 Yes, welcome. Let's let's do get us started. Thanks so much for joining us. Today is our ask and answer. It's Friday or as I like to say Friday. And so excited that all of you have joined us again. And of course, thrilled to continue our partnerships with our presenting sponsors. They are amazing, amazing voices leaders thought leaders in our sector. They are not only here to support us in our episodes, which are amazing by the way but they are really here to support you and your amazing work so check them out if you would you can join them all online, give them some love some thumbs ups and some follow because they believe in the work you do right and they understand and can empathize with with the good work, but then all the work that goes into that good right so like again wait if you joined us on the chitty chat chat, talking about how this is more than a job this is our identity and they get it these presenting sponsors get it it's their identity to and they are here to support you each and every one of you, and this is your mission so Julia Patrick phenomenal. This has just been so much fun as I continue to share about the nonprofit show and our episodes you know I get the whole. Wow, that's a commitment and it's such a fun journey to be on this with you Julia Patrick as a CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I am Jared ransom, the nonprofit nerd Julia's nonprofit nerd as well as yours, CEO of the Raven group and I really do you want to take a look at this because. Yeah, tell us who's going to be I know who's coming up okay so me. Tell us what you're going to be talking about because we have this discussion before. No we haven't so Monday's going to be a masterclass with more. And our topic is engaging children in philanthropy, it is a huge passion of mine. It's something I model with my own son who's now 10. And as you joined us this last week for Liz Brillsford. She talked about global citizenry and how that's so important and so I will certainly be, you know, bringing in some of those tips and topics so that is Monday, Tuesday we have one cause talking about peer to peer fundraising and those best practices so you don't want to get caught Wednesday. This is super cool because Steven Shattuck with blue marine said, Hey, if you haven't heard the hummingbird story, and how nonprofits can have mascots, you really need to connect with this company so in PO storytelling with mascots. And they're from Canada from Canada. Yeah, they're very interesting it's going to be fun. And that's just the tip so we've got so many amazing guests coming on me being one of those to talk about one of my passions children in philanthropy and how we can really engage, you know, their, their activism at an early age so don't be shy Julia I'm ready. I know I'm sorry. Those questions, I'll stop talking. Apparently I have shaky fingers. I accidentally hit the button to know so it's it's Friday ask and answer. It looks like we have our first one up. We have received so many additional questions and they're coming in from all over so again, don't be shy, send us your questions and even live as you're watching the show live at the bottom is a Q&A button, you can use that live and we will actually answer it on air. Absolutely. Okay, this comes from Daniel and Jackie from Detroit, Michigan. Do you think it's bad form for our development staff to form a team for another nonprofits community walk. Specifically, they serve our same sector. We want to learn how they are doing things, and we want to support them at the same time. Honestly, we want to learn how they're so successful at this fundraising event. This is very interesting. No one's ever asked this question. So this is interesting and I was just having a conversation yesterday how I want to live work and play and integrity right I really want to live work and play in a place of integrity that feels good for me and my beliefs so Daniel and Jackie I love that this is a question. I say go for it. And I think you should also have a conversation reach out to this organization and tell them, give them the compliment of we have been watching you and I see we see that you're doing such great work. I would love to know if you would be willing to share how you've become so successful in this right. I believe in collaboration. I believe in abundance. I believe in, you know, when we work together for a cause, our community really benefits from that so yes, go on the walk for my team, and I really encourage you to reach out to that organization and ask them for a conversation. I say 100%. And, and I think that we do need to be working together and sometimes you know you'll hear this from nonprofit executives that will say, we have too many in the same space or whatever it is you know. And so, I think it's healthy to know what everyone's doing and to be supportive, but to your point out the gate you need to be very, very transparent and say, we want to see how you guys do this and why you're so successful and we want to learn and we hope that you can come and learn from us so yeah, I think it's great and I think it would be really good for the community at large to see that support. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's great. Thanks, Beth. Great answers partnering facilitates building a community. Thank you, that's great. Yeah, I mean, that's really. Wow, that's important. But having said that you all need to get back to us and let us know how it went. Yes, I'll be really interested to see what that other organization says. Yeah, if they'll be like, How dare they, or if they're like, Yeah, come on in, you know. Hi, Joshua from my hometown in Phoenix, Arizona. Oh, hi, Josh, you up. You up. Watch you are sorry. We are looking at our staff birthday acknowledgement process. In the past, we would order a cake have everyone in the break room and sign cards. As our team grows the seems to be a burden and it is expensive. Also work from home. Any ideas that celebrate our team members and is cost efficient. I know I've referenced this before and this is a great question Joshua. There is a book. It is by the same author of the five love languages and it's about the five like leadership styles, I want to say. I work with a team. I always like to ask like just provide a questionnaire survey if you will, to my team to ask how they appreciate being appreciated, right, like what's important to them, what do they find valuable where they comfortable because not everyone like you and I Julia are comfortable in the spotlight. Yeah, so for me, this book was a game changer, and if any of you can get on the, the Google's right now and just kind of type in the five leadership styles or ways again, the love language guy, and that was very helpful so you might be surprised Joshua, some, some might say hey, you know I don't need anything I appreciate, you know what your, what your offer. Some people might say yeah like, can I have that front parking space that's covered. You know for the day or for the week, someone might say you know like coffee would be good or I really do miss that cake, can we do it so you might be surprised if you actually ask your team how they want to be appreciated. I want to roll thank you so the book is the five languages of appreciation in the workplace. Yeah, I actually loaned my book out or I would like put it up in front of the screen. So I need to get it back but the five languages of appreciation in the workplace. That's what I'm going to say Joshua is check that book out and I think it'll give you some really good ideas. Wow, thank you to our viewer that just got right on that that's super cool. People are paying attention, Jared. Thank you. I'm old school I would do first day of the month is a birthday cake in the break room and everybody whose birthday is that month gets celebrated at once. Sorry, Jared. This is where the 20 years of age comes into play. I'm not nearly as nice and sensitive and thoughtful as Jared. And I'm just like, come on, we got people to feed we got, you know, women to shelter children. What about retaining your workforce right like what about really putting some time into this this. Yeah, okay, I can acknowledge your answer. I'm not saying I'm right. I kind of am. No, I'm not. I'm just saying it's a different mentality, you know, and you are, you are more of that. I would say that modern leadership ethos that's taking into consideration these things. And I probably am more along those old school lines of you're lucky to have a job. You've got work to do. This is not a social event. Go. I'm like witnessing I know you're like, wow, she's like super mean, and I am but you know, I just don't have, you're an hr nightmare Julia. No, I'm totally I have told. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I just don't have a lot of time and bandwidth for that with everything else I have to do I guess. And so that's what I'm trying. It is not sad. It's really in the nonprofit sector. No, things to do. I'm just saying. Moving on. Wow. Okay, I mean there's a whole soapbox conversations for this right and so maybe we'll bring on nonprofit HR me will bring on taking up having boutique to like, you know, we should get intervention on this. Those poor people that are coming to my home tomorrow. The board intervention. Hmm, might be tough. She doesn't have time for this. Yeah, I don't have time for this. It's getting hot out here. Come on. Shake hands and move along. Okay, you know how I love the name with health city with health. Okay, this is interesting. Do you have any recommendations for a board member who might also be an elected official. We have a board member who has just been elected to city government. We hate to lose her but we think there could be some conflicts. We contract with the city and run a human services nonprofit. That is fascinating. And I would say name without city withheld. I would, you know, thank the board member for their service her actually think her for her service congratulate her for being voted into office and if you didn't have a policy on this hopefully you will put one into place and ask that she take a step back from the board during her campaign or during her time on council. Okay, now what do you think about that during campaigning, because you use that word campaign and I know in your community you are engaged in supporting people that run for office. Do you feel that that should occur. Also why somebody is running for office. I don't have an answer for that. So I guess my answer off the cuff would say no it doesn't need to happen during campaign, but there does need to be a conversation during campaign, if someone is voted into office, what steps may need to be taken. I agree. I think that's smart. And I think you know you can always do and you can always abstain from a vote or an action. If it if it is something that is too close and can be construed as a conflict of interest. I would also say name withheld city withheld, depending on the size and the age of the municipality. And they probably have their own policies in place that would probably have to be addressed between the end of the vote and inauguration, you know there's a period of time for most municipalities where they have to, you know, tie up the loose ends and make their decisions and all that so really interesting I would say though, good for you because you've got somebody who knows your topic and can advocate for you and don't, you know, let them continue to be a champion for you. Just not a voting champion. Wow, that's a good question. Okay, let's see what we've got for our next question. And wow. These are really, really good questions. This comes to us from Marion from New Orleans. We're still doing fundraising events but they are virtual. We've always had an honorary award