 Welcome to another episode of the non-profit show. You've joined us for Freyay as Jarrett Ransom, the non-profit nerd, my co-host likes to say. We are super excited because we have a new trainer from Fundraising Academy that's joining us today for another Ask and Answer episode. Welcome, Tim Hogan. Good to be here, Julia. Thank you for having me. We're really excited to have Tim. He's the vice president. A strategic partnerships with Road Trip Nation and we're gonna hear a little bit more about that in just a minute. But before we go too much further in getting all of these questions going and growing, we wanna make sure that we thank all of our presenting sponsors who are with us day in and day out. Many of these folks have been with us since day one. Bloomerang, American non-profit academy, your part-time controller, Be Generous, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, non-profit thought leader, and the non-profit nerd. If you would like to share this episode, go back and find any other episodes. We have surpassed our 650th episode, which blows my mind. You can find us on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV, and Vimeo. We also now are putting all of our broadcasts into podcast format. So if you wanna check us out on podcast while you're running around in the neighborhood or just hanging out, check us out. Queue us up wherever you like to stream your content. Okay, Tim Hogan, best background ever. I just got a witness to you. Tell us what road trip nation does. Yeah, you bet. This is where I'm tempted to do the 45-minute version, right? But that's probably not where we wanna go here. But really, the organization is kind of a two-headed monster. They're focused on production, media, and storytelling. So we produce documentaries for public television. Each project reaches about 50 million households. And they're all focused on, as you can tell from the green RV behind me, helping people define their roads in life. So thematic road trips of people who are trying, roadtrippers trying to figure out what the next step is in their journey, interviewing people who've been at it a little bit longer. But we've also found a way to take all of that content from the documentary production and feed career exploration platforms for high school and college age and young adults who are at pivot points in their career. So kind of use every bit of everything we create, really just trying to reflect what the possibilities are, especially for the future of work and for those who can't really see or aren't exposed to the opportunities that truly are there for them. Okay, mind blown, because all I can think of is, what the hell happened during the pandemic? I mean, were you feeding along the path that you thought or were you just like shaken and created a whole new thing? It was, I think for everybody, it was a nutty few months at the very least, right? But I mean, the core, and this isn't the entirety of what we do, but the biggest part, most noticeable part of what we do is we put three strangers in an RV with our film crew and drive across the country and introduce them to other strangers. Not a great thing to do in 2020 and 2021, right? So the way I looked at it is the non-production person who gets to talk about all the expert folks that we work with. My thought was, well, where do we fit virtually? Where do we think about the content that we already have and where it can fit? And we really flexed our virtual production muscle that I always assumed was there, but we just hadn't had to worry about it too much. So a lot of virtual production, and then we began to do a lot of work specifically with specific markets and workforce development boards, taking content that we already had and repackaging it with resources that they knew they were trying to get to their own audiences. So we, like everybody else, spent a lot of time thinking, do we pivot? How much do we pivot? And I think the advice we continued to get was, take some chances, but try not to take them so far off the radar that you can't come back to home base. And so a lot of what we tested actually worked out to allow us to kind of open new lines of business. There were some lessons, right? There were some failures, there were some missteps, but in the grand scheme of things, we actually learned a lot and I think are better for it, despite a really difficult 18 to 24 months like it was for a lot of us. Now, talk to me how you've married this line of work with Fundraising Academy and becoming one of their trainers, because I think that's an interesting trajectory. Yeah, so I first met the Fundraising Academy folks when I was working at Boys and Girls Clubs of America, a little bit more of a traditional, long-standing nonprofit network, primarily on the corporate partnership side and on the campaign strategy side. And so that's when we started working with the Fundraising Academy, but for me, I think the biggest value of working through those courses is creating a dialogue around the work that we do in the fundraising world, right? And Julia, like we've talked about, this would be a totally different career, this would be a totally different industry if it was as simple as there are five formulas, pick one, do it and you'll raise money, right? And to be fair, that's not as much fun, right? Because it's always moving and shifting. I think about what we just talked about with what's happened in the last couple of years. You have to respond to what's out there and adjust. And so I think of the fundraising industry as really, you know, ideas stealing from each other, right? Because it's all about best practices, all about what works for your organization, your environment, your board, et cetera. So the Fundraising Academy is an environment to walk through the basics, right? Walk through the guardrails that you want to understand when you're getting into fundraising and continue to progress. But the reality is, somebody who's been doing it for three months just as easily can have the right idea of somebody who's been doing it for 30 years. And that's what's really interesting to me about this work is I never quite think you're