 Wow, it is the 300th episode of the nonprofit show. Here's the fireworks. Oh my gosh. So I think it's amazing. I was telling my husband last night, he said, wow, Julia, 300 episodes. He's like, you know, a lot of us can't even say we've done 300 of anything of anything of anything. And I told him, I said, you know, I think the thing that's very fascinating in that it's quite fascinating is that I'm still fascinated by our guests. I'm still learning something new every day. I'm still like so curious. I think there's so many topics that we have yet to cover. I'm not like sitting in my office going, oh no, we've talked it all out. Right. Right. It's, it's pretty, pretty amazing. And along this journey, we have been very, very blessed with some amazing, amazing presenting sponsors. They have stepped up, they have come forward and many cases they have been, they've called the office and said, Julia, I want to write a check of which I've been like, I'm sorry, what did you say? You know, I mean, this has really been one of those things that's been so fabulous and so exciting for us to have. And so we really want to call out Bloomerang, Steven Warnick, Katie from Staffing Boutique, Katie Warnick. I mean, those two individuals really put Jared and I on a trajectory that has been amazing. And then these other amazing funders and supporters of ours have moved us through. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. And I am joined by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. And I do need to get some tape. I should have put tape right here. Just for my day. These are so dirty, but yes, they still work. It's because I've got like fingerprints all over. Well, Jared, it has been an amazing journey for those of you who don't know, you know, Jared and I have a 20 year age difference, which I know, grass, beer, pearls. And so it, what it does is it really, I think brings an interesting level of thought and attention to the whole process of where we are with our careers and with our, our sensibilities. And so it makes it very, very interesting. I think every day to share the stage with one of the great minds in the nonprofit sector here in the country. Jared, you are truly an amazing talent and one truly, I believe one of the great thinkers in our nation about the nonprofit sector. So it's always a joy to be able to work with you and to hear what you have to say. Fireworks do go off at times. We don't always agree. Sometimes I'm like, what the heck is she thinking? And I know she thinks that about me. You know, I just look at the monitor and I will see her and she's like, shaking her head. I think that's really good. Right. Like it just goes to show that there's different perspectives. There's different ways to, you know, different approaches, different way of thinking and, you know, collaboration is key, but so is communication. Yeah, it is. Well, and that's what makes the world go around. We're, we see that in the nonprofit sector. When we have different voices. I think we are better. And we don't all have to agree. That's the beautiful thing. We don't all have to agree, but we have to have respect and we have to have. An ability to share perspective or to understand somebody's viewpoint. Part of that is going forward and looking up. And we wanted to spend this special day. Our 300th episode. We've had more than 250 guests, which is stunning. And we wanted to kind of use. This time to celebrate this big achievement for us, but also to be able to, to be able to, you know, To celebrate this big achievement for us, but also to be looking up and forward towards the recovery. You know, the story, if you've been watching us, you know, we started this as a reaction to the, to the COVID crisis. Very, very quickly. We thought of it. You pretty much on a Thursday, Friday, we launched it on the next Monday and it's moved from there. Yeah. Our first episodes were all reactionary. Weren't they Jerry? Very much so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, no one knew what to do. And so when you reached out to me, it was, let's just kind of open the, the digital doors as we have now coined them. Let's show up to be of service and in conversation. And we, we were navigating. Uncertainties right alongside all of you. Yeah. Absolutely. Real time. I mean, I would say that for the first month, there wasn't a show where we didn't end. I didn't leave my studio. I'm not going to do that. And I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. And pretty much cry for the next hour or so, because I was so devastated that I couldn't figure out the technology. I didn't know where we were going. I mean, it was really, really stressful. And so now we're moving forward in a way that has is just been crazy. And I think part of this discussion that we want to include. And we are now in a recovery. It doesn't mean that everything is solved and it's all clear. But what do you think, Jarrett, when we talk about a redefined workplace, what are the things that you're seeing? Because I can guarantee you we wouldn't have been having this discussion. Well, ironically, and since March of last year, I've been so honored. Privileged and just entrusted by so many individuals, many of you that are watchers or viewers of the show reached out to me to say, you know, I'm looking at changing fields, careers, job opportunities, like just, you