 Welcome to the non-profit show. We are so glad you're back. And hey, I get to also say happy Friday. And you know what that means? It's a dedicated ask and answer. Thanks to our friends over at Fundraising Academy with National University. Jack, thrilled to have you here. Jack, a lot of CFRM, is that right, trainer? No, I'm not even sure what a CFRM is. That's not my designation. I was like, there's a whole new level that I'm unaware of. But CFRP, apologies for that. That's no worries. Trainer at Fundraising Academy. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, non-profit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, love to have Fundraising Academy at National University with us. Stay in and stay out for these weekly conversations. So thank you, Jack, for jumping in the hot seat today. We also want to say thank you to our amazing presenting sponsors. They have been with us all day this year. I want to say all day, every weekday. So shout out of gratitude goes to Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy. Fundraising Academy at National University. That's where Jack's joining us from. Also thank you to non-profit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, non-profit nerd as well as non-profit tech talk. So Jack, you know how this works, but we've got tons of episodes and they're uploaded on many of our platforms included the app, the broadcast and the podcast. And we're going to dive straight into our questions, but before we do that, would you just, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about National University, because we do have representatives from the school join us on a regular basis, but they tend to change. So tell us a little bit about you. Yeah, so National University is the sponsor of the Fundraising Academy, which I am associated with, as well as many other people who have been on the non-profit show. And we offer monthly seminars, we offer cohorts around the cost-selling model. We, a spot, we, we love the cost-selling model of fundraising. It's a relationship building model. It really works. There's some really unique parts of it that I just love. I was thinking this morning about presentation, making presentations, the donor and how important that is. And of course we're managed by Pearl, who I have known for quite a bit of time. When I prior to going to National University, I worked at JFK University, and she was at National University and we used to interact all the time. And, you know, she's just one of the best managers I've ever worked for. And of course my colleagues there at the Fundraising Academy. I've learned so much from them, watching their webinars. Like follow them on LinkedIn. So it's been great. It's a great team. And, you know, we get a variety of questions. As you know, they come to us here at the non-profit show in a variety of ways, but really our audience from across the nation, you know, they trust us and they have sent in some questions. So the first one I'm gonna put on the table for us is from Raoul in Houston, Texas. And Raoul writes in to say, we have been asked to make a presentation to a funder, which I see as a great thing. This is not an ask, but just a part of building a relationship. I have the opportunity to bring an extra person. Should I have a board member or a staff person? Great question. Take it away. It is a great question. And I love the app. I think it's great that they're able to bring somebody in. But I think, you know, back to cost selling for a relationship building model of fundraising, I would select that person based on their connection, their linkage to the potential donor in this non-ask situation. Do they belong to the same clubs? Do they know each other? Are they friends? Do they share hobbies? I mean, if relationship building model of fundraising like cost selling is so important, then definitely find somebody who could build a relationship with that prospective donor. There's a second reason why I like bringing a person to a donor meeting. And that is because if you are meeting someone at their home or in a remote location, you want to be cautious because in our donor centric world of fundraising, we want to make sure that we have another person with us for safety reasons. It's really important. And I know you and I have heard from many people who talk about sexual harassment. I think it can be a problem, especially for women. So I really do urge you to bring another person for that reason as well. Jack, I appreciate you bringing that up. You know, there's been so many different situations. I want to say in my career, as well as hearing from other colleagues, whether it's a hike, a ski trip or a ski adventure, there's so many different opportunities in ways of interaction. So having that level of safety and really just awareness, not to say that something will happen or that you feel it, but it really just does provide that level of safety. And I also, your sentiments really on bringing in someone that might have an affiliation, some kind of a relationship connection, maybe you find out that they're both into sailing and one of your board members is involved in a yacht crew or club and that might be a great opportunity as you build these layers of relationships using that cause selling model. Raul, I think this is a win-win. I don't think you can go wrong, whether it's a board member or a staff person. So finding that affiliation might be the best opportunity. Right, I love the idea. It's a