as well, isn’t it? Clark: Yeah. Let me just take 60 seconds, and I can talk about where we have come in the last year with the symphony. That might help provide some context for people listening or watching right now. We did a survey of who the people were, the characteristics of the people who were attending the concerts. Using the symphony’s mail list, we did a mail-out survey. They filled these things out. We did some number crunching. It gave us a better idea of perspective. We had to understand where they were coming from. More recently, you have jumped in with being able to look at the overall strategy. Where is the organization heading? Then paralleling that, and I know you and I have had conversations, and it has helped to be on the board to get some other input, but to look at it from a communications standpoint, everything is parallel. What I am trying to do from a communication perspective really needs to tightly fit with what’s happening as far as the organization, direction, financial attendance, programming, goes into what a performance organization does. Hugh: There are people who think that symphonies are dead. I’m finding there is a real resurgence in people coming back to church, people coming back to arts events, people wanting to find meaning in their lives. There is a service aspect to the performing organization, isn’t there? Clark: Yeah. When I was doing some initial research, I wanted to see what the tone was- For the classical arts is what people think of as symphony. It doesn’t have to be. There are small to large orchestras in the country who are doing pops and mixtures and interactive things. It’s just staying relevant. I am not sure if that is necessarily the reason why because you still have age segments that you deal with. It tends to be an older population, which I guess I’m now part of. You always think about, I'm still 28 years old. That is the case. My wife and I love music. She is involved with the symphony also. We go to symphonies. We lived in a city in another part of the country several years ago, where we had season tickets. We would look around and say, “We do see some young people, but it’s people bringing their grandkids.” You have to think long-term about how you can morph into something that doesn’t sacrifice your principles as an organization. I think music, classical music and what orchestras do, is as much education as it is entertaining people. How do you stay relevant in those things is what’s important. Bringing in younger people. I’m not talking about kids necessarily, but a middle-aged population who would really become interested in the orchestras for different types of reasons. Hugh: There is interest there. I went to dinner with some people I didn’t know and sat at the end of the table with people I just met. One is a filmmaker out at Liberty in the cinema department who came from the BBC. High-level filmmaker. The other side of me was a young photographer, friend of our former board member and photographer Michael. His wife was a school musician teacher. She said, “Oh, we would love to have more interaction with the symphony. We would love for the kids to know more about it because they are eager for that kind of connection.” That is part of what we are putting into place with the strategy for the symphony is how we go back to the fundamental programs that people think we can’t afford to do anymore, but we really can’t afford not to do them anymore. Clark: Exactly. If you look at one of the things that I have dealt with in teaching my students and when I work with organizations or individuals even sometimes, like you said, I typically deal with nonprofits, is what is the primary age segment that you really feel like this is the group we want to work with? You look at the fringe areas. If you have people who are 45-55, there are some characteristics like longevity in an area and ability to sponsor or donate or interest in the arts and find out where they are coming from. They also have children. One thing the Lynchburg Symphony does, and they have been doing this for a while, through some very generous funding of some foundations, is to do music in the schools. I think what you can do is you are not necessarily ignoring other age groups, older or younger. What you are doing is you have a core group and find ways of branching out to them through family members and those types of things. Hugh: Underlying this marketing thing, there is your expertise of teaching communications. Russell and I work with nonprofits and have done so for a number of years. I don’t know about you, but in 31 years, there has never been a circumstance where communication as a problem hasn’t come up. People think communication is an “it.” It’s an announcement in the church bulletin. It’s a flyer. Really, communication is the backbone of your plan. You have to communicate, but you have a system to communicate. What I see happen over and over again when I do strategies with boards is what I call a new architecture of engagement. People develop a new kind of relationship. Let me test this piece with you. My take on communication is the foundation is in relationship, then you can transfer information. Otherwise, information doesn’t transfer from one person to another. Talk about communication as the overarching thing of marketing and all of what we are doing here. Clark: Is that going to me or Russell? Hugh: You. He will give you questions later. Clark: Communication is really important, not just because I work in it. Obviously I am a little biased. I think communication is important. When I worked in corporate years ago, I would look around, not necessarily the organizations I worked at, but I would get information and I subscribe to newsletters. I would see in the news where an organization or company would cut back its public relations or its community relations or whatever because they thought that was expendable and they didn’t need it. The problem is people have to know you are there all the time. In advertising, it’s top of mind awareness. When you go to the grocery store, you see things all the time. There are companies you see advertising, and you say, “Wow, they have been around for decades. They are stable from an economic standpoint. Why do they advertise?” It’s because there is always competition. Even in what we are doing in nonprofits is you have a lot of things that are competing for donor dollars, for sponsorship, for organizations that have foundations. You have to show yourself as vital and relevant in that community. We are dealing with things on a different level. It comes down to the sustainability of the organization. Hugh: There are a lot of tidbits in what you just said. Russell, what are you hearing here? Russell gives the real hard questions. I know you are formulating some stuff for him to comment on. I just demonstrated poor communication when he didn’t know the question was for him. Russell, what are you taking in there? You have some sound bites you want to play back. Russell: Communication starts with how you talk to each other in the boardroom. That kind of spreads. It fans out from there as a nonprofit organization. It’s really easy to get stuck in the room and forget that the message has to fan out. There is a slightly different language you use for potential board members or advisors than you use for volunteers or donors or everybody has their different language for the same message. Communication takes a lot of work in that regard. The one thing that was bouncing around through my mind as we were unpacking that, I was thinking about both of you starting to work with the Lynchburg Symphony and starting to put the strategy and pieces together. What’s one thing you found out that was most surprising about- What did you learn that they were not doing that everybody missed? Clark: It’s hard to say one thing. I guess my goal is when I look at this, and I think Hugh just alluded to it a few minutes ago, is you show up and say, “You have a symphony here in this town?” One of my goals is I want everybody to know the symphony is here. That takes the place of- We call it integrated marketing communication. I will structure it briefly. Years ago, you have advertising, public relations, marketing, communication. They operated in silos. The…

