 Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm thrilled to have Rita Sorenenback, President and CEO with the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Rita has joined us each and every day this week. And today our focus on today's episode is the power of collaboration. So we are excited to have this deep dive conversation with this thought leader about the power of collaboration as we move through all of the navigation that we continue to do and to really look to see how the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has truly worked towards their mission in this collaborative space. So I'm looking forward to learning from you, Rita. And again, just really happy to have you back and to have the foundation here with us this week for the non-profit Power Week. We are also really glad to have our presenting sponsors. These companies exist to help you. Yes, you do more good. Many of these companies, they're all online. You can find them online, but they are here to help you and to lean into your mission and your mission-driven goals. So if you have not looked up these companies, we highly recommend that you do because they are here on your team and in your corner to help you in, around and throughout your community. So please check out our sponsors. And thank you to Julia Patrick, American Non-profit Academy. Thrilled to have you with us, of course. I'm Jarrett Ransom, the non-profit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And I get to serve alongside Julia as the co-host each and every day here for the non-profit show. And again, we mentioned this is a non-profit Power Week dedicated to conversations with thought leader Rita Sorton, president and CEO with the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. Welcome back, Rita. Thank you. Look, I am so excited to continue to be with both of you this week. Thank you so much. Good. I was worried that you would be exhausted and be like, I have, I can't talk to these crazy ladies anymore. What am I gonna do next week when I don't do this? You'll be like us. You'll be like, oh my gosh. Well, Rita, I have been transfixed by so many things that you've said. Because you are such a significant player in your space, obviously, and as a thought leader for your sector. But I found, and we were talking about this in the Chitty Chat Chat, I found that there are a lot of things that you've said that a very small organization can really glom onto and take that as the best practice. And I gotta tell you, I didn't think that would be the case when we started out. I thought this would be more of your leadership and your comments would be much more in tune with a very large organization. So I'm fascinated by that. I'm wondering if it has to do with collaboration, which is what we're gonna be talking about today. I don't know, maybe, maybe so. I think so. You know, let's start off with collaboration can be a dirty word or a frightening word for a lot of people. What are the best attributes that you've been able to observe through your time in growing the Dave Thomas Foundation? Yeah, it's such a great question because at the core of it, no matter what size the organization internally, I think we're required to be collaborators, right? We wanna grow as individuals. We wanna certainly assert who we are and become individual leaders within our organizations. But we have to work together in order to make a task accomplished at the way we want it to or a project or the organization itself. And particularly with nonprofit organizations, mission-based, this is all about the mission and how do we recognize individuals, but how do we make sure that the mission gets done? And so when you think about those best attributes of collaboration, whether it's internally with an organization and staff or external collaborations to advance the mission, you know, there are just some of those key attributes. How can you be team-focused? Understand the individual skills that you bring to the table, but how does that contribute to team success? Are you a relationship builder? This is business, whether it's in fundraising or advancing programs or even, frankly, doing the finances. This is about building relationships. And so think about as you begin to look at, are there greater collaborations that we can do? What are the relationships that need to be at the table in order to help accomplish that? We've talked about it a lot this week, but transparency is critical. Transparency and communication, right? Collaboration doesn't exist without communication and it doesn't exist without full transparency of, here's what I'm doing, here's what needs to be done, here's where I feel like I'm maybe falling back a little bit and I need some assistance. That willingness to ask for input and assistance is critical. A commitment to, if someone says, this is my role and this collaboration, this is what I'm going to do, then a commitment to doing that and following up and assessing it, ongoing assessment and evaluation of, are we being effective in this collaboration? What needs to change? And that's just tied in with that sense of transparency and communication, of course. None of these are inseparable, they're all intertwined in the roles of collaboration, but I think they're individually important. Look, you have to be a good listener. You have to be willing to be a thought leader, because again, bringing your