 Hello and welcome. Thrilled to have all of you back here at the nonprofit show. We have with us today a repeat guest and I'm really excited to have Joelle Kanshipolsky back with us. Joelle serves as a partner with Pathway Associates and she's going to share with us a little bit about what Pathway does as well. Joelle is going to share today with this episode with you some best practices to recruit and retain your staff for your nonprofit. So stay with us as we dive deep into this conversation. But before we do that, we want to remind you who you're looking at or possibly listening to. So hello to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm excited to have this, I don't know, just like series with you. I know that we thought it was going to be two weeks, but here we are, you know, three plus years. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your co-host also known as Julia's personal nonprofit nerd, but I like to remind you there's plenty of nerdiness to go around. 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So if you're a podcast listener, we encourage you to queue up the nonprofit show, wherever you stream your podcast so you can find all of our 600 plus episodes, including the previous episode here with our guest today. Joelle Kanshipolsky, again Joelle serves as a partner of Pathway Associates hello to you my friend. Thank you for having me I can't believe I think I was on almost a year ago and I think your corporate sponsors have doubled since I was last on good. That's the game we're so very fortunate truly and we are always fortunate to have a repeat guest come back and join us today. But share with us a little bit Joelle about what Pathway Associates does and where you serve the community. So Pathway Associates and thanks again for having me Pathway Associates was founded about 22 years ago in the great state of Utah based in Salt Lake City. And it was really started as a consulting firm to serve the not for profit and government sectors around capital campaigns and feasibility studies and over the years the founders realized through talking with clients that they had way more needs than just feasibility studies and capital campaigns. So the company really grew from there and now we are four partners, women led women owned, and we have about 15 consultants who work with us on our team so we've grown to be pretty sizable. And we serve the whole state of Utah the Mountain West and then we have clients really all over the country but I would say predominantly in the Mountain West and really serving all the needs that happen in the not for profit sector from fundraising to consulting to nonprofit financial solutions to private public partnership still doing capital campaigns I lead out on a lot of our executive work with CEOs and doing coaching and executive transition, strategic planning, all the things. Even some grant writing I think you have someone we actually have a very robust grant writing team that is a need that so many of our clients have as well. But that is so true. And I saw recently I feel very fortunate to be on your list that you send out that you are helping to hire currently for one of your clients and so I'm really excited to learn as we talk today about best practices to recruit and retain how you help the nonprofit sector, really dive deep into these best practices. So why don't you kick us off with you know some of these tips here today. Thanks for that, Jared. Yeah, we do a lot of searches for our clients usually in the C suite so CEO and executive director but right now I'm doing a development director search for a great statewide organization. And so what I have found over the years of doing hiring and recruiting is that I really think it's important that we center our work in equity and so that is why I wanted to talk about that today and I think in particular this job market I'm hearing people over and over that this is what's keeping them up at night. It used to be like budget issues and working with their board which is still keeping people up at night let's be honest but how we recruit and retain staff is just we're just in a tough time all over I think in a variety of businesses but specifically in the sector where our salaries haven't necessarily kept up with cost equipment. So I think thinking about how you recruit and retain staff from a place of equity is really important. So I always say to people why does it matter. So I have this little stat that 47% of millennials want to work in a diverse company. And millennials a lot of you know they've got a bad rap that they're super you know young and they don't want to work and that's not true and they're really right now like 40 and under. They really that young anymore. No they are not they're the people they're the people we need to recruit and retain and they want to work in diverse businesses we also know that diverse companies are two times as likely to meet or exceed their financial goals and that is true for the not for profit sector as well. So it matters. I mean it matters for all kinds of reasons let alone who you're serving and representing who you're serving them in all those things that we know but it also makes good business. I know that you use the word belonging and you know it's it's fascinating because that seems like a word that we haven't seen in business, whether it be profit or nonprofit. And I'd love for you to explain and kind of flush that out for us. Yeah sure and I'm going to talk about that a little bit more at the end when we talk about okay now we've recruited people how do we help them feel like they belong. And so what I like to say is to me, being centered in equity is making sure that everybody is invited to the conversation into the