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Sarah Quarantotto: The Story of Miriam's House Jul 01, 2018

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Sarah Quarantotto: The Story of Miriam's House - Ending the Cycle of Homelessness Sarah Quarantotto joined Miriam’s House in 2010, after working for a number of years in the Lynchburg area with local social service and mental health agencies. She has immensely appreciated the opportunity to lead an organization with such a rich history of empowering families and individuals made vulnerable by homelessness. She has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Master of Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University. When not working to end homelessness, Sarah is spending time with her husband, Jeremiah, and their two children exploring the outdoors and beauty of Central Virginia. Interview Transcript Hugh Ballou: Welcome to today’s Nonprofit Exchange. Today we are going to tell a story of a very successful nonprofit, and it happens to be in the city where I live, Lynchburg, Virginia. Russell, how is it out in Denver today? Russell Dennis: Nice and toasty. Beautiful blue skies. It’s been clouding over very quickly in the afternoons. We are approaching three figures out here. It’s been good because my tan will start to pop. Hugh: We are in the mountains of western central Virginia, and it is a lovely day. Overcast and threatening to rain. We have the old mountains here, the ones that have been rained on and smoothed off. You have those young mountains. We have been on an adventure interviewing some really interesting people. I just met Sarah Quarantotto. Did I say that right? Sarah Quarantotto: Yeah. Yep. Hugh: Just met Sarah last week at my rotary meeting, where she was presenting. I was really impressed with the story about this nonprofit she is the executive director for. I asked her to come on and tell the story from the leader standpoint. Where was the organization? Where is it now? Sarah, tell us a little bit about yourself and what your passion was for wanting to do this job. Sarah: My name is Sarah Quarantotto, and I am the executive director of Miriam’s House. I have been a social worker here in central Virginia for about 15 years. After finishing my Master’s in Social Work, I came to work at Miriam’s House as the Clinical Director. I really had the opportunity to be on the front lines working with homeless individuals. Two years after that, I was offered the Executive Director job, which I was really honored to accept. Hugh: Tell us about why you accepted it. Sarah: When you are working in an organization with such an incredible impact, the leadership really matters. When there was a change in leadership and an opportunity to become that leader, I thought it was a really great opportunity to continue the good work of Miriam’s House, but also to grow and expand that work. I was really happy to be able to have that opportunity. Hugh: Our audience for this podcast and this video is typically people like you, people sitting in the chair of leading an organization. It might be a ministry. It might be a community-based charity, a membership-based charity, a cause-based charity. They are all kinds of different operations. The anchor to it is leaders make things happen. I am going to ask you a couple of questions. You have a background in social work and you are doing leadership. Those are different skillsets. Before you do the question, talk about the impact. You mentioned the impact on the homeless. Where was this organization when you started? Where is it now? You gave some statistics last week in your presentation that were really important. Sarah: Miriam’s House, when I first came here, we operated a transitional housing program. For 20 years, we had a program on site that provided housing for 11 households at a time. The great thing about homeless response nationally is that the concept of programs responding to homelessness have expanded beyond facilities, beyond four walls of a facility, and really into the community. By looking at different models of intervention, we have been able to grow astronomically. Back in 2008, pre-recession, we served 33 individuals. This year, we are slated to serve over 300. That is a 900% increase. That meant we had to think outside the box and think about new ways and accept best practices that were happening in other communities, even though they had not occurred here in Lynchburg. Hugh: You spoke of different levels of service. What do those look like? What is the impact? You also spoke about how people don’t return to homelessness. Talk about the impact and the different levels, will you? Sarah: Yeah. I think back in the ‘90s and early 2000s, the homeless response provided through Miriam’s House and many organizations was a one-size-fits-all approach. Every person or household that became homeless was given the same level of support and resources. What we have realized is that that is really unnecessary. Everyone’s story is different. Their circumstances are different. Instead of doing a one-size-fits-all approach, we triage our resources. We have intensive services that do occur on-site here to minimal or soft-touch resources, where someone just needs assistance with connecting with a landlord that has reasonable rents and being that liaison between that homeless household and that landlord to get them back into housing. It is the gamut of homeless response that we can do: everything from providing long-term housing with long-term case management to a short-term intervention. Hugh: The impact of the work. You said many of the statistics. 