 Well hey everybody welcome another episode of the nonprofit show. We are so excited that you're here with us because we have as we like to say in in you know production we have the big get and the big get is Pearl Hoagland because she's the director of Fundraising Academy. The woman who I work with to get all of this stuff done but you don't get to see her very often and so it's really an exciting opportunity for me personally to get with the brain trust and really learn about you know her perspective through Fundraising Academies at National University. So are you ready to rock and roll my friend? I am ready and I just would love for you to write my resume and always introduce me but thanks for having me and I love being here and I'm ready to get started. Get started my friend. Well again I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy joined today by Pearl Hoagland director of Fundraising Academy at National University. You know National University is the sponsor of Ask an Answer with us and they partner with us because we were so impressed with all of their experts and so we liked having somebody that we felt a would give a good answer but could like talk about a lot of things. I mean we get questions from all over and they're wackadoo and so we needed somebody who could you know bob and weave through this field of questions. It really are sometimes tough questions so we wanted to talk about that with them and this has just really been fun. Along this journey with us are all of our presenting sponsors Blumerang American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, Bee Generous of course Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader and Nonprofit Nerd. Those are the folks that are with us each and every day. We're coming up on 700 episodes with which you can find those on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV and Vimeo. You can also now this year find us on podcast. Kevin Pace our intrepid executive producer has now put all every episode for this last year into podcast format so wherever you like to queue up your content we're there and it's really really exciting because we have just an amazing archive of our podcast for the last year. Okay my friend are you ready to dig in? Let's dig in. Okay so CEO name withheld from Phoenix. Now I'm going to man up and and tell you that this person this is a real person who I know who came up to me at a very very large community breakfast. About 1200 people in the ballroom. One of the most significant one-day events in our community and they were like hey I need this question asked of your folks but don't don't identify me because I don't want to get in trouble. And I said okay I'm gonna put that you came from my community and then let's see what the experts say. So it says I'm trying to get our board interested and educated about fundraising. I just need a place to start. I know this won't happen overnight. It's a fascinating like hours long conversation. Yeah first I'd say send them to us. We just eat full on plug. We do have a number of board members who come through our organization. Granted when I read this question this is definitely not unique to this organization. Engaging board in fundraising is always or very often there's there's some sort of challenge or hurdle there. Agreed this doesn't happen overnight. It's I a few things I would recommend. One look at their skill sets. There is this misconception that all board members need to be soliciting or actively fundraising right the actual solicitation process but there are so many ways that board members can actually support the fundraising process. We know not everyone is comfortable making an ask. Perhaps they don't run in a circle that would translate to a big financial gift but there are other ways to support. So on the back end look at their skill sets so you can support them train them and help them identify where they feel most comfortable. And I can I'm happy to share a few of those tips but also when you're looking at bringing on board members I would look at what is the job description? What are the expectations? Every board member needs to know they are going to support fundraising in some capacity. It should be part of the job description to support that organization that you want to help create more sustainable growth for. You know love you just like twisted something in my brain and that is I've been very militant about when you're on a board you have to fundraise that from day one that's always been like my thing but I love the more approachable word that you used and that is support because when you say you have to fundraise it like puts up a wall and it's stressful and it's combative but when you said support that just completely changed the mindset because everybody wants to be supportive everybody wants to help grow in the same direction for the most part. You know when you think about the you know the three phases the eight pieces of the cause selling cycle there gotta be ways that each board member if they understand what the options are that they can learn how to engage. I think that's magical good job Pearl. Thank you and I would also say to the CEO please give your development staff access to your board facilitate that connection and relationship because your development staff they're driving the fundraising goal so they will be able to inform how your board can support fundraising whatever that looks like at your organization I recognize those dynamics are different but I have seen too many organizations where the development staff have no access to the board and often those boards are not successfully supporting their fundraising goals because again there's that disconnect. So before we move on then I kind of hear you from that saying that your development team should be at the board meetings. Perhaps if that is what makes sense it really depends on the organization I know some teams where they there's a certain person who manages that relationship so they keep the board informed they bring lists to the board and say who do you know on this list. Yeah can you help me host a gathering or can you help me prospect for these people or steward or I'm going to make the ask but will you help cultivate this relationship and come with me to the meeting and talk about why you're on the board and then I will make the ask so there are ways for them to really be a team player and kind of a side kick. You know a spoiler alert Pearl's