know, kind of all of it, really the entire conversation. But what I thought was interesting just this week, I received a call from an individual C-suite and he was telling me that, you know, he's been back in his office and he goes at least once or twice a week. But he's just doing it to like test it out, right, to try it on. And he said, I don't think I will ever be back in an office full time Monday through Friday, nine to five. First of all, why would we want to race with the rush hour traffic? Right. So he was saying that he is much more productive, much, much more efficient. Now that he's working from home starting at even seven in the morning, eight in the morning, working a chunk or a block of time, then driving into the office at maybe 10 o'clock, right? Leaving at maybe two to 30, getting back and then finishing up from his home office. That is going to be something that I think we were all going to consider. I joked back and I said, well, if you're doing this and other people are doing this, does this now make our rush hour 10 and two? Yeah. It's true. No, I think it's true. I think that's an excellent comment. I really, really do. You know, I think the workplace for those of you, for those of you who know me personally, my husband's a commercial real estate broker has been, you know, all of his life. And he's an old man. So that's many years. But he told me, he's like, Julia, $5,000 an employee. That's the number that it costs when you are looking at office space. So when you have an employee and you think about, you know, their parking space, their, their cubicle space, their office space, conference room, you know, Xerox room, whatever. That's what your costs are going to be. And as nonprofits, look at this and say five grand, you mean I could cut pieces of my budget and have a happier workforce and more productive. And you know, it's going to, it's going to factor in. I think there's also a lot of like space sharing. There was an ad agency that I was talking to. They have this really cool, swanky office and no one's using it. Right. So they have actually reached out to some of their clients, some of their nonprofit clients offered the board room, offered cubicles. So really looking at innovative shared space, I think is also really going to be a trend. I think so too. And before we go on to our next looking up and looking forward. I think that we're going to see more and we'll talk about this a little bit more. But we're going to see the confluence of digital work environments and procedures into the physical. And I think we were in such a race to just figure out. Remote email and things from Slack to base camp, you know, productivity software. But now we're going to be like, okay, this isn't a crisis. They're a band aid. This is the way we work. What does it look like? This is the way of life because now we. We're in a digital race. Digital nomads and you've experienced that Julia. Yeah, yeah, I have. And for those of you who, you know, we didn't really want to say. Until we were done, but, but we broadcast. From Mexico. Two weeks ago and we really were pretty successful and we. So every day that was my challenge. I needed to wear a bathing suit under my outfit to see how I could do it. And it was just a hoot, but we did, we went both. Yeah, it worked and we learned, we can do some things better. But long story short, you know, we were still productive and we still delivered on the things that we needed to deliver on. And so we're defined, redefined workplace is critical. This is something that I think that this is where we have that 20 year age difference come into play. And you've been a lot more progressive on the health of our profession, everything from compassion fatigue to the demographic side of the labor supply. And you see this, Jared, and you've spoken about this. I think it's fascinating, because we are not only in recovery, but we are in a phenomenal time of change with our labor supply. Absolutely, and I was, I'm pretty active on Instagram. So if you don't follow me there, you certainly can. It's a nonprofit nerd, big surprise, surprise, surprise. There's an organization I would love to have them on and it's called NAP Ministry. They are a nonprofit and they talk about self-care, right? They talk about compassion fatigue. They talk about how are we taking care of our profession and our labor supply. There's so many organizations, Bordable is one of them, they're hiring, and they provide unlimited vacation days, unlimited PTO. That to me is like really focusing on the health of the profession. And I think we would be remiss if we didn't share that this month, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So as we continue to move forward in this recovery, let's also continue to focus on the health of our profession and overall labor supply. It's time, I think, right? That we really need to look at what are the expectations of our labor? What are the expectations of our employees even when it comes down to communication? Are we expecting them to return something within 24 hours? Are we expecting something to be returned instantaneously? One of our great guests, and I love following him, Miko Whitlock with a mindful techie. He talks about knowing your Zoom number minus three. I might exceed that today, but really looking at how are we staying healthy and how are we continuing to care for