table. And then, once they're there. How do you make sure people feel like they belong. There are you know a lot of stories I could share one recently that a colleague shared and actually speaks to me as the only native English speaker and my entire family on both sides my sister and I is a woman who was in a board meeting. A senior staff person and English was her second language and she was quiet all the time. And after one of the meetings someone asked her well why aren't you engaging more and she said well here's what I have to do. I sit in this meeting and I hear it in English. And then I'm thinking to myself. I'm translating into my native language. And then I'm taking notes in my native language and then I'm trying to translate it back to English and then I'm saying what I have to say. And so having a mindset of belonging is realizing this person has something to contribute she's already at the table. And she comes from a different perspective and perhaps the majority of people in the room. And so how do you make someone feel comfortable to actually share and participate in the conversation so that's what I think of when I think of the law, but I have some other ideas that I'll share towards the end. Yeah, that's a great story and one that I, I, you know, admit would not have crossed my mind so thank you for bringing that to light for me and hopefully for others. Julia, I'm curious because you serve on so many boards. Have you seen that around in your board service work as well? Oh, yeah, I would say when, you know, personally when I first started, I was on a very large cultural board and I was the youngest person they'd ever had on, and I was female in a room predominantly, you know, older white men. It was really hard to, I would say, become confident enough to speak up because I was never asked, right? And so I had to kind of project in and start, you know, voicing my ideas and my opinions. And then once I did, two things happened. My confidence increased and then those around the table started listening. I was certainly still dismissed. You know, that's a hard thing to move around. And back in the days, we never, ever used the words, you know, associated with anything around DEI. I mean, a white woman of privilege and I was still considered the minority, right? So I mean, you know, we've moved quickly in so many ways and not fast enough in others. But I think you're right. I think, Joelle, it's interesting to look around the table and see what's happening and then try and bring that forward. And that can be a really tough conversation. It can be a tough conversation, but this is why when I speak with clients, you know, talking about diversity is not enough. And that's why we have to talk about equity. We have to talk about belonging. We have to talk about these, these other pieces as well. And some of the tips I'll share today because I think it can be overwhelming for people like, oh, no, we don't have a diversity initiative. And so I have just some really simple tips of little things like taking recruitment. We want to move to that little things that you can do to help center that work in equity. And even if you implement one of them, I think you will see the return. So, so let's go there then. When you talk about having an inclusive recruitment strategy. Wow, what does that look like? How do you get there? I have so many questions for you. Yeah, I'm happy to take them. I mean, first and foremost, this is sort of basic but in this job market, one of the biggest mistakes and this is about equity but just more generally is people not responding to applicants quickly enough. And this is a tight job market. I know in Utah we have the love. I don't know if we still do but up until recently the lowest unemployment in the country. You've got to move on candidates quickly process matters, but don't drag it out unnecessarily get back to people quickly give them that respect. But there's so many ways to make your recruitment strategy more inclusive and one of the first things that I do with clients is I asked them about their appetite to include language in their postings that's not just the basic EEOC language like we don't discriminate blah, blah, blah. You need to have that from an HR perspective. But what I like to say is, we know that women and people of color and folks from underrepresented groups tend to not apply for jobs unless they meet every single requirement listed. We want you to apply. Please submit your application that kind of language tells me, Oh, you are really walking the talk. So that's one tip, like say what you want and just be upfront about it. Number two, this is probably one of the biggest things that I've been saying to clients and I've been having more and more success but it's taken time. If a college degree is not required, do not require it. If you don't need licensure if I'm hiring a clinical director and they need to have licensure where you're hiring you know an attorney or an accountant fine. But honestly, to be a CEO of a not for profit a government entity, you don't need to have an undergraduate degree or a master's degree. Why are you requiring it. I mean, when we know we know about access and lack of access for people and so there are all kinds of reasons why people may have not maybe they started a degree and something changed in their lives. So don't put it on there. You don't need it unless you absolutely require it. Number three. Oh, we're gonna say something Julia. No, I'm just like, Wow. I think Joel, a lot of these things get written because they always get written. Nobody thinks about it. So I love that you that you're directing this to think differently. Yeah. You don't need to have a big, you know, DEI to your strategy like take