96% and 100%. I was really paying attention. Russell, I hope you are impressed. People that are placed and people that don’t return to homeless situations. Sarah: Yeah, that’s great. So last year, 96% of the households we served moved out of homelessness and into safe, affordable housing in the community. That’s great. That’s our ultimate measure of success. We want to end people’s homeless episode in a way that you do that is to get them back into housing. We are concerned about long-term success. We don’t want folks to return to homelessness a year or two years after housing. We also track that data. Last year, we had 100% success in no household recidivating over a span of two years’ prior. That was really exciting because it means what we are doing is successful in the short-term of ending someone’s homelessness and in the long-term in that they are not returning to homelessness. That is really exciting. Hugh: There is a process piece of finding a house and getting into it. There is an emotional piece that helps people have an attitude of self-sufficiency. How do you work with people in that realm, helping them learn what they need to learn to be able to stay where they are? Sarah: Our approach is really about empowerment. Rather than having punitive services where we are having our case managers tell people what it is they need to do, we really meet with them to identify what it is they want to accomplish or how perhaps their homeless episode was impacted by something previous that we can mitigate by an intervention. For example, if someone was homeless because they had untreated depression and were unable to go to work because of that depression, which then led to them losing their apartment and having to go to a homeless shelter, we can work with that individual to identify that, get them into treatment, see a therapist or get on medication so that homeless episode can be prevented in the future. Working with each household to identify what it is that you need to be stably housed and not return to homelessness. We have flexible resources. We have a once-a-month after-care support group that meets where households can come back and receive peer support about anything from tenant rights and responsibilities to a resource in the community, back-to-school supplies or something like that. That is a great resource to help people stay connected. We also offer ongoing case management. In their home at the beginning, as soon as they first move into housing, because that is a fragile time, so working with them in the home to make sure they have what they need, furniture and clothing, that they understand their new community, that they have the bus routes. Long-term, that might be a phone call here and there, touching base and seeing how they are doing. Tailoring that response to allow households to recognize they are not alone, there is a resource out there, we really want them to be successful in the long term. That success is outlined by them and their own goals. We are here to support them in that. Hugh: People can find you at MiriamsHouseProgram.org. Give us some of the statistics. Your cost per client served has gone down dramatically over the years. Your successful rate of people who have stayed in a home. Give us some of those numbers. Those are incredible. The impact you are having on people’s lives. Sarah: Pre-recession, back in 2008, we were serving a homeless person at a cost of about $16,000 per person. Now, that is almost down to $2,000. That is really because we tailor the response appropriately. Certainly more expensive responses, longer-term supports are there for those who have had high barriers to housing, who have long episodes of homelessness. For those who really need a soft touch, that’s what we provide, which means we have more funds available to serve more households. Our growth, and the fact that we expanded so significantly, is not because our budget has increased tremendously; it’s because we are being a lot smarter with our resources that we have, recognizing that not every household needs an intensive resource. Hugh: Love it. Russ is going to have some good questions. He is taking this in. I want to move us. We have established how successful Miriam’s House in the work that you are doing in the city in Virginia that has the highest poverty rate in the whole commonwealth. 