 Good afternoon, good evening, wherever you might be joining us from. I'm Julia Patrick with the non-profit show. We're really excited today because we have a CEO spotlight with Brenda Jean Foley who is the artistic director of the bridge initiative. We're going to talk about all things in the art world and the creative space and I can't wait to have this conversation because it's been a real tough time for our arts programs. So let's dig into that a little bit. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. If we haven't met, I'm CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, Jared Ransom, my trusty sidekick CEO of the Raven Group will be joining us tomorrow. Again we have amazing sponsors who are with us day in and day out. We want to express our gratitude to Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, be generous, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, non-profit thought leader and non-profit nerd. Also, we have done, I was telling Brenda this before we got going, we've done more than 700 episodes and if you want to access any of those archives you can do so on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV and Vimeo and you can also queue us up on your favorite podcast platform. We have taken all of our programming for this last year and put it into podcast format. So let us join you on your daily walk or when you're vacuuming or commuting. We want to be a part of that conversation. Okay, Brenda Jean Foley, it's so nice to see you, my friend. It is such a pleasure Julia, thank you so much for inviting me today. You know, I first met you through some of our live trainings with the American Nonprofit Academy and you had this artistic, you had this performance-based company that did theater work, really innovative, unique programming throughout the state and you had some really interesting approaches. Talk to us a little bit about what the bridge initiative really does and why you were doing this. Well, we started because actually my co-founder Tracy Liz Miller came to me and said, you know what, I'm realizing that there is not a lot of female leadership. They're not producing a lot of female plays. They're not a lot of female directors in the Valley and would you be interested in going in for some seed funding with me to create something? And I tend to be one of those people that is like, let me jump and then look and see if there's water for better or worse. So I said, sure. And so it was really sort of a felt need. I had been acting in the Valley at the time in the Phoenix area and hearing in the dressing room women talking about, oh, I used to be directing a lot and they're just nobody's hiring me anymore. And there was just this sense of feeling left out. And so that's kind of where we started. And we wanted to be doing work to your point of what our focus was, work that nobody else was doing. So not only did we want to produce plays, which is very expensive, but we wanted to be in the new work process to try and find some voices that were not being heard from. You know, super innovative. And this was what, 10 to 15 years ago? Oh, gosh, no, this was in. So Tracy first came to me with the idea in 2014 and we did our pitch, our sort of seed funding pitch in 2015, and we got our 501C3 in 2016. OK, so we're relatively new. You are new, but I would dare say that you were super new to the discussion. I mean, we didn't even use the letters, D.E.I. We had none of this until so recently. And I have to imagine that when you first started on this journey, people and funders specifically were like, what? Right. Oh, well, it was interesting. I'm so glad you brought that up. When we first started to do we before we even did our pitch, we did a little bit of sort of market research and sort of pulled some people that we knew and people in the valley and said, is there a need for this? And we had literally people come to us and say, don't do it. It's dangerous. There is a lawsuit out against some people that we're trying to make gender equality happen in another company. You guys are new to this area, and so you are not associated with that. But don't jump in because you're going to be in trouble. And we both kind of looked at each other and were like, it sounds like this is absolutely what we should be doing. But, you know, so initially there was definitely this this danger around it, right? Like don't rock the boat. Don't upset the establishment. It was threatening, I suppose, to some people. And then the flip of that was there was a felt need. There were all these women that were like, thank you. We really are, you know, we feel a little bit invisible. And so we're grateful that you're doing this work. Wow, I am fascinated by that because it's it had to be frightening. It had to be frightening to be told that this was a perilous idea. Not that it was a bad idea necessarily, but that it was a perilous idea. That is one heck of an origin story. I want to know now how has your mission changed or been transformed? I mean, the production world, the entertainment world has been gutted through the pandemic. How have you survived and, dare I say, thrived? I mean, how with your mission, how has this worked? Well, so we were launched. We had we were called the Bridge Initiative colon women in theater. OK, as we started leaning into being a place to represent underrepresented voices, it really felt like, oh, my gosh, it's not just women that are underrepresented. People are underrepresented for all different kinds of reason. Everything from age to thighs to obviously race and disability, all these things. And so we really were kind of in our programming, trying to reach out and be intersectional in our representation. Again, like you said, years before, lots of people were super aware or at least throwing those terms around D, I and A. And so as a couple of years back, we thought, you know, since now everybody's catching up, maybe we should lean into that with our mission and say we're not only representing women, we're intersectionally representative. And what we found over the couple of years that we leaned into that was that people were like, well, so what do you stand for? Like it wasn't narrow enough. They they really they couldn't latch on to it. And so we've kind of reverted. We've kept the colon women in theater off of off of our name. But we do say that really we're about women leadership. We're about gender parity is kind of