 Welcome and thank you for joining us today on a Friday which is a fundraising academy sponsored ask and answer episode we reserve one day of the week this day Friday for your questions and this is an opportunity for Julie and I or a fundraising Academy guest to come on and help us answer your questions and we of course have seen these questions change as we continue to navigate the the differences within the pandemic and pandemics plural so again thanks for joining us for today's episode. We are so grateful to have the continued support and investment of our presenting sponsors. There are so many amazing companies in our sector, helping you do more good in and around your community so please do check out these sponsors that support us in supporting you. They are here for your mission and they want to help you move that mission goal forward. Just as Julia Patrick is thanks for having this lovely idea to start the nonprofit show. Hello, Julia is the CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, and I am so grateful and honored to serve alongside as your co host I'm Jarrett ransom, your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group. I shared, you know, just briefly, every Friday so one day a week we come on and we address questions that are viewers, all of you have sent into us there are numerous ways in which you can send us your questions, as well as take advantage of the live opportunity so if you are a live audience member right now watching this national broadcast, we do encourage you to ask us on the spot any questions that you might have, or any, you know, issues that you might be dealing with today on your Friday, you can just use the q&a or the chat button down below and let's get started Julia. This is one of our favorite days. Okay, you know how I live for the name withheld, but it's a double whammy when it's city withheld. Yes. Okay, so this is, you know, this is going to be good. I'm on the five person development team. I just found out that we have made our 2021 goal, which is great. That's not great. That's astounding. Congratulations. Absolutely. I mean huge. I also just found out that our development director will be getting a bonus and the team is not. I am super angry. Wow. You know this is interesting and I'm not quite sure how to answer and address this because I do feel, and now I know why you you submitted this as name withheld city withheld. I know that I've ever been in this position and experienced this exact situation. So I unfortunately do not have firsthand experience to share. But I can tell you that if I were the development director, and I found out that someone within my team was angry by this bonus and this extra support. I do believe that I would address it. I would have a conversation with my team and in particular this, you know, individual, and I would also on the flip side, you know, go back to the CEO or whatever measures we make for our promotions and our bonuses to find out if there's something we can do to be more equitable in the future. And so again, I don't, I would say we don't know the situation. We don't know if this was, you know, a hiring agreement or an annual performance review. I'm thinking there's so many additional layers to this very complex challenge that you're facing. And I don't know that I have the right answer, Julia. What, what is your experience say, you know, I don't know either because I'm old school. This is where that 20 years difference comes into play because, you know, throughout my career and my business, you know, it was verboten to speak about salary. And that's really changed. I mean, now it's much more open and people are talking about it within their organizations and within the sector. So to get a an understanding of what the employment landscape is. So having said that this is going to be an issue that comes up more and more as we know what's going on. I was talking with a development director or development officer last week who received a bonus unsolicited just like here you go, because the organization had received a massive, massive donation that was unplanned. Sure. And so the board and the CEO decided that this because their team had worked so hard for so low for so long that they wanted to take some extra money and disperse that to that team. I don't know if it went across the rest of the organization or just to this development team. But this person confided in me and that while he was really excited that he and honored that he got a bonus, he wondered if he had to go back out and raise that same amount of money. So meaning, you know what I'm saying? It's like he got a bonus and he's super thrilled and super excited. But there's a part of him that says, okay, that money has to come from somewhere. So now next year, the bonus was $1,500, which is, you know, for a surprise is a lot of money. Yeah. Do you know, that was kind of in his brain. I thought it was a fascinating discussion. That is interesting. You know, I will say the majority of my years and tenure as an employee on a nonprofit staff, rarely did we receive bonuses very rarely. There was often an annual review that came with, you know, a 3% to 7% raise, very nominal. And so the fact that, you know, you made your budget is fantastic. As Julia said, absolutely, that is something to celebrate. And I think, you know, the bonus is a conversation that I would definitely address. You're right, Julia, it is something because I remember, you know, my very early years of my career, it was so taboo to talk about your salary to talk about your pay. And so there's so much increased transparency when it comes to our pay, even, you know, our hiring salary, as soon as that new person is on the job, we pretty much know the range in which they're making. So it's not so much of a guess anymore. And so I, I tend to go towards the, let's have a very honest conversation and how might I play a role in this five person development team, so that we can all receive a bonus in the next opportunity. Right. And I would say before we move on, you know, this might be one of those things where everybody gets an extra day off, or everybody gets an extra two days off or something that it has tremendous value, especially this time of the year, or, you know, at a busy time of the year, you know, however it's working for your organization. But to, I don't want to use the word soften the blow or to be gratuitous, but to be grateful, right. And so you can, you can know what that cost is. You know, you can go to, I mean, for a five person development team, you probably have a pretty sophisticated finance team. Right. You can go to them and say, okay, if we gave two days off this next year to each member of our team, what is the value of that, so that then you could take that back to your team and say, look, you know, we are investing X amount of dollars in the situation of letting people take the day off. Not to mention Julia, you remember when we talked about maybe last year, you know, providing gift cards to employees and how that's taxed differently, bonuses are just the same they are taxed differently. So, again, you know, it's a whole ball of yarn. And you know, I love that this person wrote in and said that they're angry. I will fess up and say that I took their city, the name of their city off. Okay. I thought that it might be something that our viewers could figure out just on the offset. I didn't want that to happen. But anyway, long story short, this is going to be something that can fester and create a much bigger problem than the original situation. So get on it, address it to your point, Jared, figure it out and move forward, because you don't want an unhappy team. No. No, absolutely. Wow. Okay, well, that, that's a, that's a hoppin way to start. That's a whammy on a Friday. I know that like turned on my brain. Okay, let's talk with Clara from Los Angeles, California. And she writes, I'm a grant writer for a nonprofit that I just love. I've been with the organization for eight years. In my 2022 in 2022, my husband and I want to move to a rural part of the country. And that would mean I would need to work remotely. Any tips on presenting this new work style with our CEO. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I think this is fantastic. Congratulations. You know, being with an organization for eight years means that you have quite a bit of institutional knowledge and history with this organization. So it's clear, Clara, that you have been seen as a very trusted and respected employee, because they have also chosen to keep you for eight years, right, like it's, you've chosen to stay they've chosen to keep you. And so I would highly recommend that you do, you know, offer the offer the opportunity to work remotely and lay out, you know, what would your hours of working be what would your communication expectation be. And really, you know, how would you be able to streamline this effort and make it easy for the organization. We've all, by default, just, you know, have experience working remotely, what even if it was for a short time, or over, we're still doing it, for many of us. So I think now is an great, great opportunity to address this. We've talked a lot with another one of our sponsors Katie Warnick with staffing boutique about how you can negotiate your current employment situation. And that's exactly what you're looking to do Clara is to negotiate with your current employer, a different working arrangement. And so I think now is a wonderful opportunity because it is proven that it can work and especially I think the grant writing position is a probably one of the best situations to be remote, because you have that quiet time, you have the opportunity to really focus on your writing and have conversations with the funders. They may they the organization may want you to come and be on site and experience the programming or perhaps, you know, the board meetings on occasion. And that, again, could be remote, or maybe you come in quarterly or every other month. So again, just think through all of those situations I think it's a wonderful opportunity. Thank you. And I would say a couple things. It's really a function. Are you going to be in the same time zone? Because that that can present some opportunities and issues. If you're, if you're staying in that time zone, if you're not sometimes that that creates problems. And the other thing is, what is it costing for the organization to house you. So for example, can your office area be given up to something else, you know, the costs associated with having you as a physical spot within that campus. Can that space be used some other way. And, and those are real costs, again, real costs that you should be able to figure out. So, yeah, really, really interesting. That also makes me think of the expense cost, Clara, that your organization may incur for you to take some of those technology assets with you. So, again, both sides of the spectrum when it comes to the financial, you know, assets, whether it's an increase for the organization or an expense, look at it both ways. But great suggestion, Julia. Well, hey, you know, it's a reality. Okay, before we go on to our next question, we have a viewer from the Middle East who's just written in to says, says that he loves watching us. So thank you. We love that we have a viewer from the Middle East. Okay, so let's get to our next question that comes to us