24.5% in Lynchburg. The work you are doing is one of many charities that is reaching out to help people regain power in their lives and help them have a better future. I was so impressed with your report, how you gave it and the work you are doing. You just do it. You don’t toot your horn or something. You just do it. I was quite impressed. You have a degree in social work. Sarah: That’s right. Hugh: And you’re leading an organization. Those are two different skillsets. When you first came to work, you were the social worker, I’m guessing. Now, that is still a skillset you have; however, putting on the leader mantle is a different skillset. Talk about that journey. How did you equip yourself for this leadership position that you’re in? Sarah: The great thing about social work as a discipline is that there is an understanding of a micro track, which is clinical in nature and talking more directly working with service individuals, but there is a macro track. Many individuals really think that social work is more about micro, one-on-one individual track. But actually there is this great macro track that talks about and educates on organizational change and system change and advocacy and capacity-building for different systems or models of care and community wealth-building or changing. The great thing about social work is that both of those aspects are part of the education. I had some great experience or some education in that macro piece, which is about making significant impacts. Even things such as data, which has become more important in the social work realm and social services organizations and human services organizations, to measure outcomes. Back in the day, it was sort of, I am going to do this intervention because it feels right to me. I like it. It seems like a good approach. And now, that’s flipped to what does the data show? Is this effective? Is this working? What are your actual outcomes? That has been appealing to me in that I was able to work individually with people and see an individual outcome. Someone who was no longer sleeping on the street, was able to have an apartment, was able to get a job. That’s really cool. In a leadership position, I am able to see how that translates into a big picture. I can see we have a 63% reduction in family homelessness in our community over the course of a year. That’s incredible. Even though that results in individual families who I may no longer know, I know that that makes a difference. Going from a direct service position to more of a leadership position, I am able to bring those personal experiences into leadership to know that the work we do to improve big-picture design and implementation means that more and more families and more homeless households are being impacted. I still have those images of those individuals and families in my head even though I am no longer working directly with them in their home or in a shelter. Hugh: That’s an effective model. You know how it works because you worked there. Supervising that and empowering that, you have first-hand knowledge of that space. That’s good. What were your challenges in coming up to speed and letting go of doing and empowering others to do? What were your challenges in that? Sarah: I think there is the piece of having to let go of some of that first-hand experience or interaction with clients. There is a part of having to trust the people who are now in those positions to continue that great work. That involves not only are we an organization dedicated to empowering our clients, but we also want to be dedicated to empowering our employees. A lot of that means I trust them to do the work they have set out to do. Supporting them, training them, but ultimately believing they are going to continue that mission of ending homelessness in the framework we have created at Miriam’s House, which is one of empowerment and support for our clients. Hugh: That’s awesome. I am going to shut up for a minute and let my co-host- He has been over here thinking of questions for you. He comes from a position of having been inside of a nonprofit doing funds development, and now he supports nonprofit leaders all over the place, like I do. Russell, do you have some questions for our guest today? Russell: I’d like to welcome you and thank you for coming in and sharing your experience with us. It’s very critical to give people in a stable place because then you can start to solve the other problems they have. The formula that you’re working by is perfect for what needs to be done. Homelessness is a tough issue. I have found myself in a coalition. I am in several coalitions that focus on homelessness here. Our biggest challenge is affordable housing. To get back to the work you are doing, having been on the ground, effective leaders or transformational leaders, as Hugh defines them, are people who know all of their audiences, and that includes the people they serve. Transformational leaders build good leaders around them. When everybody understands how what they do fits into the big picture, and they see those results, they get a broader understanding of what they are doing, and it works better. Just looking at the work you do and how you approach serving people and the people that you partner with, the collaboration piece is something you didn’t address that I love about what you’re doing. It’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of thing when you are dealing with something like homelessness. It’s not the dirty old guy in a raincoat you’re talking about. We’re talking about families here. It’s very important to do that. I know that homelessness, as it is measured all over the place, greatly understates what is there. Another thing about what you’re doing is that you are doing it right. You’re probably not serving as many people. Nonprofit leaders by and large do not have enough money and do not serve enough people for where they want to see people go in the community, in the direction they wanted to go in. But it is the effectiveness and efficiency with which you serve the people that you have. There are real stories behind the numbers that…