our employees? I think this is a big thing because we have a confluence of two really interesting aspects. We have an aging demographic that's been in the traditional leadership C-suite. And those are the baby boomers that are leaving, they're retiring. Many of them kicking and screaming and they don't want to be, but they are. And then we have people that we are just burning out. And then we have this other issue where we do not have enough trained or educated nonprofit leaders coming in. Really it's until the last 10 years in our country that we've had educational paths and higher education for nonprofit management, which is great, but hello, it's not enough. And so we don't have enough educated leaders coming into our sector as we should for the 1.8 million nonprofits that are registered in this country. So good news, bad news, we have a labor supply. I think this is a critical issue. I think the good news is that if you're somebody that's young starting out, you have a faster path to get on that track to upper management than you would in maybe some other sectors. I agree and YNPN is great for that. It's a national organization, young nonprofit professional network. And they say, they're lenient on the Y. They're lenient on the young. That's hilarious. They're really sharp. I love them. They're throughout this country. If you have one in your community, great. But even if you don't have one in your community, you can go to their website and take a look at the different things that they have. I mean, they've really advanced onto the digital communication and conversation. And so yeah, I think they're amazing. Well, that's a huge topic that we've been able to see. And that kind of leads us into the next thing that I think both of us have been very, very aware of and very interested in. And that's the overall digital impact. So again, looking up and forward during this recovery, Jared, the digital impact that's been really a blessing but a challenge. Oh yeah. What do you think about that? Well, the first thing I think about is, you know, virtual or hybrid events and having that digital impact, stay and remain in some way, shape or form. Just last night, I launched a scholarship presentation for my client and it was all digital, right? Everything was prerecorded. We invited everyone into a Zoom webinar in which we had a host, not me because my voice sounds like this. But then we had someone, you know, start the show and then we press play. And it was very seamless, really easy. So many people now are very comfortable and familiar with this platform. So I do think in the aspect of events, this digital impact is here to stay. I think that one of the things that's been so interesting, I mean, you know, we are pitched all the time for people that want to get onto the nonprofit show and talk about their products or their, you know, their books, whatever. But the number of tech companies that have reached out to us that have developed new products, everything from mobile online bidding to, you know, raffles to all different manner of fundraising, assistance and giving in the digital world has been remarkable. And that is not going away, you know? And I think that the thing that I've noticed, Jared, is that there's been this sense that your older patrons will not navigate to a digital donation experience. And that is just not true. No, they are not true, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I think it's going to be even stronger. And I appreciate what you said about the digital nature of our fundraising events and our galas. That had started already to really create a venue or an opportunity for a digital interface because of auctions. Absolutely. Yeah, that was already. And engagement. How many, do you remember conferences you'd go to and you could tweet or text or something and there would be like a big screen on the walls and then you would have that message pull up or that question pull up. Look how far we've come. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think it's going to only really move forward with more natural use of technology, more confidence. And I think if you're a nonprofit and you're not looking at these things, you're going to be missing out. I really, really do. Okay, now this is one of the biggest and most intriguing pieces for me, Jared. Is the change to donors. Not only who the donors are, how they're reacting, what they're interested in. And I think about this in terms of pre-COVID or no COVID. Meaning how would some of these donor profiles in reactions to things have changed or not changed if we didn't have these pandemics? That's right. It's not just one pandemic. No, and I do say plural, right? So obviously the global virus, social unrest and the political divide. There's also environmental crisis. So that's probably the fourth, right? We're really looking at changes to donors and the demographics, their passion, their alignment to supporting causes, their ability, capacity to give, their willingness to give. It may not be several zeros behind a number, but they're still making an impact. And they want to know the impact of their dollar and how it's changing for the cause in which they're supporting. Right, I think the thing that it's really important and this is like one of my big soapboxes is this largest transference of wealth in America in the history of our country. Second