going to be on with us next week for a drill down two days in a row and the topic is riveting it's how to get you know beyond the gatekeeper and how to create a relationship with the gatekeeper and I always think that a board meeting that during the if you're served dinner or you know pizza or during the prep time or whatever board meetings where they circulate those lists and they're just like let us know if you know anybody and it's been riveting over my career in community service the number of people that will be like what the hell that CEO they're my neighbor and people exactly are you kidding me yeah are we serving a board together yeah I'm in the rotary with them exactly yeah and it's like all along there's a relationship going back to your word support super cool what a great way to start another episode of ask and answer this is great I feel like we can go home now because that's revealed all to me it really has good job well let's go on to the next question and this is an interesting question that's come in from Alex from Lexington Kentucky we're getting ready to expand our leadership team with the coo chief operating officer gotta say I'm hearing about this more and more should we look internally for someone who knows our organization or search outside for talent who knows the position or job description really interesting question I'm fascinated by this I love this question uh first of all disclaimer I am not an HR so granted the things that I say always be sure that you're you're speaking to your HR team I have a few questions in response one is does your organization provide upward mobility for your high performing staff leadership development personal professional development and I ask that because people in management positions are not just responsible for technical items but they're responsible for leading people and managing people so how wonderful to have an organization where there is that upward mobility where people know they have a future in this organization knowing that as you're as you're promoting people that you're ensuring that they're responsible for the organizational culture for staff retention that they are able to have those technical skills or perhaps what can they learn on the job or through professional development but can they manage people that's just I would say for organizations there is there are so many studies that connect staff retention the organizational culture and then staff retention to productivity organizational performance so if you're just hiring for the skills and you want to look external make sure it's the right fit if you want to hire internal make sure that you are doing the entire organization justice by bringing people like leaders up into those positions not just people who have the skills you know I would have never said that because I wouldn't have taken that I wouldn't have taken that view but that's your approach is much more holistic to the overarching approach to how an organization can exist and especially with all this change and you know it's a tough time it has been and it looks like it's going to be a different tough time with the economy I like that approach because what I hear you saying is that you know we can't we can teach a job or we can teach skills in that area but we may not be able to teach so readily leadership and you know leadership management and culture as we can the tasks associated with a specific job and so yeah I like what you said I wouldn't have I wouldn't have gone there immediately but yeah understanding the the soul and the heart of an organization you know is probably super super important and when you when you go up against what the actual task management of a job and especially to an organization that hasn't had this job I mean it sounds to me from this question that they haven't had this position yeah so there's going to be a lot of learning for everybody yeah which is a great opportunity I I would say just the one other piece that I just have to say is when you look at leadership in the world and you look at the demographics representation isn't exactly there isn't a lot of representation right now when you look at the leadership demographic so depending on what your organization does the communities that you serve I would also think through that lens does your leadership and the makeup of your staff is that representative of of the community that you're in and the communities that are that are of value right that you that you work with and and support so just another lens when you're looking at hiring you're looking at building your team just ensuring that you you have that lens is so critical and that brings new voices to your organization as well and new perspectives that you might need especially in a role that you haven't yet actually had yeah I love that you said that because what my big bug about that is language I live in a community where we were a part of Mexico only 150 years ago and we have a very very strong Hispanic culture you know culture I could go on and on and on and I am horrified by the number of organizations that serve a Spanish speaking population maybe as much as 50 50 or more and they don't have people on their boards who speak Spanish or even love them you know I mean it's like gosh come on we've got to be better than this we've got to understand this so I love all that you said Alex we've given you a lot to think about my good luck I know Alex is like wait don't go I have more questions I would really love to hear Alex if you're listening I would love to know what you end up doing yeah me too me too me too because that's super super important and important okay Jacob from New York writes how common is it for the CEO to have an employment contract so I don't know how how prevalent they are but I have seen arguments for them and I can say at fundraising academy one thing that we talk about is a 501c3 is a tax status it's not a business model this is something there's budding of heads in this right especially in there are yeah even cause selling is it pushes buttons because it is a business focused relationship driven fundraising style there is a movement that we are a part of to further professionalize the role of fundraising and the nonprofit industry optics don't always fall in line with the reality about the role um often you hear I fell into this or you know I was volunteering and this I didn't even know it could be a job versus hey I'm going to study