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Bill Bodine: Keys to Grant Application Success Jun 24, 2018

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Bill Bodine is a graduate of the soon to be University of Lynchburg with both undergraduate and graduate degrees there. Much of his career was spent in healthcare, but he is now the President and CEO of the Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation, which was formed in 1972 and last year provided grants to local nonprofits and scholarships totaling just under $1.7 million. The Interview Transcript Hugh Ballou: Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou. My guest today is a dear friend of mine who I have known for less than a year because I have been in Lynchburg, Virginia for less than a year. He was one of the first people I met at a rotary breakfast. Bill Bodine. He runs an organization that is now known as the Lynchburg Community Foundation. Bill Bodine, welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. Bill Bodine: Glad to be here. Appreciate it. Hugh:And there are people who are watching it on video and listening to the podcast. I like to start out these sessions by asking my guest to tell us about themselves, your journey. How did you end up doing this really important work that you do? Bill:Mostly luck, Hugh. I’m originally from New Jersey. I ended up in Lynchburg via Lynchburg College, which in two weeks will be the University of Lynchburg. I didn’t necessarily intend to stay, but I got a job working in health care right out of college. The longer I was here, the more I liked it. I have been a resident of Lynchburg now for about 40 years. I know I don’t look nearly that old. Hugh:You don’t. Bill:It’s true. It’s true. As far as getting into fundraising, I spent most of my career in health care. I was really looking for something that I could be more excited about and feel like I was making a real difference and helping the community. I have served on several boards. It was important to me to find something that was more service-oriented. I luckily saw that at the time, the Greater Lynchburg Community Trust was looking for a president and CEO because my predecessor was retiring. I went after the job and three years ago, they gave it to me. I have loved that. It’s been a little bit of a circuitous journey, but I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up. Hugh:Oh, I don’t think men ever grow up. Bill:I don’t know if I ever will, but at least I figured out what I want to be. It’s been really enjoyable. Hugh:And you and I both drive convertibles. Bill:We do. We do. I have a little Miata that I try not to get in trouble with. Not driving it today because it’s too darn hot with the top down. Hugh:It’s 97 in Lynchburg. Bill:I know it’s crazy. Next time it cools down, I’ll be in it. Hugh:Probably had the remarks about, “Oh, it’s a mid-life crisis.” Bill:That would be true if I was in midlife. Hugh:It’s too late. Bill:A late-life crisis. More accurately. I have always enjoyed driving cars, and it’s a fun car to drive. I know your Mustang is a lot of fun. Hugh:It is fun. It’s fun to go slow. Bill:It’s fun. I’m not in a hurry. I just enjoy the journey. Hugh:It takes getting some age on. Also, the wisdom of leadership is impacted by our journey and our age. You came into this leadership position, I don’t think by dumb luck. I think people looked at you and said, “Oh, this guy can do it.” From what I’ve heard from people, you have stepped up to that plate. Bill:I feel like things are going well. I think the things that I bring to it are I really enjoy people. I enjoy talking with people. I have a passion for the mission of the organization. If you have that, you are more than halfway toward doing what you really need to do. I have a great story to tell, and I enjoy telling it. People are willing to listen. That’s been nice. Hugh:What does leadership mean? You lead an organization that leads and supports leaders of organizations. There is no real membership. Bill:There is no membership. My leadership stems from the fact that we touched 175 nonprofit organizations last year alone in terms of providing grant money. I get to interact with a lot of other leaders. I try to help them fine-tune their grant application process. I also try to pay attention to what the needs of the community are. How can we work together, and how can we best serve others? The leadership part of it comes from being in a chair that touches a lot of other leaders in terms of the grants and trying to make this a better community in any way we can. That’s just a byproduct of the job, but I enjoy that, too. Hugh:I picked up something. You just revealed our topic today: grants, and how to do a better job of applying for grants. You slipped in something there, and I’m going to pull it out. You work with people so they do a better job. People just don’t know how to apply for grants mostly. Bill:It’s all over the board, Hugh. Some people are really good at it and have a lot of experience doing it. Quite honestly, some of the smaller nonprofits that we work with, that’s not what people are trained to do or have done or have a lot of time to do. A lot of the smaller nonprofits are making things work with as few staff as they can and as little resources as they can. What I’ve found is that it’s helpful to work with people and speak with them about fine-tuning their grant. What I want to do is give them the best opportunity for success. Our foundation is not there to hold onto money. Our foundation is there to give that money away according to our donors’ wishes. The better job I can do helping people access those funds means I do a better job for our donors. That’s really what it’s about. Hugh:That’s amazing. I don’t think everybody understands that. This is a good point to make. I posted on the web page some of the questions we’re going to address that came from you because you know what you’re talking about. Bill:Maybe. Depends on who you ask. Hugh:Part of my career I served megachurches. I was in the interview process in the five biggest megachurches at the same time. Nobody knew what questions to ask. That was amazing. I pretty much had to provide my own questions. Bill:It helps things go smoother if we have an idea of what we’re going to talk about. Hugh:Or to get to the bottom line. What is it we need to know about this? Let’s start at the top. If I’m going to make a grant request- I run a 501(c)3. It’s a foundation. I give away services. I don’t give away money. I help people leverage what they have and attract money. Part of my work could conceivably be preparing people to do this process. What I tell my nonprofits is that funders are gonna look at the impact of your work, what results it will create. I want to check my accuracy. If we give you this money, what results will it produce? They will also look at your team. Can they really implement it? Are those the factors that are high? Bill: Those are the big deal. That is the real meat and potatoes of it. You could actually go back to a baseline. One of the first things I would tell people is if you are going to apply for a grant, make sure you review what exactly the grantor is looking for in terms of information. It surprises me occasionally how many applications we get that are incomplete because people have not thoroughly read what it is we are asking for. We get grant applications that come in without a list of the board of directors, which is one of the things we ask for. I would encourage people at the very baseline of it to read very carefully what the requirements are for the grant application, and make sure you include all that information. That seems basic and elementary, but it surprises me how many of them we get that are not fully completed. First and foremost, make sure you understand what that grantor is looking for and what their requirements are in applying for them. Make sure it’s complete because it’s a little bit like when you write your resume, make sure you spell things correctly. First impressions are important. That is maybe the first step. But you’re absolutely right. We like to know first of all what do you want the money for, and how is that going to help my community be a better place? How is that going to satisfy the wishes of the donors who have given us the money in the first place? First and foremost, I am bound by their wishes and their desires. My responsibility is to use the money that our donors have provided as wisely as possible and as closely to their various intents as possible. Hugh: I want to introduce you to somebody who got stuck on the viewer side of this, who is my co-host. He has been AWOL here. Russell David Dennis is joining us in this podcast from Denver, Colorado. I thought you were maybe having technical difficulty today. Russell showed up a year and a half ago and was very consistent with this. Russell is one of our WayFinders. It is our antidote to a consultant. It’s a WayFinder. We guide you; we don’t tell you what to do. We help you define what you’re going to do. Russell has been through the whole methodology of SynerVision, and he is now one of our bonafide WayFinders. I made him co-host. He outshines me many times. I like to say I pale in comparison. I’ve used that line. Russell, welcome. You’re muted. Russell Dennis: Greetings. I had to turn to my tablet. My computer has been loading updates all morning, and it doesn’t seem to want to finish. Hugh: Welcome to the party. I already warned him that my co-host has the zingers of the questions. He is braced for ya. I’m getting chats from across the screen. Russell, we’re talking about grants today and what makes a good grant request. So far, Bill has validated our premise that we need to have worthy goals in terms of what difference we are going to make, and people on board to do that. Bill, people maybe do read the requirements. You think they just forget? Or they weren’t careful? I guess you go back to people and resubmit. Bill: We do. We review all the applications. Before we put them in front of our distribution committee, we review them for completeness and accuracy. We try to track down questions we know they might ask. But yeah, it’s hard to know the reasons, Hugh, why people don’t always include everything. Sometimes they don’t have the information, and sometimes they forget, and sometimes they are just flustered by the process and don’t think it through well enough. Whatever the reasons, again, what we want to do is help people be as successful as possible. I just throw that out there as step one. Make sure you read the requirements and do your best to fulfill them. If you have a question or problem, call us, or call whomever you are applying to and ask for their help. Hugh: Are