 and welcome, we are so glad to have you here at the nonprofit show. Today we are thrilled to have with us, Angela D. Barnes. She is the interim vice chancellor at Indiana University East. Thrilled for you to bring this subject matter to us, Angela, because you're gonna talk to us about cost benefit and analysis that needs to happen when it comes to building your case. So before we bring you into conversation, we want to remind all of our amazing viewers and listeners whether you are joining us for the first time or you're a loyal, dedicated viewer. Thank you. Julia Patrick is here. Julia is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. This is her brainchild. She literally thought and told me, this is how she ripped me in, that it was going to be a two week endeavor and here we are four plus years into this two week endeavor. And that's what gave me my white hair. It's been worth it. I'm Jared Ransom, co-host, but nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group, truly amazed by our guest conversations that we have. So no pressure, Angela, but truly we are always amazed by the conversations that come on the show because they've changed. We talk about all things nonprofit and while we thought we would run out of topics, we don't, but topics evolve and the conversations evolve. But we must say thank you to our amazing presenting sponsors. These are the companies that lean into us and lean into you ultimately for your mission. So thank you to our friends over at Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University. Also thank you to nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, nonprofit tech talk, nonprofit nerd, as well as staffing boutique. So again, many of these companies truly have been with us since March of 2020. Also signed up for that two-week journey, right? Which is now four years of the making, coming up on 900 episodes. So if you've joined us before, you've heard me tout 900 because that is a heck of a lot of conversations. But we do this for you. And again, thank you to our sponsors. If you missed any of those episodes or Angela says this amazing, inspirational thought piece today and you wanna go back and listen to it, we have you covered my friends. So you can scan the QR code right now if you're watching and you can download the app. And in just a matter of hours, you'll get a notification that the broadcast has now been uploaded onto that platform. We're still on the streaming broadcast as well as podcast. So wherever you choose to consume your information, please do check out the nonprofit show because we're there free of charge with plenty of information for your consumption. That was a lot for the startup. But again, all of this to really welcome you, Angela, because we are just, I'm honored to have you here, Angela D. Barnes, MBA, CFRE. And then also your title here we have as Interim Vice Chancellor at Indiana University East. Welcome to you. Thank you for having me. Jared, you and I actually met in person back at Cultivate 2023, the inaugural event that kicked off everything in San Diego. So it was quite the honor to be on your show a couple months later. Well, thrilled to have that. Yes, thank you. Fundraising Academy has been a wonderful partner. Each and every week we have a representative from that team. So I meet amazing people at these conferences. So glad that the nonprofit show is back on the road, so to speak, to meet people like you, to bring conversations to the forefront. And this one we're talking about today is I'm gonna say a whopper because I don't think we talk about it enough, but moreover, talk about it. I don't think we do enough about it. So let's dive deep. I am looking forward to learning with you and from you, but let's get started here on what it takes to analyze how you and your team, how they spend their time. What does this look like and what are you seeing? So this is an interesting assignment when you give your team this and even give yourself this task, Jared, to sit down and analyze how you spend your time. So this simple task has met with a lot of anxiety when I've given this out and I've said to people, you know, list how you spend your time. You can start by project and list the tasks of the project on a daily basis and then approximately how many hours you spend on that time. Another good way to approach this, we might talk about this later on in this deck, is by your calendar. I don't know about you, but I put everything on my calendar, okay? And especially all the meetings. Look at all of the time you are spending on meetings and then divide that up as to whether or not that's your scope of work or it's for the company or the organization you work for. But analyzing that is important. I love that you said that to really quantify what it is that the intent of that meeting is for. Because we don't always think of it that way, do we? No, no, we, you know, in this industry, we are people pleasers at times. So we don't say no and this exercise right here helps you understand why you should say no and then you can formulate the no before you are asked, okay, because it's coming down the pike. Someone's gonna ask you to do something that is not within the scope of work that either you do or you do not have time for. And those are intense findings. So then let me ask you this. If that's the case and you have people saying, yeah, but we need to meet because we need to make some decisions. What is that next thing? Is it like, we'll put it to me in an email and I'll respond or how do we navigate the results that a meeting is supposedly gonna bring us? We talked about this a little bit with a class I was attending for CFREs who are studying to obtain your CFREs and it was on a similar vein, Julia. Border trustees are telling me that they want me to do X, Y, Z and they keep bringing up suggestions on how to fundraise and I don't know how to make them stop. And I explained to them the reason why you are getting those requests is because you do not have a plan in place. When you have a plan in place and you have gathered everybody's information and opinions to formulate that plan then you roll out that plan and that's all you talk about. All of those suggestions kind of magically disappear. So