 everybody to another episode of the non-profit show. You have joined us on Friday and this is one of our best days ever because we get to play in the sandbox with Fundraising Academy. And today we're really excited because we have Muji Koaja with us. Okay, this is like such a sexy thing. Tell us where you are. I am in Colombia. Amazing. Yeah. Last month you were in Peru or when we last spoke with you. Yeah. And you're in Colombia. Holy cow, how's it going? It's beautiful here. I'm in a small beach town called Santa Marta and it's beautiful weather and just really enjoying the downtime to reconnect with myself and just travel and learn more about what's in my head and just being a better person and living by care, like in the moment. So it'll help me become a better professional. And these days I'm just working part-time with Fundraising Academy. So it's been a great adjustment in my life where I've been able to slow down a little bit. And yeah, so that's what's happening with me. So I got to ask you this like kind of a woo-woo question but do you think that when you are more centered and you are more with yourself that it will make you a better fundraiser? Absolutely. And I love that question because it allows me to show up for not only myself but the things that I care about in a much more meaningful way. So taking the time to slow down, taking the time to be more centered as you said it, it just puts things into perspective and hopefully what happens when you're more centered is like those stressors in your life, those things that usually make you uncentered fall to the wayside. And it allows you to put the time and effort into those relationships for work, for family, for life and compartmentalize it and be fully present in those moments. So absolutely it makes me a stronger fundraiser. Now, do you think that it's going to also bring to the table different philanthropic environments? Like, so I guess my question is, when you travel the way philanthropy works around the world, it can be so different. We're still trying to solve problems and structure and everything, but are you seeing different things in terms of the philanthropic lens of how maybe when you come back and you're working with donors or the environment in the US, do you think that might change your attitudes or you're informed different things? Yeah, definitely, Julia. I think having a global perspective and learning from the different cultures and the people that I'm meeting on these travels allow me to share appreciation for the struggles that people are going through here. And when I do speak with donors back in the States and still meet my donor meetings and all of those things happening for American Muslim Community Foundation, I'm able to tune into more of what they're passionate about. And being able to slow down has helped me connect with my donors even more because I cherish the time with those one-on-one meetings. I'm more attentive to them because I'm not so worried about the rest of my life and everything else that's happening. I'm really there for that moment with that donor. And attaining that presence, that centeredness has taken a lot of work internally in my own head and my own heart. And that's what I've been able to achieve on these travels by slowing down and only working part-time. I burnt myself out the last 13 years. I was working multiple jobs. I was doing so many different things, having a life, going to school, being in a marriage, all of these things were so daunting and so much pressure to live up to the expectations and standards of life that I wanted to have for my family. But I soon found out that I needed to focus on me and it was almost a year of going to weekly therapy that helped me identify that. So yeah, there's so much from your personal life that you can do for yourself that will make your professional life that much more stronger and it's all about working smarter, Julia. You know this, like... I have signed it on my desk. You cannot see it from my studio. I can see it. It's a sign that says, you know, work smarter, not harder. Exactly. I do. It's crazy that you would say that because that's like one of my favorite things. I fall down a lot. I fall down a lot, but I strive, yeah. Wow. Well, this is cool. I really appreciate you starting, I would say with that witness, you know, that you're sharing that. Because, you know, my first thing that I think of, Mouhi, when I hear you and we're starting this chat today, it would just be horrible to lose you from our sector because you are burned out. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So what a great lesson to hear this and to know that you have made an investment and you continue to make investments so that you can be here for our sector. Because we need people like you more than ever. And this nation of ours and really this globe, we need people like you to help us understand how we can solve problems, you know? Yeah. And solve problems. And that goes for everybody who's joined us right now and who's listening to this later. Like every nonprofit fundraiser is so critical to the mission of their organizations. And if they were like me last year or the first 13 years of my career, we put our life into the work, right? We let it consume us and it is draining. And, you know, I used to take that week off and go on vacation and do those things, but it was never enough, right? Like you have to, like slowing down is an art and a skill in itself, right? And they say it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, right? So like practice slowing down, whatever that means for you. If like you only have those 10 minutes in the day to yourself in your driveway, in your car before you get into the house, cherish those 10 minutes seriously. I hope for you to know that's the moment where you focus on your