how we phrase it. And we've kind of leaned back into that. And then going to your point about the pandemic, theater really, obviously, people showing up with large crowds to support, you know, to be in the space together was not happening for a couple of years. And so we pivoted to some digital content. I was like in March of 2020, I was like, if I'm not going to be in a theater, I'm going to need to have an outlet. So I immediately created 11 weeks of play readings. And so I was doing that before anybody else. And then once everybody else started doing it, I stopped. And then I created like a very specific digital content that was fundraising for other charities in the in the region. And we did sort of different kinds of programming. But to your point, like it has transformed, people aren't 100 percent coming back to live work. We are doing it. But consequently, we've added media to our mission statement. So we're not just theater. We're saying we're we're theater and media. We've got a digital offering. We're calling a digital newsletter that is based on a show that we're doing about Broadway musical theater stuff. And so that will that's digital content that people can consume from anywhere and wherever they're comfortable, as well as continuing to to do live live work. But we're trying to figure that out. Just like I think a lot of content creators are, what is that niche? And then the other piece of it is that I've started to work on a documentary film, so we're just trying to broaden our offerings to and meet people where they are. So let me ask you a follow up question to that because, you know, in normal times, it would be a theater, a time, a date go. But now with this, are you finding that you're able to build an audience that is miles away or maybe in another part of the country? Or are you still regionally focused? So I think we're in process during the that initial digital offerings and stuff we were doing during the pandemic. Absolutely what you're saying was happening. We were starting to because I'm not from Phoenix. I live in Phoenix now, but certainly it was actually really wonderful because we had early funding from friends and family that were not local. And they were finally able to experience some of our programming. So that was great. And then, you know, just the reach was starting to extend. But I think when things started opening up, people were like, I don't want to constantly be staring at a screen. And so we're trying to find that sweet spot of being able to have some content for, again, like you say, this more national reach that people that aren't able to show up at a set date or time. So even local people, right? Like who are like, you know what, I've got a sniffle and I want to, you know, I don't want to go out in a mask or like whatever their reasoning is that they want to sit on their couch. We're trying to reach them and continue to create content that they can participate in. But we also are trying to be present in a live way because ultimately we're creatures of theater in my company. And there's something about sharing space, heartbeats, regulate like there's there's all this research about being in the same place at the same time that is healing and transformative. So we do believe in that deeply as well. Wow. So your journey is so fascinating. I mean, at best it's a super tough road. And then the pandemic comes and then all of this change on how we gather, what we consume, how we consume it. I've got to ask you this question as a CEO, where are you spending most of your time in like this trajectory of your creative, you're managing a company, your fundraising, you're dealing with a life event that might never be seen in our lifetimes again, right? Yes, hopefully. Yeah, I should say, how are you doing dealing with this and what what are you doing on your average day? Gosh, my average, I don't even know if I have an average day to be honest, Julia, it just kind of depends on one of the things that I've been encouraged by in the last couple of years is because the digital content was what it was, I was actually performing as an artist more than I had prior. I'd been sort of sitting back and pushing everybody else forward. And the feedback I got was like, we want more of you doing your thing because that's really ultimately my training. So the good side of things are is that I've actually been able to become an artist a little bit more. I'm hosting our show and performing and singing in it that we do quarterly. And, you know, so I'm spending some of my time actually as an artist, creating creating artistic content in a way that I hadn't been a couple of years ago, which is really fulfilling. I also believe that you're going to be proud of me. Julia and I sat down five or six years ago at this point. And she said to me at that time, I was not paying myself. I was paying all of our artists. I was paying all of the people that were working for the company. But she said, you know, that's sustainable. You need to figure out how to pay yourself something. And in the last couple of years, in spite of the pandemic, in spite of everything else, I figured out how to pay myself a little bit as well as I will compensate myself for when my performance side of it, too. But I am compensating myself a little bit for the admin. And I've added a couple of people on a staff stipend basis as well. So one of the really interesting changes over the last literally like 18 months has been that I'm managing a team. And so that has actually both lessened and increased my work strangely enough because I thought, oh, gosh, great, now I'll have people to help. But it ends up being like, OK, I'm managing. And I'm sure that all of you sitting on the call who have experience are like, well, you should have known that, but, you know, I was new to that. So it's been a learning curve. But it's we're starting to figure it out and figure out whose role is what. I am very attracted to a management model of like everybody's voice is equal. And we all, you know, and then but at the same time, there's definitely some people who I'm realizing that their personality and their skill set is tell me what to do. So so that is it feels like in terms of my work with Bridge, a lot of my time has been figuring out where to put people, where their strengths are. And certainly you mentioned fundraising like that is definitely a piece of it. I definitely spend time thinking about