great idea, don't be afraid of it. Don't be afraid, absolutely. Thank you, Raul. Okay, moving over to Oklahoma, Shelby. Now that we are post COVID, are we though Jack? Cause I just told you, not long ago, I tested positive unfortunately, but I would like to take our C-suite out to see how other nonprofits work. I think touring other nonprofit organizations sites would be a great investment and team building activity. Nobody seems to be doing this in our community. Is this the fool's errand Shelby wants to know? No, I think it's a great idea. I worked for Catholic Charities many years ago and we used to go and visit with Jewish family services. We used to visit with Lutheran social services, any other faith-based organization because we were working with the same clients and they may have had a much better practice. Their social workers may have been doing something quite different than we were. And it was something that we could borrow from them. You know, we, you and I belong to a big organization called Association of Fundraising Professionals because it's our opportunity to go to monthly meetings with other fundraisers to share information about donors, prospective donors, best practices around fundraising. Here we're on the nonprofit show. We're doing the exact same thing again today. So it is a really good idea to share best practices to meet with other nonprofits working in the same area. I agree, Jack wholeheartedly. And you know, here on the nonprofit show, we also pride ourselves on being a little bit disruptive or not necessarily being on the same page, but I agree with you. Like, and I also think it really depends on what's the culture that we've built for our own organization and the culture of the community that the collective organizations have built, right? Like, especially let's say homelessness, right? That has, that is a big national problem. I have had the privilege, Jack, of working in that space and collaborating with so many other amazing leaders and organizations in that space where I do really feel, you know, Per Shelby's question, really looking at this from a way of how can we provide more solutions to our community problems? So it's a win-win, you know? It's not like you're going to steal their playbook or even their donor list, right? Like you're going to really work together in collaboration. That's how I see this. Yeah, I mean, I love the collaborative word there because it's so true. Maybe you are an organization with limited resources and you can help homeless, you can help, you know, nutrition programs, you can help gang prevention, but maybe working with other social services organizations, you can say, okay, Jewish family services, you're just gonna work with the homeless and we're gonna take care of feeding them so that our limited resources at Catholic Charities will only do this one thing and we'll do it really well. And you'll do a few things and you'll do them really well or Lutheran social services or whatever the organization is. So it's really good, great to collaborate. Yeah. The client's benefit. The client's benefit, the community benefits, you know, it makes me think about another conversation I had on with Julia, of course, Julia Patrick co-host here at the show who's off today and I hope you're having a glorious day is really around, you know, the perception of the community and what that organization does. So the more we can become familiar just as you said, Jack, we can refer, you know, other clients, other community members, other partners to these agencies. So the more we know, the more we can share and connect, you know, for those solutions. So Shelby, I hope this is helpful, right? But let us know, because Jack, I'm curious, if they move forward with this in the new year and what that transpires and what that looks like for them. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, have fun with that, Shelby. Okay, Nyla in Detroit and just thinking of Detroit right now makes me cold, Jack. Oh, yes, I have friends there. Oh my gosh. Okay, this is a good one. So Nyla wants to know if we have heard about two groups from the same sector having a joint board meeting. This has been suggested, but I have no idea why it might be a good idea. Can you give some ideas on why and how to do this? Yeah. So the why, I think it's a good idea. And of course there's going to be a downside, but I'll tell you what the upside is. Board members getting together and if the chairman of the board of one gets a report and the other chairman, they could learn from each other. If the fundraising committee gets a report, then the other fundraising committee could see how it's done or programmatic committees or whatever it is. If you're about to engage in a capital campaign and they've already had a capital campaign, think of what you could learn from them. So there's lots of great things that you can learn by sharing and cooperating and co-mingling your board. You could do it in a social location. It doesn't have to be a formal board meeting. Here's the downside. Your board member may go to some organization and they may say, hey, we just raised $100,000 from Agayla. And Agayla may not be in your fundraising plan. And that board member comes back and says, you were there, I heard them say they do Agayla. They raise all this money and you say to yourself, oh my word, now I'm gonna have to come up with Agayla or I'm gonna have to come up with a plan giving program or I'm gonna have to do some