it slow. Come up with a couple things that you can do to center your work and equity. The third thing I say to people. Why aren't you posting your salary range. We know that that has a significant impact on reducing the gender pay gap. You've got to post your salary range and why wouldn't you why wouldn't you want to start a conversation with transparency. What's the point? I just was talking with someone who's interested in the search I'm doing. And she said, you know, or does there wiggle room with salary because it was posted and I said, maybe what are your needs? Her needs were twice what the salary range was and I was like, yeah, non starter. Right. You're amazing. Good for you. That's what you're making right now. I celebrate you. I absolutely do. But if we didn't have it posted, we wouldn't even hear that until further down in the project. Yeah. And it saves so much time too. I find Joel that like candidates get to the very last and are used to get to the very last and that's when the transparency and salary comes up. And that's, yeah, I love, I love having it posted. You know, I love that for so many reasons. And I personally stopped sharing anyone's job postings, unless they stated the hiring range. It was like, it just has to be there. And I think collectively as a sector, you know, that's our role too, whether we're the job poster or the job sharer is being part of that. So great tip for there. Yeah. And I take that very seriously. I think we have been undervalued and underpaid in our sector. I've worked in the not-for-profit sector for 25 years before becoming a consultant. I still think I work in it, even though I'm on the for-profit side. Part of my job is to help people understand our value and to help those salaries move forward. So that's also part of my work. Second to last tip is a really easy one. Where are you networking? You know, if, for example, in Utah, we have a black chamber. We have a Hispanic chamber. I think we have a Latino chamber. We have an LGBTQ plus chamber. Where are you posting when you say we're not getting a diverse applicant pool? So what is your network? If you're networking with the same old people branch out a little bit, disrupt your HR practices just a little bit, not enough to upset your HR person, but just a little bit. So that you're doing things a little bit differently. Don't keep doing the same things and expect different results. And then lastly, if you can figure out it, figure this out from a time perspective, I love panel interviewing. We find that that helps center our work in equity and especially when you have a scorecard aligned with what you say you're looking for. It allows more people to weigh in on your hiring. And I think it also helps the candidate because they see more people that they would be working with instead of just one or two people. I do a panel if you can. So those are all my quick tips. I have many more, Julia, but I think that even if someone picks one of them, I would be thrilled. You know, I'm fascinated, Joelle, on the cadence with which you started this saying, you know, go slow, be thoughtful and don't try and do everything at once. When I think about, oh my gosh, we need to have a strategy. I don't care what it is. It could be a finance and accounting strategy. It could be a legal strategy. It seems like we got to get it all. We got to get it now and it has to be perfect. And I'm fascinated by your approach. And is that just because it's more doable or things are changing or it's your nature? Like, give me a sense of why you said that. Yeah, Julie, I think it's the recovering perfectionist in me who also wanted to have everything planned and strategized. And I love a good strategy. But I think we get in our own way in general, probably when we want everything to be figured out. And then we hem and hawn, we never do it. And I see this over and over, especially with equity, diversity, belonging work where we don't want to say the wrong thing or we don't want to do the wrong thing. So we're just not having the conversations and we're not leaning into it. And I also have been part of and have led failed DEI implementation strategies at not-for-profits and have worked with clients. And so I feel like you just have to be gentle with yourself and go for it. And even if you start small, you will then get some momentum, right? And so maybe have some successes instead of beating yourself up because you set this goal of having 80% of your executive team underrepresented folks and you don't know how to get there. So then you just never do anything. You know, whatever that goal is, it's too big. Start small. And that also, that was advice that came from people who do this work for a living. I don't actually do DEI consulting. I just sat in there and my work in it. So some of that advice came from other experts who were like, start small. I love it. It seems so doable. And I can totally feel you when it comes to that perfectionist. I'm working on being a recovering perfectionist. I think I'm still a perfectionist, but I'm still working on that. And so I love the opportunity and the permission that I heard you say, truly, Joel, is take it small. And for me, my big takeaway is, you know, post these jobs in different places. Go to the Latinx Chamber of Commerce, you know, post it there, go to the LGBTQ plus, you know, organization, post it there, like be intentional with how you're casting that net farther and wider, you know, wider, so that it really does encompass that. And what I love about what you do as well, Joel, because I shared earlier in the episode, you share these postings with your colleagues and friends and other professional peers to say, please help me get this word out, right. And I love that too. It