where's the money going to come from and creating budgets that are sustainable. And, you know, again, figuring out, OK, now I've got a management piece that I'm paying for for some admin side of it. Where's that money going to come from? And writing for grants is a lot of what I do too. So it's I mean, I don't have a very specific like this hour I'm spending. It just kind of is it it ebbs and flows a little bit with basically, you know, what where we are in the year. Yeah. And what's happened? I mean, yeah, what's happened that that moment? Exactly. I mean, along with that, it's really cool, Brandon. I mean, you're I see you growing and I see your brand growing. And it's for me personally, it's so exciting to see this. But this is not without frustrations and rewards. So how do you how do you see what those frustrations are and the rewards at the same time? It seems like you're having to grow. You're having to learn new and different things. What is that looking like for you? Gosh, I think one of the one of the biggest frustrations has been I don't feel like I'm good at everything. And so a lot of people think I'm great at everything. And they're just like, oh, you're and I think and it's been trying to convince people like, no, I'm actually not good at everything. And so I need you to help me in these areas. And I think because I did so much of it by myself for so long, people just thought like, oh, you're great at PR or you're great at this. You're good and and I'm like, no, actually, if you think you have expertise in that, I would like you to take it on and I'm happy to consult. So so that's been a little bit of a frustration for me. It sounds a little strange, but like to get people to understand like where my skillset really lies now that I have a little bit more of a team. But that is also hand in hand with the reward, right? That like I've been able to assemble some people that are really dedicated to me and to our company and to what we're trying to do to the shift that we're trying to affect in our culture. And so that's wonderful. It's also wonderful when I have younger people or, you know, my peers who come to me and say, oh, gosh, I see you as a mentor. I see you as a leader. You've affected change in my life. I'm inspired by you. Like it's very hard to quantify how meaningful that is. I'm sure you've experienced that as well. So I think that's been a huge reward as well. As like I said, this feedback as an artist, right? Like people saying, we want to see more of you on stage. We want to see more of you actually doing your work, not just putting other people's work up. That has been really gratifying. You know, it's it's interesting because it seems to me that none of that would have occurred, dare I say, without the pandemic. I mean, is that fair to say that the trajectory of your work has, you know, really been informed by this? I would say so. Yeah, it certainly would have happened in a different way. One of the things that I've been fighting for and Tracy, my co-founder, who actually has since moved back to the East Coast, but she and I both from the beginning, the culture in the valley is that you don't pay artists like that's something that you do on the side. That's something you do as an avocation. And we always very, very specifically were trying to fight not only to pay artists, but ultimately to move towards being a union company that would allow people to put into pensions and health benefits. And that's one of the reasons that I wasn't appearing in our stuff because I'm a union member and we couldn't afford to do union work. We will be this spring. We did have one contract, one contract before the pandemic, but, you know, it probably would have taken that, Julia. It probably would have taken us getting to the point that I could get an equity but because of the digital content and some of the other stuff, it has like sped that piece of it up for me in an interesting way. And certainly I think me starting this documentary film and us doing more digital content would not have happened. I don't think without the pandemic. So it's certainly the trajectory was definitely shaped by the last couple of years. Well, let's get on to see Jane run because it's such an interesting project, an amazing story. And I see this as your next big thing. So I think so. Yeah, I thought about it. Well, so Jane Vogelmantiri, Dr. Jane Vogelmantiri is a woman I met. Gosh, several years ago, I was asked to speak on a panel for women in theater. It was they were doing a national conference and I was placed on the panel with this woman named Jane and she just is a visionary. She's fascinating. And we just kind of enjoyed each other's company, I would say, initially. And through the pandemic, again, like it seems like that's a turning point. Now that I'm talking about it, I got together with her and a few other leaders nationally to apply for a huge grant, which we did not get. But to sort of say, like, what is the future of theater? Like, what if we were if we were given ten million dollars? What would we do with it? And we kind of got to dream and and, you know, think and through that, Jane sort of came to me and she said, I really like you and the work that you do. And I think that you have a gift in terms of grant writing. Will you come on with my company and become a grant writer? And through writing grants for her company, which is called Advanced Gender Equity in the Arts, she's in Portland, Oregon. I learned more about her story. And oh, my gosh, is she fascinating? She she's a refugee child immigrant from Indonesia. I did not understand and know about the cultural past of Indonesia, but her family was mixed race. And so they were in danger. Consequently, her aunt, her father's sister was literally raped and beheaded. And so they ended up having to flee because they were mixed race. And so she landed in the Netherlands as like a young child for a few years while they were waiting to get approved to come to America. That was kind of always the long, long goal. And interestingly enough, you see her name was Jane, that she didn't change her name. She wasn't didn't get wasn't given an Indonesian name. Her father had always had sights on coming to America. But, you know, she arrived here speaking Dutch and, you know, I had the whole experience as a young child immigrant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and fell in love with performing and theater