only really to about civil war times, but the bottom line is the wealth transference from the baby boomers to these ensuing generations is phenomenal. Some financial organizations will estimate as high as $93 trillion in the next 30 years with which we are in about five, year five of that. So it's going on now. But to Jared's point, these donors who are going to control a lot of money because at the same time we've had a birth death, they don't have as many siblings to share or decide on where the trajectory of this funding goes, they don't have the same interests as their parents. They want to know impact. They're less charitable in the traditional sense and they're more investment oriented. How am I solving a problem? I'm not gonna give just cause it's the right thing to do. Right, and there's statistics that show, excuse me, men typically give to one, to maybe three organizations, women tend to scatter their wealth and their charitable giving amongst several organizations. Exactly, yeah. I think it's just a new dawn. I mean, you know, Tony Bell from fundraising academy, he's been one of the people that has been talking about this, about how we work with donors, riveting series that we've been running, cause selling in the campaign wheel that that organization, National University has created, really gives you some insight into how and why our donors are changing. And again, I think looking up and forward, if we're not looking at that internally, we're gonna be missing out because there's so many ways to donate and to be charitable or to be philanthropic, I should say is a better word in our nation. You know, there's a lot of talent and treasure, right? Those are the three T's, time, your talent and your treasure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's remarkable. And I think too, what's really interesting is that, you know, we have a lot more people that are looking at their donor behavior and making it multi-generational, making it business, like what does your organization donate to? What did the staff, how did the staffs get involved? It's not just a personal thing at home that you as a family sit around your dinner table and decide what you're gonna do. We're seeing businesses do this and it's factoring into labor retention. It is, and it's going back to the previous slide of our workforce. So many of these new hires or as they're looking for new opportunities, they are asking that question, right? How do you serve in your community? Whom are you involved with, right? What does my give back look like and how do we do that as a team? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, and you know, I think that it's, for me when I think about this, I think that's like a really positive social directive. You know, that's, I think great when you have employees that come to the table and say, we're gonna get behind this or we want to know what leadership is getting behind. That's somewhat something new in American society because, you know, philanthropy has always been very private. You know, it was something that we did at home or with a faith-based organization and we didn't always tie it to our organization or to our schools even. So I think as a society, we used to be very private, right? And now we have everything public. We're taking photos of what we're eating. We're taking photos of where we walk. We're taking, you know, photos of so many private everyday activities that to me, it's no surprise that now our charitable giving, our charitable, I don't know, interactions are now also public. Right, and there've been a lot of studies that are amplifying that concept, saying that, you know, when you're looking to cultivate new donors, they're gonna look at their social network and decide, you know, if their cohort and family, friends, neighborhood, you know, connections, if they're engaged in something, they are more likely to jump on with that. But if they look at what's going on and they take, to use your word, you know, they look across the landscape and they're not seeing their cohort involved in that. Right, may not be as interested. Not at all, that's why it's so important for us as nonprofit leaders to empower all of our stakeholders to be public advocates or at least an advocate, right? And if they're not comfortable doing it publicly, how are they comfortable and how can we best support them in serving in that capacity? Right, amazing. Well, you know, again, it's hard to believe that we're almost out of time. Thank you so much for joining us. Jared, thank you for giving your wisdom on this very August day or 300 episode and celebration of that. We did really want to focus on looking up, looking forward, looking at the positive to really amplify the idea that we are in a recovery. That doesn't mean things are like perfect and all good to go, but we can be looking forward and looking up and being more proactive in how we serve and manage our nonprofits. So it has been really an important thing. Okay, this is like a big swing for the field. Back bleachers, as they say. What has been your biggest, like ah-ha during these 300 episodes? I laugh because you are full of baseball analogies that are like so out of the park for me. At the park, at the park. I know, I know. So one of my biggest ah-has I'm gonna say is the resiliency. I love witnessing the resiliency of others. And you know, when