an expert because there's always more to learn, but I think that's a good thing. I do too, you know, Jack Alotto, your fellow team member has said that as well as Tony Bell. And I think that's for me, has given me permission to recognize that the process that Fundraising Academy teaches, it still can really be tailored to how you are and your own authenticity. It's not a, you know, kind of regimented process. You know, it has its own ability to navigate to that person into that situation. But I gotta say, before we get started, at this age that I'm at and the journey that I've walked, if I had had these skills 30 years ago when I started advocating for my community, strictly as a volunteer, I've never been a paid fundraiser, I would have raised millions and millions and millions of dollars more. And it's somewhat heartbreaking because if I had had that knowledge and that training, my community would be better, you know? Right. And I think the other thing to keep in mind too is there's so many organizations, right? And I think we've all been a part of them, either as a volunteer or as an employee that have one fundraiser, right? And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, right? That may be what the organization needs, but I think one of the things that's hard about that is you're kind of sending your board army or sending your executive director or CEO out to be at the right meeting. It's very rare you have somebody in the office or, you know, within the same work chart where you can say, here's what I'm thinking, what do you think? Because you might be the only one spending time on it. So the fundraising academy type sessions just give you space to say, here's what I did yesterday. Is that nuts or is there another way to do it? And that's, I think the community that these courses create is really, maybe the biggest value. Yeah, you know, Tim, I love that you said that because I hadn't thought of that, but when I do go to events that in my own community, like maybe AFP events or just events that have more of it, you know, I would call it a trade event. I noticed how robust they are, and I never really put two and two together, but it's right, it's because they're with their tribe and they get support and they have that opportunity to kind of be vulnerable or learn or share or, you know, yeah, that's interesting, wow. Well, I can tell you're gonna be a fabulous co-host with me today already. And so are you ready? Cause we gotta dig in. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, awesome. Chris from Los Angeles writes in, we're struggling to get our board members back into the boardroom. They've grown comfortable with Zoom meetings. However, we need them to be present and engaged. Any ideas on how to get them in person and meeting like they once did. Okay, I just gotta say, when we started the nonprofit show, the opposite of this question came in weekly. We can't get our board members on Zoom. What do we do? I'm so, I'm just like kind of chuckling to myself. What are your thoughts on this? Yeah, it's such a good question, right? And I'm just kind of smirking with the same thing in mind, right? We went through a stretch where, you know, and, you know, April, May, 2020, if you hopped on Zoom, right? Some people were using video, some weren't. And then, you know, by maybe January, 2021, yeah, everybody's on Zoom. Everybody knows how to do this. It's just the norm. We just accelerated that quickly, you know? And I get the importance of having folks in person, right? That's, you know, I mean, everybody knows the phrase, right? You can't replace that. You can't replace the time in person. And I don't mean to undermine the value of that thought because I agree with it. But the reality is when you're thinking about board members, especially, you kind of need to meet them where they are, right? Such that you can pull them a little closer to where you want them to be. So the fact that they're on Zoom, that's good news, right? So how do you make the experience that they're asking for as strong as you can? So it's little things like, ensure that you've got really tight technology, right? Your staff's on early, that there's no little glitches in the Zoom environment. I'm not an expert on this, but I guarantee you can go, you can Google right now, tricks for team building, icebreakers, et cetera on Zoom. And there's all kinds of little gimmicky things and they feel silly, but people like them, right? If they're listening, they'll engage. And those that aren't engaging will probably smirk and then maybe engage in the next one. So my first piece of advice would be to create a Zoom environment that is really easy for them so that you can actually get them engaged with what they've said they wanna do versus saying, no, you have to be in the building or we will not offer Zoom, right? It's just not really the role you play as an organization to engage the board members. But with that said, you do wanna back in the room, right? If you can make that happen. Again, every organization is different, right? Maybe if you've got 20 board members and 20 cities across the country, in person is just gonna be tougher, but especially if they're kind of in the neighborhood, you want them there. So you need to create an environment for the in-person that is exciting to be a part of, right? So again, it's all little things, meaning do it in a cool place, whether that's your office or somebody else's office that has a really nice setup, food, simple as that, right? Make sure that you're getting a good lunch, you're a good breakfast or something along with it, a really good technology setup. So you're not sitting there at a table with six people and working one laptop and making sure you can see everybody, right? Find a place that's got the right screen, the right board room, all of that. And even if you don't have that handy, because this may be the only time that your organization is using it, somebody in your community, somebody on your board has a space, somebody may have it in their basement, right? I mean, we're at that day and age. So make them enjoy their Zoom experience so that they're as engaged