and telling stories. And her father in high school pulled her aside and said, you can't do that. They do bad things to the women in this industry. And so she took a complete pivot, followed her father's advice, ended up as a trauma psychologist treating children who'd been through trauma, which obviously in her background, she had trauma. So that's why she was drawn to it. She ended up in the Army for a little while to actually get her degree. She'd spent, I mean, she's taken so many different turns. But really when her father died, she went back to the arts. And in her fifties started like, I'm just going to take an acting class and see and she had said to me, she said, it's the first time I felt like I could actually breathe. And so she sort of rediscovered who she was. She ended up very quickly being identified as having talent and being an interesting person. And so she was commuting from her little home in Eugene, Oregon, all the way to Portland, which is the big city in her state and ended up on Portlandia with Fred Armisen. Yeah, she she ended up moving to Portland in her fifties to perform and be like she had a commercial career, all this stuff, right, as an older woman. And then what she discovered was that people wanted to put her in the ugly sweater or like she ended up being, you know, the cancer, what the roles that were available were just she said that didn't feel like the stories I wanted to tell. So that's when she founded her nonprofit. And interestingly, she was kind of given almost the same kind of don't do it that I was given. She was told, you're not going to be hired again. You're going to be seen as a troublemaker. And she kind of did it the way she puts it is she thought she's like, I thought about that young girl. And she said, I thought about that girl who always wanted to pursue this. And I thought, you know what? It's not about me anymore. It's about all these other young people that are going to follow me. And so she became a leader and she calls age and movement. She said, I wanted to create a movement towards for change for other people. So I just I want to tell her story. And I'm creating this documentary around her. And I just she she's one of those people that is just sparkly. Like she's just so effervescent and wonderful. So I'm excited we're in process. I love it. Good for you. I think this is a really exciting thing to hear about. You go into even more detail about it on your website. I do. And it's a really cool thing to see. And and I think that it does follow, Brenda, what your mission and your path that you started. It's it's a great way to continue that story. And I love the concept of using that format because it can reach more people ultimately than just that that theater. I mean, 100 percent. Yeah. And again, she's in Portland. I'm here in Phoenix. You know, we're going to be traveling with a crew up to Portland to film her. But yeah, it's it's definitely the story is bigger than just like one little thing. So I'm excited to share her story and her with the world. Wow. Well, this has been fabulous. I've loved reconnecting with you. I always saw that spark in you. And it's really cool to see you flourishing. So many of our arts or organizations across the country had to hit the pause button and then ultimately close. And this is really a testament to your leadership and your vision that you looked at different things, moved forward, as you said, leaned into some new and different ways. So yeah, no pressure, but we expect to see even more exciting things from you. Thank you. From your mouth to God's ears, as my mother would say. Well, yeah, absolutely. I think it's possible. Brenda Jean Foley, Producing Artistic Director of the Bridge Initiative. Check them out at bridge. I N I T dot O R G. You can learn all about what they're doing. You also have some classes that you run from time to time, which I thought was really interesting. Yeah, that's something that we started this fall. You know, we had an organization come to us who had some space and said, hey, they actually happened to be called the bridge improv. And they're like, we share a name. We love your mission. We're, you know, they're they're really close right here locally. And they said, if you'd like to, we can help you with space. If you'd like to start offering some classes and sort of in my roster of the core artists that work with my group, there's definitely a bunch of educators. And so we've started offering some writing courses, some acting classes. And, you know, we're going to we haven't yet announced our slate for 2023, but we're working on putting that together as just sort of like another piece of our mission. I love it. And I think that's an amazing way. I mean, when you you go back to Jane's story about, you know, re walking through a gate because of a class, 100 percent. That's actually I'm so glad you brought that up. That was as we were starting to circle this idea of education. I kept thinking like, who's the next Jane, right? There's got to be people in this community as well that have that feeling of like, oh, I wonder if I could try it. And as an adult, it can be intimidating to start in the beginner class or, you know, to find even find one. So we thought, you know, let's hang up a shingle and see what comes from it. I love it. I think it's really cool. Well, check out the bridge initiative. Again, the website's great. It really gets into all different things and programs that the bridge initiative is doing and has gotten behind the collaborative nature of their work and really, really impressive. So, Brenda, it's been fabulous, fabulous to have you on. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jarrett Ransom, the nonprofit nerd will rejoin us tomorrow. Again, we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors who have allowed this amazing conversation to happen. Blumerang American Nonprofit Academy, your part time controller, be generous, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader and the Nonprofit Nerd without their incredible support. We would not be here day in and day out. Brenda, I told you we've had more than 700 episodes. Incredible, Julia. I love what you're building and what you've built. Well, thank you. It's been a lot of fun. Hey, everybody, as we like to end every episode, we want to remind ourselves, our viewers, our listeners, our guests to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow.