 We have the great Lashonda Williams, one of the trainers in the brain truss of Fundraising Academy coming to us from National University. So we are so excited Lashonda to have you with us. We are here because of our amazing sponsors. They include Blue Morang, American Nonprofit Academy, Your Part-Time Controller, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. You can find almost 900 episodes. You can get us through our app, take this quick QR code snap, and you get dialed in with us on a daily basis. You can find us on streaming and of course podcast, wherever you like to consume your content. Okay my friend, this is a really, really interesting thing that I'm hearing more about. I'm sure you are. So let's dig in. June from Dayton, Ohio writes in, I've recently had a corporate donor tell me they only fund nonprofits for terms of three consecutive years. Then after that, which would be a hiatus, we can come back. Are you hearing of this approach? I've heard it. However, I operate in the space of half full. And in that space, I am more inclined to say that the three year period is an opportunity to demonstrate exceptional impact, to engage the company in a very meaningful way that will make them reconsider possibly what their commitment timeframe is. There have been instances where exceptions have been made when you do exceptional work. So as rather than approaching it with, I have a limited amount of time with this particular organization and with the relationship, think of it from the approach of my goal is to extend the relationship and I will extend the relationship by being very intentional, engaging them with strategy and sharing the phenomenal outcomes that their organization support brings to my organization and demonstrating how we are aligned and how together we're stronger. And perhaps when that third year timeframe comes for review, that will give them an opportunity to kind of reevaluate what their traditional norm is or if it's a concrete rule because with every rule, there's always an exception and an opportunity lying ahead. So I would say to approach it as an opportunity to be the one to change and be the exception to the rule. Wow, you are such a power hitter because you know what? That is not at all the mindset I would take. I like your mindset a lot better. My mindset would be like, okay, we know that we have that amount of money going forward on the on our budget going out three years, putting that in, putting that in to our accounting system and with working with finance to understand that this is quote unquote a guarantee or a pledge and then figuring out a strategy to replace that money. So I don't know, I like what you're saying and I like that attitude, but I am seeing this more, LaShonda. I'm seeing this from the corporate side. I think it's driven by marketing. I think it's driven by people who want to look like they are spreading their largesse throughout the community in a marketing capacity. XYZ real estate agency is looking benevolent and they're using that donation for marketing purposes, which is very common. It's not a knock, but then it just allows them to be moving around. But I really like what you're saying. But I also agree exactly with what you're saying from the vantage point of funding. You definitely want to be able to have a strategy in place to replace those said funds. And just like nonprofits, we all in the perfect space have diversified funding. And so they want to diversify their support to make sure that they are able to expand their constituency and like you said, expand their brand. However, on the back end, when we think about fundraising holistically, relationships are simply the heart of fundraising. And that is why I take the approach of half full. Yes, we know that the funding may be limited. However, it is a tremendous opportunity to again be the exception to the rule. We want to make sure that we diversify our funding. We want to make sure that we have some prospects that can give it that same level that we can begin cultivating while receiving those said funds, which would only amplify your giving when you have convinced them because of their impact to reinvest and think about it from a different approach. Yeah, I love what you said about that. And I think too, you know, to tag on to what you're saying before we go on to the next question, maybe there's a way to say, okay, maybe we're not going to get your funding, but can we get some sort of in kind or can we get volunteer support or can we get what else can we do to partner so that you're not just walking away from them because I think what you said is magical. It's about the relationship. And if that relationship goes on hiatus for three years, things change. I mean, people change. You're going to have to start all over again. Exactly. And you hit a spot on. Worst case scenario is that you're transitioning the team that you've been working with into creating opportunities to volunteer with your organization so that you can remain top of mind. Because when we talk about philanthropic space, we talk about time, talent, and treasure. And so it's an opportunity to engage them in a different type of way. And so I definitely agree with you as well. I think taking a holistic approach, thinking about it from multiple vintage points will definitely help with making the strategy moving forward very fluid and very meaningful in almost quasi a SWAT analysis. So that you're able to really think it through and how you're going to move forward with that relationship. But definitely maintaining the engagement is paramount. So, you know, never a day goes by without the nonprofit nerd checking up on me. And even though the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, is not on the show, she's watching. And so she just, yeah, I know, she checks up on me. So she just wrote in and she's like, you could also ask this donor during hiatus for them to make introductions to other foundations or possible partners. There's a reason