this because I want to raise money for this for an organization that does this type of work so that extends also to when you look at this question for example I think a contract depending again every organization is different so take it or leave it depending on what your organization is like but some of the benefits of a contract with a CEO is it establishes expectations not only for the CEO but so the staff too they can feel protected by a contract they know what the expectations are of the CEO the board knows the expectations and the CEO knows the expectations of them um so that you're going into a role with that clear understanding of what success looks like performance reviews all of that there's accountability I just I can see a lot of benefits to having that in place again depending on the organization and and the culture at that organization you know when you said your answer is so interesting to me because what I hear you saying it's almost like you should have to me you should have this in the form of a job description and when I see this question it almost makes me think like they don't have a robust enough job description and maybe that's like throughout the organization because a contract would for me and I don't know what you think about this but I kind of think that's a contract yeah and I see more too with the term limit or um yeah exactly a job description maybe the the benchmarks that you have to meet yeah also recognizing that a term limit if you think about that in a CEO the change that they're going to affect in year one may not actually manifest or the impact might not happen for some time so I do think it's just more realistic to recognize realistically what can the CEO achieve in the first year to inform that performance evaluation so that they can be set up for success versus turn this around tomorrow it's in your job description right right it's really interesting I think that I'm starting to hear more about this and and recently and maybe this is the reason why is that I haven't heard good things and you know how it is they always say you hear seven you hear something bad seven times more than you do you something good once right you know so it's more amplified but it seems to me that it is really easy to kind of get some acrimony in between the parties that are trying to figure this out yeah because generally that CEO would have their own representation and then the board would have additional representation and then you know that there would be some dialogue back and forth but maybe that starting point to your point to what you said is that robust job description that really yeah you know needs to be in place needs to be in place right and that's a good I agree that's a good I guess in between if you think about a good compromise because it's still the thing that when I think about a CEO contract recognizing we don't right we don't I'm not in the business of doing that so so I've been too involved in that is it there needs to be some negotiation and discussion of what's realistic so that everyone's on the same page so whether it's a contractor like you said a job description or just the negotiation piece really it's clear expectations for all accountability for every party and I think that is like you said that is where you should start and if that's in the form of a contract fine but how do you ensure that all the pieces are in place so everyone set up for success yeah I love it well I think that's a great way to think about this and and I just feel like this is going to be something that we're we're going to be hearing more and more about so it's best to be kind of thinking about this before you're in the middle of a you know a hire and wondering oh my gosh we never thought about this right um this comes to us from an event committee an entire committee wrote this in and we took off the city because frankly it was such a specific question that we didn't want to identify the group because they're in the process of trying to figure this out the question is this pearl what do you think about co-branded fundraising events specifically we are looking at three cultural groups working together on a spring gala now I'll tell you it's a it's a symphony a ballet and an opera company ah okay and so you know they have a similar patron base they have like there's some operas where they might have you know dancers performing there are ballets where they certainly always have well not always but generally have you know live orchestra I mean there's a symbiotic relationship between these three organizations for sure but let's be realistic they compete they compete for money for attention for talent even performing resources performance resources so a co-branded fundraising event what do you think so first I love this question I think it is beautiful that they're looking at this collaboration I would ask what the desired outcome is this is where I wish it was a two-way conversation um depending on the desired outcome when we look at you know the Giving USA report they they publish new data every single year that talks about charitable giving and we see an increase in charitable giving more or less year over year our goal through our work at fundraising academy is not for organizations to take money from another or that would have been slated for another organization but to grow philanthropy too you know you have another big fans you love another organization your wallet expands and so that's silly but but it's true is that if you have if you have followed the steps of the cause selling cycle hopefully you have developed a strong relationship with the donor and turn them into a loyal champion of your organization so now if you have a co-branded event you are potentially introducing them to something that matters to them in addition to what you do so it really goes back to the relationships you have with your donors now granted this is easier said than done there are donors who cannot give more so yes perhaps that's a risk but there are a lot of donors out there who are looking for collaborations they want to support organizations that are working together for a common goal these three groups they care about arts in the community that is a common goal that will hit a lot of donors and if they see more organizations working together I just I think it's a really great idea as long as you're very clear about your expectations the roles each of your goals how you support each