seems so simple. I know it's an extra step in your checklist, but it goes, you know, far and wide. And I just, I commend you for that and really appreciate these practices. Thanks, Jared. It's interesting. Someone asked me, like, why do you enjoy, I'm not an executive recruiter. That's not my background. I've been a fundraiser for a really long time and in leadership roles, and someone said, why do you like searches? Like, that's not my favorite thing to do. To me, there's such a link with fundraising. It's about connecting and about relationship building. And you know what, if this role I've sent you isn't good for you, maybe you know someone and it's the same with fundraising. And if I'm asking you to think about investing in a cause that I think matters to you, do you, you know, I'm talking about kids and you love animals. Great. I can connect you to someone who's doing animal work, right. And so to me, recruitment work is all about relationship building and helping people find good fit. And so I do love spreading the word. I think some people are like, oh my gosh, Joel, another role. I don't know anybody. But you never know what may trigger. And that is often how we find good fits. You know, just posting your job isn't really enough in this market, unfortunately. And that's why a lot of times people hire people like me because I can do that sourcing work. I can talk to 200 people when you don't have the time to do that. But just posting and hoping we're seeing is just not enough. Yeah, no, it's not enough. Now, you know, it's interesting. We've had a lot of conversations. Jared and I have in the very beginning of the pandemic, the advice was, oh my God, hold on to your job because the job market's going to crash. And you're going to be so glad you have a job. And now it's just super like whiplashed to the other area where it's like, okay, you can explore and you can look at things. And we all hear that we hear that on the news every day. What is it that you think that we can be doing so that we can keep but we can retain our team because we know the investment is just it's debilitating when you got to go out and and recruit and start with a new team member. What are some of the things that we can do. Yes, and I agree and it's so hard, you know, whether you've done the work yourself where you've hired someone to know development directors 18 to 24 months. Yeah, that's the lifespan and roles and why is that at pathway we're so interested in looking at how do we help build people's skills, not just the development directors but CEOs do they know how to partner with their development directors boards. Are they helping support and set those folks up for success so that's a whole nother interesting topic, but it is exhausting to have that kind of turnover so there are a couple things. The one of the first things I talked to people about is mental health. This is something that is, you know, we are in the sector we are servicing our clients, usually. And, you know, we are centered in making sure that we are improving our society in some way when we're in the not for profit sector. Let's focus our work and have it centered in mental health. Can you have mental health days I just placed an executive director with an organization and she talked about an organization she was with where she instituted so I've stolen this a day away. You get a day away every quarter. And when someone sees you know I'm working with Jared in an organization I'm seeing she's seeming a little stressed I mean she's in Phoenix she's in Utah she's traveling she's doing all the things she's being a mom. Jared if you taking your day away. It's a super easy way to kind of center the work and we're caring for your mental health you don't have to explain it. You go do your day away you're not allowed to be on. I love that. I love that too. I have to share Joel. I really do love that because we've talked about this before Julia of so many staff that like are prideful and brag about just how many pto hours they've saved up and how they haven't taken a true vacation in years and that to me is like the biggest red flag I think I've ever seen. I love this day away and the ability to really foster that culture for the organization and for your people that is a huge opportunity for that mental health so that's that's a big one. So much of our work is so draining and I think sector we have secondhand trauma many of us are drawn to it because of our own stuff, you know, and so making sure we're caring for it connected to that. Where I was just the interim CEO for a year, we close the office for mental wellness week. Wow, you know what not every service organization can do that maybe have to figure out a way to tear it. The staff came back and said it was the best gift they got that entire year because with coven everybody's on all the time, you're expected to be on all the time even on vacation. And so to know the office was closed and that our out of office is said, we are having a mental wellness week and once we did that other organizations follow suit. So if you can figure out a way to do it, I recommend it. Another one is to give staff when you're hiring them a budget for individual mental wellness, even if it's $100 a year. A nominal amount that every staff member gets they have their professional development dollars, they have their mental wellness dollars. The last thing that I did an organization recently is I brought in someone to do mindfulness. It was not expensive. I did it quarterly we did it by zoom. We would take an hour quarterly and we would just learn how to integrate mindfulness into our practices. So those are four super easy pick one ways to focus on mental health when you're hiring people. Yeah, that's really important. And you're right I mean especially in our sector in the community, you know many of us run towards the fire whatever that fire is because we're you know by nature we are the helpers. And we've stayed in this crisis mode for three years now, you know, and so having this built in I'm going to say again into the culture is so very important. Because if we're not willing to take it for ourselves, perhaps you know taking it as a as a community in the, in the role of the position and the organization will really invite us to do that so. I'm glad you said culture Jared. I mean that to me is at the center of retention. It's about equity and I'll go into some of those thoughts but it's about all these pieces if you're just focusing on DEI you're not doing it it's about culture. So some of the other things that I've done in places is you know making time to do a staff retreat this is pretty basic but, and maybe it's not about business maybe it's just about collaboration getting to know each other, doing staff socials if people want to do them. Just finding ways to connect I think is really important right now. One of the last things that I do with staff when I'm in a CEO role is I like exit interviews, but I do stay interviews. Yeah, I want to hear what makes you get out of bed in the morning. I want to hear what makes you hit the snooze button. So doing stay interviews is such a great way to understand why people are staying, not just when they're leaving and it's too late so these are all connected to how we make people feel a part of the organization and and belonging. And then the last areas around DEI specific things. One organization I was at they were doing this before I got there, an hour every week, you know they had their all hand staff meetings and then they did an hour every week to talk about these topics, rotated facilitators, and there didn't have to be any pre work, you know Jerry you could walk in and say, let's talk about what's happening in Ukraine, or you know whatever. And we would have a facilitated conversation dedicated to talking about issues related to diversity and equity and inclusion. And you have you know and it was slow for some people and yet it creates safe spaces but I came in and it was so wonderful to watch those conversations unfold. Another thing an organization I was part of I didn't start it but I thought it was beautiful large nonprofit across the country. They started affinity groups. And staff was asked, what do you want. So there were people who were part you know who are BIPOC black indigenous people of color. There was an LGBTQ plus group. There was an LGBTQ plus group and allies. I was part of a group that was like multicultural comes from a complicated background identifies as white. There were actually other people like me. You know, speak another language, whatever, confusing people, we came together so you know we just started these affinity groups because what you find is you want to hear from other people and have that support. So I think affinity groups another thing connected to that is, you know, mentors are there, for example people of color in the organization who would be willing to be a mentor support for someone of color I was just at coffee with a colleague, the works that a very nonprofit. And she was telling me about a wonderful staff person who has been doing more and more public speaking and so woman of color, and she could do some work in that area she's a what she's wonderful but she gets nervous. And I said, hey, I have this girlfriend, this incredible black woman who is the one of the most beautiful public speakers I've ever heard. I wonder if she would not even in your organization, let's connect them. Even if nothing comes out of it let's connect them but I bet she'd be a great mentor. So, you know, thinking about ways to create supports for people. And then the last thing that I talked about is running inclusive meeting. So, I like to always have, you know, rules of engagement, or agreements. We invite people in, and we talk about what this meeting is going to look like so that's inclusive so Mia CEO, I don't need to run everything and I don't need to be the one telling everyone what we're going to do. Let's have some agreements for all the ways that we run our meeting. So, those are sort of all my ways to foster belonging tips, and I think it folks in, like I said pick one. It would, it would be great and it would set you on your way. Well, Joelle Kenshipolski, you have been amazing. I loved it when we first had you on more than a year ago. I think that it's just fabulous to get your perspective and I know that it has served your community well and your clients and your partnerships. We are super appreciative that you would come on the nonprofit show. Joelle Kenshipolski, partner with Pathway Associates, check them out at pathwayassoc.com and learn what they're doing. Their team has grown so much and they offer a wealth of information on that site. It's really well done. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. I've been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, but she's my nonprofit nerd. We're on Ransom CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors who join with us in these amazing and dynamic conversations with experts like Joelle, Blue Morang American Nonprofit Academy, Your Part-Time Controller, Be Generous, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader and the Nonprofit Nerd. Again, thank you so much ladies for joining us today. Another great episode of the Nonprofit Show and as we like to end every episode, we want to remind ourselves, our guests, our listeners and our viewers to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow everyone.