 I can't wait to get going because today we're going to be talking about investing in non-profit infrastructure. Yeah. Bridges. Roads. Bridges and roads, ingress and egress, no, that's not it, but you're right, we are talking about infrastructure, so I am excited to talk about this. Thank you for turning the hot seat on me, Julia. Well, it's very exciting. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. If we haven't met yet, I'm the CEO of the American Non-Profit Academy, been joined by my interpret co-host, finishing up almost two years of the non-profit show with, yeah, that's right, you're at ransom of the non-profit nerd, and again, we want to thank all of our sponsors who are ending up the year with us strongly as we navigate into 2022. It's super exciting to have everyone with us, you're going to see some new sponsor logos with us in the new year, which we're very, very excited about, so thank you so much for being a part of this journey. Okay, the non-profit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group, get those glasses on, sister. Yeah, I have them, I have them always near me, and again, really excited to talk about today as we move into the final week of the year, as you just mentioned, a reminder, we are not on air Friday, so we will move our Friday show to Thursday, but I just had this thought, Julia, we might need to have some bubbly on Thursday to celebrate and to help ring in the new year. Orderly, I am there. So for those of you that can join us, right, that will be a good opportunity to celebrate all of our wins and celebrate a new start to the new year. You know, it's going to be really fun. Tomorrow, the episode we have going on tomorrow, is kind of our best of, and you know, Jared and I talk about the best of concepts that we have, oh, that was a great guess, that was an amazing idea, I learned so much, but we decided we'd put it all together now in one show, which is super hard. I mean, super hard to get all that in 30 minutes, but so join us tomorrow because it'll be a lot of fun kind of rehashing what we were able to glean and see and from what what you have been telling us. So that I think is going to be a lot of fun and full of surprises. So absolutely. But today is the day we're putting you on the hot seat, sister. OK, investing in infrastructure, first and foremost, what does that mean? That's a good question, you know, when I first mentioned, I think we need to talk about infrastructure because most people think of infrastructure, right, Julia, of roads and bridges and, you know, those structural opportunities. And it's not very different because it really is still the structural opportunities internally of an organization. So because it's a mouthful, I did write it down, so I'm going to take a look here. Truly infrastructure at its core involves several things. So it includes and it involves facilities, staffing, training, software, auditing, which any of you think, you know, that's a scary word. So auditing, education, consulting and other business opportunities. So again, I wrote it down because it is a lot and I didn't want to miss it. Any of the key structural, you know, opportunities. So really, it involves a lot when it comes to infrastructure. One of the things I also want to mention is we talk a lot about how the nonprofit sector is almost proud to do so much with very little. And we are really switching the conversation to say, no more. We need to invest in infrastructure. We need to invest in our policies, our procedures, our software, our systems, our people, our pay. And that is exactly what today's conversation is about because as we have all witnessed the last couple of years and the multiple of pandemics in which we've all been impacted, we need to start looking at how we are doing things differently to still make a big impact for those that depend on our services. You know, I love that reframing. That's a really great way to look at it. And what you just said is magical thinking for me because I know all too often our nonprofit investors, our board members, we look at this from the outside and we're like, we don't use that word investment. You know, we try and hold back. We try and do so much more with less and we end up costing ourselves time and money, I think, because we don't make these investments. So let's get at it and have you discussed with us why we should be investing, and I love again that word, in leadership and management. What are you seeing there, Jared? So I did some research and in 2018, so it's been a couple of years, a few years, but in 2018, GuideStar reported that half of all U.S. charities, again, if you've joined us for the show, you know that we always mentioned 1.8 is the number of registered U.S. charities. So half of those are operating with less than one month cash reserve. So that is very scary. Again, that's a 2018 report from GuideStar. So scary, right? I mean, that is not payroll, that's not programming, that's not so much to do. So when we talk about investing in leadership and management, you know, it really is about talking truly to those stakeholders across the board, internally and externally, and we're going to talk about that when it comes to communications. But why it's important to invest in leadership and management? So we continue to up level our systems and our policies, again, talking about, you know, software. Let's look at, you know, the global health pandemic, COVID-19, over the last two years and how much technology enhancement has taken place. Maybe you didn't account for that in your financials, but by golly, I guarantee you, you are really considering how much money and investment you're making in your software and your technology so that your leadership and your management can truly oversee the great work that you do in and around your community. You know, it's really interesting. I've been noticing and I know this, again, curveball to you, sister, but I've been noticing like in the beginning of my service within the nonprofit community, you would be hard pressed to find an organization that was led by somebody that other than an expert within that source, right, a source expert. So meaning, let's say you were running an organization that dealt with autism. You would have somebody that had their PhD in something that had to do with autism, or you wouldn't, or you wouldn't have that type of, you wouldn't have leadership, right? But I'm seeing now more and more organizations saying we can find the experts in the source material that we need, but we need like a CPA or an attorney or somebody with their MBA, more of like a professional manager who can oversee our organization. And I'm wondering, are you seeing that? I mean, is this part of that shift in mentality? That is a curveball, and that is like a rapid fire curveball, Julia. I know. Sorry. No, no, no. There's so many ways to talk about that. First of all, you know, let me address the fact that so many individuals, especially now over the last two years, are saying, I want to leave corporate America and I want to be of service in my community. So we're seeing that trend. Also, I think, grown accustomed to hearing, nonprofits need to run like for-profits, right? Like we've heard that, I think, you know, said time and time again. So I really think when it comes to your question, it really is about how can we streamline and build efficiencies to increase our effectiveness? So regardless of who might have that talent, I do think that it's really bringing those experts in all the fields, right? If you are an organization for autism, then you definitely need that expert there at the table. But I think it needs to be more of a collective team approach and really, you know, pull people in and on to your team that are better at something than you are. And that is truly how you build. I firmly believe you build a strong team is that you bring people in to your team, into your leadership, into your management that are better and more versed or higher versed in truly that topic. So that collectively you're building a management team for change. Yeah, I love that. And I mean, that is an infrastructure issue, don't you think? I mean, in some ways, when the way you just express this, it seems like that is almost the definition of infrastructure and that you're looking at what are those pieces holding up the foundation. Yeah, you know, and here in our community, there is a foundation that literally invest in organizations that are currently experiencing a deficit in infrastructure. So they will fund you. It is a multi-year program and process, but it is truly that to invest in the organization, the infrastructure, so that you can start to build your systems. Again, everything that I mentioned, your software, your education, your consulting, from the inside out instead of bottom up, which a lot of people, I think, organizations wide, focus truly on the program. What do we need to deliver the program instead of what do we need to build this sustainability and scalability from the inside out? Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that is a huge shift in the mentality of operations and approach. And so I really appreciate you bringing this forward to us in a way that I think we can communicate this to our stakeholders, to our board members, even to our teams. So another investment in infrastructure, you say, are systems and operations. You started talking about that, but what does that actually mean? So really documentation is a big piece of systems and operations. So documentation of your internal systems, your policies, your procedures, as everything continues to shift, we need to go back and look at our policies and our procedures, especially with the advancement of technology. So are we still doing a streamlined procedure when now we have these advancement of technology or software or systems that might, in fact, change that procedure structure? Maybe it cuts out some steps. Maybe it's very efficient. So really going back to that documentation of your systems and your operations, auditing those to make sure that you have the right systems and procedures in place. I keep saying the same words, but that's what we're talking about. I can execute and implement. And I have to add in report. There's a lot of funding out there that comes with a reporting requirement. And you need to make sure that you can account for that reporting as you continue to increase your documentation process. Yeah, I like that you said that because we've had folks on before that have talked about investing in organizations. And then when they don't get the reporting, it ends that relationship. And then the organizations are like, well, wait a minute. What happened? Why aren't we being included in the future? It's a huge stumbling block. Those evaluation metrics are critical. And again, I know that many of our organizations might have seen a decrease in service over the last two years. But the depth and breadth and how they served those individuals or community members during these last two years, again, the population-wise might have decreased, gotten smaller. But you might have served deeper to those individuals that you were serving during this time. I love it. And I love the way you framed that. I think that's really powerful. So then we talk about this process. We talk about all these things that we need to do. Now you've added communications in there. How does that all fit? You know, I did because we have always heard that you can't fundraise for operations, for overhead. You can only fundraise for programs. And people really only want to fund programs. And again, I'm here to bust that myth that is not necessarily the case. Everyone is starting to become more and more informed and educated as to why this infrastructure investment is so extremely critical. Excuse me. So we talk