why- That's definitely a good one. Yeah. I think there's a reason why she's falling in. Yeah, there's a reason why she's called the nonprofit nerd. She's a goddess. Yeah, I love that. And I think it just speaks to the point don't give up on the relationship. Absolutely. And that, you know, I think I was like, okay, walk away, come back. But I was wrong. You are absolutely right, both of you. Keep the relationship healthy and whole. It just might not involve cash. Okay, now you know how I am when I get to hear a name withheld, get something from them. This came to us from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This person writes in, I'm going to be appearing on a speaker's panel with my specific sector at a national conference. Let me get this up on the screen. My question is this. Should I be representing my nonprofit or myself? It is a question about personal branding and how I promote myself within the profession, which is human services. It's a really good question because a lot of people, I mean, I speak at conferences. I, you know, I see people get poached at conferences. It has something, it has a career trajectory. It does. And so what I would say, you know, first, congratulations to you being able to be a part of a panel because that is a phenomenal opportunity. And again, airing on half full today. We need lots of water down here to stay cool. So airing on the side of half full. The wonderful, there are many pluses to being a part of a panel. Obviously it automatically will create an opportunity in space for you as a professional to brand yourself. However, the other advantage is it's an opportunity to propel your cause. It is co-branding. And co-branding can be very effective and proved to be very beneficial on both aspects. You become the subject matter expert within the particular field and sector. It also creates opportunity for providing additional information and awareness about your cause. And it will also develop interest and we know linkage, ability and interest equal philanthropic support. So I would say that I would, if you accept a position within an organization, you automatically become co-branded with them because you are an employee. And even from an ethical standpoint, things that you may do outside of the workplace may impact them inadvertently or advantageously. So what I would say is if you are not as confident about it, have a conversation with your supervisor, let them know first and foremost that you are presenting and you are excited and as a representative of the organization, you will do your best to present in the light that is reflective of the organization and perhaps take it one step further and maybe share your presentation if you have some concerns. But you are co-branded, whether you present as yourself just the name only, everyone's going to look you up after you give a phenomenal presentation. They're going to your LinkedIn. And after they go to your LinkedIn and they see your employer, it's going to lead to inquiries about your cause. So I say you're in a winning situation. If you're not easy about it, talk to your immediate supervisor. You know, share the content that you plan on sharing and ask them if they're comfortable being co-branded with you in that particular topic area. I love that you said that. And I think that's absolutely the right thing to do. You know, I'm from the West, you're from Texas, you know, that old adage that says you got to dance with the one that brung you. I believe in that. And I believe that if you are, you know, employed with an organization, it is the right thing to do to co-brand that because in essence, you are representing that organization and they're representing you. I mean, it goes both ways. And so I think chances are, the people that organized and made the decisions about who's going to speak or who was going to appear on the panel, they checked out the organization too, not just you. So you're... Absolutely, absolutely. You're rep... You know, and that's really an issue. I hadn't thought about the idea of taking some of your materials and submitting them or sharing them maybe is a better word with your team to see, you know, if there's any issue there. And who knows, I believe that it's a healthy thing to do anyway and you might get some feedback or you might get some, you know, somebody might catch something, but like an error or whatever in your presentation. But I think it's really important for the organization. And I think it's also important for organizational leadership to promote that, hey, one of our great minds is speaking at this national conference. I mean, that's the sort of thing that is great for marketing, is great for internal communications, communications to the board, to the donors even. I mean, it's a positive thing. And so, yeah, but I do think it has to be not just self-serving. Absolutely. Because we're in the selfless industry. We are there to serve humankind for the betterment. So I concur with you on all of the above, Julia. Definitely. Okay, literally, the nonprofit nerd needs to go away. Jarrett Ransom, she's also come in on this and she writes to me, FYI, LaShonda is speaking at the RAISE conference in Nashville. I am. Okay, so then here we go. We're throwing it back at you. How is she managing her various roles and her professional role during the speaking engagement? Because we know you here on the nonprofit show as one of the trainers of Fundraising Academy, but you also work for a higher ed institution in Texas, a law school. What are you going to be doing? So I am there in double capacity. Okay. So from a practitioner's perspective, I will be talking about things that I have done in the industry as it relates to digital fundraising and my practical experience. And I've garnered my practical experience from South Texas College of Law, a purviewing university, University of Houston. And I am an employee. And again, with the co-branding, you know, it creates opportunity for notoriety. We're getting more inquiries about South Texas College of Law and the wonderful things we're doing. And at the same time, I'm applying all of the knowledge I've gained as a practitioner to a body of work as a trainer to help increase, mobilize, elevate those in the development space so that they can have the confidence as well as the tools they need based off of my practical experience. It's kind of like the Edd for lack of better terms. With the educational doctorate, the difference between the Edd and the PhD is the educational doctorate, the Edd, is one that's based off of practical application working in the industry, whereas the PhD is the philosophical standpoint. Pedagogy. So for me and Jared, great point. And I thought about myself, but I'm not about myself. So definitely, you know, all things work greater for the good, holistically, for everyone as the relationships manifest because as a result of the relationship with the Fundraising Academy, obviously, there have been more inquiries that not only benefit myself, but benefit the Fundraising Academy and vice versa with South Texas College of Law. So again, when you are engaged with multiple entities and organizations, be your best self in all things and most importantly, be transparent. Right, right. All right. Non-profit nerd, you can keep watching because that was a good point. Excellent. I'll hand it over to Jared Ransom. Like I said, she's always checking up on me and that's just a good thing. Well, let's go on to Charles. Now, Charles, I took off the city's name. So this is my doing. I didn't want to identify where he was. And Charles wrote in, he's like, I'm going to retire from my position at my non-profit. I am the CFO and I'm trying to determine what amount of time I should give in advance of my departure. I keep hearing how horrible it is to find accounting finance talent so I'm trying to be sensitive about the whole process. This is a big question in one that is going across the for-profit sector and the non-profit sector. I mean, yeah. And good for you, Charles, for thinking about this because it's not going to be just a post-a-job and a CFO is going to be popping in because as we all know, non-profit accounting is different than for-profit accounting. So you don't just jump across the desk and go move quickly from for-profit to non-profit. I mean, it is specialized. I mean, we've learned that from our friends at your part-time controller. It is a very specialized type of work. What's your sense of this about notifying folks? Congratulations, Charles, to be at a point where you're comfortable and you are ready to retire. Yeah. I'm a little bit jealous because I have some more years ahead of me. Sister, you have a lot of years. You have a lot of years. You know, just a couple more years, you know. And the attitude that you have is the perfect attitude, one of benevolence, thoughtfulness, very, you know, concerned about the relationship, which again, is why we're in the non-profit sector because of our desire to serve humankind. There are a couple of different approaches that I would recommend and that I have seen. I work in the higher ed space, as Julia just mentioned. With higher ed from a non-profit sector, you know, the change of the hiring process is a little bit different from a non-profit organization from the standpoint they may have more fluidity and opportunity to create a transition plan for hiring and getting someone in place immediately. So in your non-profit space, my recommendation is to have that conversation that you are planning to retire and talk with, you know, the president of the organization HR and come up with a timeline together. And with that timeline, it is a fluid transition plan and the transition plan will include what are some of the key deliverables that you need to prepare for transition and perhaps the budget may be able to account for someone to come in before you actually leave where there may be a month of overlap for training or perhaps there have been instances where I've had friends that left a non-profit agency that was in a very critical vital role and the non-profit said, you know, we understand that you're transitioning out. However, will you stay on as a consultant for a certain period of time so that we can make sure that the transition is seamless so that services are not lost so that organizational knowledge is maintained. And so that is the approach I would take, you know, having the transparent conversation. I want to work with everyone. I'm getting closer to the end of my career. What's a realistic time? But the first thing that came to mind was how much time did you give your prior employer notification when transitioning into that CFO role? And in most instances, you know, with those higher level executive positions, the transition time on average is anywhere from two to four months, realistically. So at minimum, you're looking at two to four months. But again, working with the team to develop a plan so that you feel great about the transition and all of your concerns will be addressed because you've been invested in the organization and you're there because you want to see it sustain. And so part of that is working with the team. Right. You know, again, tying back the non-profit nerd back into this conversation. And again, she's just watching that in the studio. But you know, Jared Ransom does interim work. And, you know, it's not just interim CEO executive director. There's interim CFO work. There's interim COO work, you know, CMO. I mean, there's a lot. And then CDO, you know, the development side. So it might be something to find that interim leadership so that you don't have major stops and starts. And I agree, Charles, you need to get to the CEO right away and have that heart to heart and say, look, this is what I'm looking at. You know, is this a hard deadline? Is this something that's flexible? Can you go onto a different schedule or whatever? But yeah, this is such a key thing. And I don't know what the budget, you know, ranges of