from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Wanna write I work in programming. I know it's a hard it's it is hard for the fundraising staff to do their job. However, I have some new ideas and I would like to know how the organization is growing. Is it a bad idea to ask them how they are doing with their fundraising. Super interesting question. No one has ever asked this question. That is interesting. And I really, so I don't know, wanna your role within programming. But my first thought is, it seems the organization is very siloed, and there's not a lot of communication going either direction. And so the fundraising team and the programming team really should work in concert with one another. And I always recommend that there's so much transparency when it comes to the cost of programming and operating entire organization as well as all revenue streams. So this could be grants that could be individual donors that could be events that could be reimbursements that could be so many so many streams of revenue. But I would go to your again not knowing you know your role within the programming team I would go to your immediate supervisor and ask if, if and when these data points are shared. Again, your, your annual report or impact report might be a good baseline for how this has been managed previously and years prior. So I think that's a good, you know, I would do a little bit more homework to find out what has been done, typically whatever the operating budget is should also be coming in through fundraising initiatives and again many other ways of this of this revenue that we talked about. But this to me tells me there's not a lot of communication. And that is the core challenge that I, I'm hearing when I see this question what about you Julia. Well my first thought is if you have something that has an intellectual property capacity to generate revenue. Let's say you have a program that is something that you could sell or replicate. It has, it has a financial impact in terms of generating revenue. Get that out into the before the people who could make that happen. Because a lot of times we don't look at programming as revenue generating. And, and it can be the intellectual property the IP aspect of this is enormous. And so if you are involved in something like that, that's really important. And then conversely wanna, if you have an idea, but you know it's going to cost money to implement, you know, to launch and run, then you need to do your homework too. And I agree with you too is Jared is you're saying, you know, why is it, what is it that you would need in order to increase your programming services so that people know what they're raising money for I guess. Very interesting, very, very interesting. And I agree with you, this is max of an organization that is not communicating enough internally, which means externally to Okay, let's go to Devin in Oklahoma City. Okay. I love that. I am working on my 2022 personal goals, which have a lot to do with work. Should I share this with my manager. I'm not sure if this is appropriate in the nonprofit sector. Wow, okay. Absolutely. And I don't know why this would be any different than any other sector. To me, I always coach my clients. You know, once we have shared in community and with our team or another individual, our own personal goals and again have a lot to do with work. Great, you know what I always say to you what are those resources that you need to be successful. And maybe your manager could help to, you know, advocate for these additional resources. Maybe it's a CFRE that you want to achieve and that's something that fundraising Academy can certainly help you with. In particular, our friend Jack Jack a lotto who will be joining us again. I think this is a great opportunity. You know, if you want to share personal goals that are not work related that might not be a very conducive environment, however, I think we can all witness over the last two years. There's been a lot of crossover between truly personal personal details and professional personal details. And again, depending on your relationship with your manager and the culture of your organization and your team. I'm going to let you Devin decide on that for yourself if it's appropriate to share, you know, they, I don't know, you want to read 12 books this month right. Maybe that's something that's more personal. I always think it's great to share that and again to reciprocate what are your personal goals of your manager and how might I support you in achieving your own personal goals. So that we make it a win-win scenario. I would not have thought of that approach. My first approach is like, no, you don't do this work is work. And you know, home is home. So I mean, again, old school mentality, but I agree with you. I like what you said, Jared separate out what is more, you know, home versus work, if you will, if you want to, you know, get to that point. And then to talk about that because I think that's important. A shared goal is a goal that's easier to achieve. And then I really thought it was magical when you said, do you want to share manager your goals with me so that I might be able to support that. That's cool. That's that's that's magical thinking for me. I mean, no one's ever said that to me and I've never said that to anyone and and Morris the pity. So I appreciate that you said that, Jared. Well, good. I hope that's helpful for all of us. Julia, you have shared very personally that you set your goals. You're probably doing them now. You probably did them. I think you've heard them in October. October 15 is always the date. And you have someone that you share them with I mean for for us as entrepreneurs and you know we tend to not be surrounded by a very large team