other special event that's not in our fundraising plan. So that could be the downside and you have to plan for that happening and how you'll deal with it. One of the ways to deal with it, Jared, is get acceptance policies which will outline the types of things that you will do as part of your fundraising program. So that might be one way that you could, if you have really strong gift acceptance policies and your board also voted and accepted your fundraising plan, then you won't be victimized by the good idea that that other organization is doing. Right. I love that you brought that perspective because there's good in this and there's some potential challenges that we might be faced with, right? Looking at this. One of the things you and I had talked about, Jack, and I'm really curious if our Nyla, I think is our guest who wrote this in, are we looking at this from a best practice standpoint to glean information? Are we looking at this to make connections and to create a social environment, right? Like, what does, so if a board member says or someone suggests, and I don't know if we know who suggested it, we should have a joint board meeting. What is the goal we're looking to achieve, right? The why. You're asking the why questions. Why do it? And if you can't come up with anything other than while we want to meet them, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it. Right. Yeah, so what's the why? What's the why? How can we build a supportive environment around that? Because it very much could be, oh, we just really want to meet them. So yes, let's do a lunch or some kind of a social gathering, back to the homelessness. If this is what we're all working towards, then great. Let's bring some of these organizations together. But do be mindful of adding more to your plate. Right, absolutely, absolutely. This is a downside to everything, isn't there? There is, there is. And I think just asking more probing questions of the why. What does success look like? How do you expect this to go forward? Those kind of questions, Nyla, I think will help move you towards the right next step. So all right, name withheld from Des Moines. We have a staff member who just came forward and admitted to senior leadership that they are concerned about the mental health of a fellow employee. We are a small nonprofit and we do not have a full-time human resource department. Where should we begin? Yeah, so first off, I'm not a mental health expert. I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, so. But I'll tell you what, if I were the leaders of that organization and someone came to me, I would respond immediately. And maybe you are a small nonprofit organization and you don't have an HR department. But you could Google mental health here in California, every single county has free mental health services. I looked in Texas yesterday, Texas. So I would imagine it's national. Here's the other thing. There are lots of hotlines that you could call and that the leadership of your nonprofit can call. One of them is 988, which is a crisis intervention line and they'll give you some good advice. They're really excellent. I think mental health is one of the most important things that we need to think about going forward in the new year and how we deal with people after especially all of us are suffering from a bit of PTSD from COVID and being locked up for a year or more. So I think it's really important for us to really pay attention to our fellow workers. Here's something that you could do. This organization could do. They could call up the local mental health center and ask for a professional to come to a staff meeting and talk about mental health services. This way you're not calling out that employee. You're not stigmatizing that employee. You're not creating a problem with that employee. Have them come and talk at a staff meeting about mental health services, about things to look forward, look for in someone who is having issues like PTSD. Here's a resolution I have for the new year and I'm gonna say it here. One of the things we do in this country and I freely admit I've been in therapy. It was the best thing I ever did. It helped me get through some painful parts of my life and I highly recommend it. Here's the thing that we do. If I had pneumonia, Jared, you wouldn't say Jack is pneumonia, but if I was manic depressive or I had that illness, you would say Jack is manic depressive. We don't say people are their disease except when it comes to mental health and we've got to stop it because the language we use stigmatizes the people who are suffering with that illness and it's an illness just like COVID or pneumonia or cancer or any other thing that you could be. We don't say this about people. She is cancer, but you can say she is psychotic or she is schizophrenic. So let's change our language if we just all try to do that in the new year, I will be so happy. I love that resolution, Jack. And thank you for bringing compassion really to this conversation. I have been in a position before where this has happened to me, right? A staff member came to me, they were concerned for another employee. We also did not have an internal HR but we were so fortunate to be working with a contract HR professional, right? So first of all, I knew we did not have the EAP employee assistance program. However, I love your comment. There are support services in every community, right? And nowadays, they're also remote, you know? We have access thanks to