your organization. But even if you're, you know, medium to large size, I mean, this is a critical, critical piece of leadership. So it's not the normal two week kind of thing. Absolutely. And it's important. You play a vital role to the organization operations. And so you definitely want to have those conversations now. Good. Okay. One last thought. We have a friend of the show that has also written in Jerry Diaz. And he's actually been on before several times. And he writes in, it's essential to create a transition team to ensure diversity of thought and input as well. So thank you, Jerry, for that comment, because absolutely, it's not just about finding somebody with a pulse at this point, because that's dangerous. I mean, we've got... Exactly. It's very dangerous. In the organization culture, everyone is really evaluating a lot more and we're becoming more conscientious about the organization culture. So that sometimes takes time. There are instances where you may have a candidate that is exceptional on experience and paper. However, that may not be a good fit. And for a CFO role, that is something that is not going to be filled relatively quickly, unless there's someone that's in training or perhaps someone within the organization that is prepared to be promoted. Right. Okay. This next question is really, I'm going to say kooky, but very interesting. It comes to us from Leandra from Los Angeles County. And she writes some of us in programming. Programming. I think this is what's so interesting. Thought it was a good idea to form a book club. Specifically, we wanted to read books that tackle our topic of environmental sciences. So this is not like a quick read, right? I mean, when I read this, I'm like, okay, this is like, these are the egghead, you know, programming people, educated, maybe even looking at scholarly documents. However, we are having pushback from staff not involved in programming. What do we do? Not include them? Shame them into participating? What will work? Isn't this interesting? I thought this was fascinating. It is a very fascinating question. So immediately the first thing that comes to mind is most people will ask, what's in it for me? And if they are not in programming, there is potentially some challenges with jargon and translation. Yeah. Yeah. If they're not in programming, the aptitude may not necessarily be at the same scale. Yeah. I think that you're fostering an environment of inclusion by offering this as an option for them to join you. However, you may also want to consider half full providing a high level summary of each of the chapters or segments of the reading and share with the staff that is not as familiar because it can be very intimidating to be invited into a space of a certain level of expertise that you are not familiar with. It may not be your skillset. And it also cannot, it may create some challenges when it comes time to sharing because the whole purpose of the book club is not only to read but to learn from each other. And if this is an area that I'm not very comfortable with, my confidence level may be at an all-time low and I may just simply be there in a physical space and I cannot be my authentic altruistic self. So I would say offer the opportunity but also you may want to gauge or survey the non-programming staff and ask them what would be an effective way or what are some things that you can do to provide them with the information because you'd like the team to increase their knowledge base in this area but what are some ways that would be beneficial to them that would make it better received because in essence it sounds like it's an option, not necessarily a requirement and you want to make sure that you're inclusive but you also want to meet individuals where they are. So to foster an environment of transparency, get their feedback but definitely consider creating some high-level bullet points and summaries so that they will have access to the information. I love it and I think you might need to gamify it a little bit, make it fun, you know. Exactly because the word programming, sciences. Yeah, I mean I was into I'm thinking well I'd be intimidated you know to do that. Definitely, I would be the quiet one in the room. Yeah, you know I mean if it's like if you're bringing you know sexy coffee from Starbucks or you're serving wine I don't know what but you got to make it fun because I think you're right you know LaShonda we get intimidated within the sciences about you know this group's over here and this group's over there and we need to bring people together so that we can learn new vocabulary and kind of just get on the road. Very interesting question and I hope that you write back and let us know how this shakes out because it's so fascinating and I love that you're trying to do this. I think that's brilliant. Hey, LaShonda Williams Trainer Fundraising Academy Fundraising Academy is a part of National University and they partner with us every Friday and they give us one of their amazing talents to answer these questions and it's really a lot of fun. Today again as I said we had LaShonda Williams on coming to us from Texas. So you know Texas has a wonderful spot in my heart because I live by the motto the higher the hair the closer to God and that's always like one of the things they say in Texas. And we are definitely in the Bible Belt. Well LaShonda, you are a gem and we are always delighted to have you as we are with our sponsors and they include Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Your Part-Time Controller, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. Hey everybody, thanks so much for being so engaged and sending in your questions and comments today. That's really a big part of this and a lot of fun for us. LaShonda, I hope you have a fabulous, fabulous weekend and I'm going to leave you with a message that I leave with everyone every day and that is to stay well so you can do well. Thanks so much my friend. We'll see you all here back on Monday.