individual skills to the table are important, but how do you step back and make sure you're non-judgmentally listening, that you're truly open and listening to everything that's being said, that's being explored. The best collaborations have the best ideas that are able to come to the table through a true and open communication and listening mode. Trust, trust, trust, trust, trust that everyone that's working together is working for the same reasons. Again, we all have our own individual motivations and those need to be validated and they need to be exploited for the benefit of the group, which you have to trust that everybody is really doing what's best for the project or the group. And finally, I think being diplomatic is critical. Really assess your own sense of diplomacy and how does that diplomacy and grace work in collaboration? Again, loud voices of course, adamant positions if you can back them up, but that sense of diplomacy is critical. Great. Lost art, that's a lot. We're losing that art, Rita. Indeed. And I'm curious, Rita, just in general, I'm sure the foundation has very formal, collaborative initiatives. And I would also like to hear, are there also informal collaborations that are taking place? Because I know that many of us learn when you're in a collaboration, you really want to have this written down, but informal collaborations happen all the time. Kind of talk to us about the differences, if you would, about the informal and or formal. It's probably the way we learn more at an informal level because you can test and try and you can read immediately reactions. So I think that informal collaboration happens down in the lunchroom or outside on a break or even as, for example, this morning, we had a finance team meeting. We have those monthly, where are we on budget? Where do we need to make phone calls? Where do we need to make adjustments? But it's not, I think after that meeting, the informal conversations that take place between perhaps the finance manager and the development team. What's happening with this project and how can we assist each other? So absolutely, I think those informal collaborations are critical to personal development and need to be recognized that they exist in the workplace. They shouldn't be feared by leaders thinking, oh, this group is over here having a conversation that's not on the calendar. What's going on here? That's absolutely critical. Yes, yes. And one of the things we had talked about a little earlier was the fear, I think, that comes around collaboration. You know, we mentioned that there is roundtables, there's dialogues, there's panel discussions, but too often, I think people are fearful to collaborate or share so openly for one, giving away their best kept secret or also really looking at just holding everything too close. So I think there's a lot of fear around this, but I'm curious how you've navigated this because you don't sound fearful to collaborate at all. Well, again, the mission is bigger than we are, right? The bigger than, no matter how large the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption grows, no matter how large our budget may grow, this is a cause that's embedded in states, it's embedded in counties, it's embedded in individual communities, it's rife with intertwined players from the juvenile justice system to the child welfare system, the education system, the healthcare system, big mega systems. And so we have to step outside of ourselves and say, how do we pull each of those systems in or other organizations that also touch those systems in order to make a difference? And let me give you a very specific example. So when and where do you collaborate? 20 years ago, we and a couple of other organizations were aware of this incredible event that was happening in Los Angeles, and it was adoption Saturdays. And this very visionary judge who in Los Angeles was saying, adoptions are ready to go. Everything's set, all of the paperwork's done, all of the requirements have been ticked off. Unfortunately, in the court in Los Angeles, there was a backlog of those finalization hearings at the court that was occurring. And so children who were ready to be adopted were waiting months for the court to finalize those adoptions. He said, we can't keep doing this. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna open the court on Saturday. We're gonna have, we're gonna bring everybody in on a volunteer basis from the social workers to the judges, to the attorneys, and we're gonna make it a day of celebration. And the result was they started, not only finalizing adoptions quicker, but suddenly it became this day of celebration rather than this day of, whoa, because we're so overwhelmed. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and a couple of our other great partners were aware of this and said, there's something here. There's something here that we can take national. And so we pulled together a relatively disparate group of organizations within this space. So another foundation, two other organizations, national organizations that didn't necessarily have adoption as their sole focus, but it was part of their focus. And a couple of the organizations from Los Angeles. And we began to pull together a collaborative group that was fraught with all of those challenges at the beginning. Everybody had their own individual mission, their own identity. What we wanted to get do is pull together a brand and call it National Adoption Day. We took from that adoption Saturday a sense that there could be a national adoption day across the nation, not unlike Mother's Day or Father's Day, that would have a couple of purposes to elevate this conversation about foster care adoption, to change the attitude from something just deeply embedded in complexity into something a little bit simpler for the public to digest and to draw people into the conversation. So over a period of years, we started out with testing and deciding and collaborating and arguing and bringing to the table. What is it that we could do as a group finalized and decided that the Saturday before Thanksgiving would be National Adoption Day? We'd start at a very grass-rich level, provide all the tools that people needed to join on. And from that first year, 21 years ago now, when we had seven pilot cities across the nation that tested a National Adoption Day this year on November 20th, we will have more than 400 cities participating across the nation. We've celebrated more than 75, nearly 80,000 adoptions in or around National Adoption Day. And it really evolved from this very grassroots collaborative effort of a number of organizations too. We frankly handed it off now. Cities are taking on this effort. So it's just one example of, here's a good idea. In order to make that good idea bigger, we couldn't do it alone. We needed to pull groups together. We needed to figure out who was gonna provide funding for this. We needed to figure out how is it branded that's different from your individual brand, but give credit to the individuals that were participating, all of those right things. And it's just an amazing, I think, example of how collaboration can work and help change attitudes, help elevate a conversation. So when and where is it important to do this when you need to figure out how to expand your mission or at least the message behind your mission? When there's a cause, when there's an effort that's greater than yourself, that you need to help pursue. When there's shared learning to happen, that needs to happen in order to figure out what's the best way to frankly draw this American public to the notion of foster care adoption? How can we learn together? Or how can we change both attitudes and policies? Because embedded in that, a number of years we do a little bit of research. What are the best practices across the nation that help with permanency? And then we'd highlight that during national adoption day. So sorry, I've gone on and on, but I think it's a good example of when and where and how does that collaboration happen? Now, let me ask you this. I mean, Rita Sornin is on the phone, comes up on your caller ID. I'm gonna answer that call, right? But I've got to believe that within the judiciary and within some of these regulatory pieces, how willing are they to collaborate with a nonprofit organization? I mean, you're a globally known organization, but was there ever a time or are there times when they're like, yeah, the nonprofit thing, we can't really work with you. This isn't a trajectory we take. Does that happen? Of course, of course. And it happens at every level, I think. But it's incumbent upon us or others that are pursuing this activity to say, well, here are the benefits, right? We've got toolkits for you to make it easy. You don't have to create anything from scratch. We'll help elevate perhaps by working together your image in the community of all the good that you're doing that no one hears about because our communications and PR team or we hire someone else to help with that is also making sure that there's a lot of good public relations around this effort. And frankly, if cost is an issue, then we can help figure out as a grantmaking organization if there's a way that we can help with that cost. Now, not everybody can do that, right? But there's a way to also pool shared resources or in kind resources in order to say, if finances, if you're just too busy to do this, you don't wanna recreate materials, we'll help with all of that. So I think it's just that conversation of we're not stepping in to tell you that you're doing things wrong. We're not stepping in to tell you how to do things better, frankly. We're stepping in to ask if there's a way to think about co-learning and co-sharing this responsibility and it is a responsibility of permanency for children. And then pulling in other stakeholders too that may be closer to that entity, closer to that court in, who knows, Oklahoma City, I'm just pulling out it. It may be the CASA program there, or it may be the juvenile law committee there. So making sure that stakeholders that understand that jurisdiction better than we do, perhaps are part of the process as well. And I love that think outside the box. When you started telling this wonderful success story, it wasn't so much of a success that was happening. I mean, that was, we need to think differently. We need to think outside of the box. What can we do in a different manner to serve the children that need this permanency? And that is really, that's a great succession. And again, goes back to really the mission of the foundation of working together for the mission. And that is exactly what's been focused for you. And I wish, and I don't know about you, Julia, but I wish that so many other leaders would say, okay, there's a bigger issue. How do we come together? Who do we need to pull together? What have we not done yet? Yeah, I mean, I would say from cultural institutions to animal welfare and everything in between, there's so many parallels to so many things that we've talked about this week on all levels of budget that we could be talking about. But yeah, I think, you know, Jared, it's like we've said this before, we get in our own way. We get in our own way. And this concept of collaboration, I also, before we go on to the next question, I kind of heard, and maybe this is my own filter, Rita, I kind of heard that maybe the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has to sell itself a little bit when going forward and pitching a collaboration. I mean, as you become more known and you pass these decades of service and you're more vulnerable, yeah, I get that that is gonna be reduced, but it seems like you're having to sell yourself. Absolutely, you know, again, when you think about our relationship with the Wendy's company, you know, that misperception that, well, you're a corporate foundation, whatever you wanna do, you just go to the corporate world and they'll help you do that. We have to stress that separation that we're an independent nonprofit organization that although we're incredible partners and we are the charity of choice of the Wendy's system and I will never diminish that at all. And that's a strong partnership, but it's not our entire world. This cause is greater than the Wendy's company. It's greater than individual franchisees. And so we have to explain that piece first and get over that misperception. We have to get over that misperception that we're marching in and saying, clearly you're doing something wrong and we've got the answers. That is not, that's not what's behind collaboration. You know, it is about reminding folks that, and Dave Thomas used to say this all the time, these children are not someone else's responsibility. They're the collective, our responsibility. And I think it's making sure that people understand you won't lose your individual identity in a collaboration. In fact, it will be enhanced because as we celebrate each and every one of the individual organizations that are part of a collaboration, they become viewed as thought leaders and risk takers and people willing to put their name on something that enhances that something. And so they become, I think, perhaps more respected in that effort. Interesting. Yeah, I think that's something that is one of those benefits that you might not realize you've achieved for some time. It's a residual benefit that might not be apparent right out the gate. But we don't have a lot of time left, which is like, again, these times when you read it have blown by and just so fast, but I'm wondering about best practices. I mean, you started off with the attributes, which I think a lot of those can become, they dovetail. But maybe what I'm thinking about, and Jared kind of pointed this out, like how tight are you with legal documents, with contracts? I mean, how do you approach that? Because your organization is dealing with so many different moving parts. Yeah, and it depends on the collaboration. Typically, if it's part of a process where we're gonna provide funding, then we'll of course have a grant contract. We'll have a funding contract that everyone will live up to. But if it's not so dependent on grant funding, if it really is truly a mission-based effort to advance a cause, then it's less about the legal and formal documents, although there may be a memorandum of understanding between organizations as it is defining roles, right? What's, first of all, what's the shared vision of this collaboration? And then what are the roles? Particularly if you have more than two or three or four organizations, what are the particular roles that each of those organizations will have in this collaboration? And getting those on paper, it may not be a formal signed document, but it's gotta be a shared agreement in the collaboration, right? And designate as well, are there project leads for this? Is one organization going to take lead on this? Or will it be multiple leads based on the different activities that are occurring? That clarity at the beginning is critical, and that's all about that processing piece at the beginning. What are we gonna do? How are we gonna do it? Can we all sign off on these shared agreements? And then I think it's really critical, it's that piece of, if it's going to be a longer-term effort, tracking and evaluating the effectiveness of this, it doesn't have to be a formal evaluation, but it does have to be some sort of true tracking and evaluating, and then that willingness to evolve, adapt and adjust. And that's ongoing, of course, but in the beginning of a collaboration, it's more about defining and as it moves on, then it's about adapting, evaluating and evolving, I think. So in answer to your question, yes, there's essentially shared formal agreements, but it's more about making sure that that level of trust has developed, that the defined roles, the ability to step up and do and follow through with what you said you would do, and holding each other accountable for that activity. I can imagine that really having multiple partners, multiple collaborators on a project, and not knowing kind of who's in charge or who's handling what piece of the project, what mayhem that would bring? And so really just outlining this to say, okay, organization A is doing X, Y and Z, and really just identifying throughout all of the leaders their role, right? Their collective role and the collective shared vision of impact. And I'm curious, and this is a curve ball question. You had mentioned, thanks, Julia, you had mentioned the funding organization, and I realize I'm putting you on the spot here, Rita, but I'm curious how much the funding piece relies on collaboration, or really elevates the ability for collaborations in these funding opportunities. I feel like that's been a trend in our nonprofit sector, and we've heard often that foundations love collaboration. What is your stance on this when it comes to those funding opportunities? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the foundation is much more flexible, I think, in willing to look at what can we fund in order to help a collaboration move forward, and we're willing to do that. We understand that others may not be able to have funding come to the table, but what is it that you can bring to the table? So yes, look, the kinds of collaborations we have are different from this National Adoption Day, for example, where we did provide funding because we were one of the two organizations as two foundations that could provide funding to get this kickstarted, to keep it moving forward. Our collaborations through the Wendy's Wonderful Kids program, for example, with the independent public and private organizations with the courts, with the Department of Human Services, those are very formal collaborations that are very funding dependent, co-investment relationship, typically. And so there's a lot more dotted eyes and cross-tees at a formal basis, but within that then, are different kinds of collaborations of education, training, performance management that are separate from that funding piece. So it really just depends on the nature of the project, but of course, funding is something that we look at and figure out how can we dedicate a portion of our budget to assuring that collaborations happen in the most effective way. Amazing. Well, once again, I've learned a tremendous amount and I think you've helped clarify some of the things that we don't often hear from large foundations, but they don't say there's a... Jared and I talk about this, there's a little bit of a mystery there and a reticence to ask deeper questions and yet this is the conversation we need to be having because these foundations across our country have gained phenomenal resources and really built their assets and they're looking for partnerships. And yeah, I think the nonprofit sector in some ways, they're fearful and they haven't necessarily taken this trajectory. And so there's a lot of reticence maybe to jumping in. So thank you for sharing on this, the issues of collaboration. Our only, as Jared mentioned, getting stronger, becoming a cornerstone of investment and navigating the solution of social problems. So we've had such an amazing week and I just wanna take a quick moment to say, look, if you missed an episode, you can go back on to Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Vimeo, YouTube, our own website, TheNonprofitShow.com. I mean, there are a million ways to get to us. So we have discussed so many different things but at the end of the day, Rita, I'm seeing a lot of how they intertwine. I loved watching yesterday how CEOs and development directors work together. That I thought was riveting, impacting change with policy, super important. Of course, we started Monday with your origination story, what the foundation does and how you navigated. Now, tomorrow, we have you in the hot seat for ask and answer. And that's gonna be a lot of fun. So we're gonna ask everyone to, if you have any questions for Rita, send them our way and we'll get those in front of her. This is an incredible opportunity to really hear from one of the main leaders whose lights out. I'm so sorry for the lights. I can't control them clearly. I love it. I think it's great. I think it's great. It just makes you more like, the lights come on. So anyway, definitely check those out. Jared, take us out, sister. This has been phenomenal. I will not come tomorrow. It's the two of you and I'm so excited. I know to hear all the ask and answer questions. Julia Patrick, thanks for bringing the nonprofit show to life. I am very excited to continue to serve alongside as the co-host also your nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. And again, we have so much gratitude, very deep appreciation for our sponsors and really just grateful to have their investment in the sector at large and the continuation of these episodes with thought leaders like you've heard today and all week during nonprofit Power Week with the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption that is currently hiring. So if you're interested, take a look. But wonderful organization, Rita. It has been phenomenal. I wish you the foundation all the best. And I'm sorry I won't be here for tomorrow but Julia's got it under control and I can't wait to hear your answers. This has been such a great week thus far. One more day left, so stay with us. And we always like to end every episode by asking all of you, including ourselves, to stay well so you can do well. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you tomorrow.