as they can be from afar, but have them into those Zoom meetings going, maybe I'll come to the next one, right? Because it looks like they're having a lot of fun when they're continuing the conversation but hitting end meeting for all, and then I've got to go back to cleaning up my kitchen or whatever I was multitasking to do at turn meeting. I like that you said that. And I think that, I think one of the really cool things to do is to take your board and have it meet at another nonprofit location, right? And it could be something totally unrelated to what you're doing, you know? Like what is the food pantry association doing? Or what is the, you know, YWCA or YMCA? I mean, it's like all of these things that you do. And I think that you're right, Chris. You got to be creative to Tim's point and think outside the box here, just like you do in other aspects of your business. We're all thinking outside the box and we can't just think, oh, the board is pro forma. Because if that's your approach, that's what you're gonna get. I love that idea about leveraging other nonprofits too, right? Because I think a couple of things in that, but one, they may have a better space than you. So let's use that, right? You're also gonna learn something about your board members, right? Maybe they, maybe you're gonna get a response. Oh yeah, I go there once a month because I'm on that board too. And I just had never mentioned it before, right? Little things like that. And, you know, not for nothing, but if you're working in youth development or, you know, animal welfare or what have you, right? We've all heard kind of the data on, you know, what gets folks' attention, having kids come and speak, having teens come speak, right? Have the foster puppies come out, right? Even if that's not what your organization does, you can kind of get away with that by doing it at somebody else's organization, right? I mean, make it something people wanna be a part of, even if it has nothing to do with your agenda, nothing to do with your finances, nothing to do with what you want them to be listening and adding to, it's a recruitment strategy. It's marketing really. It is. I think it builds a stronger sector. I really do. Okay, well, let's go to Matt in Salt Lake City, Utah. We're considering writing a blog post and using it in our weekly e-newsletter about the overall metrics of our team. This would be an overview of how many years the average employee serves, how many hours they work, volunteer, even their education levels. We feel it might connect our donors to those people serving our nonprofit. Is this too invasive? Never had a question like this. This is fascinating. Wow, this is a really interesting, interesting thing. I like where they're going because I think what's important is to recognize that in our world, we use a lot of our own jargon, just like any other industry, right? And we talk about the importance of impact and data collection and measurement and all of that. And a lot of what we say is a lot of head nods, right? That sounds right. That sounds important, right? But again, this is what I do when I'm hearing somebody else talk about an industry that it's not time for questions and I don't understand what they're talking about. I kind of nod and say, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What folks will understand are people they can connect with who are doing good things for the community or the organization, especially if they already know what the organization does, right? So instead of saying, again, I'll probably use Boys and Girls Club type examples having worked there for so long, right? But instead of saying, we're an organization that serves 4 million youth in 4,000 locations focused on these three priority outcome areas, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, as opposed to, here's Julia. She's worked at Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Ana for two years. She finished her master's last year and is focused on developing a career path into nonprofit operations. She was born in this, this, this, this, right? People understand who Julia is and they know that Julia is doing good things for an organization they support. That's a bit more interesting than a 40-page annual report. I'm not saying those aren't valuable, right? Those are really important. But especially for turnkey interaction, I think there's a lot of value there. The things that where my head goes on this is in the how, right? And kind of the nuts and bolts of putting this together, meaning someone needs to do the work, right? To kind of pull those bios together. They don't need to be complicated. It could be a photo and a couple of sentences, right? I will say, having done this in the past more than once is when you start with a new idea of something that's gonna go in and to an E newsletter, be sure you have enough content and be sure you have enough bandwidth to do it consistently every week, right? Because the amount of times I've thought of a great idea and then by the third week, I can't figure out what to put in the newsletter and then it kind of fizzles. You kind of lost some of the energy there. And then I think the last thing is ensuring that you wanna show off who your employees are and what they do. And what I mean by that is if there's a lot of turnover, right? Or it's a lot of part-time staff that may not be there very long. And again, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it's just how the business operates. You don't wanna get yourself into a spot where someone's really excited about meeting Julia because they read about her in the E newsletter. And when they come to the next board meeting, Julia's moved on to her next adventure, which is a great thing for a career, right? But kind of lost the connect there. And anytime you're showing who your staff are, anytime you're showing what your organization does, you're giving a potential funder a reason to believe that you know how to steward their dollar, right? So any reflection of your organization, whether they recognize it or not, they're saying, well, if I give them a hundred bucks, is that a sign that they know what they're doing? Simple as, and maybe this is a stretch, but if you have misspellings in the subject line of your E newsletter, I'm not sure you know how to spend my hundred dollars. Is that fair? Probably not, but it is also the reality. You know, I love that you said this, all of this. And my first reaction when I read this question is that I don't know if we would have gotten this question if we're not for the staffing situation. Because in some ways, I look at this and say, you know, this is somebody who's looking to retain staff, maybe cultivate new alliances with potential leadership or bring more staff in. And so I think it's fascinating because I don't know how genuinely this is driven, right? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but you know what I mean? It's just such an interesting reflection of where we are. And I love this idea. I think it's really important to say who's, who's walking the walk here? I mean, who's greeting our clients? Who's sitting and holding their hands at the worst moments of their life? You know, depending on what type of nonprofit you run and what does this look like? You're exactly right. And I think it's also, it's important to have enough humility as an executive director or the director of development or what have you to recognize, you can be a lovely person, which I try to be every day. However, they know why I'm there. We're trying to build a relationship such that money's coming out of their bank and come to support the work that we're doing. Not ashamed of that, right? I know what I'm asking for. It's important. However, they're gonna get tired of me, right? In part because I'm just one person who's been the point of contact and underlying every conversation, whether I mean for it to or not, or whether it's true or not, is about the renewal of their current funding, the future of the partnership. Our front desk staff are team coordinators. You know, they recognize that's part of the work that we do at the organization, but the vast majority of their energy is about the youth they're working with that day or the animals they're caring for that day or the policies they're trying to push. Those people are more important than the dots we connect to keep the organization going, especially in the eyes of people who care about the impact of the organization they're supporting. Right, I love it. Matt, go forward and do this and make sure you get me on your mailing list and let me know how this has worked. I'm really, I think it's really cool and I hope that you find it successful too because I love the spirit of it. And I think it's, I hope that some of our viewers and listeners, you know, jump on this concept as well. Okay, Jennifer from Cincinnati, Ohio writes, we've never done this before, but our team is exhausted. And we are thinking of closing our executive offices the week between Christmas and New Year's. This would be logical due to because Christmas is actually on a Saturday this year. It's not Saturday. Thoughts, wow. I don't, oh, you think so? Yeah, I don't see, I think the question for me, it comes to why wouldn't you, right? And I don't mean to suggest there's not a reason not to, but thinking about the reasons why you wouldn't do it. And the few come to mind, right? One, you need somebody in the office to manage your end gifts, right? Yeah. Skeleton crew, figure out who those folks are, right? So close your offices, identify who the folks are who will stick around and make that a really nice experience for them. There are gonna be folks who are like, you know what? I'm not going on for Christmas or, you know, I don't celebrate Christmas, right? It's a window of really quiet work where folks are gonna wanna get things done, but, you know, buy them lunch, right? Or, you know, allow them to leave a little early or give them a couple of extra days to use elsewhere, right? So you're covering your bases, but you're doing a favor for the rest of your employees and also improving the culture of the organization. And to be fair, how much is gonna get done that week, right? Because there's just not as much work pressure in the air at that moment. I just, I'm just a strong believer. You're gonna get more out of saying to your employees, great job. We know you're exhausted because the work's important and you care about it. You need a break versus us getting you to just log more hours for the sake of logging hours, right? And again, just reiterating the importance of the skeleton crew if it's needed. But if the reason for not doing it is because you haven't before or you've got board members who aren't used to that, meaning we've never done that. That's not a reason, right? I'm not suggesting that can be your response to the board member. You've got to maneuver through it. But if you're looking at it, what's best for the organization, I think in most cases, you can cover your bases, right? For what your organization needs that week and then bring your employees closer to the work and to the organization itself by saying, we care about you, not, oh my gosh, the work we do is so important that we have to be exhausted, that we have to be frustrated. I just don't see the value in doing it just for the sake of doing it. Though I recognize there are probably exceptions out there depending on the organization and what needs to be done in that window depending on your mission. I like what you said. And I think the thing that I wouldn't have thought of necessarily, okay, I'll be honest. I wouldn't have thought of it at all. Taking that skeleton crew or placing one person on and a different person every day, but doing something like that is a treat or like the lunch or doing whatever in the office that day. I think that's a cool way to honor and make it less, like, God, I'm the only one that's here in mentality. So I like that you said that, that's super cool. Okay, well, we don't have much time left. Fridays go by so fast. They do, they do. They really do. Hey, Nancy from Fargo, North Dakota writes, we're needing to add an HR professional to our team. Do you have any thoughts on hiring somebody from out of state that works remotely? We have never done this, but it seems to be a trend. I'm a fan of it, but I wanna start by saying that I'm not the one to speak to how it affects filing of taxes, right? If all your employees are in one state or in one's outside of it. I've had enough conversations, like I think a lot of us have over the last couple of years about how companies are handling that. Meaning you can live everywhere or you can live in these seven states because we don't wanna file anywhere else, right? We have offices there and so forth, right? So that's a question for someone with more experience in that space. Assuming that can be overcome, right? I think if it creates efficiency, it's good for your organization. There's a piece of this that's about your remote work culture, right? Because not every organization is quite there yet. Not every organization needs to be quite there yet. But if you're talking about services or supports that are not necessarily frontline for the impact of the work that you're doing. No dig on HR or finance or legal or any of that, right? Because without that, we're all a mess. But at the same time, if that can be outsourced to someone who is not directly involved in decisions for the mission of the organization in terms of service delivery, right? In terms of not directly in that part of it, I think it can be done in a way that doesn't affect the culture of your employees and the tight-knit nature of those you want doing the work. So I think especially for those types of roles, it's a real benefit. And for me, it just goes back to if it's efficient, it allows you to do more work as an organization, which is the entire point of why you're here. So yeah, go for it. You know, I agree with you. I think you need to look at the SHRM designation. You need to know how these HR professionals are with policies and logistics. And to your point, this dovetails to payroll, payroll taxes, policies, labor law. So it's not just as simple as it used to be when you had somebody, you had Betty in the third cubicle down and she was an expert on your state. It's changed. So I think you're absolutely right. We need to have a different perspective. But I gotta say one of the things that I kind of like about having this outside person is sometimes they can deliver the bad news with more that they're not in the middle of it, right? They're not seeing Joe at the water cooler every day. They can be a little bit more cut and dried. They can be more officious when it comes to policies and maintaining standards. And I don't know if that's like, it sounds like the bully in me coming out, which I warrant is there, but you know what I mean? It's like a harder, it could be a harder line. I think you're right on it. I think it's really important. So I work for an organization that has been around for 20 years. It's founder run still. All three founders are still engaged with the organization. What makes it work is a certain level of humility among those founders about what it's like to have a founder run organization, right? And the blinders that they're gonna put on just because they've been in it so long, right? So the way that organization, our organization has been successful is the recognition, right? The self-understanding of what that position creates if you're the founder of the organization. I've mentioned that because in those types of organizations so much of it is about the passion for the impact, right? The passion for the mission. Again, all jargony words, right? That we all have felt in some form or fashion hopefully more days than not, but how many times you're sitting in the room going, you know what? It's not really my job, but we gotta do it, right? And that's not a bad thing. Or you know what? This person's been here that long. I believe in them, we've gotta make this decision. And that may be the right decision, but you need someone in that conversation saying, by the book here, we need to consider this. Doesn't mean that's the answer, but someone has to address it and it can be done by the person who's in the office of course, right? That's their role, that's their profession, but there's so many organizations that we all work for that are smaller, more nimble, we are a family, that's how we get things done. Again, those are positives, but like any coin, there's another side there. And to your point, if it's outsourced and it's creating efficiency, what you're talking about in terms of being able to be a bit more objective, I think is a real asset. Yeah, I think it's kind of harsh, but I think it sometimes can be a lot smarter. Wow, Tim Hogan, you might just be my new best friend. I have to say, I really enjoy this. I have to say, I love the energy from all the folks from Fundraising Academy that join us every Friday for Ask and Answer. Everyone is different, which is super cool. Everyone on your team comes to us with different ideas, but at the core, really intelligent people who help us navigate this wild and wooly path that we can have to take with fundraising. So Tim Hogan, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for Road Trip Nation, as we have you on more and more, I look forward to learning more about your work and how this meshes with your work as a trainer for Fundraising Academy. Again, check out fundraising-academy.org, a lot of free material and resources that are just amazing, and the team there at National University, they're adding to their work all the time, and it's just fascinating to look at it. They have a new portal that engages all of their students and those that work with them on this journey of knowledge and education with fundraising, and it's just remarkable, so I can't recommend it enough. Again, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors that join us day in and day out as we march towards our 800th episode. Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, be generous, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader, and the Nonprofit Nerd. And as we like to end every episode, we want to remind our viewers, our listeners, our new best friend, our guests, and ourselves to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here on Monday, everyone.