for a major donor each event. It creates a lot of goodwill. Should we put this on pause until we go back to IRL events. Our team is split on this decision. I'm going to go on the do not pause. I have said this from the beginning of the pandemic and I have seen so much damage done to those organizations that have hit the pause button. We had Samantha on from Boardable this week as well. What day is today? And she talked about, you know, the importance of continuing board development even in a virtual environment. This is again one additional, you know, topic Marion that I'm going to say do not pause this. It's a great opportunity to truly, you know, have this honorary award for a major donor and still use this, you know, this time to engage in an audience. What we have seen in this virtual space, the reality is we are able to cast our net wider. We are able to engage and touch those in a different, you know, geographic location. So the person that you choose to award may actually bring in a much larger following and supporter because they may not live in your local community. So I am going Marion, I don't know which side you were on but I'm going with the do not hit pause. Right, right. I agree with you and I love what you said about the, you know, the wider circle of influence. You know, maybe consider doing like a pre taped beautifully done piece, or you can actually get to the meat and potatoes of why they are engaged, because that is a statement video that they share you share it goes throughout and it's better than that, the three to 500 people that would be sitting in a ballroom that get that message I mean, I would invest in that and lean in. I would also invest in a conversation with when spire, I would reach out to when spire again they're here to support you. This is a great question, question for them Marion Jason champion is our champion at when spire and I know that he would love to talk to you about that. Yeah, that's a thank you, Jared that's a good. That's a good thing. I really I like that. So now we have somebody from Albuquerque Dean, New Mexico. Have you heard about organizations abolishing zoom calls on Fridays. We have a few team members who are bringing this up. I think it's a bad idea but I need some advice on how to navigate this with the team. Actually, and I actually heard on the news Dean so this is making, you know, a presence a sweep. And I want to say it was with a financial advisor company so it wasn't a nonprofit space, but goes to show that in every sector and every market this is really something of legitimacy zoom fatigue. So, if you watch Niko Whitlock he came on from Michael techie, man and am I dropping those names today. Yeah, he was a lot about knowing your number right and so it's really having that healthy boundary with technology and in particular with zooms. I have identified my number of the day is three, I can have no more than three zoom meetings before I hit that fatigue. That doesn't mean that I cannot have a phone conversation. Which I'm more than happy to do that but I think knowing your number and giving everyone a rest on Friday. And what I saw in the news, particularly Dean was, this is for internal meetings. Now if you have a meeting with a client donor partner, you know, outside kind of internal, then you would need to have a zoom meeting if that is their choice. I would say abolish if this is what you're considering consider abolishing for internal meetings on a Friday. Interesting. Yeah, I get I like that and I appreciate you separating what's internal versus external and how do we face with our clients and yeah interesting. Well, Dean, you need to let us know how this wraps up it sounds to me like, you know Fridays might have been in your organization a wrap up or what we call stand up meeting and, you know, if everybody's exhausted and it's just not pulling, you know, the import, then yeah, try it. Wow, you might like it. Yeah, and you know, it might make everybody more attentive and more present when it comes to that Monday meeting or when you restart. Okay, Jared. So I have to ask you I've got a question that I'm going to ask today of you. Okay, what was the biggest thing that you learned this week. Oh my gosh. Well, the term global citizenry. I did not know that that was a term. So as I was preparing for our guest speaker as I do with every guest speaker. You know, I was at the University of Oxford, right with World Affairs Council Dallas Fort Worth, and looking at their website there, you know, their guide star profile, and I was like, what is this word, come to find out like, I've been doing it all my life. I just didn't know that that was the name. So that was my biggest takeaway and aha was really that term and the way in which I live. I thought that was interesting. I would piggyback on to that because I felt like she. I think a lot of times of like this international work and this, you know, international protocol work and all this is like a Washington DC thing. The power of individual communities doing this work. I just was riveted by that. I thought that was really an interesting lesson and I felt like, you know, nonprofits that we can be doing that, and learning from, you know, people on the other side of the planet what they're doing. It's not that we have all the answers not that American philanthropy and American nonprofit management is always right. But in this country we kind of pride ourselves on on the leaders of that and in many ways we are. And I loved that one of our viewers and I think you might be on now Chris had mentioned, you know, thanks so much for being on, you loved that list was on our show, and, and reference the made in China. So, you know, this is a webinar or some discussion, but what a fascinating story and so I definitely want to get my hands on that or ears right like wherever I can consume that information. So that was super cool for me