about, I would like to talk about here, that internal versus external communication and your strategy in that. Because as I mentioned earlier, there are organizations or foundations that truly look for organizations that are running at it with an infrastructure deficit. And they want to invest in your internal systems, your people, your facilities, your operations so that you can have a better system in which you serve the community. Because the reason we exist as nonprofits is because there has been a problem identified in the community. Therefore, there is a nonprofit that has been created and established to help mitigate or help provide support to that problem. So again, organizations are saying, you are the one helping this problem. We need to help you help this problem. And the way we can do that is to invest in your infrastructure. So when we talk about communications internally, there's a lot of staff that may not understand where these dollars are going. So if you see a huge influx of infrastructure investment, there might be staff saying, hey, I want my piece of that pie. I see that we are receiving support by the way of financial support from many organizations right now. That means I get a raise, right? Yes and no. And we can talk about pay structure in a little bit. But it really means that it is designated to this specific function. So it is designated to increase your technology. It is designated to perhaps bring in a consultant to help you with these new processes and procedures. And then there's the external communication, right? So I would like to address this when it comes to vying for that infrastructure investment from some of your top donors, right? To express the need, the purpose, the why behind the critical need for your infrastructure investment. So that could look like I was helping an organization a couple of years ago now. They, in fact, approved a deficit on their budget. Now there's two reasons that you have a deficit. One, it's an oops and oh my gosh, how did we get there? The second one is intentional. So in this case, it was they were moving from an all volunteer led organization to hiring their first CEO. So their first paid employee, which, of course, has this investment in infrastructure. You investing in the leadership, the management to move the policies, procedures, systems, operations, everything that we have previously talked about to move forward to invest in the continuity, the sustainability, and scalability of this organization. So how you talk about this investment to these stakeholder groups is very, very important. And such a wonderful investment to give these major donors or, as I like to sometimes refer to them, those blank check donors, the ones that trust you implicitly will say, what do you need and how will you use it? Imagine, Julia, going to someone to say, would you be willing to support us an additional $50,000 this year so that we can make this very critical investment in our infrastructure? Tell them why, tell them how it will impact, not only for the short term, but the long term. Well, you know, I think what I hear you saying, and again, communications, it's such a big part of the way I approach a problem or a project or an issue. When I hear you say infrastructure, that's a much easier thing to sign on to than operations. And because we do have this mentality and we started the conversation from the get-go with this is that do more with less, if we talk about investing in infrastructure, that seems less perilous, it seems more intelligent, and it seems more strategic and long term. And so in terms of communications, Jared, it seems like that's just a better way, if you will, to frame the message. Is that what you're really talking about? You know what is, it is a great way to frame the message. It's also when you have the ability to talk to some of those large investors, donors, supporters, whatever you name them, it's saying, because of you, we are able to take this mission forward in these ways. And it's truly diving into the core of the operation, the lifeblood of the operation. I would love to tap on wages, because I do believe that is part of the infrastructure investment. And right now across the nation, we have all seen where it's called a, oh gosh, now I forget the name of what it's called. I was talking to someone in HR and they were telling me this term. So if any of you watching live know the term, please let me know, but essentially we have new hires coming into the organization, sometimes making more than their supervisor, are just barely at their supervisor. And so really looking at this level set within the organization, absolutely. So this is a pay infrastructure matter in which the national salaries have increased. They are higher than they've been. We see this at restaurants. We see this fast food restaurants even in our communities. So we need to level set our pay wages and our gaps across the board. And that is an infrastructure investment as well. And I think that when we talk about paying competitive wages to our nonprofit sector, we really need to rectify this when we can, how we can. And I've been talking to many organizations over the last 12 months in particular to say, before you hire new staff, consider doing a compensation report of your existing staff and a three to five year forecast, if possible, on how this infrastructure investment will look and scale over that three to five years so we can truly build a budget to accommodate this pay structure and the growth. I love that. I think that's really smart. And that might be one of those things that we talk about the bleed off of we have in this great resignation and the fear that we have of attracting good talent and moving forward. That might be one of those things that seems like a heavy lift up front. But it could end up being something that is magical in helping us retain the staffs that we've created and therefore having a stronger infrastructure to begin with. Absolutely. Moving forward. We talk about attracting amazing staff and then we really need to talk more about retaining that staff that is really, I like to say rockstar talent. And then we've talked and we've heard about this more often through our HR representatives or human resource representatives about instead of having exit interviews, having stay interviews. And again, that is investing in your people, investing in your workforce, investing in what's important to them within your organization. And that is an infrastructure conversation as well. Okay, so now we don't have much time but I've got to ask you to readdress this investing in communications. You talked about the internal aspect. You're talking to your teams, you're explaining things. That's your board members. That's your, I'm assuming stakeholders, major investors. Then going to the outside, what are you seeing that way and communicating externally? So for me internally, it would be, it would be your board, it would be your staff and externally would be perhaps some community foundations and also be some of those major donors that support your organization but aren't on the inside, they're not on the payroll or the volunteer. So really going to these large major donors, asking them if they would help to support and interactify the deficit in which you've been working on for so long because I really would love my wish for 2022, 2022, is that we stop being prideful and boastful on how we do so much with so very little. I really would love to shout from the rooftops and as much as we can about the critical impact and the purpose of investing in infrastructure. And again, for those of you that have joined us live and perhaps you didn't hear me say this, infrastructure includes facilities and includes staffing and training and includes software. So all of the additional technology investment, it includes some auditing, education, consulting and any other business opportunities. So it's a lot, it packs a lot into that infrastructure definition, if you will. So before we move on and let you go, we have a question that's come in and it's like, what is a stay interview? Please explain. Oh yeah, so again, we talk a lot about or perhaps we've heard organizations having exit interviews. So there's an employee that has chosen to leave the organization and that is when we address any of their previous and prior concerns with the organization. A stay interview, if you Google that, that is trending right now as a best practice in our workforce to retain this amazing talent. So again, it's really engaging in your workforce, your existing staff to ask them how things are going, do they have concerns, what might they need or ask for to better support them in their role. It could be technology, right? Maybe they say, I have this piece of crap laptop that really shuts off on me every so often. And because of that, I am losing quality work time, to the tune of, I don't know, 30 minutes a day because of this outdated system, or perhaps they could mention their desire to move up in management or their desire to see more professional development opportunities. So a stay interview is literally talking with your staff about what's working, what could be addressed in a different way with the whole purpose of retaining, retaining your rockstar talent. I love it. And I think the thing about it too is it's a healthy approach to the relationships you have with people on your teams because let's face it, some of these things might have been gleaned when we were all working together. And if you walked by somebody's cubicle and you kept seeing them being frustrated, you'd be like, hey, Sally, what's going on? And Sally could say, well, Joe, my laptop keeps crashing or whatever, but when, because we don't have those interactions, the water cooler effect, if you go, you know, it's changed. Wow, you know, I always, always, always learn so much from you. And Jared Ransom, you are just an amazing part of our community and our nation when it comes to thought leadership and the nonprofit sector. Wow, how lucky was I to have our stars cross? I don't even know how that happened, but somehow it did and I am the better for it, for sure. Here is Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd. I always like to say she's my nonprofit nerd, your nonprofit nerd, the nonprofit nerd. Check her out because amazing, amazing information that she has and what a treasure truly she is to our sector. Again, we are on this show daily. We are the only, the only national live daily broadcast for the nonprofit sector, but you can find us on all of the archives, are all on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV, Vimeo. So check us out. We have so much content. So if you're looking for something, you can literally go onto these platforms and do a search and you'll come up with a lot of things. Again, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors without you, we would not be here. So thank you ever, ever so much. Great episode, thank you for just letting us delve into that wonderful brain of yours today. Oh, I love it. Thanks for getting nerdy with me. It's a lot of fun. I wish all of you the best. I know this is our final week of the year or as I've referred to it, it is literally, the finish line is in sight because that we've been running this marathon, our 2021 marathon and our 2022 marathon is literally around the corner. So it's been a lot of fun. It's been wonderful. Hey, check us, be with us tomorrow and we kinda do our best of. It's gonna be a lot of fun, a lot of surprises and we are inviting everyone to jump on and add to that conversation. So as we like to say every day, we truly mean it as we're dealing with this new surge or the pandemic, stay well. So you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Hey, nonprofit nerd, thanks so much. Thank you, see you tomorrow. Bye.