breath. Like that's why meditation is such a beautiful practice. So yeah. Wow, okay. Well, this is like super cool. If you joined us for another episode of the nonprofit show, you might think you've joined like the power hour, but this has been awesome. And this is just, I wanted to spend this time, so one, I could kind of get to know you, but also I think it's, I love hearing about your lens because I think that's gonna really inform how you answer a lot of these questions. And like I said, this is a start, it's so bizarre because I see pictures of your beautiful face and your name is on our collateral and all these things, but yet you and I have never worked together. And so this is gonna be really fun to kind of have this conversation. And again, we don't have these conversations on the nonprofit show without a cadre of sponsors that have stepped up and they're with us. And that includes Blumerang, American nonprofit academy, fundraising academy at National University, nonprofit nerd, your part-time controller, nonprofit thought leader and staffing boutique. These are the folks that are with us day in and day out so that we can share these things. You can also find our archives on Roku, YouTube TV, Amazon Fire TV and Vimeo, and now we have all of our episodes on podcast format. So wherever you like to queue up your content, we're gonna be there with you. Okay, are you ready, my friend, for the first question? Now you don't know this about me, Muhee, but when I get a name withheld, I get all excited. These are like my best, my most favorite things. Now, in full transparency, sometimes we do get questions and I put on their, I put on name withheld because I don't want them to be identified because sometimes they're like, oh, this might be a problem. So let's go, my friend. The question is today, I want to join AFP, Association of Fundraising Professionals. It's not associations, it's association, although they have different associations throughout the country, but technically it's association. I think membership will help me learn and increase my professionalism. Our CFO does not think the non-profit should pay for this help. This was so interesting. Yeah, I absolutely love this question. Hey, I'd love to know what position this person is in. Are they the CDO? Are they a major gift officer? So that is one aspect of this because if the CFO is part of certified financial organization or like some financial organization, like are they paying out of pocket? Do they have the salary that can compensate them to do so? Is this person a lower part of the organizational ladder where maybe that $150, $200 for the AFP membership is out of pocket for them and all of those things. I 100% stand by non-profits paying for AFP memberships. Like organizations should be investing in their staff, should be providing the resources to empower their employees to learn the best practices. And AFP has been such a critical part of my success as a fundraiser. So I wholeheartedly believe in it. Going to those conferences has met so much, meeting so many professions from around the world, especially in the States who are active in their chapters who I've presented with on a variety of topics and have gone to other chapters to present even. So the network is so important and has pushed me to be a stronger professional if anything else. So I wholeheartedly believe that non-profits should be paying the membership fee for AFP. You know, that's cool to hear you say that. And so I appreciate that. I have to say when I first read this, you know what I thought? I thought, and this is just like a popped into my brain. I have no idea if this is true or not, but it almost made me think that the CFO what thinks that this is the place where their staff might get poached. And so that they're holding back, they're like, yeah, we don't wanna put you out there because we don't wanna pay for you to get picked off by another organization. And what I would say to that is if you're not investing in your staff in these little things or giving them a professional development budget, of course they're gonna wanna leave. So you gotta retain them first if you don't want them to leave, right? Right, right. Yeah, it's really an interesting thing. And then I think another thing too, it's like, you know, that fray that's old saying, you know, penny-wise pound foolish. Or nope, yeah, penny-wise pound. No, penny, yeah, penny-wise pound foolish. You know, the thing of it is, is like it's such a minimal investment for such a huge input. I mean, like, wow, big, big problem on that. They're probably chasing down pennies in other ways that just are really tough. So I love what you just said about trying to retain your folks. Man, this is not a way to do it. So name withheld. I hope that you are successful with this. Also, it makes me wonder, are there scholarship programs? I see this in some from time to time in different AFP chapters. What has your experience been with that? Yeah, you know, I think there's a Chamberlain scholarship. There's another one through AFP for membership, depending on the age of the name withheld. Like there are some for young professionals. And they even have small nonprofit discounts or scholarships as well. Like if your budget is considerably less than say where I used to work at American Red Cross, you can still get discounted membership rates. So by any means necessary, I would suggest trying to get that membership. Yeah, that's good advice. Thank you for that. Because wow, we need all the help in developing professionals and professional skills in our sector. It's only gonna make our whole sector stronger. So wow, okay, well, good luck. Hey, Eric from Wichita, Kansas writes in, are interim positions only for the CEO or CFO? We are determining if this concept might be a good avenue to pursue when someone