so finding that person, as you said shared goals are more achievable so Yeah, it's somebody who I know who I've done this with probably 20 years. I don't really share it with my family. I don't share it. I have a system that I created that is on my desktop. And I work with three screens. So it's on one of my screens and the things now the one thing I'll witness to you and Devin you might want to take this. This is really interesting. I did this for the first time I used the nonprofit nerds goal concept of best bet we The three layers. Absolutely. I did good better best. Okay. And so I did do that I did take the the framework of all my goals and I put that into I put everything into those categories and it really was transformative and it made me change some things interesting very yeah it was very interesting and so I'll report back as we're moving through that process because I think it's a good thing and it was a good exercise for me. I always started in October because I need to kind of think about it. But by December 15, it's got to be done, because I have to retool my brain so that on the first of January, we're, we're, we're, we're cooking, we're working on it. So today's the 10. So you have five more days. Oh yeah, I know. I know, believe me. It's on my, no, I know. I mean, and I think it's important. So anyway, Devin, we've been talking about ourselves, but we are thrilled that we could talk about you because yay team on sharing goals. Definitely a cool thing. Okay, we don't have a lot of time left but we want to squeeze in this extra question. Roger from Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of my favorite places. Once again, we are canceling our holiday staff party. Any ideas that we could plan for that helps celebrates our team and at the same time gives them a break. I'm afraid this has to be on zoom. Sorry, Roger. You know, there's a lot going on. I was able to attend a staff holiday party here in my community in Arizona, our weather is beautiful. The outdoors is an amazing opportunity to hold something like this. You know, and really abiding by the CDC guidelines is what this organization is committed to. So I would say Roger find something fun online, or, you know, yes I'm sorry it probably does have to be zoom, or some other. Yeah, it's cold now in Santa Fe. Oh yes it is cold. I'm not going to be able to just let go to an outside venue, unless they're doing a ski venue. You know, I just thought of this, totally, you know, out of the blue but you could do something like a scavenger hunt where you send out and, you know, a company email and you say here's the items we're looking for people could submit photos or they could share them online. However you want to do this bingo is something that's been done online virtually, there's been very. There's been a lot of innovation when it comes to zoom. I know that you can hire an animal to be an attendance maybe a llama, or an ostrich I mean there's so many different opportunities. We laugh, however, most of these are nonprofits that have said hey, we need to find a revenue generation stream for us and we have who doesn't love llamas. I mean, I don't know but the zoos the zoos have implemented this as well where you know, maybe the zoo will say, you know, I don't know there's so many opportunities to think about this but I hear you we're all tired, we're all, you know, tired of looking at ourselves and our co workers via the screen so you'll see you I know it's difficult. Well hey, you know we are not tired of looking at you to our viewers of the American nonprofit academies. The nonprofit show along with our wonderful wonderful presenting sponsor fundraising academy really briefly they're doing something something super innovative. We're launching the 2022 online cause selling accelerate it's going to be a cohort of people that work together from all over the country. And I would imagine North America, and maybe even international I shouldn't say that because I don't know but I will I will find out. The really cool thing is that you can be a part of an amazing training with folks from different parts of the service area to learn from them and to learn together it's going to be operated by again our friends over at Fundraising But Jared, the co host that you had on last week. She's going to be the one that's, that's, you know, serving this and so we're going to hear more and more about this. I just learned about this. They just getting ready to launch it. So it's going to be super exciting and we just want to let everyone know. Again, I'm Julia Patrick I've been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself. I was going to say, Hannah burger is her name, and it's a very low cost. I want to say 400 is what Hannah shared. So it's not a huge investment but hopefully your employer will be able to support that. And again so grateful to have fundraising academy as part of our, our team and our community here thanks to all of our sponsors that you see in on the screen. Now's a great time to check them out. So as soon as we do close down today's Friday episode, please check out these companies because they are here to help you and support you through the end of this year and to start 2022 really strong. So thank you to our presenting sponsors that continue these conversations with so many thought leaders around the nation. Absolutely. Hey, it has been a great week. We've learned a lot. We've been confronted with some new challenges in our sector during an incredibly busy time. This is the opportunity to remind everyone to stay well so you can do well. Jared, I hope you have a restful weekend my friend. Thank you you too and to all of you that have that have stayed with us today. Thank you.