other ensure that you are going into this with very clear outcomes and very clear terms through this collaboration and once you have that conversation that might actually determine whether it is a good idea or not but I love I mean the idea of nonprofits collaborating that is definitely of interest to many donors and just for our community if we truly want to have impact that's that's one way to do it yeah you know I loved what you just said and I want to amplify that and that is start you know stepping back and trying to figure out what the structure is and the management of this and then determining how it goes because I'm a big believer and have shared many events it's not a one-off you know you're working towards the second third years when you're in that the first year as a co-chair I mean or a chair you it's not a one-and-done thing and so what is it you're looking at that goes beyond the single spring date right now spring date 2023 okay yeah and spring date 2024 you gotta be thinking about this to maximize your work and understand how it can benefit everyone so I love what you said about really backing up spending the time on the management and structure who's pulling what weight how do you administrate that you know it almost seems to me in one way perhaps a wise move would be to find uh for lack of a better word an event planner but a management profile of somebody that it doesn't come directly from one of the three groups right but they're they're professional that understands what the task management is whoo but it could be a total blowout fabulous and think about just the streamlining of that and how efficient that could be once you've maybe done that one year pulling your resources together that gosh any way to minimize impact to the team's bandwidth is if it does in fact do that is I think very appealing I think it's super cool I really really love it and I I think you know there are people that'll be like yeah I go to the symphony because I like the music I can't stand the screeching of the opera and then you hear people they're like I go to the opera because when you go to the symphony it's boring you just why I mean you know it's really interesting to talk to people from the cultural side of things like what do they like and what speaks to them they're not all the same it's true but to your point there's a cultivation opportunity there that's this really powerful well this has been so much fun I mean I told you I say this every time we're together this time flies by it goes by really really fast Pearl Hogan directly Fundraising Academy National University what a joy you have been and are always when we get our time together really really exciting I want to make sure that I give enough time for you if you will very quickly to talk about your new portal because Fundraising Academy has this really interesting I just feel like it's a digital library that you've thrown open the doors and said come on in we'll give you a library card for free yes no and and note on it's no cost to you we absorb the cost so that you don't have to it's thank you for for letting me quickly touch on it it is an online learning library as Julia mentioned that's interactive we consistently post new content to it but it is where all of our on-demand content is available to support you and your fundraising practice for example if you are pursuing your CFRE certification all of our webinars offer CFRE credits and you can track you can watch the webinars on our portal in just a few months you'll be able to watch our live webinars through our portal you can access your CFRE tracker we now we just launched a my progress tracker so you can track all of your education through the portal and then find you know how how many CFRE credits have you earned pull those trackers we have fundraising templates whether it's a prospecting qualification worksheet so really if you need more information tips templates sample even questions to ask donors to be sure that you're really cultivating them in a way that develops that relationship builds trust and ensures you get the information you need to make a successful ask we've got it and we continue to add content pretty much every week to it it's so impressive um Jared ran some my co-host the nonprofit nerd and I say all the time if we had had this I mean in my case 30 40 years ago I would have raised millions millions upon millions of dollars more for my community I know it in my heart not as a paid fundraiser just as a community you know leader because it's just so logical it's so natural it strips the fear out of what we associate the ask with and it makes it a much deeper relationship as opposed to a one-off you know twist in your arm to get an ask right so yeah check them out it's a really cool structure and approach and so really really amazing hey this has just been fabulous we want to make sure that we give a shout out to all of our presenting sponsors who are here with us day in and day out Bloomerang American nonprofit academy your part-time controller be generous fundraising academy at national university staffing boutique non-profit thought leader and the nonprofit nerd now Monday I'm super excited because I'm going to tease a two-day episode it's called a drill down and I'm going to tease it with this quote that comes from the cause selling textbook you got to cross the moat to get to the king I've added or queen or queen I as a leader to get to the king or queen and I am really excited because we're going to talk about some very specific steps that help you get through not like around necessarily but you engage with that gatekeeper so that you can get to that level person that you want to get to or organization and it's going to be really exciting and so something that we've never really addressed to this degree I mean it is called a drill down so it's two days a very specific instruction that I don't care what you do this will really help you be a better performer within your your nonprofit hey pearl have a great weekend thank you too thanks for having me oh my gosh you've been wonderful I always love your approaches and thoughts they're different than mine and so it's really fun it's really fun for me so I do appreciate I really really do hey everybody as we like to end every episode we want to remind ourselves our viewers our listeners and our guests to stay well so you can do well we'll see you back here Monday with Pearl Hoagland everybody Pearl thanks