leaves our C-suite. Are you seeing interim titles in other places? You know, when I was at the American Red Cross, my director, I was a major gift officer and my director went on maternity leave. I stepped in as interim director for about three months and it was really interesting opportunity for me to take on that role, lead my peers in our weekly meetings and work with the chief development officer to see the pipeline of everything, how prospecting was working at the national level for the organization and gave me a lot of insights and it was that interim opportunity that piqued my interest to want to go further to become a director and a CDO. And in my career, I've been fortunate enough to hold those positions at various organizations, but it really was that three month interim opportunity that told myself and having mentors like Jack Alada who's been a guest on this show many times who's always believed in me and told me you obviously could be a CDO when I wasn't ready to be a CDO myself, but then it gave me that perspective of yes, that was a good insight and avenue into what are the responsibilities of a C-suite professional or of a director professional. So I think all organizations, when somebody steps away, takes another job, is on maternity leave to empower their staff to, even if you need to split it amongst two or three people, not just one person, sometimes those interim roles come with a pay bump, sometimes they don't, but it's more of a workload. So it's all about negotiating how you make it work, but I would definitely encourage people if they have the capacity to look into those interim opportunities to see if it's something that you'd be interested in. Maybe you're an individual fundraiser, but there's an interim opportunity for corporate and you wanna learn more about it and it gives you the opportunity to learn more in that regard. Those are all things that I would think allow you to explore about. Okay, so let me ask you this, since you've been on the other side of the table, let me ask you this, what happened when you were no longer interim? So two questions, I guess, when you were named interim, did you see your peers and the reaction and the interplay change? And then when you were no longer interim, what happened? I mean, like, because you were like up and then you're back or what was that like? Yeah, a little interesting dynamics. I think since my boss was on maternity leave, it was expected that she would return. So it wasn't like, oh, I would assume the position a few months down the road after I did it. I think if it was open-ended and there was a whole hiring process and things like that, it may have been a little bit more cautious, but knowing that it was temporary, that it would be to just get us through these three months, I think other people were like, I'm glad you're the one doing it. Oh my God, that's hilarious in a horrible way. Oh my God. But I think it comes with the territory as well. It opened up so many avenues and perspectives. Like within the national organization of Red Cross, it gave me access to the vice president of development across the entire country. It gave me access to other chief development officers in different regions across the country. So it really allowed me to expand my network and just have a global perspective of how the Red Cross operates and seeing that large-scale organizational infrastructure allowed me to really set up my own national nonprofit, the American Muslim Community Foundation. So totally valuable experience for me. So, you know, you kind of listening to you, you switched something in my brain and I have to fess up to this. When I think of interim positions, I think of like an external person coming in. And what's really cool, like what you just like, totally opened up a whole new side of this perspective, perspective for me. And that is, is that finding people within your organization that can rise up or take on that additional responsibility and assume a title of interim, knowing that, you know, knowing that, you know, it is truly going to be an interim and that it'll slide back, you know, to somebody else. Yeah, that's cool. I appreciate you sharing that because we always think of this as like that hired person that comes in, maybe not even from your community, right? You know, they're coming in from maybe a whole other part of the country to take on this work. Very interesting. Well, Eric, I hope that helps to you because I think that getting Moohi's perspective on this totally sells me on this concept, which is super powerful. And we need to keep our organizations running. We can't just like stop and say, oh yeah, call us back in three months or, you know, and we need to be working on this. Okay, Naya from Portland, Oregon writes in, how can we make our office environment more appealing for staff? Someone has floated, bring your pet to workday. Do you have any ideas on this? You know, aside from fellow staff members having allergies or things like that, like be cautious and aware of those things, but yeah, absolutely. Like I would bring my dog into the office all the time and it was like the best days of the week when I was able to do so. And yeah, it's more convenient for the pet owner. It's, if people are pet lovers, it's more engaging for the rest of the staff. Yeah, I mean, I absolutely loved it and benefited from it. And it was like my emotional support dog for work, you know? And when other people brought in their pets, if it was on the same day, they would get to have fun. And yeah, so I would bring in my dog maybe once or twice a week when I had the flexibility to. Really? Wow. So, okay, you know, I think this is like where my age difference comes in. I mean, I have to fess up, you know, I live in the work in the desert Southwest and I have a pretty sizable lizard that gets into the building and out. So I've made peace with that as just part of something on this planet that I'm gonna, I have to deal with. And that's like as far as I can go. I can't imagine bringing a pet to work unless you were like, you know, somebody that's in that ecosystem. I just, you know, I know that this is like one of those things that helps retain employees, build better culture, aligns people to more of a personal issue like this is how I live and this is, you know, yeah, but I just, I can't get beyond that. Isn't that interesting? It's different perspectives. And you know, there are other things that can make the office environment. I've heard of other companies doing like a lunch credit once a week. And even throughout COVID when majority of people were working from home, they would send a meal to their employees. Yeah. And, you know, little things like that will go a long way. So there's other things that you can do as well. Like now that people are back to the social aspect of things of course, a happy hour once a month and celebrating birthdays once a month. All of those things will make the office environment more appealing. So different things that you can add to the list other than bringing in pets. Well, I'm like showing my age. I have to, and I said to you in the green room chatter, we don't always have to agree. That's part of the fun of this. You know, we don't always have to agree. Okay, we don't have a lot of time left but I really am intrigued by this question. Because I have not seen this question come through and it's really kind of an interesting thing. Lewister from Atlanta, Georgia writes in, this is an odd question but how important do you think it is to have executive leadership staff and board member photographs on our website? It seems to be a major point of discussion and hard to get this done. Most people don't like having their pictures taken. I fess up to that. But what do you think about that? I think a bio name, title, even if there's no photo along with it is very important. Especially if you want donors to be major donors to your organization, who is the leadership? Who are the board members? Maybe somebody will find out that their neighbor or friend or a family member is close to an organization and wanna help them out. There's so many benefits to having names and bios and of course photographs as well on websites. It's different, let's say, if it's a domestic violence organization and maybe there's somebody who's a survivor that's part of it and very intricate things like that. Okay, great. Wow, and I appreciate that. I think we lost you for just a little bit but the reality, I'm just to rephrase this, absolutely, I agree with you. I think this is part of transparency. It's all about leadership. Who's leading our team? Who are reinvesting as community members and we're donor investors? Who's gonna be there and who can we count on to lead our organizations? Wow, you know, this has been fabulous. I have loved getting to know you as bizarre as it may seem through the screen because this is the start of, I think, more time in the chairs, we like to say, that we're gonna be coming back to you and learning more and more about what it is you do and your values and how you approach your work. You know, at some point, I would love to learn more about the American Muslim Community Foundation. I'm super intrigued by community foundation work and what they do. I see it in my own community and my own state in the region. So we really should find some time to explore that because it's just a magical way I think of thinking and it really propels a lot more a philanthropic organization on the funder side that maybe folks might have never thought they could do something like that. And that's really cool to do that. So offline, I'll rope you back into that because I would love to know more about this. Here's Moe's information. He is a trainer of Fundraising Academy and wow, you know, we're such big fans of your work and what you all do over there and so this is gonna really be fun, Moe, to get you more engaged with us and hear your prospects to what we can do. I'm really looking forward to it. Thank you so much, Julia. Oh my gosh, it's been amazing. And again, for those of you joining us, you know, Moe's coming to us from Columbia. How super cool is that? So we are so excited that you would take some time to join us. Of course. Oh my gosh. We wanna make sure that we thank Blue Morang American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit nerd, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, and the non-profit thought leader. Without them, we would not be here having these amazing conversations. We also like to end every episode with this mantra that says, stay well so you can do well. And I think, Moe, we, I hope you were with us in the beginning when Moe shared with us the trajectory of his stellar career, but the toll that it can take and how we don't wanna lose good talent. We want to stay well, so we can do well. And so I say this line every day, and I think sometimes I don't hear it myself, but today, Moe, when you shared with us, your path, that really rang true. So thank you for that. That's just really awesome. Of course, I'm so honored to be here and definitely would love to talk more about AMCF and anything else that you have. I'm looking forward to doing more of these with the partnership through Fundraising Academy. So thank you again so much for having me on. Well, I say when you head down to that beach, please think of me today. You get to the beach. Definitely, I'll be there in a few hours after wrapping up work. Okay, just like kick a little sand into the ocean and be like the honor of Julia. Yep, yep, you got it. All right, everybody truly, stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here next week, thanks.