in the same sense with your question and I've had this happen over and over again the same thing with your line of questioning Julia which is great when you have a plan in place you can show this is what I'm working on this is what I need to continue on this is the next step this is my milestone I need to hit next week. All of that goes away because people understand where you are in your own process because you have created your own process and it starts with the task manager of figuring out how you spend your time. Okay that's that's fascinating. I would have never I would have never aligned that action to workflow. That's fascinating. That's fascinating. Jared I am going to give you but I was like so I was like I have to know the answer to this I'm sorry to say you know Angela I mentioned when we started this that I don't think we talk about it enough but I really don't think we look into this and do the work it takes to to find that cost analysis. Truly the only one time I have really seen this sorry twice I've seen this work but usually it's around grant management right and so it's having staff essentially track their hours and their time sheet based upon what project they're working on whether it's program but really this is an account I've seen it as an accounting measure to report accurately to funders so that's really my own expertise in this area. Wow and that's a good call out Jared your spot on another area that I've seen this use that has been very effective as an events should we continue to do this event and because we're not looking at the true cost that includes labor labor expands that it shrinks your return on investment quickly which is quickly and I'll take a salary person and divide up their hours over a 1,960 hour year that's normally 2,080 hours but you strip out two weeks for vacation one week for kind of PTO and things like that and then you look and see along with the tasks that they've given you and the hours that they've given you you compare that to the hours that they should spend one time I found an individual and this was really kind of career saving for her she had spent over 700 hours a year on an event so she had spent over she went over the 1,960 hour mark she was over by 700 hours we found out why that was happening was because she was spending time on an event 72% of her time Jared and Julia went to an event that raised 0.5% of the annual goal that's her now it was and so she because she couldn't prove the case that it was the event was worth cancelling now she had the data to say to leadership I don't think this is a good use of my time right and I think that takes courage and bravery right like I think I mean first of all having the data absolutely so let's move on to you know for this example in particular she reviewed the daily tasks and really looked at this cost benefit time analysis I remember when I started my career many moons ago I would not have had the courage to say that right I would have said basically people pleasing whatever you need I'm here to do it because that falls under all other duties as a side right that that's a that's a weird yes you see that on every role description you're like wait what that's the junk drawer in the kitchen you know in everyone's kitchen it's kind of like that's where everything else falls okay so talk to us then Angela about you know reviewing our task and then looking at this cost benefit time analysis so being as honest as a person can be about the task that's where it starts if you are spending time doing ancillary things that do that are out of the scope of work or out of the project scope of work this is extremely effective too if you were a consultant okay write those down I put them on a spreadsheet and then I grouped them according to project this is what I this is what I do for this project this is what I do for this project or this program then I start looking at approximately how many hours I spend on that even if it's 30 minute increments those add up next I look at it per month and then once I put those on paper I have and I add that's when I start massaging the data okay I start looking at it and start figuring out the themes and where time is going what aligns with the scope this person's scope of work versus what aligns with a hidden agenda somewhere with the new organization okay the hidden agendas happen all the time or and sometimes or one person's request at a higher level okay this particular the particular example I gave you was going against an X council person's request all right so this was a tough one but we got through it and that person felt better because they weren't standing up for themselves they were standing up for the data oh I love that we talk often about data is sexy right data data but data is sexy and so I love that she was then equipped to say look I'm I'm showing you data this is the data you're you're right Jared data is sexy data is needed and data can save your career okay because if you're stuck at this level because you're doing these tasks now you have the opportunity to elevate all right so sorry so Angela or you know you go you go because I okay good yeah we have so many questions as you can tell so my question is what if an organization does not want to implement this cost analysis but an employee does right so so what if the employee says again I would like to prove in data that we should not be having this event how how might we go about this as an individual versus an organization implementing this across the the the board I would call it a task assessment you did your own task assessment and this is what you came up with because you you wanted to have the discussion of how to prioritize your time how to prioritize projects how to prioritize programming if you can't do it all this is what I can do and then you become the subject matter expert on your time because you're standing there with that data it's so hard I give data devil's advocate will the supervisor or have you seen this then push back and say well how much time did you take on this task assessment have you heard that come about to one instance and the person had did it on their own time and another instance where a person said this is part of my role as managing my time I love that I love that where is it not listed on a job description or within somebody's performance reviews managing time right and so that leads me to my question is do you find that people are shocked at what the what the data says that they they're like what I actually this is what's happening because I think a lot of times we have this narrative in our mind based on the stress of task management that we have to achieve and what we feel is important and what we feel we're good at or not good at and then when it's all laid out I've got to believe there's some inconsistencies or or maybe some things revealed that we we didn't intuitively recognize I think the best way I can answer that question Julia is with the same example I gave you regarding a person spending 72 percent of their time on a 0.5 on an event they brought in 0.5 percent of the annual goal this person said to me literally her face had just kind of collapsed and she said it's not even a whole percentage yeah I'm not even bringing in a whole percentage yeah that's true so I mean you know I'm not even bringing in a whole percentage it's not even a 1% Angela and that is where we are become motivated to understand what it would take to affect change you know one of the areas that we talked about in San Diego during Cultivate 2023 was how to influence leaders such as board members leadership the leadership team those in the C-suite and one of them is through data data tells data shapes a narrative often times the narrative doesn't align with the data case in point people were told because you know data comes into elements quantitative and qualitative so I know I'm preaching to the choir about this sometimes we have an incredible amount of quantitative data but the decision is made according to your qualitative data what are the feelings emotions and perceptions around this decision but the hardcore data shapes the soft data all right you need both but one is shaping the other let me give an example an event a program was being was being considered and there was perceptions around the outcomes the effectiveness of this what this new program would do but the data showed the opposite so you know how we can fall in love with our own ideas absolutely okay every day data stops that yeah data says no well we you know um we found out our our our alums love going to this event actually three out of 300 people are actual alums that attend this event I thought it was more here is here here's the data right okay so it's it's those kind of conversations that sometimes are challenging but boy are they worth it if there's ever a time to take a leap it's because data is is is under your wings you can fly on data you can't fly on anything else I tell you that no I hope in a prayer we'll talk to us about realigning now so we're going to use the data and we're going to realign then some of our or all of our daily tasks for you know those stated goals how does this take place right how do we go into a new direction like I think a lot of times when we look at the data and we're like okay this isn't working but that doesn't answer the question of well what will work right so how do we how do we get there because I think a lot of times we just keep doing what is supposedly comfortable we do what we did last year yeah yeah we do what we do last year what do we do last year okay let's take out that blueprint that there's a fear in creating a new blueprint right right what if it doesn't work yeah what if I'm wrong what if I don't know you know imposter syndrome all of a sudden pops up and says that you're not a subject matter expert on your job then who is I mean on our so so how to realign data how to realign your daily tasks taking out your scope of work your job description things like that it's helpful and aligning that with what you've been doing and seeing where there's inconsistencies because if somebody my thing is do your own audit or one will be done on you all right do your own audit on your department or one will be done it's up to you you know if you come into this it's this area that I can hand you a task assessment thing that here you are let me know if you if you find anything different maybe they'll tell you something different so do you first of all perform your own audit and this is for this is we're seeing a really cute way of calling this an audit at times you know look at what you've been working on after you've looked at your job saying your job description of your role and then align it with the outcomes you've been receiving data doesn't lie yeah you had mentioned a spreadsheet so is this excel I mean any kind of a basic spreadsheet how do we go about this like at the at the basics it shouldn't cost money it's just simply the tools you already have there's a couple different fields on a spreadsheet those those columns that'll help you conduct this research quickly the first field that you would list of the first column basically is the task make that spread make that a big column because sometimes it takes a lot to actually explain what the heck you're doing like what are you doing what am I doing what what why would I do that and if you cannot explain it you probably shouldn't do it that's that's the hard and fast rule the second field is what category is it administrative work is it actual fundraising events is it event work okay is it project work is it community what category does this fall under that'll help you to group these hours in a way that makes sense to you and then the third one hours hours you're spending under each task and then the fourth one recommended hours oh interesting that's a great yeah I love that because you get the hundred yeah that's brilliant Angela that's really you need to add or you need to delete right right well and I think to the earlier point about how shocked we can be at what where the day goes I mean we say this every day on the nonprofit show where does the morning go right you know we're like what happened and so I can see that that truth to to the existence if you will you know really stepping back and saying okay this is what occurred and this is how long it took Angela I'm curious do you recommend this is an annual assessment a quarterly assessment and then you know to double down on this question when there's a new employee that comes out do you recommend that they start out of the gate with their own assessment I mean I'm just what I feel super empowered right by the information you've provided but now I'm I'm an action taker so I'm like what does this look like and how often do I need to do it yeah I agree so admittedly I've been the one in my former life as a consultant I've done it when there's been a problem sure and that's probably that induces anxiety it does it's like oh so what do you want to know what hours I'm working on because I'm not adding up you know so if you if you are a self starter and you or your team would like to do this as just a basic exercise I recently implemented this in my new role and it was we don't have a problem the new person myself just needs insight into what we're doing every day sure okay so it's very simple as to what we're doing every day and then how I can help serve by helping remove things off of team members plates that don't align with their passion or the scope of work that they've been tasked with okay so there's there's one there's two ways to go about it it's either because there's a problem somebody's been called in or you know I'd really love to see what we're all working on how that we can bring that together and then what can we remove before people start asking us to do anymore yeah and when you look at what's too much do you also consider what could be streamlined by way of automation simplification integration right are you looking at that as well absolutely and that's when you can you receive the ideas they start flowing they start percolating Jared okay I see that we're spending X amount of hours across all the team members are spending X amount of hours on this we probably should automate this because none of this aligns with the scope of work we've been tasked with all right and it's easy to automate so that's when the idea is but when you don't have the data in front of you along with the task you don't know it's like I don't know where to start now I know where to start you know it's so interesting because I feel like you can embark upon this and it's like punitive to your to your point there's a problem we need to figure it out or it's really liberating and and everybody can get involved in it and say let's be honest let's be transparent and then let's see what's cooking right because I feel like we're in a new dawn because of the pandemic we have hybrid we have people coming back we've all learned to work with technology in a different way this I feel like is the golden hour for some of these things to be taken in a more or be embraced in a more positive light does that make sense it does and I mentioned self starter because is that also not on every job description every every job role you see out there I'm a self starter okay I'm not an engine but let's but if I am this is what I would do I would sit down in terms of a new a new person I would have the data ready for a new person when they enter and say these are some of the rabbit holes you can fall down too many meetings look out for this let's let's see how we can make sure that we're building a plate that you want you still want to eat off of in another year right right because otherwise we're going to take that plate or that blueprint from last year recreate recreate you know like we're just going to repurpose so we're using blueprints from 1900s if you really seriously if you look at organizations we're using blueprints oh it's it's historic no it's it's unnecessary we need to modernize our blueprints are we using AI to automate some of this Jared are we using are we bringing in other team members or other other departments Julia to help us with this why has this landed here you know well let's look at them we're thrilled that you landed with us because it's been just amazing Angela D Barnes MBA CFRE the interim vice chancellor Indiana University and the east campus really exciting to get your perspective to to give us a way to look at things in a different light that ultimately are going to you know help us in so many other ways and I just love your flow and and how you address this with us it's really been a lot of fun Angela thank you so much again I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit academy you've been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself Jared or ransom CEO of the Raven Group our nonprofit nerd I like to color my nonprofit nerd but she can be your nonprofit nerd as I push up my glasses you know that's right right on cue I need the tape right here on my glasses hey everybody we are here today with the amazing support of our presenting sponsors and they include Bloomerang American nonprofit academy your part-time controller nonprofit thought leader fundraising academy at national university staffing boutique nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk these are the folks that join us day in and day out so we can have amazing people like Angela Barnes on with us who if you were on earlier we met through a fundraising academy event at national university in san diego and so really exciting and that's kind of how these things in life you know the serendipity of meeting people but just been really great I think I needed to hear this message from you today on a Monday morning Angela this was this was good for me personally this was really great and I'm so delighted that you could join us thank you so much me too super informational very inspiring yes absolutely it's what we needed and it turned my Monday truly into a Monday because again empowering because I really feel this as an opportunity for all of us and we don't have to be directed with our organization to do this we can do an individual assessment for ourselves to really manage our own time which again truly inspirational so Angela Barnes thank you for turning our Monday into a Monday I think every day should be a yay at the end and thank you for all of you that joined us either live or on one of our recording platforms we're so glad that you're here and as we end every episode we want to remind you to please stay well so you can do well thank you Angela and we'll see everyone else here tomorrow