COVID in a more remote environment nowadays. But I did reach out to the HR contractor that we were working with and I really needed to know what was I lawfully able to do, right? And I also wanna mention this for the name withheld because this is something to consider. Is this a longstanding employee or is this a new employee that may not have PTO days accrued, paytime off days accrued? I challenge you and this is my resolution for the new year. Regardless of how many days they have in their bucket to take off, do not let that prevent you from giving them some time away. That's right. Help that they need, right? Like human first, person first, that is why we're making those decisions. So, and again, I shared with you, you know, Jack earlier that the culture of this environment where I was serving was a very restorative culture where we were hiring intentionally a lot of individuals that had alcoholism in their background or addiction in their background of all types maybe even reentry into the workforce from prison or jail. And so the culture of this environment was intended to be restorative. So yes, please do take the precautions you need. I love so much, Jack, that you said bring that mental health person into the office. And I also wanna mention partner with some organizations, right? I had mentioned in a previous episodes and I happen to be giving a Giving Tuesday episode but that is a stressful day for a lot of us, right? There's an organization that does pet therapy. That organization was going to other nonprofits on Giving Tuesday to be of service to help lower stress, lower anxiety. And I just think what a win-win, you know? So see other, I think as we talk about Shelby and Nyla and these other questions that have come in today, Jack, this is a great collaborative opportunity to see what services are in our neighborhoods. Yes. And, you know, taking care of one another let's be more empathetic and sensitive and caring for one another. And I mean, if you said you had COVID earlier a few months back, whatever, you know, I mean, show some empathy for people who are going through hard mental health times. Maybe they're going through a divorce. Maybe they're going through a death of someone they love very much. Let's be more considerate. Like we would if they had some kind of, you know, health problem or, you know, that needed our sympathy and empathy. Absolutely. Well, I'm so glad that this question was posed to us. I really want to hold it tenderly because I know that this is, you know, a difficult time for many people. And as you said, Jack, many of us do have, you know, PTSD from COVID and really just moving into that. I've had a lot of transparent conversations lately with other professionals talking about how, you know, really the weight of the pandemic is just now starting to settle in. Because many of us, you know, we were frontline, we're working with missions that needed us to be there in a way that we weren't previous to COVID. And so a lot I think is coming now. So name withheld in Des Moines and for all of you watching and listening, you know, do heed some advice and bring in some support. Hopefully before you need it, right? Like let's just build that restorative culture from the start. Yeah. Jack, always fun, my friend. That's great, thank you. Yes, Jack Alotto, CFRE, Fundraising Academy Trainer at National University. Always thrilled to have you. Check out Fundraising Academy, the website. It's fundraising-academy.org. As Jack mentioned, there's a portal on there. There's, you know, other conversations from here, the non-profit show. You can see the cost-selling education model. There is so much goodness, so many resources on this website. Yes, and mylearningportal.org, mylearningportal.org is awesome resource. Lots of CFRE continuing education credits there, lots of webinars, all of the work that we've been doing over the last several years. It's pretty much up there. It's great. And it's free. It's free. Free, I forgot to say free. It's free. It's free, we love it. Well, hey, the non-profit show is also free, and we love our partnership with our amazing presenting sponsors. So again, I wanna give an immense shout-out of gratitude as we wrap up the very last episode of this year of 2023. So thank you to our friends over at Bloomerang, American Non-Profit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University. Thank you so much, Jack, for joining us today. Thank you. Also, thank you to non-profit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, non-profit nerd, and non-profit tech talk. These companies, most of them, truly have been with us on this journey from day one, which believe it or not, Jack, was back in March of 2020. So today is episode 955, which means the 1,000th episode is literally around the corner. Can't wait, then not wait. That's celebration time. Happy New Year, everybody. I wanna say happy New Year to Julia. Happy New Year, Julia, Pearl, Tony, Mui, LaShondon, all of my coworkers at the Fundraising Academy. Yes, thank you so much, Jack. You always bring so much flair and energy, which is welcome here. So thank you again for joining me today on this Friday. And for all of you that have joined me either live or recording, we're glad you're here. And as we end every episode, as we have all other previous 954 episodes, we invite you and remind you, especially with our last question, to please stay well. Yes. So you can do well. Thank you, Jack. Happy New Year. Thank you.