there community foundations in every area in the country? Bill: Just about. When the Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation was formed in 1972, there were probably about 30 community foundations nationally. We know from the Council of Foundations in Washington that in 1975, there were only 50. So we were formed in ‘72. There are now over 850. So they are all over the place now. A community foundation is a little different from family foundations or corporate foundations. Often family foundations and corporate foundations have more specific purposes. Ours is probably more general. We have more general purposes than a lot of other foundations. We cover the waterfront. As I mentioned before, we gave grants to 175 nonprofits in Lynchburg and the four surrounding counties last year alone. We will support basic human needs, the arts, historic preservation, the environment, all kinds of things. Most foundations you’ll find have a little bit narrower focus. That’s true for hospital foundations, the United Way for example. All of them do fantastic work. But our reach is a little broader. For some people, that fills in. Hugh: It fills in some gaps I would imagine. Bill: Yeah, it does. We have a flexibility that appeals to people. The other thing is community foundations are intended to be forever. We are perpetual. The appeal we have for people is that you can set up a fund, name it after your grandmother or whomever you want, and it will be here long after you’re gone and probably after your children are gone. It leaves a legacy. That is one of the appeals to community foundations. Hugh: I found more and more people who are interested in the legacy component. They are the instigator. They start this thing. But they are not going to be around forever. We want to have impact that goes on after our lifetime. There is a value. When they get money and enough money that they put it under management, you assist with that. Bill: Our purpose is to grow the fund and to distribute monies annually or more often than that sometimes from that fund, but continue to grow it so it continues to expand and lasts as long as the world lasts is the idea. People like that. Hugh: I’m hearing some fundamental principles. One, which we talked around, is pick up the phone and call. I don’t think people do that who are applying for grants. Maybe not all foundations are equally as successful as yours. Bill:Well, I don’t know about that. I haven’t worked at other foundations. I’ve talked to some colleagues. I think we are all generally here for the same purpose, which is to help people out and help the community be as seamless as possible. I really love it when someone calls me and says, “Hey, can I talk to you about this grant? I’ve been thinking about this proposal. Can you help me fine-tune it a little bit?” I do a lot of that. Hugh:Part of our due diligence, and Russell worked 11 years on an Indian reservation and he did grants, he comes up with another experience. Part of our job is to do our due diligence to learn about the grantor. What is the purpose of the grant? What requirements are there? Will what we want funded match up with what you want to fund? And spell the name right. Bill:Sure. We get applications that are for things we can’t do. If an organization is renting a building, and they come to us and ask for renovations to that building, that is something we really won’t do because we don’t pay for renovations to a building that is not owned by the organization. We only provide money to nonprofits, and we don’t want to improve a building for a landlord. We want to help that organization. I try to guide people not to do those kinds of things. We typically don’t like to pay operating costs such as salaries. We need to hire a new person and we need this for a salary. We’d rather not do that. We’d rather put our donors’ money toward programs, resources that go directly to help people, and that sort of thing. That is part of the guidance I try to provide. I don’t want people to waste their time or our time with an application that I know is just not going to perform. Hugh:One of the deficits we see often is that there is an organization trying to fly by tradition and history by the seat of their pants without a strategy. By the way, Russell, he is a fellow musician. He is an actor/musician. He has been a professional production for the past couple of weeks, so he far exceeds my capabilities. We need a map. What do you sing when? When do you go off stage? When do you go on stage? When do the trumpets play? The way we think is there is a core map for where we’re going and how we’re going to get there and what kind of impact we’re going to have. That gives us substance for our thinking. When people are looking at funding, if there is a deficit in leadership or lack of strategy, are those pieces what we might call capacity-building? Are there capacity-building grants for them to up their game so to speak? Bill:There are. There certainly are. For example, let’s say somebody needs new computer equipment. We have helped people with that before, but only if we understand what they are going to use that computer equipment for. If you apply for a grant saying, “I need new computers,” that’s great, and we can assume a certain number of things. What I’d really like to see is “We need these computers because we are putting them i…