we first started these episodes, Julia, we heard so many individuals pushing that pause button. I could not say it louder. Do not push the pause button, right? So many people sitting on the sidelines waiting for the pandemic or pandemics to kind of blow over. Right. They didn't, they're not, they're here, right? So many people waiting to like for everything to get back in air quotes to normal. They're not, it's not, that's not what's happening. And so to see these individuals that didn't press the pause button, didn't sit on the sidelines, right? And they were so resilient. They literally, they, you, all of you watching, I want to say all y'all, because that's my southern, all y'all watching was really like so amazing to witness. It was truly amazing because just like you and I, Julia, these individuals showed up every single day, have no idea what they were being faced with, challenges that we had never prepared for, right? And we've all navigated some gracefully than others, but the point is our nonprofit sector has never been, like we have always been risk adverse. We have never been risk takers. And we have all been by default forced to take these risks. And I really love to see the resilience and now the positive of taking these risks, you know? You know, I think you're right. And I think that is something that I would have never guessed would have happened to your point because we thought that this was just something we could pause. Yeah. It was going to be a short-term thing. And some people did. And they're not okay. They're not okay. Many have failed and haven't been able to move forward. Some paused for a period of time and then they've spent a big chunk of their time trying to catch up. So yes, I think that's been really important. I think my biggest shock has been the amount of wealth that has stepped up and come forward and plugging dollars unrestricted funds. Yes. And I think that's been very interesting unrestricted funds that organizations have all of a sudden seen from, you know, likely suspects, wealth, the wealth of our nation to unlikely folks that have said, you know what, this is something that we got to work on and we got to get money to or we got to put resources in. I think that was really on full display with the background story of the vaccine, the COVID-19 vaccine and learning more and more about the different people that stepped up with big time money from people like Dolly Parton, you know, and working with Vanderbilt University. Absolutely. You know, just very, very interesting. And I think that for me portends great things. I mean, a time in our humanity when people weren't very kind and there's been a lot of dissension in our country. It's been cool to see that. To say, okay, yeah, we, for me personally, yeah, we can get past this dreadful discord. So really interesting. Wow, okay. Well, everybody, thank you for joining us and thank you for letting us share, you know, our views and really I think developed over these 300 episodes. You've been a part of this. We have a lot of exciting things planned as we move forward. Really interesting guests, really interesting partnerships that are continuing to flourish. Some new partnerships coming down the line, which we're very, very excited about. Jared Ransom, CEO of the nonprofit, I mean, of the Raven Group, the nonprofit nerd, my nonprofit nerd, your nonprofit nerd, have a wonderful restful time next week. Thank you. I'm excited and I am so thrilled to be here even under the weather for the 300th episode. I just wanna remind all of you, we are so grateful because without you, without our viewers, we wouldn't have a platform to continue. You can access all every single one of our previous recorded episodes. So if there's a subject, if there's a guest, if there's a topic that you specifically want to go back to, draw upon, please make sure that you access that. We are on Vimeo, we are on Roku, we are on Fire TV, we are on YouTube, and we are on the American Nonprofit Academy website as well as the ravengroup.com website. So please do access those. We have archived them for infinity. For you to access, these are free, free resources. Thanks for our amazing sponsors. Absolutely. Again, we wanna thank our sponsors. Without you, we would not have this format and this dialogue. And as we sign out, Jared and I wanna give a special shout out to the person that you never get to see but who is with us every single day, Kevin Pace, our executive director. Call him, we tease him the VOG because sometimes he'll come on before we start the show. And as we end the show, we never get to see him but he's here with us guiding us and putting this all together. So it's a major role. And for those that may not know VOG, that's Voice of God. Voice of God, that's right. Hey, join us for a new show. We're launching Fundraising Events TV that will launch the first part of July. We're very, very excited. Lots of new and exciting things going on there. And as we're launching in June. What did I say? July? July. Oh my God, that's just wishful thinking. No, it is June. Thank you for keeping me honest here. No, which is basically next week. So we will see you for that. And as we end every episode, we want to remind you to stay well, so you can do well. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you, Jared. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye.