 Hello and welcome. So glad you're spending your morning, your afternoon, maybe your evening with us, but we're here for the nonprofit show. And today we're going to talk about what exactly a chief of staff does. We have with us today, Devika Narayanan, and she's here to join us as chief of staff that is her role at Nostos home so before we jump into this conversation. We want to remind you are loyal viewers and listeners who we are. So hello to Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. And so her personal nonprofit nerd, but I can be yours to CEO of the Raven group and honored to serve alongside you Julia each and every day for these conversations. And we also want to say thank you to our amazing presenting sponsors that allow us these opportunities. 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Well, we're excited to learn more about you learn more about the organization. Would you tell us a little bit about the organization the mission and its role in the world. Sure. So, Nostas is this youth led charity, where we build homes for families that have been forcibly displaced, either due to natural disasters like floods or sometimes in the case of violent conflict. So, what we really do is that we come in and build very innovative homes for these families. What we realized when we really looked at the problem was that the problem was massive, about 80 million people around the world are displaced, and this is not a problem specific to any one geography is really, really global and really massive. And what we also realized was that losing your home is obviously a very vulnerable and traumatic experience. But immediately after that, these families have nowhere to go they often have to live in canvas stands they often have to live in just four, four, six of bamboo and a piece of tarp right so as you can imagine this is absolutely not a scenario in which they can rebuild their lives or really get back to their old ways of living. So we want to come in there and give them a real home, a very sturdy strong home that gives them privacy gives them personal dignity and really helps restore their previous ways of living so we've innovated quite a bit and we've landed on this building which allows us to really quickly deploy the houses and build it up by about four people even if they have absolutely no construction experience or even if they have no specialized tools they can just click the house into places essentially. So that is what we're trying to do at Nostos. So it's really an interesting. It's, it's almost like a jump from shelter services to looking at more permanency, so that then a recalibration can occur is that right. Absolutely so our houses have a lifespan of at least about 20 years. So that's significantly an increase from like the current solutions of like a canvas tent and another feature of our houses is that it can be essentially redeployed so it can be redeployed and taken to another site. So suppose these families get like permanent housing from the government or from aid agencies in say three to five years. After that these houses can be taken to a different site, but in that intermediate time we don't want these families to be living out of a canvas tent so we want to come in in that intermediate period and the house can itself last up to about 20 years. So innovative. I can understand why you've won the organization is one the prestigious Diana award named after Princess Diana of England. Talk to us a little bit about the global positioning of where you are I mean you're coming to us from India 11 o'clock at night your time. Talk to us about this global ecosystem that you have to live and work in. Yes, absolutely so the organization is registered in the UK but currently we've been building houses in India and in Africa. So yes there is definitely a lot of sort of international partnerships and a lot of international work that we do at North America that we do at North to us. And yeah around the world we've built about 500,000 nights of housing as of now for displaced families in India and Africa facing very very vulnerable situations so yes, me being involved in this work has opened up a very global outlook for me and something I wouldn't have gotten in university otherwise so I'm very grateful to be involved with North to us. You know, Jared ransom the nonprofit nerd who's one of the great minds in North America about all things nonprofit witness to us during the green room chatter that she only knows less than a handful of nonprofit organizations using a chief of staff concept. And, and we were talking about that and so I'm so fascinated to learn from you what it is that you do and what it is you maybe the better question is, what did you think you were going to do and what is it that you do as a chief of staff so can you kind of take us through what your role is. Yes. So I think before I go into the details of what I do at North to us as a chief of staff I think it will be useful for us to take a step back and look at where the role actually originated so it's pretty interesting actually that the role originated in the military I think as far as I understand. So, as you can imagine, yeah, in a military organization the sort of multiple verticals, multiple projects happening with very key decision making that is required. And it is very inefficient if you if you want the commander in chief to know the day to day activities of every single vertical and then make those decisions. So, as far as I understand the chief of staff role was really created to plug in that gap, and to act as sort of an integrated between different verticals, and between those verticals and the commander in chief. So that is a little bit of background in terms of what I think the chief of staff role is designed to do, and that is sort of similar to what we do at North to us as well. The first us is of course a much smaller organization we are a bunch of young people trying to make a difference in refugee housing and what that means is that as a chief of staff and involved in the in coordinating among different verticals and really acting as an aid to the very strategic decisions. So that would mean, you know, gathering all sorts of necessary information gathering those, those very critical inputs, and presenting them to the board in order to guide that decision making. And to then believe that those decisions back to the verticals and to execute those decisions by coordinating among the different verticals I think that is what I would sort of say is it's my day to day with nostrils as the chief of staff. That is a lot of moving pieces right like a project manager, and you're doing a lot of this remotely is that correct. Yes. So, yeah, our team is sort of split between some people in the UK and some of us in India, but we've been working remotely ever since the beginning of the organization so nostrils is actually completely volunteer run so we don't have anyone on sort of a full time paid basis so all of us, like myself I'm still in university but some of my other teammates are, you know, doing nostrils along with their full time jobs. So, we don't really have a space that we work out of we've been working remotely ever since the beginning but I think it works surprisingly well for us so far. Wow. So impressive. It really is impressive and I got to ask a couple questions. Do you find I mean Jared use that magical term project manager. Do you find that you're having to champion things and make sure that people are staying on track as a project project manager, or like what is that looking like for you. Yes, so that's definitely a fair amount of sort of like I said coordinating among these different verticals and between these different work streams in order to execute a project. So I think a very good example of that would be our recent deployment in Malawi so that was our first international deployment right and as you can imagine that would bring a lot of logistical challenges with it a lot of moving pieces as you said. And so my role then became to figure out those moving pieces and figure out key inputs that would help the board make decisions and choose options right so for instance that would look like me coordinating with a lot of our lawyers to make sure we have all our bases covered while we go into contract negotiations or making sure that we get the right inputs from our due diligence partners to make sure we know all of our risks going into the deployment. So yeah, like you said it's sort of like wearing a lot of different hats is what I would say it as because, for instance, I'm an engineering student right I have no law experience whatsoever. But I still sort of have to make sure that I do that in order to execute the project so in that sense not just has given me that experience across a different lot of different verticals and, like you said coordinating all of those moving pieces to make sure it really aligns with both the timelines as well as yeah what are your strategy goals are as an organization. That sounds like such a critical piece like when you when you when I imagine, you know, the entire organization the structure the verticals that you're mentioning like, this is a key piece. Is there one chief of staff or are there more than one. So organizations can have more than one chief of staff but at no stars we have just me with fairly small organization so I think I'm able to sort of handle it as of now. But yeah I do know of organizations that are sort of much bigger and they do have two to three. Many many chief of stars. Let me ask you this question because I'm fascinated and as we were talking about this. This is something that we're not entirely familiar with you're absolutely right. It's military based and so, and it has been successfully military based for millennia. It's not a new concept right the chief of staff, but where did you learn about this like how who do you have you looked upon to realize what it is you even need to do. So, since there's not just all of these nonprofit chief of staffs out there. Right so when I got involved with nostrils. I was essentially in my third year of university and nostrils is fairly young it was essentially in its early stages. And so I knew I wanted to get involved and I sort of landed on the chief of staff role but it wasn't necessarily something that I knew the blueprint of as as you said. It was just a fair amount of sort of researching it from the internet but also learning on the go. I think the one main thing about like being a chief of staff is that you need to sort of pick up a lot of different things. So that's not a lot you can really prepare for it fall but it's just about sort of being present and being able to be being open to solving these challenges and being open to learning from these different verticals. And I'm not really expected to have, you know, like a deep expertise in any one of these things like for instance, like I said I have no legal experience whatsoever but it's really about, you know, making sure you have the right connections, you're making the you're managing those relationships you're getting inputs from the right places and really putting all of that together so I didn't really necessarily have you know blueprint that I could follow but I think it's something that you can pick up as you go. What about, let me ask about confidentiality is that a critical piece as well because I imagine you know so much. And, and here, you know, I can only imagine that there's people going, Hey, DeVika, what do you know about x, y and z and it's like, I can't really tell you that quite yet. Yes, so there is a fair amount of confidentiality that you're expected to maintain as a chief of staff, especially because I think there are a lot of very key and sensitive decisions that you are a part of as an aid to the board. So yeah, that's definitely a fair amount of that is that that is expected of you. Yeah. So we have, I have a question and then we have a question that's come in from a viewer and I'll, and I'll mention the viewers question first. And this is, this is a fascinating question because this this demonstrates how new this concept is, at least for our US audience, and this this viewer writes in, is this a similar position to the executive director role. I mean, you are serving the executive director, right? I mean, so it is, it's fascinating that we would get that type of a question because again, this is a new concept for so many people in North America. I've got to ask you about some of your tools that you're using. So what are you like the spreadsheet queen, are you using slack or what what are some of these tools that you're using to help keep this float or this boat floating. Primarily, I think yeah, we do rely on spreadsheet quite a bit. So, for instance, in our recent Malawi deployment, there were about, I think at one stage six to seven different partnering organizations coming together to make that happen. So to make sure that everyone is on the same page and to also make sure that everyone is, you know, on the same page in terms of timelines and in terms of what needs to be done in every single day. We did have a lot of those sort of execute, executive like spreadsheets to make sure we are on track spreadsheets that sort of have everyone has access to and everyone can keep track of. And spreadsheets where interdependencies are very clearly highlighted to know what the order of operation should be. But apart from that, there is also a lot of just getting on a meeting, getting as many people as possible together, getting as many key stakeholders possible together and really ironing things out and then putting it into a spreadsheet. Yes. Yeah, I can imagine with that so many resources now, you know, and we work off of spreadsheets we you know will be transparent to we have a slew a slew of those. I'm curious how this role truly differs, you know from being an executive assistant or an administrative assistant, you know how does a chief of staff differ from admin support. That's a very interesting question Jared and I think you can sort of look at it in terms of two different two key differences that I think make those roles very fundamentally different. The first is like I said the sort of strategic nature of a chief of staff for it. So, like I said, you're, you're sort of an aid for the board in making those decisions, you have to, you know, deliver those key inputs you need to coordinate in getting those inputs from leaders, and you're really involved in the strategic decision making. And I think the second fundamental difference would be the level of, you know, the level of ownership and the expectation of driving impact that is placed on you so as a chief of staff, I'm able to be very directly involved in creating impact. And by that I mean you know like from everything from the first leg of the journey to the end of the journey right of delivering the house. So, for instance, manufacturing the houses, shipping the houses, clearing the houses for you know from customs, getting the houses on the ground getting a team on the ground to build the houses up. So there's a lot of direct ownership and a lot of direct expectation placed on you to drive impact. And I think in on those two accounts it sort of fundamentally differs, at least to a very significant degree I think from admin support. Does that does that make sense does that sort of answer the question I think that's how I see it. And it really caught me when you said, you know, the level of ownership. I love. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm also curious, we have another question that came in. If you are in the role currently of an operations manager. How might you transition to a chief of staff. Do you have any insight on that to Vika. Very interesting. Yes, definitely very interesting. So I haven't personally done that journey myself and still, you know, I sort of landed directly into the chief of staff role at North stars. So I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that question. But I think for fundamentally of course there needs to be like a sort of chief of staff role at the organization it's something that is only picking up right now in organizations around the world I think in sort of for profit corporate culture still more widely accepted but in nonprofits like we discussed earlier there's going to be fewer of those opportunities. But I think one thing I can think of as a tip would be really getting that experience across different verticals or at least knowing a fair amount you don't even have any sort of in depth knowledge but you need to know how different people really work together and what the interconnectedness looks like. And I think that can really help, you know, help, help you fill in a position of the chief of staff, because I think that's one of the main skills that is required. You know, and I'll add to that just just off the cuff with my 20 plus years experience you know, because this is so new and we're seeing this, you know, really starting to trend, I think it's a great opportunity to have a conversation, and to show your desire, and even to show like, you know, the origin story as Davika said like this is a military origin, and how it supports the organization what it could look like going forward. That would be my recommendation on top of what has been shared. What about what about you Julia. I mean, Alexander the Great had chiefs of staff. I mean, this is a Napoleon had chiefs of staff George. I mean, this is a very structured approach to large management issues. And so, and crisis, I would say crisis issues right, you know, where you have like emergencies and things, you're on the battlefield, so to speak. Absolutely. And I think that this is a new time in the nonprofit sector to reimagine how we do our business. We imagine the tools and the talents and the treasures that are involved. And so, yeah, I think this is a really cool conversation. And sadly, we don't have a lot of time left. So I've got to ask this because I'm so impressed with you Davika. What the heck, where are you going in the future. Oh, thank you so much Julia, but yeah so I am still in university so it's definitely early stages for me to have a lot of things figured out down the line but in terms of next steps, I will be graduating in about two months. So that's very exciting. And after that, thank you, thank you so much and right after that I've gotten a full time offer from Boston Consulting Group. So it's a global consulting practice and so I'm very excited to join as a strategy consultant and help organizations in different different domains. And I have a special interest in healthcare specifically, and I'd love to help with strategy consulting for healthcare companies. This ties back to what I've been doing at Nostos and my interest in healthcare was found by the work I've been doing at Nostos because you know, Julia, we see communities across the world and these are very vulnerable communities and yes, definitely a house in Nostos who makes a world of difference to their lives, but it doesn't solve all of their problems, right, very realistically it just doesn't. And we've seen how Nostos can transform their lives but there's still so much that they require and I think the problem of gaps in access to healthcare is something that really resonated with me so professionally I've been working in that alongside Nostos and I'm looking to continue that with my full time role at BCG as well. Wow. Well, BCG is known as the pinnacle. Now I'm really impressed that you came on to the nonprofit show. I mean, because they take the best and the brightest that this this planet has to offer and so highly competitive, good on you. This is really, really impressive. I have so enjoyed this conversation and I look forward to, you know, following your journey and seeing what you're able to do. We need more people like you coming into our sector. Jarrett and I talk about this all the time. It's a big part of I think what I feel Jarrett with the nonprofit show is how do we help cultivate new leadership and next gen leadership and get people excited about working in this incredibly hard but rewarding environment. You know, it's really I think magical. Yeah, absolutely. I just have to share quickly. I was at a board meeting recently and one of the board members said, you know, what what we do in my business and we should probably do this, you know, as if the nonprofit were a business and someone chimed in and said, it is. It is a business, you know, and so I think looking at this from that perspective and that lens to say, okay, what is the market doing, how are we trending how can we best support all of these moving verticals that you know that you shared and and have that one one or multiple than one right like more than one. Like connecting that information exchange, especially now as we look into global and remote. I think this chief of staff we're going to see a lot more of them. I think so too. Yeah, it's really exciting. I love that you shared your personal story how you're growing. Really, I've got to encourage everybody check to check out Nostos website. It is super, super impressive. And I think that David has been very humble about communicating the degree with which the globe has really embraced their concept, their delivery, who their partners are. I mean, this is an organization that is really disrupted the way we think about displaced people in periods of crisis. And I am just so amazed by it. I really, really am. In fact, I've got to share really quickly as we wind up today, Jared. This just was broken in the New York Times before we came on air. But Cindy McCain, Ambassador Cindy McCain, who's from our state, Arizona, was just named to lead the World Food Program for the United Nations. I'm going to be replacing David Beatsley. And so that's based in Rome. And they work directly with these refugee and these crisis environments. And David, when you said, you know, canvas housing, that said it all to me because that's their delivering service, basically, with people that have to survive, not thrive, but survive and in this perilous situation. So what an interesting, interesting conversation today. Again, Davika Narayanan, Chief of Staff, Nostos Homes, check them out. NostosHomes.org. You will be so inspired. And I think that we can learn a lot of things. Check back with us, Davika. I'm really excited to see how you keep going and supporting our sector and how your wonderful organization comes forward. Because it's an amazing, it's not only amazing work, but for me, Jared, it's amazing switch of how we can solve problems. And that's what I think is really the innovation piece of this is something that we can all, I don't care what you're doing. I think you can learn from them. Again, everybody, I'm Julia Patrick joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. She is my personal nonprofit nerd, I've just got to say, but as she says, she can be yours too. Again, we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors who make these amazing connections possible. Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, staffing boutique, and the nonprofit nerd. Wow, Jared, I'm so energized. So, so energized. I know. I want to search LinkedIn and see who pulls up for Chief of Staff. I think it's going to be fascinating. Davika, thank you and congratulations on all of your good work. And your upcoming graduation. So, so much to celebrate. Thank you so much for your time, Julia and Jared. It means a lot. Thank you so much. It's been fabulous. Hey, everybody, as we end this episode of the nonprofit show, we want to remind ourselves, our viewers, our listeners, our guests to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.