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Cracking the Focus Code with James Burgess Jun 19, 2018

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Cracking the Focus Code to Prevent Chaos

James is Author, Speaker, Business Planning Strategist and Business Management Consultant, providing real and permanent solutions to business planning challenges through programs creating radical focus and accountability

Transcript of the Interview with James Burgess

Hugh Ballou: Greetings, this is Hugh Ballou and Russell David Dennis. Russell, how are you today?

Russell Dennis:Greetings and salutations. It’s a beautiful day here out in the mountain west.

Hugh: And in Virginia, it’s lovely. Our guest is from the Toronto, Canada area. Lovely place. I just love Toronto. It’s like a clean New York City. It’s got all of the great stuff, and it’s clean. It’s got great people there. I love going north of the border. Russell, why don’t you tell people who our guest is and what his sweet spot is? He is going to introduce himself.

Russell: Greetings. Today, we have a real treat. We have imported some brilliance from our neighbors to the north up in Canada. We have James Burgess, founder of Focus 31. He is a master business strategist who works with small companies, from start-ups to under $25 million in revenue, who tries to help them get out of their own way by focusing on the right things, creating the right systems. He has done all sorts of work with both businesses, profit-making businesses, not-for-profit entities and is well known throughout the Canada. Many associations he has made presentations to. James, welcome. Why don’t you tell our friends on Facebook a little bit about yourself?

James: Thank you, gentlemen. It is absolutely delightful to be with you this afternoon or this morning, depending on how far west your audience reaches. I would like to start before I introduce myself to dispel rumors that Canadians all live in igloos. It is equally gorgeous without the thin air that Denver has. It is about 77 degrees, clear, blue skies, and we are headed probably for about 82 by the weekend. Yes, I live in a house as you can see by the walls behind me. I say that all in fun. But every time I get to educate on what Canada is all about, I take the opportunity.

It’s a pleasure to meet all of your listeners, virtually of course. My name is James Burgess. I am a speaker. I am the author of the international best-selling book Chaos: How Business Leaders Can Master the Power of Focus. I’ll give everyone an opportunity to get a free copy of this book at the end of the podcast, so stay on. I am the founder of Focus 31, a business that sells a service that no business owner wants, and yet we do it extremely successfully. Every business owner I sit down with or passes the table where my book is sitting says, “Yep, this is me. My business is in chaos, and I need focus.” Whenever they say “focus,” I know what they also need to be saying is I need accountability. That is entirely what Focus 31 does. I act, or my team acts as virtual CEOs for small businesses, as you indicated, from start-up to up to $25 million in revenue. In the past, we have worked often with not-for-profits to get them understanding just what it is they want to do, where they want to get to, how they are going to get there, and hold their feet to the fire, not in Tony Robbins’ way, but holding their feet to the fire to ensure they in fact act and implement their game plan that will get them to that new platform of success.

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