 So we of course want to thank all of our presenting sponsors, you can see their logos on the screen, we are so extremely grateful to have each and every one of you in our corner but also in every single corner of the nonprofit sector. So thank you so much for everything that you do to lift up millions, billions of missions and causes around our globe. And Julia, you're right there lifting them up to as Julia is the CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm so glad to join you each and every morning. I'm Jarrett ransom, the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group and those glasses as you just saw in my logo. Thank you just on Jeffrey's face so thank you for that Jeffrey we are going to nerd out with you you're one of my favorite nerd peers, innovative disruptor, like just totally my kin, I love it. Alex joins us he is the president and chief advancement officer with third sector company and you are joining joining us today as a thought leader to talk to us specifically about a topic. Board governance but first let me welcome you Jeffrey and thanking you so much for joining us today. Well thank you I can't think of a better place to be and people I love talking nonprofit stuff with so thanks for hanging out with me this morning. Absolutely. You know, we get this question a lot. And it starts like this, a board chair, maybe a CEO, maybe an a board chair coming up, says, Oh my God, we need help on board governance. And a lot of times I'll say, Okay. And they'll be like, we don't really know. So that's why we need help because we don't really know. I'm fascinated by this. And it's almost like peer pressure, Jeffrey the sense of like board governance board governance but what is it so let's back up and start there. Well, joy, you've hit on a million dollar question we could play the family feud on this one with, you know, as the studio audience and how they define governance we've got a game show. I spent, you know, 20 years of my career with United Ways and great cities in this country, including Phoenix, Arizona. And as a funder of not for profits I did have a rather unique view of relationships with boards and the role that boards play in just a variety of organizations. And I'm so right. We also don't have a lot of help right now, because even if you put up various dictionaries and you pick up the word governance. There are so many different answers for this. And so I like to take a very uncomplicated role about this governance really is an organization exercising stewardship with the community it serves. It is exercising stewardship and that word has to do with that means that we have an accountability to the community that we serve in making sure that our organization is creating impact that we all want to see. It is, it is different than a corporate board, because you're overseeing here a cause versus overseeing a corporation. It's all causes before we were corporations. And so it took a board of it took a first board to become so great at being a cause. Guess what they'd incorporate. Pretty interesting but but but the answer to the question is, it really is about stewardship and action, based in having a check and balance about doing diligence, and it's about being accountable to a community. When you say cause I just want you to know and I and I want to like just own up to this. Well one I could listen to you talk and just nerd out all all year long 24 seven right because it just it just speaks to me like I said we are Ken we're just you know related. I am currently in your board chair Academy and that is something that I decided to take after going through your interim executive Academy. I said I want to know more about how these two pivotal, you know pieces play a role in one another. In your board chairs Academy Jeffrey that I learned, I really heard it expressed this way that you just said of, you know, we are governing a cause, and I have since then, changed my vernacular right it's like oh we're governing the nonprofit we're governing the organization we're governing it's like we're governing a cause and that to me just turned me on my head spun me, you know, upside down and I was like, of course that's what we're doing that makes so much more sense. And I just want, I want to witness to you and for all of those, you know watching and listening. That was a big aha moment for me. You know, for me just having a conversation with the board about what is intrinsically different between a group of people who see themselves as governing, however they define that word governing an institution versus governing a community movement a community cause. Yeah. So, you know, this makes me ask you this question about board governance systems because it seems to me that we have a lot of different things coming at us now we have advisory boards we have the board of directors we have young, you know professional boards we have team boards we have all these different things. And it seems as though we're understanding that the, that the successful organizations have successful boards no matter the cause. And I'll be frank with you sometimes I look at, you know, across this landscape, million point eight nonprofits, and it's easy to become a snob you can say wow. It's really a worthy cause but yet they get it right they make more money than anybody else. And so I'm kind of curious, you know how we look at some of these systems. And if you're seeing that. Well of course I'm seeing it, but I think the difference between you used I think the word you know really successful boards are excellent boards. I think where we as a nonprofit sector have kind of tripped on our own feet. Julia is, are we preoccupied with the process of governance, or should we be pre occupied on the outcome of governance. I mean, and you pick up a lot of books, and you pick up a lot of magazine articles and professional journals that will tell you the how tos of governance as though it's like making a meatloaf. You know, people live in a neighborhood and everybody can like is often the bake off. But, but we get preoccupied and how we do it and the funny part about it is, to your point, even organizations that that you may even kind of like question, they're real clear on their outcomes. But the process is merely the details. And so are you an organization that is preoccupied with the weeds, or the trees, or are you an organization who's preoccupied by the forest. And on the subject of governance, you can pick up a lot of books that just talk about all the trees. And for me when I teach is whether you have one staff or no staff or you have 500 staff. You have a board of eight or you have a board of 800. When you concentrate on a group of people who are trying to achieve an outcome together, they will develop the system that's appropriate for their culture for their community and their people to get that outcome achieved. And it's not for me to write a book and Tom how to do it. It is for me to tell them what the end of the journey should be, and I'll give you a perfect example of that. I believe that that governance has to have six outcomes, whether you're a small organization or your large one. One of those outcomes has to be that you are evolving with your community and you're making impact. That is an outcome. Okay, how you choose to evolve your organization, the voices that you hear the inclusiveness that is involved in that evolution process is yours. But however you do it an outcome of governance is you evolve your organization with the community that you serve. That is big, especially. It's making me think about and I use pandemics plural because as Julie was saying earlier with you Jeffrey, you know, 2020 was a year of so much unrest right the, the global virus, the social injustice, the global divide, the economic crash there's a lot going on there. So the evolution of how we serve our community was. That was big what you just said and I just want to you know make note of that because that really should take a take a huge place in, excuse me how you govern your cause is how it also evolves with the community needs. Absolutely. And what we've learned over the past year is the out again the outcome I think remains the same both pre pre pandemic and post. We have to evolve our organizations with our communities and our communities have gone through incredible change. You know, Julia put up on the screen the whole thing about governance systems, a governance system is nothing more than the voices and people who work together to create the outcome that your cause deserves. It is not a series of bodies that appear on a sheet of paper. These are voices, and are the voices such that we are providing due diligence in having the kind of impact that our cause should have on the community. So systems will change. I'll give you one another example and outcome of governance is is that you're preparing the next generation to take over from you. You have you have an obligation to make sure that the community has next generation of people to follow in your footsteps, they're not going to magically appear. That's an outcome of governance. So, you know when I think I've got when I hear from folks that are talking about governance, and they talk about governance issues, it seems it seems to me. A lot of this is like, well, you know, our bylaws need to be updated. Our, you know, in our board engagement needs to be, you know, we need to put thumbtacks on the wall that say, you're going to do this and you're going to do that. And maybe what I'm hearing you say is we need to step back and look at that future piece. And, and, you know, like you said, weeds versus the trees. And the distant lake and the future view. It's kind of an interesting thing because I don't know many boards that are looking down the road as much as work worried about fundraising, of course, wolves at the door, and then that those those human issues that we have to deal with with our other board members. And it's a lot of it's accountability. It's total accountability. And people want to get behind accountable organizations. Yeah, but but here's what I have seen has happened Julia is is that most of our organization started out to change the world. And they had a fire in their in their in their soul. And over a series of years, we moved from outwardly focused to inwardly gazed. So what happened is we went into the organization decided to start dissecting it. Well, I have to say in the early days there was an organization to dissect. Yeah, it was it was a group of people who were constantly building for the community. And until we get back to this zeal of building for the community. And that our board rooms are where generations of people learn to be community leaders, where innovation comes from hearing all voices. And that that our nonprofits actually have a role in changing systemic racism that exists in our community. Do we get begin to say, do we really need to spend 45 minutes on this committee report. Yeah, you know I was just listening to a podcast the other day and Jeffrey you know me so well so I think you'll appreciate this humor. It was with Oprah Winfrey and they were saying how when there's a sound bite that comes out of a conversation Oprah will say tweet tweet, because that means like it's such a good sound bite that that's going to be tweeted and like just going viral. So much of what you just said in my head right I'm going like tweet tweet because all of that is a great sound bite. And you know this and that's why you always say like man you make a, you know a grown man blush is I could listen to you and how eloquent you put forward governance which some people would like snooze fast right on this platform of it's understandable in the accountability is a big piece like it makes me want to do more for my community and for the organization in which I'm serving so. Again, in my head I'm using the Oprah like tweet tweet because I've sound bite is just brilliant and and I know that that you speak volumes behind all of those sound bites so thank you for that. You know, good. You know, it's interesting. It seems to me Jeffrey that a lot of us worry about those inner workings. And we're not looking at the future. And in the sense of, of where are we a value to our community. And I'm wondering how, when we've become so data structured. When we as board members board leaders, CEOs, we look at this data and we're like, Oh my God, we can't afford to serve our community, or make payroll or whatever all those things are. It's really hard. It's really hard to get rid of that stress and project out into the future. Right, I mean, I'm wondering how you do that because it's almost like saying oh it'll be okay. What do you think about the future. Well, yeah, and you know how you do it is dependent upon each organization and we're an organization is that in its lifecycle also plays into this as well. There's just lots of variables but I will tell you Joey I do think there are a couple of. If we were going to a physician. There's some vital signs here that I think we could look at one of the vital signs is how healthy is the relationship between the board and executive director. Because it does not trust its management decides to go into the management business and what happens is what you have done is you created a management committee and the board and the organization no longer has a board. Because you've decided to become a management committee then why did you hire staff in the first place. You hired staff because you had become such a force for the community that you needed an infrastructure. When you started focusing on the infrastructure, you lost the velocity that you had created in the community, and now your attention turned towards the management, as opposed to the community. The management isn't helping you change management but don't change your board. Your board is the link between a community's promise for what it wants to be, and a group of citizens who are working together to make it what it can be. And when you stop being that link of what you want for your community and what you can deliver for your community, you stopped being a board. You're saying Jeffrey that's for any organization, any size organization anywhere in the life cycle. It's just how you address the process the systems within the maturity level maybe of your organization that could be different am I understanding that correctly. Yes, and there's a lot behind that Jared that that's a statement that needs a lot of unpacking, but but you have to also understand boards represent the power structure of an organization. And boards represent how you define privilege. If if you, I will tell you if a number of boards, when they formed their organizations had some of the requirements, then that they have now, you probably wouldn't have an organization. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Julia shared a great story. And it was about like an organization that had not changed his bylaws and probably over 100 years or something. And, and so some of some of those stories of evolving, you know, saying this, this might have been how you started but that's not how we're going to continue and, and you're right. That does happen Jeffrey. So, Jeffrey, I've got to ask you this because it seems to me that it's such a big topic. How do we know when we're getting it right. You know it seems to me a lot of boards get freaked out about governance when there may be other problems at hand. But because we started this conversation maybe they don't understand really how they should be performing what the vernacular really is and what it means. But going in the other direction how do we know. I mean is this only something that comes up when we have problems. Good question. Julia because I do think this this complicated question actually has a fairly simple answer. Okay. The first simple answer is, you know, knowing when board governance is in place. As your board spent time answering the question. What would we consider the optimal board for our cause. Have we had a conversation about what do we as a group of people agree constitutes the optimal board for this cause. And it's not something that that we hired a whole bunch of other people to come in and tell us what we should be. And people have to take ownership in is this the optimal board and the optimal board in 2010 will probably be different than the optimal board in 2020. I often like to have board retreats where the whole conversation is about, please tell me about what it would mean to have an optimal board for this organization. And then how do you know it's in place because you make a commitment to do an annual assessment. If you have agreed, these are the benchmarks of an optimal board that we've agreed to. And we have a governance committee or a board development committee that puts a strategy in place to oversee that these what constitutes an optimal board in our shared opinion. Then we take an annual assessment to see how we're doing. That's when you know what's in place. Another thing that we all have to remember is I often think that we refer to boards as though they're a person. And, and, and that, and that you know how do I how do I make my board better that's like say how do I make my child better my parent better my mother you know behave differently. Boards are not a being boards only change and grow because board members have been allowed to grow and change. There's nothing more than the summation of the people around the table. So if you want to develop your board, you have to realize it happens one board member at a time. Wow. You know, that's pretty profound because I think there's a struggle that we have in modern board management, if you will. I would say you're outside of that, helping us to navigate a different way but that it's most folks feel like, you know, our board should be performing and doing the exact same thing. Every meeting every time every year no matter who the person is, as long as we're kind of ticking off those DI boxes, and we're meeting our, our financial goals. The point is well taken because when you have a conversation about what constitutes the optimal board, you then have to have a conversation what constitutes the optimal board meeting. Right. When I look at most board agenda. People are not having an optimal board meeting because it was never designed to be optimal. It was not designed for community leaders to get engaged in in provocative conversation about the issues that are confronting our fellow our fellow neighbors and and the working people in our community and, and, and are we bringing people in to inform us about how they're seeing the world. If you don't have a board meeting that looks like a community at work, you're not going to be an organization at work in the community. Right. That's power. That's a powerful statement and that's so true. You know, it makes me think when I hear you speak like this, that one of the big profiles should be, or words that we're using around our board members should be like champion and ambassador and people that are going to be the voice, if you will, of the cause and going forward and rallying support versus that C suite management approach. Fair. That's more than fair because I think the, the, the folks who were probably on your founding board described themselves as activists or advocates. They didn't even they didn't even talk about such nice things as ambassador, or are they were activists. Most of the nonprofits in this country, we're going to fight homelessness. We're going to make sure that children were not abused that women had the right to vote that all voices met, they didn't do that because they were ambassadors. They did it because they were going to be advocates, and they were going to have activism. And until our boards go back to what got us into business, I am convinced that's what's going to keep us in business. And Julia, we've got it we've got a generation of people that are not going to support you because of what you do. They're going to support you because of what you stand for. And if they only see the staff standing up and standing for something that delivers a huge message. They want people saying, This is wrong. This is right. And I'm going to give to that. And what I'm hearing to Jeffrey is we also have a big, you know, generation, well, and it's spans generations right I think so many of us are really hungry involved right we're hungry for that belonging we're hungry for that sense of what can I do to help right where where can my voice be heard where can my action be seen. So we really are filled with you know so many activists and advocates for multiple causes and I think you know so much goes beyond what does the board say what does the staff say what is that statement that's being made from the organization, where can I play a role, where do I fit in this cause and in the community, and so many of our supporters and just you know loyal, loyal investors and if I if I may be so bold to take a donor right into truly an investor of change. I think we're looking for that I think overall you know our, our population at large is really looking for for that we're looking to feed that that craving of hunger and thirst of. How can we play more of an activist role how play more of an advocate role for this cause that we believe so heartfelt in. And the word that comes to my mind is actually contributor, how can I contribute to whatever means I've got how can I contribute to make sure that there is a four year old in our community that is not going to go to bad hungry is not going to go to bed feeling unsafe is going to feel that they are in a caring and loving home and they're ready and prepared to go to school. I want to contribute to that. And these nonprofits have to figure out is how they can do that. And if it's if it's to sit in the boardroom and tell the staff how to act. I got to tell you, that is not how the original board made it possible for children's advocacy organizations to get off the ground and there's a fabulous children's organizations in the state of Arizona with the Arizona that started many years ago. And that's a key word that when you work on a part of an organization that is an advocating organization. You stop talking about a fundraising plan, you talk about a campaign plan. What is our campaign, it's a campaign for children, it's a campaign to end homelessness. And you know what, every time we come into this boardroom, you got to see are we campaigning as we should. That creates what's called movements. Right. And that's the difference between governing a corporation and governing a cause causes thrive because they are moving, they are moving people and communities to higher ground in a quality of life that all of us want to share and we call home. Tweet tweet. Okay, well I'm profoundly processing. Yes, has. I mean, we've done a year of this of the show. Five days a week. We've had over 250 different guests, and this is your voice is one that's pretty unique. I think that one thing is you're able to articulate things that maybe a lot of us think about or we can't, can't figure out how to verbalize it, and you do that brilliantly. But, but this is a really interesting conversation that you've brought forward with us today because it really is a profound change, and how we are talking about board management. And again, I just use that word, you know management versus cause management versus, you know, strategic thinking, it's a fascinating fascinating thing that you can kind of bring to light for all of us. And this is a discussion that with all of this change that we've had globally as Jared has said, you know multiple pandemics. And this is the time to really evaluate where we are and what we're doing and if we need to make change. A lot of times out of stress you can. It's easier to make change, I believe, you know, Jeffrey Wilcox amazing amazing thought leader and he's joined us here's Jeffrey does training with his team throughout the country. And it's a fascinating fascinating group to see what their thoughts are you have so many different people on your team that are well versed in the nonprofit sector of course your legacy to our sector is profound but not only you Jeffrey is as you know your team, sharing that. So you got your interim executive Academy, which I know Jared ransom has gone through it's been really impressive to see her trajectory in her career, this board chairs Academy now that's relatively new right. No that's actually 14 years old. Next week we're going to graduate our 23rd class over 400 nonprofits. And I'm in that now and like I said I wanted to know more from the interim executive position and how the board chairs Academy really works. I am blown away every session of course I just learned more and more and more that I want to continue to sink my teeth deeper into so I highly recommend both of these academies. It's really awesome. It's really cool. Third sector company amazing I've been a great supporter a great educator to us all. Again I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy been joined by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared ransom. And wow, those glasses really do work right Jeffrey. I love being a nerd. I wouldn't want to be anything else. We did so much to today's conversation, clearly a wonderful thought leader, love so much about about what you offer, and also many of these companies you see in front of you offer, you know, tremendous support and contributions to our sector at large so thanks to our presenting sponsors. Absolutely. Wow, Jeffrey you are a treasure we are thrilled that you would be our thought leader. The nonprofit sector is always an exciting place to be, but when you're with us, you really unlock a lot of possibilities. And I love what you have to say you always energize me. And so thank you thank you for being with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, as we end every day. We want to remind everyone. Stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here.