as well. We're talking in our chitty chat chat Liz and I actually grew up as children together so we're from the same hometown and to have her on have her voice and to eliminate really, you know the world affairs and how we show up in our world was really amazing. And you had not seen her or connected with her since you were in high school, the late 90s. Yeah. So I mean I thought that was amazing. I thought that was really cool. I think that that was an aha moment for us because I think a lot of times, I'm really intrigued by what people are doing in other parts of our country. I mean, wow. But what that conversation was opened, it opened the door to me to say, it's not just what they're doing in the Midwest or the east or the south of the Northwest, whatever. It's what they're doing in Australia or they're doing, you know, and the Polynesian Islands, whatever I mean, we need to be looking at these things. What was your biggest takeaway this week because we had some really fascinating guests on and voices. What was your big takeaway, you know, my big takeaway was what you just said was that we need to be thinking larger, and that we need to be thinking about what other things are going on. And I think when we look at what other nonprofit organizations are doing in other parts of the world. The thing that clicked was that we can maybe understand systemic problems in a different way. So many times we hear the word, oh, well, that's cultural. You know, they have this problem, you know, wherever, because it's cultural. Well, yeah, you could say that about all issues, it's cultural, right. But how is it that you talk about that, you know, how is it that you can come to not just the Band-Aid but the solution and, you know, covering cleaning the wound and healing the wound. So I thought that was fascinating. I loved it. And it made me think we need to have voices, more voices from international organizations. And so I put that call out to our viewers who've been so engaged today. And if you do work with international groups, we want to know about that. And we want to chat these people up and find out what, you know, what's going on and what we can learn from. That's right. Yeah, so many, so many great things. You know, as we look to diversify our voices, our topics, everything on the show, we aren't going away, right. Like, again, our sponsors love us and they love providing services to each and every one of you who watch the show, either live or as Julia says, IRL in real life, but also on our multiple platforms. So you can find us digitally and archive. So if there's any episode, any topic, I know I was a big name dropper today. So if any of those piqued your interest and you want to go back and find them, you can certainly do so on our multiple channels. So if you, thank you, Julia. Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd. And if you do want to send us a question, I'm hoping the next slide is ways of which you can send to us. And they are right there. So four ways you can contact us. Thank you, Beth, for demonstrating the Q&A that definitely works so glad that it does reach out to us. And yeah, we want to know. But next week, I'm so excited. Really the mascot conversation, like, you know, so Bloomerang has Blossom, the orangutan, and there's so many others that, you know, that have come around. Like, of course, you know, Geico has the gecko. And so that's in a, you know, a for-profit entity. But how might we in the nonprofit sector, you know, really utilize mascots for our brand and our causes? Yeah, it's a very interesting conversation because, you know, we bandied this number about all the time. But you have to realize in the U.S. alone, we have about 1.8 registered nonprofits. Is that it? I feel like there's like so many more. Well, 11 million Americans work for a nonprofit. So it is a huge, huge competitive market. And this concept of finding a mascot that might not be clearly identifiable with what it is you're doing. You know, Bloomerang chose the orangutan because, didn't Stephen tell us, it's like the only primate that has compassion and like a philanthropic piece with anxiety. That's right. And so, I mean, it's very interesting how they've woven this whole story. But so I'm looking forward to that. I think that's going to be a lot of fun. And so join us for that. I think kind of working because you mentioned that that word several of our sponsors are hiring nonprofit HR is hiring. Boardable had posted something about an opportunity staffing boutique in New York was hiring. So I don't mean to pluck you from where you currently are but if you're, if you're looking or you know someone who is, you might want to check out our sponsors for that as well. Yeah, thank you because I felt like that too. It's like all of a sudden we're seeing more and more of that. So yeah, thank you for bringing that up. And again, we want to thank our sponsors that you've really helped our sector so much in navigating these amazing discussions and these questions that come in to us from all over the place. And oftentimes, Jared and I don't have the same answer, which I think makes this day a lot more fun and more interesting. So with that, I will end let them eat cake, Jared, you know, on review and your birthday. Let them eat cake. I love it. Subtle that was very subtle. That was subtle. Subtle. Subtle. Subtle. Okay, everybody. Thanks so much. Have a restful weekend. We have a really busy week ahead of us next. Next week we're moving through into a new month. And for so many of us in the nonprofit sector, when we hit that May date, it's, it's a really indication of all the things that we have to achieve in that next half of the year that's quickly upon us. We encourage you to get some rest and to remember from both Jared and I stay well so you can do well. Jared, have a lovely weekend, my friend to enjoy my vegan Persian picnic. Thank you.